Viewer Collab (2)
Jjangjjangwang's stream kicked off a little earlier than usual.
Chat came roaring in, fierce and relentless. The sheer volume was so overwhelming it was almost embarrassing to stack it against my own broadcasts. So this was the difference a major streamer made. I couldn't help but be impressed.
"Mm. Hiii~"
He opened on a light, easy energy and didn't dive straight into the main event. There was a warmup. Just as the manager had explained, you didn't start the game from the jump — you gave people time to pile in and spent the first stretch shooting the breeze.
Jjangjjangwang, in particular, loved reading posts from his fan cafe. The reason I'd caught his eye in the first place had been an incident in that same cafe, after all. Time slipped by as he flipped through the humor board, sampling the jokes his viewers had uploaded. Even then, he kept the conversation with chat flowing with the ease of a veteran, so it never felt dull for a second.
"What are we doing today? It's a viewer collab, duh. VRChat collab."
The moment talk turned to the main broadcast, Jjangjjangwang started rummaging through the collab board as he spoke.
"All the participants here? Do I need to take attendance? Ah — you don't need VR for this, so joining on a regular computer is totally fine~"
Today's collab was being run through a game called VRChat. More precisely, it was a recent hit title recreated inside VRChat, and it wasn't that hard; a little attention was all you needed to follow along.
"Alright then... let's kick things off in about thirty minutes."
Thirty minutes until the real fight, then. Just in case something went sideways, I powered on my computer ahead of time and got everything set.
After that one mention of the main event, Jjangjjangwang went back to browsing humor posts. And there, nestled among them, was a title that jumped right off the screen.
All-Time Greatest Sushi Girl
The words Sushi Girl naturally made me think of myself. That wasn't narcissism — ever since that incident, even on Jjangjjangwang's stream, Sushi Girl had basically become my nickname.
But I hadn't actually done anything since that day. Sure, I was active on the cafe, but not in any way that deserved to be called all-time greatest. I wrote ordinary recaps of his streams. I talked about my daily life — not that there was much of one, considering I never left the house. Other than that, I just left a lot of comments on other people's posts. Nothing else came to mind.
Which left only one conclusion.
It's not about me!
Settling on that answer made me feel a lot better. With the collab so close, there was no reason to go poking a sleeping bear.
"Hmm..."
Jjangjjangwang must have noticed the title too. He hesitated a beat, then clicked.
What came up was a video. A Twitch clip, to be exact.
"...Eh?"
That was strange. Why did the scene in that thumbnail feel so familiar? He hadn't even hit play yet, and already a weird sense of déjà vu was crawling up my spine.
Wait. That clip—
I was just starting to put it together when Jjangjjangwang hit play.
A familiar voice spilled out of the speakers.
"...This is way too scaryyy. Do I really have to do this...?"
The voice trembled pitifully, thick with genuine terror. If that performance had been acting, she could have gone hunting for a Best Actress award — it was that clean, that natural.
I'd been hoping I was wrong. I wasn't. The clip was a scene from my stream yesterday.
Onscreen, I crept down a pitch-black hallway with nothing but a camcorder, and the moment a tiny sound leaked from one side, the camera jerked hard. Bullied onward by chat, I inched toward the source and stepped into a bathroom. After a long, agonizing hesitation, I checked the stall at the very end.
"...Deh?"
There was nothing inside. Foolish past-me let out a sigh of relief, dropped my guard completely, and turned around.
And then came the highlight of highlights.
"KYAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
A decibel level that could have made your eardrums bleed. Then a chaotic crash-bang-wallop of unidentifiable noise slammed into the mic — and the screen cut out cold.
Stream Ended
All in all, it had been a dizzying mess of a moment. But why was it on the fan cafe...?
Surprisingly, chat's reaction wasn't bad. If anything, it was a good one. Thanks to the title, quite a few people even figured out who I was. Best of all, Jjangjjangwang himself seemed to have enjoyed the clip.
"Whoa, look at that reaction~ Horror games only hit right when you scream like that, y'know? Wait, the stream actually died like that? What the heck did she do to kill the broadcast?"
At first he'd only been reacting to the video itself. Then he checked the chat and added,
"I think this is that person? The voice is pretty close. Hang on..."
He clicked the link tucked in the corner of the clip and landed on Twitch. After checking something there, he let out a small note of admiration.
"Views aren't bad at all. Looks like this one hit Hot Clips."
Twitch's community pages featured clips of a stream's biggest moments. There was even a category for streamers who were new or still small, and if you got lucky there, you could ride a Hot Clip all the way into the spotlight.
Jjangjjangwang didn't dwell on it any further. He moved on to another post. But my existence had already been stamped a little deeper into his viewers' heads. An unexpected windfall like this made it feel like the heavens themselves were on my side.
"Whoa, look at the time. We should get started."
"If we're not friends yet, send me a whisper through the cafe~"
I immediately sent Jjangjjangwang a polite whisper.
"Okay... inviting Hana-chan now."
It's finally starting. I held my pounding heart in both hands and stepped into the map he'd invited me to.
Eight people were in today's collab, myself included. Because Jjangjjangwang ran viewer collabs so often, his stream was different from most — there were always a few so-called regulars who'd shown up enough times to leave an impression on the rest of the audience. There was no official cutoff for the title; if viewers recognized you at all, people tended to call you a regular.
By that standard... did that make me one too, at least a little?
Either way, this particular collab wasn't exactly packed with known names. Even if viewers knew who I was, it was still my first time actually joining one. And that, I decided, worked in my favor. If I could just put on a good show, this was the perfect chance to pull every eye toward me instead of getting buried behind someone more established.
The loading finally finished and I dropped into the map. I glanced around, spotted Jjangjjangwang, and bolted straight for him. Then I slammed down a greeting.
"Hello!! I'm Hana-chan!!"
"Ah, yeah. Hey. That horror game clip from earlier — that was you, right, Hana-chan?"
The question was blunt, so I answered just as fast.
"Hai. That's me!"
"Ah, got it. Okay. Hang tight for a bit~"
"Yessir!!"
Once Jjangjjangwang stepped away to keep the stream moving, I looked over the other participants. Most of them seemed to be hovering in place, fidgeting, with no idea what they were supposed to do. It made sense — not being a regular usually meant you'd barely ever joined a collab, and of course you'd be nervous. If I hadn't had any streaming experience, I would have looked exactly like that. Honestly, I was still shaking like crazy.
Even so, I walked up first and said hello. That took a mountain of courage too, I'll have you know.
"Ah, hello?"
"Ah, yes! Hello!"
"Uh..."
"Mm..."
"So, um, let's do our best!"
"Ah... yeah, of course...?"
Awkward. This is so, so awkward!
In the end I couldn't squeeze out a single real conversation and had no choice but to retreat. For a second there, I had completely forgotten — I was a shut-in hikikomori with zero social skills who'd spent years locked in a room.
Luckily, Jjangjjangwang came back before I could sink any deeper into self-loathing.
"Looks like everyone's here. Then let's start the opening! Gather over this way."
We lined up, and Jjangjjangwang launched into his spiel in front of us.
"Alright, hello! Great to see you, everyone. The game I'll be showing you today is...!"
A YouTube-ready opening, followed by an explanation of today's collab.
"Then let's jump right in!"
The game started immediately after. I threw myself into it as hard as I could. What more is there to say? I really did give it everything I had, trying to make it entertaining.
About an hour in, Jjangjjangwang muttered under his breath with a hollow little smile.
"...Today's stream's got that 'we're cooked' vibe, huh?"
Nobody argued. Anyone watching could tell today's game was going down in flames. It wasn't the participants' fault, and the game itself wasn't boring either. The map was the problem. What exactly was wrong with it, I couldn't have said — I'm computer-illiterate — but Jjangjjangwang kept getting kicked out of it. No matter how much fun the rest of us were having, a stream without the streamer in it was as good as dead. Once the reconnects pushed past four, there was no going on.
"This is... tch..."
Even a veteran could get rattled when something came out of nowhere, I supposed. Jjangjjangwang looked openly annoyed, sinking into thought about what to do next.
Don't tell me the collab's just going to end like this...?
It wasn't fair. This wasn't something I could do anything about. And here I'd thought today was weirdly, impossibly lucky!
Some lucky day this turned out to be!
What's the point of buying a whole bowl of seolleongtang if I don't even get to eat it?!
"Alright. Let's roll into part two."
"...Deh?"
"Hang on. One, two, three, four... excluding me, that's eight people. Four guys, four girls."
Was this the dignity of a veteran? Jjangjjangwang was inventing a brand-new piece of content on the spot.
And just like that, the VR Blind Date content was born.