Chapter 14
"...I'm hungry."
I just lay on the bed, staring at my phone.
The corners of my mouth twitched, and a laugh escaped me.
Why, you ask?
Lee Jia01
dlwldk01
Total donations: 2,126,413 won
That's because my cumulative donations were fucking high, of course.
"Kuh-haah!!"
I couldn't hold back my laughter.
I met a hidden boss and got donations at the end of July.
Since it was a game with a decent global following, people on other global streams were watching me too.
It was what they called viral marketing.
And right on cue, the moment the stream ended, I stayed up all night at my computer editing and uploading a video.
Just five days.
In only five days, my newly made account's subscriber count had climbed to 1,100, and its views had reached 800,000.
The video I uploaded was about ten minutes long, and even if people watched only five minutes, that was 60,000 hours; even two minutes would be 25,000 hours, so meeting the 3,000 required for YouTube monetization was easy.
However, I didn't have any new videos ready to upload yet, and monetization was approved after the video's views passed 700,000.
Once a video's views exceeded 10,000, each view was valued at 0.12 cents.
Since my views were already over 10,000 when monetization was enabled, that came to roughly 12,000 cents.
Since 100 cents made a dollar, that was $120, or around 150,000 won.
When I applied for monetization, the video had around 500,000 views, so if I'd applied as soon as I met the requirements, I could've made close to a million won off a single video.
'Fuck.'
Thinking of it that way all of a sudden made my stomach hurt.
"My million won..."
Smack. I slapped myself across the cheek.
"No, I should be grateful I made 150,000 won. Just a few months ago, I was living for company dinners every day with an ugly, disgusting mug, getting drunk and wrecking my health!"
I looked in the mirror and struck the pose that was popular on female-dominated sites like Twitter, the one people copied when they were in a bad mood.
"..."
Pretty.
Seeing myself act cute like an idol made my self-esteem soar.
"Haa... I'm already looking forward to it. Streaming as a girl, pretending I'm a forever-single virgin who doesn't know anything about men... Then revealing my face and milking them for money?"
Just imagining it made my mouth water.
"Mmm~ Viewers, tasty, good!"
I was cackling with an evil grin.
There was a mirror right beside me, and it reflected my own evil grin.
"Ha... Fuck, but I'm too pretty. If I say I'm a virgin with no experience, will they believe me with a face this pretty?"
Of course they would.
Even if I never directly said I was a forever-single virgin, until I said I'd dated or had sex, they'd make up their own fantasies and assume I was a pure, inexperienced virgin.
"Haa."
But now that I thought about it, it pissed me off a little.
I was this pretty and this amazing, so why did I have to waste my life as just a female streamer?
I was about to walk right out of the house.
Creak.
"Kiyeeek!!"
I hurriedly shut the door.
Sure, I had the air conditioner running inside, but the moment I stepped outside, July's hellish heat wave hit me.
I felt like I was going to die.
I tried to recall my hazy school days.
'I have to admit, it feels incredible that I managed to get through my school days in weather this sweltering...'
On top of that, I vividly remembered the girls walking around in long sleeves and pants during a summer school trip to Hongdae when I was in middle school.
How had they lived like that? Just to meet men? To seduce them? To show off their beauty?
I lay on the bed right beneath the air conditioner, lost in thought.
"I'm cold."
I brought over another blanket, covered myself with it, set a two-hour timer on the air conditioner, and fell asleep.
#
Blink, blink.
I was supposed to wake up at three, but when I looked outside, the sun was already setting, and it was seven.
'Fuck.'
Ding—
My phone chimed with a notification, so I hurriedly turned it on.
Discord had about 80 notifications.
'Huh? Was something happening today?'
July 4.
Today was the first time the three of us—Kang Shinwoo, Seongwon, and I—were meeting.
And the scheduled stream time was six thirty.
"Fuck."
I ran straight to my computer, turned it on, and got my VR setup ready.
'Please, please, please.'
I prayed desperately in my head for it to boot quickly as I entered the stream.
"I'm so sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
I bowed deeply to them.
"I was only going to close my eyes for two hours, but I was so tired I fell asleep! I'm sorry!!!!"
Then Sahyang slowly walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Just with words?"
I could only look at her, not knowing what to do.
"Th, um, I..."
"Shh."
She came closer to me and gave me a meaningful smile, like the protagonist of some scheming otaku anime.
"How about a favor ticket?"
"A... a favor ticket?"
She smiled and nodded.
"It's nothing big. Just once, if there's a collab you want, I'll invite you. Then you can join in. How about it? Isn't that a nice way for us to call it even?"
Let's think about it.
Even if it was a favor ticket, was she going to make me borrow some weird amount of money? Or make some bizarre wish like telling me to reveal my face?
No, Sahyang was a pro streamer.
She wouldn't make some idiotic, out-of-touch request like that.
Then it was simple, just what she'd called it herself: a 'collab ticket.'
Of course, there were all kinds of collabs, but in the end, she and I were both Durahans—streamers who didn't show their faces.
There wouldn't be some disgusting collab where they made me eat cockroaches or wear some weird cosplay.
At most, it'd be a gaming collab or a mission collab.
"W-would that be enough?"
"Of course."
"Th-thank you!"
This was an absolute win for me.
With a collab, unless I did something scandalous, I was now a proper streamer whose average viewership was approaching three digits.
On top of that, Sahyang's Eid Chronicle playlist on YouTube had five videos in it.
That meant the two of us had met five times already.
Since they'd seen me five times, there had to be quite a few viewers who liked me.
If we did a collab, that'd be more than enough to make them take the plunge and come over to my stream.
'And if I count Shorts, the new viewers would be a bonus on top.'
It was a simple exchange with nothing to lose. Naturally, I accepted her offer.
After the stream started, we exchanged information.
Seongwon and Shinwoo had been partying up and leveling like crazy, even when Sahyang wasn't streaming.
Seongwon even streamed on his own sometimes, and whenever I dropped by, he was always streaming for over six hours.
I'd even seen a stream that was on in the morning still going when evening came.
Streaming that much was one thing, but playing a single game—especially in VR—wasn't easy.
"He's insane."
He really was no different from a lunatic.
And Kang Shinwoo, Sahyang's editor, showed no sign of getting tired at all, even keeping up with Seongwon's pace.
In the end, both of their levels were now 41.
If the two of them had gone after the hidden boss, they could've easily beaten it and gotten first dibs on Mika and Rapha—or Uri—as their girlfriends.
"Are you crazy?"
"No? I'm not crazy. Do I look crazy to you?"
He was definitely crazy.
Crazy people never think they're crazy. They should be admitted to a mental hospital immediately.
"I mean, we're game streamers. Isn't this much normal? Right, Seongwon?"
"But Shinwoo isn't a streamer, is he?"
Then he stared silently at Soran, who'd said that to him.
"By the way, Sahyang, what are you going to use your favor ticket for?"
Ignoring Soran, he spoke to Sahyang.
"I'm not sure. What should I use it for? It's a tough decision..."
"So what are you going to use it for?"
After the stream ended, Shinwoo, fresh from his shower, asked Sahyang.
"Use what?"
"The favor ticket. You're going to use it for a collab, right? What kind of collab would be good?"
She was eating ice cream and looking something up on her phone.
"What are you doing on July 13?"
"That day? Nothing in particular."
Then she tossed him a sheet of paper.
"...What's this?"
"A sauna pass. You'll have to go out for a while on July 13."
He looked at Sahyang, seeming flustered.
"Wh-why?"
"Because I'm going to meet Lee Jia in person and do a collab with her."
Kang Shinwoo stared at her in surprise.
Of course, he knew what she was like.
She was always bold, and if she wanted to do something, she jumped right in.
And she'd never failed at anything she'd tried.
But at the same time, he was worried.
Lee Jia's appearance had shaken up her stream a little, and he worried this collab might hurt her even more.
"...Okay."
But it wasn't his place to interfere.
He just took the ticket and prepared for the upcoming collab.
Sahyang looked at herself in the mirror.
If she let her hair down, it fell to her chest; her short stature and lack of curves made her look no older than a first-year middle schooler, even giving her the benefit of the doubt.
But she was confident in her beauty.
"All right, just you wait, Lee Jia! I'll overwhelm you with my beauty!"
Her prediction, brilliant in some ways and childish in others, was the first plan of hers to fail.