Is This Still Not Dating?
The day the hospital officially determined how much liquor I could handle, the viewers absolutely lost their minds and teased me to death.
“The doctor says there’s nothing wrong with him. His drinking limit is officially two glasses!”
“Apparently he’s actually too healthy.”
The doctor’s verdict on my drinking limit was honestly depressing. At twenty, I could put away three bottles, and now that I was older, my limit had been reduced to two glasses?
If a novelist wrote that, they’d get torn apart. What kind of deranged author would even come up with something like that? It wasn’t as if I’d never drunk before, either.
“But isn’t it a little late for Yeobo to be starting stream today?”
“Huh? Seriously? Why didn’t I know that?”
Something felt off about the stream starting a little late, so I asked the viewers about it, and they told me she’d gone on a family trip today.
What was this? Nobody had told me anything. Thinking the viewers were pulling some kind of prank on me, I went into Si-a’s channel and clicked on the broadcast notice pinned at the top.
Hello, this is Luccia.
Because of this insane Oppa’s last-minute travel announcement, I’ll have to take today and tomorrow off.
It’s one night and two days, so I’ll come back with a photo of Oppa beaten into a bloody mess. Sorry about that.
Please watch lots of my Jagiya’s streams while I’m gone!
“So it’s true.”
Come on. My virtual-marriage partner, who had been acting all cute with me just yesterday, had gone to Japan for a one-night, two-day trip without saying a word to me. Who on earth would believe that? And yet here it was, reality.
Looking more closely at the notice, it seemed the boss had dragged Si-a along. Since they were in the same agency, he probably knew her schedule, which made it possible.
Knowing Si-a’s personality, I figured the boss wasn’t likely to come back in one piece. Better pay my respects now, in advance.
“Then what am I supposed to do now?”
Now that Si-a couldn’t come, everything had suddenly gone cold. Trying to keep the stream going like this felt strangely aimless, too.
Of course, that didn’t mean I was thinking about quitting streaming altogether. But just like the chat had said, I’d gotten used to all that dopamine, and now that it had vanished so suddenly, it left me feeling oddly hollow.
Then I remembered what Chur-nim had told me during the tarot reading.
“When you go live alone and try to do something without a collab or anything, your content gets weak.”
Back then I’d thought she just meant I couldn’t carry a single game for very long. But now that I was in this situation, I understood it a little differently.
Doing a virtual marriage didn’t mean the two of us were literally together every day; it just meant we were in a relationship that was basically like dating. Si-a had her own schedule, and I had mine. So when those schedules didn’t line up, I was supposed to be prepared not to flounder. Just like today.
A few of the viewers seemed to remember as well, and that kind of reaction appeared here and there in the chat. What else could they do? It was disappointing.
Still, now that I knew this, I figured I’d be okay if I made some preparations from here on out. It wasn’t like I’d let the horse escape and then fix the stable after the fact.
As I was thinking that over and trying to decide what to do today, one decent idea came to mind.
“Instead of gaming... should I take suggestions for couple games?”
“I mean games Si-a and I can play together.”
If I could figure out in advance what we might play during a future collab, it would save time and seem pretty useful.
I also figured that if today’s content was built around this, then after the stream I could prepare tomorrow’s content separately. In every way, it was a win.
“Couple games are fine, and games like block games where we can cooperate would be good too.”
“Hey. I can’t just let that one slide. You’re saying I’m worse at games than Si-a?”
One chat message had gotten under my skin in an instant. I quickly caught the username and checked who’d written it.
It was that same person from before.
“ShariLong-nim. Say that one more time. What exactly did you say I was worse at than Si-a?”
As if even with a knife at their throat they still couldn’t tell a lie, the chat kept pouring in.
“Hmm. That’s so perfectly logical I can’t even argue with it.”
The viewers were getting agitated because I’d actually admitted it when the chat was being perfectly logical. But even that prediction missed the mark. Why? Because I had no intention of forgiving this viewer.
“ShariLong-nim. Do you know why loyal subjects have always died young?”
“You know it well. Then off you go.”
I quickly clicked their nickname and hit a three-hour chat ban. That was their punishment for not being able to type in chat for the rest of the stream. Their fingers were probably going to itch like crazy.
The viewers protested that my punishment was too much, but when I singled out one of the people who’d typed that and pinned them on screen, everyone else started laughing and posting sweating emojis while keeping their heads down.
“Be careful today. Understood?”
I dealt with the viewer who’d written the last comment in exactly the same way as before. Seeing two people’s mouths forcibly shut in an instant, the rest of the viewers started typing much more cautiously.
“Anyway, I’m taking game recommendations.”
*
At a hotel in Japan.
‘I’m pretty sure we reserved three rooms...’
‘On the system, it shows only two.’
‘Then could we book another room right now?’
‘We’re fully booked, so that won’t be possible.’
I didn’t know whether it was a mistake in the system or the fault of whoever made the reservation, but in the end, the hotel only had two rooms available to us.
‘You two share one.’
‘Exactly. Don’t fight. You got along so well when you were little—why are you acting like this now?’
Because their affectionate parents didn’t want anyone else in the room besides the two of them, Si-a had no choice but to share a room with her older brother.
“Ugh, I’m tired.”
“Hey. It’s Mom and Dad’s wedding anniversary. Just bear with it.”
“If something like this was going to happen, they should’ve told us in advance. I had a restaurant reservation, and I had to cancel that because of you.”
“How was I supposed to know? You should’ve told me in advance too.”
Anyone who saw the two of them blaming each other after not telling the other a single thing would bet a hundred out of a hundred that they were siblings.
From their manner of speaking to their faces, they were obviously brother and sister, and as soon as they entered the hotel room, both of them flopped onto the bed.
“Ugh, I’m tired.”
“Me too.”
“Oppa can be a little tired and still be fine.”
“I’m not fine, though.”
“I’m fine.”
Si-a said that and got up from the bed. Since they were here already, she wanted to wash up quickly and settle in comfortably.
“I’m going to shower first, okay?”
“Yeah. Do whatever you want.”
Si-a’s older brother, Si-woo, answered his younger sister while burying his face in the bed. Si-a looked at her brother with pity and headed into the bathroom.
-click
When the bathroom door closed, Si-woo got up from the bed.
“Come to think of it, I do have a stream today.”
He muttered to himself and opened the Watch app. Since the stream had only just started, he happily entered the broadcast.
The reason he’d started watching this streamer in the first place was nothing special. He’d just stumbled across a funny minor streamer while browsing through the small channels. That was all.
But then the streamer somehow got lucky with one event, and after that he’d kept rising and rising, to the point where he was now doing virtual marriage content with Si-a.
“You never know what life will do.”
Si-woo muttered that and skipped the ad before settling in to watch.
Because of the same-day announcement, Si-a apparently hadn’t had time to leave any message, and Hazy reacted as if he was hearing the news for the first time from the viewers.
Only after going to Si-a’s channel in disbelief and checking the notice about the break did he finally accept it.
“That’s kind of a shame.”
Maybe because most of the recent streams had been collabs centered around virtual marriage, the broadcast felt a little empty without Si-a there.
It was true that the content got a bit weak when they weren’t doing virtual marriage.
There was no way the streamer himself wouldn’t think about what the viewers were also feeling. He needed to get through this well, too. With that thought in mind, Si-woo kept watching the stream.
But he found a way through the problem pretty quickly. Quick improvisation—one of the skills a broadcaster absolutely needed.
“Ah, I’m getting the urge to be a little wicked.”
He said that, but his fingers were already moving.
As he sent the chat, Hazy got flustered and started talking back to him. When Si-woo countered him with logical reasoning, Hazy actually seemed like he might let it slide.
“Looks like he’s mellowed out a bit?”
Just as he was thinking that, Hazy suddenly threw out a question.
“......Because the truth sounds bitter when you hear it?”
He typed the sentence exactly as it was, and then the sentence of execution came down.
And then the keyboard he’d been about to type with suddenly disappeared. No matter how much he clicked the chat window, the keyboard wouldn’t come back up. In the input field, red text appeared.
You can chat again in 3 hours.
Si-woo stared blankly for a moment, then realized what had happened much too late.
“I got banned for three hours?”
It was his own chat, after all.
As always, the truth tastes bitter on the tongue.
---