Broadcast-Crazy Bastard (1)

My cheer blasted through the mic. “Ughhh. Aaaargh! Yes! Yes! I cleared it! Fuck yeah!”

It had taken forever. A full sixteen hours for this hard-won human victory. A torture game with terrible controls that did nothing but climb upward for no reason. I had cleared it with a no-reset run.

I stared at the rising end credits and cried my eyes out. Checking the flood of cheers on my sub monitor, I forced the sobs for the sake of content.

“Uwaaaah. I finally cleared it. Shit. I told you, didn’t I? Let’s see who wins, me or you? I’ve got all the time in the world. I’m Time Gates, you bastard.”

The clip title was “The Crazy Bastard Who Bets His Life for Ten Bucks.” The character was one step away from the peak, trembling at a precarious height. Then a mission popped up on the live broadcast screen.

A classic troll mission from the usual sadists who enjoy tormenting streamers. The obvious trick was to make the streamer jump right before the finish line, forcing a restart from the bottom. Normally you’d need to offer a huge amount to make someone actually consider it, but—

Streamer Do Doyun. What kind of channel did I run? A hako stream that fluctuated between fifty and sixty loyal viewers on a good day. Of course there weren’t many big spenders willing to drop serious cash. Male streamers rarely got huge donations anyway.

I caught the way my own eyes wavered when I saw the mission and let out a small laugh.

...Yeah, my brain had run through one hell of a bold calculation in that moment.

Jumping would get me the money and great content, but I had spent twelve hours grinding the same thing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to reach this point. The idea of throwing myself off on purpose—

“Was this around the twelve-hour mark?”

In the replay, I was laughing with the chat when my on-screen self squeezed his eyes shut with clear resolve.

He said it so casually, then stepped off the side without hesitation. Shwoooosh. The sound of rushing wind filled my ears as countless structures whipped past. My character plummeted downward.

“Aaaaaaaaagh! Shit! The guy who sent the mission! I memorized your username! I’m coming for you someday! You rotten bastard!!!”

I delivered the line like a third-rate villain before the dull impact sound played. My empty, defeated face filled the camera, and the clip ended.

“Want to know what I was thinking in that moment? It felt like taking ten years of honest savings and dumping it all into Bitcoin in one go.”

I snorted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with laughter as I spoke, and the chat joined in. Yeah. Now that it was over, it had become a fond memory. Back then I had genuinely wanted to die. Recovering in only four hours was basically a miracle. If I hadn’t been in that hyper-focused state after twelve straight hours, it would have been impossible.

Anyway, now that I had cleared it, I closed the game and switched to the waiting screen for low chat. All the games I had prepared for today were done. Since it was rare for a hako like me to even have a schedule, there wasn’t time to start anything else.

I figured I’d kill some time with low chat before moving on to the next thing and started reading the incoming messages.

The word “girlfriend” jumped out at me. I never should have mentioned her to them. If I’d known it would turn out like this, I would have kept my mouth shut. I had casually explained the reason for my break back then without thinking much of it. Now that we had broken up, every time they asked it scraped my insides raw.

I didn’t want to think about her, but every reminder brought her face back. Still, the viewers hadn’t done anything wrong. I didn’t even have anyone to take my anger out on. They say time dulls the pain, but not enough time had passed yet. It had only been last week that I broke up with my ex-girlfriend, Choi Seoyeon.

I swallowed the burning rage rising in my chest and barely managed to squeeze out a response. I couldn’t let the viewers see me in this pathetic state on stream.

“Sleep’s fine. I don’t have any part-time shifts today or tomorrow anyway. I’ll run to the bathroom real quick. Sorry.”

In the end, I stood up from my chair and headed to the bathroom to deal with my emotions alone.

The moment I looked away from the virtual world, reality hit me. A narrow semi-basement studio. A bathroom only two steps from the desk. A small, shabby space. I didn’t turn the lights on until evening to save electricity, so the only illumination came from the tiny window. After the heavy rain last time, the damp moldy wallpaper gave off a musty smell.

I opened the bathroom door, sat on the toilet, and fell into thought.

“...It’s already been three years of this. No wonder Seoyeon left me.”

Even saying it myself left a bitter taste in my mouth. When I checked my bank balance on my phone, there was only about three hundred dollars left for living expenses. Streaming equipment, living costs, expensive rent, maintenance fees, taxes. I worked part-time in the morning, then streamed from night until dawn. On days off from my part-time job, I did full twelve-hour streams at minimum. Sleep was four hours on a good day, sometimes only two or three.

I lived that desperately, so intensely that viewers called me insane, yet life was always hard. In the three years since I dropped out of college to stream, I had never once left this tiny studio.

I thought I had given it my all, but maybe the world really didn’t run on effort alone. In three years, the number of times I had broken triple-digit viewers was small enough to count on one hand.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The words Seoyeon and my parents had thrown at me echoed in my head. Maybe they were right. Seoyeon worked in the rookie development team at a mid-sized MCN, after all. From her perspective, I was probably just an idiot throwing his life away on an impossible dream.

“...Even so, that doesn’t make cheating okay.”

I ground my teeth. Just thinking about it made my blood boil. I had accidentally seen the texts she exchanged with that male coworker. They were not the kind of messages people who were just coworkers sent. They were the kind only people already dating would send. Above all, what kind of woman called a male coworker “oppa”?

Seoyeon had been dissatisfied with my career choices and lack of financial stability for the past few years. Even while I did my best for her despite my own struggles, she would subtly belittle me, compare me to others, dismiss my dream as meaningless, and treat my effort like it was worthless. I had grown tired of it too. So it wasn’t strange that the incident became the trigger for our breakup. Maybe the cheating was just an excuse. We probably would have ended anyway.

“...Bitch.”

The curse slipped out on its own. At the same time, I felt tears welling up beneath my eyes. Because I had loved her more. There was no helping the sadness. Left alone in this semi-basement room, the loneliness of being abandoned by the world pierced me deeply.

As my streaming life grew longer, I stopped seeing friends and even my parents. I only fought with my parents when we met, and I didn’t have the confidence to show my current self to my friends. I had sworn I would see them again once I succeeded as a streamer, but that day had never come.

The only one who had stayed by my side through everything was Seoyeon, who had been with me for five years. Even if she cursed at me and looked down on me, she had been the only person who remained. But now even she was gone.

In the end I was alone again, continuing to stream perhaps out of sheer spite, trying to prove that their words were wrong and that I had been right.

While I was lost in thought, my phone suddenly vibrated. Startled, I looked at the screen. It was a text.

It was my father. He was the person who opposed my streaming career the most. He was patriarchal and conservative, always scolding me about how I could possibly make money with something so cheap and unstable. I didn’t even want to reply, so I just stared at the message. Then another one arrived.

It was so ridiculous I almost laughed. Seriously, did he think I wanted to go home for the holidays? I had zero interest in my relatives or family. I didn’t want to hear them brag about how successfully their sons had gotten jobs or how much money they were making. I hadn’t gone home since the year I started streaming anyway. I had no lingering attachment.

I scoffed and stood up from the toilet. The sorrow I had felt just moments ago flipped completely into anger at my father’s text. A phrase I had read somewhere in a self-help book floated into my mind.

Spite surged up and my thoughts naturally turned positive. Yeah. I just had to prove it myself. If three years wasn’t enough, I’d do four. If four wasn’t enough, five. I would succeed through streaming no matter what and show all the people who looked down on me that my dream and my effort weren’t worthless. Breaking up with Seoyeon was actually a good thing. Now I could pour all the time I used to spend on dates with her into streaming instead.

It was fine. Everything was fine.

Rationalizing it like that, I turned off my phone screen and wiped away the tears that had gathered in my eyes. After clearing my throat with a few fake coughs, I sat back down in my computer chair.

“Ah, sorry everyone. My stomach felt a bit off.”

Thanks to all the years of streaming, hiding my emotions and speaking was easy. I apologized to the viewers for being gone so long and introduced the next part of the schedule.

“So, I have one more thing prepared, and after that I’ll go to sleep. There’s a new indie game announcement for ‘Dungeon Runners’ at five o’clock. It’s from Culture Games?”

These guys. What did they take me for? Of course I had never received an ad before.

“Would I get one? I’ve been trying all sorts of things to save my channel lately. There happened to be this new indie game showcase, so I applied thinking I might get some exposure and new viewers.”

“There was an open recruitment for streamers, so I gave it a shot and got accepted right away. It’s 2v2 team battles with random matches against other streamers, all live. So I need to join the Discord server soon.”

While I was casually scanning the chat, another donation suddenly popped up.

Naty was the name of the platform I streamed on. And right now, one content format was taking Naty by storm. Virtual marriage. It had started with one streamer, spread like wildfire, and now basically every famous streamer was doing it. There was even a famous case where a female cam streamer who usually pulled one or two thousand viewers jumped to five thousand overnight after starting virtual marriage.

“Hey, I want to do it too. But who would do virtual marriage with me?”

In truth, virtual marriage had been trending on Naty for a while. But back when I had a girlfriend, it had never been an option. I was on an isolated island of a channel with no connections anyway. And who on earth would do virtual marriage with a hako streamer? It wasn’t like I was ridiculously handsome with amazing visuals.

I ignored the annoying comment and tossed out a joke.

“Ah, I did have that kind of delusion before. The fantasy of doing virtual marriage with a popular female streamer, riding her popularity to blow up, and then she actually falls for me for real and we start dating. What do you guys think of my plan?”

I knew it. I knew it was a ridiculous fantasy. Still, if my nonsense could make them laugh, that was enough for me.

“Yeah, enough with the delusions. Time to start the event. I’ll join the Discord now. Wait a sec, guys.”

......But who knew that delusion would actually come true.

I probably couldn’t have dreamed it at the time.

“Wait, it’s me? Oh, hello. I’m Do Doyun, a streamer broadcasting on Naty!”

That was my first meeting with the popular streamer Arine.