20. I Met a User Named Rin Today
20. I Met a User Named Rin Today
***
Stream ON.
The moment she pressed the button, Sua, as always, began playing another version of herself.
She put on enough makeup to make her usual self hard to recognize, dressed in a completely different style, then faced the camera and changed her expression.
Watching the monitor, she flashed the camera a bright smile and spoke in a livelier tone than usual.
"Hello~ Plea-lings! It's Wednesday, July 28th—stream's starting!!"
'Plea-lings' was the affectionate nickname she used for her viewers.
At first she'd agonized over what to call her viewers, but eventually settled on an affectionate nickname joking that they were skilled enough to raise the audience’s average tier.
It was a term only Sua—someone genuinely obsessed with Another World—would have come up with.
She took 'Ple' from 'Plea,' her in-game and tweetie handle, and combined it with 'Platinum Scrub,' the joking slang for Platinum Tier.
She softened the mashup so it wouldn't sound insulting, and 'Plea-lings' was born.
That was how Sua's pet name for her viewers became Ple + Platinum Scrub = Plea-lings.
[Here]
[Miha!]
[Plat-scrub Plat-scrub]
[Ple-ha Ple-ha]
[What are we doing today?]
[What else, Another World obviously lolololololol]
[fr lol]
[But doesn't she seem a little more dressed up today?]
[Girl, you’re so pretty today too!!!]
Even the viewers who had resisted the nickname at first were used to it now and accepted “Plea-lings” without a second thought.
The moment Plea—Sua’s tweetie handle—went live, chat began flooding in.
7:30 p.m. It was the time Plea turned on her stream every single weekday without fail, so it was common for regular viewers to be waiting at Sua's stream address even before the stream went live.
"Dressed up? Is there anything different from usual? Oh, right, I went out a bit today—is that why it shows?"
Plea beamed as she looked at chat, asking whether it showed while idly fiddling with her hair.
[???]
[You went out?]
[What, did you meet someone?]
[Boyfriend! Boyfriend! Boyfriend! Boyfriend!]
[Girl... you really want to see me die?]
[We've been watching Plea's streams for more than a day or two, what boyfriend nonsense lolololololololol]
[Fr, Plea having a boyfriend is total bull]
[I'd sooner believe some bullshit about her getting a Black Ark simultaneous drop lololol]
Looking at the same familiar chat as always, Sua let out a quiet pfft, shook her head, and spoke again.
"Boyfriend, what boyfriend. How many hours do I spend on World? How the hell would I date a boyfriend? Ugh, do you Plea-lings still not know me?"
She was a female streamer on tweetie, and for most women in that line of work, “boyfriend” was practically a forbidden word. Yoon Sua was almost an exception.
When she first began camera streaming, her carefully styled looks had sparked the usual boyfriend rumors and speculation about her past.
But anyone who'd watched even a little of Sua's stream couldn't help but know.
They had seen Sua practically live for Another World—the closest thing to her genuine self.
She routinely stayed logged in for 10 or 15 hours a day, so even when boyfriend rumors surfaced, hardly anyone believed she actually had one.
And the biggest factor of all was that Sua herself had absolutely no desire to date a boyfriend.
She had received plenty of confessions in the past and had even tried dating someone once, but pretending to like a person she felt nothing for was so exhausting that she'd ended it after a single day.
Once a female streamer turned on her camera, most would tell viewers they had no dating experience or no time for romance, even when that wasn't true.
But hilariously enough, on this one point, Sua truly was a 'clean' streamer without a single lie.
"No, Plea-lings, everyone who knows, knows that today is 'that day' for me!"
She said it in a slightly raised voice and subtly checked the viewer count.
7,423 people.
It felt like only about five minutes had passed since she turned on the stream, but the viewer count had already passed seven thousand.
Smooth.
Thinking that, Sua gave a small shake of her head and played up the coy act.
Part of the act was to bait chat into thinking she meant some other kind of “that day.”
[Girl... I’m dying!!]
[Fr, today really is 'that day']
[It really is a magic day]
[lolololololololol look at these toxic bastards typing in chat]
[Look, the house got clean lolololololol]
[Fr, every time I see a pigsty turn into a place where people actually live, it's amazing]
[lolololol hey, I wondered why she said she went out]
"No, seriously, every time I go out like today and come home to a clean house, even my heart feels so refreshed—I really mean it. You guys won't regret calling a cleaning service either, seriously. Satisfaction is 100 percent, for real."
Sua answered with a laugh at the viewers' chat.
And the words she spoke weren't an act—they were close to Sua's 'true feelings.'
The day when someone from a cleaning service periodically came to clean the house.
Ever since she started earning money beyond imagination through streaming, Sua had no qualms about making a mess of her home.
Outside Another World, she basically did nothing but sleep, eat, and shit. As a result, the parts of her home visible on camera sometimes looked alarming.
In the early days of streaming, she'd tried to tidy up everything that was visible.
But from the moment she realized that being crazy about games wasn't an act but a fact that worked as an advantage with viewers, Sua began leaving the areas of her room visible on cam slightly messy, just as they were.
Of course, she still kept the mess below the point where it became genuinely filthy or unpleasant to look at.
Looking game-obsessed for the viewers was one thing; actually living in filth was another.
After that, Sua continued the stream, carrying on small talk and trivial chatter.
Around the time thirty minutes had passed, she checked the viewer count once more.
15,285 people.
Once it looked like all her regular viewers had arrived, Sua finally began to set up the topic.
"Plea-lings~~~"
Pretending to be cuter than usual, she clasped her hands and cupped her face in an exaggerated flower pose.
She laid the cutesy act on thick.
[???????]
[What's with the sudden tone?]
[Did you eat something weird today?]
[That sudden fake-cute tone is seriously disgusting lololol]
[lolol the one calling it disgusting is secretly loving it, right?]
[No but seriously what's going on]
[lolololololololol did Plea get some Black Ark drop when she wasn't streaming or something?]
[They said she was logged in for 15 hours just yesterday, fr she must've gotten something big?]
Chat filled with every kind of negative reaction—awkward, confusing, disgusting—but Sua knew perfectly well that her viewers actually liked seeing this side of her.
She had confidence in her appearance, too. And the proportion of male viewers among her audience was overwhelmingly high.
"I... have something to tell you today?"
She laughed softly, kept making coy gestures, and hesitated without ever getting to the point.
[lolololololololololololol]
[???? fr what is it why is she like that]
[Did you get a legendary item yesterday or something?]
[No, hurry up and say iiiiiit]
[What's with today, no seriously, did you get a boyfriend or something?]
[Why do you look so happy lololololololololol]
[Girl... you know I trust you, right? You can't say something weird, okay?]
She checked chat and burst into a small laugh.
Still, she needed to keep this up a little longer.
What Sua was doing was simply dragging out the reveal.
Now that she'd gathered all the regular viewers, she needed to bait attention and pull in even more viewers, so she was doing something she never normally did.
As Sua kept up a display that viewers would normally only see as a reaction to a high-value donation, the viewer count began to rise sharply.
She was doing it because she had a specific plan.
More people needed to watch her stream.
Before long the count had passed twenty thousand, and the fake-cute act was starting to wear on her.
She checked the viewer count again.
23,513 people.
A higher viewer count than usual.
And she figured now was a good time to stop.
Sua slowly dropped the cutesy expression and spoke in a calm voice.
"Alright, alright, everyone focus!! Plea-lings and all you newcomers who got baited in—everyone focus!"
[So the baiting was real lololololololol]
[The reaction she'd normally only give if 500,000 won dropped, today she just handed it out for free, of course it was bait lololololololol]
[lolololololololol what, everyone enjoyed watching it anyway lolololololol]
[Fr honestly it was nice to watch lololololololol]
[Plea simps, stop making it so obvious. Chat’s getting gross again lolololol]
[Yeah, you're a simp too]
Watching chat overheat with dozens of messages flooding in per second, Sua slowly gathered her thoughts.
The silver-haired woman she was certain was the player named 'Rin' whom she'd met today.
Sure, I had been wrong to stalk her. So I wouldn’t bait her too viciously.
Still... she could at least accept my friend request.
More than anything, that was what kept bothering me.
All I wanted was to talk to her in the game.
I just wanted to get to know her...
And Sua already knew that Rin had appeared on the stream of a streamer named Hana.
Had Rin only appeared on Hana’s stream because toxic chat had made Hana call her out?
The more Sua examined it, the harder it became to reconcile the Rin she had talked to with the player’s reputation. Rin really was toxic.
"You know, there's that player who's been a hot topic lately. Rin."
[???????]
[What, Plea's interested in them too?]
[lolololololololololol Plea was pretending not to care but she was interested after all]
[Wtf, why are all the big-name streamers talking about Rin]
[Can Plea do the 4-hit parry?]
[Fr, can Plea do that?]
Sua grinned as she watched chat react to her every word.
She simply watched as chat continued to overheat.
Then, stalling a little more by talking about other things and dragging out the time, the viewer count rose again—apparently her words had spread to the community or other streams.
32,173 people.
"I met a player named 'Rin' today."
[They say Rin has friend requests, party invites, everything blocked]
[Didn't you meet in a ranked game?]
[How do you meet Rin in Challenger matchmaking lolololol their ID isn't even on the leaderboards]
[On the community, newbies said they met Rin in placement matches or something?]
[lololololololol no way, with that skill they're only just doing placements now?]
[Fr, then how did Plea meet them?]
[Plea probably just wants to milk NewTube too lololololololol]
"Ah, no, I mean I actually met them! Not in the game—really, in real life!"
With her energy cranked to the max, Sua dropped a massive bomb.
Could that woman named Serin really not watch the stream after this?
Given that she'd watched Hana's stream, she definitely knew about tweetie.
And even at the cafe, she'd openly told her the nickname Plea.
If she really was that toxic player Rin, Sua thought she'd definitely take the bait.
Within a few days, she'd have no choice but to watch my stream.
That's what Sua thought.