Budget Overrun
Unfortunately, the first round ended in my defeat, 8 to 6.
I'd given it everything I had, but the opening problem—pole dance—had eaten up far too much time.
"I've never done this before, and I still won way too easily. Wait… is this talent?"
"……."
So smug. A stubborn fire flared up inside me—there was no way I was going down like this.
The silver lining was that I still had a chance to avenge that first-round loss. This wasn't a one-and-done content piece to begin with. Barely thirty minutes had passed since the opening, and if that was all there was to it, there would've been no point inviting a guest in the first place.
It was a best-of-three.
"Hmm……."
Seol Pyo-woo's turn again. She kept scrunching up her face, clearly mulling something over. Hard not to—the remaining topics weren't exactly easy pickings.
Movie titles, four-character idioms, proverbs, food, occupations.
Food and occupations looked like the softest landings. And if you were someone who'd watched a lot of movies, titles wouldn't be terrible either.
Seol Pyo-woo must have been thinking along the same lines, because she asked Tong-dari-chicken if he knew anything about movies.
"I don't really know movies. Animation, though—I'm confident there."
"……."
For a split second, a look of pure otaku contempt shot toward Tong-dari-chicken. Ah—nothing serious, of course. Just a bit of teasing, and the mood loosened right back up as they bickered.
Thinking about it, it was kind of fascinating. Virtual streaming had ultimately grown out of subculture, and yet a surprising number of VTubers either didn't know much about anime or simply weren't interested. Maybe it was that virtual culture, unlike when it first crossed over from Japan, was gradually getting localized?
Sure, plenty of VTubers still built themselves on subculture foundations—but just as many streamers were choosing the virtual format as an evolved version of no-cam streaming. That wasn't a bad thing. Any culture that crosses borders tends to localize; that was just how it worked. What mattered was mutual respect and consideration.
"Okay! I've decided. Starting right now!"
So what had Seol Pyo-woo picked?
From the very first motion, I had a rough idea. She mimed bracing the floor with her left hand, then spun her right hand in circles, shaping something resting on top of it. Not exact, but judging by the hand forms, she seemed to be depicting a bowl.
Food after all, huh? Of the remaining options, that really is the easiest.
Shame. I'd been eyeing food myself.
After sketching out the shape of a plate, Seol Pyo-woo held up two fingers in a V and mimed scooping something up to eat.
"Oh! Got it. Ramen!"
"Mm-mmph!"
She shook her head vigorously and repeated the same motion, and a stream of similar guesses kept tumbling out.
"Noodles, udon, jjajangmyeon, jjamppong, spaghetti, pasta?"
"Mm-mmph!"
I'd thought an easy one had come up and started to worry—but somehow we still couldn't land the answer, and it stretched into a war of attrition. Seol Pyo-woo, out of ways to explain further, puffed out her cheeks in frustration and kept doing the same thing over and over. Watching her, it seemed pretty clear the answer was some kind of noodle dish—but what hadn't we tried yet?
Come to think of it, nothing from the Southeast Asian side had come up yet. Tong-dari-chicken seemed to catch on a beat late and shouted out a few more dish names.
"Pad see ew, pho, bun cha!"
"B-bun cha, correct! Ugh, once foreign food enters the pool the answer range gets way too wide."
"Bun cha~ bun cha~ what a fun little song. Let me try singing it too~"
"……."
I wasn't about to let a rare chance at a mental attack slip by. But Seol Pyo-woo was locked in on the match—she didn't rattle easily.
"Chicken!"
"Correct!"
"Samgyeopsal!"
"Correct!"
From there it went relatively smoothly. Still, she'd burned too much time on the first problem, and her final correct count landed at seven.
Good. This time, I actually had a shot.
"Alright, my turn."
"Bring it."
I went with occupations. Tong-dari-chicken had already said he didn't know movies, and four-character idioms and proverbs looked like a one-way ticket to hell no matter how you sliced it.
"Oh!"
Luck was on my side—an easy one right out of the gate. With full confidence, I sat down in an actual chair, grabbed an imaginary wheel, and mimed driving. Threw in a gear shift every so often for good measure.
"Got it—taxi driver!"
"Mm-mmph!"
"Okay, then bus driver!"
"Correct!"
"No way. This is a rigged match!"
It hadn't even taken ten seconds to nail the first one. At that point, the match was basically decided.
The second round was a complete blowout. Final score: 11 to 7. My win.
"Alright, we're tied one-all. Time for the final showdown."
"……."
The look that passed between Seol Pyo-woo and me sharpened another notch. Neither of us had an ordinary competitive streak.
"Shall we begin?"
"Uh, I'll yield the order this time. You go first."
What was this? Yielding all of a sudden? It was a little odd, but switching the order didn't seem like it'd change the outcome, so I went along without a fuss.
Then I looked at the remaining topics and felt a mild dread settle in. Movies, four-character idioms, proverbs—which one was I supposed to pick?
Proverbs are probably the better bet. They get used more in everyday life than four-character idioms, so at least there's some familiarity there.
Honestly, it was case-by-case. Praying for good luck seemed like the strategy with the highest odds.
"Don't worry, Seo-a. I graduated from a Seoul university. I studied a fair bit, you know."
"Ahaha, okay. Here I go."
Whether Tong-dari-chicken's pep talk actually helped or not, I lucked out with an easy one right from the start.
Closing the barn door after the horse has bolted—or in this case, fixing the cowshed after losing the cow.
I threw myself into imitating a cow walking on all fours, and the chat made me feel a twinge of self-loathing.
Thankfully, Tong-dari-chicken got the answer quickly and saved me. We hit a bit of a wall on the second proverb, but we muddled through well enough, and I finished with six correct. A slightly underwhelming score—but the topics left for my opponent were hard too, so I still had a real shot.
"Ugh……."
Now for Seol Pyo-woo's final turn. With the match knotted at one-all, fans from both crews were fully locked in. Who would walk away with the final victory?
She'll go with four-character idioms, no question. Tong-dari-chicken basically admitted he knows nothing about movies.
"I-I'll start."
"Okay!"
I had no idea why my heart was pounding over something this small. But no matter how trivial, the moment you slap the word "match" on something, you can't help but get invested.
"……."
Huh? What was this? Why wasn't she starting?
She'd begun, time was ticking away without a care—and Seol Pyo-woo wasn't doing a single thing. She was staring blankly into empty space. Had her VRC connection glitched and kicked her?
"Seol Pyo-woo? Is something wrong?"
"Huh? No, it's just……."
Thankfully, it didn't seem to be a connection issue. She looked flustered at Tong-dari-chicken's question, but shook her head—nothing was wrong.
Then why was she just sitting there, not explaining the problem?
I'd been puzzled for a moment, but watching Seol Pyo-woo hem and haw, unable to get a word out, it clicked.
No way. Was she…?
As internet broadcasting took off, countless streamers had risen to prominence. They came in every flavor imaginable—and among them was a lineage both ancient and sprawling in its prosperity.
Commonly known as: Order Primates, Genus Homo, Family Persimmonaceae.
Huh? What does "persimmon tree" mean?
Don't overthink it. It refers to the kids who climbed a persimmon tree when they were little and fell off. Fell from a persimmon tree, and unfortunately their heads got a little… you know.
When you're talking about a streamer short on common sense—or, put less politely, a total airhead—you call them Family Persimmonaceae. Sister products included the zelkova, the oak, and the beech.
"Uuuugh…… I lose."
"I won. Victory is mine!"
In the end, Seol Pyo-woo couldn't escape the essence of the persimmon tree—stumped from the very first four-character idiom. I cheered, drunk on the joy of seizing victory.
Then, out of nowhere, Tong-dari-chicken walked over with a deadly serious face.
"There's something you're misunderstanding right now. This isn't your victory, Seo-a."
"……?"
What was this, out of the blue? Seol Pyo-woo had surrendered—so of course that meant I'd won.
"It's my victory. Thirty-eight correct answers total. Do the math—that's 760,000 won! By any measure, I'm the winner here, aren't I?"
"Eh? S-seven hundred sixty thousand?"
I dropped to my knees under the cold, hard slap of fact. The time had come to pay the price for that sudden surge of competitive fire—for running too hard, too fast.
Today's content: budget overrun.