Chapter 18: Choi Yu-jin (5)

Is this a pick-up?

I thought so, but it didn’t seem like it.

If they had intended to pick me up, the person behind wouldn’t have stopped them like that.

Then, did he just fall in love at first sight and come to get my number?

…

I don’t feel well.

No matter how long I’ve been doing netkama, I’m not used to being confessed to by a man.

No,

I was used to being confessed to itself.

Because I was a female streamer to people.

There were more than one or two people who confessed to female streamers via personal messages.

At first, I thought I was the only one experiencing that.

But…

After listening to other female streamers, that wasn’t the case.

There were just those types who would stab at anyone who seemed like a female streamer.

There were those who would suddenly send their picture to a nickname they had never seen before and send a message asking to go out.

Well,

Streamers, especially hakko streamers like us who don’t get many viewers, must have looked very easy to them.

I was pretending to be a woman, so I thought it was a price I had to pay, so I could bear it…

But being able to bear it doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.

“…Hot.”

“Excuse me?”

I just laughed in vain.

A guy who used to do netkama is thinking that he can understand women’s hearts.

How absurd that thought is.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh.”

I quickly made an excuse in case they misunderstood.

“I just… remembered something personally sad.”

“Uh… ah, yes…”

The man who had held out his cell phone to me put it back in his pocket.

He seemed to have given up knowing that I had no intention of giving him my number.

“Ah, that’s why I told you not to do it, you idiot.”

“You idiot, you have to stab at least to have a chance!”

“Can’t you tell by looking? Would you succeed with your face?”

“You’re going to live like that forever, you coward.”

I heard the voices of the two men leaving.

I was there too.

That kind of daily life was what I had thrown away.

…

Am I jealous of those people?

I was lost in thought for a moment.

“Su-yeong-ah~?”

“Hiyat?!”

Then Yu-jin Noona poked my side.

I was so startled that I made a strange noise.

“Yu-jin Unnieㅡ”

“What are you thinking so hard about?”

Aigoo, how cute.

Yu-jin Noona said that and kept poking my cheek.

“Su-yeong seems very used to it?”

“Yes? What?”

“Those guys from earlier.”

It seemed to be about the men from earlier.

“Kids get embarrassed or make a big fuss when they get asked for their number.”

Hyun-ah Noona’s words made sense.

But that’s the story of girls, what’s the point of being embarrassed when a man gets confessed to by a man…

“Unnie, Su-yeong is not a kid.”

“Well, she’s probably tired of getting confessed to, so that makes sense.”

I didn’t say anything, but they were somehow convinced on their own.

“…”

Let’s just leave it alone.

It’s good if there’s less to explain.

I tilted my glass without bothering to correct the misunderstanding.

“I’ll clear the bottles.”

“Yeeees~ thank you~”

It was already the third time, the bottles had piled up on the table and been cleared.

Nearly twenty bottles of alcohol was a considerable amount for three people to drink.

“Yu-jin-ah…”

“Yeees Unnie~”

“Let’s stop drinking now…”

“Yeees? Aww, let’s drink just a bit more!”

“Stop drinking, you crazy b*tch!”

Yu-jin had drunk more than half of the twenty bottles by herself, and when she tried to order more, Hyun-ah was horrified and stopped her.

Before worrying about Yu-jin, she was about to die herself, so she was even more desperate.

“Aww, I was just getting started.”

Yu-jin surprisingly listened obediently.

She would have said let’s drink more usually, but it was probably because there was someone who had already passed out and couldn’t handle it.

“EoHunnieuie…”

“Hiroyaaaa, are you okay?”

“I feeeel like I’m going to die…”

Hiro, who couldn’t even pronounce a word properly, was desperately trying not to lose his mind.

The alarm that something big could happen if he made a mistake due to being drunk kept Hiro in this world.

“Su-yeong-ah…”

“Yeeee Hyuna Unnieㅡ”

“See, I told you to repeat ‘I’m fcked’ three times, right?”

“I’m fckked, I’m fuucked, I’m f*cked…”

Hiro repeated three times, following Hyun-ah’s words.

“You can’t even drink well, so why did you follow them and drink so much? You should have drunk moderately.”

“But everthone was ddrinkiing, and if Itm the onniy one who dosne…”

“You’re foolish.”

Hyun-ah poured proper cold water into a cup this time and handed it to Hiro.

Hiro raised his body, which had been lying down, leaned back in the chair, and slowly poured the water he had received down his throat.

“Aigooo, I told you that you don’t have to force yourself to drink like that~”

In fact, if you only count the amount they drank, Hiro and Yu-jin couldn’t be compared.

Hiro had only drunk about two bottles at most, but Yu-jin had drunk more than ten bottles.

Even so, Yu-jin was the one who was worried, and Hiro was the one who was being worried about.

“Anyway, our Hiro is so responsible in strange ways.”

Yu-jin stroked Hiro’s head, who was leaning against the back of the chair.

Then, Hiro made a dying sound and leaned his head on Yu-jin’s shoulder.

“Yu-jin-ah, how does Su-yeong usually broadcast?”

“Su-yeong’s broadcast?”

Hyun-ah was curious about how such a kid was doing internet broadcasting.

She couldn’t say for sure because she was someone who enjoyed watching internet broadcasts, but in Hyun-ah’s opinion, Hiro didn’t seem to be suited for internet broadcasting.

“When I see those broadcasting kids, they’re all missing a screw and funny. He’s just inflexible and stuffy, so how does he broadcast?”

“That’s true, there are some things that Su-yeong is really frustrating about~”

Yu-jin didn’t deny Hyun-ah’s words.

However, she hesitated to answer.

“Su-yeong once did a sports content before?”

“Sports? Didn’t you say he used to broadcast without showing his face?”

“Yes, he just made it so you could only hear the sound at that time.”

“Does that become a broadcast?”

“Just listen, Unnie.”

Yu-jin continued to speak.

“When was that, around March of this year? It would have been then.”

“He was having a hard time, so he made a promise to do 10 squats for 10,000 won?”

“…? Who gives money for that?”

“It seems big if you say 10,000 won for 10 times, but 100,000 won is 100 times.”

Hyun-ah still couldn’t understand.

She couldn’t understand spending money on that kind of thing in the first place.

“Viewers really like seeing the people who are broadcasting suffer.”

“Okay, let’s say that’s the case, I don’t know much about that.”

So how much money did he collect?

Hyun-ah asked.

Then, Yu-jin tried to make a number with her hands, but gave up.

It seemed that it was a number that couldn’t be expressed with hands.

“I don’t remember exactly, but it was a little over 1 million won?”

“1 million won??”

Hyun-ah’s eyes widened.

They spend 1 million won on that kind of thing?

“It’s not that one person gave all 1 million won, but several people gathered little by little.”

“Wow, should I try broadcasting too? Earning 1 million won in one day.”

Yu-jin smiled.

“You know that’s a very rude thing to say, right?”

“Huh? Ah, cough… I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, you didn’t do it on purpose.”

Yu-jin generously overlooked Hyun-ah’s mistake and told the rest of the story.

“If it’s 10,000 won for 10 squats, then 1 million won is 1000 times, right?”

“Right?”

“Honestly, that was an amount that a person could do, especially someone who didn’t exercise, but Su-yeong did it.”

She added that it took a total of 6 hours.

However, Hyun-ah asked back with a puzzled expression.

“But didn’t you say that you only let them hear the sound?”

“That’s right, Unnie.”

“Then wouldn’t it be okay to just pretend to do it?”

Who would know that?

Yu-jin answered Hyun-ah, who said that.

“Everyone thought that. They thought he would just pretend to do it.”

Yu-jin scratched her cheek, saying that she also thought so at first.

“I said earlier that a little over 1 million won came in, right?”

“You did?”

“But Su-yeong only did 1000 times the day before. So there was still something left to do?”

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

The next day, Hiro turned on the broadcast.

And what Hiro saw in the chat was suffering.

[Hiro-nim, you have to do the 300 that you didn’t do yesterday.]
[Hi Hiro, Hi Hiro~ Are you doing squats today too?]
[Hiro-nim, you’re not running away, are you?]
[Lolololol If the streamer eats the money and runs away, they’re not human lololol]

Hiro said to the viewers.

He said that he did too much yesterday and it would be a big deal if he did squats again today.

So, he asked if it would be okay to rest for a few days and then do it.

But the viewers didn’t believe him.

They didn’t believe that Hiro had exercised properly in the first place because he hadn’t exercised with the camera on and they could only hear the sound.

Since the viewers were enjoying the situation itself where the streamer was suffering, they pushed Hiro.

They were preparing to tease him forever if he ran away, and they were preparing to enjoy the situation if he said he would do it.

“…Then I’ll finish it. I got the money, so I have to do it.”

[Today too, Hiro-nim’s moaning is so good ㅗㅜㅑ ㅗㅜㅑ…]
[I want Noona to suffer a little more]
[You’re not angry, are you? Lololol You’re not angry about this, are you? Lololol No way, a person can’t be angry about this lololol]

With that, Hiro began to liquidate the remaining 300 squats following the previous day.

“One…”

“…Two.”

The number of squats went up one by one and…

[ㅗㅜㅑㅗㅜㅑ]
[Noonaaaaaaa It’s too sexy ///]
[This is it for today]
[Wait a minute, I’ll type with one hand]

【LetBbi donated 1,000 won!!】
【Member-nim, you can’t rest! Aren’t you going to start the next set quickly? Come on, squats!】

Chat and donations also came up.

While he was doing squats for a while, a problem occurred.

“Seventy three…”

Hiro’s voice, which was counting seventy-three, disappeared.

Silence

Only content about the disappeared Hiro occasionally came up in the chat, and there was no sound or change on the broadcast screen that was displayed.

About 5 minutes later, a text appeared on the broadcast screen.

[I’m sorry. I’ll end the broadcast for now. I’ll tell you the details tomorrow.]

[?]
[?]
[???]
[What??]
[He’s running away lololol]
[??]

The chat was covered with question marks, but Hiro ended the broadcast without answering.

And the next day, a notice was posted in Hiro’s broadcast notice section.

【3/17 Notice】

【The muscle in my thigh was torn, so I went to the hospital.】
【I’m sorry that I didn’t have time to properly notify you and go.】
【I’ll turn on the broadcast at the usual time.】

A picture of the hospital receipt was also included.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

After Yu-jin’s story ended, Hyun-ah looked at Hiro with an absurd expression.

“Is that guy an idiot?”

“He’s a fool.”

I told you he’s responsible in strange ways.

Yu-jin smiled as she looked at Hiro, who was sleeping on her shoulder.

Hyun-ah thought that wasn’t responsibility, but just stubbornness, but she didn’t say it out loud.

“After that, people who doubted Su-yeong disappeared.”

“They knew that if they doubted and provoked him, he would try to prove it by ruining his own body.”

After that, if Hiro heard that he was pretending to be sick or was accused of lying, he would try to prove that he wasn’t by using all his strength.

Sometimes by ruining his body.

Sometimes by spending money until there was no living expenses left.

Viewers want to see streamers suffer, but they don’t want streamers to be ruined.

They just want to have fun, not feel guilty that they ruined the streamer with their own hands.

That’s why.

Hiro’s viewers didn’t doubt Hiro for ordinary things.

He tried to be more honest than anyone else, did his best to keep his promises with the viewers, and desperately devoted himself to the broadcast.

Hiro’s broadcast wasn’t the most fun broadcast, didn’t have great skills, and didn’t make you happy just by watching it.

Instead, it was a broadcast that tried harder than anyone else and desperately welcomed viewers.

Someone with the heart of seeing a child

Someone with the heart of seeing a friend

Someone with the heart of seeing a lover

It became a strange broadcast that made you want to cheer for the struggling Hiro.

And that was the same for Yu-jin.

She suspected that Hiro might be a netkama, but she couldn’t suspect him.

If someone who was trying so hard to gain the trust of viewers was a netkama, she would feel too betrayed.

So she did a form of ignoring it.

Saying that couldn’t be.

But as the time she spent with Hiro grew longer, Yu-jin began to have other thoughts.

Yu-jin was…

“…Did you wake up, Hiro-ya?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Yu-jin Unnie…”

The warmth leaving her shoulder was sent off with a smile.