Chapter 46: A Visit to Yu Sieun’s House.

For people living in modern times, physical distance is rarely a barrier when it comes to having conversations.

With just a phone number or email address, you can have real-time conversations with someone living on the other side of the planet.

Of course, the kind of Q&A that Yu Sieun and I were planning to do was a little unusual.

But even if it was a Q&A hosted by a streamer and a video editor, using Discord would have made it perfectly fine to proceed without being together in person.

Even so, the reason I was walking towards Yu Sieun’s house, a mysterious area, leaving my comfortable home behind, was simple.

A microphone.

That one word, referring to a type of audio equipment, was the biggest reason why that decision came about.

The only time I normally had a reason to use a microphone was when I was talking on Discord.

I usually used a basic pair of earphones for times like that.

From the perspective of Yu Sieun, who I usually talked to, my voice probably didn’t sound as clear as it did when I was talking to other streamers on Discord, but it was a perfectly fine spec for everyday phone calls.

But it was a little different if we were taking it to a broadcast and a YouTube video.

Matching the specs required for these two purposes with the microphone built into the earphones was, at least with the entry-level equipment I had, close to impossible.

Maybe it would be fine for a small-scale hobby broadcast, but I had absolutely no intention of having my voice, whose sound quality had completely fallen into the Han River [TL Note: A common Korean idiom indicating that something has gone wrong], go out on Yu Sieun’s broadcast and YouTube videos, which had now advanced to become a top-tier mid-sized company.

But it wasn’t like I could just casually buy a microphone worth hundreds of thousands of won that I wouldn’t even use otherwise. There was already someone nearby who had bought a microphone of that price and was using it well, so there was no need for me to do that.

If Yu Sieun’s house was the kind of distance I would have to take a plane to get to, I might have just bought a ₩70,000 cost-effective microphone.

But for me, who lived within commuting distance of Yu Sieun’s house, simply moving my body was the easiest way to provide a high-quality broadcast.

It was also a natural progression.

To the extent that it had come up in both Yu Sieun’s and my heads at the same time during the first meeting where we discussed proceeding with the Q&A.

‘Oh…’

In other words, the reason why I was going to Yu Sieun’s house and the process were completely justified.

But the fact that the reason and the process were justified didn’t necessarily erase the emotions that arose from the action.

If it was that simple, then people trapped in a room they couldn’t leave unless they did a certain act would be able to regain their freedom without any psychological barriers.

In my life, it was the first time I was going into someone else’s house, especially a woman’s house, and on top of that, the house of an internet streamer.

I could feel that my body was gradually starting to creak from the time I had passed through the apartment complex’s shared entrance with Yu Sieun.

I wanted to act as naturally as I had when Yu Sieun had spent the night at my house before, but it didn’t seem easy.

Was it the difference between being in the position of providing and the position of receiving?

It didn’t take long to go up the stairs. It was because the unit where Yu Sieun lived was located on the second floor.

Yu Sieun pressed the buttons on the door lock and entered the password.

‘….’

I really didn’t mean to try to see it on purpose, but the password was the number with Yu Sieun’s birthday backwards.

What the inside of a person’s house looks like entirely depends on their personality.

If they don’t clean the house at all and pile up trash like a mountain, that’s mental illness, but if it’s just messy to a certain extent, it’s just a normal, lived-in house.

‘…Wow.’

But, from the moment the door opened, I could feel that Yu Sieun’s space was different from any other person’s house I had ever been inside before.

It smelled like a subtle floral fragrance.

If I said fragrance, would I sound a little perverted?

Anyway, it was on a completely different level from the bachelor scent that I had always smelled when visiting other people’s houses.

After taking off my shoes and going inside, I looked around the house.

The first thing that caught my eye was the desk, on which three monitors and a microphone were placed.

On one shelf of the bookcase next to it, several flower baskets and bouquets were lined up, and the bed was also clean, as if to claim that its owner didn’t use it for anything other than sleeping.

It was the same configuration as the house of a person living alone, not much different from me, but I would have to say it was different quality [TL Note: ee-jil-jeo-gin – foreign or heterogeneous] to the point where it felt different. I even had the thought that you would have to do a big cleaning once a day to keep the room in this state.

Was this the power of a genuine woman?

Since the part that remained in my head was the flowers on the bookcase, I turned my gaze to that side again.

It was then that Yu Sieun spoke to me from behind.

“Eunsol-ah, is there anything weird? I get a little nervous when you stare at one place like that….”

“Ah. It’s not anything like that, but it’s because there are flowers there. I wondered if you liked them.”

Yu Sieun turned her gaze to the bookcase that I had talked about, then parted her lips again.

“Hmm… I don’t like them that much, but it feels a little wrong to throw them away, so that’s why I have them.”

“……Did you get them from other people?”

“No. They just popped up one by one when I was working in the past. Who would give flowers to me?”

“Hmm…”

“How is it, does it look good? I made those myself, you know.”

“They’re pretty. The class of the person who made them shows through.”

“Ayy, what is that. Do you want to take one? It wouldn’t be too bad to keep one around if you have a place to put it. It’s artificial, so it won’t have a fragrance, though.”

“I’ll decline, since it might cause a controversy if Unni gave a bouquet to someone else.”

Looking around Yu Sieun’s house stopped around there.

It’s not like I was someone who came to look at the house, and there was no reason for me to inspect every nook and cranny of Yu Sieun’s house.

Since I had moved quite early, there was still quite a bit of time left until the broadcast started. There was enough time to go to a nearby PC방 [TL Note: PC gaming room] and seriously play a few solo ranked games.

Yu Sieun and I first settled lunch.

In a world where the system called minimum order amounts for delivery food has become universal, it’s quite difficult to order so that the price for one meal exceeds ₩14,000, considering the amount that Yu Sieun and I eat.

But I subtly realized the advantage that you can meet the minimum order amount even with just one hamburger per person when there are two people together.

Most of the remaining few hours were spent looking over the questions that Yu Sieun had picked out.

It might have been fun in its own right to hear the questions completely for the first time when the broadcast was proceeding, but in Yu Sieun’s case she had already seen them, and in my case I wasn’t confident that I would be able to answer questions I was seeing for the first time with skill when the broadcast was turned on.

Thinking about what I was reading, there were quite a few things that gave me a good feeling among the selected questions.

There were quite a few things that made me think they were sufficiently I am curious [TL Note: gung-geum-ha-da – curious or intriguing], but that I wouldn’t have been able to come up with on my own.

Yu Sieun had picked them out well, but I once again realized that the wisdom of crowds had quite a tremendous power.

It seemed that even in a mountain of comments mixed with bizarre lifeforms, comments like wild ginseng were growing.

Yu Sieun started preparing for the broadcast while sitting in front of the computer around four in the afternoon.

What Yu Sieun did to prepare right before the broadcast was something that wasn’t in my knowledge, so I started observing Yu Sieun in order to fill my memories with a new appearance.

Yu Sieun first set up the broadcasting equipment and programs.

After that, she poured a drink into the tumbler and waited.

And then, right on time, Yu Sieun pressed the broadcast start button.

The waiting screen that I had seen so much by now appeared on the monitor.

From now on was the time to wait for viewers to gather for a few minutes.

Yu Sieun, as if to relieve the tension I was feeling now, which had come right before the broadcast started, was constantly telling me words that expressed that. Perhaps it’s a figure [TL Note: moseup – appearance/figure] that’s different from how she usually is when broadcasting alone.

After a little time had passed and enough viewers had gathered, I nodded to Yu Sieun, who was asking me if it was okay to start the broadcast.

“Hello~!”

Yu Sieun soon switched away from the waiting screen, turned on the microphone, and spoke the first greeting she said after turning on the broadcast.

Experiencing listening to it from next to her was quite novel.

It was words I had always heard through electronic equipment, but I was now hearing them directly from next to her.

Thinking about how I would soon have the experience of appearing on the broadcast, I wondered if this side would be even more novel.

Although I was sitting next to her, now was the time where I shouldn’t make any sounds.

I would be able to make my voice when Yu Sieun introduced me after proceeding with the broadcast.

That moment didn’t take long to come.

“Well then, everyone! Today, as I said in advance, I’ve invited a guest.”

Ten minutes after starting the novel experience of watching the broadcast from the side, Yu Sieun began to talk to the viewers about me, who was sitting next to her.