Chapter 93

"Yeah!! We finally hit Silver guys!"

[Chat:

LETS GOOOOOOO

yeahh!!! good jobbbbb <33

congratssssss!

ur so gooooodddd good jobbbb

LMFAO noob

when face reveal?]

"I'm really bad at this game… hehe."

I scratched my hair and read chat comments, though purposefully ignoring the rude ones or the face reveal questions.

These past few weeks, I have seen a big increase in viewers. Especially because I've expanded my content from just drawing to other games and content.

Reading chat got pretty hard to the point that I had to enable slow-chat… and even then it's still a little difficult to read messages out clearly.

It's very enjoyable to do these things though, even if I'm not as good of a gamer…

My next solo queue 3v3 game started and I picked the controller back up.

3…2…1…

With great concentration, my car swerved a little, boosting all the way before hitting the ball in the center against the opponent's car. The ball flew towards their side of the field.

My two other teammates immediately flung their cars towards the ball that was high in the air and missed the ball completely.

Their cars ragdolled towards the opponent's goal.

"Oh," my car stopped awkwardly.

Trying to take advantage of the situation, an enemy car boosted towards the bouncing ball and flipped towards it.

About to make contact with the ball, the enemy's car was bumped towards the side by their own teammate, and both completely missed the ball as the third teammate went flying away.

I laughed along with chat at the ridiculous physics of the game.

I approached the ball slowly and angled the car to hit the ball towards the net.

Teammates:

'Take the shot!'

'Take the shot!'

'Take the shot!'

The goal went bouncing slowly towards the enemy goal and scored.

"Goal!"

My chat exploded once again.

Videogames aren't as hard as I thought they'd be.

Heh, I bet Charlie'd be proud of me. Though who knows if he knows who I am yet…

When we did that huge Gartic Phone collab with tons of big content creators, I couldn't hold back from constantly teasing and having fun with Charlie.

My content-creating personality was already pretty bubbly and exciting but I was even more energetic to finally be streaming with Charlie.

People were surprised to see me like that.

As a side effect of my great drawing skills and my entertaining stream persona, I received a growth in viewers from that huge collaboration stream and thus started playing other videogames.

Hehe, it's pretty funny because some people ship Charlie and me together. To be honest, I'd be pretty uncomfortable if I were shipped with anyone else— rather, I've been shipped with another drawing YouTuber once and it was very uncomfortable. It makes me a little giddy though if it's him.

Some fans are against people commenting on their ships, rightfully so, so instead people just insinuate it without saying it directly.

[Chat:

soo… whos your favorite charlie? out of all the celebrities named charlie haha

shhhh guys were not shipping them aha amirite?

its funny that shes playing rocket league when charlie was playing it a few streams ago

I totally boat them together…

Lol boat cuz ship lmfao

Guys chill we dont even know how she looks like is she even worthy of charlie?

No. is charlie even worthy of tsu?]

Even though the enemy team just scored on us, I still smiled happy while reading chat.

"Since when did I start playing video games?" I read a question from the chat, "To be honest, I started recently. I was always a little scared to before, hehe."

Of course, I stayed silent and did not say anything regarding the comments about Charlie and instead answered other questions.

"I don't know… Rocket League is pretty fun and soo addicting… I played casual games yesterday off-stream and couldn't wait to stream today…"

Some people suspected we knew each other in real life with how well we got along, having never streamed together before. Even Charlie's streamer friends were a little guarded against me, not knowing if I was using Charlie as a way to propel my viewership.

It's a little funny though… because I was one of his first supporters.

"What other games do you guys recommend? Give me beginner-friendly games though…"

Concentrating on talking, my car missed the ball completely and went shooting towards the wall with a clang.

Unable to gain control back, my car became a turtle on its back shell unable to get back up.

"I'm trying to balance my original drawing content with videogames still though… Maybe I'll start drawing video-game fanart for the ones that like video games more…"

Ding! My phone rang with a familiar tune.

As I fiddled with the joysticks, I stared up at the phone screen with happiness.

[chabby: Sent an attachment: Image] x 3

Unconsciously, I laughed a little at the mic.

…

…

…

I sent some selfies with Jagger to Natsumi. I did remember that she had once mentioned that she liked his acting.

Jagger's pale face, dead sleep-deprived looking eyes contrasted extremely with the face she was used to seeing usually in the big screens.

He says staying in character and expressing their behavior outside of filming helps him act better during filming. His passion for this awes me much.

I put the phone away and sat down on a bench to the side of the setting with a paper cup of green tea.

I watched the staff set up camera, lights, and making sure the equipment was working. I sipped my cup.

"Drinking coffee at your age already? Young man?"

I looked to the side at an aged man with his hands in his pockets, looking at me with a friendly smile.

"Haha," I laughed, "No, it's just green tea."

He smiled. "Mind if I sit here?"

I scooted to the side, "Yup—" I then paused, "Wait, no. I mean, I don't mind."

We laughed and he sat down at a good enough distance.

"I was calling you out for drinking coffee, but here I am… drinking coffee myself," he chuckled at his words.

I replicated the chuckle. "It's a good morning drink…" I said some redundant words to keep the silence away. "Black or sweetened?"

"I haven't lost my sweet tooth. Rather, my age has only exacerbated it. I enjoy Caramel Frappucinos more than youngsters do…"

We laughed.

"Cold coffee in the morning?" I inquired. Not very common, but not unusual either.

"Nothing gets an old man running like me more than iced sweet coffee in the morning."

He says old, but he looks to be in his 40s. He sipped his cup gingerly.

We shook hands. "William Barlowe."

"Charlie Yang, nice to meet you."

"You playing a role in this movie?"

I shook my head with a smile, "Nope, just watching a friend. First time seeing the behind-the-scenes of a movie in person… Kind of takes the magic away from everything," we chuckled.

"Felt the same thing when I first saw the set of a movie… watching movies is never the same after that…"

At this point, it was just a routine of chuckling and making random comments while we silently watched the set.

"You here to play a role?" I asked the question back.

"Nope…" he showed his teeth, "Supporting and dropped off my nephew," he showed a proud look, "who is actually playing a role."

I smiled, "Congratulations."

"Thank you. He's been acting incredibly throughout the entire process…I'm very proud— to be honest, I don't get to brag about him like this that often."

"Haha, my ears are open to listening."

A proud uncle of his young and successful nephew… Very heartwarming.

…

…

…

Hearing my phone ringing and looking at the familiar caller, I muted my mic and left my controller on the table.

"Moshi moshi?"

["Huh?"]

I laughed. I can practically imagine his confused face "Hey."

["Heyy."]

"What's up? You need something?" Muting myself abruptly won't make my viewers happy…

["Ah… in such a hurry to get rid of me. What're you doing?"]

"...Playing a game on the computer."

["I'm really being replaced by a video game by the same person that said they were scared by video games."] he dead-panned, almost as if looking at me with a displeased expression through the call.

"Hehe… I'm just trying it out… I'm not that good…"

I stuck my tongue out to the side in concentration and moved my head in real life as I flipped the car into the ball.

"Nevermind, I'm extremely good at this game… and no I wasn't trying to get rid of you…"

["That almost makes me happy…"] I smiled. I can tell he's just trying to hide his blush by acting sarcastic. ["By the way, do you want any candies or souvenirs?"]

Unable to answer, I only muffled my giggles.

["...What are you laughing at?"]

"Mmm… nothing."

It's funny, 'cuz whenever he's in an awkward situation or is embarrassed he'll immediately try to act normal and follow up with a quick question to switch the topic.

["Is my voice funny?"]

He's gotten so good at it that he does it unconsciously. Any other person would think he's not embarrassed at all.

"Hihi… no." I laughed a little more.

["Uh…"] he's so confused… It's so funny.

I'll spare him the awkwardness of having to wait for me to stop laughing.

"If you go to that tall tower in Regalia, get me a keychain… Ohhh or chocolates…"

I'll laugh about it later.

["Okay… I didn't know you liked chocolates."]

"They're for my mommy," I said happily.

He chuckled.

"What's so funny?" I asked with bite in my tone. I dare you to make fun of me for calling my mom, 'mommy'.

["Nothing."] Coward.

"Hmph." I squinted my eyes.

["Wow, rud—"]

"By the way, want to say hello to my friends?" I completely forgot about my stream for a second there.

["Huh? Okay, sure."]

I unmuted my mic.

"Say, 'Hello friends.'"

["Hello friends."] I almost forgot to hold my controller and barely held it with my index fingers.

My fingers quivered.

Really, I don't know what it was but his voice just seemed way more attractive at that moment.

Ah, that sounds a little weird.

Look I don't think I have a fetish for voices. I think.

But there was something there that changed. And I definitely did not expect it to affect me the way it did.

Does his voice just become 10x more attractive when speaking to an audience?

Damnit, what the hell?

With a shaky voice, "Hehe. Yeah… okay. Anyway, I'll talk to you later," I immediately tapped the end call button without waiting for his reply.

I'm definitely not blushing or ashamed of myself right now. I do not want to dig myself into a hole.

I ended the call with Charlie because I have priorities. That's right, my priority is to stream.

I am not embarrassed of myself. Nothing happened. I did not just get butterflies from his voice.

To take my mind off, I read chat's messages.

This did not help while I was still in this state of mind.

"Uh… hehe, who was he? Haha…" I completely missed the ball in the game by miles as I looked absentmindedly at the monitor.

"He's my… my cousin."

Yup, we're good. Not nervous. Not shaken.

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