"Boss, I want to quit."
It sounded like a dramatic declaration of an unavoidable duel, but in reality, it was nothing more than an emotional outburst.
A slip of the tongue, if anything.
Quitting now, when I could actually spend ti with my boss like a friend?
It’s not like quitting would give more ti to hang out with her. Why would I do sothing so self-destructive?
Besides, the boss had been busy for three years straight.
A subscriber count of 1.6 million doesn’t just happen on its own—she proved that through sheer effort.
She had to sift through collaboration requests, sort out sponsorship deals.
And despite all that, she still made ti to interact with her viewers. But now, with the addition of the first-generation Parallel talents, things had gotten even busier.
So, of course, she didn’t have ti to hang out.
…Guess I’ll just have to focus more on my alt account.
I barely managed to swallow my pout before mumbling,
"Just kidding. I was just curious how you’d react if I said I was quitting."
*
After Magia left the office, Momo, the CEO, remained staring blankly at the door for a long mont.
Then, like a reflex, a famous Knights of Legend broadcast line rang in her head.
Ergency.
Extre ergency.
"W…What? Quitting? Just like that?"
Two years as a manager, three years in this company, and she’d done her job perfectly fine. But now, all of a sudden, she was completely shutting down.
That look of disappointnt in her eyes.
The way her lips had drooped, as if she’d lost all expectation.
No matter how she looked at it, Magia had the face of soone who no longer saw a reason to stay.
But as Momo racked her brain, she couldn’t think of anything she’d done wrong.
Sure, she’d played gas with Magia sotis. But after starting the company, she barely had any ti, so scheduling everything in advance had simply beco the norm.
So what she had said earlier wasn’t a rejection—it was a promise that they could play together in two months.
But of course, Magia didn’t know that.
She’d never really been friends with Momo before.
With no other choice, Momo called in the operations team leader Magia was assigned to.
The thirty-two-year-old team leader, Kang Ji-ho, entered the office with both hands clutching her face like a worried pet owner whose cat had suddenly stopped eating.
"Boss… About Magia…"
She sounded like soone whose beloved pet had lost its appetite.
"Did sothing happen? She looked completely miserable."
"I was hoping you could tell . That’s why I called you in."
"Wait, if you don’t know, how am I supposed to know?"
"Well, she is on your team."
"She might be assigned to operations, but let’s be real—she’s basically your personal assistant. She only works on the tasks you assign her."
"Hmm. That’s true."
Momo regretted calling her in.
Just as she was about to dismiss Kang Ji-ho, the team leader threw out one last sharp remark.
"Just to check—did you, by any chance, yell at her? Or scold her? Or snap at her?"
Silence.
Sensing the mood, Kang Ji-ho quickly adjusted her glasses and practically fled from the office.
"So it’s not an issue within her departnt. That ans I must have said sothing wrong earlier."
All Momo had done was schedule their ga like she always did.
Could that really have been the problem?
Was today so kind of special day?
Magia’s birthday?
No, that was still two months away.
Momo’s birthday?
That had passed two months ago.
"…I really don’t get it."
While she struggled to figure it out, Kang Ji-ho returned after barely five minutes.
Knock, knock.
—"Boss?"
"Co in."
Sliding back into the office, the team leader adjusted her glasses, shifting her weight anxiously from foot to foot like soone suffering from nervous tics.
"I think we might need to replace Magia in today’s content lineup. What do you think?"
"…It’s that bad?"
"Yes. I tried talking to her about the stream later, and she kept going, ‘Uh… Uh…’ and barely responding. She’s usually so bright, always eager to help, and incredibly polite."
Momo frowned, pressing her fingers against her temple.
If Magia stayed out of it, she’d have to find a replacent for the stream at eight.
"I’ll go check on her. Don’t worry too much."
"Thank you, Boss…."
"No, I should be the one handling this. I think I did ss up sohow."
And as Momo left the office, she finally realized sothing important.
Magia had shown up way earlier than usual today.
She was supposed to arrive by three, but she had co at two.
And before that, she had even ssaged to ask if Momo needed anything.
‘Right… Today’s her first ti handling content with the first-generation talents…’
This was originally supposed to be Akari Dora’s role, but since she had to miss it due to a family event, it had been passed to Magia at the last minute.
She had appeared in Momo’s streams before as a manager, but only in the role of a silent carry in gas.
She had never had to interact directly with people over the mic like this.
‘She must’ve been too nervous to sleep.
She probably wanted to ask sothing while I was free.
That’s why she ca early.’
For soone like Magia, who wasn’t good at expressing herself, this was probably the closest she could get to asking for help.
When she asked if Momo needed anything, she was really saying, "I need help."
When she asked to play gas, she was really saying, "Please help —I’ll carry you in return."
(Maybe.)
‘But why say she wants to quit…?’
Could she have been that anxious about participating?
Momo had assud she’d do fine and assigned her the role.
Was that a mistake?
‘Either way, I need to stop her.’
Momo refused to let Magia quit over a mistake she made.
Because if Magia left, there’d be no one to replace her.
She was in charge of monitoring all Parallel VTuber streams from 3 PM to midnight, sotis even until the McMorning shift.
Even weekends weren’t really breaks—she was always on standby.
She needed to love VTubers.
She needed to be discreet.
She needed to be a total geek, able to recomnd ani or gas for content.
And she needed enough tech knowledge to fix streaming issues the mont they happened.
Frankly, there was no replacent for her.
Momo still rembered the first ti they t. Back then, she thought, What kind of absolute nace is this woman?
But after five years, she realized—there was no one more passionate about taking care of VTubers than Magia.
Magia had told her to forget about the whole quitting thing, that she was just joking.
But to Momo, the thought of Magia leaving was more terrifying than the pop-up store disaster they faced six months after debuting the first generation of Parallel talents.
*
"Is participating in content really that stressful for you?"
I was sitting in my office chair, watching Aoyagi Rain’s clip compilation from my saved playlist when the boss hit with that question.
I’d already given up on playing gas together like friends and resigned myself to work, so I was caught off guard.
"Uh… No?"
"If it is, tell now. I can find a replacent."
"No, no. It’s today—we can’t just swap at the last minute."
At so point, the boss had stolen Kang Ji-ho’s chair and—whoosh.
Riding the chair like a pro, she slid all the way up to .
"Then why did you say you wanted to quit earlier?"
"…You don’t need to know that."
Her stare felt like a hand pressing against my face. I had no choice but to co clean.
"I just wanted to play gas with you like before. Quitting, that was… You shut down so fast that I got bitter, and for a mont, I thought maybe I should just go back to sniping you from ho."
The boss’s mouth fell open like an idiot, and then—
"Pfft—AHAHAHAHA!"
She burst into laughter like a lunatic, then reached out and started ruffling my hair.
I almost protested—what kind of grown adult does this—but she pressed down so firmly that it actually felt… nice.
So I shut my mouth.
So this is what it feels like to be head-patted by your oshi…
I’d never experienced it before, so I had no idea.
Once she finally stopped laughing, the boss let out a small sigh.
"I’ve known you for five years, and I still don’t get you."
"It’d be weirder if you did. It’s not like you’re living my life for ."
"Yeah. I seriously don’t get you at all. What am I supposed to do about that?"
Then, using the brush from Kang Ji-ho’s desk, she started fixing my ssy hair.
…And it felt good.
So this is what it’s like to be a cat that likes human touch…
"…Ah."
Wait, no—this wasn’t the ti to just sit here and enjoy this.
Now that she was in a good mood, I had to try again.
I only backed off earlier to gain so montum.
"Seriously, can’t we play just one ga? If you don’t have ti, even just an hour—no, wait, that’s too short, two hours."
Maybe she saw the desperation in my eyes, because this ti, the boss’s tone was completely different.
Her thick lashes curled ever so slightly, and before I knew it, the corners of my mouth started twitching up.
"If today’s content goes smoothly, I’ll cut my sleep and play Battle Call with you."
"For real?"
"Yeah. Until we get first place."
"Uh. You might want to take that back."
"Why? Are you planning to sabotage again?"
"How’d you know?"
"Please, have rcy. I’m gonna die."
She made it sound like we’d play all night, but I wasn’t expecting that.
I knew better than anyone how busy she was.
Just two hours.
That much, and I’d be satisfied.
As a fan, that was more than enough.
"I’ll decide after watching you play."
"By the way, you seem pretty confident today. Did you prepare well?"
Feeling good, I decided to show off the Rain impression I’d been practicing all week.
Even though my voice tone was different from yesterday, the vocal adjustnts weren’t actually that difficult.
As long as I captured that foreign worker energy from her scuffed Korean, paired with her crisp English pronunciation, anyone could beco Aoyagi Rain.
"Wah, Sibal. You guys are really playing like a pot of ga. ? Rain’s fault? Uh-huh. Your pace~."
The boss and the team leader just sat there in stunned silence.
I thought I’d done a decent job.
Guess it wasn’t as impressive as I’d hoped.
Just as I started feeling a bit dejected, the boss blinked and asked,
"Why the hell have you been hiding this talent all this ti?"
"…I wasn’t hiding it?"
"You never showed us before."
"Because you never asked to?"
"……."
For so reason, she turned to Kang Ji-ho and muttered,
"If she pulls this off today, we might just hit the jackpot."
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