Chapter 8

A Man Has His Pride

I ended the stream at 1 a.m.

After washing up, sleeping, and waking up, it was 3 p.m.

“Now I finally feel alive.”

I stared blankly at the ceiling, then chuckled without realizing it.

My emotions had been on quite the roller coaster over the past two days.

The moment I was suddenly cursed at and left bewildered.

Passing through peaceful moments, then bawling my eyes out.

All the way to the end, when it felt like people acknowledged me.

Especially the chat that came up at the very end. I couldn’t forget it.

= I told you I wouldn’t run away, right?

When I said that, the chat poured in.

Damn

Whoa

Oh

Single-character messages streamed upward.

With people whose usernames were all different lengths doing it, it looked like waves.

A wave of chat filled with admiration for me!

I grinned, then sprang to my feet.

‘It got recorded, right?’

I turned on the computer and checked all three platforms again.

Except for one, the other two were genuinely worth watching.

“Should I watch it just one more time...”

I muttered to myself because continually rewatching it somehow felt embarrassing.

My smartphone on the bed rang after I had watched it two more times.

[ Lee Ha-na ]

Se-ha, call me when you wake up

A message written in an unusually gentle tone.

“Huh, look at this.”

Guess she does feel sorry?

Thinking that, I called her.

= Mr. Se-ha, Mr. Jeong Se-ha! I’m seriously sorry! Even if I was talking in front of a friend, I should’ve watched what I said!!

She started apologizing the instant she picked up, so I even missed my chance to complain.

“You lunatic, you’re not even letting me say anything.”

= But I know I caused it too, okay? Sorry.

“Ugh.”

She apologized while bringing up the exact thing I could resent her for.

“The word itself obviously wasn’t something you should say openly in the first place. You can stop apologizing.”

The other end of the phone went silent for a moment, then words came pouring out.

= Right? Seriously, I never thought you’d say that on stream. Who knew there’d be someone who’d just casually say something you’d only hear on the darkest corners of the internet.

= I’m telling you, my heart dropped when I saw that clip. How should I put it? It felt like hearing someone do the school broadcast while talking like they were on an internet forum?

= You were seriously talking so gently while using words like that, wow.

“Stop. Stop it, you bastard.”

= Fine. Anyway, did you eat lunch?

“I just woke up.”

= Perfect. I’ll bring chicken over, wait thirty minutes.

If she wanted to show that she felt sorry, refusing would only make things awkward for both of us.

I said okay, washed up, and put on shorts.

My shirt was a stretched-out T-shirt, but I didn’t bother changing it.

We’d seen each other looking far worse plenty of times since elementary school.

While waiting for Lee Ha-na, I searched my name.

[ Jeong River ]

A name made by taking my surname, Jeong, and the “river” character from Se-ha.

If you traced its origins, it was older than Seongbuk-dong Haaland.

When I searched, there was less criticism than I expected.

There were more people curious about me or reacting to the stream.

“What do you mean ‘surviving member of the Ashe family’? If you don’t cry there, you’re a psychopath.”

Why did I cry that hard?

Normally, I don’t have that many emotional ups and downs.

Even when watching movies or reading novels, I often observe them from one step removed.

That was because once I got immersed, it wasn’t easy for me to pull myself back out.

But on stream, chat kept coming in constantly, so I think I could immerse myself comfortably.

Because people reacted in real time to my guesses and reactions.

It felt like that became an anchor keeping me tied to reality.

No matter where my emotions flowed, the fact that I was still streaming didn’t change.

- Ding-dong

Around the time I finished sorting out my emotions, the doorbell rang.

Lee Ha-na had brought two whole chickens. One fried, one seasoned.

“You bought two?”

“You see the chicken before you see me?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

I dodged her kick and headed to the kitchen.

I sat down right away, then looked at Lee Ha-na before eating.

The last time I saw her was probably right after I got discharged.

I saw her when all our friends got together to drink.

“Cash-farming still sweet?”

She froze with a fried chicken leg in hand, then took a bite and answered while chewing.

“How do you even remember that?”

“You said you do something like trading in-game. It was interesting, so I didn’t forget.”

Her cheeks puffed out on both sides as she chewed.

Probably because she was eating well at home.

Maybe this was the heaviest she’d ever been in her life?

“Keep that thought to yourself, bastard....I feel guilty, so I’ll let that insult slide once?”

“Okay, okay.”

“Anyway, you started streaming and learned words like that too.”

“People kept going cash-farmer, cash-farmer over everything, so I learned it quickly.”

“People ruined a natural monument.”

“Natural monument?”

“Do you know how rare it is to find someone these days who hasn’t been poisoned by internet communities at all?”

We kept chattering like that, and when the conversation briefly stopped, Lee Ha-na asked about streaming.

“By the way, how did you even start streaming?”

“I couldn’t focus when I studied alone.”

“I heard it was a study stream and wondered if that was why. So it really was.”

We really had known each other too long.

Even with that vague explanation, she understood the underlying meaning that I needed someone to keep watch over me.

We chatted while eating chicken.

“You seriously bought people coffee? They were obviously just going to take the coffee and leave! What a fucking waste!”

Starting with why I began streaming, all the way through what happened yesterday.

“Definitely a psychopath. Watching the stream, I thought it didn’t seem like you were taking much damage, and I was right. You can’t empathize with real people.”

“I was flustered too, you know?”

“Even when people were cursing you, you just stared at the chat window. If it were a normal person like me, I would’ve turned the stream off and run away immediately. You were seriously impressive.”

Maybe that was true.

I had been bewildered, but it was because of the situation.

It hadn’t been mentally painful.

“Anyway, saying you’d try the Neo Chronicle story there was seriously the right move. Of every choice you made on that stream, that was the best one, seriously.”

“Really? I just got hung up on people asking why I was criticizing it without even trying it, so I said I’d try it first.”

“Whatever the reason, it was good both for streaming and for your justification. On other streams, starting a story from level one is usually used as a punishment.”

“...You said people were proud of the story. Guess they aren’t that proud of it.”

“That’s separate. You’re rewatching a story you already know, right?”

I nodded and was about to move on.

But Lee Ha-na suddenly shouted, “Ah!” and started grilling me.

“Why the hell haven’t you enabled donations? There are so many people watching streams who want to say something badly enough to pay money! I’m seriously upset about the wasted money for you.”

“I was getting some viewers, so I was about to register my bank account.”

“You should’ve done it ages ago! Ugh, thanks to you, everyone else was making money instead!”

I asked how other people were making money.

I shouldn’t have asked that.

Because, as if she had been waiting, she unleashed every kind of “advice” about streaming.

“Do you know how easy it is to clip videos? Your clips are all over the place. You’re probably paying other streamers’ earnings this entire week.”

“Right! Stop making it so obvious you know nothing about streaming!! If a cute girl does it, that’s one thing, but if a huge guy like you does it, you just look like an outsider!”

“People lie as naturally as they breathe, so you can’t believe everything! You seriously couldn’t tell any of that apart.”

“No, that doesn’t mean completely ignore them either! Don’t you know how to control the pace?”

“You say you need to know the words to react to them? A streamer is supposed to study them beforehand!”

“Why are you asking so much of me!! This won’t do. After we finish the chicken, you’re getting a crash course.”

After listening to her talk until my ears practically hurt, I asked.

“You’ve never streamed either. How do you know so much?”

“...Because when business is slow, all I do is watch streams. Why?”

“I was just curious. Anyway, I’d be grateful if you teach me.”

I thought that was the end of it.

I thought my ears would finally stop hurting.

“Nooooo! When you do study streams, only turn on MeTube! The people on OnAiri and Live Cast came to watch you play Neo Chronicle, so why are you turning those on starting with the study stream?”

“Don’t I make money whenever the stream is on?”

“If people turn on your stream thinking, ‘He’ll play Neo Chronicle~,’ and then you tell them you’re studying and to come back later, they’ll stop showing up as much next time!”

When I told her about my streaming plans, she started nagging again.

“You need to understand how big an opportunity this is right now. If you asked tiny streamers, ‘Would you pay ten million won to get an opportunity like yours?’ they’d immediately say yes and beg you to sell it to them! Get a griiiiiip!!”

I understand what she means.

But my ears hurt too much.

“If you keep being this casual and half-assing it, then yesterday’s whole incident will become nothing. At first, people gathered because of the controversy and it was nothing but trolls, but by the end, they’d turned into people who came to see you. Do you really want to throw all of that away? Seriously?

They say good advice is bitter to hear, but apparently it hurts too.

We completely finished the chicken, then I got a crash course.

I learned various terms, their origins, and why I shouldn’t use them.

This genuinely counted as learning.

If I had prepared for streaming alone, I never would’ve known.

At best, I would’ve gone around other streams and searched unfamiliar terms.

Anyway, only after Lee Ha-na went home could my ears finally rest.

______________

The next day.

For now, I only turned on the stream on MeTube.

Because starting today, I had to study again.

There was less than a week left until the exam I had registered for.

I studied like that, but I couldn’t focus.

[Viewers: 57]

When there were a lot of people, the feeling of being watched forced me to study whether I wanted to or not.

‘It’s not that I want to play games... but I feel restless.’

The feeling of countless people reacting to what I said.

That feeling had been incredible.

If I made a plausible guess, they were impressed.

If I said nonsense, question marks flooded up.

If I even said something slightly suggestive, everyone reacted in all kinds of different ways.

It was far more fun than a game that ended after one match.

‘If I can do it properly, should I?’

I wrote “streaming” in my notebook and kept drawing circles around it.

I’d started with the mindset that it would be nice to earn some pocket money from study streams.

But things had progressed rapidly.

Lee Ha-na’s words kept echoing in my ears.

- You need to understand how big an opportunity this is right now.

And something my father once said.

- Unfortunately, our son doesn’t have much of a head for studying. Still, I make you study because you need it if you don’t want to become an idiot who can’t seize an opportunity even when one comes.

Tsk.

I clicked my tongue and tried to focus again, but the alarm rang.

- Ding ding ding

The break-time alarm.

I tossed down my mechanical pencil and sighed.

Thinking about it again, remembering what my father said felt like an excuse.

An excuse to stop studying.

“Ahhh, this is driving me crazy.”

I ruffled my hair and looked at the monitor.

Two messages happened to be sitting there.

- Not playing Neo Chronicle?

- Not turning on OnAiri?

This wasn’t the first time.

There was already an answer right above, but they asked again.

It felt like the world I lived in had changed while I stayed still.

Something felt strange.

A few months ago, I was just a soldier.

A month ago, I was whining at my friend, who had work the next day, to play another game with me.

But now other people were asking me to do things.

“I originally do study streams. I’ll turn on the other platforms during part two when I start Neo Chronicle.”

After waiting briefly, a reply came up.

- What studying

Haha.

True.

I really can’t focus today.

Still.

A man has his pride.

You have to keep your word.

Until the exam, I’ll work hard at both.

As I made that resolution, another message saying the same thing came up.

- When are you starting Neo Chronicle, I’ll come then

“Come around seven.”

After saying that, I swallowed a hollow laugh.

The way I answered so naturally felt a little unfamiliar, and a little familiar.