Reading the Room (Real Life)
KKT was counted as one of the four great livestream platforms, right beside Kwitch, AFS, and NPT. Set next to the twin peaks of the industry, Kwitch and AFS, its total audience was nothing to boast about — but that was only the total. Line up the channels that actually held a real share of each platform, the so-called conglomerates at the very top, and the viewer counts barely moved. Become a conglomerate, and the platform stopped mattering.
And one of KKT's conglomerates was live.
More than twenty thousand people were watching a Project A broadcast, and the chat was climbing like a flood. The man on stream had his face cam up and was paying the chat no attention at all. More precisely, he didn't have a spare second in which to pay it any.
Every nerve he had was sunk in the game.
He stayed locked in for a long while. His agent died, the post-round briefing played out, and only after the round actually ended did he look at chat.
"Nice! Hey, what do you mean I'm not focusing, you little shit? Can you not see I'm desperate as hell right now?"
"Aish, why are we doing the exhibition again? I have to focus, so don't talk to me anymore."
The buy timer ran out, and the man declared himself cut off from chat once more.
Chat went up in flames, of course. He hardly cared. His chat had always been like this, and they weren't spamming the abyss in earnest.
Byeongsik, a partner-streamer on KKT. In game, BS. The broadcast he ran was built on exactly this: streamer and viewers tearing into each other until the line between them went thin.
"Ah, let's just win the game first, guys. I'm telling you, I'm actually desperate."
Win this one, he told himself, and then he could settle the chat down. He sank back into the match. It was a vicious fight that ran all the way into overtime, and at the end of it BS barely closed his hand around the win.
"Nice! Yeah, this is it! This is it! Haa... how many points left now?"
Still high on the win, BS checked his score.
It had been a high-ACS game, so the points on the win came heavy. The gap to his target — rank one, Pilluelo — had closed until only nine points remained.
"Ha. I should get some rest too. That's it for Project A today, everyone."
He was still nine short of first, and it didn't matter. Pilluelo had already quit. Leave a game untouched long enough and the account goes dormant, and the points fall with it. Pilluelo's account was dormant already. A little more time, a little more decay, and the moment would come when BS was rank one.
It might look a little pathetic. Nothing to be done. No matter how well he played, a ranked game right now was not a win he could promise.
"No, guys. What if I queue and run into pests? Think about my mental a little, yeah?"
He checked the gap down to third, the rival sitting immediately beneath him, felt the ground go solid under his feet, and closed the game.
"Ugh... I'm wiped. When the food gets here I'll eat, and then I'm ending the stream."
The sudden end-of-stream warning drew a groan out of chat. From where BS sat, there was nothing else for it. His body was wrung out to the last thread, and so was his head.
One donation, one sentence, and it was enough to haul his half-dead mind back upright.
"...How many points?"
A full day of grinding had bought him fifteen points. She had taken forty-five in the seven hours after the final bell. Ten games, they said, which meant the wins had been rolled so hard the other side surrendered.
"H-her score. How many points is she on right now?"
He could insist all he liked that he wasn't scared. The fear BS carried for Eunha had not expired when the exhibition ended. Back when his team was trading rounds with AFS, the favorite to win the whole thing, he had honestly thought a title was within reach if they played it right. He had not expected a seventeen-year-old girl who wasn't even a pro to run them over like that.
After that day, so much as the first syllable of her name made him flinch, and bringing Eunha up to BS had hardened into a meme. The heat of the exhibition cooled. Whatever tied the two of them was starting to slip out of memory. Then, whether by chance or by aim, she announced she was entering the rank-1 race, and BS had to be afraid of her all over again.
"Ah. Phew... thank god."
The moment he heard the number, BS let out a breath of pure relief. That was how wide it was. More than two hundred points between them.
She had climbed forty-five points in a day, and chat was jabbing him for sitting there so easy. But the ease wasn't the cushion of the gap, and it wasn't arrogance at the size of it either.
"No. Four hundred is right around where you start meeting the pests, isn't it? However good Miss Eunha is, she can't win dragging those guys with her."
The things living between four hundred and the five hundreds — pests, that was the name for them. Haul those bugs into a lobby and not even Eunha could promise a win. BS had played her himself in the exhibition. He knew how monstrous she was. The pressure was worse than queueing into active pros. Those pests were not a skill check, though. In an FPS, they were even less of one.
"Ah, food's here. I'll go grab it, everyone."
They were still arguing over whether Eunha could even reach the six hundreds when the delivery arrived, and BS stepped off stream to get it.
The second he was gone, his viewers heaped curses on him and prayed for her win. One way or another, what they wanted was to watch him suffer.
Seventh period was over, homeroom was done, and I was on the walk home.
"Pola joining SC... I didn't see that coming."
The walk used to be mine alone. Lately, more often than not, Han Seongun was in it.
"Right? I jumped when I saw his face too."
Neither of us had a friend to our name, and keeping company with the only person we actually knew didn't seem like a bad idea. That was the whole of the decision. It had started a stupid rumor around school that the two of us were dating, but I wasn't the sort of person who cared about noise like that, and he was dropping out soon anyway. It didn't matter.
"How are the practice rooms? Not bad?"
My father ran H, the conglomerate, and H had acquired SC, a second-division Project A team. By some absurd coincidence, Han Seongun and Pola — the same two who had been on my roster for the exhibition — had both been signed there.
"Yeah. I wasn't expecting much, second division and all. Maybe because H bought them? The facilities are way better than I thought."
Most second-division teams are short on money, and famous for shaving costs anywhere they can — practice rooms, player housing, the rest of it. SC was being run by a conglomerate in person, and it seemed they weren't pinching pennies on the small things either.
"Honestly, I even figured H only meant to dip a toe into esports."
My father isn't a man who starts something and leaves it unfinished. If H had bought the team itself, the support would not be half-hearted.
"...Yeah?"
Han Seongun still had no idea I was the chairman's daughter. I had no desire to say so, and no need. So I hadn't.
"Ah. Driver Kwon's over there."
We talked our way down the street, and almost before I noticed we were at the main gate. He was standing in front of it, same as ever. Honestly. I keep telling him to wait in the car. Isn't he hot out there?
"Urk..."
Han Seongun flinched the moment they came face to face. This kid really is a coward. Driver Kwon looks a little frightening, I'll give him that, but he's a kind man. A warm one.
"I trust the day was uneventful, miss?"
"Same as every day. And I keep telling you to wait in the car."
"No, it isn't particularly hot. More to the point... we meet again. Seongun, wasn't it?"
Not hot, he says. I can see the sweat creeping down his forehead. Setting that aside, Driver Kwon had taken an interest in Han Seongun. A boy hovering around the person he was assigned to protect would put him on edge, of course. But this one is just a friend.
"Ah... yes..."
Still too scared to meet his eyes. This wouldn't do. I nudged his side and leaned in close.
"When you talk to an adult, you look him in the eye."
Keep just that much courtesy, and Driver Kwon would take to him. Wouldn't he?
"Hoh...?"
His face had gone darker than before. Well, I'd be in a bad mood too if someone started fidgeting in the middle of a conversation with me. Go on, Seongun. Rack up a huge pile of favor with the driver.
"Ah... I... um."
No. You can't stammer like that. I leaned in again, the same as before.
"Stop stuttering!"
A tooth ground, sharp and dry. Han Seongun looked from Driver Kwon to me and back, eyes asking what on earth I was doing to him. What? I was helping.
"Miss? Where is your bag..."
My bag? On my back, if he meant—
"Huh? Oh. Right...!"
No wonder my back had felt light. I'd left it in the classroom.
"Ah—! I left it in class. I'll be right back, Driver!"
"If you tell me which room, I can go and—"
That would be easier, yes. I didn't want to put him to the trouble, and an outsider had no business walking into a classroom besides.
"N-no! I'll go get it. It'll only take a second."
"Then I'll come with—"
"It's fine. I'll be back in a moment! See you tomorrow, Han Seongun!"
It was only a bag. He didn't need to come with me. I hurried toward the classroom so Driver Kwon wouldn't be left waiting out in the blaze of the sun.
Choi Eunha was gone. At the main gate, two of them remained. Driver Kwon looked straight at Han Seongun, and then he opened his mouth.
"You said your name was Han Seongun?"
"...Yes. Yes."
He still couldn't meet the man's eyes. Of course he couldn't. Someone built like Kwon Seongwook, staring with open hostility — there probably wasn't a high school boy alive who could hold that gaze.
"Could you spare a moment to talk?"
"I... I have cram school..."
"It will only be a moment."
Watching Choi Eunha run for the classroom, Han Seongun answered, and thought something else entirely.
"Yes..."
What did I even do wrong to her today?