WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Irevi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Stream as a Hobby ◈
Chapter 4: Party
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I had a teacher.
Not one of the teachers from elementary, middle, or high school, which I'd barely attended.
I meant my mentor, Han Seonghwa, who'd taught me for seven whole years, starting when I first stood out as a model at ten.
Looking back honestly, though, I thought my teacher had been a bit of a fraud.
“Ahyeon, that pose...”
“Where did you learn that, Ahyeon? Why...”
“We'll have to teach you how to walk all over again.”
After all, once I went international, people found plenty of faults with the poses and posture I'd been taught.
They hadn't been a problem in Korea, but apparently they hadn't met international standards.
Still, I didn't hold much against Han Seonghwa.
My teacher had a sharp tongue, but was funny enough that lessons were never boring.
“Don't get too friendly with boys.”
“What? Why?”
“People will talk behind your back.”
Above all, this really was the mentor who'd taught me all sorts of things while my modeling work kept me away from school.
You might wonder what someone who'd been reincarnated could possibly have needed to learn.
“Why do girls go to the bathroom together? Well... because it's the bathroom.”
“Don't try to take the lead. If you show off around other girls, you'll be the first one they go after.”
But this was my first life as a woman, so there had been plenty I didn't know.
And there had been plenty of other lessons too.
“You're Ahyeon, right? I'm a fan.”
“...Yes.”
“I was so disappointed you weren't on the runway last season.”
“I see.”
One of those lessons was this attitude, which could look pretty rude at first glance.
“Ahyeon, you know something?”
“Yes?”
“You could be the greatest model if you just shut the hell up.”
“...What?!”
“Just keep your mouth shut! Don't worry about being polite. Stay as quiet as possible, got it?”
“But why...?”
I hadn't understood at the time, and honestly, I still didn't really understand.
But my mother had nodded when she heard that advice, so I'd quietly followed it.
It was a shame, really.
I was a super-rookie VTuber who'd reached an average of 200 viewers in just one year, and I wasn't allowed to use my gift of gab?
Wasn't that practically a loss to history?
“Have you tried our product?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think? Good, right? We're really proud of how well it moisturizes! I'll send you our new product when it comes out.”
“Thank you.”
Still, this was the approach I'd used for years, so I was sticking with it for now.
What good would talking a lot do a model, anyway?
If anything, staying quiet was nice. Everyone took care of things for me.
There was just one problem.
“Blah-blah, blah-blah! (Aren't you being a little too arrogant?)”
Keeping my mouth firmly shut sometimes caused misunderstandings like this.
Some people thought I was quiet and graceful.
But from another point of view, I could look rude and arrogant. That was how people worked.
I wasn't the one deciding what they thought of me. It was all relative.
Personally, I thought it couldn't be helped.
“....”
“Pahr-deung! Blah-blah! (Why don't you say something?)”
It wasn't that I knew no French at all.
Our ever-helpful busybody Roselia taught me a little whenever there was time to kill.
Still, when someone tried to pick a fight, pretending not to understand the language was usually easier.
In League terms, it was like picking Teemo support and pretending to be Chinese.
Besides, this was a party.
They called it a Christmas charity party, but it was really a business event packed with people from the industry.
Why would I raise my voice and fight with someone here? Did I want to ruin my image?
And there was one more reason not to fight.
“Pahr, pahr! Blah-blah! (You! You came to Paris without even knowing French?!)”
As far as I could tell, this bitch was crazy.
Judging by her pretty face, she seemed to be a model. What did she think people in the industry would say behind her back if she picked a fight here?
You met people like this sometimes. Hotheaded show-offs who'd found success young, grown arrogant, and thought the world of themselves.
Not engaging with them was the best thing you could do.
Not just the best available option. The absolute best.
We were around the same age, so this was practically a chance to show everyone how much calmer and more refined I was.
Anyway, as I looked at her without much change in my expression, she began to falter all on her own.
“Pahr...! (Y-you...!)”
She was probably starting to realize which one of us was throwing a tantrum for no reason.
Honestly, celebrities in their early twenties were always so hotheaded.
They just didn't understand that their reputations paid their bills.
“Ça va mieux? (Have you calmed down?)”
“...!”
The model in front of me flinched at my calm tone.
Yes, yes. So full of fire.
I'd been like that once too.
“For fuck's sake, we'll be done by noon! Let us leave once the work's finished!”
“You little shit! What do you know?!”
Back when I'd shouted and fought with people on construction sites.
Those days were a hazy memory now, but remembering them helped me understand her.
Pat, pat.
I patted her shoulder and walked past.
For some reason, that shoulder seemed to be trembling, but anyway.
Click, click.
I crossed the party hall.
Since things had turned out this way, I figured I might as well step outside for some air.
Then I stopped short.
Someone was standing right in front of me.
“Perfect! That was very impressive.”
A middle-aged man with dyed white hair slicked back and flashy earrings.
He was very tall, with large, striking eyes.
“Andel, your Korean is really good.”
It was Andel, the star of this party.
“I started learning recently. What do you think? Do I sound like a K-pop actor?”
“I'd believe you were Korean with that pronunciation.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
I'd only run into Andel a handful of times, but his Korean was surprisingly flawless.
Judging by the way he was standing there and what he'd just said, he must have seen that little scene.
“More importantly, Ahyeon, I didn't know you had that side to you.”
“I'm more surprised by how well you speak Korean.”
I changed the subject because I didn't particularly want to discuss what had just happened.
I had two reasons. One was an adult's consideration for that young show-off. The other was that I wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible.
After all, talking one-on-one with the designer who represented an entire brand was painfully uncomfortable.
I'd rather have spent the whole day talking to that show-off from earlier.
“You've been doing nothing but praising my Korean.”
“....”
At times like this, the wisdom of my mentor, Han Suyeong, really shone.
It let me neatly disguise my refusal to talk as a lack of conversation skills.
“I have something to take care of...”
“But that's just like you, Ahyeon. You recognize my efforts. I studied really hard.”
While I pretended to have nothing to say and looked for a chance to slip away, Andel grinned to himself and said something ridiculous.
“I need to know my muse's language if we're going to communicate.”
...Muse?
Since when were we that close?
* * *
In fashion, a muse was someone who inspired a designer's creations.
It was a word with serious weight, describing someone comparable to a role model or even the identity of a brand.
In other words, it wasn't something you could casually toss around like, “Haha, you're my muse today.” “Yes, a lovely muse indeed.”
That made the remark from Andel, who had the world's attention, all the more shocking.
So shocking, in fact, that I stood there talking to him for at least another thirty minutes.
Honestly, that conversation had been grand enough to deserve a place in a modeling textbook, if such a thing existed. But I'd reflect on it another time.
Anyway, plenty happened at the party after that too.
That girl came back to apologize, and Andel came to see me again.
All sorts of industry people approached me, perhaps having overheard Andel's remark about his muse, and on and on it went.
After those thoroughly draining hours, the long-awaited late evening of the 26th finally arrived.
“Yes, I think I'll be able to stream normally again starting tomorrow.”
The closing party had run late. As soon as I got back to the hotel, I sprawled out and went live.
“Take off your makeup, change, and get some rest.”
“It's fiiine.”
-Lmaoooo
-This bitch thinks she can do whatever because it's a hotel
-Please turn the camera around
-Guess you really did go there for work
“Do you finally believe I'm innocent?”
By now, the viewers seemed reasonably convinced.
I'd gone live every evening for three days straight, with Roselia's voice regularly coming through. All the talk about me being with a boyfriend had vanished.
Proof complete, literally. If I'd had a blackboard in front of me, I'd have proudly written Q.E.D. and snapped the chalk in half.
-But ma'am, couldn't you at least show the lower half of your face??
-At least show part of yourself on camera
-Fuck, she hasn't shown herself once... Ruthless bitch...
But didn't they say that once you sat down, you wanted to lie down, and once you lay down, you wanted to sleep?
Now that their suspicions were gone, the viewers wanted something more while I had the camera on.
In other words, they wanted to lay eyes on part of this super-rookie Wayo's body.
“Not a chance.”
But Empress Wayo wasn't that careless.
I'd even bought a phone mount, so the camera showed nothing but the pattern on the brown table at all times.
-Just your hand, please
-What if this fucker's actually Sterak...?
-Wayo, prove yourself
Faced with my thorough defenses, they eventually started trying to provoke me.
Sterak this, 84 kilograms that.
Prove right now whether you're Princess Wayo or Bowser.
It was utterly ridiculous.
Swish, swish.
“Is that enough?”
Still, I couldn't have people thinking I was Sterak, so I waved my hand in front of the camera a few times.
My hand's shadow swept past under the hotel lights.
-Oh...
-Daaamn lmao
-Wait, is that seriously your hand??
My hands were very slender, with pretty lines.
I took care of them, after all. Of course they looked nicer than the average person's.
“Everyone who said anything about Sterak is going to jail for now.”
“Going to jail” was what we called getting temporarily banned on my stream.
If a joke like that Sterak thing spread the wrong way, online communities could turn it into all sorts of weird rumors. I was stopping it before it started.
Tap, tap.
I'd picked my phone up from its mount and was sending a few viewers away when a fairly long donation message came in.
[Thank you, Anon, for the 5,000 won donation!]
Ma'am, I won't ask for anything else, but could you properly show us the table we've had our noses pressed against for three whole days? The pattern looks fancy, and I'm curious what the whole thing looks like.
“This? It's nothing special.”
The table was fancy, but it was from a well-known brand you might find in any expensive hotel.
There was no way anyone could identify the hotel from it.
-Why the table
-Forget that, handcam please
-Ma'am, my only younger sibling is sick. If you could show your foot just once...
The viewers seemed to know that too, judging by their unenthusiastic response.
Still, showing them the table was harmless enough.
Before raising the camera, I took a quick look at what was on it.
There was only my plain AirPods case, the watch I'd decided not to wear to the party, some frozen gummies I'd been snacking on, and so on.
After checking that there was nothing special there, I carefully raised my phone.
-Look at that shadow lmaooo
-Oh...
-Is our streamer actually gorgeous??
The chat started moving a little faster.
Part of my arm's shadow and a little of my hair's shadow had shown up. They must have spotted them.
Wait, was that what they'd been after?
It was such a timid little scheme that I couldn't help chuckling.
“Anyway, you're satisfied now, right? I'm going to end the stream.”
-Ah
-Can't you keep going??
-What time are you streaming tomorrow?
“Well, I'll go live as soon as I get back.”
-Finally, god
-Upvote if you honestly liked the IRL streams lol
-Showing part of yourself next time??
“Not a chance. Wayo's avatar is pretty, isn't it? Why do you want a camera so badly?”
-Wayo looks like Ruliweb stuff, though...
-Please get a redesign
-You're embarrassing us, Wayo
“Do you really have to open Pandora's box? I want us to stay together for a long time...”
-Ah...
-Okay, we won't look...
-That was a close one;;
-A VTuber who cements her fanbase with the red pill...
Anyway, that was how my eventful Christmas business trip came to an end.
The next day, I returned to Korea without a single regret.
Andel and some of the other industry people had suggested I stay a few more days, but this time I ignored them without hesitation.
I'd attended the party. That was enough. Next year's me could handle everything else.
“Hello, everyone!”
And so, after leaving all those offers behind, I went live for the first time since returning to Korea.
Honestly, I'd been looking forward to a nice, easy stream, just clicking away at a game again.
-We bow before our rich-kid Empress Wayo...
-The undisputed queen of streaming as a hobby
-Was it all an act...? I was the only one who meant it... I was the only one who meant it...
But for some reason, chat had gone to shit.
Seriously, why?
Footnotes:
Sterak refers to the large hand depicted in the icon for Sterak's Gage, a League of Legends item.
In VTuber slang, the “red pill” means seeing the real person behind the avatar. Chat's joke is that Wayo has cemented their loyalty by convincing everyone not to look.
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