Three Days Before the Newbie Guide Shoot, and the PCK Second-Division Opener (Just Chatting)
If the Newbie Guide's whole style was to hide the guest and live off the anticipation, I still had a way to pull plenty of eyes even if the name got out.
Reveal my face. That was the idea. I don't know the first thing about marketing, but I figured even a single line in the video description — Streamer Eunha's face, revealed for the first time! — would be bait enough.
"What?! Are you sure you're all right with that?"
The manager sounded even more thrown than a moment ago. Fair enough. I had started streaming in January of this year, and four or five months later I was still holding the line on a no-cam broadcast.
Broadcasters like me, who never turn a camera on — or who, if they do, show nothing above the neck and absolutely never show a face — are called Durahans. Durahans, as a rule, hate having their private lives exposed, so the manager's shock was hardly unreasonable.
But I wasn't like them.
I hadn't hidden my face out of fear my private life would leak, or as insurance in case the channel died. It was simply that my father was against it. The situation had changed. A few weeks ago I had gotten his permission, and now I could show my face on stream whenever I wanted.
The only reason I still hadn't was that I had spent all this time winding the viewers up, and I wanted the reveal to land with an event that deserved it. Back then I had been playing nothing but Project A from morning to night, chasing rank 1, and the timing had never worked.
"Yes. I'll just reveal it now."
Not only my fans but a great many Project A players were going to see this video. As an event, it felt right. That was the conclusion I offered — though of course the biggest part of it was cleaning up my own stupid mistake.
"If you're truly all right with it, Eunha... it will certainly be a story."
"Right?"
The manager's okay was as good as proof that showing my face carried exactly that much heat.
"I'll talk it through with Rioat. A guest's information leaking isn't a first, and they'll understand, to a point."
Most of the guests over the years had been Project A pro gamers. Unused to this side of broadcasting, they sometimes slipped and leaked their own appearance. Of course, none of them had pulled a blunder quite as dumb as mine...
"And I'll pass along the idea you suggested. They'll probably take it well, so please don't worry too much."
"Yes. I'm really sorry..."
It looked as if things were working themselves out, but it was obvious my mistake had worn several people out, so I apologized to the manager one more time.
"Haha, not at all, Eunha. You must be exhausted. Please get some real rest."
"Okay."
"Haa..."
Maybe because the problem was settled. I had already been tired, and now the fatigue sat one layer heavier. I needed to sleep. Saying goodnight to the family after dinner had become a habit, so there was no need to go downstairs just to do it. I stretched both legs out on the bed and let sleep—
Sleep—
"Damn it... who is it...!"
My sleep had already been broken more than once, so I was a little raw when I snatched the phone up.
"Han Seongun...?"
He was supposed to be buried in season prep. What was he texting me for. I was trying to get a little sleep, and this mannerless idiot was sending messages.
"What is with this guy..."
The texts came down to nothing more than I'm playing the day after tomorrow, so cheer for me. That was the whole of it. Come to think of it, the PCK second-division opener was already two days out.
"He must be pretty nervous."
Sending a text like this wasn't like him, so he had to be fairly tense. Well — he was walking around under that grand title, the greatest prospect of all time. There was no way he wouldn't be nervous. A label like that meant a serious personal weight on Han Seongun, and with the team's goal being promotion to the first division, the pressure on the roster would be heavy too.
So as a friend, I could at least do this much. The season was over anyway, and I had nothing to do. An SC cheer stream for a while sounded about right. SC didn't only have Han Seongun. Pola, whom I had shared a roster with during the exhibition, was there too — and more than anything, it was the team my father's company ran. Me, his daughter, running a cheer room wasn't exactly strange.
Seeing him nervous, so unlike himself, brought my own debut back. Down to the memory of telling Kim Seungtaek every five seconds, Ah, I'm so nervous, what do I do, until he snapped, I get it, so shut up. Kim Seungtaek had been just as nervous, of course, and later the coach never let that story die.
It had been fun. Back then.
Hoping Han Seongun would win his debut the way I had, I left him a reasonable little cheer.
All right... now I was actually going to sleep.
"Mmm... mmm..."
Not even five minutes after I closed my eyes, I was out cold. Sleep at the end of a month of ordeal was, quite literally, sweet as honey.
Confirmed she's on the Newbie Guide, and the shoot date is set too.
The clarification is basically: it was embargoed info she wasn't supposed to talk about, she got baited by a donation and it slipped out, and she's sorry to Rioat and the Kwitch manager.
She's on the Newbie Guide, right?
Doesn't that mean she shows her face?
Rabbit and the pro gamers all revealed theirs.
The guests so far just happened to be people whose faces were already public. Her showing up in a mask is entirely possible.
Don't hype yourself up and get disappointed. Just take it easy. I'm only expecting a mask-cam, at most.
Do we finally get to see Nebula?
[attached: Nebula.jpg]
Face is handsome, the game is cracked, and he's got a girlfriend like Eunha.
If you're a real piece of shit, upvote.
Today was three days before the Newbie Guide shoot, and the opening day of PCK CL, the domestic Project A second division.
And I was set to cast that opener.
Normally, broadcasters who mained Project A would cast the domestic first division, PCK — and specifically the matches of its most popular team, KZ. Because of the Showdown I hadn't had any time at all to watch the regular season, and... how to put it. Watching a KZ that didn't have me in it didn't feel particularly good, so I hadn't cast in the meantime.
Same as always, I had turned the stream on ahead of time and let it warm up until a decent crowd gathered.
Not even five minutes into the warmup, and already more than ten thousand people. Since the exhibition, my channel had grown enough to stand, in its own way, among the majors.
"Ah— ah, can everyone hear me all right?"
Of course, that growth had also pulled in a fair number of strange viewers.
"Ugh. I don't know what weird post you read on the way in, but he and I are just friends. Friends."
What a horrifying thing to say.
Lately an unnatural number of people had been shipping me with Nebula. A lot of it was probably his face going public. People said that with a face like that, it wouldn't even be strange if I had fallen for Han Seongun. The problem was that I wasn't particularly interested in him. Romantically, that is.
"So if you keep pairing me up with Bulla, I'm banning you. Understood?"
He was simply a friend I clicked with about as well as I did with Kim Seungtaek. That was the extent of it.
"And if I had time to get a boyfriend, I'd spend it on Project A. Honestly, isn't dating a waste of time and money?"
It was absolutely not because I had no dating experience. I was simply someone who thought playing Project A was a better use of that time.
Today's stream was the first I had turned on since yesterday's incident, so I had worried questions about the Newbie Guide might come in. Fortunately, whether because the notice I had rushed up had done its job, people didn't particularly ask about it. Maybe they were curious and were simply holding it in for my sake. Either way, I was grateful.
I made small talk with the viewers for a bit, and before I knew it, it was time for the opener.
"All right, I'll start the cast."
I switched the screen straight over to the official broadcast channel.