Broadcast After the Accident

The ride back to the lodging, after the match against JG.

It had ended fast, two to nothing, but the players who had actually been on the server were worn to the bone. A day like today made it worse—a loss so one-sided it barely felt like a match.

The fan meeting after the game was done, and then the coach insisted that anything important had to be said while it was still fresh, so the team filed into the players' waiting room.

Once the team review was over, I was excused from individual feedback again today. I went straight down to the garage and sat in SC's SUV, trying to rest.

"Seongun, we've got about ten minutes before we leave, so you can close your eyes. Here's the mask you use."

"Yes. Thank you, Manager."

"...Still not sleeping at all these days?"

She watched me with worry plain on her face. Any other day, when I answered her that stiffly—Manager—she would have grumbled that I could just call her Yeeun-nuna. Not today. The team felt that bad, and I could guess my own face wasn't doing me any favors either.

More than that. Sleep.

"...Yeah."

Every time I caught a mirror, the dark circles were impossible to miss. A lie wouldn't survive that, so I told the truth.

"It's just nerves the night before a match. It'll get better once some time passes, so you really don't have to worry."

"Right..."

The word dragged, and that was the end of it. I was taking what rest I could, the low thrum of the idling engine for background music, when the door rolled open.

Rrrk.

A man climbed in.

"Oh, Hanbyeol. Where's Coach?"

It was Pola. Kang Hanbyeol—the oldest on the roster, and the one playing entry.

"He said he'd come once he finished the rest of the feedback."

So he'd wrapped his own review and come back. Figures. If it was Hanbyeol-hyung, it would end faster than those three.

"Yeah? Got it. You should rest a little too. Today must've worn you out."

"Yeah."

One more body in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠car didn't change the air. We weren't especially close, and Hanbyeol-hyung had never been someone who talked much.

"Seongun."

And yet, for once, he spoke first.

"Yeah, hyung."

"Sorry about today."

So that was why the quiet one had opened his mouth. He was still holding it.

"It's fine, hyung. I made plenty of mistakes too."

His mistake had been fatal. Mine was worse. I'd completely missed the ultimate check—missed that their Breach, already sitting on six points, had farmed two more.

"Feedback's done, so let's forget today's loss and play the next one right."

"Yeah..."

That was the end of us.

We'd been on the same team since the exhibition, and we still weren't close. Come to think of it, the exhibition was the first time I'd met him at all.

The thing that had settled a path I'd been hesitating over—going pro—was the Platform Exhibition. I'd measured myself against streamers who used to be pros, and I'd gotten a real look at what I was worth in a team game.

And the biggest reason I'd decided to become a pro gamer...

It was fun.

For me, games had only ever been a way out of a boring day and a way to burn off stress. Nothing more. Nothing less. The one place where I, who would never be called a genius again, was still called one. A place where everybody hyped me. That was all.

I had almost never thought Project A was actually fun, and I'd assumed I never would. Then we won the scramble—Choi Eunha, Seungtaek-hyung, the rest of them and me—and the achievement, the fun of it, was enough to knock that idea over. A spot everyone had already written off as a mismatch, and still we pushed through it, beat it, and kept going. That kind of thing.

I'd thought debuting, and running at a title with a team, would feel like the exhibition. The same joy. The same high.

Reality wasn't that.

The only people actually trying to win were me and Hanbyeol-hyung. Everyone else was just skeptical. Lazy teammates with neither the talent nor the will to climb into the first division. Coach Kim Sangho had tried, at the start, to drag them back into shape. Now he'd half given up and was already building next season. A great teacher doesn't matter if the student doesn't want to learn. They never get better.

The rebuild had landed at the worst possible time, so there were no good players on the market, and the roster we'd barely scraped together was only this. Maybe SC had already abandoned the season. No—they probably had. Even H's goal this year was just to get a foot into esports. The real money, they said, started next year.

The team would be rebuilt again. I'd be part of that, too.

Hanbyeol-hyung... Ha. Enough.

I dropped the seat as far as it would go, pulled the mask on, and shut my eyes. I hadn't been sleeping, and today's match had taken plenty out of me. If I was going to sleep, it ought to come fast.

Ah.

Sleep was a bust again today.

Lately I couldn't sleep at all. I'd close my eyes, open them, and hear people grading me. The communities I lurked out of habit were saying the same things, so it wasn't entirely in my head.

They decided, on their own, that I was the best prospect alive. Then they decided, on their own, to be disappointed. Every time that thought landed, I asked myself why I'd become a pro at all. The pro I'd wanted to be was someone who moved toward a goal with his team, covering each other. Not this. Not clawing through it alone.

I meant it.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Ten in the morning.

Office workers would already be at their desks. Students would already be sitting through first period. I was supposed to be at school with them. I wasn't. I'd already dropped out.

That didn't mean I was still asleep. I'd grown used to a life of early nights and early mornings, and even after leaving school I kept the pattern: up at nine. Getting out of a day that burned six or seven hours on school ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠alone had left me with a startling amount of time, and I put all of it into streaming. I was serious about being an internet broadcaster. The job fit me like a calling.

Seven days a week, not one day off, eight or nine hours every day. Even other streamers who lived for it would have shaken their heads at the hours, but it wasn't hard for me. Streaming was my job, yes. To me it was closer to a hobby. And spending that surplus of time doing nothing, staring at a wall—that had been impossible for the version of me who used to give almost every hour of the day to practice.

So if anyone was wondering what that passionate, born-for-the-job streamer was doing right now...

She was stuck on whether to go live at all.

"Do I turn this on... or leave it off..."

"Eunha~"

On a normal day the stream would already be up, the warm-up finished, and I'd be talking with chat about nothing in particular. Yesterday hadn't been a normal day.

At first I'd only wanted to test the gear that had just arrived. I was curious how the new face-cam kit compared with the camera I already used. I'd put everything I had into that first face reveal, and I didn't want to hand the viewers a single reason to be disappointed. If I was going to stream on cam, I wanted it perfect.

"Eunha?"

If I turned the camera on and people said I looked different from the Newbie Guide video, that it was just the makeup, that I wasn't much once they looked again—that would sting. Most of them probably wouldn't think that. Still. You never knew.

So I'd set the equipment up, meaning to start a test broadcast... and somehow I'd started the real one. Earlier, because I was going to watch the SC versus JG broadcast, I'd shut donations off entirely, so nobody in chat could even tell me I was live. And then the camera connected. My face went out. And that was that.

Looking back, it was a mercy I'd already shown my face. If I hadn't, it would have been a catastrophe. Or maybe this already was one. I'd put on a fashion show in front of tens of thousands of people without knowing the stream was on. I'd practiced poses while we prepared the Newbie Guide shoot, sure, but that had only been in front of Mom and Aunt Yera.

"Haa... why did I even—"

"Eunha!"

"GYAAAH!"

God, that scared me.

"Oh, you startled me. E-Eunha?"

"S-sorry. I got startled too..."

"Ah... sorry for scaring you. You weren't answering, no matter how I called."

"You called me?"

The housekeeper nodded without a word. I'd been staring into space and hadn't heard a thing. A plate heaped with fruit sat in her hands. Dessert, then. She did this all the time, so there was nothing strange about it. After I'd become a girl, I'd gotten into the habit of snacking—sweet desserts especially. I'd eaten so many of them that Father had finally banned them outright. He hadn't cared at all before.

"Mm. Here. Strawberries and melon."

"Thank youuu."

Fruit today, apparently. Not a sweet dessert, but fruit was fine in its own way. Last time it had been mango. This time, melon. All right...

I took the plate and the fork resting on it and immediately speared a piece of melon.

"Mm..."

"How is it? I went through everything, since it was for you."

Among all the work she did around the house, one job was feeding me. Father was buried in the company, and Mother couldn't cook—well, her skills were a little short—so it couldn't be helped. That was why he'd hired a housekeeper with the best hands in a kitchen, and why he'd told her not to spare the money even on fruit bought outside, like this. It had to be expensive.

"Mm... it's delicious. Thank you."

I couldn't really tell good from better, of course. It tasted the same as anything from a regular store. It wasn't bad, though, so I thanked her again, for bringing dessert when she already had more than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠enough to do.

"All right. Then work hard."

"Okaaay."

She set the plate on the desk and left.

Work? Hard? What work...

Ah.

"Oh, right. Ah, shit... what do I do..."

The sweet fruit had let me forget for a second. Reality came right back.

"Ugh..."

I was just standing there, feet tapping, when a line someone had thrown at me a long time ago came back.

Who was that... some incredibly obnoxious guy.

Still, right now, it helped a little. Fine. Worst case, I meet it head-on.

And the face that had leaked yesterday didn't seem to be getting torn apart. I'd spent the night digging through communities while the photos spread, and people kept saying I was pretty. If the reaction had been bad, I would have asked my brother to wipe every last one. He'd actually texted to ask if he should.

It stung a little that the surprise cam stream I'd been saving had fallen through. If I called yesterday a trailer and won the argument in my own head, that would do.

"Hoo... haa..."

One long breath, and I gathered the heart that had been flopping back and forth. Then I pressed the Go Live button I'd been circling for the better part of an hour.

A little later than my usual start, which sat before ten, but it was still around the hour I went live. Yesterday had traveled far enough that people showed up without a warm-up. Ten thousand already. No point warming anything up.

"Uh... um. Hello?"

Normally I'd spend the first hour after going live batting ideas around with chat—so what are we doing today~—but not today. The content had been decided before I ever hit the button. What else could it be. An explanation of yesterday.

I wasn't even sure it counted as an explanation. They'd want to know what had happened, though.

"So... you know, early yesterday morning..."

Word that I'd gone live must have shot out in a second, because the cam parrots were back. For weeks after the Newbie Guide video I'd held a hard line and driven them off. After yesterday, it wasn't strange that they'd returned.

"Okay, okay... calm down. First, let me just—"

The mods were working themselves to death, and the chat still wouldn't go down. I stared at it, blank, and one thought surfaced.

...Should I run away again?

I really, truly wanted to run.