Currently Live

It wasn't that there was a problem with the broadcast itself.

Then again, it wasn't as if nothing was wrong either.

The chat window, which I had assumed was completely frozen, began rocketing upward in a blur. In fact, it was moving entirely too fast.

The viewer count surged at a breakneck pace. Fresh waves of newcomers poured in every second, each firing off the exact same questions as the person before them.

"I honestly never thought I'd have to use this feature. Hang on, I'm freezing the room for a sec."

Noona adjusted a few settings on her dashboard, and the frantic waterfall of comments abruptly halted. A banner notification flashed across the top of the chat panel, announcing that follower-only slow mode had been enabled.

"I've paused the chat for a moment so we can keep things running smoothly. Thanks for your patience, everyone."

Yeoeun-noona wore a broad smile as she addressed the camera, but the cheerfulness felt entirely artificial.

"I brought my little brother on stream just like you all asked. So please, watch what you say in chat."

A handful of unhinged comments must have rubbed her the wrong way. Sitting right beside her, I had seen her mouse dancing across the screen like a whirlwind of ban-hammer strikes.

"Any out-of-line remarks will get you banned on the spot, no warnings."

Her voice was flat and unyielding, leaving zero room for debate whenever it came to anything concerning me. Truthfully, the comments hadn't bothered me in the slightest, but I kept my mouth shut and let her handle it.

"Alright, let's start over with introductions."

Yeoeun-noona shot me a subtle glance, then opened Notepad and dragged the small text window into a corner of the stream overlay.

"Hello, everyone. My name is Seo Jeongseo. I'm twenty years old, and right now I'm studying while working a part-time job."

Looking directly into the webcam mounted above the monitor, I greeted the audience once more. Noona typed Little Brother: Seo Jeongseo into the notepad document and nudged it across the screen until it hovered neatly above my head—partly for the benefit of late arrivals, and partly, I suspected, as a blunt sign telling everyone to stop asking.

Yeoeun-noona narrowed her eyes, glaring daggers at the monitor.

We had already planned on addressing the controversy, but before either of us could even broach the subject, a viewer cut straight to the point through a superchat.

"YejiNoona-nim? Um... Yeji-noona, thank you for the pocket money. And yes, I've seen the video."

Since we had anticipated this topic beforehand, I stepped up to answer. We had agreed in advance that I would take the lead on most inquiries to clear the air directly.

"The person who spanked Noona's backside was indeed me. And it's also true that we're brother and sister. So please, you can put the rumors to rest now."

Yet it seemed almost nobody cared about my explanation. Everyone was far too busy shouting whatever random thought popped into their heads.

Another donation chime echoed through the speakers just as I was scanning the questions drifting across the chat.

"Ah, well... earlier that day, Noona shoved a bunch of Lego bricks into my shoes."

"Hey! Why are you telling them that?!"

"Noona? Mature? Where on earth did you get that impression?"

Seeing that the chat remained relatively tame after a while, Yeoeun-noona gradually eased up. Having found my footing, I watched the comments roll past and kept the momentum going.

"She practically lives in total clutter and leaves a mess everywhere she goes. I'm on the neater side, so the two of us clash pretty constantly."

As I exposed a few of her domestic antics, Yeoeun-noona's cheeks flushed crimson. For a good while, the stream revolved around clarifying the viral clip and sharing stories of our everyday lives under the same roof. I kept my eyes on the stream chat, selectively answering queries that kept the conversation natural and lighthearted. But that relaxed window of pleasant banter didn't last very long.

"Ah, Eunhye-noona, thank you so much for the pocket money."

"Uh... Suyeong-noona. Thanks."

Out of nowhere, an avalanche of donations came crashing down. We couldn't even steer the conversation elsewhere; the one-thousand-won donation chimes in particular fired off in a relentless, machine-gun barrage.

At this rate, the entire stream would wrap up with me doing nothing but stammering thank-yous over synthesized alert chimes.

"This isn't going to work. I'm bumping up the minimum donation amount for a bit. In exchange, I'll unlock the chat, so behave yourselves."

Warning the audience that she would refreeze the room the moment things turned vile, Noona lifted the restrictions. The deafening symphony of donation alerts finally died down. The sudden silence was an immense relief, settling the room into a far more manageable rhythm. In contrast, the chat surged past at double its previous velocity, pelting me with a dizzying barrage of questions.

"What's my big three total? My three sizes? I... don't think I know what 'three sizes' means?"

"Yeah, you don't need to know that. And you are banned."

With the slow-mode shackles removed, all manner of bizarre inquiries flooded the feed. The vast majority were genuinely fascinated by who I was, while a persistent minority still harbored suspicions regarding the exact nature of my relationship with Yeoeun-noona. Just as I was agonizing over how best to explain our arrangement—

A donation carrying an entirely different digit suddenly flashed across the screen.

Seeing an amount that large, I rose from my chair and offered a clean, ninety-degree bow. It felt disrespectful to accept such a substantial sum sitting down.

"Eunsook-ah, thank you so much. But... this seems like way too much money for a student to throw around. Noona, can we refund this?"

"Wait, what? A refund? Hold on a second..."

I understood why Noona and the chat were snickering. But you never knew—it wasn't impossible that a real student was carrying stress over having an old-fashioned name.

"Ah, well, that's a relief then. Thank you very much."

Since the viewer came clean, I simply bowed my head and thanked her once more without prying any further. Still, it nagged at me whether a perfunctory thank-you was truly enough to square the debt of such generous support.

Yeoeun-noona and I had talked about donations before going live. My belief had always been that favors and obligations should be settled cleanly; receiving something for nothing never sat right with me. Hearing my concerns, Noona had explained that livestream donations were purely gifts of patronage—freely given goodwill that one could accept with simple gratitude. If a donor attached a specific, harmless request, fulfilling it was more than enough compensation. That was why I had made sure to call viewers 'Noona' and thank them dutifully whenever they asked. Though the sums differed, I reasoned that everyone simply spent whatever matched their personal standard of satisfaction.

Just as I had managed to rationalize the logic behind donations, an even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠more staggering figure illuminated the screen, devoid of a single demand.

"JOY-nim, thank you so much."

"Whoa... Thank you!"

I stood up once again to bow, and Noona scrambled up beside me to do the same. Three hundred thousand won was far too heavy to brush off as mere pocket money.

"JOY-nim, is there really nothing you'd like me to do in return?"

Silence hung in the chat. I was already making a mental note to process a refund after the stream ended, since this was an amount I couldn't comfortably justify accepting for free.

While we were filling the air with small talk, a delayed answer arrived wrapped in another massive pledge. Was this what Yeoeun-noona meant by pure, unadulterated goodwill? She had warned me that rejecting it outright would actually be considered rude.

"I can't just take this and do nothing. Would it be alright if I showed you a reaction?"

"What? A reaction? You prepared something like that?"

"Not beforehand. But I remembered seeing creators do reactions on other channels."

Noona turned to look at me, her eyes wide with shock. This definitely hadn't been in our playbook.

The chat room immediately leaned into feverish anticipation. Amidst the flurry, the viewer named JOY left a gentle reply saying there was no need to push myself.

"It's nothing grand. I don't really have many talents to show off."

"You're not about to do something weird, are you?"

"Weird? What would be weird about it?"

Yeoeun-noona looked distinctly uneasy. When I questioned her skepticism, she glanced nervously at the rolling chat before studying my face again. Finally, she muttered under her breath, "I mean... surely it's fine, right...?"

"JOY-nim, would you mind if I did a quick demonstration?"

Wanting to ensure the donor genuinely welcomed it, I checked one last time. With her blessing confirmed, I nodded.

"Alright, here goes."

I stood up and slid my desk chair out of the frame. Noona instinctively backed away into the corner, clearing a generous patch of floor behind the desk.

"There's an exercise routine I practice every single morning. I'd like to show you one of the more challenging poses from it."

I decided on a movement from the Monk's Health Stretching regimen. Not the full circuit, of course—just a single posture. Because it demanded exceptional core control and extreme flexibility, I figured it would make for an impressive, worthwhile performance.

"First, you need to be able to hold a headstand like this."

Planting my head firmly on the carpet, I pressed smoothly up into an inverted handstand, talking through the posture as my body stabilized upside down.

"Once you have your balance, you gently arch back into—"

"Wait, wait, WHAT?! Hey! STOP RIGHT THERE!"

Yeoeun-noona gasped in utter horror and leapt from her seat, throwing her entire body directly in front of the camera to block the view.

"NO! YOU CAN'T!"

"Why?"

Her shriek rattled the room. I had been transitioning into an advanced variation akin to the scorpion pose, legs curling back and spine arched deep. Untangling myself from the inversion, I pushed back up to my feet, only to find Noona staring at the monitor with a hollow, devastated expression.

In less than an hour since making my debut, I had successfully blown up my sister's stream.