Chaemoney
The mood in the room, if I had to sum it up in one line, was downright icy. If they’d just cursed me out, maybe I could’ve handled that, but the fact that nobody said a word somehow made it even scarier. I had no idea how I was supposed to respond.
"For now, let’s go to the meeting room. Mizuki will be done streaming and join us soon."
"...?"
Was this being brushed off? No, no way. Who the hell burns three million won in a single day when the agreement was to spend three hundred thousand a month? Inside the meeting room I’d been in and out of so many times to prep for the broadcast, there was a large table, a TV in the center, and a few chairs.
When the CEO took the seat in the middle, I dropped to my knees beside her. Apologizing first supposedly softened the blow a little, even if you were about to get hit ten times over. I’d learned that from some gangster guys.
"I’m sorry. I’ll kneel."
"Might as well raise your hands too~."
"Yes, ma’am..."
The moment I lifted both hands over my head, the CEO let out a snort and said,
"I’m kidding. This makes me feel weird, like I’m punishing a kid."
"I’ll accept whatever punishment I deserve..."
The meeting room door opened again. Mizuki and Jua-senpai came in. Mizuki walked over to me, kneeling there with my hands up, and asked what on earth was going on.
"R-Ru-chan?! Why are you like this? What happened?"
"Well, she did commit a pretty enormous offense. Kind of impressive, really."
"Why? Jua-senpai? What did our Ru-chan do?"
"You watched the broadcast too."
Mizuki seemed to have seen my stream, but she still didn’t really understand the situation.
"What about it...? The cute spirits came out, and they really suited Ru-chan."
"She spent three million won just to pull those cute spirits. Yeah, I guess you need that kind of boldness."
Jua was praising me with absolute sincerity, saying I’d done well. My shoulders started to lift a little on their own.
"Three million won is..."
Mizuki bent and straightened her fingers a few times, probably trying to figure out how much that was in yen. The CEO, unable to stand watching, answered for her.
"I’m not sure what the exchange rate is these days, but roughly three hundred thousand yen? Maybe a little more. Something like that."
When Mizuki heard that, she practically fainted with shock. Then she looked at me and said,
"Heeey. Amazing, Ru-chan! Three hundred thousand yen on your first broadcast...? That means you were really serious, right? That means you really cared about the viewers."
Maybe that was one way to interpret it. Maybe I should just roll with it.
"She probably just spent it because she wanted to."
"N-no, ma’am. As Mizuki said, this was a bold display of sincerity for the viewers!"
"Waaah...!"
Mizuki clapped softly. Jua, standing beside her, was chuckling under her breath.
"But Ru-chan, that three hundred thousand yen came from the CEO, right? So you could spend it on whatever for a month..."
"Yep."
"Waaah, and you spent it all in one day! Amazing."
Even I had to admit it was amazing. If you ignored what came after.
"CEO. I really think you picked your second-generation members well."
"Looks that way. All right, everyone, sit down. Let’s take a moment to organize things after the first broadcast."
As expected from our generous CEO. Three million won and all, she just brushed it off coolly—
"After the meeting, you and I should stay behind for a day and talk."
I’m fucked!
My life was over.
Whether I lived or died, the post-first-stream debrief moved on to reactions, cleanup, and all the rest. If anything, this was my chance to make a strong impression. I hadn’t blown three million won in a single day for nothing.
"First, Hari’s debut stream... At the beginning, the chat was so vicious it was hard to even run the broadcast, but you handled it well."
"Right? She really did pull through. Are you sure you’ve never done internet streaming before? It was so bad at first that the broadcast should’ve been impossible, but you still turned it around."
"Yes... Like I mentioned before, I mostly just watched streams, so maybe I adapted quickly."
And though I couldn’t say it out loud, surviving day by day doing construction labor, being hounded by debt collectors all the time, and getting dragged through every kind of misery probably helped too.
"The CEO and I were really worried. We kept wondering if it was okay to leave you like that without a manager... But those worries turned out to be pointless, because you handled it brilliantly. I’m not completely sure about the pull itself, but the result seems great."
"Exactly."
Jua-senpai’s praise had arrived. This was my chance to sell myself to the CEO.
"Four cards with an expected value of ten million won each. That’s forty million won total, right? I pulled all of them for just three million won. Pure profit: thirty-seven million won. In yen, that’s about three point seven million yen earned."
"Ru-chan, that’s incredible..."
I bowed politely toward Mizuki, who was praising me. But the CEO’s reaction was lukewarm at best.
"Rather than saying you earned money, didn’t you just spend less than the expected value to get a rare item? It’s not something you can resell either. Can you even assign a value to it? Besides, applying expected value directly to market worth is a stretch..."
Why was this woman so smart! I couldn’t come up with a rebuttal, so when she seemed to notice my expression, she added,
"I’m not trying to sound snide. I’m just curious. Nobody around me plays games like that."
"W-well, I guess you could look at it that way... Anyway, the Unknown community reaction was good too, right?!"
I showed her the official Unknown community recommendation post as proof. There were already several threads about the broadcast from earlier.
"Like I said, Unknown players will slowly start coming into my streams now. The real test begins with tomorrow’s broadcast."
What I really meant was: Please let me live. Please don’t fire me.
"True. It looks like you’re sailing smoothly, so let’s keep watching."
"Yes, ma’am, CEO!"
Thankfully, it didn’t seem like I’d be canned on day one. Next was Mizuki’s turn. Even just by viewer numbers, the gap between us was double. My peak concurrent viewers had been around five to seven hundred, while Mizuki had easily surpassed ten thousand. But her expression looked gloomy.
"I was too nervous. I... did so badly."
"It’s fine. First streams are always rough. You have to look at the long term."
"Yeah. I was like that too, and so was the CEO. Hari’s the weird one."
Wait, did I actually do well? I wasn’t sure, but if even the CEO agreed with Jua, then I guessed it had to be true.
I think I was allowed to feel a little proud of myself. Maybe I had some unexpected talent I didn’t even know about. I should’ve started streaming ages ago.
"You really don’t have a past life, right? If something comes out later, it’ll just be a pain for everyone."
I do have a past life. A man of massive debt.
"Well, considering your stream management skills and that cute, tiny voice of yours, you wouldn’t have been able to hide it even if you tried. If you’d had one, there’s no way we wouldn’t have noticed."
"You’re too kind, Jua-senpai."
Just then, the meeting room door opened yet again. It was the manager, carrying a bunch of stuff in both arms. Delivery food.
"CEO. The pizza and chicken you ordered..."
"You’re early. You all worked hard for your first stream, right? I figured you’d be hungry, so I ordered ahead."
"Damn."
Could Chae Eun be a god?
"Let me help."
I went up boldly to take the food, but there was one thing I’d overlooked: this body was not an ordinary body.
"Gah. So heavy!"
The moment I took it, I strained so hard that Mizuki had to help me.
"Ru-chan, are you okay?"
It felt less like holding pizza and more like lifting a sack of rice. I almost got injured handling pizza and wound up in workers’ comp.
"Yeah. Thanks to you."
"I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have handed it to you."
"No, it’s fine. I didn’t realize I wouldn’t even be able to carry a single pizza."
"Be careful. For Ru-chan, even a single pizza is probably like a heavy delivery package."
Was it really that bad? Yeah, probably that bad.
The pizza, chicken, and other delivery food spread across the meeting room table until it was packed to the brim. It had been so long since I’d eaten this lavishly that just smelling it made me feel like crying.
"So how did the two of you get so close? You said you only met on interview day..." Jua asked, chewing on a slice of pizza. Mizuki’s face brightened, and she told her everything that had happened while preparing for the interview.
It seemed she’d completely forgotten the part where she’d mistaken me for a child and wiped my mouth for me, but she brought that up too, apologizing again and again.
"Hahaha! She says she thought you were a kid and wiped your mouth for you. That’s so like Hari and Mizuki, isn’t it, CEO?"
"It was an understandable mistake. I was really surprised at first too."
I was surprised too, honestly. I hadn’t even thought I was looking at an adult in the first place. The CEO studied my face, then spoke with careful consideration.
"If this bothers you, I’ll stop talking about it. I won’t mention it on stream either."
Just hearing that moved me. As expected of a GOAT who could stream like that without becoming a scandal-ridden disaster. This was absolutely not me feeling self-conscious because I’d burned three million won in a day.
"No, it’s fine. Keep going. I think stories like this are fun, especially if I can use my height on stream too. And that thing you mentioned earlier—mistaking me for a kid—would be funny to bring up on Mizuki’s stream too, right?"
"Really? You’re okay with that?"
"Of course."
What was a streamer, anyway? Call it whatever you want, dress it up however you like, but at the core, it was a clown. If the viewers were having fun, that was enough. Of course, that was just my personal belief, and I had no intention of forcing it on anyone, so I didn’t bother saying it aloud.
"Your mental fortitude is seriously historic. You’re really only twenty-two?"
I answered with a hollow laugh.
"I’ve been through a lot..."
"Ru-chan..."
"No, no, it’s not that serious."
"What does 'been through a lot' mean?"
She didn’t know the phrase?
"It just means I’ve had a lot of hard times."
"Oh! I didn’t know. Sorry. Then I’ll treasure you even more to make up for the hardships you’ve been through."
It didn’t seem like empty talk, because she tore off a piece of pizza from her plate and gave it to me. Then she poured me some cola in a paper cup too.
"Thanks. And thank you, CEO, for treating us. I’ll earn my keep."
"Good."
I stood up and lifted the paper cup of cola.
"All righty! I’ll bow once and take it."
"Just eat."
"Yes, ma’am."
"Ahssari?"
***
The atmosphere kept warming up. I rubbed my stuffed belly. My body, the sort that could be mistaken for a child’s, had gotten completely full from just one slice of pizza and a piece of chicken drumstick.
Looking around, every single person here was someone I never would’ve imagined having anything to do with my life. And yet now, we’d all become this close. Life really was something you could never see one step ahead.
"Ru-chan. You got sauce on your mouth. Can I wipe it off?"
"Yeah. As long as you don’t mistake me for a kid this time."
"I won’t."
Mizuki pulled out a tissue and gently wiped the corner of my mouth.
"I think I’d be happy if I had a little sibling like Ru-chan."
"Isn’t that basically treating me like a kid?"
"Eek! That wasn’t what I meant."
"I know. I was joking."
"Anyway, from now on you can call me Mizuki-chan too."
"The thing is, I’m still not used to Japanese culture, so it doesn’t really stick in my mouth."
"Is that so? Then I guess there’s nothing to be done."
Then Jua cut into the conversation.
"Then let’s use Korean culture. From now on, don’t call me Jua-senpai—call me Jua unnie. Both of you."
Wh-what? Unnie? That was harder to say than adding -chan. Leaving me flustered in her wake, Mizuki smoothly called her unnie right away.
"Yes! Nice to meet you, Jua unnie."
"Good. Nice to meet you too, Mizuki-chan~."
"Hai!"
"Unnie" just would not stick in my mouth. Which made sense, since until just a few days ago, I’d been a guy.
"U-um..."
"Um?"
"I’ll just keep calling you Jua-senpai."
"What, hahaha! Are you embarrassed right now? That’s unexpected."
Whatever. To change the subject, I looked toward the CEO.
"And the CEO will stay the same as always. I worship you, the GOAT of the streaming world..."
The CEO shook her head.
"Then since we’re all done eating, how about you and I have a little talk alone, Hari."
"Ack! Wait a second."