Chapter 74: ...Go

「No way, you actually caught that?」「You really thought I wouldn’t, Oppa?」

Yes! The chat was moving so fast, of course I’d assume that she’d miss it!

Then again, I guess your dynamic visual acuity needs to be high to be a good streamer, huh?

I had vowed to just watch her quietly without chatting so I wouldn’t disrupt her stream.

Unfortunately for me, she caught me red-handed.

Calling each other after her stream was over had become routine for us.

We were at the point when we’d get bummed out badly if we didn’t call each other.

I never called her first though.

Because I didn’t want to accidentally call her when her stream hadn’t been turned off yet.

There were already a truckload of cases where streamers were caught doing stupid things because they didn’t know their stream was still on, this didn’t happen to vtubers only.

Doah and I agreed that she’d only call me after she made sure to turn off everything.

「Seriously? ‘Take me’? Eww.」

Imitating what I had sent in her chat, she started laughing.

Why was she so cute?

Sure, she was quite different from Luka.

She wasn’t as upbeat, but she felt way more affectionate. Though, she still gave me the same emotional ups and downs.

「Oh, c’mon, it isn’t like I sent something like that for the whole day! I just got caught by the atmosphere because everyone else was doing it!」

「...You’re banned.」

「Huh?」

「From now on, you’re banned from chatting when watching my stream, Oppa!」

While that could pass off as a somewhat cute command from her, but to me it was a big, big problem!

「...But, I didn’t send more than five messages today.」

In comparison, I used to send over a thousand messages in a month.

Even now, I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms, repeatedly typing and deleting my messages over and over again, but now she was telling me not to touch the keyboard? S~ᴇaʀᴄh the ɴ0velFɪre.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

Please, Doah, don’t do this…

Don’t take away that small happiness of mine…

But I knew that if I were to earnestly plead like that I’d just get in even deeper trouble, so I tried to look as pitiful as possible instead.

「I’ll behave from now on~ No, what if I only spam emotes instead? Is that still a no?」

「Hmm...」

Since she went silent for a moment, she was most likely thinking about being lenient there.

「Fine, as long as you don’t say any nonsense.」

「You know I only said all that because I like you…」

I was being truthful there.

It wasn’t like I was trying to mock her or being sarcastic toward her, I was trying to sincerely support her because I liked her.

「Then, try to like me, and meonly, more.」

「What do you mean? They’re both you.」

As I replied with a laugh, Doah put up more emphasis behind her words.

「Can’t you like mejust a bit more than Luka?」

Now that was a rather difficult request.

Because her, Luka, was my most loved 3D human on Earth.

「You’re my favorite, how can I like you more than that?」

「No I’m not. Do you think I’m an idiot?」

「I don’t. You’re the only one I care about, more than anyone else in the world.」

Right, I read about this somewhere before.

Women always wanted to feel validated.

Well, I wasn’t sure if it was true or not, but maybe telling her all these cheesy words was the best way to convince her.

「Ugh...」

After a moment of silence, she found a complete non-issue to argue about.

「But still, you don’t like me more than family, right?」

More than family...

Without a sound, I made a bitter smile and let out a faint sigh.

「No, I like you more than my family.」

「What? You’re lying.」

「I don’t lie about things like this.」

Because everyone had different experiences with their families.

That was why I didn’t find her reaction strange.

「Tsk... Anyway, if I catch you typing weird things in chat again, I’m seriously gonna… chat ban you.」

「Aw, Luka-tan, you’ve changed! You used to let a lot of even nastier things slide before!」

After laughing it off jokingly, we talked for about another half hour before deciding to go to bed.

「Goodnight Oppa.」

「Yeah, you too.」

「See you in the morning.」

「I’ll be waiting.」

When the red screen appeared, indicating that the call had ended, I plugged the charger back into my phone and crawled into my blanket.

I was growing to like her more and more.

There was no need to even dwell on it too much.

This strong feeling inside of my chest was a strong enough proof.

But at the same time, deep down, there was something that worried me.

[Doah likes me because I’m handsome.]

This was pretty much a hundred percent true.

As my feelings for her deepened, I came to think about this more and more.

Like, if I were born ugly, would I’ve ever been with her?

If I wasn’t born with this face, would she have even spared a second glance at me?

Of course, I knew that my face wouldn’t change much.

Unless I suddenly start binge eating and gain more weight, or if my face was ruined in a terrible accident, my face would stay the same.

But, that meant she liked me because of how I looked, not because she liked me as a person.

If she met someone more handsome than me, what would happen?

You know, what if she met real-life idols?

I wasn’t trying to doubt her feelings or anything, but being alone with my thoughts in this room always made me overthink with all these delusions.

“Haaa...”

Hopefully she liked me more than just my face.

With that thought, I closed my eyes.

* * *

“Achoo!”

Ugh, why did I keep on sneezing?

Sure, the weather was getting colder, but still, make it stop!

“Are you okay?”

Oppa stopped walking and asked with a smile.

“Yes. I’m fi... Achoo...!”

My nose was too itchy.

As I sniffled at the snot that came out a bit, Oppa rummaged through his bag and took out a tissue.

“Here.”

“Thank you.”

I turned around and blew my nose. Alright, that felt a bit better.

Spotting a trash can in front of the bus stop, I slowly approached it, put the tissue in and returned to Oppa’s side.

“Ugh... I just can’t stop sneezing today.”

“It’s cute, though.”

“Everything is cute to you.”

“I could pull all-nighters to watch your sneezing compilation if I want to.”

Why did Oppa and the other Pink Army like my sneeze so much?

Mine was no different than everyone else’s!

I looked up at him with a disgusted expression on my face, but he only smiled like an idiot.

Still, even when he wore such a dumb look, he looked so handsome.

I swear, if looks could kill…

We passed through the school gate with our arms linked.

Since rumors about us had already spread as widely as they could in our department, we had no reason to hide anything anymore. So, we confidently walked through the tree-lined path.

“Kim Doah! Kim Doah! Kim Doah! Kim Doah!”

At the familiar voice, I turned around to see Minji and Sooin walking towards us.

“Taemin oppa too, hello!”

The lively voice that was unique to popular people.

Minji’s voice sounded as excited as mine whenever I was talking on stream.

“Oh, hello.”

Compared to when I greeted him, Oppa’s reply sounded much more half-hearted.

It made him give off a cold impression to others, but to me, it felt rather nice.

You know, there was just something about the fact that the person I liked was only being nice to me. It made me feel good.

“Are you busy today Doah?”

If she was asking whether I had nothing to do, well, no.

I didn’t need to stream today, but I still needed to do my assignments and work on a proposal the company asked me to write.

“Uh... I need to do some assignments, I guess… Why do you ask?”

“You know, since Hansu is going to the military next week, we all decided to drink together.”

“Ah... So Hansu hadn’t gone yet.”

He was a male classmate who had quite a close relationship with the people I hung out with, including Minji. I barely talked to him, though.

“Yeah. So I thought it would be nice if you came too since it’s been a while. We barely see each other anymore because you’re in a relationship~”

“I’m not lying, everyone is really coming, today!”

It was true that we hadn’t hung around much recently.

Even before getting to know Oppa, I never really participated when the kids in my department decided to hang out, but nowadays, I stopped going at all.

“Anyways, let’s hang out today! Doah~ Please? You’re not going to skip the enlistment farewell party, righttt?? Oppa! Doah can hang out with us right?”

Oppa, who had been silently listening to the conversation, seemed surprised by the sudden question aimed at him and gave me an unreadable look.

His eyes seemed to be shocked.

But Minji wedged between us as if she wouldn’t give us time to discuss.

“Ah~ Taemin oppa! I’ll take responsibility and get Doah home safely, so please trust me and let her go just this once~ Okay?”

“Oh... Uh. Yeah...”

Oppa, accidentally accepted while stammering.

“Hey, Doah. Then I’ll go let the others know you’re coming too? Seven o’clock in front of Sapal Pocha!”1

Minji and Sooin brushed past us and crossed the corridor, leaving after saying what they had come here for. We looked at each other with somewhat blank expressions.

“...Can I go?”

A drinking party with both men and women.

I heard this kind of thing always became a big issue when you got into a relationship.

Oppa wasn’t the type to go to such places in the first place, so I never thought about it much.

Rather, I didn’t expect that I’d be the one who was asking for this in the first place.

“...Go.”

…Oppa, that didn’t sound sincere at all. Like, you didn’t sound like you were giving me consent and telling me to go have fun.

Right, how could I forget about this?

This man was an actual Pink Army stalker with a twelve-month sub.

***

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