Have a Drink~
Viewers, I swear — if you don't cut them off at the right moment, the brain rot just goes on forever.
I scrambled to get the chat under control, then guided the two of them over to the next employee.
"Lucy unnie!"
"Mm. Our Seo-a's here~"
Lately I'd been discovering sides of Lucy I never knew existed. She was the type who kept her guard up by default, but once you got past those walls and actually got close to her, she turned into this big, gentle dog — pure, soft, and completely adorable.
Before the regression, I wouldn't have known. I never had any streamers I was actually close with. Even the people who were supposedly in the same crew with me were more like business associates than anything else.
Which was why these days I was running a twenty-four-hour threat assessment protocol. She wasn't my bias anymore — she was a colleague, someone I was working toward the same goals with!
I was making a conscious effort to think of her that way, but the heart isn't something you can just flip a switch on. So every time some other streamer got near Lucy, I felt this mix of suspicion and jealousy creep in.
These guys who never even watched her streams before the regression are so damn loud. I was watching her before the regression. I promoted her. I donated. I subscribed. I was there when she was a nobody. I'm special. These people are just—
Ahem. Calm down.
I almost went full dark side there for a second without realizing it.
Anyway, the thought of someone else getting close enough to Lucy to monopolize this cute side of her was just too sad. So without even meaning to, I applied a completely different set of criteria this time around.
"So basically, unnie — just pick whichever of the two is uglier."
"Huh? Not the handsome one?"
"Yeah. The result's going to come out either way, right? So let's go with picking the ugly one."
"Wait, why? If you're going to pick, wouldn't it be nicer to choose the handsome one? At least then the person hearing it would feel—"
Zap—!
There was no way I was letting the words "handsome" or "my type" come out of Lucy's mouth about either of these guys. I shot Oh Yeong-jun a look so intense it shut down his grumbling mid-sentence, then waited for Lucy's choice.
Lucy unnie, hurry up and pick the ugly one!
After a moment of deliberation, Lucy raised her hand and pointed at Kkaenam-i.
"Wh— why?!"
"Your hair… it's so short it's scary."
"Pfft! Nailed it. He was already ugly, and with his hair that short he looks like a full-on criminal type. Criminal type."
"Hey, I'm the kind of guy who could live without laws! This is seriously too much!"
And just like that, the score was locked at a tense 2–2 again.
No, was this golden balance even real? The match kept swinging with such uncanny precision it felt like there was a script, and both the viewers and the contestants themselves were getting more and more invested.
"Eehh! Bae Parksu hyung just added two thousand more? Aigoo, thank you so much! Bae Parksu hyung really believed in my victory, huh? That's why he upped the prize money, right?"
"Sergeant Kkaeroro hyung just added three thousand! That's right. Hyungs, no matter how you look at it, this is not a face that loses. Bet big and trust me. I'm putting that guy through a proper education session today."
In the overheating atmosphere, the prize pot that had started at three thousand Candies had somehow climbed all the way to ten thousand.
Seriously — what about these guys' looks contest was worth ten thousand Candies?
Still, the viewers were eating it up, so I decided to keep going.
"Seo-a unnie!"
"Yeah, A-yeon's been working hard, huh."
"Seo-a, you made it?"
This time Han A-yeon and Miho were working in the same zone, so I ran into both of them at once. The four of us exchanged greetings in a soft, easy atmosphere. Then I explained the ongoing looks contest, and the two of them got a short window to make their pitches.
"Hello. I'm Oh Yeong-jun, thirty-three this year, Ilsan Baron. For reference, I have a nice car and a house."
"Hey, is that how you're trying to appeal right now? That's cheating! This is a looks contest! If we're going there, I just bought a house too."
"Oh my. A house? Where…?"
"Ahem. Near Yeouido. Took out a pretty big loan for it."
"Yeouido! Want to be friends?"
The moment Kkaenam-i dropped the name of Yeouido — infamous for its sky-high land prices — Miho's eyes turned into dollar signs.
Guys. This is a looks contest, not a net-worth contest.
Then came decision time. Miho picked Kkaenam-i without a second of hesitation, while Han A-yeon, after a brief pause, chose Oh Yeong-jun.
I didn't even need to ask Miho why… but A-yeon?
"Uh, he looks like a church oppa type, so he seems nice."
Oh, A-yeon. Still so young. She had no idea how scheming those church oppas really were. Listen to any radio story segment and half of them are about girlfriends getting stolen by church oppas!
Anyway — nobody had planned it, and yet the result somehow, absurdly, evened out to 3–3 again.
Was this what people meant when they said the god of broadcasting had descended?
With the score staying this neck-and-neck the whole way, the energy kept climbing until both of them were looking at me and yelling "Next!" before I could even say anything.
"Hmm. The people here are the last of the staff."
"What?"
"Right, V-Live Company never had that many people. But we came this far — we have to settle this. Let's just go outside and grab anyone—"
Tsk tsk. So impatient.
I pointed at myself with my thumb, nice and clear. The final fortress of V-Live Company was still standing, after all.
"Seo-a. It's me, you know. Yeong-jun oppa. I even filmed a birthday video for you and donated Candies that day."
"Seo-a-nim, this is our first time meeting, but through the viewers' cuckoo calls I've already built up plenty of internal intimacy. We should run a PUBG squad sometime. I'll bring a fat stack of mission Candies. I'll fry you a chicken for sure."
Ahem! What did these people take me for.
I didn't trust past gifts that were already gone, or vague future mission Candies. The only thing that mattered was a donation right now.
"Alright, I've decided!"
"Huh? You haven't even looked at our cam feeds yet, have you? Just wait a second. I'll come out in the outfit I'm most confident in."
"Ha! You think drawing lines on a pumpkin makes it a watermelon? Unlike you, I'm going natural and confident—"
"Hey! A viewer just tipped us off that when you said you were going to the bathroom earlier, you put something on your face. What was that about 'natural'?"
The mind games only got fiercer as we hit the final moment. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford to keep burning time tied up with these two. I still had my own work for the day to get through. Everyone had already milked plenty of content out of this, so there was nothing to be sad about.
"Alright then — deciding right now."
For the record, this decision was absolutely not because Kkaenam-i's fans' trickle-down donations tasted sweeter. I was a streamer of conscience and principle.
"I have one request, though."
"…What is it?"
I pointed at Oh Yeong-jun and told him to take off his glasses.
At that single sentence, the fans started buzzing, and Oh Yeong-jun's whole body went stiff with tension.
"D-do I really have to?"
"Yes. Kkaenam-i isn't wearing glasses. We should look at bare faces for fairness."
Things had already come this far — there was no exit ramp. Oh Yeong-jun bit down hard on his lip, steeled himself, and finally reached up and took off his glasses.
"…"
"Kkaenam-i wins."
"WHY?!"
A detailed explanation would just be rubbing salt in Oh Yeong-jun's wounds, so I boldly elected to skip it.
"Uwaaaaah!"
Wings unfurled, a howl of despair, and Oh Yeong-jun soared up and away from Sky Island — a lonely figure vanishing into the distance.
"Puhahaha! Hey, ugly hyung, wait up!"
Kkaenam-i's voice, thick with laughter, chased after him.
"Huh? Is Yeong-jun okay? Shouldn't we go comfort him or something?"
"…"
For a second I did wonder if I'd gone a little too hard — but as the last stretch of chat had already shown, the fans would handle the financial therapy with Candies on their own.
He still made money, though. Have a drink~