Mukbang (Just Chatting)
On the ride home after the entrance ceremony—
"Young lady."
In the car sat Choi Eunha, a rich family's daughter who had only just started high school, and Kwon Seongwook, her driver and bodyguard.
"..."
The air between them was fairly murderous.
"Young lady...?"
Not that the two of them had fought. Eunha was simply angry, all on her own.
"Why."
Sulking, really. That was the more accurate word.
"If you could at least tell me why you're angry, I would be very grateful."
She hadn't said a single word since getting in. She'd just sat there the whole way with her mouth set in a pout, until Driver Kwon, unable to watch any longer, raised the white flag first. Say what you liked about the pair of them—he was the one in the subordinate's seat.
Even she seemed to feel that icing him out without so much as a reason was a little much. Looking faintly awkward, Choi Eunha answered.
"Ahem... Mr. Kwon, I wanted to keep my school life as quiet as I could, you know?"
"Yes."
"Yes isn't the point! This morning you dropped me at the main gate when it was packed with students...!"
"...You didn't say anything about that."
"Ugh, then calling me young lady where everyone could hear—"
"Then I call the young lady young lady. You never asked me to use a different title outside, did you?"
"That's...! Nngh... you're right..."
It was a sound argument. Perfect, with not a crack to pry at. Driver Kwon watched Eunha tremble, unable to find a single word of rebuttal, and smiled.
Employer, employer's daughter—none of it changed the fact that she was a seventeen-year-old girl. Kwon had a child of his own, and her grumbling only struck him as cute.
"...Don't smile."
To Eunha, of course, that look on him was nothing but infuriating.
"Heh. My apologies."
The smile did not stop. She set her brain spinning as hard as it would go, hunting for some way to kill it, and the longer she thought, the more she realized the greater fault was hers. She hadn't said a word, and still she'd expected someone else to move exactly as she wanted. Then, when things didn't go her way, she'd clicked her tongue and taken her irritation out on him. Even she could see how rude that was.
In the old days it would have earned her a scolding from her father, and then some. Eunha bowed her head to Driver Kwon and apologized.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Kwon. I was really rude, wasn't I?"
"Not at all. You're still young. These things happen."
Still young. The words landed with a strange little sting, but at least Mr. Kwon let it pass without a fuss.
"But why were you standing outside the car? Someone as easy to spot as you, too."
This time she wasn't picking a fight. It was pure curiosity. Early March—the weather had certainly improved, but a cold wind was still blowing, and Mr. Kwon was in a neat suit, hardly the outfit for standing outside any length of time. Eunha herself had a beige cardigan on over her school uniform. At the quiet worry threaded through her voice, he answered with a smile.
"Do I really stand out that much?"
Muscles that looked ready to split the suit, and a face that fierce—how did a line like that even leave his mouth?
"...You do look in a mirror, don't you?"
"Strange. My son likes it. He says I'm like a teddy bear."
"Eh—"
A teddy bear. A teddy bear? Where, on that bulk, was the teddy? It was just a bear. Still, she didn't want to pick apart something his own son had said, so she let it go.
"Well, it didn't feel particularly cold. And I was outside on the chairman's orders."
She was relieved to hear he hadn't been cold. The next part left her puzzled. The chairman—Driver Kwon's real employer, and the guardian of Choi Eunha, the person he was assigned to protect.
"The chairman? Father ordered that?"
Why on earth would her father give the driver an order like that? Fortunately, the question answered itself at once.
"The chairman told me to keep stray pests from buzzing around the young lady. What I did with that order was my own decision."
"Eh?"
"I can't go inside the school, so I judged that letting them know I exist would be the surest threat."
"Ah... yes... I... see."
An absurd reason. But after two months of her father, it was also entirely believable, and Eunha gave up thinking about it any further.
They were well on the way home when she asked him to pull over.
"Mr. Kwon, could you stop up ahead for a moment? I'll buy you a coffee, at least."
It was in front of a chain cafe. For the scene she'd made today, she wanted to make it up to him in her own way, and Driver Kwon nodded readily. Coffee from the employer's daughter—he could take that much as a small courtesy. He'd said it was fine, but the truth was he'd been feeling the cold himself.
"May I order something expensive?"
"Of course."
"Eunha, you're back?"
"Yes, I'm home."
"Did you eat? It's lunchtime."
"No, not yet."
When I got home it was twelve-thirty. Eating out would have fallen in an awkward in-between, so I'd come straight back.
"You aren't hungry? Shall I set out a meal?"
On any other day I would have answered Yes! in a rush of excitement. Not today.
"No, I bought something to eat while I was out. Please rest today."
I held up the paper bag in my hand as I said it. Inside were a box of macarons, a ham-and-cheese sandwich, and a mint-chocolate shake—snacks from the cafe. I pulled the macaron box out of the bag and held it out to the housekeeper.
"You go through so much because of me. Please have these."
"What are you doing, buying all this? I can't really eat things like that. You eat plenty."
"It's all right. If you don't feel like them, give them to your daughter. They're really sweet, and kids love them."
"Really...? I'll do that. Thank you, Eunha."
The truth was, I hadn't meant to buy this much. Mr. Kwon had been staring a hole through a phone charm with some character dangling off it. The charm was a promo freebie—spend over a certain amount, and they gave it to you.
"What are you staring at like that?"
"Ah, it's nothing."
"It's a phone charm, isn't it?"
"Mm... actually, it's my son's birthday. I was going to give him his first phone. I was thinking I might give him that along with it..."
"Hmm... is that so?"
I felt bad about Mr. Kwon, and I thought of the housekeeper too, making every meal just for me, so I decided lunch could simply be the sandwich they sold at the cafe.
"So lunch is this sandwich, then? Go up to your room, wash up, change, and come back out. I'll put it on a plate for you."
"Yes, thank you."
I handed her the box of macarons and headed for my room to get out of the stifling uniform, when a good idea hit me out of nowhere.
"Auntie, one moment!"
I'd been planning to finish the sandwich at the table, come back to my room, and only then turn the stream on. I changed my mind. There was no reason I had to eat before I went live, was there?
A mukbang. I was already running a hand cam; it was content I could do, and content I'd never shown even once.
This could actually work.
I started the broadcast the way I always did, and waited through the warmup while the viewers gathered. The absurd numbers from last time had clearly been the Immortal promotion matches, an exception, because that kind of firepower wasn't here now. Even so, after only three minutes of warmup there were already eleven hundred people—about as many as I usually pulled before the promotion run.
Five minutes passed while I checked that the food was actually in frame, and I switched the mic on.
"Ah—ah, hi, everyone~"
The count once warmup was over. Not even fifteen hundred—it looked low next to my usual, but today was March 2, the first day of the semester, or of the school year. Account for that, and it was quite a crowd.
Chat rolling in like a wave. Once my average concurrent viewers hit four digits, I really couldn't keep up with it.
In exchange, a bigger audience meant the stream's weight class had gone up, and donations were popping often enough that talking with them still worked. That, at least, was a relief.
"Yeah. The second it ended I came straight home, washed up, and went live."
Mm. I don't really mind not having friends.
But if you all talk like that, you make me sound pathetic.
Say Not having friends doesn't bother me at all and they'd just find something else to pick at, so I decided to pretend I hadn't seen it.
"Yeah, I think that's the plan."
The people who watch me split cleanly in two. One group comes to see me play Project A. The other comes just to see the streamer, Eunha. The first wants me in a match. The second wants Just Chatting, and me talking to them. Both are viewers I have to keep, so I can't tip toward either side. I have to hold the balance. For the past week I'd streamed nothing but Project A, climbing for Immortal, and I could feel the second group needing some attention. That was why today was Just Chatting.
"Lately I've been on Project A all day trying to hit Immortal, right? So today I want to actually talk with you."
"First, I'm going to eat while we do this. I still haven't had lunch."
A surprise is supposed to land when nobody sees it coming.
"Ta-da~"
And I turned on the camera that had been aimed at the desktop, so I could give them one. In frame: my two hands, the ham-and-cheese sandwich the housekeeper had moved onto a plate herself, and the mint-chocolate shake. Just right for a light lunch.
"All right, I'm digging in~"
This is gonna be so good.