The Second Act of the Broadcast
I signed the lease and closed things with the contractor on good terms.
It seemed wiser to finish the construction before moving in, so I set the schedule that way and made the rounds of the new neighbors first—half a greeting, half a plea for their patience—with gifts in hand. Construction meant noise, inevitably, so I was essentially paying the bribe up front. Fortunately the new neighbors were willing to indulge me, and I locked the final move-in date to the construction schedule.
They said the work wraps on the thirtieth, so moving on the first of next month would be perfect.
When I mentioned the rough plan to the people around me, everyone kicked up a fuss about coming to the housewarming. There was nothing special about the place. I couldn't see why they were all so worked up. Still, the kindness of wanting to be there with me was lovely, so I accepted without a second thought.
"It's a little cold."
I was on my way back from working out. By now it was the time of year when the autumn leaves were starting to tuck themselves away, one by one. Call it luck or not—the new place and Myung-hoon's Gym were still only about a bus stop apart. Old house, gym, new house, more or less in a line. The workout life I'd been dragging along for over a month looked set to continue without a hitch.
Once my face is finished and the soundproofing is in, I'll have to run a bigger project. What would be good?
The broadcasts had been in a slight stall ever since I'd drawn a hard line last time. YouTube had climbed fast to a hundred and sixty thousand subscribers, but after that the rise had broken. I'd cleared a fair number of missions because of it, and my points had piled back up to around four hundred, yet the dissatisfaction lingered all the same. At this rate, when was I ever going to be a five-hundred-thousand-subscriber YouTuber? A million?
Once I settled the bill for the soundproofing, the Water Balloons had to go back to their original use—exchanging them for points. From here on, my living expenses depended entirely on YouTube's growth. The channel's revenue was to be split three to three to two, and the twenty percent left outside that ratio was stacking, neat and quiet, in a shared account as reserve funds for running the channel.
"I've actually been worrying about it a lot lately. I've got content ideas lined up, but I'm going to decide after I move."
"Don't rush me so much. The move is confirmed for October first, so I'll set the date for the Penalty Broadcast once I'm over there."
I kept the stream going, trading light chatter with the viewers, and along the way I picked up a few scraps of news about other broadcasters.
"What's that?"
BJ Regeno. A man sitting so firmly at the top of Shindaeryuk TV's BJs that no other title was necessary. He had planned and produced any number of projects on a scale that rivaled an actual network, and a few of them had blown up so hard he'd even sold the formats to the broadcasters.
"Then I'll wrap today's broadcast here."
A small broadcast, and a small day.
"Whoa!"
"Just be careful that the marked section over there doesn't tear. We'll cover minor issues with free after-service, so don't worry—call us right away."
"Yes, thank you so much. You worked hard."
I'd stopped by once in the middle to check on things, but seeing the finished interior pulled a smile out of me on its own. A place roomier than before. And now that it even had soundproofing, I could broadcast to my heart's content.
A little later the moving truck arrived, and they started hauling over the appliances and furniture from the old place.
"Whew! It's bigger than I thought."
"Oh, you're here?"
The one who'd shown up from early morning to help with the move was Lac. He was due to enlist at the start of next month, and he'd already buzzed his head down to the scalp. I'd left first to confirm the soundproofing was done, so he'd waited at my old place and come over with the movers.
My hand went skritch, skritch across his scalp.
"What are you doing?"
"Hm? Nothing. My hand just went there on instinct."
See a freshly buzzed head and want to pet it—that's human instinct. I rose onto my toes, fiddled with the top of Lac's head a few times, and turned at the sound of Mia arriving.
"Unnie! Congrats on the move!"
"You could've come empty-handed. Why'd you haul something this heavy?"
I set aside the tissue set she thrust at me and led Lac and Mia into the broadcast room, soundproofing and all.
"You made the big room the broadcast room?"
"There's nothing to do in the small one but sleep."
They were my seniors when it came to broadcasting, so I was taking all kinds of advice from the two of them on gear and setup when it got noisy outside. I stepped into the living room and found Yerin and Yoonjae. From what they said, they'd run into each other at the entrance of the villa.
"A gift."
"Uh... me too."
"This'll last me a year."
Sure enough, rolls of toilet paper as a housewarming gift really were the law of the land. I shoved them into a corner and introduced Lac to the two, who were meeting him for the first time.
Yerin was still feeling Mia out, keeping a careful, awkward distance. Even so, those five days of training camp must have done something—she offered the greeting first, going so far as to call her unnie.
"But did you know, unnie?"
"Know what?"
"This place... Hani-unnie and I came and picked it. Our. Selves."
"......!"
I thought she was coming along nicely. The two girls traded razor looks with me caught between them. I shot Lac a plea for help, but he must have felt the terrifying pressure coming off both sides; he quietly turned his head and looked away.
Coward. And I trusted you as a friend.
"We're all finished."
"Ah! You really worked hard. Please take these for the road."
I handed the movers the energy bars and simple drinks I'd prepared ahead of time, and the workers vanished with bright smiles. There hadn't been much to move in the first place, so even with everything put away it was barely noon.
"Shall we eat first?"
"Yeah. You come to a housewarming, you've got to have jajangmyeon."
"And sweet-and-sour pork!"
"I'll take jjamppong."
We ordered through a delivery app and started cleaning. With the windows open to air the place out, we swept and wiped in earnest, and just as the cleaning was more or less done the food arrived with uncanny timing.
"This is a pain without a table. I should buy one."
"Come on. Jajangmyeon after a move is supposed to be eaten on the floor. That's the law."
Living alone in a tiny studio, I'd been short on a lot of household things. I portioned out the platter of black-bean noodles a little at a time, and we ate chili shrimp and eight-treasure stir-fry—the sort of dishes you only order on a day like this—while I side-eyed Lac with care.
Halfway through his noodles, Lac reached for the sweet-and-sour pork. And he dipped. I caught it with a hawk's eye, shot to my feet, and shouted.
"I knew it—you dip! Traitor."
"Huh?"
"Ah! Unnie, you still remembered that?"
"Yeah. Lac-oppa pretended he was a pour-the-sauce guy."
"I remember too. After I saw that, I got even more certain that if Hani-nim became a YouTuber, she'd make it."
Dip versus pour on sweet-and-sour pork—that had been the subject of Mia and Lac's debate-to-the-death content. We'd run a hidden camera on it. The memories welled up, fresh as ever.
The moment I'd gone to use the bathroom and nearly fainted from shock when a certain treasure had suddenly vanished. Meeting that strange goddess and the Helper, and starting to broadcast. The viewers who found my stream for the first time. The feverish ache that hit after that first broadcast and taught me that talking for hours on end was genuinely hard work. After that, the stories got bigger: the one-on-one with Mia, the pile of collab broadcasts, and all the twists and turns of opening a YouTube channel.
It had been a rough road, but I'd endured it and made it this far. And now, in a new place, with an upgraded broadcast setup, I was preparing for act two.
"This is nice."
"Yes?"
"What do you mean?"
"No—I mean it. This is really nice."
For no particular reason I got to my feet and pulled into a fierce hug the new bonds that had formed after my body changed. Mia looked happy. Yerin wore a look that was just a little bit indecent. I was about to hug Lac and Yoonjae too when the two girls threw up a desperate defense, and it never got that far.
"I'm really going to work hard. So everyone—please keep looking after me."
"Hahaha, of course. Let's push all the way to a million subscribers."
"Unnie! Anyway, when are we going on that trip? We said we'd go if we won."
"Don't worry. I've already made the plans. The moment my break starts, we can go."
"......"
Honestly, I might have forgotten. I'd been looking forward to it—and to think she'd prepared that thoroughly, from start to finish. Yerin... a truly frightening girl.
And so another day drew to a close.