Chapter 29: My Uselessness

The team members who received a call from the old man that Sua and a friend would be coming to the broadcasting station.

They were excitedly preparing to welcome them, expecting that another small child would be coming….

“Ah, hello. I’m Sua’s friend, Heo Jintae!”

Heo Jintae bows deeply in front of them.

Seeing him like that, they were shocked.

“Sua brought a boyfriend!!!”

No, wait.

I glared coldly at Heo Jintae, who was looking at me and the old man with wide eyes in surprise, and the drama-addicted adults who were fussing around him.

And I hid myself with a deep sigh.

I move quickly and go outside before their eyes target me.

“Boyfriend…. Ugh.”

It’s a word that somehow makes me want to throw up.

Of course, since I’ve become a woman, it’s normal for the other person to be a boyfriend or husband….

I’ve never thought about that, so a feeling of rejection suddenly surged.

‘…That’s right, becoming a woman means that my hormone system has changed.’

Does that mean that there will be a day when I get butterflies in my stomach when I see a man?

“Ugh, ah, no!”

I shook my hands as if I was screaming a single word of despair while watching my benefactor die in a car on my phone.

If the day comes when I like a man, that will be the day when my personality as me ends.

If neither my body nor my mind is mine, I can no longer say that I am me.

‘I’d rather the brain in a vat be real…’

As I was having profound thoughts about self-establishment, something cold touched my cheek.

It’s cola.

I looked up and saw a familiar person smiling and greeting me.

“Sua, it’s been a while. How have you been?”

“Ah, Song Jagka. Hello. Thank you.”

I took the cola, opened the can, and gulped it down.

The cool carbonation goes down my throat with my thoughts.

Song chuckled as she watched me drink the cola like beer.

“Did the PD do something weird again?”

“This time it’s other people. I brought a kid, and they’re saying boyfriend, or something….”

“Boy…?”

“…I just met him today, so we’re not even friends.”

Song seemed to be having strange thoughts, so I quickly added an explanation.

Nevertheless, Song couldn’t hide her smile, so I glared at her, and only then did she smile and stroke my head.

“By the way, I saw the TikTok video too. It was amazing.”

“The actor did well.”

“Director Kang Minseok praised it. He may be from an acting background, but he’s a person who’s made two 10 million audience movies.”

“I’m not going to make a movie, so it doesn’t really hit me.”

My field is internet broadcast editing.

Or a little bit of variety show editing.

I’ve learned it before, so I can make such a video, but it’s not my specialty, so if I go into a long-form video instead of a short-form video, my skills will be exposed.

“Hmm, is that so? Oh, right. What’s going on with the YouTube thing this time?”

“YouTube?”

“It’s not long now, so you’re in the content planning stage. Do you have anything in mind, Sua?”

Do I have anything in mind.

No, more than that, it’s not long now?

“Wasn’t the start of YouTube still a few months away?”

“Ah, it was originally supposed to be like that, but the timing of another broadcast overlapped, so it was moved up a bit.”

“Oh, when does it start?”

“It’s Saturday the 17th, so…. It’s the week after next?”

“Oh my god.”

I didn’t hear anything about that.

I immediately ran to the old man.

I pulled on the clothes of the old man who was talking with other team members and dragged him outside.

And in a place where there were no people, I asked the old man as if I was protesting.

“If the YouTube schedule was moved up, you should have told me!”

“Ah, did you find out?”

“It’s not ‘did you find out?’. I’m the director and editor, so how can I not know the schedule!”

I have to adjust my time well because school starts, so how can you set the schedule so urgently?

The work speed is not a problem, but I also need to adjust my condition because there are more things to do.

While I was feeling resentful towards the old man who lived in the same place and didn’t say anything, the old man said quietly.

“To be honest, I was thinking of just doing it ourselves at first. You have the work you’re doing now and you have to go to school.”

“You know my work speed is fast.”

“No matter how fast you are at handling things, if you give a lot of work to one person, that person will break down.”

“I’m fine.”

That’s a problem I’ll take care of myself.

If I feel like there’s too much work, I can just stop increasing the video stock of Osorin’s side, and if I feel tired, I can adjust my lifestyle.

Osorin’s YouTube is my personal work, and the work I have to do officially is the old man’s YouTube editing.

But the reason why the old man kept this a secret is……

The old man hesitated and opened his mouth.

“And… It’s also a matter of ethics, and as an adult, it’s not comfortable to put a lot of burden on a child.”

Because I’m a child.

A 13-year-old elementary school student.

“Th-Then what about the promise we made when you brought me from the orphanage and the documents you gave to the director?”

“You know that the contract is just a formality.”

“The reason you brought me in the first place was to make me edit YouTube videos.”

“That’s true, but that was created because I needed a justification.”

Originally, the old man wanted to adopt me.

However, due to realistic problems, he couldn’t adopt me, so he separated me from the orphanage in this way.

It’s not that I don’t know the old man’s heart.

Even I wouldn’t want to make a young child work.

No adult would overwork a child who stays up all night editing every day and whose body is not well.

But then, what am I?

The old man and I are barely tied together by a contract.

The old man saw my ability and wanted to keep me by his side, and I promised to help the old man by being recognized for that ability.

But if you say it’s a matter of ethics now.

‘There’s no need for me to be here.’

-I become useless.

Video editing.

It’s the only ability I can do with this young body, and it’s my strength.

I couldn’t use my body as I wanted, and the surroundings changed little by little, so there was nothing I could do.

However, only my mind remained the same, so I used my own talent to create a reason for living.

A single thread to raise a small streamer.

A single thread for Vtuber Kirinuki.

A single thread to help the old man.

I believed that those small threads would gather and become a huge ball of yarn.

I piled up the balls of yarn using my talent to prove that I, who was an adult, was not an illusion.

There is no evidence anywhere in the world that I was a 22-year-old man.

Only my mind and the abilities I have built up prove that fact.

But if I can’t prove that.

Can I prove that I am not an illusion?

Clunk.

Creak.

I hear the sound of the rusty hinges of the house I’ve forgotten.

It’s spring now, but the cold like Christmas permeates.

Tick-tock.

I seemed to hear the sound of the 3-month time bomb ticking.

Sua’s expression somehow became dark.

It doesn’t seem like she’s in a bad mood, but she seems to be deep in thought and afraid of something.

Seeing that, Song quietly asked Lee Seongbeom.

“PD, why is Sua like that? She was fine until a while ago…?”

“Did I make another mistake?”

“How would I know that?”

I heard that she became like that after talking with him.

“I was just going to tell her that she could start when she’s stable because she’s busy with work these days, as a courtesy….”

“I wondered why Sua reacted like that, but it seems like you didn’t even tell her about the YouTube schedule.”

“You know the kid is busy these days. She even started school….”

“Did you only say that?”

“I also said that it’s not comfortable to make a child work ethically.”

“That’s why.”

“Right? I think so too.”

Song took a small sigh and looked at Sua, who was sitting on a bench in the corner and lost in thought.

Sua is a child with many thoughts.

She has adult-like thoughts that you can’t see in a child.

At the same time, she has excellent abilities, and she also has a sense of responsibility that matches it.

If you say to such a child, ‘You’re still a child, so let’s do it later,’ she will naturally feel bad.

Moreover, although it’s just a formality, he brought Sua for directing and editing.

He denied that itself, so it became a very serious issue for Sua, who has many thoughts.

“But she’s not the type to get this depressed. Is there something more?”

“Sua is in 6th grade now, right? Isn’t it because it overlaps with puberty?”

“Ah, they say puberty comes early these days, so maybe that’s it?”

It wasn’t for that reason, but when they thought of it as puberty, they could understand.

Because it’s a characteristic of puberty that you don’t know how it will be expressed.

“By the way, how was Song during puberty?”

“I fought with my mom every day and went out to play with my friends. What about you, PD?”

“I ran away from home and got beaten up by my dad.”

“That somehow suits you.”

I felt like Lee Seongbeom was not much different from when he was young and now.

“It’s better to talk about your worries during puberty with friends rather than adults. That’s what I did.”

“Me too. I met my friends after school and talked endlessly at a cafe to relieve stress.”

“But she doesn’t have any friends her age…. I don’t think Actor Bom is a friend.”

“That’s right…”

Strangely, Sua was calling Choi Bom.

That means they don’t seem to be that close, so it would be strange to contact her.

How can I make Sua feel better?

While the two adults were deep in thought,

Someone approached the gloomy Sua.

“Sua, do you want to eat this?”

The child who gave the chocolate he received as a reward for being groped.

It’s Heo Jintae.

As if he looks like an insider, the way he approaches first seems very friendly with Sua.

“Right, he was there?”

“…Will it be okay?”

“Didn’t Sua say to bring him? I think they’re at least friends.”

“Hmm….”

I think she said they weren’t friends earlier…….

‘But is it better than us?’

For now, the two decided to trust that child.

Please make our Sua feel better.

Fighting!

“Sua, do you want to eat this?”

“No.”

“What are you thinking about? I’ll think about it with you.”

“I’m looking for the meaning of my existence and the goal of my life while proving that I am not an illusion in the world.”

“…Uh, um. …Do you want chocolate?”

“Sigh….”

“Yes, please. Chocolate.”