Going Home
"Ahh... this is nice."
"Doesn't matter how luxurious it is. That place is somebody else's house, and this one is mine. Of course it puts me at ease."
It wasn't just talk. With no one around to mind, I flung off the clothes I'd been wearing like a shed skin and dove onto the bed, utterly unrestrained. A week away, and the coziness settled over me all at once.
Perhaps the Helper was of a similar mind. They were chattier than usual.
"Would you stop nitpicking! A useless Helper who can't even cough up a single special mission, clean and simple!"
"Sorry! Retracted! O most capable Helper, this foolish administrator has spoken out of turn."
"Yes, yes~ I live to serve~."
Bickering with the Helper felt warmer than it had any right to, maybe because it had been so long. Through the whole training camp I'd been living in a crowd, and there'd never been a gap wide enough to talk with the Helper alone.
Still, it was good. Of course, there were hard parts too...
Someone out there would probably sneer. All you did was eat and play games—what's so hard about that? That's the mistake of people who've never tried it. Even a game you love is fun for a day, maybe two. Push it to five, and you're thoroughly sick of it.
If I'd been free to play however I wanted and simply enjoy myself, the revulsion wouldn't have set in so early. But this wasn't ordinary gaming. Taking feedback, studying the game the way you study for a class—that kills the fun in a hurry. It must be the particular hardship you meet the moment a hobby you love turns into work.
"Hm? Ah... Yerin says she knows someone on the real-estate side. They'll find a good listing and introduce it right away."
"They said the prize money will be deposited by next Wednesday, so... well."
The tournament had gone smoothly enough: two wins, and the championship. The roar of the crowd. A group photo with the cups held high. The memory of that day, two days ago, was still vivid—and so was the question it had left unanswered.
What on earth was that?
The tournament was over, and we were about to head to the after-party, when Yerin said she had an errand and vanished from her seat. I figured it was nothing and let her go alone.
A little later, on my way to the restroom, I heard someone shouting from the waiting room of We Won, across the way. Curiosity got the better of me and I followed the sound, but a man in a suit—bodyguard written all over him—was posted outside the door, so I never made it inside.
Even so, I heard it. Briefly, and clearly. Yerin's voice saying camera, and Revia's scream—a voice I'd grown familiar with through our vocal-impression showdown.
Not long after, Yerin came back to the waiting room. She had the look of someone quietly hiding something, so I didn't dig. Still, the unease from the victory party wouldn't leave me, and the moment morning broke I opened Shindaeryuk TV on my phone to check. Revia's channel wasn't merely suspended. It had been deleted outright.
Even a child could have told that Yerin was involved. So last night, shoving aside teammates still loopy from the after-party, I woke her and asked point-blank what in the world had happened between the two of them.
I'd overheard them talking behind my back in the restroom, and I didn't have any warm feelings toward Revia myself—but was it really something that called for deleting an entire channel? When I said as much, baffled, Yerin told me she didn't want to spell out a story this "filthy."
What was certain, she said, was that the woman had done something truly terrible, and had received a punishment to match. Yerin wasn't the sort to invent things, so I decided to believe her for now. The unease stayed anyway, a thorn caught in my throat.
What could she possibly have done...
"Hm? Ah, more or less. It's ready."
The Helper's question tugged me back to the move.
A shame, but MVP had gone to 19Sonyeo. In game two, her quadra kill in the team fight in front of the dragon had been the deciding blow. Regrettable—but in team fights the power of Guillotine Match 4 was limited, so all I could do was watch her work and applaud.
"Still, there's always a way."
Heaven looks after the earnest, apparently. I'd missed MVP, but one of the stocks I'd been holding had climbed enough to cover what I was short.
Ten whole days off, so I'll fire up a stream later... but what am I even doing today?
I'd barely survived the tournament and thought I might finally rest, and already the broadcast was worrying me. Things had been so rushed that I'd slapped up a notice and then taken the full ten days off. What would the station's mood even be?
"Ugh!"
My station's bulletin board, for the first time in nearly ten days. The place had turned into hell.
"......"
Ignoring the Helper's voice, I clicked the first post on the board. And there I was, cat-ear headband on, popping up against a moon with a spaceship landing on it, shaking my hips.
"......"
"Shut up!"
I clicked the second post. Up came the bunny-girl cosplay from the Penalty Broadcast—and then, out of nowhere, an enormous carrot was composited straight into my mouth.
What were the people who made these videos even thinking...
The posts after that were no different. The board was pure hell. The next page, and the page after that.
If I'd known it would be like this, I should have given the chat manager moderation rights for the board, too.
When I checked, a message from HanisUncleFan was waiting in my messenger.
But every day I'd been gone had been a bad joke of timing. Back then I'd cut off every outside connection so I could focus on team practice. Coincidence stacked on coincidence, and this worst-case mess was the result.
"Damn it."
First, clean up the board that had become a playground for the trolls. I went through the contents of all 786 posts uploaded during the ten days off-air and screened them. It was going to take forever on my own, so I even called HanisUncleFan and Yunjae for help—and granted them board-management rights while I was at it. Never again. Not a disaster like this.
"Hmm. So that's how it is."
These trolls had no idea. That I'd been active here since long ago, and that even after I became a woman I'd stayed buried as a spy. And one thing more: at first I'd felt sorry toward the viewers for the long hiatus, but after seeing my station's board turned into hell, I was furious. Properly furious.
"The comeback broadcast you viewers are all so looking forward to... I'll have to make it properly scorching."
"I'm perfectly fine!"
Who did they think they were, treating me like some kind of lunatic?
I turned my back on the Helper and wrung my brain for ideas. What kind of content could give these arrogant, rude viewers a taste of something hot? Thinking, and thinking again. I even forgot lunch, clutching my head, until at last one idea surfaced.
"Just you wait, you trolls! I'll prepare a broadcast you won't forget."
The grudge of a bulletin board runs deep.