Treat Broadcasts as Broadcasts
"What are you doing, self-healing like that!"
"If I die right away, the game gets messed up."
"Well, that’s true."
There was some pushback against self-healing, but Si-a’s argument was solid enough. In a mafia game, if the doctor and the cop died on the first night, the whole game could go to hell.
But the flaw here was that Si-a wasn’t actually the doctor.
"Hey, at least reveal your role first."
"Forget the lovers for now. Let’s narrow down the mafia first."
"Hey, wait. Who was it that just said things get screwed up if the doctor shows up?"
Come to think of it, the usual rule was to announce your role in the morning.
Right. I’d been too busy thinking up excuses after getting stuck as a lover to suspect anything properly, but the standard play in this game was to identify the people whose claimed roles overlapped on the first day and point out the ones who sounded least credible.
"It was EyeMap! EyeMap said it!"
"Hey, there’s a lunatic in this game too. What if the doctor overlaps, and you end up killing them because you think they’re the lunatic or the mafia?"
"And yet the problem is that the doctor came out at all. What’s your role?"
"The fact that you’re pushing me means Yura’s the mafia."
And just like that, EyeBoMap-nim and Yura-nim were locked in a direct showdown.
"I’m the detective."
"Hey, Yura’s the mafia. I’m the detective."
They were both claiming to be the detective. Honestly, I had no idea which one was right.
"Did you use your detective ability?"
"Me? Not yet. You can only use it once, remember?"
"See? I already used mine. Since I’m the cop, I’m telling you this: NaguRi is the real cop. I checked."
One of them had used their ability, and the other hadn’t. But in that case, wasn’t the answer just to let it slide?
"Should we just pass? If we do, at least having more people still alive helps us, right?"
"Us? Hazy-nim, who exactly do you mean by us?"
"Huh? Obviously the civilians. EyeMap-nim, are you not on the civilian side?"
Got him.
How dare she try to drag me into this?
"Caught you."
"No, when I say us, that includes the lovers too!"
"No, obviously I meant the civilians. EyeMap-nim, you’re the mafia."
"Hm, but Hazy-nim does have a point."
Si-a, who had already been taken for a doctor by the others, backed up my words.
Luckily, we succeeded in dragging the vote along and executing her.
At that point, the dead were Yuki-nim and EyeMap-nim. But since we didn’t know their roles, if the mafia died, there was no way to know whether they were actually dead or not.
For now, Yura-nim had claimed to be the detective, so if another murder happened that night, then Yura-nim would be the mafia.
When night fell, the lover chat activated.
Morning came quickly. Now, as long as no one died here...
"Oh, Yura’s mafia. Nice job."
"No, wait. This is weird."
"Okay, you’re the one getting voted."
The moment morning came, NaguRi-nim voted for Yura-nim right away.
I quickly followed the two votes already up and joined in, voting Yura-nim as the culprit.
"Hey, it’s really not me! And there are still two lovers alive among us!"
"Maybe, maybe not. At least EyeMap wasn’t one of them, right? Since Yuki died, doesn’t that make them the lovers?"
"I’m telling you it’s not! I picked Yuki on the first night, and Yuki died!"
"Which means you’re the mafia."
"...Fuck."
"Are you stupid? That’s when you should’ve claimed you were a fake cop or a lunatic. Then you’d still be alive."
"...NaguRi is the lunatic! I saw it!"
That sent the chat into chaos. But what good was saying that now? It was already too late.
So then Yura-nim was the mafia, and NaguRi-nim was the cop. Si-a and I were the lovers, EyeMap-nim had been the detective, so unless there was some ending where Saengsam-nim was actually the doctor, things still seemed salvageable...
"What are your roles, Hazy-nim and Saengsam? Isn’t it time you told us?"
"I’m a civilian."
"I was the doctor, and on the first day I saved Yuki, but when I saw them die I became certain I was the lunatic."
Saengsam-nim was the lunatic. That meant Yuki-nim and Ladachi-nim had split the doctor and civilian roles between them.
Then the situation was now lovers 2 : civilians 2 : mafia 1.
The lovers win if only the lovers remain, or if only one civilian-team member remains besides the lovers.
It was about time to start moving my mouth again, the part I’d had sealed shut until now.
"Ah, I’ve got it. Yura-nim’s stirring things up on purpose because she can’t win herself."
"What?"
"Now, Si-a-nim is the doctor, right? NaguRi-nim is the cop, right? Then if you take those two out, that leaves me, Saengsam-nim, and Yura-nim."
"Right?"
"But if Yura-nim is the mafia, then the question is whether Saengsam-nim and I are the lovers. The problem is, we don’t know how many lovers are left, or who they are."
Exactly. We didn’t know whether one lover was still alive or both were. But that was what made this possible.
"But what if Yura-nim picked Saengsam-nim on the first night, and Yuki-nim died instead?"
"Then are you saying Saengsam is the lover who pretended to be the lunatic?"
"Exactly. It looks like Yura-nim was trying to stir things up because she couldn’t win, but that’s not going to work."
"No, I’m really the lunatic. Looking at how you’re pushing this, Hazy-nim must be the lover."
NaguRi-nim. You really have to choose now.
If this dragged on any longer, I was dead. Once I’d started the initiative, I had to keep pushing hard.
"But the lovers could still both be alive, you know."
"That makes no sense. If both were alive, then it’d be me and Saengsam-nim, right? Then we could just execute one and know immediately."
"...My head hurts. But that does make sense. Who hasn’t voted yet?"
"Me."
"Me."
Si-a and Yura answered NaguRi’s question.
"Then let’s vote Yura first."
"No, you’re the lunatic! You’re not the cop!"
"Yep, too late~"
In the end, time ran out, and Yura-nim died with four votes against her.
Even after the mafia died, night came again.
After I settled the plan for wrapping things up, morning came.
Since Yura-nim had died, no murder had occurred. Now it was time for a showdown with Saengsam-nim that would decide our fate.
And what’s a showdown?
The first strike wins!
"I saw it, I tell you! I saw it with my own two eyes!"
"Haha, Hazy-nim, what exactly did you see?"
"On the way out at dead of night to go look for Sofi, I saw Saengsam-nim hugging Yuki-nim’s photo and bawling his eyes out back at home!"
"No! What are you talking about! I never did that!"
With that much effort, just die already, Saengsam-nim. I’ve shown you respect.
"No, seriously, I never did that."
"Hey, at this point, shouldn’t you have at least one thing to claim in your own defense?"
"What’s there to say other than that it didn’t happen?"
"A broadcaster with no sense of showmanship. Come on, do your special skill."
Cornered by NaguRi’s threat and backed by Si-a, Saengsam-nim had no choice but to do an impression.
He said he’d do a line from a character in a game he liked.
For the record, Saengsam-nim was famous for being astonishingly bad at impressions.
"Tonight, I hunt!"
"Yeah, executed."
"You XXXXXXX--!!!!!"
Listening to the barrage of profanity that slapped the speaker and tore at my eardrums, I voted for Saengsam-nim.
At last, the condemned man was chosen by majority vote. Saengsam-nim still seemed wronged to the very end, and just before dying, he left behind one final line.
"NaguRi’s a damn idiot!!!!"
"Yep, that’s you."
With a loud bang, Saengsam-nim’s character died, and the screen went dark.
"Civilian victo— ...Huh?"
The stage curtain fell, and as if the actors had come out to bow in response to applause, Si-a’s character and mine were standing on the screen, holding hands.
Above the characters, along with a sentence congratulating the two of us, was another line: Lovebirds Victory!
"Lovebirds victory!"
"Hazy...nim? You tricked me?"
"Wow, NaguRi really can’t wrap his head around it. Hazy-nim, this doesn’t sound like the first time you’ve talked your way through something."
The background switched to the waiting room screen, and everyone’s microphones started coming through.
"Wow, Hazy-nim, how are you so shameless?"
"I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!"
"Then if Si-a was the lover, Yuki was the doctor?"
"Yeah. On the first day, I healed NaguRi, but I died instead."
"So I really was the lunatic! NaguRi, what were you doing!"
"But your impression was so bad I just voted for you."
"Hey!"
What a complete mess. A total disaster.
*
We played a few more rounds after that. The problem was, every one of them ended with Si-a steamrolling the lobby.
'This is Ladachi. Yuki’s dead, right?'
'EyeMap and Yura are the lovers, and Saengsam’s the lunatic.'
'Hazy-nim. I called you three times. What’s your role?'
'Confirmed mafia: Yura.'
She was so good it made me wonder why anyone would even cheat in a game like this. I’d known she was dangerous ever since she declared herself the doctor, but feeling it as a participant instead of just a viewer was something else entirely. It was the kind of pressure that made you feel completely overpowered.
"Ah, today was fun."
"NaguRi, you trashed the whole day!"
"You can’t beat Kariider, and you can’t even stop yourself from trolling as the mafia. What exactly are you good at?"
"Hey, what about you guys? Were you any better?"
"What!"
Keeping that insane energy all the way until we said goodbye... honestly, they were something else.
"Oh, by the way, Hazy-nim. I’ve been wondering about something, can I ask?"
"Huh? Sure. I’ll tell you anything except my bank password and my front door code."
"Pfft. No, not that. When you called Si-a, you said 'Si-a-nim' instead of 'Lucia-nim.' When did you start calling her that?"
"Oh, I think I just started naturally. Probably from the beginning."
"Really? Si-a’s pretty strict about that."
"We call her Si-a because we’re friends, but if anyone else doesn’t say Lucia-nim, she goes around bullying them. Saengsam was probably the first to get hit with it."
"The first day we met, we played an internal match in LoL, and when I called her Si-a-nim, she came charging at me and only targeted me..."
That... was fair enough.
One of Si-a’s YouTube videos with the highest views was about her tormenting a fellow streamer through an entire game, all while laughing the whole time.
Ah, right. That was Saengsam-nim.
"Actually, I was going to bring that up today anyway."
"Huh?"
"I just thought it would be fine. Right, Hazy-nim?"
"Me?"
All at once, the attention shifted to me. I wasn’t being stared at directly, but I could feel that a lot of people were focusing on what I was about to say.
- What’s the host doing?
- ?
- Huh?
- What’s going on now?
- ??????
- Si-a-nim? Si-a-nim? Si-a-nim? Si-a-nim?
- A chance to talk casually with Lucia herself?
"What’s fine?"
"Just, I thought it might be okay to speak casually? Hazy-nim is twenty-six too, right?"
"Hazy-nim is twenty-six? We’re all born in 2000 too."
"Then let’s drop the honorifics!"
"Uh... uh?"
"Use casual speech, and next time we play, call me that again."
"Hazy-nim, hurry up and try calling Si-a that."
"No, I mean, even so, this is sudden..."
"Hurry."
After the sudden cleanup of honorifics and Si-a’s insistence that followed, the whole situation started spinning too fast for me to keep up with, and before I knew it, the words slipped out.
"S... Si-a."
"Yeah. Hazy."
What the hell.
Did I just call Si-a by her name, as Si-a?
"Alright! See you later~"
"Hey, scatter already! That’s it! Goal achieved for today!"
"Bye, Hazy~ Next time, you have to use casual speech with us too!"
Everyone left, and I was left alone in the voice chat room...
"Hazy."
"Y-yes!"
Ah, I bit my tongue.
"See you later?"
And with that, I was truly left alone in the voice chat room.
I didn’t know either, you damn lunatics....
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