A New Beginning
Mia's broadcast board was going up in glorious flames.
Even so, we still couldn't bring ourselves to start the stream. The reason was simple.
The destructive power of my looks.
I know it sounds like I'm in love with myself, but it was the plain truth. Celebrity-grade looks, and on top of that a full styling, finished with help from the professionals. Everyone seeing me like this for the first time — Mia included — was struck completely speechless.
Lac, who had only ever seen me in a mask, dropped his jaw so wide it looked ready to split. Clemoomoo, still wearing the befuddled expression of a man whose memories had been tampered with, simply lost his soul on the spot.
Hmph. A married man, and he has the nerve.
Once this joint broadcast is over, I'm telling Yuri unnie.
Next was Waka, meeting me for the very first time. He'd probably seen the cam-room videos, sure — but he froze solid and went stiff as a board. When he greeted me he couldn't even meet my eyes, and the words stumbled out of him. He looked wound to the absolute limit.
And last of all, the long-awaited Mia.
Our eyes met. My cute little sister. I smiled at her without a shred of ulterior motive, and Mia's eyes flew open, round as a rabbit's.
And then... her nose started to bleed. Exactly like a panel out of a manga.
"Unnie, unnie!"
With a wad of tissues jammed over her nose against the bleed, the pronunciation came out all mushy. Cute little thing. She curled her already tiny body up even smaller, like a kitten, and burrowed straight into my arms.
That suspicious nosebleed made me think of Yerin at first, and I flinched — but once I understood, the texture of it was entirely different. If Yerin sat on the rather indecent (?) side, Mia was pure through and through. She kept insisting she was my fan, perfectly happy right there against me.
Everyone else stared at the two of us with vacant faces. Having taken in how I looked, even starting a conversation seemed to feel difficult; they busied themselves looking anywhere else for no reason at all.
At this rate there was no way today's broadcast could go on, so I decided to go to them first.
"What's the matter? Fallen for me all over again?"
"Uh — uhhh?"
Lac, trailing off with that dazed look, caught the mischievous smile hooked at the corner of my mouth and laughed, deflated. He was probably remembering back then — shoved aside before he could even manage a proper confession.
"Terminal princess syndrome?"
"Why not? At this point I'm allowed to call myself a princess."
At my over-the-top declaration Mia nodded so hard her head might have come off. The others loosened up, smiling faintly at the joke as the tension eased.
"How come every time I see you, you just get prettier?"
"Oppa, I'm telling Yuri unnie. I'm gonna say you went completely vacant staring at me just now."
"Ack! P-please, anything but that!"
And so, to preserve the peace of his household, Clemoomoo threw both hands high in surrender once again today.
Ah. The weight of being the man of the house.
"Ma... Mama?"
"......"
He still seemed like a dangerous one. The moment Mia's eyes flared like twin fuses and she bristled, Waka scrambled to insist it had been a joke and patch things over — but the brand of dangerous individual was already stamped on him. In the end, once everyone took the seats that had been prepared, he would taste the sorrow of being assigned the spot farthest from me.
"Shouldn't we be starting soon? The mood on the board is no joke."
The BJs had loosened up among themselves, and at once the problem staring them in the face blocked everything else out. The broadcast was already running about thirty minutes late.
Mia only laughed, as if they were worrying over nothing.
"The second unnie shows up they won't even be able to type in chat properly, so what does it matter."
"Agreed."
"Yeah. Even I think that sounds about right."
"......"
Well. If that was what all of them thought, there wasn't much I could say.
And so, leaving the viewers' morale fallen all the way to rock bottom exactly as it was, Mia's broadcast began.
The cam still wasn't on, so the screen stayed endlessly dark. As if they had been waiting, viewers flooded into the stream, and in a flash the chat was plastered over with explain yourselves and rock bottom.
Mia took the mic and tried to soothe them in a soft voice.
"It's my birthday today, so don't be like this — congratulate me. I'll apologize for being late, too. I was just busy getting everything ready."
"I said I was sorry! It's my birthday! I can be a little late. Don't you know the protagonist always shows up later?"
Birthday or not, the usual air of Mia's room hadn't changed a bit. Mia, who carried the role of something like Shindaeryuk TV's official little sister, couldn't overcome the viewers' fierce backlash, and in the end she turned the cam on first.
"Ugh! You're all such children. Happy now? You've seen me all dressed up pretty, so let's everybody calm down."
"Damn it! What exactly is your problem?! Huh? A pretty little sister can be late because she was getting ready. You can't even understand that much — that's why none of you can get a date!"
"Hey, you! I've been telling you to change that nickname since last time! You want to eat a blacklist ban and see if that knocks some sense into you?"
It was pandemonium, and nobody could get it under control. In the end they decided to send the others in fast.
"Now, now, everyone, please calm down. I'm truly sorry we're late. As the eldest brother of Miracle Crew, I offer you my sincere apology."
"...... Understood."
A strange tension hung in the air. Clemoomoo bit his lip and edged toward the wall — then suddenly charged it and kicked up into a headstand.
"I will atone with the apology headstand! This is my sincerity!"
The reaction was good. The mood subsided, if only a little, and Lac and Waka slipped in without missing the moment.
"This is Lac, two months out from enlistment. Surely you wouldn't torment me while I'm rolling around boot camp in the cold of November?"
"I'm here as well! One of the headliners of the Blame Games. Waka, steadfastly holding down mid for the team — my greetings to you all!"
"Oh, come on, what's there to agonize over. Obviously Shindaeryuk T—"
"Ah, n-no, that's..."
Of everyone there, Waka was the only one with a foot on both platforms, so the bat bit surfaced often on his broadcasts — a meme cooked up to torment him into admitting which was his true home base, Shindaeryuk TV or Tweet TV.
"Guh—! My sincerity ends here. By the way, there's still one person who hasn't shown up. You all know who it is, don't you?"
In the meantime Clemoomoo, finished with the apology headstand, crawled to the center of the frame in a voice like a man newly back from the dead. Rescuing the cornered Waka, he turned the topic with a practiced hand.
Now that was hosting.
And perhaps it was the anticipation of my face, about to be revealed in full for the first time — the moment the viewers guessed who Clemoomoo meant, Waka was wiped from their minds in a single stroke.
Anticipation detonated.
Mia, whose birthday it was and who was still being left out, pouted beside me.
"Excuse me, is this my birthday? Was it actually Hani unnie's birthday this whole time?"
"Hey! Change that nickname right now! Since when are you a loyal retainer!"
"Augh! And these people are supposed to be fans."
Mia grumbled, and even so she quietly slipped aside. The others, likewise, each retreated a step. No one said it aloud, but I could feel the care they were taking with me.
Carefully, I made for the center of the stage they had prepared.
One step. Then another.
And at last, when I stood at the center of the screen, a spell fell over the chat.
A spell that stopped time.
I dipped into a bow.
Now my life as a broadcaster stood at a new beginning. Countless viewers were watching. Just how meaningful a presence could I become to them?
It was the start of a new story.