Even This Isn’t Dating?
"Isn’t that a little too far?"
"Of course! That was the most stripped-down way I could put it, from the perspective of someone who’s way too invested."
When Chur said that even by an ordinary person’s standards this was pretty provocative, Si-a let out a sigh.
"I told you to keep it stripped down."
"I’m a WGM brainrot victim too, so it slipped out before I noticed. But I’m not wrong!"
"Huh?"
"This is about caring about the other person within the WGM relationship, right?"
So if we’re in WGM, and I’m the husband calling you baby and honey, then in the end it makes sense that I’d be worried about my husband? That’s the right reading here, Chur-nim?
Of course, the viewers were praising Chur as if that were obviously true. She wasn’t exactly wrong, but that still didn’t mean...
"If anything, shouldn’t we calm things down first and sort it out? It means that if Luccia-nim gives advice related to Hazy-nim, it’d be good to follow it completely."
"...Really?"
"Ah, come to think of it, I forgot to say this before we started."
One of Chur’s signature lines, a twist on the phrase, "Watch the broadcast as a broadcast." Tarot is just tarot, so don’t get too invested.
But back when she first started saying it, it had worked to rein in the people who got too absorbed. Now that wasn’t the case anymore.
Why not? Because Chur’s love tarot readings had a 99.9 percent hit rate. How were viewers supposed not to get obsessed when someone like that said something...
"Isn’t that line useless now?"
"Why?"
"Well... your love tarot hit rate is 99.9 percent, isn’t it?"
At my words, Chur just smiled like she didn’t quite know what I meant and moved on to the next question, and for a second my blood pressure shot up.
"Hey, shouldn’t you at least defend yourself there?"
"As someone said, my love tarot has a pretty high hit rate."
"Agh!"
Even though she couldn’t see me through the camera, the viewers seemed to enjoy watching me get worked up and just laughed at my reaction.
The more Chur did that, the more forced bait they had to play with. Seriously, not a single person was on my side.
"All right, second question. What should you do for WGM content?"
"I think this one’s obvious. We’re on the same page, Yeobo."
"Honestly, up until now we haven’t really done any content that was, like, ‘let’s do this together.’"
"...So everything until now was live?"
"Yeah?"
Normally, even WGM content runs on some level of mutual agreement. When to do what content, from what time to what time, and when to end the WGM and so on.
Some people also decide on finer points, like how far they’ll go with certain comments, while others don’t, so it varies depending on the couple’s style of WGM.
But that was all in the details. Broadly speaking, the fact remained that WGM content was usually carried out through discussion with both sides.
"Wow."
"That’s why I was a little worried. Was it really okay to keep doing things like that?"
"I applied because I was thinking the same thing."
Judging by Chur’s and the viewers’ reactions, they’d never even imagined that was the case. Was it really that surprising?
"Wait. Then the day we decided on our pet names, too...?"
"Right? I just called you, and you answered, 'This is your husband,' so that’s when we decided on it."
"Well, you secretly wanted a pet name too."
"I never thought about it."
Chur shuffled the cards, sounding genuinely surprised that everything had happened so spontaneously.
And while she did that, the viewers watched Si-a and me bickering and, once again, took Si-a’s side.
Then, because there were so many comments backing her, Si-a’s nose gradually started to rise higher and higher. This was exhausting.
"I should’ve called you older sister instead of Yeobo back then."
"What older sister? Your birthday’s April 1, isn’t it?"
"Yeah."
"Mine’s March 31."
"...Really?"
"Yep. I’m your noona?"
Go on, call me oppa once.
When I said that, Si-a went quiet, embarrassed. She never won in situations like this, and yet she kept poking me. There’s no wonder she’s a glass cannon.
Hmm. But hearing her say noona made it sound like this could be a pretty good broadcast moment. Should we call each other once, then?
"Yeobo."
"Yeah?"
"Do you want to hear 'noona'?"
"A little? I’m curious what it would feel like."
So she did want to hear noona. Then she should’ve said so. I would’ve said it anytime. Though, of course, there would be conditions.
"Then should I say it once?"
"Really?"
"But there’s a condition."
"...What is it?"
"Call me oppa too."
If she wanted to hear noona, she had to call me oppa first. Mm-hm. This wasn’t exactly a bad trade for me...
"Hazy oppa~!"
"?"
Huh. That wasn’t what I expected.
The scenario I’d pictured was Si-a getting flustered and short-circuiting, with only her calling me oppa while I found some excuse not to call her noona by pretending to focus on Chur shuffling the tarot cards.
I hadn’t expected her to say oppa so naturally.
"Since I’ve got an older brother above me, 'oppa' just comes out easily."
"Ah."
I’d forgotten. Si-a had an older brother above her. None other than our Element Agency president.
"Did I say oppa?"
At that point there was no escape from the fact that I had to call Si-a noona. I could just close my eyes and do it once, but by now Chur had probably finished laying out the tarot cards...?
"Chur-nim?"
"Yes?"
"The cards?"
"Ah, I was going to lay them out once you called her noona."
...I’d forgotten this woman was also a WGM brainrot victim. Seeing Chur’s sly grin, the chat blocked my retreat and started threatening me to surrender already.
"You have to see the tarot. Hurry up and say Si-a noona."
Si-a had evidently caught on by now too, urging me to say it while insisting that we needed to see the tarot.
In this dead end, I tried to find another way out, but the last time, during the whole "sa-bak-gwe incident," Si-a had said if I changed the wording again, she’d get seriously mad, so I buried any urge to rebel deep, deep down.
"No... noona."
"Who’s noona?"
"...Do you need me to add that too?"
"I said Hazy oppa too, didn’t I?"
So I said it twice, and now you want it twice back?
The matter-of-fact way she said it, as though even my first attempt counted, made my head ring. So this is what it means to reap what you sow.
I’d stepped into my own trap. And now it was time to pay the price...
"Si-a noo...na."
"...This is making me feel all fuzzy inside."
How many times in my life had I ever said noona? Probably could count them on one hand. The word itself wasn’t familiar to me, so even while I was saying it, I kept buffering.
And I had to do it again? Haah...
"I’ve got something else I want to hear."
"More than this?"
"Add 'I love you' too."
It was hard enough saying noona, and now my WGM partner was asking me to tack on "I love you" afterward too. I felt like my brain was about to leave my skull.
If I said sa-bak-gwe again, would she still just sulk and leave it at that? I sighed.
"Hurry up. We need to see the tarot."
"Hazy-nim. You have to do it quickly if you want to see the tarot."
Fine. If it had come to this, I wasn’t going to be the only one suffering.
"Then you do it too."
"Do what?"
"Say 'I love you' with oppa."
"Okay!"
Seeing how readily Si-a agreed, I wondered if I was the one at a disadvantage, but there was no helping it.
If I was going to lose, I at least needed something to feel good about.
"Si-a noo...na, I love you...."
"Hazy oppa! I love you!"
The moment I stammered out I love you and finished the sentence, Si-a, as if it were nothing, said she loved me too and called me oppa.
Maybe because she’d opened that door once, but after that, telling Si-a I loved her didn’t seem to have much impact anymore.
By contrast, I was fanning my face with my hand and drinking water to cool down the heat creeping up my cheeks. The cold water ran down my throat, but the heat in my face showed no sign of leaving.
"I didn’t think I’d get to watch this live in front of me."
"Just flip the cards already!"
I took out my irritation on Chur. Listening to me, Chur grinned like it hadn’t affected her at all and started laying the cards out, which somehow made her even more annoying.
There was a reason she was famous and popular. Every little thing like this satisfied exactly what viewers wanted. The chat reaction proved it too.
"All right, this is the card about what content would be good for WGM, and just from a glance, they’re obviously similar, right?"
"I guess so?"
"They’re almost the same."
Maybe because she used two identical decks, nearly every card that came up was the same except for one or two. No, how could that even happen?
"First, let me say this. You two need to listen to each other."
"Huh?"
"It means that on some days, if Hazy-nim says, 'Let’s do this,' Luccia-nim should do it without complaint, and on other days, if Luccia-nim says, 'Let’s do this,' Hazy-nim should do it without complaint."
"And if we don’t?"
"You’ll have to handle the aftermath."
It didn’t say in what form that aftermath would arrive. But still!
"If you look here, this card is called the Seven of Pentacles."
"Yes!"
"In terms of career, or broadcasting, what it symbolizes is the fruit of your labor."
"Oh."
"So your broadcasting life has finally started paying off, huh?"
But was it really okay for the answer to "what content would be good?" to come out like this?
Just as I was thinking that, Chur added something else.
"But see the card above this Pentacles card?"
"Yes."
"That’s the condition attached to the Pentacles card, and the condition is this."
"What is it?"
"Uh, contributing to domestic peace?"
"...Excuse me?"
"Simply put, it means you should listen to your wife. In terms of content-related matters."
It’s a tarot reading asking about WGM content, and the answer is to listen to your wife?
...Is this for real?
No matter how I looked at it, this felt like a scam.