Embargo (Just Chatting)

The Rank-1 Race had run for a full month, and the truth was that at the start I never meant to throw myself into it this hard. I'd only joined for the sake of fresh content. I hadn't stood up and declared some ironclad goal I intended to see through.

Somewhere in the middle, that changed. From the moment BS announced he was declaring me his rival.

Two weeks before the season ended, my score sat at 550. Keep that pace, and first place was mine without much trouble. Joining the race hadn't changed the broad shape of my streams — still the usual Project A, or Just Chatting — and bit by bit I was losing interest in the whole thing.

Then a single message arrived from BS, who streamed on KKT. The gist was simple: let's queue at the same time. In a word, he wanted us to snipe each other. Legally.

At first I was thrown. Aside from the exhibition match, this was a streamer I'd never so much as met, suddenly pitching me that. But as it turned out, the only people still chasing rank 1 were me and BS, and what he wanted was one match with no room left for anyone to argue about who deserved first. I had nothing to shrink from, and I wasn't the type to dodge a challenge thrown in my face, so I accepted.

And so the race changed. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠It stopped being a scramble among streamers in the ranking hunt and became a duel between me and BS. The winner, of course, was me. Even with teammates as a variable, the gap between us was that plain.

Well. BS already seemed to have a feeling for how it would end.

There was BS, set on avenging his loss from the exhibition, and there was me, taking the challenge. It was more fun than I'd expected. How do I put it. For a little while, it felt like I'd gone back to the person I used to be. More precisely, it was a chance to compete on nothing but skill, without the weight of countless people whose faces I had never seen.

Once, when viewers asked whether I had any thought of debuting as a pro, I told them I didn't. I said I hated competing with anyone. The truth is, that was a lie. I enjoy competition more than anyone. If I had truly hated competition — hated even the air of it — I could never have lasted three years as a pro. The root of being a pro gamer is competition itself.

What I actually hated was the disillusionment. Those people called fans, who turned and mocked me the moment I lost. No — a weariness with people I wasn't even sure had ever been my fans at all.

Back when I debuted, Project A was not a popular game. The esports market belonged wholly to Legend of League, and PCK's viewership was a miserable thing, not even a tenth of that. Even so, KZ and I gave it everything we had, and we came away with a real result: first in Asia, fourth in the world.

Then the era turned. Project A grew until it had swallowed the esports market, and interest in KZ — the best team in the country then — climbed just as fast. The one who drew the most of that attention was me. The ace, and the main entry.

The problem started there. Most of the fans pouring into PCK were people who had watched the Legend of League pro league. And Legend of League was a game in which Korea held an unshakable first place.

StarCraft, then Legend of League, and after them Project A. People who had worn, all that time, the proud name of a gaming superpower asked something of us that was far too cruel. What they demanded was the best in the world. They wanted us to win the world championship, without the slightest sense of how absurd a result like third in the world already was.

Unlike StarCraft or Legend of League, where Korea had stood at the top of the world, Project A was never a game in which Korea was the best. In the Project A scene, Korea was plainly a minor power. Even teams inside the domestic top three could not escape getting knocked out early at international events. That was simply the reality.

Of course, there were plenty of people who truly cheered us on. But a person is built so that one piece of hate catches the eye more than a hundred messages of support.

Forget hope. Treated as the villain holding other teams by the ankle, every bit of my effort denied, written off as a hole in the lineup — I felt that same disillusionment toward the job of pro gamer itself. That was why I decided to retire. I couldn't see any sign I would grow past where I was, and I wanted out of that endless wheel, where failing to win meant getting torn apart.

If there had been even one person who, even when I lost, believed in me and cheered me on to the very end—

"Ah."

"Thank you for the ten-thousand-won dona— wait, what was I doing?"

How had I sunk that deep? Somewhere in the middle of the broadcast, I'd slipped into my own thoughts without noticing.

A dono? Fifteen million won?

I tried to rewind to just before I'd sunk into thought. Right — what had I even been doing. I'd definitely been counting down the end of the season with the viewers, all of us celebrating ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the moment my first place locked in.

And then I'd received, as a donation, the fifteen million won that the boss of BS's broadcast had put up for whoever took rank 1.

Ah. That's where it started. Fifteen million won. The prize that came to me as my share, the first time I ever won a tournament, had been exactly fifteen million. Seeing that number on the donation must have been what carried my thoughts all the way here.

"Sorry. The amount startled me so badly I blanked for a second..."

I'd been falling into stray thoughts like this a lot lately. Was it because I hadn't been sleeping? Thinking about it, for the past month I'd been grinding ranked from morning to night without caring which was which, and I hadn't managed anything like regular sleep. That's probably it, I told myself, and looked at the chat window up on the monitor.

I was live. Which meant I needed to focus on the viewers.

"Thank you for the fifteen-million-won donation! I'll put it to good use!"

Not one and a half million — a full fifteen million. Of course it was the prize from the race, but I still owed a thank-you. The prize was in hand, the season was over, and the Rank-1 Race content was completely finished.

I'd done Just Chatting now and then, but it must have felt nowhere near enough, because the moment the content ended the Just Chatting crowd flooded the chat. Of course I wanted to give them what they were asking for, but...

"Everyone... I've really overdone it lately and I'm so tired. Would it be okay if I kept today's stream short..."

Sorry, guys. I'm just too tired right now.

I was putting together a decent sign-off, about to end the stream, when a donation came in.

Ugh. And I wanted to go rest so badly.

"It's not exactly confirmed yet... probably next Saturday?"

It wasn't a hard question, so I answered right away. I should sleep a little early today, I was thinking, moving the cursor toward the end-stream button—

Something about the chat was off.

Did I just say something wrong...?

Wait.

Had I ever told the viewers I was going to be on the Newbie Guide? As far as I remembered, definitely not. No, more than that — was this even something I was allowed to say?

"Ah."

If you counted it in time, it was under three seconds. In that sliver, the brain three years of pro play had forged started working out a way to get me out of this.

"I— I'll just go, then! See you next time!"

The plan, very simply, was to run.

Dinner was behind me, and a little time had passed. On a normal day I would still have been live at this hour, but right now the stream was off. Stream ended, lying in bed with my phone in hand — up to that point, I looked the same as I always did after signing off.

Right now, it was a little different. Unlike the usual, when I'd have been watching a broadcast on K-tube or Kwitch, I was calling someone.

That someone was the Kwitch manager. If you asked why I was calling a person I never called, it was because a small problem had come up.

"Augh... what do I do..."

Correction. Not a small problem. A problem that might be a little on the serious side.

After a few rings, the call thankfully connected.

I had never once reached out first, so the fluster in their voice was unmistakable.

"Um, so... I think I might have caused an accident..."

How was I even supposed to say it? That I'd blurted out, on stream, a promo appearance I'd been told not to reveal? And that I'd been baited into it, like an idiot, by a viewer's donation? Either way, it was mortifying to say out loud.

The manager startled hard at the word accident, and I decided it was better to take the scolding up front. I'd confess, plainly, exactly what I'd done.

"So..."

"I'm sorry..."

The explanation was over in less than five minutes. It hadn't been a long story. Hearing the manager's "What?!" and "No—!" while I explained was agony.

I'd been sure I was in for a serious scolding, but the manager didn't react as sharply as I'd feared.

Wasn't this something I wasn't supposed to reveal...?

"Um, this was something I wasn't supposed to reveal, wasn't it?"

According to the manager, they kept the Newbie Guide guest a secret until the day of the upload in order to build the viewers' anticipation. A setup where, until the day itself, no one could know who was appearing: announce only which agent, withhold the guest, and the anticipation would swell. That was the design.

"Ah... I see..."

It was already a settled fact that I was this Newbie Guide's guest. Once that was out, the attention you got from not saying who was appearing would be hard to stir up. Sure, viewers of mine who had never cared about the Newbie Guide might take an interest because of this — but it wasn't as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if every Project A fan in the country was one of my viewers.

Even if it hadn't been a major accident, leaving it like this was no different from causing Rioat a real inconvenience.

"Um, Manager."

And I wasn't the kind of person who caused someone trouble and then didn't even clean it up.

"I have an idea. A good one."

In the end, the point was just to get people to look, wasn't it?