I don't have particularly fond mories of my childhood.
I was born to a poet father and a singer mother.
They t in a jazz bar and fell in love at first sight. It sounds romantic, but reality is often less glamorous.
My father was a poet. More accurately, an aspiring poet.
He spent his life writing poetry, sending bundles of manuscripts to newspapers and magazines every spring, but never received favorable responses.
Frankly, my father lacked talent.
My mother was a singer. An obscure one, performing old pop songs in jazz bars.
After each performance, she'd spend the small envelope of cash she earned that day, lacking any concept of savings.
Or, more precisely, any economic sense at all.
Their eting might have been romantic, but the married couple was always poor.
Born in the first year of their marriage, I too lived in poverty.
My father wanted to write poetry.
So, he made read all sorts of old poems.
In his musty attic, filled with poetry books, I morized and copied ancient verses.
My mother wanted to make good money.
So, she pushed to study.
Sohow finding the funds in our ager budget, she sent to academies and private tutors from a young age.
Both seed to hope that I would succeed in the areas where they lacked talent.
Regrettably, I had neither a talent for poetry nor for academics.
I was just an ordinary kid who loved video gas.
I picked up an old ga console thrown away by a neighbor and, secretly from my parents, connected it to a low-quality CRT TV, playing gas all night with my eyes glued to the screen.
I still rember the opening of that ga.
On the pixelated screen, the sun rose... and the hero, bathed in sunlight, lifted a sacred sword above his head.
Then the text appeared.
- PRESS START
- Insert A Coin To Continue
It was thousands of tis more enjoyable than the tedious task of writing poetry or the studies that hardly stuck in my dull mind.
That old console was the only escape from my frustrating childhood.
That escape ended when my parents smashed and threw away the console.
***
As I grew older and it beca clear I had no talent for poetry or studies, my parents' obsession only deepened.
Their belief was that with enough effort, anything could be overco.
After school, I had no ti to breathe; I was imdiately caught up in writing and morizing poetry, and then studying.
I had no real friends.
With no ti to socialize, my life was a back-and-forth between ho and school.
When I beca a high school student, my parents began to argue, typically like this:
- Our child must be raised as a poet. He needs to win awards while in the teens. Let's focus on poetry now.
- What are you talking about? We should send our child to a prestigious university in Seoul. Forget poetry, concentrate on studies.
They fought like this every night.
Isn't it ironic?
Counting chickens before they hatch it was exactly like that.
My poetry never won any awards, and my grades barely kept in the upper ranks of my school.
Half my day was spent on poetry, the other half on studies, and this was the result.
...
Three years passed. My high school life ended.
My poetry still hadn't won any awards.
And I botched my college entrance exams.
***
My parents divorced when I was preparing for my third attempt at the university entrance exams.
Unable to overco financial struggles, they separated.
And then, finally, they let go of their expectations for . Or rather, they gave up.
While preparing for my third university entrance exam, I worked part-ti jobs and lived in a tiny room. Eventually, I managed to get into a decent national university as a scholarship student for three years.
It was a major unrelated to poetry, with good job prospects. At this point, my father declared he was cutting ties with .
He must have wanted to pursue a field related to poetry. My mother was overjoyed.
After completing my military service and graduating from university with intense effort, I miraculously landed a job at a well-known conglorate.
My mother embraced , crying tears of joy.
She exclaid how she always knew I could do it, that I was a child who always delivered...
My father didnt answer my calls.
I never told him that I hadnt given up on poetry; I was still writing and submitting in secret, but still hadn't won any awards. I didnt tell him because I decided to stop writing poetry altogether.
I joined the company.
And from day one, it was hell.
***
One year.
That's exactly how long I lasted at that company.
I could handle the brutal work environnt, the daily overti and weekend work, even the bullying from seniors. Humans are adaptable creatures, after all.
I endured being called an idiot and a moron, and gradually, my performance ratings improved from the worst to just average.
My mind could take it, but my body couldnt.
One night, after endless days of overti, when I couldnt even rember when I last went back to my apartnt, I collapsed with a nosebleed and woke up in the ergency room.
There was sothing wrong with the blood vessels near my heart.
They said it was due to overwork. If I continued like this, I wouldnt live long.
Leaving the hospital, I got back into a taxi to finish up so leftover work at the office.
The sun was rising in the east. I stared blankly in that direction.
Was it a hallucination?
Under the glaring sun, I thought I saw pixelated letters.
- PRESS START
I stopped the taxi.
Changed my direction to my apartnt, and called my boss.
Pulling out my phone with the bravado of a dot-graphic hero drawing his sacred sword, I said,
"I'm quitting the company."
I pressed the start button.
And then, my real life began.
***
After I quit the company, my mother also cut ties with .
She couldnt understand why I would quit such a good job, which I had barely managed to get, just because it was a bit tough.
She said she was disappointed in , calling a person without grit or effort.
I lost contact with my parents. I never had friends to begin with. My forr colleagues didnt care about after I left the company.
I stopped writing poetry. There was no need to study anymore.
With an abundance of ti and nothing to do, I pondered what to do next.
I was a boring person with no real hobbies.
"...Right."
Recalling mories from my youth, I muttered to myself,
"I used to love gaming."
That day, I went to Yongsan. As a complete novice who didn't know a thing about computers, I was easily swindled by the sellers, but ended up with a top-spec computer. The seller, smiling, asked,
"Are you setting up such a great computer for ga streaming or sothing?"
I didnt understand what he ant and just laughed it off.
He threw in a mouse and a keyboard as a 'service'. I later learned it was an up-sale, but at the ti, I was just grateful.
After struggling to set up the computer at ho and successfully booting it up, I found myself crying.
It was the first ti I had ever bought sothing I wanted, just for .
***
During the ti I had distanced myself from gaming, gas had evolved trendously.
In a world of dazzling graphics, expanded genres and systems, and complex controls, the new gas felt alien and overwhelming to , a person who was more of a newbie than a returning gar.
I realized I was far more outdated than I had thought.
So, I turned to classic gas.
I started playing decades-old gas that brought comfort just by looking at them.
Luckily, nostalgia always seems to be a popular content, so I had no trouble finding these old gas.
Moreover, they were being re-released as remastered or remade versions.
Each ti I launched a ga, I noticed sothing repeatedly popping up in the top right corner of the screen.
[Stream Your Ga]
It appeared to be a built-in feature of the computer's graphics driver, supporting streaming capabilities.
Initially, I ignored it, but seeing it every ti I started a ga, it gradually caught my attention.
- Maybe youre planning to stream gas?
The words of the computer salesman ca back to .
So, one day, on a whim... I started a stream.
[Please set a streaming nickna.]
A nickna.
What should I choose... After so thought, I clumsily typed sothing fitting for an old soul like , who reminisced about old poems, listened to old pop songs, and played old gas.
[RetroAddict]
And so, my first stream began.
***
But my stream was terribly unpopular.
I had started it casually, just as sothing to do while gaming, but it was desperately lacking in popularity.
In this era, who would watch a stream of decades-old gas, especially one without a cara or microphone?
Being completely new to the world of internet broadcasting, I had no idea how to improve it.
So, I just kept the stream running whenever I played gas.
A month passed.
My stream was still as deserted as ever, with occasional viewers popping in only to leave shortly after seeing the screen.
Should I quit?
While starting the ga, that thought crossed my mind.
I was almost at the end of a classic side-scrolling RPG.
I thought about quitting the stream after seeing this gas ending.
The final hidden boss appeared on the screen.
I deftly maneuvered the controller, outsmarting the boss, and defeated it without taking a single hit.
Ga cleared.
The ending credits rolled, and behind them, the protagonist was receiving accolades for saving the kingdom.
While the hero in the ga was being celebrated, I was just lifelessly playing gas alone in my one-room apartnt.
"Phew..."
I sighed.
"I've finally beaten it."
Then I was startled.
I had forgotten that I turned on the microphone for this 'last broadcast'. Shocked at first, I eventually chuckled.
What did it matter if my voice was broadcast?
No one was watching anyway...
That's when it happened.
- Bro!
In the empty chat box,
A ssage appeared.
- Bro, you're amazing. How did you beat that?
"..."
I was stunned, eyes wide, as I read and reread the ssage.
Then I saw it.
Viewer count. 1.
Since when? How long had they been watching?
I was speechless.
Receiving my first-ever viewer ssage since I started broadcasting, I didn't know how to react.
As I froze in confusion, another ssage from them popped up.
- Ill bookmark you. Youre going to stream again, right?
"Uh, uh... yeah, I will."
I stuttered out a response, and then the viewer left a waving emoticon...
- It was fun! See you again!
And exited the stream.
"..."
The viewer count returned to 0.
Was it an illusion? Had I seen sothing that wasn't there?
But the chat log remained vividly.
I read and reread the mysterious viewer's ssages.
"...Ha ha."
Laughter escaped .
For so reason, my nose tingled. I quickly pressed my burning eyes with the back of my hand.
I had been cocooned in solitude.
Dying alone in isolation, where no one thought to look.
I had thought I wanted to live this way.
But that wasn't true.
In fact, I had been longing for soone to reach out to .
Not the who writes poetry. Not the who studies. Not the who earns money. Not the who is useful.
But the who just likes what I like... to be liked for that.
Thats what I had always wished for.
So, this one chat, left by a complete stranger, even if it was a casual ssage for them.
The feeling of being connected to soone.
The kindness extended to , who had beco useless.
It made so happy, it brought tears to my eyes.
"Maybe I'll broadcast a little longer..."
I shelved my thoughts of quitting the broadcast and decided to continue for a few more days.
And this decision changed the course of my life thereafter.
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