Chapter 15
It's already been 30 days since I started streaming.
It's been well over two weeks since I started playing a game called Eid Chronicle, and the stock is up about 3%.
"Fuck."
There's a saying.
It's called the 'hungry spirit.'
When your stomach's full and your back is warm, it's impossible to find the motivation to do anything.
Humans are creatures who find motivation when they're hungry. I wonder if I can even get hungry at this point?
'Should I deliberately stir up some controversy?'
They say human greed knows no bounds, so why are my ambitions so tiny?
Brrring.
To break out of this rut, I called the person who was about to become my life's purpose.
-...Hello?
"Hello, ma'am. I'm Jiho's girlfriend. Do you remember me?"
I called my mother.
When I asked Junhee how my mother was doing, she said Mom was just cooped up at home all by herself.
With her husband gone and her only son found dead, she must have had no will to go on living.
"..."
As soon as I heard that, my heart started aching like crazy.
In the end, for the sake of my own future, I'd shattered my mother's heart.
I'd destroyed the happy life my mother had enjoyed.
Even a few years ago, whenever a holiday came around, Mom would visit our house, make kimchi and side dishes, and worry about my health.
"Phew."
I couldn't bear the thought of her sitting alone at home, so I asked Junhee to arrange a meeting with her.
And today was the day I was meeting Mom.
"Ms. Jia...?"
I lifted my head and looked at my mother.
But the moment I saw her, I lowered my head and couldn't bring myself to look up again.
It had only been a month.
And in just a month, my mother's face had changed.
Shadows had fallen across her face, and wrinkles had formed around her mouth.
The hands that had already been covered in small wounds from caring for my father were now shriveled with wrinkles.
"Are you all right, Ms. Jia? Is something hurting...?"
"N-no."
I discreetly wiped away my tears with a finger, then took an envelope from my bag and handed it to her.
"What's this...?"
"Please take this."
The moment she saw the money, my mother was startled. She waved her hands and tried to give it back to me.
"No, why would you give me this much money all of a sudden? You should keep it, young lady. I'm old now; I don't need money like this."
"No, it's Jiho's money anyway, so I should give it back to you. I earned my own money separately."
"Are you really sure, young lady...?"
"I made this from stocks, so I'm really, really fine! Don't worry and take it. If you don't, I'm not going home, okay?"
I practically shoved the envelope of money into my mother's arms.
At that, my mother reluctantly gave in, took the envelope, and put it in her bag.
"I don't know how to thank you..."
"If you're grateful, then have a meal with me. I don't have any parents."
My mother was startled, then took my hand.
"Oh, dear... You must've had such a hard time making your way through this harsh world with such delicate hands..."
"I've lived alone for a long time, so I'm fine now. But... it's been a long time since I've felt a mother's presence by my side. Could you treat me like your daughter?"
"Of course I can. How should I treat you, young lady?"
I smiled softly and held her hand in both of mine.
"Please call me Jia."
Then she stroked my head and said my name.
"Jia, is this right?"
Something in my heart grew warm.
Then, from somewhere deep in my heart, feelings I'd forgotten while streaming welled up.
"...Yes."
With tears in my eyes, I moved to her side and hugged her.
"Please hold me for a little while."
Without a word, my mother patted my back and whispered that everything would be all right.
#
Three days had passed since I met my mother.
After seeing her, my heart had changed 180 degrees.
It was different from before, when I'd turned on my stream simply because I had to stream or do collabs, without any goals.
I now had a very clear goal.
Make my mother happy.
Repay her for all the kindness she'd shown me.
Be filial to her.
I'd found a new goal, and my stream had regained its energy.
But while I was in that slump, my viewer count—which had been close to three digits—had fallen back to the seventies.
"Fuck."
I'd only skipped streaming for a few days. How could my viewership drop this much?
Of course, even if my schedule made it look like I was taking Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off to meet a man—the sort of break that might make people think, 'I can't stream because I'm going out to meet a man,' as a female streamer—it still shouldn't have dropped this easily.
[Aren't you going to meet a man today?]
"What the fuck are you talking about? If I were going to meet a man, I'd do it on the sly. Why would I openly take time off to meet him?"
[The harder you deny it, the more suspicious it is, right? lol]
Fuck.
At this rate, it'd be pretty hard to rake in donations.
Of course, the people saying I was going out to meet a man knew that wasn't really true.
They just wanted to tease me. They'd joke about it aloud, while secretly hoping, 'She wouldn't, right? She's just taking time off for personal reasons.'
Even so, if this meme became firmly established, it'd be nowhere near enough to get new viewers to open their wallets.
"Hmm."
It should be about time she dropped a hint.
It had been a week since Sahyang got the collab ticket, but she hadn't contacted me privately.
She'd gone so long without contacting me that I was getting impatient enough to want to reach out first.
My viewer count was steadily falling, and I desperately needed a helping hand to bring it back up.
July was already nearly halfway over.
Once your viewer count had fallen, it wasn't easy to build it back up again.
More than anything, if you were doing well and then got caught up in a controversy, there'd be a chance to recover afterward by dealing with it.
But if your viewers dropped simply because you weren't entertaining or weren't streaming consistently...
Getting them back for those reasons was several times harder than bouncing back from a controversy.
'A streamer I used to watch stayed around fifty viewers for five years or so.'
Of course, that streamer wasn't doing it as a full-time job. It was just a hobby.
But I'm a full-time streamer. I need to quickly hit the several-thousand-viewer range and get hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
I stream as a Durahan, then when I hit a plateau, I switch to a VTuber persona and grow again. Once I'm well-known enough as a VTuber, I reveal my face and make it in the mainstream.
It's the perfect career path.
That's why I desperately needed Sahyang's help.
"Why?"
She seemed to notice me looking and tilted her head at me.
"Pardon?"
"No, you've been staring at me for a while... It seemed like you had something you wanted to say."
"Oh, n-no. I was just... wondering when you were going to use your collab ticket."
At that, she smiled softly and came closer to me.
"Beg me."
I was taken aback.
Up until now, Sahyang had seemed like a tiger who was going easy on me, relaxed and a little indulgent. But suddenly, she looked like a fox ready to devour me.
And with the stream turned off, she wasn't saying it as a joke. Her manner was more like she was trying to start a battle of wills with me, and it startled me.
"Uh..."
"Pfft, I'm kidding."
The moment she finished speaking, I dropped flat to the floor and shouted at her.
"Please, please do a collab with me!!!"
She was flustered by my behavior, waving her hands and saying something as she tried to get me back on my feet.
"Wh-why are you doing this! Someone could get the wrong idea! What are you doing, Ms. Jia...!"
How dare she try to start a battle of wills with me.
It was about time I put her in her place.
Even as she spoke, I kept wailing dramatically and apologizing to her.
"F-fine, I'll do it! I will! Let's do it!"
The instant she said that, I stopped crying and gave her a goofy grin.
"Heh, when should we do it?"
"How about the 13th?"
I smiled brightly at her and nodded.
But after the stream ended, she sent me a private message.
It was a message with her home address in it.
[What's this?]
[Sahyang:Let's do an in-person collab.]
Maybe she couldn't bring herself to admit she'd lost the battle of wills, so she'd impulsively sent me her home address.
[Oh, uh. Hmm.]
[Why? Don't you want to come?]
She sent the message in a tone that seemed to provoke me.
[No, I'll come.]
Since things had turned out this way, it was perfect. I figured I needed to put her in her place during this in-person collab.
Now that I was a woman, I really was beautiful enough to make her feel intimidated.
I went to a famous salon in Gangnam and got my hair cut with trembling hands.
'What the fuck, 90,000 won for a haircut...?'
At a Cut Club or a neighborhood barbershop, a haircut cost 8,000 won in cash. But at a Gangnam salon, it cost an astonishing 90,000 won.
Anyway, I put on the clothes I'd bought with my mother and went to a makeup shop, where I paid about 50,000 won to get my makeup done.
'Fuck...'
Fine, I could understand the haircut. A haircut changed your whole impression depending on whether it was done well or badly, and it lasted about a month.
But this makeup, which I'd have to wash off after one day, cost 50,000 won?
With the price so outrageous it made me want to curse, I sighed inwardly, paid, and went to the address she'd given me.
Ding-dong.
When the bell rang, I heard footsteps inside, and a child came out and opened the door.
"Ah! You're Ms. Jia, right? Come on in!"
The child, who looked like they were in the upper grades of elementary school, was wearing a hoodie and shorts.
She was tidying up the room with a bright smile. She seemed to be Sahyang's younger sister.
"Um, where's your older sister?"
The child hesitated, then turned around and looked at me.
"...I'm Sahyang, though?"
At her words, I froze right there, too.
"Huh?"