Ch.9999. Certainty

# The Perilla Leaf Debate

The premise of the debate—whether it’s okay for someone other than yourself to remove a perilla leaf for your lover—can only be established if there’s already a ‘romantic relationship’ in place.

A single gasp draws everyone’s attention in that direction.

Suhyeok and Juyeon blink with chopsticks in hand.

Seoeun giggles.

Even Choigang chews slowly with a “what are you doing?” expression.

“M-my leg cramped up.”

Hana awkwardly made up an excuse, unable to say “Why did you allow the perilla leaf thing?!” in this atmosphere.

No. Lee Suhyeok. This isn’t right in front of me!

Hey. Seriously… damn it…

“You did walk quite a lot yesterday and today.”

“That’s right. Are you okay, Hana?”

Receiving sympathy from those two socially awkward people made Hana feel utterly miserable.

Sigh. That clueless idiot.

“Yeah. It was just for a very brief moment, I guess.”

“Should we skip exercise tomorrow?”

Juyeon trying to slyly avoid exercise.

“No. Not happening.”

Hana had no intention of letting her off the hook.

“When did they say the preliminary results would be out?”

“In two days.”

The process of evaluating musical performances and deciding who passes turned out to be quicker than expected.

Especially for amateur college competitions like this one, it ends even faster.

For one thing, the skill gap is too wide.

And secondly, it doesn’t take long to evaluate performances.

Unlike academic paper competitions, there wasn’t much lengthy content to read through or review multiple times.

“So what should we do about practice?”

If they pass, every day would be precious.

If they fail, they’d be wasting two days for no reason.

Seoeun thoughtfully rubbed her chin.

“Hmm… I’d like to decide this by majority vote. I think we should go with whatever approach you won’t regret.”

“…Let’s do an anonymous vote then.”

As Juyeon took out her phone, Hana stopped her.

“Park Juyeon, you just don’t want to practice!”

What reason was there to be anonymous?

If someone genuinely wanted to practice hard, there was no need to hide their name.

“N-no, that’s not it.”

Juyeon felt caught.

“Well, Juyeon and I want to practice. What about you, Suhyeok and Choigang?”

Choigang put down his spoon and expressed his refusal.

“I’m already perfect!”

“Suhyeok, what about you?”

“I…”

Still unable to shake the feeling that they would fail, Suhyeok gave up.

“Maybe it’s better to rest for a couple of days.”

He didn’t want to make the members suffer anymore.

“Really? Then it basically comes down to what Seoeun says.”

The president scratched her head, looking troubled.

“Haha. I suggested voting because I didn’t want to decide.”

“Unnie, just say what you think.”

“Then we…”

Seoeun paused for a moment.

“Let’s take a little time to recharge.”

In the end, practice was canceled.

Hana was disappointed but understood them.

“Okay, fine. But we’ll check the results together, right?”

“Where do we check?”

“They’ll be posted on the official website at 10 AM. Let’s wait and check together.”

Everyone agreed to that.

Now all Suhyeok had left to do was wait nervously for two days.

Suhyeok glances at Hana.

…I really want to succeed and confess to her in style.

Please.

Please let us pass.

* * *

The day after the preliminaries.

Today was the day Juyeon had announced she would return to streaming.

When she entered the VoiceCode channel where she had turned off notifications, there were 78 messages in the red circle.

[Yeoni! How have you been?]

[I’ve been listening to your song clips all day.]

[Hehehe, yesterday was Boknal (hot summer day). Do you like samgyetang?]

[I know you’re coming back today, please reply^^]

Impossible.

It was truly impossible now.

While streaming was fine, Juyeon no longer wanted to continue as Yeoni because of this person whose behavior bordered on stalking.

She needed to tell them not to send anything to her home address and to stop contacting her because she was quitting streaming.

She’d keep her promise to stream today, tell the rest of her viewers she was taking an extended break, and then disappear until she was forgotten…

Having made this decision, Juyeon started up the programs for her broadcast.

Juyeon’s live stream begins again today.

Of course, it was a plain broadcast without a face or even the common avatars that VTubers use.

[H-hello everyone.]

Perhaps because she had been away for over a week, quite a few viewers came to see her, as if they had missed her.

A whole 400 people.

Juyeon couldn’t hide her surprise, as she had never hit such numbers immediately after starting a stream.

Honestly, if she were aiming to become a full-time streamer, she would have been advised never to let go of momentum like this.

[Yeonha!]

[Yeonha Yeonha]

[Why only now! Why only now! Why only now! Why only now! Why only now! Why only now! Why only now!]

Fans welcoming her in various ways.

Though it was an anonymous space, receiving such cheers made her slightly regret her decision to quit.

At the same time, a message from her manager appeared:

[Yeonha♥]

Seeing that almost made her gag, but Juyeon maintained her composure and continued broadcasting like a professional.

[Since it’s been a while, I thought I’d sing some songs for you today.]

Although that manager had sent a list, Juyeon just browsed online for accompaniment tracks of songs she wanted to sing.

The main theme was love songs.

She planned to sing songs she often listened to while thinking about Suhyeok.

[Even waiting for you is sweet]

[Won’t you come to me like this]

Juyeon’s concentration wavered as she was singing with complete immersion.

It was because the viewer count suddenly exceeded 500.

As soon as the second verse ended, Juyeon hurriedly took out her phone and launched the camera app.

[G-guys! 500 viewers! I reached 500 viewers!]

Juyeon took a screenshot with a click.

The viewers found her excitement adorable and started teasing her.

[Let’s leave~ Let’s leave~ Let’s leave~ Let’s leave~ Let’s leave~]

[I’m leaving now~]

[Hahahahaha you jerks]

[Congratulations on 500 viewers!]

Ah… she got it.

Now she could ask Suhyeok to grant her one wish.

With a lightened heart.

Juyeon felt like she could die happy now.

Yeoni changed the mood.

Instead of sad love songs, she sang a few more upbeat pop songs.

[Everyone]

It wasn’t that she hadn’t grown attached at all.

After all, Juyeon was a person with a lot of affection.

[This might seem sudden, but I feel like I’ve changed a lot while streaming.]

[I-I’ve gotten better at speaking, learned how to MC in my own way.]

As the atmosphere suddenly shifted to what seemed like a final farewell, the chat was flooded with question marks.

[And also, um… Ah! I think I’ve discovered that games are fun too.]

The viewers, not knowing this would be her last stream, patted her on the back as if watching a child writing about their achievements in a diary.

[Right! Games are fun!]

[I heal by watching Yeoni’s streams]

[Yeoni, make a playlist for us!]

Hah.

Looking at this, it is a bit sad.

But Juyeon was someone who feared direct goodbyes.

[I’ll make a playlist next time!]

She casually tells a lie, pretending nothing is wrong.

[Then I’ll see you next time. Yeonba~]

As she said goodbye, the viewers also said their farewells, and the broadcast ended.

This would probably be Juyeon’s last stream.

She’d post a notice about an extended break after the preliminaries, and the channel…

Yes. She’d delete it later.

That seemed sufficient for now.

[Yeoni! Good work today!]

[Would it be okay if I made a playlist for you?]

[And about the collab we talked about before, what do you think?]

[Yeoniworld]

Breaking her long silence, Juyeon finally replied.

[Yes?]

A swift reply came back, as if delighted that she had responded.

[Um… I think I’ll be taking a break from streaming for quite a while.]

Silence followed.

Just as she was about to get up from her computer chair thinking they might be away, another notification sounded.

His message contained undisguisable anger.

[Why? You already took a week off! Yeoni, at your current pace, you’re definitely on track for success!]

[We can really reach 1,000 viewers! If you just do as I say, you can become a high-earning streamer with nothing to envy!]

[You have to strike while the iron is hot—this is an opportunity.]

[It’s okay if you’re too busy to reply to all my messages, but streaming…!]

This was excessive obsession.

[No. I need to focus more on my real life.]

Juyeon gathered her courage and firmly typed the words she had prepared.

[So it will be difficult for a while. I’m sorry.]

This seemed like a polite and respectful way to put it.

[Don’t tell me it’s because of that useless band, is it, Yeoni?]

…So he did know after all.

That moment, suspicion became certainty.