“Boss. I’m going to quit.”
It might have looked as if I’d challenged my boss to an unavoidable mak’gora, but it was purely an eruption of pent-up feelings.
If I had to be precise, it was the kind of mistake that made you think, Ah, crap.
Quitting, in this current situation where I could be on friend-like terms with my boss?
It wasn’t as if quitting would give me more time to hang out with her, so why would I go out of my way to do something that only hurt me?
Besides, Boss had been busy for all three years.
As if proving with her own body that 1.6 million subscribers wasn’t a number you could just casually reach.
She had to sort through and reject all the collab and advertising offers coming in from everywhere.
On top of that, she still had to make time to play with her viewers, and this year, Parallel’s first-generation members had been added too, making her even busier.
So of course she had no time to play.
… I guess I have no choice but to work my alt account even harder.
I barely managed to pull my pouting lips back in and muttered.
“I’m kidding. I just wanted to see how you’d react if I said I was quitting.”
*
After Jia left the CEO’s office with a dejected expression, CEO Cheon Dohui had no choice but to stare blankly at the door for a while.
Then, when she suddenly came back to her senses, she couldn’t help but repeat the famous line from a Night of Legends broadcast in her head.
Emergency.
Super emergency.
“What… what was that all of a sudden? Quitting?”
A kid who had worked perfectly fine as a manager for two years and at the company for three had suddenly become completely sulky.
Those disappointed eyes and the corners of her mouth drooping as if she’d lost all expectation.
No matter how Dohui looked at it, she seemed like someone who could no longer find a reason to stay at the company.
But even when she looked back on what she might have done wrong, Dohui hadn’t really done anything wrong.
Sure, she did play games with Jia from time to time, but after starting the company, she had so little time that informing her of her schedule in advance like this had become the rule.
In other words, what Dohui had said wasn’t a rejection, but a promise that they could do it two months from now.
But Jia, who had come from that side, didn’t know that.
It wasn’t as if she had ever been in a friend-like relationship with Dohui before.
Left with no choice, Cheon Dohui called in the head of the operations team, which Jia belonged to.
Team Leader Gang Jiho, thirty-two years old this year, entered the CEO’s office and immediately clasped both cheeks with her hands, letting out a pained sound.
“Boss, by any chance, Jia…”
The way she spoke was like an owner startled because the cat she’d been raising had suddenly started skipping the food it used to eat so well.
“Did something happen? Jia’s expression is completely dead.”
“No, I called you because I was curious about that too.”
“Huh? If you don’t know, Boss, how would I know?”
“She is, well, a member of your team.”
“She may belong to the operations team, but in practice she’s your dedicated secretary, Boss. She only does work you assign to her too.”
“Mm. That’s true.”
I called her for nothing.
Thinking that, Cheon Dohui dismissed Team Leader Gang.
Normally, Team Leader Gang would have left immediately, but she delivered one sharp blow first.
“Um, I’m only asking just in case, but… you didn’t perhaps get angry at Jia, or yell at her, or browbeat her, or anything…”
A brief silence.
Reading the room, Team Leader Gang fiddled with her glasses and swiftly slipped out of the CEO’s office.
“It doesn’t seem to be an issue within the department. In the end, that means I said something wrong earlier.”
Dohui had merely suggested setting up a time as she always did.
Could that really have been the problem?
Because today was actually a special day?
Jia’s birthday?
No, that was still about two months away.
Then Dohui’s birthday?
That had already passed about two months ago too.
“… I really have no idea.”
While Dohui was still unable to get a grasp on it,
Operations Team Leader Gang Jiho, who had returned to her seat, appeared again.
Knock, knock.
— Boss?
“Come in.”
She quietly entered the CEO’s office and spoke while adjusting her glasses.
Like someone suffering from some sort of anxiety, she tapped the tips of her feet against the floor with a nervous expression.
“I think we may need to put someone else in Jia’s place for the content later. What do you think?”
“… Is it that bad?”
“Yes. I was worried about the content later, so I tried talking to her, but she keeps going, ‘Uh. Uh…’ and barely answering. And this is a kid who’s always been so pleasant, works hard at everything, and is polite.”
Dohui frowned and clutched her forehead.
If Jia’s dazed state continued, they would have to find a substitute for the content scheduled at eight.
“I’ll go see her. Don’t worry too much.”
“Thank you, Boss…”
“No. I think it really was my mistake after all. I should be the one to fix it.”
At least, as Dohui left the CEO’s office and headed toward the operations team, she did gain one major realization.
Namely, that Jia had come to work much earlier than usual today.
She was normally supposed to arrive by three, but today she had come at two.
And before coming, she had even asked if Dohui needed anything.
‘Come to think of it, today’s the first time Jia is properly doing content with the first-gen girls…’
Originally, it had been Dora’s role, but when she was absent due to her grandfather’s memorial rites, the role had somehow fallen to Jia.
It was because she had participated in Dohui’s broadcast a few times as a manager.
However, she had only ever played the role of a gamer who silently carried the game, so she had never once communicated with people in front of a microphone like this.
‘She must’ve been so nervous she couldn’t sleep. She probably came early because there were things she wanted to ask me when I had a free moment.’
On top of that, since she wasn’t a kid who knew how to express her thoughts well, she had probably hoped Dohui would understand her feelings even through such a clumsy method.
The question “Do you need anything?” could be interpreted as “I need help.”
The question “Want to play a game together?” could be interpreted as “I’ll carry you later, so I really need help.” (Not true.)
‘But quitting… why did she suddenly say that?’
Could participating in content have been that burdensome for her?
Dohui had entrusted it to her because Jia handled everything well and seemed suited for it.
Had that been a mistake?
‘First, I need to stop her.’
From Dohui’s perspective, she wanted to avoid a situation where Jia quit because of her own mistake at all costs.
If Jia quit, the first problem would be filling the forced T/O that opened up.
Right away, from Monday to Friday, from 3 p.m. until midnight, someone had to monitor every single broadcast by the company’s VTubers like they were in a command-and-control room, and if things ran late, stay awake until McMorning time.
Weekends were weekends in name only; in practice, it was a half-on-call state.
They had to have an enormous love for VTubers, be tight-lipped, possess enough otaku power to appropriately recommend games or anime when VTubers occasionally suffered from a lack of content, and even have knowledge of broadcasting equipment to immediately respond when stream output issues occurred…
Honestly, there was no one who could replace her.
At their first meeting, Dohui had definitely thought, What kind of malicious bitch is this?
But five years later, there was no one who looked after VTubers more passionately than her.
Jia had said to forget it, that quitting was something she’d just said on a whim.
But for Dohui, who had never once thought about Jia leaving the company until now, this was an even more serious crisis than the pop-up store incident that happened half a year after the first generation’s debut.
*
“By any chance, are you feeling really pressured about participating in the content?”
I was sitting in my office chair, watching kirinuki clips of the first-generation member Rain that I had saved in my playlist, when Boss asked me that.
I had long since given up on playing games together with her as a friend and was just doing my work, so I was flustered.
“Uh… no?”
“If you feel pressured, tell me now. I’ll find a substitute.”
“No, no. It’s today. How could I back out now?”
Before I knew it, Boss had stolen Team Leader Gang Jiho’s chair and went whoosh.
Becoming a chair rider, she slid all the way over until she was extremely close.
“Then why did you bring up quitting earlier?”
“… You don’t need to know.”
The steady gaze that followed felt as if it were pressing against my face with a palm. Left with no choice, I confessed my honest feelings.
“I just said it because I wanted to play games together like before. Quitting, that was… because you rejected me like you hated the idea right away, so my heart suddenly went pitch-black, and I wondered if I should just go back home and stream-snipe you again.”
At that instant, Boss opened her mouth like an idiot, and then—
“Puhah, ahahahahahaha!”
She laughed like a madwoman, and later began patting my head.
I was about to snap back and ask what she thought she was doing to a fully grown adult, but the feeling of her pressing down on my head, pat, pat, felt so good that I just clamped my mouth shut.
So this is what it feels like to be patted by your oshi.
I’d never experienced it before, so I had no idea.
After laughing until she was wheezing, Boss calmed her breathing and let out a short sigh.
“I’ve known you for five years, and I still don’t know you at all.”
“It’d be weirder if you did. It’s not like you’re living my life for me, Boss.”
“Yeah. I really don’t know a single thing. What am I going to do with you?”
Then she took the comb from Team Leader Gang Jiho’s desk and brushed my disheveled hair, and this also felt good.
Is this how a cat that likes human touch feels?
“… Ah.”
No, this isn’t the time to sit here in a daze.
Now that Boss was in a good mood, I had to make my proposal again.
Retreating earlier had merely been for the sake of gaining momentum.
“Can’t we really play a game once? If you can’t do it for long, just one hour. No, that’s too short, so two hours.”
Whether or not desperation was visible in my eyes, Boss spoke in a tone far different from before.
Her lush eyelashes curved gently, and the corners of my mouth twitched upward along with them.
“If today’s content ends without a problem, I’ll cut down on sleep if I have to and play Baecall with you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Until we get first place.”
“Uh. You should take that back.”
“Why? Are you going to troll me so I can’t get first again?”
“How did you know?”
“Go easy on me. I’ll die if you keep doing that~.”
She said it as if we would play all night, but I had no intention of doing that.
As if I wouldn’t know how busy Boss was.
Exactly two hours. I’d play only that much and let her go.
As a fan, monopolizing her that much was plenty.
“Depends on how you do, Boss.”
“But you seem confident today. Are your preparations for the content going well?”
Now in a good mood, I showed her the Rain voice impression I had been practicing all week.
The tone of my voice had changed quite a bit since yesterday, but surprisingly, there wasn’t a huge difference in the way I tightened and relaxed my vocal cords.
Because she had learned Korean through a rough, self-taught method, if you properly captured that strong foreign-worker feel, along with the clean pronunciation of the English sprinkled in here and there, anyone could become Rain.
“Wow, sibal. You guys really play like sheet. Me? Rain’s fault? Mm. In your face~.”
Boss and Team Leader Gang gave no reaction for a while, making me feel embarrassed.
I thought I had done pretty well.
I guess it was worse than expected after all.
Just as I was about to grow a little gloomy, Boss belatedly asked with a surprised expression.
“Why have you been hiding a talent like this until now…?”
“… I haven’t exactly hidden it.”
“You’ve never shown us before.”
“Because you never asked me to.”
“……”
For some reason, immediately afterward, Boss looked at Team Leader Gang Jiho and said this.
“If today goes well, this could be a huge hit…?”