Tutoring (1)
"Phew..."
Only after hanging up with Jjangjjangwang could I finally let out a sigh of relief.
I had been shaking like a leaf. If it hadn't been an anonymous call — if we'd actually been standing face to face — I don't think I could have worked up the courage. Honestly, it would have been the same no matter who was on the other end, right? This was a one-on-one conversation with a streaming titan sitting on over 1.3 million subscribers!
But in the end, I pulled it off. I finished it — and I finished it beautifully.
Jjangjjangwang's broadcast was still rolling on the computer. The commotion I'd caused had been nothing more than a brief little hiccup during the opening, but the viewers' reaction in that moment definitely hadn't been bad. I wanted to believe that at least the four thousand or so people who'd been watching that live stream now had me lodged somewhere in their heads. And if things went well, it might even get clipped or cut into a highlight and uploaded to YouTube. If that happened, grabbing attention at the collab a few days from now would be that much easier.
My manager praised me for the result, too.
Basking in my manager's shameless flattery, I smiled and settled in to keep watching the stream. If I wanted to actually pull my weight when I joined as a guest later, the first priority was to watch as diligently as I could and make sure I wouldn't be a burden.
I'd already been keeping up with every YouTube upload and tuning into the lives fairly often, so slipping into Jjangjjangwang's broadcast wasn't hard at all. At this rate, I could watch straight through until he went offline.
That is, if a certain sound hadn't suddenly cut in.
Ding-dong—
The doorbell rang out of nowhere, and I nearly jumped out of my skin as I whipped around. That was definitely our bell.
Who was it? Was there anyone who'd come by at this hour?
My eyes flicked to my phone on reflex, but nobody had messaged me. Then... Little Hana, maybe? She was still too young for a phone, and she lived right next door, so there was nothing strange about her ringing the bell. We'd also gotten pretty close yesterday while we were playing, so a visit wasn't out of the question.
Privately deciding it had to be her, I headed for the intercom.
"Who is it?"
Whether by coincidence or not, the visitor's face didn't catch on the intercom screen. Or maybe Little Hana was simply too short to register. Either way, my question came back with nothing. No answer at all.
What?
Frowning, I went to the door itself. I was just about to open it when a nameless chill rolled up my spine.
This wasn't... a dangerous situation, was it? It felt a little like paranoia, but wasn't this exactly the kind of setup you only ever saw in crime movies?
No. Think about it calmly and the whole theory fell apart. Until not long ago I had been a man — what possible reason would anyone have to come after me? Not that I thought only women became victims of crime. That wasn't it. I shook my head and tried to dismiss it as a baseless spike of anxiety.
Even so, my body kept trembling, and my heart kept hammering. There was no arguing with physiology.
...Still. You never know, right?
Bracing for the worst, I left the lock engaged and eased the door open by the width of an ant's toenail. Then I pressed one eye to the sliver and peered outside.
"What are you doing?"
"Hwaang!"
"...Could you just open the door already? Oppa?"
The familiar voice on the other side belonged to my little sister, Sea. Mortified at having startled so badly I'd practically fallen over, I made a point of sounding snippy.
"You scared me! Why didn't you answer when I asked over the intercom?"
"What are you talking about? I couldn't hear a thing from out here."
"De?"
I turned and stared blankly at the intercom. And then the memory surfaced, crisp and humiliating. Ah. I hadn't picked up the handset. I had just spoken into empty air. I'd mixed it up with the way the old intercom worked at the Main House.
"Ahem! You could have at least texted."
"Are you not going to let me in?"
"...No. Okaerinasai."
I opened the door. Sea gave me a faintly sullen look, then stepped inside. Judging by her clothes, she'd come straight from class. I watched my little sister kick off her shoes and cross the threshold as if it were the most natural thing in the world, then asked again.
"What's the occasion? You didn't even call."
"Do I need a special reason to see family?"
"...Mochiron that's not what I meant, but..."
Put like that, there wasn't much I could say — and even she didn't seem to think the excuse was particularly convincing. She twirled a strand of hair around her finger, hunting for words, then answered in a hesitant mumble.
"I mean, it's just... you haven't been in touch much lately, Oppa... and after everything that happened... so I just..."
"Aha. So watashi had you worried, and that's why you came!"
"If I had to put a name on it, it's more of a housewarming vibe."
"De?"
A housewarming? I'd already been living here on my own for months. And besides, she'd already been inside a few days ago, when I first changed. The housewarming line had clearly been an excuse that slipped out without thinking. What she'd said first was probably closer to the real reason.
It had only been a few days since the messages had thinned out, but even before I changed, Sea used to check in on me on a regular basis. Back then I'd been so withdrawn that her check-ins never got more than a clipped one-word reply. After something as huge and hard to believe as a change of sex and nationality, though, I supposed she'd been more worried than I'd realized. And then I remembered — the last time we'd talked, I'd been in the middle of a stream. I'd blurted out some excuse and hung up on her.
...Had I actually messed this up?
I didn't know how to respond, so I just stood there staring. Sea rushed to fill the silence.
"Oppa, are you planning to keep a housewarming guest standing in the hallway? Hurry up and offer me something already!"
"...Something about that feels off, but I'll let it go for now."
The place I was living in was quite spacious for one person. Three rooms, even. One was the big bedroom. One was the small room with the computer and desk. The last was a catch-all for the wardrobe and whatever else didn't have a home.
I naturally meant to show Sea into the living room. Sea, just as naturally, opened a door and walked straight into the small room.
"H-hey! You can't just go poking around in someone else's privacy!"
"Come on. We're family. What's the big deal? Or is there something in there you don't want me to see? If there is, I won't go in."
She did stop when I blocked her, at least. But once she'd put it that way, saying no felt strangely awkward.
"...Fine. But once you're in there, don't touch anything."
"Of course."
Inside the small room, Jjangjjangwang's stream was still playing on the powered-on computer. Sea glanced at it in passing and remarked, without much interest,
"Oh right — you said you were streaming last time. Still at it?"
"...H-hai."
"Mm. Going well?"
"Around forty people, I guess..."
"Is that a lot? Doesn't sound like a little, anyway."
Yeah. Sea wouldn't care about streaming. Thinking about it, it didn't suit her at all. For an extrovert among extroverts like her, Instagram or Facebook felt like a much better fit.
She looked next at the books spread open on the desk.
"How's the CSAT studying going?"
"Well..."
"Anything giving you trouble?"
Anything giving me trouble, huh. I thought about it for a second, then shrugged.
"I mean, I already learned all of it in high school."
"True. You were surprisingly good at studying, Oppa."
"Math is way too hard, though. Watashi is a math-dropper desu."
"Hmm..."
I was pretty sure I was built for the liberal arts. As far as I knew, the liberal arts track existed for people who had given up on math and science. Of course there were liberal arts kids who were good at studying — I just wasn't one of them.
"Well... want me to teach you a bit, then?"
"Ehh?"
"I may not look it, but studying is one thing I've always been pretty confident about."
She ranked among the top few students in the entire school. It would have been weirder if she weren't confident. It wasn't just grades, either — Sea was the kind of kid you called a renaissance girl. Finding something she wasn't confident about would have been the harder job.
"Math isn't rote memorization. It's understanding and working the problem, so if someone's sitting next to you, you improve fast. What do you think? Want to take math tutoring from me?"
"Etto... well, watashi wouldn't mind, but..."
The department I was aiming for was Japanese Language and Literature. In short, liberal arts. Which meant Math Type B would be more than enough.
"Did you take the March mock exam?"
"...Yes."
"You sat Math Type B, right? What grade did you get?"
"......"
"Hm?"
"I-it's a himitsu desu yo!"
"Himitsu?"
When I clamped my mouth shut, Sea picked up her phone and looked it up herself. Ah, the march of civilization is not always a blessing. What a tragic reality.
Once she'd confirmed the meaning, Sea looked at me with a very strange expression and muttered,
"A secret...? Just how bad are we talking?"
"...Sea-chan, yamero. Mou yamerunda!"
My life was already at zero!
"Oppa. It's okay! If we study together, I'll get you to at least a Grade 2 on the June mock. I promise."
"...Honto?"
"Of course! Honto!"
It really had been pretty bad. Liberal arts or not, my math score was... not great. Streaming and quests mattered, sure — but the CSAT mattered just as much, didn't it? The whole reason I was living on my own like this was to take the exam and get into college in the first place!
CSAT and College Admissions (0/20)
Score Grade 2 or Higher on Math Type B of the June Mock Exam
A new Main Quest had appeared, too.
Right. It wouldn't be easy. But I was going to do this.
"Then how about two hours a day?"
"...Huh? You mean seven sessions a week?"
"Hm? Don't like that? Then fourteen a week?"
"...De?"
Hold on. Timeout.