Red Bean or Cream?
Love is a truly magnificent yet perilous emotion. Its potential is boundless because it can transform someone so profoundly, but that very direction is far too varied. Some people mend their flaws for the one they love, moving beyond mere relief into something genuinely positive. Others lose their strengths because of love, their shortcomings growing even worse. In the end, love is an emotion that can be medicine for some and poison for others.
Here was a man named Kim Juwon, a clear case of the latter. He had lost even the few strengths he once possessed because of love, and his entire life had come crashing down. Kim Juwon, known online as Senbing, was not particularly famous but still a somewhat recognized streamer. Considering how short his streaming career had been, he might have had a real shot at blowing up later. Instead, his ending was a miserable downfall, brought about by no one else but the very girlfriend he had trusted and loved most. He had given her everything—literally everything.
He just wanted to talk. To ask why she had made that choice, whether she had ever truly loved him. He needed answers to calm down, even a little.
She had cut off every possible connection. A complete severance with not even the slightest opening left.
"Yeonhee-ya, please come out. Let's talk. Yeonhee-ya!"
"Sir, you can't do this here. What exactly are you doing?"
She wouldn't answer calls or texts, so he had gone to her house, but he couldn't meet her. Through the police, all he received was a single message: "We've already broken up." After that, she moved, and there was no way left to find her.
"You f-fucking bitch... What did I do? I treated you so well... You goddamn whore!"
People are truly fickle. Sometimes things you gave away without a second thought suddenly feel precious. Love was no different. Kim Juwon now found the love he had given Yeonhee unbearably wasteful. After everything I did for you, this is how you treat me? It might have been a desire for compensation, or simply a thirst for revenge to vent his emotions. Either way, it didn't matter to him. He had already lost his job, friends, career, and reputation. All he could think about was making the woman who ruined him lose everything too.
The surest way to drag Yeonhee into ruin was to get his hands on the files Seongna had—files containing evidence of his relationship with Yeonhee.
"Seongna-ya... Please just read the email... What the hell am I supposed to do if you won't even check the payment history, you bitch?"
To do that, he needed to reach Seongna, but what should have been simple had become incredibly difficult.
"If only I could find her in person, but this bitch doesn't even do cam streams... And Yeonhee's stuff is impossible to figure out just by watching anyway."
If Seongna had been a cam streamer, he might have had a chance to uncover her address. Newbie streamers like her often accidentally revealed personal information and ended up stalked. But...
"...What?"
"You goddamn bitch! Give me back my thousand won, you—! Hey! Read the email, you bitch!!"
Even that attempt failed.
"Haa... Haa... You think I'll give up just because of this? Yeonhee, you bitch, I won't let you off."
Of course, Kim Juwon was not the type to give up so easily. The love that had twisted into obsession had already become a deadly poison to him. An addict poisoned by it foolishly reached for more toxin instead of the antidote.
While Minji hummed and went out to buy snacks, the abandoned viewers chatted among themselves. Normally, a streamer's chat was meant for communication between viewers and the streamer. Viewer-to-viewer talk could cause problems, so many broadcasts banned it by rule. But this was Minji's stream. Who cared?
Of course the streamer herself wasn't communicating with viewers, so there was no way she would stop them from talking to each other.
While the viewers were happily chatting away, a completely unexpected donation arrived.
The viewers wondered if it was really Yeoru or just someone impersonating her. It was a reasonable thought. Yeoru was probably deep in the Bolekia raid right now and had no reason to look for Seongna during her break.
Those who actually visited Yeoru's stream confirmed it. It really was her. Why was she here?
Just then, the sound of the door opening came through the headset mic, followed by Minji's voice.
"Aah, it's cold... I almost died out there..."
"Ah, I'm hungry. Do you guys know what I bought? There was a bungeoppang stand right in front of my place, so I grabbed a few. Hehe."
"No, it's cream. Mmm..."
Only Yeoru, watching this scene, felt completely dumbfounded. Normally in situations like this, someone would step in and say "Seongna-nim! Yeoru-nim was looking for you earlier!" But here they were, arguing about red bean versus cream bungeoppang like it was the most important thing in the world. Of course, she personally preferred red bean, but now wasn't the time for that.
"Mmm... Anyway, red bean bungeoppang is outdated and behind the times... Huh? Oh, hello. Um... are you the real one? We have a lot of mischievous people in this stream who sometimes impersonate others."
"Oh, it really is Yeoru-nim. You came at the perfect time. Yeoru-nim, do you prefer red bean bungeoppang or cream bungeoppang?"
"What? You don't know the true taste of bungeoppang... So stop wasting your gauge like that..."
For a moment, Yeoru's hands froze over the keyboard, caught in Seongna's pace. This person was truly dangerous. It felt like she had the ability to turn everyone around her into idiots.
"Hmm, so you want me to keep giving advice like before?"
Minji fell into thought. Well, Minji wasn't the type to think for long, so the deliberation lasted only a moment. As Minji would say, when your mouth is enjoying something, your eyes should enjoy it too. In simpler terms: if you're going to eat, there should be something fun to watch. Pure hedonism.
"Sure, sounds good."
"Fine by me~"
She had been planning to just watch other raid parties anyway, so getting an invitation was perfect. Plus, Yeoru seemed like the type who would react amusingly if teased a bit more. And since she had been invited, the rules had changed.
*Ring*
"Ahem, hello everyone. This is Seongna, your raid coach for a smooth Palakus clear."
And so, the raid party invited a monster into their channel without fully realizing what they had summoned. Well, at least the monster wasn't completely useless, so calling it a deal with the devil wouldn't be entirely wrong.
Yeoru—Kim Yeonhee—had made one mistake. She had assumed that the streamer named Seongna was at least somewhat within the bounds of normalcy. Most people try to be polite when meeting someone for the first time. Even if their streaming persona makes them seem rude, they usually maintain some courtesy at first. But this person...
"Uh, s-sorry..."
She had hoped that inviting Seongna to voice chat might tone down that infuriating way of speaking. Now she wondered if she had made a mistake.
"I-I used it!"
"No, that's..."
While being trained—well, not quite trained—by Seongna, good news finally arrived.
As the Nice Guild's break time ended, the vicious coach finally clocked out.
*Ring ring*
"...Haa."
"Yeah..."
"...Yeah."
Well, at least she had achieved her goal of becoming closer to Seongna. If she didn't think of it that way, her mental state probably wouldn't hold up.
"Should we take a break too? You all need to eat dinner."