Chapter 38
Chapter 38
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 38
Chapter Title: Sudden Woo Hyo-jeong Appearance, What the Heck??
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Oppa, do you have any selfies saved by any chance?"
"Selfies?"
"You made a Nutube channel recently. To run it properly, it's better to grow a fan cafe alongside it."
Apparently, Nutube viewers had a tendency not to keep up with live streams.
Not everyone, of course, but there was definitely an audience that only hung out on Nutube.
The fan cafe served as a communication bridge to hold onto those viewers.
"So being an influencer isn't just about streaming hard..."
I stuck out my tongue at the surprisingly complicated relationships.
To leap forward with the stream, you needed Nutube in parallel, and to draw in those Nutube viewers, you had to run a fan cafe...
The path to becoming a true influencer seemed far more treacherous than I'd imagined.
"That's why most Nutubers often post their own photos on the fan cafe to interact. It's a kind of fan service."
"Macho man special. No selfies."
Still, just in case, I checked my phone gallery.
"Huh?"
I found one after looking.
A photo I'd taken with Hello Kitty before.
"Does something like this count as a selfie?"
She lit up when I showed it to her.
"Whoa, what is this? It's good! Send it to me too."
A new order came down from her.
Nutube and fan cafe. A mission to subtly promote them on stream for those who didn't know yet.
"Okay, got it perfectly."
Before starting the stream, Ye-eun suddenly handed me a thick bag.
"This is delivery food. Eat it during the stream. I saw you were good at mukbang during the night stream before."
It was piping hot, the warmth seeping through the bag since it hadn't been long since cooking.
I looked down at it with a sulky expression.
"Come on, why waste money on delivery? Homemade would be way cheaper."
"The taste is different. Totally different from homemade."
It was a pretty hurtful remark to me, with 10 years of housewife experience.
From her, who always praised my cooking as delicious, saying she preferred delivery over home-cooked felt like the heroine in an NTR manga saying her club senior from yesterday was better than her childhood friend of over 10 years.
So delivery food was no different from Golden Sun, who stole my cute little sister from me.
"Tch, how much tastier could it be anyway."
I grumbled as I grabbed the bag and headed to my room.
Rustling around, Hyo-jeong teasingly set something up.
Viewers watched her with eyes wondering, "What is she up to this time?"
The lid of the well-packaged container opened, finally revealing its contents.
It was none other than tteokbokki.
Not bright red tteokbokki, but pale crimson rose tteokbokki.
The chat stirred at the appearance of the king of women's food.
With all preparations complete, Hyo-jeong calmly picked up her spoon.
She glared at the tteokbokki like it was her mortal enemy, then scooped up some sauce first.
"Ack, ptui ptui."
She immediately spat out the hair that got sucked into her mouth along with it.
When she pulled the hair out with her hand, rose sauce dripped down the ends.
"Argh! Sauce on my hair!"
"Ugh, this is annoying. Hold on a sec."
With that, she set down the spoon and disappeared off-screen.
She reappeared shortly after.
"Ta-da."
She had a neat high ponytail.
"My sister tied it for me."
She, who usually streamed in a casual, down-to-earth look, now styled neatly like a different person.
The cleanly tied-up hair. The fully exposed neckline.
Especially the slightly falling aegyo strands pinpointed exactly what was the killer point.
Hyo-jeong herself did it without much thought, but the viewers' reactions were different.
It'd probably feel like this if the girl you'd been slowly approaching suddenly pulled you in.
Or if your usually cool girl friend suddenly showed unexpected cuteness.
The transformation happened without warning, doubling its impact.
"What's the big deal over just tying my hair."
The viewers snapped back to reality at her grumbling tone.
'Definitely tasty.'
I ate the tteokbokki with gritted teeth.
And immediately admitted it.
Sweet and spicy. The creamy texture softly enveloped the mouth, taming the heat while maximizing the umami.
It was intensely stimulating. A lethal intensity impossible with homemade.
Such health-destroying tastes... I could never give to Ye-eun.
Such a fuss anyway.
Anyone would think I was doing reaction streams like other girl cams.
"Mm."
Gulp.
I swallowed the food in my mouth and answered.
"First time for me too, but it's really different from regular tteokbokki? The difference is..."
I opened the pre-prepared Nutube window.
"The cream makes the sauce super thick and smooth. This gooey thick...? Gooey thick? Goo... thick... sub? Gotta subscribe, right?"
I nodded while pointing at the channel's subscribe button.
"Fan cafe link here too, so everyone join up quick."
I didn't forget to promote the fan cafe as Ye-eun requested.
I didn't stop there and actually clicked the link to enter the site.
I was about to explain the fan cafe like a home shopping host when my eyes stopped on the door photo.
A question mark popped up over my head at the photo.
(Hyo-jeong meme imitating mascot expression)
"Ah."
It was that photo.
The one I'd sent Ye-eun when she asked, without thinking.
I thought she'd keep it for her collection, but apparently not.
"Ah..."
It was the expression I'd made to cheer up the sulky White Kitty at the time.
"No, that was a gift to the editor, but I was holding it temporarily due to circumstances."
I spoke nothing but 100% pure truth without fabrication, but they weren't the type to take it at face value.
Get what? What do you even get?
Annoyed for no reason, I immediately closed the fan cafe window.
"Think so? Absolutely not, so give up. Just simple daily life photos."
And sorry, but I don't know much either.
I just thought it was necessary since Ye-eun said so.
She didn't specify what to post, so I figured it'd be something vague like that.
"Aha my ass. I swear, my stream persona is my real self, so don't get your hopes up."
"I gave the photo to my sister and she uploaded it."
Again, 100% pure truth without a single lie.
"Gonna have to get a lie detector soon for real..."
I sighed at their nonsense but accepted it obediently.
Because I knew arguing more would just hurt my mouth.
From past experience, the answer in these cases was to change the subject.
Right on cue, someone tossed good bait.
In the video, a man was shouting something with a full smile.
He seemed thrilled that Kart Racer had finally surpassed 500 concurrents.
"Ah, that's Smoothie?"
First time seeing the real deal.
Seeing the real face of someone I'd only known from chat felt like spotting the part-timer without the Hello Kitty mask.
The viewers chatting now were someone's friend or colleague outside too.
Thinking that made me feel oddly sentimental.
Smoothie on screen looked incredibly happy.
More vibrant than ever, to the point I thought people could rejoice this much over something.
"Nah, what did I even do. It's just the game being fun brought it back."
Not really—I'd only played Kart Racer for about two hours tops.
Too short to even fan a spark.
So the game's revival was thanks to Smoothie and countless Kart fans' efforts.
"You guys talk big, but try it yourselves. People call it trash game so perception sticks, but actually playing it'd be fun for everyone, probably?"
For some reason, Smoothie's stream screen was playing footage of me playing Kart.
Head tilting on curves. Biting lip on booster. And finally, screaming at a last-second loss.
At the end of all that, Smoothie shouted.
[Please watch Lemon TV's TS Hyo-jeong a lot!! Hyo-jeong, I love you so much!!]
I burst out chuckling at his pure antics.
"That guy's fun. Must be thrilled his favorite game revived. Just let him enjoy."
"Now you guys are going all out too?"
I knew their fabrication skills well, but now they were boldly spouting utter nonsense.
It was ridiculous how they just said whatever.
"Cut the crap and after subbing Nutube and joining fan cafe, make sure to prove it. Kart Racer video should go up on Nutube sometime this week."
"Games?"
I hadn't not thought about it.
Kart was fun once tried. Unique with viewer participation.
Might try again if chance came.
I pondered briefly and nodded.
"Shall I? But I don't know games well. What's fun these days?"
Then an enormous flood of chats harder to read poured in.