I don't have particularly fond memories of my childhood.
I was born to a poet father and a singer mother.
They met 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 meeting 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 me to write poetry.
So, he made me read all sorts of old poems.
In his musty attic, filled with poetry books, I memorized and copied ancient verses.
My mother wanted me to make good money.
So, she pushed me to study.
Somehow finding the funds in our meager budget, she sent me to academies and private tutors from a young age.
Both seemed 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 games.
I picked up an old game console thrown away by a neighbor and, secretly from my parents, connected it to a low-quality CRT TV, playing games all night with my eyes glued to the screen.
I still remember the opening of that game.
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 times 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 became clear I had no talent for poetry or studies, my parents' obsession only deepened.
Their belief was that with enough effort, anything could be overcome.
After school, I had no time to breathe; I was immediately caught up in writing and memorizing poetry, and then studying.
I had no real friends.
With no time to socialize, my life was a back-and-forth between home and school.
When I became 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 me 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 overcome financial struggles, they separated.
And then, finally, they let go of their expectations for me. Or rather, they gave up.
While preparing for my third university entrance exam, I worked part-time 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 me.
He must have wanted me 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 conglomerate.
My mother embraced me, crying tears of joy.
She exclaimed how she always knew I could do it, that I was a child who always delivered...
My father didn't answer my calls.
I never told him that I hadn't given up on poetry; I was still writing and submitting in secret, but still hadn't won any awards. I didn't 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 environment, the daily overtime 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 couldn't.
One night, after endless days of overtime, when I couldn't even remember when I last went back to my apartment, I collapsed with a nosebleed and woke up in the emergency room.
There was something wrong with the blood vessels near my heart.
They said it was due to overwork. If I continued like this, I wouldn't live long.
Leaving the hospital, I got back into a taxi to finish up some 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 apartment, 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 me.
She couldn't 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 me, calling me a person without grit or effort.
I lost contact with my parents. I never had friends to begin with. My former colleagues didn't care about me after I left the company.
I stopped writing poetry. There was no need to study anymore.
With an abundance of time and nothing to do, I pondered what to do next.
I was a boring person with no real hobbies.
"...Right."
Recalling memories 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 game streaming or something?"
I didn't understand what he meant 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 time, I was just grateful.
After struggling to set up the computer at home and successfully booting it up, I found myself crying.
It was the first time I had ever bought something I wanted, just for me.
***
During the time I had distanced myself from gaming, games had evolved tremendously.
In a world of dazzling graphics, expanded genres and systems, and complex controls, the new games felt alien and overwhelming to me, a person who was more of a newbie than a returning gamer.
I realized I was far more outdated than I had thought.
So, I turned to classic games.
I started playing decades-old games 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 games.
Moreover, they were being re-released as remastered or remade versions.
Each time I launched a game, I noticed something repeatedly popping up in the top right corner of the screen.
[Stream Your Game]
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 time I started a game, it gradually caught my attention.
- Maybe you're planning to stream games?
The words of the computer salesman came back to me.
So, one day, on a whim... I started a stream.
[Please set a streaming nickname.]
A nickname.
What should I choose... After some thought, I clumsily typed something fitting for an old soul like me, who reminisced about old poems, listened to old pop songs, and played old games.
[RetroAddict]
And so, my first stream began.
***
But my stream was terribly unpopular.
I had started it casually, just as something to do while gaming, but it was desperately lacking in popularity.
In this era, who would watch a stream of decades-old games, especially one without a camera 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 games.
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 game, 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 game's 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.
Game cleared.
The ending credits rolled, and behind them, the protagonist was receiving accolades for saving the kingdom.
While the hero in the game was being celebrated, I was just lifelessly playing games alone in my one-room apartment.
"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 message appeared.
- Bro, you're amazing. How did you beat that?
"..."
I was stunned, eyes wide, as I read and reread the message.
Then I saw it.
Viewer count. 1.
Since when? How long had they been watching?
I was speechless.
Receiving my first-ever viewer message since I started broadcasting, I didn't know how to react.
As I froze in confusion, another message from them popped up.
- I'll bookmark you. You're 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 something that wasn't there?
But the chat log remained vividly.
I read and reread the mysterious viewer's messages.
"...Ha ha."
Laughter escaped me.
For some 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 someone to reach out to me.
Not the me who writes poetry. Not the me who studies. Not the me who earns money. Not the me who is useful.
But the me who just likes what I like... to be liked for that.
That's what I had always wished for.
So, this one chat, left by a complete stranger, even if it was a casual message for them.
The feeling of being connected to someone.
The kindness extended to me, who had become useless.
It made me 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.