A Friend Among Women
"Huh...? Reserve training?"
"Just thinking about going to the reserves pisses me off. I apologize."
He didn't need to spell it out. Anyone who'd ever served would know exactly how much reserve training sucked.
"Ohhh! So that's what it was! The reserves!!"
Nellka burst out laughing and nodded, clearly relating.
"Right? Nobody wants to go. More than half of it is just standing around or sitting on a bus, the lectures are the same tired stuff you've already heard a hundred times, and the food is just... ugh. They barely even give you transit money, let alone actual training pay..."
Just listening to it was enough to make my skull feel like it was splitting open. I furrowed my brow and cut her off.
"I think it would be best if we dropped the reserve training talk and moved on."
"Huh? Oh. Yes."
"Let us move on to the matter of compensation."
"Shall we? Haha."
Nellka offered an awkward little laugh. She took a breath, then laced her fingers together and settled her weight like she was marking an edit point for the camera.
"Because of the suspension, I haven't been able to run a bunch of my content."
"Is that so?"
"Yes! Just the other day I got banned the second I started a stream! Thanks to you!"
"I truly am sorry about that. As an apology, I will do anything."
"A-anything?"
"Yes."
I met her eyes dead-on. Nellka held my gaze — earnest, unflinching — and swallowed hard.
"A-anything..."
She echoed the word under her breath, then flapped her hands in a panic.
"N-no! Kids watch our channel too, you know!"
"...Pardon?"
Why are kids coming into this all of a sudden?
I sat there blank for a second before the meaning hit, and then I shut my mouth. Talk about killing the mood. A sex joke, coming out of a woman's mouth. Yet another reminder, delivered firsthand, that I really had landed in a reversed world.
I glanced sideways. Senior Manager Gwak-what's-her-name had a hand pressed to her forehead and was shaking her head, the picture of someone thinking, I knew she was going to do that.
So this was just who Nellka was. I should have figured that out back when we were negotiating the language rating for the stream.
A short, helpless laugh slipped out of me.
"Huh? You just laughed, didn't you? Oh, so you like this kind of thing?"
Well. Yeah, I do.
I cracked up at sex jokes with the guys. A woman delivering one was hardly going to be worse. Once my gums were showing, they were not going back into hiding anytime soon.
"You really do like it."
I managed, somehow, to swallow the rest of the laugh. It was a little embarrassing, too — breaking into a grin over a dirty joke with a bunch of women staring at me. It felt like getting caught with my porn preferences out in the open. I pulled my face back to a blank slate, trying to bury the awkwardness.
"Please just tell me what I need to do."
Nellka grinned, the look of someone who understood exactly what was going on in my head. Before I could even protest, her mouth was already moving.
"Alright then. You're rushing me, so I guess I should tell you. But first!"
"Yes."
"Let's drop the formal speech. You said you're twenty-five, right? We're the same age, so how about we just talk comfortably?"
"Sure."
"O-ohh. That's... pretty cool of you."
The answer came out without a second's hesitation, and Nellka looked briefly thrown. Then her face lit up, a thick, delighted smile spreading across it.
"We're friends now!"
"Yeah."
"You're not doing anything right now, are you?"
"Yeah. Nothing."
So this is it.
"You know I've got a week-long ban."
"Yeah."
"If I can't go live for a week, that means I can't pull any YouTube videos either."
Nellka walked through her situation point by point — all of it stuff that had already been covered during the earlier negotiations. The explanation wasn't really for me. It was for the viewers who would be watching this later. Build-up for the story that was about to unfold.
"You said you'd do anything, right?"
"Yeah. As long as it's not illegal, anything."
"Keheheh. Then pack your bags! Park Beomjun! For one week, you are my content!"
And that was how it started.
"Bags? Why bags?"
"Because you're my content."
"What does that have to do with packing?"
The explanation was not cutting it. The part where she called me content and then told me to pack a bag needed more than that. For the camera, this had to be the first time I was hearing her proposal. If I just said yeah, okay and went off to pack, there wouldn't be nearly enough setup for anyone watching.
"I'm saying you are the content."
Nellka repeated herself, slowly, one word at a time, as if that would help. It still wasn't enough. I stared at her, waiting for more. Color rushed into her face out of nowhere.
"Wh-what."
"What does me being the content have to do with packing a bag."
I kept pressing for details, whether she liked it or not. A flicker of disappointment crossed her face and vanished.
"Ah. That. If you're my content, we can't be in two different places, can we? So you have to stick with me. I Lived With the Rookie Male Streamer Who Got Me Banned — for a Whole Week. Khhh. Can't you hear the view count going up?"
Off to the side, the manager was looking at me like I was an idiot. It was the exact look a little sister gives her older brother when he's doing something profoundly stupid. Not that Nellka caught any of it. Her eyes were shining as she waved me on.
"We don't have time for this! Time is money! Hurry up and grab your stuff so we can go to my place!"
She was even huffing through her nose. I looked at her — practically vibrating with anticipation — and stood up.
"Alright. I said I'd do anything. I'll go pack. Give me a minute."
"Okay, okay!"
I left Nellka nodding behind me and headed off to get my things. Inside the room, I opened the closet. The bag I'd packed ahead of time was sitting right there.
"Hoo..."
I let out a long breath at the sight of it. This was harder than I'd expected. Talking it out had loosened me up some, but I was nowhere near comfortable. I'd gone from blurting out whatever came into my head to at least thinking a little before I spoke, and that was about as far as I'd gotten. I was completely drained.
I sat on the edge of the bed and took a short rest. Starting now, I was going to be living in the same house as Nellka for a week, no way out. It was a shoot, sure — but I was about to live with someone whose face I had seen for the first time today.
"Ugh."
A few minutes of conversation had already wrung me dry. How was I supposed to survive a whole week of this? Part of me wanted to back out right now, but it was far too late for that. I should have said no to the cohabitation when we first negotiated. And why hadn't I?
A guy getting the chance to live with a woman — was I really going to turn that down? There had never been a woman in my life. I wasn't about to kick an opportunity like this to the curb. Granted, I'd also stammered my way through that phone call and accepted half by accident. But it really was a good opportunity. An invitation from a million-subscriber YouTuber, a major-agency streamer. Plus We Got Married content. I'd learn broadcasting and build up some immunity to women while I was at it. When was a chance like this going to come around again?
That was how I'd rationalized it, and that was how I'd waited for today. And two hours into the shoot, my brain was already soup. Two hours of abs would have hurt less.
"Beomjun! You done yet?"
Augh! She won't even give me a second to rest!
"Coming out now."
I grabbed the bag and left the room. Nellka greeted me beaming, grinning like she couldn't have been happier.
"That's everything?"
"Yeah."
"You're staying a whole week and that's really it?"
It was the same duffel I carried to the gym. A week's worth of clothes and underwear. A toothbrush, lotion, the usual odds and ends. I'd even packed extras just in case, so there was nothing to worry about.
"Yeah. This is it."
"Yeah? Then should we head out?"
"Yeah."
Everyone else must have gone down ahead of us. Only one cameraman and Nellka were left. We stepped out of the apartment.
In the elevator, under the faint hum of the machinery, Nellka spoke up.
"Need to buy anything? If there's something you need, we can grab it on the way."
"I'm good."
"Yeah? If you think of something, just say so. I'll get it for you."
The one who answered her wasn't me. It was the cameraman filming us from the front.
"Whoa. Boss. Before the shoot I asked you to buy me coffee and you said you had no money."
"...Why is that coming up right now?"
"Total cheapskate."
"...Turn the camera off for a second."
"Huh? Ah! Ack! The boss is beating her employee! Beomjun, film this!"
The camera landed in my hands before I knew what was happening, and I kept rolling. The lens caught the employee in a headlock, tapping out for his life.
"Ah! Boss! Stop! I was wrong!"
"You were, weren't you?"
"Yes yes yes!"
"We're gonna get along, right?"
"Yes! I'll be good!"
Nellka extracted the surrender in a single round, then let go and straightened her rumpled clothes. She tied her hair back up, looked at me holding the camera, and smiled.
"Beomjun. Camera."
"Yeah."
She held out her hand, so I passed it over. I figured she was going to delete what we'd just filmed, but she handed it straight back to the employee.
While that little episode played out, the elevator arrived at the first floor.
"We're here. Let's go."
"Yeah."
We stepped out of the elevator and left the building. A car was already waiting right out front. Nellka opened the back door and looked at me.
"...?"
"You can get in."
Ah. She was telling me to get in. I'd been wondering why she was just standing there.
"Thanks."
I climbed in, and Nellka got in after me. Once everyone was aboard, the car pulled out.
I was staring blankly out the window when something snagged in the back of my mind.
"Ah. Uh, so..."
"Call me Yeram. Choi Yeram."
"Uh. Y-Yeram."
"Yeah. Beomjun."
"There's chicken breast in the house, right? Obviously?"
"Chicken breast? Hmm... Hyeona!"
"Yes."
"Do we have chicken breast in the fridge?"
Chicken breast. This was a matter of the utmost importance. The question of whether I would be able to take in enough protein. I swallowed hard and locked onto Senior Manager Gwak Hyeona's mouth.
"Do you think there would be? Why."
"Hah...!"
"W-well, Beomjun asked if we had any."
For the record, that hah was me. No chicken breast. The shock was genuine. Then how did they even supplement their protein? Did they just pile up meat and eat it? Supplements? Don't tell me it was beef?
Questions piled up fast.
"Do you need some? Want us to stop and buy it?"
"No. It's fine."
I'd check once we got to Nellka's place. If they already had some other way of covering protein, there was no need to buy chicken breast. I didn't press any further. No point making a fuss asking about something I could just confirm when we arrived.
It was absolutely not because the manager's icy face scared me. I just wanted to see it with my own eyes and decide for myself.