WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Irevi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Stream as a Hobby ◈
Chapter 20: Return
──────
They’d taken the cookies and ghosted me.
And not just any cookies. My Dubai chewy cookies.
How many cookies had I given away? And how great had the mood been that day?
Yet my viewer count had dropped this much after just two weeks off...
“Where did everyone go...?”
-did you think nobody would leave??
-two weeks? yeah, it’s over..
-sorry, who are you?
-it’s the start of the semester
-is this that dead stream??
My shock didn’t last long.
Looking at the chat, I could see why it had happened.
Right, the new semester had started.
They all acted like unemployed slackers on an endless break, but apparently, they did go to school and things.
And with that going on, a two-week break... Even I could see that was long enough to lose viewers.
“Uhhh...”
-uhh..
-is this place still open..?
-lmaooo
Thinking of it that way, having around 150 people left was impressive. The others would gradually return over time.
Still, I couldn’t shake the shock of seeing that number.
Well, that aside...
“Anyway, good to see you...”
-yes hello nice to meet you for the first time
-good to see you at least lol
It was good to see them again after two weeks.
* * *
“Have you all been doing well without me?”
I’d taken the occasional day off from streaming before.
But this was my first break this long, so I asked my viewers.
-watched Hae the Bastard’s streams yep
-just fucked around~~
-what were you doing that you needed two whole weeks off??
“Me? I worked my ass off until I nearly cried.”
My viewers really couldn’t imagine how much I’d been through, could they?
I’d gone all the way to Paris for Fashion Week and made a new friend... Hmm. I supposed it would be stranger if they could imagine that.
-what??
-so what did you do
-and what do we call claims without proof??
“Oh, I have all the evidence right here.”
This wasn’t the first time people had failed to appreciate my hard work.
I’d known they would say that, so I’d prepared something.
-?? evidence?
-did you take pictures on your business trip or something
-no souvenirs?
“Look at this.”
I spoke confidently and opened two browser windows.
Both were for my Leore accounts.
They showed the match histories for my Emerald 3 main and Platinum 4 alt.
“See the match histories? Not a single game.”
There wasn’t even a single round of Augment ARAM recorded over those two weeks.
-???
-holy shit the dog actually quit eating shit lol
-don’t you have more alts??
“How could you say something so hurtful? That’s how hard I was working.”
-hmm.. okay
-so what did you actually do??
“Work. Business.”
I really had been doing work for my actual job.
Even after two weeks off, I had nothing to be ashamed of.
-so WHAT. IS. YOUR. JOB.
-guess we’re playing Leore today;;
-fuck, the Lel occupation begins;
“Hmm...”
Anyway, my proof of all that hard work was soon out of the way.
Looking at the chat, I fell into thought.
Honestly, I’d expected to do nothing but play Lel like crazy once I got home.
Hadn’t I spent my time in Paris holding back the urge to play?
I’d even imagined becoming a lone solo queue warrior, reaching Diamond, then climbing all the way to Master and causing a scandal because people thought I’d hired a booster or used hacks.
“Well, I don’t know.”
-???
-you’re not playing Leore?
Hmm. I wasn’t really feeling it.
For the first day or two, even the first week, thoughts of the Rift had kept floating through my mind.
But after about two weeks without playing, I’d somehow passed that point.
“I’m not really feeling the urge...”
-??
-fr??
-the sun’s gonna rise in the south lol
Was this how the viewers who’d run off felt?
Enough time apart could make me quit Lel, which I’d played for ten years.
A VTuber’s stream they’d only watched for a little while? Of course they could leave without looking back.
Drip, drip. I stared at the chat with eyes full of longing.
-?
-what’re you looking at
That feeling when the usernames I always saw in chat weren’t there anymore...
Still, maybe I hadn’t lost as many as I’d thought?
A lot of people had left, but plenty had come back despite my two-week break.
“You all know I really treasure you, right?”
-?? where’s this coming from?
-still not joining your fan cafe lol
“Oh, let’s check the fan cafe while we’re at it.”
I’d forgotten about it, but the chat reminded me.
After two weeks, there should be a few posts piled up, right?
-??
-?
-huh?
-that place is dead as fuuuck
“The owner can’t stop showing up just because the shop’s dead.”
As the chat said, my fan cafe was pretty much dead.
But if the owner stayed away because business was slow, even a shop with potential would fail.
-wow look at all that dust
-that posting rate lmao
So, despite the viewers’ mockery, I bravely entered my deserted fan cafe.
[Got My Wayookies]
“Oh, there’s a post from someone who got their cookies.”
Still, it wasn’t as empty as I’d expected.
My recent threats involving Dubai chewy cookies had paid off.
-someone actually posted proof on that dead board
-upvote if you still haven’t tried Dubai chewy cookies lol
-sigh, should’ve been me
“I’ll do it again sometime, so don’t be too disappointed.”
I comforted the disappointed viewers and read the post.
It began with a photo of the neatly packaged Dubai chewy cookies and was closer to a review.
Basically, the packaging had been done with care, they’d been surprisingly tasty, and so on.
The review was full of praise.
-boring;;
-why’d you package them properly?
“What, should I have smashed them up before sending them?”
Thinking back...
I’d been busy getting ready to leave the country, so Aseong had done half the work.
Maybe he had a talent for it. He’d been good at packaging them, too.
For the record, Aseong was now attending university as a freshman.
While I’d been away on business, he’d become a proper university student.
So I hadn’t forgotten to bring him presents from this trip.
He’d worked hard, so I’d given him some clothes I’d bought in Paris. He’d been thrilled.
They were pretty expensive clothes for a university student, so they should help him show off a little.
Anyway, I put my thoughts of Aseong aside and finished reading the fan cafe posts I’d missed.
“Oh, goodness. There’s so much to read. That took ages, didn’t it?”
By the time I’d read the posts, quite a while had passed.
Even a deserted place could build up a satisfying pile of posts over a few weeks...
-??
-you cleared it in 30 minutes?
-that posting rate is something else lmao
“Now, now.”
...Thirty minutes was plenty of reading.
There had been some funny posts, too, so I’d enjoyed it.
Tsk. Still, I wished they’d post things like would-you-rather questions or fandom-war bait.
Those were so easy to spend ages on.
If they posted something like “Build a Leore Pro Team with 10 Won” or “A Normie’s Anime Tier List,” I could talk about the two of them for a whole hour.
What a shame.
“Have you all seen this? Apparently, it’s an anime tier list made by a normie.”
-???
-what the hell is that?
-get that ugly thing off my screen;;
-i’ll give you One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach lol
Unable to let it go, I found one myself and showed it to the viewers while thinking about the fan cafe.
Was there really no way to bring our fan cafe to life?
I wasn’t greedy about much, but I did want a lively fan cafe.
After all, wasn’t it a community just for my viewers?
“How’s this? Are you happy if I change it like this?”
-phew, fair enough;;
-that’ll do
-hmm.. not sure about that;
-still, compared to One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach...
If my viewers were my friends, then the fan cafe was basically our group chat. Having it active would be more fun.
Of course, forming personal cliques was still against the rules.
-so what now??
-about time for a game
-wanna do that roulette from last time again?
Anyway, we’d finished with both the fan cafe and the anime fandom wars, so it was time to play a game.
More importantly, I could clearly see how much slower the chat had become.
I could already feel it. Wouldn’t it be even more obvious once the Just Chatting strays left?
Sob. How could a two-week break hurt this much?
I hadn’t planned on explosive growth, but it still stung to lose the viewers I’d slowly built up.
“Instead of roulette... I’m going to try reaching an ending with the DLC for Pawnworld, the game we played before.”
Today’s game was Pawnworld, which I’d played on an earlier stream.
Since I wasn’t in the mood for Lel, I was going to start a new world in Pawnworld.
...Back then, the viewers had kept pestering me about when I’d play it again.
Only after losing them did I miss them.
-hell yeah Pawnworld
-been waiting for this lmaooo
-the Pawnworld hounds are excited lol;
...Were all the people who’d pestered me still here?
Come to think of it, I didn’t think any other streamers were playing Pawnworld right now.
It had been popular for a while, but that trend was over now.
The Pawnworld hounds in my chat had nowhere to go for a walk.
I considered that a small blessing as I launched the game.
-Pawnworld’s fine yep
-we’ll let it slide just for today
-all right~ time for a walk lol
-better than Lel
More importantly, the response was good even though I was playing a game I’d already streamed.
Come to think of it, the people here had waited two weeks for me, hadn’t they?
They’d probably be happy with whatever I did.
That thought made my chest feel warm.
You little shits... You acted like you weren’t, but you were all die-hard simps...
Even after I started the game, my viewer count barely dropped.
I’d been so worried when I’d seen 150 viewers.
But there were almost no Just Chatting strays padding out the count. This audience was packed full of genuine log-carrying gentlemen.
Like snow crabs in winter, full of meat.
Right. So what if I’d lost about 100 viewers compared to before my break?
There was nothing I could do about it anyway.
Even if I’d had no choice, I’d neglected my stream, and viewers had left.
This was something I had to fix by streaming steadily and building my numbers back up.
There was practically no such thing as a shortcut, so I should let go of my disappointment...
[Anon, thank you for donating 1,000 won!]
Wayo, aren’t you joining that huge server opening soon?
They say it’s going to be the biggest server ever
-??
-oh that one
-can Wayo even join? lol
-apparently they don’t take small-time streamers~~
“Uh, um.”
-??
-?
-you doing it?
-?
Oh. Actually...
[Pingping~ Are you sitting this one out too?]
[(Application Form)]
[You only need to fill in a few lines here~]
...When I’d returned to Korea, I’d found those messages waiting for me.
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
