Chapter 1

A Man Who Can't Do It Alone

They say you never know how life will unfold.

‘Really?’

A month and a half since I got out of the military.

Until I returned to school, I had planned to study, exercise regularly, work part-time, and get a girlfriend.

But now.

- B Long! B Long! Hurry!

“Entrance warded.”

I answered and moved my hands.

I definitely spotted him and shot first, but I died.

“Ah, fuck. Hey, that bastard’s hacking.”

As soon as I said that, my teammate got the guy who killed me.

“He turned off his hacks because he thought he’d get suspected.”

- Bullshit.

Amid snickering laughter, we somehow won.

I checked the time. Two in the morning.

- I’m out.

“Ah, why? One more game.”

- We won, so call it. If I’m tired at work tomorrow, it’ll be fucking brutal.

“Just one more game.”

- You should do something too. Aren’t you submitting your return-to-school form next week? Or not?

Ding-

With the notification sound, my friend left the chat.

“One more game would’ve been fine.”

One game does turn into two, and two into three.

Then before I know it, the sun will rise and I’ll go to sleep.

He’ll go to work.

“Like he’s the only one who has to work.”

He is the only one, though.

It hasn’t been that long since I got discharged.

‘I’ll give myself two months, then find a part-time job.’

The moment I thought that, the queue popped.

Boom- With the sound, all my stray thoughts vanished completely.

“Ah.”

Please, just don’t play Leona.

It never even crossed my mind that it might be a smurf account.

When the game ended, sure enough, they were trash.

I don’t know why they don’t just delete that character.

“Fucking garbage game.”

Grumbling, I queued again.

The queue popped.

Then I queued again.

Before I knew it, the sun was coming up.

“Time to get some sleep.”

Seeing the morning sun made exhaustion wash over me.

It was also about time for my parents to leave for work.

I slipped into bed and picked up my smartphone.

Chap-chu- chap-chap-chu-

Denpa denpa kaidenpa

Top 5 Must-Haves for Living Alone!

After killing time for a while, I slowly drifted off to sleep.

________________

“Son.”

“Huh?”

I was about to go back to my room after eating when Mom called me.

“What have you been doing lately?”

“Uh... just hanging around.”

“Don’t you think it’s about time you started doing something?”

Suddenly, my sense of the date returned.

I also realized that the weather had gotten hotter.

I got discharged at the end of May, and it was already July.

Which meant the two months I’d thought about before were nearly up.

“Okay.”

Mom heard my answer and turned away.

She went back to tidying up the kitchen.

That indifferent attitude made me feel pressured.

Far more than if she had nagged me.

I went into my room and sat down in front of the computer.

I had planned to keep gaming after eating, but my hand wouldn’t go to [Start Game].

‘What should I do?’

I’d tried looking for a part-time job, but there was nothing I liked.

There didn’t seem to be any jobs where I could get paid for doing practically nothing.

Whenever I browsed online communities, every posting that caught my eye had people telling others not to take it.

[Work comfortably somewhere cool! Corden Logistics Center!]

└ If you’re going to work part-time at Corden, just work evenings at a bar instead. At least you’ll have something nice to look at.

[Beginners welcome! Simple work!]

└ Only work in manufacturing if you have a talent for endless daydreaming.

[Guaranteed 5 million won a month! Motorcycle lease support! Earn as much as you work...]

└ You only make that much if you ignore traffic lights and ride like fucking crazy.

Either exhausting.

Boring.

Or dangerous.

If I were completely broke, I probably would’ve picked one of them.

But right now, I was richer than I’d ever been in my life.

My bank account, filled with my military pay, was reassuringly healthy.

“Maybe I should study instead of working.”

I could invest in myself until I returned to school next year.

Wouldn’t that let me earn more later than I would from working part-time now?

Good.

I’ve decided.

I should study six hours a day.

As it happened, there was something I’d dabbled in before enlisting.

TOEIC.

I wanted to travel abroad someday, and it would help with getting a job too.

And once I returned to school, I probably wouldn’t have time to study English.

“Good.”

Having made up my mind, I sprang to my feet.

If Mom hadn’t told me it was about time I did something, I probably would’ve kept messing around.

I know myself well.

When I make resolutions, I’m terrible at keeping them.

I opened my door, walked out, and went straight to my parents’ bedroom.

“What brings our full-time bum here?”

Dad welcomed me while looking at his smartphone.

He wasn’t trying to give me a hint.

‘If he wanted to take a shot at me, he’d be much more direct.’

I brushed it off and spoke.

“I’m going to start studying English tomorrow.”

“Done having fun?”

“I was going to keep having fun, but Mom said something.”

“She did? Still, if you’re forcing yourself, don’t bother. From what I can tell, you’re not really cut out for studying.”

“Aren’t I pretty good with languages?”

“Sure, sure. Do whatever you want.”

I said goodbye to Dad as he waved me off and went back to the living room.

Mom, sitting on the sofa with the remote in hand, looked at me.

“You’re going to study?”

“Yeah. You heard?”

“You were right next door. Of course I heard. Good luck.”

A nod.

Then she went back to watching TV.

When I say something, she believes me for the time being.

She seems quieter than Dad, but she’s only like this when we’re talking about something serious.

I picked up my smartphone as I returned to my room.

I made a call, but all I heard for quite a while was the ringing tone.

- Ah, what!

“Hey, Sis, what are you doing?”

- I told you I was going out!

It was noisy around her.

- Did Mom say something to you?

“No, it’s not that. I’m starting to study tomorrow.”

- What?

“I said I’m starting to study tomorrow!”

- Why are you telling me that!!

“Just because?”

- Ah, fuck. Fine, I got it, hang up!

“Yeah. Don’t get wasted and call your ex-boyfriend.”

Instead of an answer, I heard a tap.

The call had ended.

Once I sat down at my desk, it finally felt real.

I had to study starting tomorrow.

If I’d only decided it by myself, I would’ve let it slide somehow, but I’d told my whole family.

Now my family would occasionally ask me.

How’s studying going? Have you done a lot?

When’s the test?

If I didn’t want to have nothing to say when that happened, I really had to do it.

“Right. From now on, it’s really nothing but studying.”

________________

Beep-

At the sound from the front door, I turned off MeTube.

When I went out, Mom had come home from work.

I greeted her, came back, and sat down again.

I was about to look at my study guide when I suddenly felt a pang of guilt.

‘What am I doing?’

It had been a week since I declared that I was going to study.

I’d properly focused for exactly three days.

After that, I played fewer games, but my daily routine had gone right back to how it was before.

‘I didn’t tell my family just so I could play games while feeling guilty.’

I slumped in my chair and muttered.

“I seriously...”

Should I actually go to a study room or something?

Would it be different if everyone around me was studying?

Who knows.

At this rate, I’d probably just stare at my smartphone.

‘My head’s a mess anyway, so maybe I should just play a game...’

At the sudden thought, I slapped myself across the cheek.

My resolution to study six hours every day had somehow vanished as if it had been washed away.

I only kept the study guide open so I could keep my promise to my family that I was “starting to study.”

As I stared blankly at the monitor, a recommended video suddenly caught my eye.

[Mix - Music of Asia]

[TOP 7 Recommended Korean Thriller Masterpieces]

[Study with me♥ 8 hours - deep focus]

Why was something like that in my algorithm?

Maybe it was because I’d spent the past few days playing long videos of calm music.

The thumbnail showed only a desk.

A few sheets of paper and a laptop. And a woman’s hand.

“A study stream?”

I said it like a question, but inside, I thought, That’s it.

I could hand over the job of monitoring whether I was studying to an unspecified number of strangers.

I immediately searched [study with me] on MeTube.

Several livestreams and videos that were hours long came up.

There were men and women.

Some of the live streams had hundreds of viewers, and the videos had tens of thousands of views.

‘Can you make money while studying too?’

Wouldn’t this be killing two birds with one stone?

I immediately ordered a webcam.

Then I looked up how to set up a stream.

“It’s coming tomorrow, so maybe I should rest just until tomorrow.”

Starting tomorrow, I’d have no choice but to study.

I played games for a long while, then went to bed.

When I woke up, the webcam had already arrived.

I installed the webcam on the bookshelf beside my desk.

Using the setup I’d roughly looked up, I finished preparing the stream in no time.

Connecting a streaming program was easy enough.

I made the camera feed fill the entire screen.

It showed my back as I sat at the desk.

“For the title, I’ll put the standard phrase at the front... I’ve got nothing else to write.”

I threw something together.

[Study with me. Let’s pass the test]

Then I started studying right away.

Because only then did I feel the pressure of actually being on stream.

The thought that strangers I didn’t even know might be watching me made me unable to even consider slacking off.

Forty minutes of studying and ten minutes of rest.

Then another forty minutes, ten minutes.

The pressure of knowing someone might be watching was more effective than I expected.

Three days had passed since I started studying with the stream on.

I still hadn’t felt even the slightest urge to slack off.

However, there was one thing I did every single break.

[Viewers: 0]

Checking the viewer count.

‘Just because I turn on a stream doesn’t mean people will come watch.’

Sometimes I saw it at 1.

But it would soon go back to 0.

No one ever sent a chat message either.

For some reason... it started to get under my skin.

Not one person? Not even a single person was watching?

It was the same kind of study stream, wasn’t it?

Until I went to bed, I thought about what I could do to get viewers to come in.

The next day, I created two more streaming channels.

One on each of two domestic livestreaming platforms.

While I was at it, I also finished setting up a separate MeTube account for streaming.

Let’s see if not even one person comes in now.

That was what I thought.

And astonishingly, there was still no reaction whatsoever.

One day, two days, three days.

One week, half a month.

“Seriously, let’s see if no one comes in even now.”

The final week of July.

Today, I wrote down the title I’d been saving as my masterstroke.

[Study with me. If I slack, coffee on me.]

[Study stream. If I slack off, I’ll buy you coffee.]

The result?

It became August.

My peak viewership up through today was four people.

Even they vanished without a trace by the time I finished studying.

By this point, the tension was gradually fading.

Someone was watching me?

Who?

As usual, I turned on the stream and studied until I started getting bored.

No one’s here today either, so it should be fine.

Let’s take a short break.

[Start Game]

I queued up.

Rolling around the Rift for a bit would wake me up.

I had already confirmed that the viewer count showed 0.

I loosened up my hands, rolled my neck around, and focused.

My mind sharpened as though I’d poured down several cups of coffee.

In the first game, I got carried.

In the second, I did a decent job carrying.

While debating whether to play one more game, I suddenly checked the streaming program.

I was thinking that my picture-perfect super play must have been recorded.

[Viewers: 1]

But what in the world.

There was a viewer.

And even my very first chat message!

- lololol you’re gaming

The message made me gasp without realizing it.