Stream Time

After freeloading some tteokbokki and chatting for a while, I headed home.

Siyeon was learning sewing? Or was it making clothes?

…I'd been too busy inhaling tteokbokki to catch the whole story.

If anyone called out my terrible listening skills, I'd feel genuinely wronged. It wasn't my fault—she only talked about it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠when I was distracted by the food, the sneaky little thing.

And then at the end she went, "You get it, right? So when I finish the clothes, Chaewon's gonna wear them for me?" and even held out her pinky.

That faint little smile of hers made me extremely, extremely uneasy.

Still, freeloading as I was, how could I refuse to try on clothes my friend made?

She used to seem so pure when we were little. Why does she look more and more scheming these days?

That expression of hers. That sly grin.

In the end I promised, and even accepted some sundae on top of it.

Anyway, pure profit!

Right now I was the one freeloading. But once I grew up, sold cards, sold stocks, and got rich, I'd make sure she could eat tteokbokki three meals a day.

Kim Siyeon, your life just hit the jackpot!

"I'm home~"

I tossed a half-hearted greeting into the empty house, flung my socks into the laundry basket, barged into my room, chucked my bag onto the bed, and sat down in front of the computer.

Current time: 6 o'clock.

"Uuuuugh."

I pressed both index fingers hard into my temples.

Mom and Dad will be home from work in less than an hour.

I had to play with Momoji in the evening, so no ranking then. I wanted to climb a few points in whatever time I had left, but…

Do I turn on the stream? Or not?

That was the question.

Less than an hour—was turning on a stream a bit much?

"Huuuuuugh."

Screw it. Decision made.

Turn it on!

Master promotion was right around the corner—wouldn't the viewers want to see it? That was my tiny little act of consideration.

Damn, I'm nice.

After that I launched Deadzone, fired up the streaming software, and waited for viewers while I played.

Time was money, so I skipped the warm-up and jumped straight into ranked.

Diamond 1, 75 points.

Just one more win and it's the promotion series, right?

Every tier had its own emblem that popped up when you queued, and from Master onward they got a little shinier. I wanted that so bad.

It looked cool as hell. Like, "Yeah, this is the kind of person I am~"

Of course, still not as cool as my Weapon Master title!

I decided to share the afterglow of victory with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the viewers. The second the match ended I opened the chat.

"Huh?"

What the hell was this vibe. Where was the praise for my apocalyptic carry? Everyone was talking about something else entirely.

"I hung out with a friend for the first time in a while, so I was a little late."

"What are you talking about, I have friends. Just not a lot of them."

Technically one friend—no, with Momoji now it was two—but it wasn't like I was unpopular. The kids in my class just wouldn't be friends with me; I got along fine with everyone otherwise.

……

Huh. That sounded kind of sad just now. Felt like an own goal.

I shook my head vigorously and told the viewers:

"I used to be popular, okay? I took first place in class president votes like it was nothing. When I went up to middle school there were kids crying because they were sad to say goodbye. I even got group birthday celebrations. And what else… Oh! When I dueled at school everyone would gather around me to watch!"

"Uuuugh…!"

Why, why were they laughing. It was true.

"I do! I even ate tteokbokki with her today."

"Ugh, that's not a great memory."

Back in elementary school some butter-margarine-looking kid had asked me out.

"No, it's true…. Some guy I barely knew just walked up and confessed. Six…! No, he was a year above me."

Just thinking about it made me want to throw up for real, so I didn't want to explain any further.

"Huh? Yeah."

"Uh…! H-how did you know?"

What? My personal info was getting doxxed from just that little hint?

Thanks to chat I could tell my personal info hadn't actually been doxxed.

"You little…."

They were just messing with me.

It was true, you bastards.

When I was little people said I was pretty, I even shot commercials, and the neighborhood aunties told me until I was sick of it!

"I'm not lying."

"Eek!"

I couldn't go into more detail here!

No—even if I explained every detail, these guys wouldn't listen with more than half an ear.

I figured I'd just ignore them and play, then checked the time.

Shit, I missed the timing while making excuses.

Each match took almost twenty minutes, so if I queued now I might have to rage-quit halfway. I'd wanted to at least hit the promotion series before dinner, but now I was going to leave without it.

"Ah, I gotta go eat. Can't do another game. I'll be back later."

"……"

If I hadn't turned on the stream I could've reached the Master promotion series by now.

You bastards, I turned on the stream out of consideration for you and this is how you act?

I thought they'd be happy even with a short stream. Instead they just grumbled.

"Fine, you want notices? I'll write them diligently from now on. I'm out."

You had fun teasing me, huh?

I'll write you all the notices you want. Hmph.

Momoji—Kim Naeun—had gone to university for the first time in a while.

She needed to submit her leave-of-absence form at the department office.

Ugh, at this rate I'm actually going to get expelled.

It was a shame to drift away from the university she'd barely gotten into. But what could she do? She had zero interest in studying, and abandoning a stream that was already on the success track would be the weirder choice.

Just work hard on streaming….

She wasn't exactly good at studying anyway, so the choice wasn't hard.

Today's stream was Deadzone.

She'd been pouring time into Deadzone for almost two months now. It was fun, the viewers liked it—there wasn't really a reason to do anything else.

Momoji turned on the stream and greeted them cheerfully.

"Hello~"

After thrashing against the wall that was Diamond, these past few days of casual quick matches had been bringing back the joy she'd felt when she first picked up Deadzone.

Am I actually good?

When you drop 15 kills, 20 kills every game, that thought just comes naturally.

To Momoji, who'd only ever grinded ranked, the players in quick match were basically zombies. Not because they couldn't shoot—because of the brain department.

They never took their finger off the W key among WASD. Die? Ah, just respawn and it's fine~ Lose? Just play the next game~ That exact mindset showed in their play.

They were beasts who fought with pure physicals, brains removed, as if this were the greatest martial arts tournament under heaven.

In that primal brawl, using even a little bit of your head let you rack up kills ridiculously easily. And so she was thoroughly experiencing the true flavor of carrying.

"Ah, she'll probably come after dinner, right?"

Lee Chaewon checked Momoji's title-grinding progress like she was grading homework. They hadn't made any formal promise, but every evening she'd casually show up to watch Momoji or queue into quick matches together.

She'd probably show up again today while they were playing, right?

Whether this was a teacher or a warden, Momoji wasn't sure—but the game was fun, so for now she'd decided to keep grinding the title.

After one warm-up game, on the second match:

"Oh, Chaechae's here."

She naturally invited her to VoiceOn.

"Hello? Can you hear me, Chaechae-nim?"

"Yes, hiya."

"Did you eat dinner?"

"Yep."

They queued into a team deathmatch together.

"Moji-nim, how many assault and sniper kills did you get today?"

"Huh? Ah, I just got on, so only 14 rifle kills."

"Ah, I see. Long way to go."

"Ahem ahem."

Was that a dig?

"Did you equip that death effect I told you about?"

"Uh… I did equip it."

Hmm….

Was it really okay to equip this?

If you killed someone with a dedicated weapon you could show them a specific effect, and you could set it yourself. Most people left it alone since the default lines weren't that provocative and were pretty gentlemanly, but—

This is it, let's go with this.

Huh?

What Chaechae had set for her was an effect where a male character flashed a toothy grin and said [Good match!].

That much was fine. But she'd stuck a rice-bowl emoji over the word "match" in [Good match!] and turned it into [Good meal!].

"When they see the effect they get so pissed they come hunting only for me with fire in their eyes. If you farm those guys you can rack up kills even faster."

"I-I see."

……It was a good tip, yeah.

Momoji decided not to push back. For the sake of her mental health, she'd learned she had to let things like this slide.

The game started. Quick match, as expected. A legion that feared no death came charging in.

Momoji had adapted by now, so—

Ratatatat-!

She calmly stacked kills. With Woniwoni tossing flashes at the perfect moments to blind enemies and smoke to cut off dangerous angles, Momoji soared. Before she knew it she was at 18 kills, first on the team.

"Kyaaaaah! This is so fun!"

"Three o'clock, low HP."

"Okay okay!"

Did I get better?

Maybe this teacher was actually pretty skilled?

Once I leave the mountain! Straight into ranked!

……But she wouldn't actually refuse to let me go until I hit Weapon Master, right?

Surely not.

They finished a fun quick match, and Momoji turned to the chat to check the viewers' reactions. She'd been so focused on the game that she only looked now.

"…Huh?"

Momoji rubbed her eyes and opened them again. The chat was still completely unhinged. Even a glance made it clear she wasn't the cause.

"Um, Chaechae-nim."

"Yes?"

"You didn't turn on your stream?"

"Nope."

"Why…?"

"I decided not to do short streams anymore."

"Short streams…?"

What was that supposed to mean—all of yours are short streams.

By Momoji's standards, every single one of Chaechae's streams was short.

"Uh… a bunch of your viewers just flooded into the chat…?"

"Huh? Hang on. Let me check."

Even while waiting for her to join the stream, the spam and wailing never stopped.

…Did those kinds of people just migrate over? Or did she turn them into this?

Or maybe they just vibed perfectly.

"What the—why are you guys doing this here. Get out, you brats. Shoo shoo."

The moment they realized Chaechae was reading chat, the spam only climbed toward its peak.

"Maybe you should just turn on your stream…."

"Nope. Kill them all? Or we go follower-only chat."

"No, even so. They're your viewers."

"A notice?"

"……"

"What did you write."

"Nothing much…."

Figuring she wouldn't get a straight answer from the source, Momoji went straight to DualKingChaeChae's personal channel.

Among the still-chaotic board, one post was lit up—specifically, a notice with a staggering +398 comments.

"…Chaechae-nim."

"Yes?"

"Turn on your stream."

"Today is a short—"

"Turn it on."

"Yes ma'am."

Thanks to Momoji's charisma, the situation was brought under control for the time being.