What Can You Even Do About It
The weather was gorgeous. Birds were singing, plants swayed in the breeze, and people were going about their ordinary lives on this fine day.
I was checking the temperature of the Hangang River.
"There’s an app that checks the Hangang’s water temperature. That’s cool."
Obviously it existed for people like me. Use your head and think, idiot.
With a sigh of irritation, I flung my phone far away and collapsed onto the bed.
Then I started pounding the mattress with my fists, hard and with complete sincerity.
"Just die, you crazy bastard! Just die!"
No, how could anyone say something like that on a broadcast? Was he even human?
However drunk and out of his mind he’d been, what kind of person went over there to complain and ask, not why he’d done it, but whether he was handsome?
Wow. I really couldn’t stream anymore. Thank God I was broadcasting without a cam; if I’d had one, I’d have been too embarrassed to show my face outside.
Maybe I really had wanted to get run over by a truck and sent to another world.
"Ha... haha... I’m done for."
I decided I wasn’t turning on the stream today.
Or so I thought, once upon a time.
"Where am I? Who am I?"
- He’s got the stream on and he’s talking nonsense to himself
- He’s totally lost it lololololol
- Wow, is it broken? Haven’t found a toy this fun in ages... what a shame.
- Pull yourself together lolololol
- There’s something seriously wrong with him if he’s been like that for thirty minutes after starting stream
- But why do the viewers keep going up? lololololol
What the hell. When did I turn on the stream? It had already been thirty minutes, and I had no memory of starting it at all.
The viewer count had blown past 800 and was racing toward 900 at a ridiculous pace. Ah. Were they here for an apology stream?
Unfortunately, my mental state was nowhere near good enough for that.
"Guys. Thanks for everything all this time."
- ?
- Why’re you trying to die lol
- Hey, no, that’s not happening
- Why’d the abyss swallow you all of a sudden?
- If you had everyone on the platform watching your black history, would you not get swallowed by the abyss?
- lololololololol
"I’m marrying off to someone else. What am I supposed to do now?"
- You already did. To Sia
- lmaoooooo
- Hey, watch your words, you’ll get timed out
- lololol
- If Sia takes responsibility, wouldn’t that solve it? I really don’t know.
- This is hilarious, seriously lol
Just then, my phone buzzed. It was a number starting with 010, and I couldn’t be bothered to answer. I usually didn’t pick up numbers I didn’t know, anyway.
"I don’t know either. I drank and blacked out."
- lololololololololol
- Legendary drunken rambling
- How many bottles did you drink for that?
- What, did you down a bottle of liquor in one go?
- I’m losing it lol
"There are two bottles of soju on the desk, and I drank both... no, wait. One’s still half full."
- ??
- lolololol
- You got that drunk after one bottle?
- If the host drinks at a collab, it’s gonna be insanely funny lol
- Dude, judging by his condition, he’d be dead before then.
"I’ve lived a life full of shame...."
- lololololol
- It really has been a lot, not even a lie
- I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere before
- That’s the first line of Dazai Osamu’s No Longer Human
- Yeah, seeing him act drunk and ruined, it does fit No Longer Human.
- Legendary lol
Once I checked what kind of video it was, I immediately turned off donations. Are these bastards insane?
- lolololol
- lmao he was about to die and he reacted fast as hell
- This is CPR, not anything else.
- What even is that reflex? He’s ridiculously fast.
"What am I supposed to do, seriously?"
"This morning I went into Watch, and the first thing that popped up was a hot clip."
- lololololololol
- Crazy lmao
- Of all things, lol
- You watched the whole thing? That clip?
"No, I turned it off after the first sentence."
- ?
- lololololololol
- There’s a bottom below the bottom, Hazy....
- You didn’t even look into the abyss?
- That was just the teaser... there’s more before and after...
What? There was more before and after? Couldn’t I just choose death like a warrior in some card game and be done with it?
Fine. Let’s see it. Face my past self, and step forward with my head held high.
“I’m really handsome...”
Cancel.
- lololololololol
- lololololololol
- Seeing him hit play, he must’ve been curious and tried to listen?
- He can’t stand the black history and stops it right away lol
- Isn’t that just raw physical instinct? Damn, he’s a genius broadcaster?
I couldn’t listen. Even if I died, I couldn’t listen. Absolutely not. I wasn’t going to watch it either.
*
In the end, I watched all of it. The back half, the front half, all of it.
- It’s a shame we can’t see his expression lololololol
- For real lol
- Seriously, not being able to see his face is such a shame
- No cam? lol
"If I get sued, please start a fundraiser for me—just a thousand won each."
"Yes! I’m buying triangle gimbap and cup ramen."
- ? lololololol
- Is he bipolar? Why did he come back to life so suddenly?
- Is this guy for real insane lolololololol
- He was born to stream, that’s all there is to it lol
- Damn, the real deal really is the real deal lol
What. So what? You didn’t know I was like this? Sorry, but I’ve always been like this.
Turns out, during his drunken rant, I’d told Sia everything I’d been dissatisfied with, and even though it had become black history, I’d still gotten answers to the things I’d been curious about.
And what about the me who would watch that video in the future? Why was I supposed to worry about that? Future me would handle it somehow. I’d leave the blanket-kicking or the ban hammer to future me and live in the present.
Right now, more than anything else, I needed to apologize to Sia for getting drunk and making a fool of myself.
"First I should apologize for the drunk rant."
- Yeah, that’s kind of urgent
- Honestly, the moment you turned on stream, you’d already lost
- Ugh, why are you recovering this fast?
- Did you put on Hermes? The charm effect’s already worn off.
- At least he’s pulled himself together.
- So, got any plan in mind?
"I should end the stream first. Bye~"
- This lunatic is sudden-ending again
- What was that curveball?
- Are you coming back tonight?
- Still, at least he’s ending it with his head screwed on. Bye~
After the abrupt sign-off, I took a moment to think.
Hadn’t I been suddenly ending streams for three days straight now? Two days ago, Sia and I had ended abruptly while sorting out how to address each other. Yesterday, I’d done it after blurting out something about my ideal type. And today... today, I’d just ended it.
"Maybe I should do a 24-hour stream later as an apology."
That was a problem for later. For now, I had to—
Buzz.
My phone was still vibrating on the desk. When I checked it, there were twenty-one missed calls. And they’d all been from the same person.
Could it be Sia? With that hope in mind, I answered.
"Hello?"
"...Are you sober now?"
Just from the voice, I knew it was Sia. I apologized immediately.
"Sorry! I drank and don’t remember anything!"
"It’s okay. I just watched the stream."
"...You saw that?"
"Yeah. Let’s meet and talk first. I think that’d be better."
So we met, and now I felt awkward enough to die.
"……."
"……."
Luckily, maybe because she’d pulled her hood up and was wearing a cap low over her face, nobody recognized Sia. If a fan had realized it was her and asked for an autograph, then started talking about yesterday’s stream, we might both have gone straight home.
"You talk first."
"......I’m sorry about yesterday."
Sia spoke first. Her voice was small and careful.
I looked down at the cup in my hand, then slowly raised my head. Sia still wasn’t meeting my eyes; instead, she was tracing the wood grain at the edge of the table with her fingernail.
"I think I was too rough on you under the excuse of content. I’m sorry."
At that, I let out a quiet breath. Honestly, that wasn’t something she needed to apologize for. If anything, I was the one who had no right to say anything after calling her while drunk like that. If this was how it was going to be, I should’ve apologized first.
"No, I was the one who was wrong. I’m sorry for calling you while drunk."
"...That did catch me off guard."
"But the way you just kept going at me was kind of rough. I had to sit there and listen to everything the viewers were saying too."
"Right after I finished the Discord call with you yesterday, the viewers started tearing into me too."
That was when I really felt it: ah. So I’d done this three times. Because of me, she’d had to go through all that.
As she said it, Sia stopped moving. She poked at the dent in the tabletop with her fingernail, gathering her words, then said it as if she’d finally made up her mind.
"I was wrong."
From the very first meeting, I’d been too casual with you in my own way, and I hadn’t even followed through on what I’d decided under the pretense of content. All of that was my fault.
"I’m sorry."
Please forgive me.
*
"So why did you drag me all the way out here?"
"Help me with my stream!"
I need to do an explanation stream too, you know. At that, I was dumbfounded. Was this really the same Sia who’d just been apologizing to me a second ago?
"Where did the Sia who was apologizing to me a moment ago go?"
"She’s right in front of you. Here, me."
"And yet you want me to help with your stream?"
"Just help me once. I already had to deal with so much yesterday."
...I’d felt it before, and I felt it again now: her face was basically cheating. What man could refuse a request when it came with a face like that?
"My face?"]
"Huh? I’m not turning on the cam."
"Then your fans won’t be able to see you. Don’t you have a mask or something?"
At my words, Sia told me to wait a second and went outside. When she came back a moment later, she was holding a full-face mask.
"This is what they use for traditional mask dances. Why is this here?"
"No idea. Isn’t it fine as long as they can’t see you on cam?"
"Well, yes, but...."
So you’ll help me, right? She said it like that, and I couldn’t bring myself to refuse.
"And while we’re at it, let’s just say it straight."
"Say what?"
"That the We Got Married (WGM) Content is under review."
"Can we do that?"
"Wouldn’t it be enough to say that and then show everyone our chemistry? People already act like the We Got Married content is a foregone conclusion anyway."
"Yeah... I guess that works."
If we were going to build an image from the start anyway, maybe pretending we weren’t doing the content at all was a good move.
People get disappointed when they expect too much, but on the other hand, if they expect nothing, even the smallest surprise can make them happy.
And if they asked why we weren’t doing We Got Married, what were we supposed to say?
Well. The two of us, the actual people involved, were saying we weren’t going ahead with the content.
What were you viewers even going to do about it?