Chapter 196: Jo A-yeong is about to have a birthday

Hayoon, having given up on thinking, chose to just sleep it off. After she did, Jo A-yeong woke up.

“Hmm…?”

Then, she looked at Hayoon next to her.

She was still sleeping. She went out to the living room for a drink of water and…

“Huh…?”

There were already traces of someone having had water.

That meant Hayoon had already woken up and had a drink of water…

“Why is she still sleeping?”

Jo A-yeong tilted her head and poured herself a glass of water.

She had no idea why.

Even though Jo A-yeong usually woke up late, she had assumed she would wake up if Hayoon made a fuss.

In a situation like this, it was normal to be flustered and make a fuss, and she had planned to wake up to the commotion. But, what on earth was this situation…

“What the.”

This was a development Jo A-yeong hadn’t even imagined.

Hayoon had woken up, had a drink of water, even seen her face sleeping in the same bed, and then just went back to sleep?

“Is she used to it?”

If she wasn’t used to this kind of situation, it would be difficult to be so nonchalant. Had she been expecting too much?

“Hmm…”

Jo A-yeong groaned and finished her cold water, then returned to bed. She opened her phone and scrolled through the delivery app.

Since it was morning and she was feeling peckish, she planned to order some spicy bean sprout soup to cure their hangovers and fill her own stomach.

And so, she scrolled down, chose the bean sprout soup, selected the extra chili powder service, registered the delivery address as Igloo 1, and paid.

She chose the “leave at the door” option.

“Hmm, hmm.”

Jo A-yeong hummed a little tune, put on her earphones, and started exploring Shorts.

There was no better way to kill time, and she was trying to wake up a bit, so Jo A-yeong mindlessly scrolled, enjoying the inflammatory videos.

How much time had passed like that?

A 5-minute pre-delivery arrival notification popped up.

“Ugh…”

Hayoon woke up, complaining of a headache.

“You’re awake?”

“Yeah, unnie…”

“I ordered bean sprout soup. It’s coming now, so let’s cure our hangovers and go home.”

“Yeah, let’s do that…”

Hayoon was groaning in pain. Jo A-yeong glanced at her, patted her on the shoulder, and kept her eyes fixed on her phone screen, continuing to scroll with her other hand.

The two of them were showing a vibe like a couple in a rut, but in a way, it was natural for them to react this way.

In fact, a rut is something that only comes to people who have been passionately involved.

Since Jo A-yeong and Hayoon hadn’t even reached a boiling point, let alone being passionately involved, it wasn’t strange for them to feel like they were in a rut.

“Seriously, my head feels like it’s going to split even if I go back to sleep… Why did you mix the somaek like that…”

“You were in a mood like you wanted to die once, so when you asked for somaek, I made you a small-company style somaek?”

“There’s a thing called moderation, you know, moderation…”

Hayoon frowned, recalling the distinct alcoholic smell of the somaek Jo A-yeong had mixed.

At the time of drinking, she had meat as a side dish, and her mood was down, so the alcohol went down smoothly, but…

Now, suffering from a hangover, the taste was so terrible that just imagining it made her frown.

“That’s why I’m telling you I bought you bean sprout soup to cure your hangover.”

“Hmm, I’ll give you that.”

But, well…

Since Jo A-yeong was buying her bean sprout soup.

Prices have been rising lately, so two servings of bean sprout soup with delivery fee and extra rice would be around ₩30,000.

Although it was Jo A-yeong who had put her in this state, Hayoon agreed that ₩30,000 was a reasonable settlement.

“But who’s going to get the food?”

“I just told them to leave it at the door. It’s a must-have option for streamers, isn’t it?”

“Ah, right. That works. I only order delivery at home these days, so my dad usually gets it for me.”

“Well, unless you live alone or order delivery while streaming, there’s no real need for that.”

“It’s just more convenient to get it right away, you know.”

The fact that their subsequent conversation was also like that of a couple in a rut was the only humor in the situation. After a few minutes of such strange conversation…

The bean sprout soup arrived.

The two women, who had been having a staring contest with the delivery driver from the doorway, in their underwear, waited for about 5 minutes, then, deciding it was safe, opened the door and brought in the bean sprout soup.

When they added the chili powder, it was hot and spicy, perfect for a hangover.

“Haaaah…”

Hayoon, having been thoroughly scolded, let out a huge sigh as if she were about to die.

Although she had aged quite a bit, Hayoon was still in her early to mid-twenties.

In her parents’ eyes, she was still practically an elementary schooler, so they couldn’t help but scold her more out of anxiety.

Hayoon, completely drained, was thoroughly reprimanded. She rested for about a day, then started contacting the members intermittently to win their favor.

No more mistakes.

Having learned the importance of managing public opinion from Baek-seol’s case, she planned to steadily and consistently work on it.

“Come to think of it, there’s someone whose birthday is coming up soon…”

Birthdays, family events, holidays like Seollal and Chuseok, Christmas, New Year’s gifts.

She planned to take care of every single one of those.

Giving small gifts around ₩100,000 frequently seemed less painful than the sense of loss Hayoon would feel if a member left like this.

“No, why of all people…”

So she was planning to check the birth dates written in the members’ contracts and start sending gifts…

“Is this unnie the first one?”

What a twist of fate.

Jo A-yeong’s birthday was just a week away.

The thought of the recent somaek incident made her dizzy, but as the CEO of BGG Company, Jo A-yeong.

Vivian was an indispensable asset.

Her individual stream size was smaller than Hong Seo-hyun and Seo Ji-woo’s, but her impact and donation amounts when she turned on her hand-cam were overwhelming.

Her character was also solid, so she absolutely couldn’t be lost.

“No, this is actually a good thing. It would have been a disaster if I had missed it.”

As her thoughts reached that point, Hayoon immediately changed her mind.

“First, I need to book a restaurant… Book a decent dinner course, get her some wine to make her feel tipsy, and end it on a good note. That’s perfect then. Yeah. Yeah.”

The thought of drinking again already made her feel sick, but this time, she would control herself well, so it didn’t seem like there would be any major problems.

Meanwhile, Jo A-yeong was in the middle of a stream.

“Last time, I had a drink with the CEO, you know?”

– What kind of drink?

– Cocktail?

“What cocktail… We had somaek…”

– lol…

– lololol…

It was a talk stream.

She was telling the story of how she had listened to Hayoon’s complaints about Baek-seol while drinking with her last time.

Of course, she left out the controversial parts about Baek-seol.

Jo A-yeong had been streaming for a few years now and knew the ins and outs of the community.

She had no intention of bringing up Baek-seol here and adding fuel to the fire.

She was being careful.

– Why did you go to a small company at twenty and become someone who can only drink somaek?

– That’s a bit sad…

“No, what? I like somaek. You get drunk fast. If you get drunk fast, you don’t have to think about annoying things, you can just black out and go home and sleep, how great is that?”

– No, that’s not good…

– That’s not a good thing…

Jo A-yeong continued her back-and-forth with the viewers, listening to the usual nagging that came up whenever she talked about alcohol.

It seemed that the fact that Jo A-yeong was a former small company accountant had become known through her streams.

Perhaps because of that, or because Jo A-yeong was in charge of mixing somaek at real-life gatherings, the viewers would get disgusted and feel sorry for her whenever the topic of her drinking came up.

– Cocktails made with wine or whiskey are the most delicious, though.

– Some people say beer is just carbonated barley tea, and some people hate soju because it just tastes like alcohol.

“That’s why you mix them.”

Of course, Jo A-yeong, who had long since become a somaek devotee, just bluntly brushed off the viewers’ opinions.

The environment in which one learns to drink in their early twenties is this important.

Because she happened to enter a small company, and because she was young when she did.

Jo A-yeong, who had been defenselessly exposed to small-company style company dinners, had her preferred drink fixed as somaek.

“Ah, wait a minute, I have a call.”

Jo A-yeong muted her stream mic to take a call from Hayoon in real life and continued the conversation.

“Uh, uh huh… yeah, Hayoon. Uh, uh huh. Okay. Then next week. Uh huh…”

And so.

After a brief, conventional conversation with Hayoon.

“Ah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I’ll try wine. Let’s see how different it is from somaek.”

She declared to the viewers, snapping at them bluntly.

In fact, Hayoon had asked her to go to a restaurant, which is why she was going to drink wine, but even this was sublimated into content by Jo A-yeong.

“I’ll do a hand-cam stream on my birthday next week.”

She used the once-in-a-year anniversary-only fundraising tactic, preparing to rake in money.

“I’ll probably do a short stream in the afternoon.”

In the afternoon, she would fundraise on stream.

In the evening, Hayoon would take her to a restaurant for her birthday, and she would try wine.

It was perfect.