Wow, You Really Hit the Core...

‘I should grab something to drink.’

Being a small streamer meant viewers would take a while to trickle in anyway. It was morning, too. In the meantime I cracked open my last energy drink and poured it over a glass packed with ice.

Slurp—

The sweet rush of caffeine seeped through my body and the corners of my mouth curled up on their own.

“Ahh, yeah, I definitely need to order more…”

The fridge was empty of energy drinks now. I’d just order another batch and scrape by this month on tteokbokki and these. That should cover it.

Normally I’d be fretting about packing on pounds, but I had this cheat. So I could eat whatever I wanted.

Slurp—

I took another sip of energy drink and dropped into my chair. Headset on, grinning at the screen—that was when it hit me.

“Uh…?”

The chat was rocketing upward at an insane speed. No mods at all, so the screen was instantly plastered with spam and curses.

“W-what… why is it so f-fast?”

I checked the viewer count without thinking, and my whole body locked up.

“Eek!?”

Almost the same number as the viewers I’d abandoned yesterday. Considering it was morning and I’d only just started the stream…

‘It’s going to climb even higher from here?’

I stared blankly at the monitor.

“Hieeek…”

They must’ve been parked on my stream the whole time, because the chat reacted instantly.

‘What am I supposed to do with this?’

I bit down hard on my lip and tapped the desk a few times with my fingers. How was I supposed to shake these people off?

‘For now… let’s try what I did yesterday…’

I flipped the stream on and off, on and off at roughly thirty-second intervals, but the viewers simply refused to drop.

If anything, word must have spread somewhere, because the count had gone up.

“Ah…”

I slowly lifted my hand off the mouse.

Only then did it sink in.

None of this was accomplishing anything. No—the harder I tried to drive them away, the worse it got.

Viewers climbed. Sentiment soured even further. If earlier it had felt like WWE, this was full UFC now.

How was I supposed to fix this mess? I was sipping energy drink and fretting when one brilliant idea struck.

‘This might work…’

I immediately summoned every modern convenience and the absolute peak of technology to write a script. Once something halfway decent took shape—

Gulp—

I swallowed dry and switched on the mic.

“Ah, h-hello… e-everyone… g-good morning…”

“H-how was everyone’s day… I-I had some tteokbokki and then hopped on…”

I kept talking as if nothing had happened. My voice shook ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a little, sure, but this level was fine.

“A-aura farming? I-I’ve never done anything like that. I-if anything, you guys started the aura party with me…”

I saw something unfair while scanning the chat and felt the need to clarify.

“I-I asked you to leave… but you k-kept hanging around the stream no matter what… if that’s not aura farming then what is it…?”

“Huuuh…! T-ten thousand won… th-thank you so much…!”

I shot up from my chair and bowed over and over.

“R-reactions aren’t set up yet… and what do you mean ‘measly ten thousand’…? ‘BulletMama’ is a f-free eyeball… d-don’t you think you don’t have the right to say that?”

“And do you know h-how hard it is to earn ten thousand won… I-I did night loading and unloading for 130,000 won… and then spent d-days laid out sick… uugh…”

I shuddered hard. I’d actually done that kind of hard labor, and loading trucks was not something a human being should ever have to do.

I tilted my head.

“N-no I didn’t? I… went inside the container trucks… and loaded them…”

“Huh? Th-they only sent me because I’m ugly?”

I turned my head and checked the mirror beside me. No matter how I looked at it, this face was not one that got called ugly. If anything, it was celebrity- or model-level.

“Mmm… th-that can’t be it… from where I’m standing I’m a-actually really pretty…”

“Ugh, you guys are actually disgusting…”

These chats never got any easier no matter how many times I saw them. It wasn’t just bad vibes—my body rejected them first.

“T-ten thousand won donation, thank you so much…!”

I stood up from the chair again and bowed repeatedly.

“Ah, th-that wasn’t donation baiting… I just forgot while we were talking… u-um, so… the reason was… uh…”

I let a beat of silence hang, then spoke.

“What was the reason again…?”

“I-it was a joke. The reason I kept turning the stream off and on wasn’t actually to kick you out…! Waaaaah…!”

I clapped my hands and jacked the energy up.

I glanced at the script up on my secondary monitor and started reading as naturally as I could.

“That’s right. You really hit the core of it. Turning the stream off wasn’t simple abandonment bait—it was a precision instrument designed to measure the durability of your affection. Those of you who stayed until the end are verified true viewers who passed the emotional trial I engineered.”

I’d polished it as hard as I could to hide the seams, but the viewers clocked the source instantly. Probably because I’d used the free rice-eating version.

“N-now you get it, right? W-what kind of heart I had when I did that…? Y-you’re all chosen ones now…”

But with these things, momentum is everything.

And just as I’d expected, the viewers didn’t actually look that mad.

“Thank you for the thousand-won donation. What now, you ask? W-well. What should we do now…”

I blanked out for a second, then said:

“Th-there’s nothing to do, so should we just end the stream?”

“Tsk…”

The reaction was bad enough that I had to walk it back.

“It’s tournament season so I can’t really do other stuff… I’ll just practice aim and character control a bit…”

With that I hopped into a user-made aim practice room. And so began closed-door training.

“Huu…”

I cleared the aimbots in front of me and reached for the cup. I tilted it for a drink—empty. No energy drink left.

“All gone…”

My neck and shoulders felt a little stiff.

‘How many hours has it been…’

A faint wave of fatigue made me zone out for a second before I turned my eyes right. Only then did the chat flood in, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Yeah—because the chat had been turned into tripe.

“Uh…”

I stared at it blankly, then said:

“Ah, hello…?”

“Ah, right. I was streaming…”

I’d been so locked in I genuinely forgot. Ever since switching into this body, my focus had become something else.

I checked the number—over a thousand fewer than this morning.

“Oh…”

At least the viewers had dropped, so that was good. Very good.

“Wow, but has it already gotten this late?”

I’d started around 11 a.m., and it was already 5 p.m. Scrims were booked for 6, so teammates would be rolling in soon.

“Uh, then… I’ll stop this practice now.”

The second I left the aim practice room—

“Uh…?”

Letters floated in front of my eyes. My pupils shook as I read them.

‘Why all of a sudden?’

Because of the aim practice? Or the donations and viewers? I had no idea. But one thing was certain…

‘I should… check the performance, right?’