Chapter 14: The person who comes to mind when I receive my first payment

Youngjun sat in a corner of the office, looking back and forth between two monitors.

One showed Pasta’s screen, where Cherry and Mary’s joint broadcast was being aired, and the other showed statistics on viewers and donations.
The main content hadn’t even started yet, but the number of viewers had already surpassed 10,000 and was approaching 15,000.

The speed at which the chat was scrolling was faster than usual, and a significant amount of donations had come in.

“Whoa, the momentum is no joke today.”

Youngjun unconsciously clenched the hand resting on his knee.

Whenever these two did a collaboration, the impact was always good, but today felt particularly good.

And for good reason.
With the title of ‘Fan Page Renewal’, it seemed that viewers had flocked in with curiosity.
They seemed curious about how the fan page, which had been a chronic problem, had changed this time.

The moment Cherry and Mary accessed the fan site, the firepower of the chat intensified.

-The new fan site is really crazy…
-I heard the manager put a lot of effort into this.
-Youngjun… the only light…

Seeing the occasional praise for himself in the chat, Youngjun couldn’t help but smile.

‘It’s not me… it’s Jin-ha who’s the light.’

Thinking about the talented person who had created such a splendid 3D site in such a short time, a satisfied smile spread across his lips.
All Youngjun had done was listen to Winter well, send emails, and pass on materials.

-Cherry, you’ve been staring at the main screen for minutes. You need to introduce the other boards too.
-That’s right! I was so moved that I lost track of time~ Next is… Huh? Metaverse experience?

At Cherry’s excited voice, Youngjun leaned forward with a smile on his face.

“All staff, standby. Block access for regular viewers, keep checking the traffic. Don’t forget to collect logs.”

While the red cat and the blue girl danced on stage, Youngjun and his staff were busy typing on their keyboards.

“Youngjun! We’ve entered the top 5 real-time search rankings on the community!”

“Links have been posted not only on the official community but also on galleries and channels!”

“There are too many access attempts! At this rate, not only the internal viewers but also Cherry and Mary will be kicked out!”

“Hey, hey! Block it somehow. Even if we get some complaints, we have to prevent the broadcast from crashing!”

Some managed the traffic on the fan page, while others appeased the public opinion on the communities.

And Youngjun.

[Slow mode is applied to the chat.]
[Hello, this is Youngjun, the general manager of Cosmo Live. I’ll be managing the chat a bit strictly.]

-Ack! The manager is here!
-Chat normalization is Shin. Young. Jun.
-Manager! Guarantee! Freedom of expression!
-To. Crash. The. Fan. Site. That is the only goal.

He began to catch malicious viewers while monitoring the broadcast.

The backstage is always a war zone like this.

Youngjun’s tyranny(?) continued until Cherry and Mary’s surprise online fan meeting ended.

When the broadcast moved on to playing old clips in the album section, Youngjun finally stretched and relaxed his posture.

“Phew, now I can watch comfortably.”

When Cherry’s embarrassing game video came on, the chat was filled with laughter.

When Mary’s first song video came on, a wave of glow sticks filled the chat.

“Wow~ seeing it like this, there really have been a lot of events.”

Youngjun also laughed comfortably for the first time in a while.

In this moment, Youngjun was not a manager, but a viewer and a fan.

“Oh, that happened too?”

“Manager, you were really stressed out back then. You were pulling your hair out saying that the 2nd generation might get terminated too.”

“Haha. Looking back, it’s all memories.”

After the failure of the 1st generation, when the 2nd generation debuted, no one expected them to grow this much.

‘Especially Mary, she was so shy that I wondered if she could broadcast for long…’

Just then, a video of Mary’s self-made 1st-anniversary song filled the broadcast screen.

…But this video, was it always this high quality? The subtitle editing is also very clean.

Now that I think about it, the pitch is also very stable.

As if it had been touched by a professional engineer.

‘This… Jin-ha must have worked on this.’

Youngjun murmured unconsciously in his mind.

Youngjun knew better than anyone how much sincerity Mary had put into making this video.

Of course, the video wasn’t well made.
Mary wasn’t an expert, so it was inevitable that it was a bit lacking.

After that video was uploaded, Mary was depressed for a while.
She sighed, saying that she hadn’t been able to properly convey her sincerity and that she was sorry to her fans.

As if reading Mary’s heart.

‘Someone’ found Mary’s sincerity that was contained in the inadequate video.

After a long time, Mary, who was finally able to express her gratitude to her fans.

[…sniffle.]

She burst into tears, overcome with emotion.

“Youngjun, should we remotely change Mary’s avatar face card? The BGM is already prepared.”

“…Just leave it. The picture is good right now.”

The broadcast screen showed Mary, who had forgotten that she had to operate the avatar and was crying her heart out, and Cherry, who was flustered and trying to comfort her.

“Ah, this is bad…”

Youngjun casually picked up a tissue from his desk.

‘Me too, crying at this age.’

His nose was tingling, so Youngjun lightly wiped his eyes with a tissue.
Moisture was imprinted on the white paper.

‘This will probably be a surprise gift that Mary will remember for the rest of her life.’

Of course, not only for Mary.

But also for himself and Cosmo Live.

Thinking that he should give Jin-ha an extra bonus, Youngjun pulled out a few more tissues.

“Today was truly legendary.”

In the darkened office.

Youngjun sighed and muttered.

In the end, the collaboration ended with a greater response than expected.

The peak concurrent viewership exceeded 20,000, and the donations also exceeded expectations.

Above all, the viewers’ reactions were very good.

Viewers who were deeply moved scattered to various communities, sharing their thoughts on today’s broadcast.

The scene where Mary cried her heart out was soon edited by fans and began to trend on the YouTube algorithm under the title ‘Tears that will go down in history’.

Behind all this.

“Jin-ha really carried today’s broadcast.”

Youngjun opened his mailbox and wrote a short thank-you note.

He didn’t need to write elaborately, he felt that his feelings would be conveyed enough, but he still wanted it to be sincere.

“I’ll probably have a lot to ask of you in the future.”

At the end of the email, he carefully brought up the topic of contact information.

If possible, he wanted to get a phone number or messenger ID.

He wanted to talk a lot.

Both professionally and as a hobby.

After sending the email, he turned off the computer.

He was too emotionally charged to work anymore today.

It was almost dawn.

He couldn’t bring himself to sleep right away.
His heart was racing as if he had drunk a double shot of espresso.

Youngjun lay down on the office sofa and fiddled with his smartphone.

He played old archives of Astra’s past broadcasts one by one.

Starting with the scene where Cherry fought with viewers and the scene where Mary spent time in silence, old memories passed by quickly.

Each video was a trace that proved the fierce moments of the past.

Youngjun laughed and cried for a while as he played the clips.

He had entered the VTuber industry in the first place because he wanted to create such emotions and joy together.

The fan page that Jin-ha had newly created reminded him of that fact.

It had been almost two months since Han Ari started broadcasting.

Now, the average number of live viewers had reached thousands, and the broadcast had established itself.

It was an unbelievable growth rate for a rookie VTuber without an agency.

Today was the day Ari received her first payment as Han Ari.

After checking the amount in her account, Ari froze.

She had expected it to some extent, but the amount far exceeded her expectations, making her feel dizzy.

She stared blankly at the numbers on the screen for a long time before finally regaining her senses.

“I thought it would be nice if I could just avoid card delinquency and pay my rent on time…”

It didn’t feel real since her bank balance was more than she expected.

She always struggled with not having enough money, so she felt complicated.

“I… can finally start saving.”

Still, it was her first payment.
She wanted to spend it meaningfully.

“Should I change my streaming equipment first? Or…”

The first thing that came to mind was her parents.

Her parents, who had silently supported her since she was a trainee and worked hard to support her.

She felt that it was time to repay their kindness, even if just a little.

But the moment she thought of her parents, the silhouette of another person came to mind.

Jin-ha.

The creator whom Ari was infinitely grateful to, the one who had given her a new life.

Ari knew better than anyone.

If it weren’t for the model ‘HANA’ that Jin-ha had gifted her, she wouldn’t have received this much attention.

In fact, the current broadcast concept itself was practically set by Jin-ha.

“If it wasn’t for Hana, I would have been buried as just another streamer…”

Suddenly, an extreme idea popped into her head, “What if I give her all the money I earned?”

Since it was the first big money she had earned under her name, she wanted to express her gratitude most clearly.

She could get new streaming equipment later, and she could save up money for her parents little by little.

For now, she wanted to do something for the person who made the current Han Ari possible.

“Of course, I know this is far from enough to cover the cost of the model… but I hope she accepts my feelings.”

Ari turned on her computer and started writing an email to Jin-ha.

She wrote it haphazardly, but the gist was that she wanted to give most of her first payment to Jin-ha.

She repeatedly emphasized that all of this was thanks to Hana and added a request not to refuse.

After sending the email, her heart fluttered strangely.

Maybe, through this.

“Can I… meet her?”

Ari smiled bashfully with her hands clasped together.

Her flushed face looked like a girl in love.