Translator: SourKimchi
When the stream cut out, the room went suddenly quiet.
Park Ji-hun leaned back in his chair and quietly caught his breath.
"......That was a real rush today."
The ending especially.
Motel room 312.
The look on the man's face the moment the door swung open.
The frozen silence that followed.
The real highlight was the woman who slapped him right then and there.
Park Ji-hun twisted up one corner of his mouth.
"That guy's face was really something to see."
He muttered it under his breath without meaning to, then couldn't help a little snort of laughter.
What BonelessRamyeon had said to the man was still vivid in his memory, too.
"I'm his girlfriend. ......No. His ex-girlfriend now.."
Clean.
That was what made it satisfying to watch.
Park Ji-hun caught his breath.
During the broadcast he'd been too busy blurting out whatever appeared in front of his eyes to think straight, but now that the stream was over, it was finally starting to sink in.
He'd exposed someone's two-timing in front of a whole audience.
And not just in words, he'd dragged it out on the scene itself.
"This is honestly insane."
He shook his head.
The excitement still hadn't worn off.
Park Ji-hun took some water from the fridge, drank it, then turned his eyes back to the monitor.
Then something suddenly occurred to him.
The donation total.
From somewhere in the middle, the alerts had been going off so fast he hadn't even had the presence of mind to read them properly.
He had no real sense of how much had come in.
He grabbed the mouse and opened the donation history window on the Ocean homepage.
"How much came in, I wonder?"
And the instant he saw the number, his hand froze.
"......Huh?"
Park Ji-hun looked at the screen again.
[Total Donations : ₩1,514,000 (15,140 Water Drops)]
"Hold on."
He leaned his head forward.
After those first thousand-, two-thousand-won donations, there was a long stretch logged below where the Water Drops had poured in all at once.
Especially after he'd brought up the Divination Fee at the very end, dozens of 500-Water-Drop donations had gone off.
For a while Park Ji-hun couldn't gather his wits.
"......Over a million and a half?"
There'd be settlement to factor in, sure, but this was a single day's take?
"If it's like this for a whole month......."
Of course it wouldn't blow up like this every day, but even so, it didn't feel real.
Up until a moment ago, it had all just been novelty and thrill.
But seeing it laid out as an actual number was different.
'Even after the commission's taken out, that's over a million.'
Park Ji-hun swept his eyes around the room.
The crumpled résumé on the desk.
The suit trousers tossed carelessly beside the bed.
The case of cup ramyeon he'd hauled home from the mart a few days back.
In the middle of that familiar one-room apartment, only the number on the monitor seemed to belong to another world.
"Insane."
Park Ji-hun let out a disbelieving laugh.
He used to grudge the bus fare every time he went to an interview, and now he'd earned over a million won without getting up from his seat.
And all for listening to a few people's worries and pointing them in the right direction a handful of times.
This was no ordinary talent.
It was a power that turned into real money.
***
That was when it happened.
Bzzzzt.
His phone went off.
Park Ji-hun saw the name on the screen and snorted.
[Caller : Kim Woo-sik]
"Knew it'd be this bastard."
He hit the answer button.
"What?"
The moment he picked up, Kim Woo-sik's voice came pouring out.
"Yo, where are you right now?"
"Home, where else. You watch my stream?"
"Watched it. You crazy son of a bitch. There's no other stream out there that's pulled in viewers like yours on day two."
Park Ji-hun leaned back in his chair and asked casually.
"How was it?"
"Are you kidding me? What even are you? Did you get a Spirit Descent or something?"
Woo-sik's voice was pitched a notch higher than usual.
"Who knows."
"Because short of that, how the hell do you nail every single one of them?"
"I didn't guess them. I saw them."
The words out of his mouth, Park Ji-hun faltered for a moment.
It had come out far too naturally.
"Wow, holy shit. Listen to this guy. He 'saw' them."
"What? It's not like I'm wrong."
"You're not wrong, no. You're not, but......."
A short sigh leaked through from the other end of the line.
"Phew, fine. That's definitely not a scene you could fake, I'll give you that."
Park Ji-hun smiled without a word.
The more he thought about it, the better the optics were. If the stream spread further, the game would only get bigger, that much was certain.
Kim Woo-sik went on.
"And that thing at the end, where you brought up the Divination Fee."
"Hm? Was it a bad call?"
"No, you played it well."
Park Ji-hun's eyes narrowed.
"Played it well?"
"Yeah. That's just how people are. Read for them free and they take you for granted. Start thinking it's their right. But charge them money and it changes."
"True. Fair enough."
Kim Woo-sik continued.
"500 Water Drops is the same as what you'd pay a shaman for a 'Four Pillars of Destiny' reading. That's just about right."
Park Ji-hun smiled too, looking satisfied.
"And then the one free reading."
"What about it?"
"That was a smart move, too."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. Toss in one free slot and people can't help getting their hopes up. Thinking, maybe it'll be me."
Park Ji-hun gave a sheepish laugh.
"Does it really work like that?"
He'd just thrown it out as it came to him.
But Woo-sik seemed to read it differently.
"What? You mean you didn't plan that out on purpose?"
"How would I even manage that?"
"Bullshit. Watching that stream, you looked like a whole different person."
Park Ji-hun didn't really answer that.
Because he knew it too, that the moment he went live, the way he talked changed.
"Anyway, let's not do this over the phone, let's meet up. You free right now?"
"Yeah. I'm free. Where should we meet?"
"The Street-Tent Bar by your place. You're paying tonight, right? Those donations were blowing up earlier."
"Deal. It's on me."
"Cool. See you in a bit."
Park Ji-hun hung up.
He threw on a jacket and headed outside.
Saved on his phone was the screenshot he'd grabbed of the donation total earlier.
[Total Donations : ₩1,514,000 (15,140 Water Drops)]
Even on a second look, it made him laugh.
"This is honestly insane."
The money wasn't even in his bank account yet, and already it felt like the world had changed.
***
The Street-Tent Bar by his place was a little empty, it being late on a weekday.
As he stepped in past the clear plastic flaps, the smell of hot broth and liquor rushed over him all at once.
The moment Ji-hun sat down, Kim Woo-sik slid a soju his way.
"You're really the one paying, right?"
"I already said it's on me."
"Donations blow up a little and look at you, splurging."
"A night like tonight, I can cover it."
Park Ji-hun gave a little laugh and raised his soju glass.
Clink–
They toasted and tossed the soju back.
The soju, which any other day would have tasted bitter, was unusually sweet tonight.
"Ahh, that's good."
"And here's the guy who'd have been blubbering not long ago."
Park Ji-hun laughed sheepishly.
It wasn't wrong.
Every time he'd tasted the bitter pill of rejection, his mood had crashed straight to the floor.
But today was different.
A job, all of that, none of it mattered much right now.
The broadcast was still vivid in his head.
More than anything, that moment when the answer surfaced had been such a rush.
Kim Woo-sik picked at the side dishes and asked.
"So. What's your plan now?"
"With what?"
"The stream."
"Keep it going, obviously."
"Right. That's a given. The question is how you run it. More people are gonna pile in from here, so your stream needs its own set of rules."
Park Ji-hun answered.
"I'm thinking I'll go the way I did on the stream earlier. Take the Divination Fee, run Reservations."
"Not bad. So how many people you planning to read a day?"
Ji-hun thought it over for a moment, then answered.
"If they're actually paying, shouldn't I read for all of them?"
Kim Woo-sik shook his head.
"So what, you'll read ten, twenty a day? You think that's doable?"
"Now that I think about it, that'd be rough. Six a day is probably my max."
"Yeah. That's the way. Honestly, there's no need to read more than that right now. Scarcity matters more."
Ji-hun nodded slowly at that.
Hearing it out, it made sense.
Today it was new, so everyone had swarmed it like crazy, but the moment that became routine, the value would drop too.
"So how many?"
"Six, like you said. One free, five paid. That's about right."
Kim Woo-sik went on.
"Even if you could handle more, you shouldn't. Right now it's smart to hold back. Scale it up later, when you can manage it."
Park Ji-hun fell into thought for a moment.
One free, five paid.
That would keep the stream a reasonable length, and it would let each individual reading carry some weight.
"And you pick the one free slot yourself."
"That was the plan anyway."
Kim Woo-sik changed the subject.
"Drive it home early that paying money doesn't automatically get them a reading. That way nobody comes at you carelessly."
Park Ji-hun thought for a beat, then asked.
"Then what about the Reservations?"
"Out of the people who threw Water Drops today, you pick the five you'll read tomorrow, and the rest go on a waitlist. Oh, and post a notice before you go live."
"What notice?"
"Say paid Spirit Readings go in Reservation order, but that they're subject to change depending on stream circumstances."
"Stream circumstances?"
When he asked with a puzzled look, Kim Woo-sik smiled.
"Yeah. Maybe you're not feeling well that day, maybe a couple of cases overlap. You've gotta give yourself an out."
"True, that could happen."
"More to the point, from your next stream on, this is gonna get even bigger."
"If it does, that's good for me."
After trading drinks for a while, Woo-sik rolled his soju glass and said, offhand.
"But you know, when you're streaming you're like a totally different person."
Park Ji-hun raised his eyes.
"You're not like that normally. The bluntness, the way you go all cold on people. Like it's not even you, you know?"
Park Ji-hun didn't reply.
But Woo-sik wasn't entirely wrong.
Because the moment he went live, the words would leap out ahead of his own will.
"So...... is it off-putting?"
"No. It was just kind of wild."
Woo-sik shrugged.
"Like something had actually gotten into you."
He turned the subject right away.
"Read for me sometime, too."
Park Ji-hun smiled and asked.
"You want a reading as well? You got something on your mind?"
"Uh, no, just...... I'm curious too."
Park Ji-hun laughed, then nodded.
"Then I'll read for you sometime."
Kim Woo-sik smiled back.
"Yeah, thanks even just for saying it. Get home and rest."
"You're the one who should quit worrying about me and get some real rest."
On the way home, after seeing Woo-sik off.
His steps were strangely light.
***
Back in his one-room, Ji-hun threw himself onto the bed.
He had a slight buzz, but his mind was clear, if anything.
Even with his eyes shut, sleep didn't seem to be coming.
Park Ji-hun pulled his phone out of his pocket.
Normally he'd have been combing through job-hunting forums or interview write-ups, but tonight, without hesitating, he went straight to the Internet Broadcast Gallery.
Familiar titles jumped out at once.
[That guy who called the bus crash just sniffed out a two-timer this time.]
[That new shaman on Ocean is the real deal.]
[Heard he does one free Spirit Reading whenever he goes live?]
Park Ji-hun narrowed his eyes.
"These are all about me."
It was way faster than he'd expected.
It hadn't even been long since the stream ended, and already several posts and clips were up.
He tapped the post sitting at the very top.
-last time he saved that dude on his way to an interview and now he's gone and caught a cheating boyfriend too lmaooooo
Comments were piling on fast, too.
-OneShotSoju : this isn't fake right? this is actually real?
-dkeo11 : whats the criteria for the one free slot
-SseomyeonMaster : anyone who missed today's live really lost out lol
⤷Kaete : no suckers who missed it, right?
-EzKing : is the Divination Fee really just 50,000 won? kinda wanna get read too
⤷SilentRoom : told you i'm first lol just wait your turn
Park Ji-hun read a few more comments and gave a sheepish smile.
There were curses, and there were people calling it rigged.
But it didn't bother him.
'As they keep watching my stream, talk like that will die down too.'
At first, everyone doubts.
But once it lands two more times, three more times, the mood would shift.
"Tomorrow's gonna be even more fun."
Tomorrow's stream would surely pull an even bigger crowd than today's.
By now that wasn't a prediction, it was a certainty.