Ch.177172 – Drunken Truth

Getting drunk was like coming indoors and taking off a coat.

It allowed her to be honest with her feelings, saying things she couldn’t bring herself to say due to awkwardness.

Yoonseul, who realized this too early, clung to NoName and cried for a long time.

“Waaaaahhh…”

“Don’t cry. I’m not crying either.”

“Huuuung… Please tell me it’s not too late and that you made it all up… hic…”

NoName wore a troubled expression.

Having already confessed everything to Professor Cheon, explaining a second time wasn’t particularly difficult.

But Yoonseul couldn’t maintain her composure while listening to NoName’s tragic life story with a numb expression. Perhaps it was also due to the high-proof alcohol.

“Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Santa Claus doesn’t give presents to children who cry.”

“…?”

“Are you still going to cry? Hm? Hm, hm, hm?”

“Sniff.”

“Are you really going to keep crying? I told you, you won’t get presents if you cry! Hmm?”

After a short children’s song, NoName launched a series of aegyo attacks.

Yoonseul, caught off guard, stared at her with bewildered eyes before breaking into a smile.

Who wouldn’t smile seeing that small face with those bright blinking eyes?

Moreover, when NoName kindly wiped away her tears, she nodded with her lips tightly closed.

“Hic. Aren’t you just too cute, NoName…?”

“Today, you can call me cute as much as you want. Somehow, I don’t mind hearing it today.”

“Cute cute cute cute cute…!”

“Ugh… alcohol breath.”

“Hey, NoName…! You’re no better…! I’m letting it slide just this once, okay? Next time, you absolutely can’t drink something like this…!”

NoName’s recent schedule had been nothing short of murderous.

She was preparing for two competitions, investing ten hours a day to solve difficult problems, and even watching other people’s scrims to analyze enemy strategies.

Only recently did she finally have some free time, so Yoonseul rationalized that a brief deviation was acceptable for a child who had been working so hard.

‘How could I have ever felt jealous of a child like this…’

Yoonseul couldn’t hide her sorrowful feelings.

Thinking that actions speak louder than words for this poor child, she continued to hold NoName in her arms.

“So, unnie.”

NoName slowly began to speak.

“I don’t think you need to hide your struggles so much either.”

Her eyes had settled down, more composed than before.

The cute, affectionate demeanor that had suddenly emerged while drunk had returned to seriousness.

“Yesterday you nearly died, you can’t go home for a while, so why do you always pretend to be okay, like nothing’s wrong?”

Her behavior thus far couldn’t be considered normal by any means.

She would respond as if she didn’t care what happened to the culprit, and Yoonseul would help NoName with household chores while maintaining a constant smile.

Anxiety, nervousness, fear of nearly facing death.

None of these emotions could be found in her.

“Because it’s nothing.”

Yoonseul answered with a choked voice.

“So what if I fall from the 13th floor… People… people don’t know about that. They just remember me as the person who killed Chena unnie.”

The public only sees what they want to see.

That’s what she had felt while living as Kariri.

No matter how loudly she raised her voice, it never reached everyone.

Yoonseul fumbled with her phone and showed NoName her DM account.

Tens of thousands of unread messages.

She thrust one of them in front of NoName.

“They say I’m ugly… that I should go die… I get hundreds, thousands of messages like this from all over the world every day… I know I’m shorter and uglier than Chena unnie. But I thought I had my own charm. But when I keep getting things like this…”

Yoonseul burst into tears again.

“I… I start thinking that maybe I really am a bad person…”

Every message intensified her self-hatred and depression.

* * *

Just as I had told her about the path I’d walked, Yoonseul told me how she started as a VTuber.

The reason why Yoonseul quit being a trainee four years ago.

She said the agency didn’t even give them time to practice dancing or singing.

“It was really hard back then. There was another idol group above us. Those unnies were busy with schedules, so we were always dragged to investor…? Anyway, those kinds of meetings. Complete strangers would tell us to dance, but honestly, how could we when they didn’t give us time to practice? Of course we failed… We’d get scolded by the CEO and manager every time. Anyway, I left because I hated that.”

Kariri’s success was purely a series of lucky breaks, she explained.

She accidentally appeared on a famous streamer’s broadcast, was revealed to be female, and gained popularity.

Afterward, her behavior that didn’t match her gender or age created numerous clips among clippers.

Even meeting the celebrity Kim Wooju by chance in an online game and doing a collab stream with him, causing her followers to increase exponentially.

“I want to do everything well too. I want to be good at games like NoName… speak well like Yongcheol-nim… I want to be good at everything, but I’m not good at anything.”

“But unnie, you sing well.”

“Hic… If that were true, I would have become a singer…!”

The fate of someone with ambiguous talent.

Yoonseul confessed that she had made various efforts to maintain Kariri’s popularity and keep viewers.

In the early days of her broadcasts, she would type out Adella’s lines one by one and memorize them like a script to correct Kariri’s speech patterns.

She once participated in the trending No Sleep Challenge, streaming for 40 consecutive hours before collapsing and receiving IV fluids. It was heartbreaking to hear that she had been diagnosed with high blood pressure due to lack of sleep.

In particular, she said her lack of gaming talent was her biggest stress.

“Ho-honestly, I still don’t understand. Why people watch my streams and why everyone laughs. Are they really laughing because it’s funny? Or are they just following along because a few people force themselves to laugh even though it’s not funny? The community says I just get annoyed on stream, don’t show any effort to improve, and have no manners, and when I think about it, it all seems true…”

“Stop.”

“…”

“Honestly, don’t you feel that what you’re saying doesn’t make sense?”

Her words were drenched in negative emotions.

But examining each point carefully, she deserved to be successful.

However, would objectively countering her statements here make her feel any better?

In the end, Yoonseul would just find other reasons to repeat these depressing thoughts.

“Yoonseul unnie. Can I have your hand for a moment?”

“Huh…?”

I placed Yoonseul’s hand near my solar plexus. Inside my clothes.

As if she suffered from cold hands and feet, her ice-cold hand transmitted directly to my skin. Though I reflexively frowned, I quickly adapted to the temperature.

“Hey… what are you…!”

“Just checking, but you’re not the type to feel sexual desire toward children, right?”

“Of course not! What do you take me for…!”

“Then we’re good.”

I closed my eyes and slowly drew up my aura.

I converted mana into aura at the concave part in the middle of my sternum.

While both mana and aura are probabilistic substances, aura remains largely unexplored.

To make a robot climb stairs and jump up and down requires complex control engineering, but for humans, it happens naturally following brain commands.

Therefore, the only solution to learn various applications of aura was through inductive exploration.

Some minority groups can even accurately predict tomorrow’s weather using aura—its applications are truly endless.

“NoName, your eyes… they’ve turned golden.”

“Unnie could use it too if you knew how. Aura can be utilized like this.”

“So when you healed me that time…”

“That’s right, that was also a kind of aura.”

When I urgently treated Yoonseul’s burn, I used aura instead of mana.

However, unlike mana, receiving too much of someone else’s aura had the side effect of making you collapse.

“I think unnie’s mind is sick right now. To be precise, there’s an abnormality in the system managing neurotransmitters in your brain. Anyway, you’re not suffering because you’ve done anything particularly wrong.”

Depression, unlike what its connotation suggests, isn’t simply feeling sad.

Comfort like “It’ll be okay” or “This will pass soon” that simply tries to help someone escape sadness can actually have the opposite effect.

Rather than sadness, it’s closer to emptiness and lethargy. Or rather, because the emotions are so complex, many people can’t properly identify what they’re feeling.

Because the neurotransmitters that convey mood don’t function properly, signals are reduced when transmitted to the next nerve, inevitably causing confusion.

“Yoonseul unnie, how do you feel right now?”

The yellow light spread like fog.

The brightest spot was where my solar plexus and her hand overlapped.

When someone is close to another’s aura heart like this, it’s possible to transmit emotions by resonating aura.

With the help of alcohol, I recalled that picnic on the hill behind Yvonne Palace—the happiest time.

Never losing memories meant I could also use the emotions I felt then.

“Um… how should I describe this… Something welling up inside me. And it’s warm.”

Yoonseul’s breathing had quickened, but the numbness from before was gone. Rather, feelings of anticipation and joy were transmitted to me.

“Isn’t it nice? I’m transferring the emotions I’m feeling right now directly to you.”

“Oh, yes. It’s nice. Hehe, by the way, NoName, your stomach is really soft and squishy.”

“Eek! Don’t stroke it, focus on the emotions…!”

Suddenly, Yoonseul started wiggling her fingers inside my clothes.

She kept stroking and now she’s even squishing my stomach.

“Oh my god, you’re so cute! Tickle tickle tickle!”

“Eek…!”

I quickly removed Yoonseul’s hand from my clothes.

She looked disappointed and became gloomy again.

What’s wrong with this person all of a sudden?

Having no choice, I transmitted some more aura to her with my pajamas between us.

Although the efficiency would be somewhat lower, I also had the right to protect my body minimally.

“When you sang in front of everyone that time, I think I fell for you, just like you said. I also think Kariri is charming.”

“Really…?”

“And surprisingly, people don’t find perfect people relatable. They like people who are a bit clumsy like you but keep trying hard. And above all, you’re fun to tease.”

Her viewers neither looked up to Kariri nor looked down on her.

An equal relationship at eye level. She probably wouldn’t grasp how remarkable that is.

“Anyway, whenever you’re having a hard time or feeling depressed, I’ll hold your hand and listen to you. Touching my stomach might be… a bit difficult, but wouldn’t you get better if you keep receiving aura treatment like today?”

Physical recovery and mental response must occur simultaneously.

Simply taking medication won’t solve it, nor will just listening to concerns make depression disappear.

“Can I keep touching you like today?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Woohoo…!”

Yoonseul raised both arms toward the ceiling.

I’ll be patient. She’s still a young child who isn’t even an adult yet.

“Sigh… but will I be able to stream again…”

Yoonseul smiled bitterly. Even in this situation, thinking about streaming showed she was truly a professional among professionals.

“Just take a break. When was the last time you took a break?”

“Hmm… last year? No, the year before? I can’t remember well.”

“What…? So you’ve been streaming without taking a single day off?”

“Well, yeah?”

“Is that even possible? What about when you’re sick? Or when you go out? There must have been unavoidable circumstances.”

“Still had to do it. If a king neglects the country even for a day, it’s natural for it to collapse. Oh, even on the day of Chena unnie’s obituary… come to think of it, I streamed that day too…”

They say someone who has practiced one kick 10,000 times is more fearsome than someone who has practiced 10,000 different kicks once each.

“I’ve changed my mind. You would have succeeded no matter what kind of broadcast you did.”

Yoonseul’s slightly unfocused eyes seemed to glint with madness.

“How can NoName be so adult-like? It’s amazing the more I see you.”

“If you’re going to say that, could you at least match your words with your actions? What kind of adult pinches cheeks?”

“Hehee. You said I could touch you anytime, right?”

“Don’t twist my words!”

“I’ll only hear what I want to hear! What, are you sober now? That’s a shame, I wanted to ask for more aegyo if you were still drunk.”

“I was never drunk.”

“Huh… You didn’t seem that way earlier. Well, fine! Ah… should we take a selfie together to commemorate?”

Lying side by side, Yoonseul took out her phone.

“A drunk seven-year-old and an eighteen-year-old super beauty combo! This is really rare, you know!”

“Sigh… do whatever you want.”

“Oh, what’s this?”

While taking continuous shots, her attention turned to a notification.

“Seven-year-old genius girl… solves one of the seven great problems… Hey, NoName, haven’t you been found out?”

“What?”

Already?

This isn’t good.