I May Be a Virtual Youtuber, but I Still Go to Work - Chapter 118

It was obvious, but still…

The next day, Maru was immediately summoned to the company.

This was because there was a frenzy related to the Parallel Gallery, and the members were broadcasting in reverse, wrapping up the Day 1 defense alongside the Ban Wave.

After finishing training and sending the second-generation trainees home, Jia came down to the 8th floor to tidy up and witnessed Maru leaving the President’s office, having already been lectured.

Of all times, it had to be during the evening when everyone was clocking out, leaving the office dimly lit.

With long hair and shoulders drooping forward as he walked, he looked just like a zombie from the AR escape room they saw yesterday. Thus, it was unusual for Majia to smile and speak first.

“Wow. The zombie virus has spread in the company.”

“….”

Although he couldn’t avoid Maru, who was angrily chasing him immediately after, it felt like a chase with a zombie from the AR escape room, which caused Jia to burst out laughing.

Ultimately, she scurried into a bathroom stall, resembling a mouse hiding in a cat’s hole.

“Come out now!”

Bang bang bang.

The stall door shook as if a real zombie had come to visit.

“If you just scream, you’re no different from a zombie. Let’s talk.”

“Geez… You were the one who initiated this!!”

Maru’s heartfelt shouting echoed through the company with its deep, rich voice.

Thanks to the kids protecting their red medicine, it was fortunate that the President usually called people during quiet after-hours. If not for that, everyone would’ve heard her sobbing behind the bathroom stall, thinking, ‘I’m space trash.’

I should mention that the soundproofing in the company’s restroom is lacking, but it’s been a year and Majia still hasn’t figured out the timing to say it.

Still, since it’s so cute, if employees heard it, they probably would just snicker and brush it off.

Anyway, Maru tends to use his emotions like alcohol or gasoline, so once he had a good blow-up, he calmed down quickly.

As it seemed time was up, Majia opened the door to find Maru with his glistening eyes and fuming expression.

“Wow, perfect timing to come out…”

“Why? Was that just the right moment for your anger to subside?”

“It’s so precise I want to slap you. Is that okay?”

Jia acted like someone who genuinely wanted to get hit, playing even more comically.

Since they usually had to keep their distance, they never joked this much before, marking it as a sign that ‘you and I are really close now.’

“No way. If I hit you, the Maru virus might infect me and I’ll spill all the names and details of the second-gen trainees during broadcast!”

The children from Cheon Dohui’s bunch and the VTubers from Parallel all have an excellent sense of punch!

They’ve firmly divided their roles, stating, ‘I have the confidence to make hitting entertaining more than anyone else in this field.’

In Maru’s case, when mixed with a bit of fact, if you hit him, he might either stammer in frustration or cry outright.

Most of the Dongles were from the Juice Motion (people obsessed with making fun of tearful streamers) background, so perhaps they now knew how to make Maru cry in a flash.

What Majia just said perfectly reflected a Dongle trait.

If you were to rephrase it into a donation comment, it would go something like, ‘I have a GOP position today, and I’m super scared that the Maru virus will make me leak codes using a loudspeaker to North Korea, OMG!!’

However, typically, Maru is great at banter with the viewers, today, he couldn’t take the playful jab due to his distracted heart.

He was already struggling with rushing to become closer to Ena, and now he messed up and caused another disaster.

Even though he knew it wasn’t Majia’s fault, the tide of resentment was about to burst the dam.

“Hi… Huh. Hiii…”

It was unmistakably a crackling sound coming from Jia, indicating the dam was about to burst.

But it was way too late to stop it.

Jia wasn’t even aware that she failed to balance between Maru and Ena.

“Wait a sec. Just calm down—.”

“WAAAAHHHHH!!”

* * *

The poor soundproofing in the company restroom meant that the immense noise reached Dohui in her office.

Rushing to the bathroom, Dohui saw Maru sobbing like he was wounded and Majia peeking out like a guilty puppy, glancing towards her.

Ultimately, it fell on Jia to take responsibility for the aftercare.

She had intended to do that anyway, but she didn’t expect Maru would end up crying this much.

At least, the insightful words from her past discussions with Dohui and Team Leader Kang Jiho helped.

Women often feel better with something sweet when distressed; if Maru looked like he was having a bad time, she should try giving him chocolate first.

In reality, it worked quite well, as once Maru mentioned cake, he stopped crying out loud, and after shoving a piece into his mouth, his eyes sparkled once more.

“More later…”

With puffy eyes, Maru quickly devoured a piece of chocolate cake.

“I want to have cheese cake too…”

As if one piece wasn’t enough, he began sampling various types of cake from a cafe famous for their delicious cakes.

After finishing a total of six slices, patting his round belly, he stared at Majia with droopy eyes and promptly apologized.

“I’m sorry. I overreacted too much. I shouldn’t have cried like that…”

“No, I didn’t know you’d take it seriously. You already got scolded by the President, it must have been stressful.”

“No, I’m sorrier. I’m sorry. I’m just wasting your time again with this.”

Hah.

Maru sighed as he mumbled.

“Next week, we’ll have our five-member group song completed… Sorry for ruining the good vibes. If I hadn’t slipped my tongue, fans would’ve been buzzing about the news this weekend…”

While Majia was busy managing the second-generation training schedule, the first-generation members were preparing a lot to raise anticipation for their first project song with CAT coming out in two days.

— Majia was too busy to join vocal lessons, only leaving a request for more parts for the members, skipping out on monitoring and part distribution during the song review.

The core content was karaoke, but they aimed to express surprise by singing Korean songs by singers affiliated with CAT or popular pop songs instead of their usual J-pop.

The karaoke atmosphere was different than usual.

However, after listening, it seemed alright.

So, why were these kids suddenly acting like this?

When the curiosity piled up, they planned to shock everyone by revealing a five-member group song produced in collaboration with CAT.

In reality, they planned for a group practice through the karaoke setup this Saturday, followed by a teaser release of the new song on Sunday.

But due to Maru suddenly dropping an atom bomb, the atmosphere was thrown into chaos.

So now, there were discussions internally about whether it would be better to delay the timing rather than going ahead with their plans this week.

Today, Dohui had scolded Maru largely due to that reason.

It was neither a complete leak nor trivial, but it had affected the entire company’s schedule and disrupted CAT’s first project.

Since Jia was roughly aware of the situation, she asked,

“Should I turn on a stream and let the fans know what’s going on?”

“Oh, no! You’re super busy with second-generation training right now. I remember how hectic it was for us back then…”

“Still, I feel like I should step out now.”

That was the right argument.

What people wanted was for Majia to come out and clarify the facts.

But the second-generation debut was still a long-term project with nearly half a year remaining, making it difficult for Majia to provide a clear answer at this stage.

If you omit what she can’t say, all that’s left is a bare fish bone.

Both the speaker and listener would only find frustration.

Even if she did explain it, she’d probably only get, “How could we believe this?!” and demand for a proper explanation.

It could cause more harm than good.

Maru understood that and shook his head.

“I don’t want you to get scolded by the President because of me…”

“Well, if I can’t persuade, it’s whatever. Either way, I think the karaoke and teaser release will be pushed back a week. The President wouldn’t release anything at this timing.”

“Right. So let’s just not bring it up to the President so we don’t end up crossing stares—.”

This time, Majia shook her head.

After all, she had been nowhere in the loop, leaving everything to Gong Seungyeon while trying to escape the exhaustion of the escape room attraction.

If it were Majia in that position instead of Seungyeon, she would’ve sensed Maru was about to say something and immediately called him to tell him to shut it.

“Since I knew I might not manage everything once the second-generation trainees came in, I can’t just wash my hands of it.”

“… Yeah.”

“I’ll help, so once you get home, turn on a stream. The Dongles are waiting.”

Another crack threatened to form in the dam that was supposed to contain Maru’s tears.

After all, he was the one who caused the accident, and who else would look after him like this if not Majia?

Maru should have been careful not to make mistakes while Jia was busy taking care of the second-generation kids instead of being jealous.

“I… I want to be… a m-meh… mmmm….”

“You have to be a magnificent senior, that’s a given. If you cry, I’ll leave you here.”

“Ugh….”

By the way, Majia wasn’t intentionally splitting her time to deal with Maru’s mistake.

That Saturday, a huge collaboration they had previously agreed upon was waiting for Majia.

In a way, it was a clever trick by Majia to avoid the hassle of creating a new schedule.

But caring for someone while being busy isn’t something just anyone can do.

Thus, while also being cost-effective, Majia was earning the trust of her members.

Dohui nodded, leaning on her chin as she responded to Majia’s suggestion.

“So, since we’ll end up pushing back the teaser release by a week anyway, you want to go watch baseball with Kkaemang this week to redirect the interest?”

“Yes.”

The fans didn’t yet know that Majia would be going to watch a baseball game with Kkaemang this Saturday.

It was known that Kkaemang would be going to the opening game, and a guest was involved, but the identity of that guest wasn’t disclosed beforehand.

This was because of Majia’s uniqueness.

Kkaemang was a major conglomerate in Korea with over 3 million subscribers.

They hosted many famous guests like popular idols, so when they announce they’ll have a guest, people eagerly anticipate who it might be.

Thus, if they disclosed that Majia would be attending, it would be like advertising to others attending the opening that ‘Majia is here!’

Although Kkaemang wasn’t well-versed in VTubers, they took various measures to ensure that they could enjoy the game without interruptions from Majia, who was much younger.

It would seem strange that the leak hadn’t happened, after performing group broadcasts together during the tournament.

Kkaemang certainly didn’t grow to 3 million subscribers out of nowhere.

They’ve faced numerous hardships to reach their current position, thus the quality of their speech slowed down but became famously accurate.

“So, how do you plan to redirect interest? Let’s hear that first. I’ll judge based on that.”

“I don’t have any grand plans… but I’ve got one clear idea in mind.”

Even if she revealed herself during the match, someone could recognize her, so Kkaemang would give her a chance to promote Parallel in the car after the match.

At that time, Majia planned to say:

“Next week, there will be surprising news that will astonish the fans. So please look forward to it.”

In other words, it was a vague way to stoke curiosity.

Right now, fans were buzzing about whether Majia would debut as a second-gen trainee, and by Saturday, they’d likely speculate wildly.

The goal was to throw a little extra fuel on that fire.

After all, no one would expect that the shocking news would be the release date for a new song with CAT, the two pillars of the Korean music industry.

So, it wasn’t entirely a lie either, as stoking an assumption that it was about her debut might confuse them, which the fans excited about CAT supporting Parallel would automatically tamp down.

Having weighed all the pros and cons of this approach earlier, Dohui chimed in,

“Seems like if this plan backfires, we’ll get burned on both ends, so we might as well go all out and set everything ablaze….”

Truly a scheme that could be considered malicious, but it made everyone chuckle.

No matter how hard she thought, Dohui couldn’t come up with a better alternative.

“I guess after getting to know you for a while, I’ve gotten a bit tainted. Why does this sound the best?”

Jia dropped her corners, trying to reel in some seriousness.

“That’s a troubling thought. The President always needs to remain objective to prevent me from going off the rails.”

“No, I’m still being totally objective. But I’m saying it because I actually think it sounds good…”

“Then if the President says so, that must mean it’s the right thing.”

Dohui gave her a patient look.

“I appreciate you trusting me, as always. But you have to speak up when something doesn’t sit right with you, alright? Don’t just always say ‘yes, yes’.”

“If I feel uncomfortable, I always chime in—.”

“Leave out the devilish mindset of budding heads or poking for loose ends.”

“Then why speak at all… aaaargh…”

Rattle rattle.

After a light thump on the head, Majia chimed in.

“So, what’s the move?”

Regardless, Parallel’s response to the Maru debut rumor had always been consistent.

Complete disregard and blockage. Stating firmly that there was no such intention.

So, it was just maintaining the same attitude this time too.

Along with a sprinkle of Majia’s clever wordplay, or rather, a bucketful.

And though Dohui wasn’t joking when she earlier spoke about Majia deserving fun in the upcoming results.

Because of what Majia had proven so far, Dohui was already beginning to look forward to what interesting outcomes would occur this time.

“Alright. Let’s proceed.”