Chapter 7
[You're accepted.]
"Huh? I got in."
I fired up the game for the first time in a while, saw the message from Sahyang, and nodded.
"Well, who else would it be if not me?"
The chat didn't seem to agree. They kept saying weird shit like how surprising or strange it was, or asking if I'd paid someone off.
"I knew it'd be me. Who else could it be? Anyway..."
The message said not to show it on stream and to read it, so I quietly turned off the screen and opened it.
'...It's a voice chat link.'
Tap-tap—
With nothing but the sound of my keyboard clacking and my mouse clicking on the blank black screen, the chat's mood started heating up.
"Just a moment."
I lowered my voice and spoke seriously.
They started chatting among themselves and waited for me.
'Controlling the chat is easier than I thought. If it's too small, the fandom can take over; if it's too big, it's impossible to control. I need to keep it at a manageable size.'
I turned my stream display back on and joined Discord.
LeeJia01: Hello.
Sahyang: Oh, hello, Jia! Can you join the voice chat now??
Her sudden suggestion caught me off guard, but I nodded and joined.
But there was a pretty big problem with the voice chat.
"So I was doing that boss, and suddenly someone came rushing in and stole it from me~"
"Wait, is that allowed? Is kill-stealing okay here?"
"I know, right? Geez~ I should file a complaint or put them on blast on Inven soon."
The conversation was already underway.
I'd always been good at butting into conversations back in school, but trying to do it here, where we couldn't even see each other's faces and could only talk by voice?
'Zero presence.'
If that happened, forget leeching off them—I’d be lucky not to get kicked out.
And back in school, most conversations were at least about something I could understand. Now they were talking about Eid Chronicle, a game I knew nothing about.
'I should've studied!!!'
I'm fucked.
My plan had already fallen apart.
My plan to join the voice chat from the start, talk like a social butterfly, and win over the viewers had already fallen apart.
"Ah... aha."
I tried to join in with a few noncommittal responses.
"..."
Suddenly the mood went cold, and I realized I'd done something wrong.
"Ahaha. We have someone new here. Do you know Lee Jia?"
"Oh, you're the one who plays Ivan, from that interview, right?"
"Ah... yeah."
I instinctively tensed up.
This isn't how it should go. I've only been streaming for a little over two weeks, but I've been watching streams for years!! Get it together!!
"..."
Silence stretched on.
I'm fucked. Should I have kept the conversation going just now?
"Uh... um. Ah... g-gak, eeeek..."
I immediately left the voice chat.
#
"...She left."
Sahyang was flustered.
Based on how Jia had come across in the interview, Sahyang had expected her to lead the conversation and make a great impression.
'Why did she leave?'
She was about to message Lee Jia right away.
[Kang Shin-woo: Don't.]
She hesitated for a moment at the editor's message.
[Why?]
[Kang Shin-woo: Probably because she's a loser.]
Sahyang frowned and said,
[Don't talk behind her back like that.]
[I'm not talking behind her back. What if she's actually a loser? Maybe talking to people is too much for her.]
"What the hell are you talking about...? Even if she's a loser, can she not talk to people over voice? It's not like they have to look each other in the face..."
'Come to think of it, there were still thirty minutes left in the stream. Did she come in hoping to leech off the collab, only to find everyone already talking? And since her stream wasn't on, there was nothing to leech, so she left?'
Thinking that might be what happened, Sahyang nodded and sent Jia a message.
[I'll go live, so come in.]
But that only put even more pressure on me.
'...Fuck.'
The stream started.
This was a whole different level of pressure from the persona I'd originally planned to go with.
'Are all streamers social butterflies?'
I'd definitely done my research.
The two other streamers joining us were Park Seongwon and Lee Soran.
Park Seongwon's tagline was 'Just a guy in his thirties who loves games,' and from the video I'd watched, Lee Soran's YouTube channel gave off a modest, painfully shy impression.
'But why?!'
Why were they chatting so casually in the voice room? Why weren't they uncomfortable talking to each other?
"Am I the weird one...?"
[? lol]
Whether or not the chat knew about my inner turmoil, it was bustling with people excited for the stream and viewers who'd come over from other channels.
My viewer count was 150. Considering my average had been around 60 or 70, it had doubled.
'Of course, there's still room to grow, but considering this is the first time we've met, this is pretty good growth.'
But what I needed to figure out now was how to keep these viewers around.
So I should change this loserish act where I can barely speak... Wait, do I really have to change it?
When I watched streams, what kind of woman did I find myself drawn to? With Durahan streamers, there wasn't a clear standard of 'pretty woman' like there was for facecam streamers. What was it that made me pick one?
The streamers I remembered liking had a socially awkward nerd-girl vibe.
First of all, even when I was a man, I'd only dated twice—and one of those was in elementary school, so I'd only had one relationship as an adult.
On top of that, she left me for one of my friends when I joined the army. Of course, that friend came in as a new recruit when I was a corporal, so I made his life hell.
Sure, I know men pretty well, but a socially awkward girl like this knowing men well? That could actually be a plus.
Second, I really am a loser.
I have no friends who invite me out for drinks. Why? Because I only have a high school diploma.
My friends did invite me sometimes, but they went to top universities in Seoul, and I was too embarrassed, so I turned them down a few times.
On top of that, my life showed no sign of getting any better. By the time they could invite me out for drinks, they were already getting ground down by company dinners at major corporations.
'Fuck, now that I think about it, that pisses me off.'
Anyway, lastly, I really am a nerd.
A nerd among nerds who went to an all-boys middle school, an all-boys high school, and then engineering school. On top of that, conversations that reek of social butterflies make me uncomfortable.
Perfect. I'm such an awkward, forever-single nerd girl that it almost feels like I'm deliberately playing a character.
The stream had started, and it sounded like people were chatting in the voice room.
#
Ding—
The sound of someone joining the voice chat rang out for everyone.
'As loserish as possible.'
"H-hello. I-I'm, uh, L-Lee Jia. I, uh... Hello."
I stammered as I greeted everyone.
They greeted me warmly.
"Ah, hello, Lee Jia~ You're the one who plays Ivan, right? I saw the interview. It was pretty interesting."
"Ah, th-that so? Is there some kind of problem with him...?"
"Oh, it's not that there's a problem. It's just that even among the people who play Ivan, he's such a difficult pick that..."
"Oh, right! I saw that ranking showing the players who'd beaten some boss... Raguorion, was it? There were only three Ivan players on the list."
Sahyang sounded surprised and carried on the conversation.
"Three? There are over three hundred people playing my class, Clea... It really must be that hard."
"Hmm, then I'll be the fourth."
The editor burst out laughing.
"Oh, I like that! What enthusiasm! Seongwon and I have played this game a bit, so I'm really curious to see how Jia does, aren't you?"
He said it with a laugh in his voice.
"Come on, don't scare me this early, Shin-woo. You're making me nervous."
"Huh? Am I?"
"Hmm......"
She hovered her cursor over Kang Shin-woo's profile.
"Is there PK here? If so, there's someone I'd like to kill."
It sounded like Sahyang had actually spat out her drink—her mic picked up a loud pffft.
"Ah, shit!"
She seemed to be pulling out tissues and wiping down her desk, while the chat filled with laughter.
"Ah, seriously, don't make me laugh..."
I quickly thought up a joke.
"Sahyang, how much would you sell your tissue for?"
"Pardon? What tissue?"
"The tissue you wiped with."
"Ahak, oh, I almost spat out my drink again!!!"
Everyone burst out laughing, and I awkwardly scratched my head, making a little sound effect.
"Anyway, let's talk once we're in the game. Oh, right, I sent each of you an appearance-change ticket on your accounts, so make your characters look the part."
At her words, I used the appearance-change ticket and went back to the character customization screen.
"...Wait, you're not throwing shade at my character for being ugly, are you?"
[That's just your persecution complex.]
[Nocturne just popped his ult.]
"Oh, was that it? Was I too much of a loser? Fuck, I think I've ruined my image. What do I do?"
[ㅇㅇ donated 1,000 won!
Just bite your tongue and kill yourself lol]
"Hey, you little..."
As I chatted with the viewers I'd forgotten about, I finished customizing my character.
"Let's see, everyone's done with their customizations. Shall we have a fashion show?"
She went first, letting out a "Hehe, ah-ha!" as she showed off her character.
'Cash-shop gear.'
Her character, dressed in a cheongsam...
"You look like a little kid."
"...I made it look like me."
"Gasp!"
Anyway, the other streamers and the editor finished customizing, too, and I showed them my character.
"...Huh?"
They let out exclamations when they saw my customization.
"She's pretty."
I silently cheered at her compliment.
"Though I was lying."
"Ah, fuck."