Those Destined to Succeed Do Succeed
Some time had passed, but Si-a still hadn’t quite come to her senses.
I’d noticed it last time we did a joint stream at the Element Network Headquarters, too: when she got ambushed like that, it seemed to take her a long time to recover.
“Si-a? You should probably wake up now.”
“What do I do…?”
“What do you mean, what do you do? First wake up, then let’s get on with the stream.”
They were wrong. She really couldn’t seem to snap out of it. The viewers, apparently unfamiliar with this version of Si-a, were busily chatting among themselves instead.
It seemed like I’d have to buy us some time again, just like last time, until she recovered.
“What should we do while Si-a’s recovering?”
“It’s not like I’m not used to it already.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and said it once, and honestly, it wasn’t that big a deal. First times are always the hardest; after that, things get easier. There’s a reason people say that.
“Babe, wake up.”
“Haa….”
“Thanks for the ten-thousand-won donation. So now what are we actually supposed to do?”
Apparently Si-a’s viewers knew I was watching, too, because questions started flooding both chat rooms.
“Then there are a lot of questions coming in from that side too. Should we just take some Q&A?”
“If I let donations go first, the order’s going to get weird, so I’ll just answer whatever catches my eye.”
And as expected, just as I’d predicted, questions started pouring in through donations on both Si-a’s stream and mine.
If I’d said I’d take them by donation, I’d have had to check Si-a’s side first, then mine, and in the middle of that, the order of the questions would’ve changed depending on the amount. It would’ve gotten complicated fast.
“All right, from now on, if you put up a question, I’ll take it.”
The moment I said that, a flood of chat messages shot up. I tried to pick ones that were duplicated in both Si-a’s chat and mine as much as possible.
“When did you first meet Si-a? I’ve already answered this before, but I actually knew her from YouTube to begin with.”
“Ah, aside from that, we only really talked for the first time then. When she contacted me through a donation for the event mission.”
“If we were real-life friends, I would’ve said so in the first place.”
One of the members who’d been there when we founded Element Agency, Yura.
Apparently Yura and Si-a were real-life friends, but neither of them had known the other was streaming. One day, Si-a heard Yura’s voice in a video donation during a stream, called her on the spot and asked, “Is that really you?” and that’s how they found out each other were streamers.
But my situation with Si-a was nothing like that. We’d met for the first time through a complete event match, and that really had been our first encounter.
“It feels a little weird to say this myself, but where I came from was as a joint-stream slave.”
“Aiming for what?”
I briefly remembered signing the contract at Element. That was when again…? No, wait, it hadn’t even been a month yet.
Why did it feel like time was moving slower than I’d expected?
“Oh, here comes the first troublemaker. Hi, Yura. Thanks for the ten-thousand-won donation.”
“Wait, so this is business from a real-life friend.”
“If you think about it right now, isn’t it fine because she’s still stunned?”
“Hazy, shouldn’t you tell Si-a about this?”
“Y…Yura’s here?”
“The moment I say Yura’s here, she snaps right out of it.”
Before I knew it, Si-a had gathered herself and cleared her throat. I guessed she didn’t want to show that side of herself to a real-life friend.
“Ahem! Hi, Yura.”
“You kind of glitched out for a second, so I was taking questions until you came to.”
“…Oh?”
“Should we just skip the game today and keep answering questions?”
Looking at Si-a’s state, I didn’t think I could keep calling her pet names and still expect the stream to function.
She’d need to get used to it to some degree before I could keep teasing her with those names, and if her defense had dropped below zero like this, there was nothing I could do.
I couldn’t have her breaking every time I called her something cute.
“Should we? If I keep hearing you use those names here, I don’t think I’ll be able to finish today’s stream….”
“Why? You like hearing it? Want me to say it again?”
“Stop!”
“Lol.”
“Sasuga, Yura.”
“You don’t often get to see Si-a get pushed back like this.”
“Their banter is delicious, lol.”
“Look at Yura going straight into viewer mode.”
“My friend’s business mode? Yeah, I have to watch this no matter what lol.”
*
“You want to know what I think of Si-a’s game skills? Si-a’s good at games.”
“But you’re not.”
“...I’m good at bass.”
“You’re worse than me at that, too. You’re a third-place loser.”
“Ack, lol.”
“Got hit with facts, huh?”
“You did finish third all by yourself just yesterday lol.”
“I really can’t go around telling people I watch Hazy’s stream….”
“Hey, that’s….”
“So, did you or didn’t you come in third?”
“I did….”
“Why do you always have to argue first and only then admit it? You end up on your knees every time.”
“I heard you like getting stepped on.”
“Respect your taste? You’re banned.”
What was all this nonsense about respecting tastes? I didn’t have that kind of taste.
Why was she projecting her preferences onto me? Thinking that, I clicked on the nickname of the person who’d sent that message and muted their chat for thirty minutes.
“All right, off you go.”
“I think we’re about to end the stream anyway, so go on home and rest for today.”
“You can’t even send chat anymore lol, poor thing.”
“All you had to do was be a little careful, but you crossed the line and lost chat privileges.”
“All right, everyone, let’s learn from this, okay?”
“Respect your tastes? What are you talking about?”
“Ah, the viewers were saying weird stuff.”
I was glad I’d cut it off cleanly before Si-a could start teasing me with something strange again.
“We’ve been at this long enough. Should we call it for today?”
“Six hours? Just talking for six hours is pretty impressive.”
“You’re already leaving?”
“Aaaaaaahhh.”
“Stay a little longer.”
“What kind of place do you think this is, setting the pet names and then leaving?”
“Today was just the day we decided on the pet names….”
“You want me to stay and do more here?”
“If I handle the stream wrong, my throat’s going to be a mess tomorrow.”
Her throat… honestly, I’d never really paid attention to mine, so I didn’t know, but Si-a spent a lot of time doing just chatting streams, so maybe she was a lot more careful with her voice.
“Let’s stop here today so Si-a can save her voice.”
“Guess there’s nothing we can do.”
“You survived today thanks to Luccia.”
“Your luck is disgustingly good.”
“So when are you practicing for the tournament?”
“Practice? We said we’d try it tomorrow first. The tournament’s coming up soon, right?”
“Right. Come to think of it, practice is tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Even during practice, I think I’ll probably just call her by her name.”
The viewers started trash-talking me, saying I’d lost my edge just because I told them we wouldn’t call each other pet names during practice.
But what was I supposed to do? If I called her by those names, Si-a’s brain would just shut down. And if her brain shut down during practice and she stopped playing, that wouldn’t exactly count as practice either.
It couldn’t be helped.
“That can’t be helped.”
“...That’s fair, actually. Si-a.”
“Why?”
“The viewers want me to call you by your pet name during practice tomorrow.”
“Then I’m not practicing tomorrow.”
“Fine. Then instead of ending the stream, let’s get a little more used to it now.”
“Huh?”
“How about getting a bit more familiar with the pet name? You’re going to have to hear it constantly during our virtual marriage anyway.”
At my words, Si-a went quiet. Looking at the stream, she seemed to be covering her forehead with both hands, deep in thought.
And in moments like that, there was only one thing to do. Strike first.
“Babe. You should get used to it a little.”
The moment I said that, Si-a’s face on stream started turning red, little by little.
“Wow, she’s a model citizen.”
“Si-a’s viewers, isn’t that the Chinese character for red, not the Korean word for human?”
“Anyway, she’s a model citizen because she’s turning red.”
“Aww, the boss’s face getting all red is adorable lol.”
Our viewers and Si-a’s viewers were teaming up to tease her. Ah, now even her ears were red.
If we were going to use pet names during practice… that felt pretty doomed already.
Should we pick a different one?