episode_0065

A dark room.

Small, white feet moved among scattered pieces of used tissue on the floor.

A small frame, pale skin untouched by sunlight, and light gray hair as pale as her skin. Yawning widely, as if sleepy, a woman walked through the messy room.

Stepping on the sticky floor, she sat in a chair in front of the computer and skillfully operated it.

Soon, a light gray fox fursona, the same color as her hair, appeared on the screen. Watching the avatar mimic her facial expressions and arm movements, the woman nodded with satisfaction.

A few taps on the keyboard, a slight movement of the mouse, and a chat window popped up on one of the four computer screens.

The viewer count slowly climbed. Seeing it surpass 2,000 in an instant, the woman spoke.

“Hello everyone~ Good morning~”

-hi

-hihi

-Eunha

-Eunha~

“Yes, yes. Eunha Eunha~ It means Eunyu hi~”

Unlike the woman’s listless eyes, the avatar on the computer had very bright eyes. Her gentle smile looked incredibly natural; one couldn’t help but wonder how much money had gone into it.

“Did you all sleep well? I just woke up~”

Streamer nickname Eunyu, real name Lee Ha-neul, skillfully continued the conversation.

In truth, it was a one-sided conversation, but Lee Ha-neul read the viewers’ chat and handled the dual role flawlessly.

“‘What time did you go to bed yesterday?’ Um, well? I think… I went to bed in the wee hours… um, I don’t know!”

-Go to bed earlier

-Did you shower?

-Did you come straight here without showering?

-Your sleepy voice is sexy

“Did I shower? No? I came straight here after waking up!”

-Go shower

-You smell

-You’re dirty

-Shower please

-Shower, please

“Wha… You guys said you liked my smell! That’s why I came without showering! That’s unfair!”

She protested in a sharp voice, but the viewers’ reactions were cold.

-That’s a bit much

-Blaming us for this

-Even so, not showering for 3 days is a bit much

-If you keep it up, you won’t shower for a week

-You smell

“Sniff… You’re mean…”

Lee Ha-neul pretended to cry, covering her eyes with her hands.

A little later, she smiled brightly again and continued talking to the viewers.

“Ugh, uuuugh… hwaaaaugh…”

-Whoa

-Wow

-Woah

-(Chat temporarily blocked)

-Wowowow

-(Chat temporarily blocked)

-Whoa

“Uuuugh…? Why?”

-Nothing

-No

-Your stretch is really nice

-Ooh

“…? What?”

Lee Ha-neul, who had been stretching, tilted her head at the strange reactions in the chat window.

Several chats automatically deleted by the clean bot. Due to her dislike of complicated things, she didn’t have a separate chat manager; her chat window was usually considered messy, but she rarely had this many messages deleted by the clean bot in a row, so Lee Ha-neul blinked twice.

The number of deleted chats increased as she blinked with a face that showed she didn’t know anything.

The broadcast was now nearing 10,000 viewers. The broadcast time had also exceeded 30 minutes.

“Um, shall we end the warm-up here?”

The large illustrative broadcast background image went down, and a black screen briefly appeared.

As time passed, grand background music was heard, and a golden clock icon appeared in the center of the black screen. One of the main contents of the general game streamer, ‘over which’. Commonly called Overwatch, a hyper FPS game.

-What Overwatch?

-Again?

-Overwatch again, teacher;;

-What Overwatch??

“Hey! ‘Again’? It’s been a week!”

-If you’re going to do this, just be an Overwatch streamer

-Seriously

-Seriouslyㅋㅋ

“Hmm, should I?”

-?

-??

-Get rid of that guy

-No

“Puhaha! Just kidding!”

Lee Ha-neul laughed loudly, seeing the chat window freeze.

She understood their reaction. Overwatch was once a game that recorded the No. 1 PC bang occupancy rate, but it’s been losing ground to recently developed VR games.

Its popularity isn’t what it used to be, and there have been several setbacks, such as content recycling and delays in new hero releases.

The scale of competitions has shrunk considerably, and most Overwatch streamers have moved on to other games.

“Overwatch is fun…”

-A game with over 10 minutes of queue time for Quick Play is ridiculous;;

-Wow, 30-minute DPS queue

-Why is Tank 9 minutes?

-Because they’re Tanks

-Seriouslyㅋㅋ

“Our Overwatch isn’t dead yet…”

-Even a comatose patient is still aliveㅇㅇ

-Seriously

-It’s still ‘kinda’ aliveㅋㅋ

She chatted with the viewers while waiting for matchmaking.

As the matchmaking took a long time, she started to think about whether she should pre-queue during the warm-up time when, with a *쿵* sound, the match was found.

It was the first match after a whopping 32 minutes.

“My hands are warmed up! If I win this one, I’ll get Grandmaster!”

-A Master after 2 years spoke

-How can they only lose streaks during promotion matches

-It’s amazing that they even climb that way

-Seriously, they would’ve gotten to the top level by now

As soon as the game started, Lee Ha-neul chose McCree, the hero who uses a six-shooter revolver as his main weapon.

[Justice will not be served.]

A brown-skinned woman smoking a cigar. The slightly higher field of vision than other heroes is because it’s based on a hermaphrodite employee.

McCree’s actual in-game gender is also hermaphrodite.

“2CP… Lunar Colony? Ugh…”

The infamously terrible 2CP map. Lunar Colony is especially notorious for its lack of fun.

Sure enough, in the game chat, messages like, ‘Should we dodge?’ were popping up.

“Dodge… In the past, if we got Lunar Colony, we could immediately dodge and go to the next match… but it’s difficult now. We’d have to wait over 30 minutes again.”

Luckily, the game chat was leaning towards not dodging.

“Alright, let’s do this!”

.

.

.

.

.

[Defeat]

-lol

-lol

-lol

-lol

-lol

“Shit…”

-Whoa

-Whoa!

-!

A large, white ‘Defeat’ sign marred the now-red screen.

“Again…”

How many times was this? Losing with only one match left to reach Grandmaster.

The intense match, which went on to a 6-6 tie, was remembered as a defeat due to a sudden teammate leaving.

After a match lasting over 30 minutes, she felt she’d used up all her concentration. She didn’t want to play anymore.

“I’m done with Overwatch…”

She mumbled with a voice noticeably different from before the game.

Her voice sounded slightly dejected.

After sighing deeply a few times, she shook her head and took a deep breath.

“Okay! Let’s play another game- Huh?”

Just as she was quickly picking herself up to start a new game, the doorbell rang from the entrance.

Wondering who it could be, Lee Ha-neul told her viewers to wait a moment and muted her microphone.

“I’m going-”

Her voice dropped noticeably when she muted the mic.

Unlike her high-pitched broadcasting voice, her voice was soft and dry.

Opening the front door, she saw a large woman.

Black eyes and black hair. A beautiful face that captivated her gaze, and an intense scent that instantly seized her senses.

Her heart pounded—*쿵쿵*—strongly.

“Wh, wh-who…?”

“Lee Ha-neul, right?”

“Ye, yes… but…?”

Her voice seemed slightly frightened. Lee Ha-neul swallowed hard and asked.

The woman at the door looked down at her and smiled. It was the kind of smile one makes when finding an interesting toy.

“The reason I’m here is, your rent’s overdue.”

“…Ah… the rent…”

“Two months overdue, right? When can you pay?”

“Uh… uh, uh…”

Lee Ha-neul’s eyes darted around as she searched for an answer.

“Huh?”

“Uh, th… ugh…”

“When can you pay?”

“By… by the end of this month… could you give me an extension…? I don’t have the money…”

The end of each month was settlement day. It was the day she received payment for her streaming donations and YouTube video views. Once she received her settlement, she could pay all the overdue rent.

‘Why did I buy all those goods!!’

She resented her past self who had spent all her money, including her rent, on limited edition goods from various animes and VTuber idols. Of course, they were valuable goods… but still, she resented it.

“You know the building rules, right?”

Ha-yeon tapped her foot on the floor.

“If your rent is overdue for two months, you have to move out.”

“…Yes..”

“You know you’re cutting it close, right? I could evict you right now, you know.”

“…Yes..”

Lee Ha-neul bowed her head at Ha-yeon’s words.

“Well, if you don’t have money, there are other ways.”

“Wh, what is that?”

At the sight of Lee Ha-neul nervously trembling, Ha-yeon let out a small laugh.

She tapped Lee Ha-neul’s chest with her finger.

“Your body.”

“…What?”

“Pay me back with your body.”

Ha-yeon said, glancing at Lee Ha-neul’s figure.

Her small frame. Perhaps even smaller than Da-eun; her small body, dry lips, pale skin as if she didn’t see the sun, long light gray hair, and slight dark circles. Her chest was visible beneath her sweat-soaked white shirt. Her nipples were a dark brown, almost black.

“Th, that’s…”

“You don’t like this?”

“Of, of course…”

Lee Ha-neul tried to close the door, promising to find the money quickly. Ha-yeon stopped her by putting her foot in the door crack, grabbed the doorknob, and pulled. The door swung open, overpowered by her strength, and she pulled Lee Ha-neul in with her. Ha-yeon caught her before she fell and carried her inside.

“L, Let go of me!”

“Why would I?”

“…What?”

“I told you. If you don’t have money, pay me back with your body.”

“….That’s… what…”

She threw Lee Ha-neul onto her bed, walking past the messy room.

“You don’t have a choice.”

“…Ah..”

Lee Ha-neul looked at me with trembling eyes.