Episode 75: It Isn't Your Fault (Just Chatting)

"All right. I think I'll leave the fan-cafe tour here, nya."

It had eaten about an hour, and I had the feeling that browsing any further would only get dull, so I declared the segment over.

Anything dangerous, and anything laid out as a trap, the fan-cafe managers had been deleting as soon as it appeared. No incidents. The tour ended without a hitch.

The cafe wasn't only fanart. There were plenty of posts, and the moment I announced I'd be reviewing it, a whole new crop went up.

What stayed with me most was a short one that had organized the whole history of my broadcasts. From the nobody days, when I first went live to an audience of seven, through the mess with Yangjeon, the mess with Cries, the collab with GOandMO... Reading that chronicle of things large and small, all I could think was that a lot had already happened to me.

I was just about to drift toward the next bit of content.

"Eh?"

An uninvited guest had arrived.

"Oldboy?"

What are you doing here?

"And why is ZzangDol...?"

As if they'd promised each other, members of the rep team rolled in just to farm a reaction.

I'd spent a good while reviewing the fan cafe, and I'd started to think I was getting used to sticking a nya on the end of every sentence...

Apparently I wasn't used to it yet after all.

"No... I mean... why is Spax... here..."

Nya-nyaing in front of those guys was simply not something I could do.

I couldn't.

They say human beings are creatures of adaptation. Situations you were sure you could never accept, things that felt like nothing but strangeness—given time, people handle them as easily as if they had always been that way. Lately I had been feeling that truth in my bones.

I woke up, and every career I had built was gone overnight. I was four years younger. Even my sex had changed. The person who used to sleep in underwear—who had been about to take even that off—now went to bed in a frilled pajama dress only a princess would wear, had to put on women's underwear, and washed her hair, and her body, as a woman.

That I had adapted to all of it was honestly astonishing.

If someone had told the me of six months ago that I would have to do every one of those things, I would have unloaded curses I almost never use and slapped them across the face. That is how abnormal most of what had happened to me lately really was. The me of now, adjusted to all of it, was a perfectly adaptive human.

But being able to adapt never means the process feels like nothing. To adapt is to evolve, and evolution always comes with pain. This moment was no different for me.

Nya-nyaing in front of a huge audience—I could get somewhat used to that with time. Doing it in front of people I had only recently come to know was another problem entirely.

And one of them, one-sided though it had been, was the guy who used to be my best friend. So of course it was worse.

"I mean... you guys are on a rest stream too... no, it is a rest stream, isn't it, nya...?"

They ought to be enjoying a rare day off. Why come here just to mess with someone? Honestly, too much. At least Nebula hadn't shown up. That was a mercy. If he had, I really might have run. After my old best friend, doing this in front of a new friend too... the self-disgust would have been a little too much.

"...Keep stirring the chat and I'll ban you. ...I'll ban you, nya..."

The three trolls went quiet in perfect unison. God, they were infuriating.

An alarm cut through the brief silence. This miserable hour was finally coming to an end.

"That's it. I'm bringing the shutter down."

I threw off the Cat Speech I'd kept up for about an hour and cut the camera.

They couldn't even see my face. Why were they this obsessed with the cam?

From what I'd looked up, a Durahan streamer's half-cam feels like an oasis to viewers dying to know what the streamer really looks like. Maybe that was why.

"Well... if I'm in a good mood, I'll turn the half-cam on now and then."

I never wanted to do Cat Speech again, but I didn't particularly hate the half-cam. Doing it every time would get tiring. Now and then would be fine.

"All right, I should get going."

The broadcast hadn't been long, but it had worn me out, so I decided to end it here. Today was supposed to be a rest stream. The penalty had more or less forced me live.

"See you all tomorrow~"

I said goodbye to the viewers ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who had watched again today, got up, and stretched.

"Nnngh—haah..."

The usual post-stream pattern was a dive onto the bed. I was about to, but my throat was dry first.

"I'm thirsty..."

Maybe because I'd talked more than usual. Even during the broadcast I'd been drinking the honey water in my tumbler without a break.

"It's empty."

Which meant the tumbler was dry. Nothing for it but to go to the kitchen and fill it again.

"Oh."

The moment I opened the door, a doll stood there—and for a second, realizing who the doll actually was, I jumped.

"Uh... Mother?"

Not the housekeeper. Not Father. Not my brother. It was Mother, who was home all the time now. She was wearing a frilled pajama dress like mine—but where mine was white, hers was black—and she was standing right in front of the door.

"Heh heh..."

She looked at me without another word and smiled, and that eye-smile... If I remembered right, it was the smile she always wore when she'd found something to tease me with, or in the instant just before she did.

What she said next was more than enough to confirm it.

"Nya-nya~ Did our girl work hard on stream, nya?"

Both hands up by her head, doing a cat. I didn't need anyone to explain what that meant.

"Uh... M-M-Mother? You s-saw?"

"Hm? Whatever could you mean?"

"The... I mean..."

That I did internet broadcasts was something Father knew, and my brother knew. It wouldn't be strange if Mother knew too.

"So, me streaming..."

Father had probably told her.

"Mm-hm. I had no idea our Eunha was this full of aegyo—"

She had seen it. I'd hoped she hadn't. It seemed Mother had watched the whole broadcast today.

"Aaah—! Please don't say another word about that!"

Shame surged up so fast I dropped my head and stared at the floor.

"Heh heh."

The playful eye-smile eased back into her usual gentle one. She kept that kindly smile as she spoke.

"Eunha."

She didn't look any different from the mother I knew. The voice, though, was far too serious.

"Yes?"

I tensed before I knew it. I had never seen her serious like this.

"This broadcasting... is it something you can bear?"

Mother was someone who never lost her smile. The person who loved the old line—that good fortune comes to those who smile—was our mother. But her smile now looked a little ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sad. As if she were recalling her own past. As if she were worried for the daughter who had taken up broadcasting. Maybe it was both.

"Being a public figure—standing in front of people—is harder than you think."

I knew that. I knew it far too well. It was a life that had vanished, that had been made to vanish, but I, too, had spent three years as a pro gamer. As a public figure.

I couldn't compare myself to a mother who had spent nearly her whole life in the entertainment world. Still, it had been bad enough that I'd ended up in a psychiatric hospital over it.

"If you do something wrong, the world will point at you and curse you. Whether those people have anything to do with it or not."

But—

"If you didn't do anything like that, and some stranger still says something that makes you sad, or hurts you, then remember just one thing."

"..."

"You know what Mom means, don't you?"

At words that warmed me straight through, I answered before I could stop myself.

"Yes..."

It felt like comfort, and it felt like advice, and it felt like nothing but warmth. I had heard the same thing from a friend, from teammates, from the coach. Why did it feel so different coming from Mother? Because we were family? Or because she was someone walking a road like mine?

If I had heard those words back then.

Would the result have been different?

All kinds of questions rose in my head, and I couldn't answer a single one of them. I'm a blockhead who can't even manage an easy answer to a question that simple. So I had no choice but to answer the way I always did.

I don't know.