73. Braised Short Ribs and Browsing Small-Time Streamers
73. Braised Short Ribs and Browsing Small-Time Streamers
***
—Time.
The fairest thing given to every person, and something of such important value that it is hard to trade for anything else.
To some, every minute and every second was precious beyond measure, while others pointlessly, meaninglessly threw their time away.
Some people let time carry them along, while others could hardly bear to sit still and watch it pass.
Countless people each spent their time differently, and the meaning they placed on time varied wildly from person to person.
From birth, through life, even at the moment of death. In the life of a single person, never fair at any point.
It was said to be the only truly equal thing.
That was why time was even called gold.
Right.
Gold.
There was even a saying that time is gold.
......
"...That's a lie, right?"
Serin muttered blankly, trying to deny the reality confronting her.
Then what exactly was my time right now?
Dim evening light faintly filled the room as pitch-black shadows gradually spread.
Now, only the bright light of her smartphone screen lit the space.
It was the hour when dark twilight settled, and at the same time, the brilliant city lights seemed to shine in every color, illuminating the world and announcing the start of a dazzling night.
"Ha..."
She stared blankly at the cityscape outside the room, dyed in vivid colors, and a hollow laugh escaped her.
Then, unable to believe it, she checked the date again.
—August 4th. Wednesday.
8:04 PM.
"No."
Does this even make sense?
'I slept for twenty straight hours?'
Yesterday, when she had sent the final email to the two editors with the contract forms and congratulatory messages, the time she had checked had definitely been around midnight.
She had somehow held onto consciousness to finish, so she couldn't swear to it, but she clearly remembered it that way.
Out of habit, she ran her fingers through her hair, then abruptly raised her arms high.
She lifted her arms through the softly brushing white hair and laced her fingers together.
Crack.
Pop.
As she stretched and loosened her stiff body, a sulky voice slipped out before she knew it.
"Haa, I don't know! Whatever."
She wondered if it was okay to waste a whole day like this.
I definitely don't remember resting.
I just slept and woke up.
That was all, and yet a day had been deleted.
As she was getting up from her spot.
—Growl.
She felt extreme hunger.
"...Let's order delivery first."
She sat her risen body back down and started scrolling through the delivery app.
Late-night places generally had worse-tasting food, so she had to order quickly before the good restaurants closed.
Tap.
Tap.
The delivery notification rang the moment she placed the order.
*
————
[Order Confirmation]
Thank you for your order. Your valuable order has been received and is expected to arrive in approximately 80 minutes.
————
*
She checked the notification without much thought, then flinched in surprise and immediately canceled the order.
"No, are they insane?"
An 80-minute delivery time?
Wondering if it was some kind of holiday causing a flood of orders, she immediately placed an order at another restaurant.
—Thank you for your order. Your valuable order has been received and is expected to arrive in approximately 40 minutes.......
'Forty minutes...'
She was so hungry that even that felt hard to wait through.
Blankly wondering how many hours she had been fasting, she went out to the living room.
Clunk.
Drip.
The moment she heard the sound of water pouring from the water purifier and tapping against the cup.
Gulp, gulp.
She lifted the cup and drank the water, then pressed the cold-water button on the purifier again.
Drinking water cold enough to make her teeth ache seemed to wake her up a little, at least.
"From now on... let's really keep the schedule relaxed."
Thinking about it again, she had taken on far too many commitments in the fluster of starting her stream. The things to think about and handle had grown uncontrollably, and trying to manage it all made her feel her already trash-like body rotting in real time.
Even right now.
She clenched and unclenched her hand, but felt no strength at all.
"..."
Part of it was probably the hunger, but she thought even a cotton fist would look stronger than this.
Then she tore open a pack of laver sitting on the table and shoved it into her mouth however she could.
Chew, chew.
As I crammed the laver into my mouth so crudely that some actor from a hazy memory came to mind, my situation suddenly felt pitiful.
I saw my reflection in the luxurious glass table. I stared at it for a moment, then let out a hollow laugh at how ridiculous it looked.
The sight of a woman with disheveled silver hair stuffing laver into her mouth.
It looked not just out of place, but outright bizarre.
"No... you have 2.7 billion won in your account."
She muttered blankly while continuing to eat the laver.
Having been unintentionally suspended, the fact that she didn't have to stream tomorrow either actually felt like a relief.
"...Maybe it's not just a hobby."
When I first started, I clearly hadn't been that serious about streaming, but at some point I could feel that I was genuinely committing to it.
Naturally trying to keep her stream schedule, trying to accommodate viewers who asked her to stream longer.
On top of that, she was even preparing stream content by dividing broadcasts into Part 1 and Part 2.
She was devoting herself to streaming in earnest.
Actually, from the very first stream, unlike what I'd initially expected, Sua had helped me so much with the setup that maybe, without realizing it, I'd started thinking I had to take streaming seriously.
And just yesterday, not content with being a streamer, she had even hired editors to post videos on her NewTube channel.
She was definitely trying to handle too many things in a short period. She was keeping an incredibly packed schedule, like someone being chased by work.
Thinking that, I grabbed another piece of laver and shoved it crudely into my mouth.
Chew, chew.
She was so insanely hungry that even just eating a piece of laver tasted delicious.
Then, glancing around, she did spot the rice cooker.
But there was no rice inside it.
Far from cooking rice herself, she lived on delivery food every single day, so there was no way there would be any cooked rice.
'I do have some instant rice...'
She looked at the instant rice in the corner, but didn't feel like opening it.
"Still... I should eat what I ordered."
......
Ding.
The moment the text notification sounded, she quickly retrieved the delivery food left outside the door.
As she brought the food over and set it up in front of her PC, her mouth watered.
Today's food was braised short ribs.
When she opened the takeout container, the color alone looked so good that it seemed worth the high price.
Gulp.
She speared a big chunk of meat with her chopsticks and brought it straight to her mouth.
Chew, chew.
"Ah."
Even the brief moment of admiration felt too precious to waste, so she immediately brought another chunk of meat to her mouth.
Biting into the meat attached to the bone, the rich meaty flavor and the seasoning hit intensely, and that alone was happiness.
Roughly thirty hours of fasting, combined with the generous portion of braised short ribs (large) from a famous restaurant.
Seeing the meat that didn't seem to diminish no matter how much she ate put her in an even better mood, and she grinned goofily.
Even after eating several more chunks of meat, it still felt like the amount wasn't decreasing.
"Ah, this is real happiness..."
She plopped the leftover bones into the bowl she had brought, focusing entirely on devouring the braised short ribs.
......
For the next ten minutes or so, she didn't even touch the PC she had turned on and devoted herself solely to eating the braised short ribs, but the portion had only decreased by about half, and there was still plenty left.
People really are fickle... She wasn't completely full, but now that she was somewhat satisfied, it didn't taste as amazing as it had at first.
"Bored..."
She took a sip of the cola that had been delivered with the braised short ribs and moved her mouse to open the tweetie site.
The follow list on the left. Plea and Hana, both of whom she followed, were both streaming right now.
Watching their streams would probably be reasonably entertaining, but it didn't really appeal to her right now.
And since she was currently suspended, she was also worried that if she got tangled up with them, she might cause them trouble.
So she scrolled down, partly to look for another stream.
For no particular reason, she moved her mouse to the "Sort" option in the top right.
She just wanted to watch something different.
—Sort by: Viewer count (lowest first)
She had clicked that sorting option without much thought.
But the results on screen exceeded her expectations.
"Wow."
She was impressed without meaning to, but also felt a little cautious.
Zero viewers, one viewer. There were at least dozens of streams like this.
She scrolled down, wondering just how many streamers there were.
Scroll.
Scrolling the mouse wheel felt endless, so she got tired of it and used a shortcut key.
The shortcut keys above the arrow keys on the keyboard.
She pressed "End" and flipped through the screen a whole page at a time.
"..."
Watching it made her feel a bit unsettled.
Even as she kept flipping through screens, the streams with one viewer never ended.
Not dozens, but what seemed like hundreds of streams with only a single viewer.
"There are this many small-time streamers."
The feeling was strange, and for some reason Sua came to mind.
From their truly awful first meeting to now, it was amazing how she had built a connection with Sua, and even thinking about why she started streaming, it had begun with Sua's suggestion.
She had started streaming because she felt she needed at least something to establish a social position.
Having Sua send several thousand viewers to my very first stream had truly been an incredible stroke of luck.
Actually, since she had been a hot topic in the community, she probably wouldn't have been streaming with this few viewers... but still, having a different start definitely meant a lot.
"...I really was lucky."
Maybe because of that, she was reluctant to even click on the streams with one viewer.
Rather than thinking about whether the streamer was good or bad, I felt like if I watched, I'd end up having to talk one-on-one with them.
Feeling like it would be awkward, she just kept flipping past the screens without clicking on any streams.
Not long after, the next streams had two viewers.
Three.
Four.
The numbers gradually increased, and watching it gave her a new sense of reflection.
"...Being a streamer, honestly."
It might be a brutal line of work.
The thought came to her without meaning to, and at the same time, she felt a sense of relief.
After that, she continued flipping through screens, only checking the streamers' nicknames and stream titles.
Once she passed ten viewers, the viewer counts started increasing relatively quickly, and just as she found that fascinating.
Serin's hand, which had been flipping through screens, suddenly stopped.
— [Small-time Streamer's Last Stream]
Kim Hayoon.
"...No way?"
Even as she thought it couldn't be, she found herself clicking on the stream.