Chapter 119: His Past

-Knock knock knock

After hearing the sound of knocking at the front door, I got up to open it.

“Good work.”

It was Doah, who had finished her stream and came back to my place instead of her own.

“Did you wait for long?”

“No, it was just about the length of an anime episode. I think.”

She then took off her coat, went to the bathroom to wash her hands and feet, and came out.

“I’m gonna change my clothes, so can you look away for a bit?”

After taking out her pajamas from her bag, she ordered me to turn around.

But, we’ve seen everything there was to see of each other. Why…?

Also, I thought we’d sleep naked tonight, but I just obediently followed her words.

“Okay, done.”

After changing into her purple pajamas, she dove towards me as I was lying face down on the bed. It seemed like she was in a particularly good mood.

“Ah~ So comfy~”

“Hey, hey, the Pink Army would rage if they heard that.”

“Who cares~ There were so many trolls today anyway~”

Well, that was just how it was. The bigger your stream became, the bigger the number of the weirdos that came by.

Of course, the company could control it to some extent, but there were still some cringe-worthy chats that got through the filters.

“Haa… But it was also like that back when you just started out.”

If you thought being a new streamer meant that the chat would be family friendly, no, that wasn’t the case at all.

It was actually even worse when you were just starting out.

Especially when there was a sudden influx of people, it became impossible to filter those kinds of chats out.

“Ah, I don’t know, I don’t care! Let’s stop talking about Luka-tan and talk about you instead, Oppa~”

Right, that was the reason she came here.

For this…

[Love Rides the Waves Episode #1]

I placed the tablet I had prepared on the pillow.

“Do you think it’ll be interesting?”

“Who knows.”

I didn’t even watch dramas to begin with, let alone web dramas. Well, maybe if I did, I’d find this thing interesting?

The screen showed a group of boys and girls in school uniforms.

I recognized about two people there as I’ve actually seen them on the set,

“You’ll appear in episode 3, right?”

“Yeah, it’ll come out next week.”

“Oho… Nice, nice…”

Doah, who was snuggling under the blanket, gestured for me to come over quickly, so I leaned next to her.

“Alright, let’s start.”

When I pressed the play button, a bright sky, typical of high-teen dramas, appeared on the screen before it was zoomed in on the school.

「Hey! Han Seongho! Damn you!」

A male student ran out, kicking the door open.

Behind him, a female student was chasing after him frantically.

Just from this, I had a feeling that I knew what this was going to be like.

I turned my head to the side slightly, only to see Doah focusing intensely on the video.

But… It didn’t even look like it was going to be interesting…

Of course, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to watch it.

Like, this was the first drama I’d be showing my face on, how could I not watch it at least?

It was only polite for me to at least have some awareness of what I had gotten myself into.

Anyway, the length of the drama was around thirty minutes per episode.

It depicted the story of a high school life that didn’t really resonate with me.

The story mostly dealt with all the things that happened to a group of people hanging out together, but I couldn’t relate with such things.

Of course, it wasn’t like I had no friends at all back in the day, but you know, I’ve never skipped school to go play somewhere else with girls and stuff.

Though, even in this boring drama, there was someone who caught my attention.

「Shin Gyumin, you otaku bastard, are you watching anime again?」

The male lead then smacked the guy on the head.

「Ow! Why did you hit me?! That was an important scene, dammit!」

…Fuck, I swear, I’m gonna kill someone…

Who the fuck made this shit?

Like, seriously, who?!??!

No one watched anime at school without wearing earphones, dude!!

You’d think if someone was passionate enough about the subculture they’d do that? Hell nah!

Especially if it was an important scene! You need to watch it alone at home so you’d be immersed by it!

No idiot would watch a scene that you’d need to savor carefully in this kind of environment!

I let out a hollow laugh, that was how flabbergasted I was.

“Tsk…”

It seemed like Doah also found this scene a little too much as she clicked her tongue.

Her cute finger hit the pause button.

“…Isn’t this a little much?”

But, maybe because this was a work I appeared in, she sugarcoated her words greatly.

“A bit much? It’s fucking dumb. What the hell was that?”

I punched the pillow out of disgust.

“Ahh! I wish people would do just a little more research before making these things!

“Like, seriously! So, is anyone wearing glasses a weeb? Are they trying to say that just watching anime is enough to turn you into a bullied otaku?!”

Doah only laughed awkwardly at my outburst.

She probably found it hard to empathize or defend this drama.

“Um, well… Why don’t we just watch it all the way first?”

“Haa… Fine.”

Doah touched the screen again to continue the video, the actor playing the otaku role smiled awkwardly.

「Dude, if you found anything interesting, give me some!」

「…I don’t really know much either-nya.」

…Could I sue for defamation?!

No fucking way they did that!!!

Those guys clearly didn’t know a thing about otaku if they thought this was how we act!

Did they really think that all otakus would go around saying nya nya while giggling?!

This was an insult to otakus!

Director! Apologize to all the otakus in the country! Apologize!

I was about to throw the tablet out of anger, luckily Doah managed to stop me.

“Oppa! Calm down first!”

“If I knew the drama was like this, I wouldn’t have agreed to appear in it!”

As the scene I acted in overlapped in my mind, the shock intensified.

So… Was I the one who told Shin Gyumin or whatever guy not to act up…?

Damn, even his name sucked!

Who the hell named their son Gyumin anyway?!

Anyway, there wasn’t a single thing I liked about this thing. This reunion with mainstream culture after a long time was simply the worst!

As depression was about to take over me, I pulled Doah’s waist closer to me for healing.

Nothing could heal me except Doah’s soft belly fat.

“Doah…”

“Yes…”

“Uahhhhhh.”

Ah… Pink Army… I’m sorry…

I’m sorry for acting in such a trashy work…

The fact that I had brutally betrayed the only group I felt a sense of belonging to felt so painful.

“Ah, well… How should I put this…? Their preliminary research feels a little lacking…? Hahaha…”

“…This drama should never become popular.”

I was serious when I said that.

With this level of research, it would be natural if it were to fail.

Like, if you want to use an otaku character, do it properly!

Works without any trace of delicacy like this should be buried somewhere and turned into a statistic or something!

“Are you sure you want your first work to be a failure, Oppa?”

“If I could turn back time, I would have asked to do something else.”

After a while, I came to my senses a little and fell into a serious contemplation about whether we should watch episode 2.

It felt like I might just throw something every time that Shin Gyumin kid appeared.

“…So, what do you want to do?”

Doah asked me, her finger hovering over the play button for the next video.

“I’d rather play with you instead.”

After putting the tablet down on the floor, as if confiscating it, I took a look at Doah’s face. It never failed to make me feel better no matter how many times I saw it.

I leaned forward to smell her scent.

Ah… As expected, there was no one but Doah-tan for me.

In this fake world, Luka was the only real thing here.

Because she wasn’t pretending to be an otaku, she was a real otaku.

When you actually talked to her, she was someone who, like me, felt genuinely passionate about the subculture.

“But, well… Um… Them making it like this would actually attract more attention, no…?”

“…You have a point, I guess…”

Right, there were cases where extremely shitty content became so bad that it was good.

But, with this level of brainrot in this video, it seemed difficult to expect something like that.

No matter how I looked at it, this seemed like something that would only get a barrage of insults and nothing more.

“Haaa…”

I had mixed feelings.

Doah, who had been tickling my chest by wiggling her fingers, called out to me.

“…Oppa.”

“Yeah?”

“This reminded me of something.”

“What is it?”

“Why don’t you introduce me to your friends?”

Hearing her somewhat abrupt words, I tilted my head. She then explained further, as if to clarify.

“Ah, you know, watching this made me wonder what you were like back in high school… Also, I’m curious about your friends…”

Somehow, the topic shifted to my high school friends and a whole new hurdle appeared.

“Uh… I don’t know about that…?”

“You won’t introduce me to them…?”

Her voice was filled with anxiety, making me hesitate to answer.

But, ugh… High school friends, huh…?

Well, I didn’t have any girl friends, so that was one thing off the list. As for the guys… Should I really introduce them to her…?

The thing with me and my friends was that, we were the kind of friends who’d embarrass each other without any hesitation whatsoever.

In other words, it would be embarrassing to show them to anyone.

“Well… If you don’t want to, it’s okay… You don’t want to introduce them to me, it’s okay… Hehe…”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

The more I thought about it, the more doubtful I got.

I doubted they’d come even if I were to call them.

Nevertheless, I had to confirm something, so I posed a serious question to Doah.

“Doah.”

“Yes?”

“If you were told to do an offline fan signing event with the Pink Army, would you do it?”

“I’d rather kill myself.”

…I couldn’t just let my girlfriend die, could I?