The Fresh Newbie and the Toxic Veteran (2)
"It's only because I know a thing or two about the world of internet streaming..."
The words slipped out like a whisper. There was a faint tremor in them, enough that I could grasp, at least in part, how Hye-eun felt. She must have been through something unpleasant where streaming was concerned—whether she'd only heard of it, or lived it herself. And for her sake, all I could do just then was listen.
"Before we get to that—how much do you actually know about internet streaming, Siyeon?"
An awkward question, and it left me scrambling for an answer. For ten years I had lived in the Heavenly Realm, so I hardly knew the first thing about internet streaming in any real detail. Not that I was wholly ignorant. Back when I was still in school, I had watched game broadcasts on a platform called Paprika TV. Even so, the present could hardly be the same as those days, and I would have to choose my words with care.
"All I ever did was tune in now and then, back when Paprika TV was popular, so I don't really know the latest trends. If you're putting it like that, things must be different these days?"
Hye-eun nodded without a word. Still silent, she took a sip of green tea and let it linger on her tongue; then she drew a long breath and went on.
"Yes. It's changed a great deal. There are so many more toxic viewers now who harass independent streamers for no reason at all. And lately it's only getting worse."
"Worse how...?"
"Swearing at them is the simple part, of course. There are even people who deliberately join viewer-participation segments just to sabotage the whole thing."
Something about that sat wrong with me. Why speak of cursing a perfectly decent person as if it were simple? Curses flew often enough in the middle of a game, I'll grant, but swearing at someone for no reason was plainly, deeply wrong. And to think there were people who disrupted a streamer's broadcast for no better cause than boredom. In the Heavenly Realm, where cooperation was held up as everything, such a thing was unimaginable. Even if someone like that had appeared, they would have been beaten black and blue without question. I turned all of this over with a grave look on my face.
"I... I streamed a little myself, and things like that happened to me fairly often. That's why I was worried about you..."
So that was it. My earlier guess settled into a single conclusion: she hadn't merely heard of it. She had lived it herself. Confiding a feeling that tangled couldn't have been easy, and yet she had said it for my sake. Hye-eun struck me as an extraordinarily kind person.
"Thank you for worrying about me. But I'll be all right. I may not look it, but I've been through a great many things."
"E-even so..."
"The ones in the wrong are the toxic viewers. So if they ever come after you, I'll be there. I'll lend you my strength. I promise."
I told her I was fine, and in the same breath I swore that the moment those bastards showed their faces, I would stand behind her with everything I had. Hye-eun's eyes widened a little. She watched me with her lips parted, as if she couldn't quite close them. I had only said what was obvious for a Fighter—had it moved her all the same? Well, that was fine. I had nothing to my name, and she had given me a place to live; offering to help her was the least I could do.
"Hic... sniff... Thank you. Really..."
All at once, Hye-eun was crying. There must have been a great many knotted stories among the ones she still hadn't told. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, then spilled and ran down her cheeks. I said nothing. I drew a tissue from the box beside me, folded it neatly, and held it out to her. Getting those words past her lips couldn't have been easy. Wounds of the heart are the sort of thing a person usually suffers through alone.
Hye-eun took the tissue in silence and began, gently, to dab her tears away. ......Once she had wiped the dampness from her eyes, the swell of feeling seemed to settle a little, and she looked straight at me again.
"Oh—but I can't believe you rushed home because of me. I feel awful... You said you went out because you had something to take care of."
This was a problem. Someone who had left at the crack of dawn had come hurrying back on my account. Remembering the morning, I hastily asked whether she had managed to finish her errand.
"Ah, it's fine. I didn't get everything done, but I can take care of the rest next time..."
At that moment a growl rose up—grrrgle. For the record, this time it was not my stomach. The source of that biological dinner bell was obviously Hye-eun. She had gone out early without eating a thing, and it seemed she still hadn't had a meal, though lunchtime was long past. When I looked at her after the sound, her face had gone a little red. Best to let it pass as if nothing had happened, the way she had bought me chicken yesterday. Hmm. Let's see. We were heading into the evening, so even delivery would take a while. In that case, the best choice was to put together something simple from whatever was already in the house.
"Would it be all right if I used the fridge? I'd like to make you something to eat."
I rose from my seat as I asked, putting the question to Hye-eun first, since the house was hers. She nodded without a word. I went straight to the French-door refrigerator and opened it.
Living alone, I suppose—there isn't much in the way of ingredients. Mostly things that keep for a long time...
A sparse refrigerator. In the fridge itself, aside from long-keeping sweet potatoes, potatoes, and onions, nothing in particular stood out, save a few dairy products that lasted a little longer, like milk and butter. The freezer, for the record, held nothing but ice, so there was no point looking any further in that direction. While I was still deliberating, something flashed through my mind, bright and sudden. There was that dish, wasn't there—potato soup, something I could finish quickly and something that would actually fill her up. I had made it often enough back when I was living on my own in South Korea, so I ought to be able to put it together as fast as I could. Decision made, I took out everything the soup required and stacked it neatly on the counter.
First things first. The potatoes.
I peeled them in a flash, diced them, and dropped them into a pot. Then I added water, lit the gas range, and the basic prep was done. Next I heated a frying pan, melted butter, and sautéed sliced onion alongside it. Those steps ate up about five minutes. Now it was time to blend the boiled potatoes, the sautéed onion, and the milk all together. With a whirrr, I ground everything smooth and poured it back into the pan. All that remained was to simmer it down without letting it scorch, and it would be finished. Three minutes or so later, the moment the consistency looked just right, I seasoned it with salt and sugar without hesitation and called the dish done.
I ladled the finished soup into a bowl of a decent size and set it in front of Hye-eun, spoon and all.
"Here. Go on and try it. You're starving, aren't you?"
At my words she picked up the spoon, then carefully lifted a spoonful to her mouth. I could see her expression brighten—nothing like the face she had worn while telling me her story. What a relief. It was the first thing I had cooked since coming back to South Korea, and I had been nervous. Watching her eat, it didn't look as though I had failed.
"It's really good... I'm terrible at cooking..."
So she wasn't much of a cook. No wonder the fridge had been so bare; of course there was a reason. Either way, hearing that it tasted good lifted a weight off my chest. It was the first time I had cooked for someone else instead of only for myself. I answered her thanks with a gentle smile.
......Some thirty minutes later, the soup had dwindled until the bowl was completely bare, and the color had come back into Hye-eun's face—I could see it at a glance. With that crisis behind us and the relief settling in, I started thinking about the future again. I couldn't keep leaning on her for money forever. I had worried over the same thing the moment I first returned to South Korea. It was a useless thought, but if only I'd had money as well, back when I was given this life as a woman...
Then, suddenly, something else occurred to me.
When I streamed for a little while, someone donated ten thousand won. Then... don't tell me...?
Was internet streaming the fastest way for me, as I was now, to earn money? I had thought it over and over: no one hiring part-timers was going to choose me, not with my academic record wiped clean back to nothing. And more than anything, I would not adapt easily to all that had changed across those ten years. Thinking that, I found myself suddenly interested in the stream I had shut down in such a hurry. At the same time, I wanted to help Hye-eun. She looked a great deal like the person I used to be. Back when I was training in the Heavenly Realm to become a Fighter, I had shown that same weakness—the training so brutal, and beneath it the helplessness of feeling that no matter how hard I tried, I might never grow. I had wanted to give up. But there had been senior Fighters who lent me their strength when I needed it. In the lodgings where we rested, they had given me advice so I could grow: unsolicited advice, pointing out what I was doing wrong and how I might bring forth a finer technique. So if I showed her, through an internet stream, what it looked like to grow, I could be a source of strength for her. We would be attempting the same thing, and that would give us a common denominator called experience. On that foundation, I wanted to help her overcome her trauma—even if I was still lacking myself. And on top of all that, I had in the end received a donation of ten thousand won, so I was now convinced that in the South Korea of today, a person really could make money by streaming.
"Um... I'm thinking of trying to earn money through internet streaming. What do you think? Oh—and someone even donated to me. A fortune. Ten thousand won."
"Siyeon, think it over one more ti— Wait. You received a donation?"
Hye-eun, who had been about to talk me out of it, wore a baffled look. Was getting a donation really that astonishing...? Back in the Paprika TV days, I had seen viewers fire off moon balloons while I watched, so it wasn't a completely absurd situation...