Strange Currents
After exchanging a quick greeting, we sat down.
Maybe Ye-bin and Sia had built up a lot to talk about, because they were already chattering away at each other.
Haste kept taking small sips from the drink he’d brought, looking a little awkward around me.
"Is there something on my face?"
I kept staring at Haste because it felt unreal, and he finally spoke to me with a slightly uneasy look.
I must have been looking too hard, because he seemed bothered by it.
"Ah, sorry."
"Nothing to apologize for, but I’m into women, so I can’t really handle a guy being obsessed with me. I have a wife, too."
It seemed like a joke meant to ease the awkwardness.
"I like women too."
"Is the person you like maybe Sia?"
That question came at me so suddenly that I froze for a second.
Sia and I were strictly business, and it wasn’t like anything had ever given off that kind of vibe.
"No."
"Really? Looking at the two of you, I thought it was mutual."
"I don’t like anyone yet."
When I answered firmly, he looked disappointed.
A lot of people thought that way, but neither of us had ever thought anything like that about the other.
"That’s a shame. I thought someone good had come into Sia’s life."
As he said that, the two of us turned our attention toward Ye-bin and Sia.
Seeing Sia laugh brightly and tap Ye-bin’s shoulder made her feel different from how she did on stream.
"Well, if the two of you are just business, that is a shame."
"...Have you seen our virtual marriage broadcast, too?"
"Yep. My wife and I are both regular viewers."
He said regular viewer, but it didn’t seem like he was stopping there. There had even been reaction videos of Ye-bin and Haste responding to our virtual marriage clips.
"So, can I ask you something?"
"Yes. And please speak casually."
"Uh... then I guess I will? Hazy, you can call me hyung casually too."
"Okay, hyung."
"So, when is the virtual marriage ending?"
I could tell just how much attention our virtual marriage had gotten. Even big streamers like Haste were curious about when it would end.
"You can’t tell anyone this, okay?"
"Why? Is it a real relationship?"
Wasn’t that going a little too far?
"Not that, no. When we started, we said we’d do it for about four months first."
"...That’s way too short."
"Well, it was only the initial plan."
I didn’t know whether we’d extend it later or not.
At my answer, hyung looked disappointed and begged me to please extend it.
"My wife and I watch that all the time these days."
"You mean our virtual marriage?"
"Yeah. The editors and the fans made the videos so well. They keep coming up in my donations."
The company had hired a separate editor for us under the contract, and that person seemed to make pretty good videos. The money going into my account had definitely changed lately.
"Make it a little longer. Can’t you?"
"That isn’t something I can decide by myself, though..."
At that, hyung nodded, saying that was fair.
"This is random, but I’m glad I started broadcasting."
"Why? Because you met Sia?"
Now that he’d revealed he was a committed virtual-marriage fanatic, all he could think about was pairing me and Sia up. No, actually, had he been like that before he knew? Anyway.
"That too, but I got to meet you, hyung."
"Me? Why? Didn’t I just say I like women?"
"Not because of that. Watching you made me realize what internet broadcasting was."
It had been in high school.
Back when I knew nothing about streaming, I’d taken a friend’s recommendation and watched a game tournament.
Hello, viewers. I’m Haste, the organizer of this season’s HST League.
He was the organizer of the game and also one of the players in it.
After winning, he’d said he hadn’t done much and handed his prize money to the four teammates.
Thank you for the donation. I’ll put it toward the next league’s prize pool!
He had spent all the donations that came in on running the league, trying to revive an internet broadcasting scene that had sunk deep into the dark sea.
Haste.
Watching him was how I first learned that internet broadcasting existed.
Then, while I was watching YouTube in the military, I found Sia.
And that was how I started broadcasting.
"Then I’m basically the matchmaker, huh?"
"Huh?"
"You found internet broadcasting because of me, and you saw Sia because of me, so I’m the one who brought you two together. Isn’t that right?"
If he put it that way, it wasn’t exactly wrong, but somehow the phrasing felt a little off.
Still, it wasn’t wrong, so I nodded. Hyung smiled in satisfaction.
"Whoa, I’ve got a story to tell on stream."
He really was born to be a broadcaster, because even now all he could think about was streaming. When he asked if it was okay to talk about this on stream, I said it was fine.
"Honey."
Seeming quite excited, hyung called out to Ye-bin, who had been talking with Sia. At the sound of his voice, Ye-bin turned to look at him.
"What are you doing only talking to Sia? Hazy is right here too."
"We hadn’t seen each other in so long that I just... Sorry. My name is Ye-bin."
"No need. You can call me casually. My wife does too."
"Then I will. You can call me noona, too."
"Okay, noona."
"Please take good care of our Sia, okay?"
As expected of a married couple, they said the exact same thing.
Sia, who had switched places with hyung, came over beside me and whispered in my ear.
"When did you start speaking casually with him?"
"Just now."
"You’re pretty sociable, huh?"
"Someone abandoned their partner and started chatting away by themselves."
As I said that, I poked her side with a finger.
Sia jumped in surprise and hurried away from me, then grabbed the spot I’d poked and glared at me.
"Pervert."
"I just poked you with my finger."
"Still a pervert."
"Yeah, yeah. I’ll be a pervert."
I’d talked so much my throat was dry, so I took a sip from the drink in front of me.
Sia, still upset about losing the argument, kept glaring at me.
"Big pervert."
"Want me to poke the other side, then?"
"...No."
In the end, Sia was the one who backed down first.
"Did it hurt?"
"Don’t know."
"I barely touched you."
"...It was just itchy. I’m fine."
It was a little like WWE, I supposed. If you were going to tease each other, you had to smooth things over like this now and then. That way nothing piled up.
As we were doing that, I felt a lingering gaze on us from somewhere. Looking up, I saw hyung and noona watching us with pleased expressions.
"You’re working hard there, huh?"
"Good times, good times."
I wanted to explain, but the two of them were already nodding as if they understood everything. They waved us on, as if telling us to keep going.
Sia tried to clear up the misunderstanding with me too, but they kept looking at us with faces that said they understood perfectly.
It’s not like that...
*
In the end, I gave up on convincing the two of them, and the conversation continued a little longer.
From what I’d told Haste earlier to the first time I’d met Sia in person, back when we’d just been acquaintances.
"Do you know what Sia said to me back then?"
"Oppa!"
"She told me to get lost because she didn’t need any support!"
"No way!"
"Hazy, are you actually believing this? That’s slander."
"Slander? I even remember the date. 2022..."
"Stop!"
Watching Sia panic made the three of us laugh. Her face turning red, she lightly thumped the arm of the hyung sitting beside her.
"Why would you tell that!"
"Hey, don’t hit our husband! You’re the one who messed up, so why are you hitting our husband?"
"Honey, blow on it for me."
"Are you a child?"
Ye-bin spoke like that, then pressed her fingers on the sore spot before finally blowing on it for him.
Sia watched from the side and made a sour face.
"Birds of a feather."
"Of course. He’s my husband."
At noona’s words, Sia shook her head and looked at me. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she held out the hand she’d used to hit hyung toward me.
"This spot hurts. Blow on it for me too."
She must have hit him pretty hard, because the bone that protruded when she made a fist was red.
"We’re not married."
"Just do it."
"What if I don’t want to?"
"Then this fist goes flying."
Law is far away, but fists are close.
That was the moment I felt the truth of that saying in my bones. I seriously wondered whether she would punch me in the mouth if I refused.
"You really won’t do it?"
I decided to give in once. I loosened Sia’s clenched hand and gently blew on the back of it.
Sia flinched a little because it tickled, but after the first time she seemed to get used to it and didn’t react anymore.
"There. Happy?"
"Huh? Oh... yeah. Thanks."
When I let go of Sia’s hand and looked ahead, hyung and noona were wearing the same expressions as before, watching us.
"You’re not even trying to hide it, are you?"
"Don’t tell me you don’t even wear rings? Just go ahead and wear them already."
We denied it fiercely, but they already seemed to be convinced we were dating.
I wondered how I was supposed to clear up a misunderstanding that kept getting deeper, but I decided to leave it for later, thinking it would get resolved eventually anyway.
"We interrupted your happy time. Sorry."
"That’s not what this is— hyung, why are you gettin...!"
"Honey. We should give them some space. We were being thoughtless."
Sorry, Sia?
The two of them walking away after saying that was incredibly irritating.
I kept telling them it wasn’t like that, but in the end they just decided what they wanted and left. Were they going to go around telling people this now?
As I was thinking that, Sia clapped her hands and said,
"Ah! The stream!"
"The stream?"
"I said I’d turn it on when I got here! I forgot."
With that, she rummaged around and pulled something out. After fiddling with the settings here and there, she set the device she’d just taken out on the desk.
Like taking a selfie with a phone, our image showed up on the screen. There was a small chat window beside it too, but since the stream had only just started, no messages had appeared yet.
Looking over, I saw Sia tidying her hair for a moment. Ah, something was stuck over there.
"You’ve got something here."
"Where?"
"By the left side of your jaw."
"Here?"
"A little more to the front."
"Here?"
"No... ah, this is frustrating."
She kept failing to find the spot, so in the end I reached out and took it off for her. It was some thin thread tangled there.
"Oh, thanks."
"It’s nothing."
After saying that, I slowly looked at the chat window. I wondered how many viewers had come in...
Oh.
That wasn’t the kind of situation this was.