“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean, Alyssa,” he said, responding to a viewer. “A situation where technically the two of you are strangers, but you have the overwhelming feeling that you… I dunno, are supposed to know each other for some reason. It’s hard to explain, I guess, but the point is, I experienced that a few weeks ago and I just can’t seem to stop thinking about it.”
His eyes skimmed the comments again and a moment later he barked out a laugh. “Casey says ‘how to tell your Twitch audience you caught feelings during a one-night stand without saying you had a one-night stand.’ Yeah, okay Casey, you caught me. He was a really sweet guy, though… Yeah, Devin, I gave him my number, but he didn’t call. He probably looked me up and got spooked. I didn’t tell him what I did for a living, which, I dunno, maybe was wrong of me, but I didn’t expect it to be anything but a fling, you know? Besides, it was kind of nice being with someone who didn’t know who I was. I think it would be hard to be with someone who knew who I was on here before meeting me, just because they’d already have all these opinions formed… Ha! You guys, stop with the crying emojis, I’m sure you can find some other streamer to date.”
Miles didn’t realize he’d been clenching his jaw until his back molars began to ache. Hastily, he opened his mouth and rubbed his cheek with a grimace. He tapped his phone screen to see the time. It had been well over five minutes. Closing his eyes briefly, he took a deep, steadying breath, and then turned the test over in his lap.
“Shit,” he said to the empty room.
What the hell was he going to do?
x_kilometers_x:Hey… Sorry if this is weird, and tbh I don’t even know if you’ll see this comment, but I heard what you said on your livestream about catching feelings for a guy you hardly know, and just… I can relate, ig, and so if you ever want to talk about it feel free to DM me. No hard feelings if not. Hope you’re doing okay. xo
“Good morning, Mr. Park,” Stella, Jun’s personal assistant, said as she slid through the smallest gap in Jun’s office door possible, almost catching the buttons of her blouse on the door latch in the process. It was typical behavior for her. Despite the fact that Jun had repeatedly told her that she was welcome in his office whenever she wanted—barring the times when the “recording” sign outside his door was lit up—she treated each entrance as an intrusion, and punished herself for it by taking up as little space in his presence as she could.
Not that it was difficult.
Stella was slight of figure, a wisp of a woman who might have enjoyed an illustrious career in the New York fashion scene were she not so single-minded in her corporate ambitions. Her dream was to rise through the ranks of the entertainment industry not by merit of her work in front of the camera, but by her workbehind it. Management, she’d told Jun during her interview, was a much more sustainable career path than outright stardom, and she excelled at it. For the last five years, she’d been more or less running Jun’s personal life while also taking care of the smaller professional details Sammy couldn’t be bothered with—things like monitoring and replying to his emails and DMs, keeping track of his production schedule, and acting as an intermediary between him and his team of editors. The tasks she handled freed up time in his day to do the parts of his job that only he could do—namely, recording content and live streaming—which had helped him maintain a rapid release schedule even as the production value of his videos increased.
Without her, he would be nowhere near as successful as he was today, and he owed her a great debt of gratitude. When she did leave his team to chase her Hollywood dreams, he had no doubt she’d make it. Any A-lister would be lucky to have her, and he would be there to hype her the hell up to the recruitment team so that they knew it, too.
Door successfully traversed, Stella entered the room and came to stand opposite him at the empty arm of his L-shaped desk. Jun swiveled his chair around to face her and greeted her with a smile. Today, her salon-blonde hair was swept back in a messy bun that he thought looked quite fashionable, and her regular office casual outfit had been swapped out for dark-wash jeans. It was surprising. Jun didn’t enforce a dress code, but Stella was of the opinion that she did better work when dressed for the part, and typically showed up to their daily meetings looking like the hotshot she aspired to be. He’d only seen her in jeans one other time, and that had been on his twenty-fifth birthday when she and the rest of his freelance staff had surprised him by renting out his favorite taco truck and inviting his friends over fora street party, which made sense—dry-clean-only clothing and birria didn’t mix.
But what was she up to today that would necessitate clothing as unforgivably pedestrian as jeans?
Jun didn’t want to put her on the spot by prying, but he couldn’t help his curiosity—curiosity that was compounded when he noticed a swipe of subdued color across her lips.
“Hey, Stella,” he said, folding his arms on the desk and looking up at her. “You look good today.”
“Oh, thank you.” She hesitated, frowning. “Is the lipstick too much? I wasn’t sure.”
“Not at all. It looks natural. I barely noticed it was there.”
“That’s a relief. I was worried it might look clownish, and then—” She stopped abruptly, stripping the uncertainty out of her tone as quickly and militantly as she did her face. “Anyway, thank you for the reassurance. Would you like to go over today’s update?”
“Sure. I’m ready when you are.”
Stella nodded. “All right. Let’s begin. You had six brand deal requests waiting in your inbox this morning. Four of them were from dropshipping companies, one of them was a gamer girl accessories company that got you confused with Junie Bee Gaming, and the last one was a request from an energy drink brand. I forwarded it to Sammy so he can negotiate the terms of the agreement for you. I’ve seen other popular creators partnering with them, so the payout might be worth your while. Speaking of payouts, the sponsorship video you submitted to Audible for approval was greenlit by their advertising team overnight. It’ll be published later this week, in accordance withyour production schedule. Pascal has the raw footage from your stream last night and is working on editing it down for YouTube, and Steph is just about done editing the YouTube exclusive content you filmed last week. Everything is on track—no delays to speak of. As long as you stay on schedule, you’ll be able to fully replenish the bank of ready-to-publish material you depleted while on tour by the end of the month.”
“That’s great news.”
“I don’t know that I’d call it news. You played it smart. Making sure you had that buffer before you left put you in a great position for continued growth even during your absence. While Twitch revenue is down due to the interruption to your schedule, your YouTube revenue is trending upward, and the proceeds from the tour have more than made up the Twitch profit lost. Sammy’s even impressed, not that he would ever say it.”
Jun chuckled. “Of course.”
“He means well. He’s just… not a tremendously expressive man, unless it comes to anger.” Stella took her phone from her back pocket and spent a moment scrolling through. Jun knew from experience that she was checking her notes app to see if she’d missed anything. “Oh, there is one more thing I wanted to mention…”
“Shoot.”
“Whispers have been pouring in on Twitch since last night’s stream, and you’ve been getting DMs almost nonstop on X as people have been watching the reupload. The majority of the messages are what I generally see on any given day—a lot of spam, a lot of people being thirsty, a lot of unsolicited dick and titty pics. No big deal. I’ve blocked, deleted, and replied asnecessary. But there is one whisper I thought you might want to read. It seemed genuinely sweet and heartfelt to me, and in my opinion merits a sincere reply from you instead of a canned reply from me. I left it for you if you want to take a look.”
“Thanks, I will.”
“And…” Stella hesitated, pinching her lips together as if warring internally over what she wanted to say. “It isn’t terribly professional of me, but I wanted to tell you that it was nice seeing you be so vulnerable on last night’s stream. I hope that boy comes to his senses and texts you.”
It was about as emotional as Stella had ever been during work hours, and Jun instantly took her well-wishes to heart. A smile softened his face. “Thanks. I hope so, too.”
Stella went red in the face and stuffed her phone back into her pocket. “Well, that’s all,” she said, sounding much more flustered than usual. “Remember to take a break around ten since the landscapers will be here and they’re always so loud. I’ve got your grocery list and I’m going to run out and pick everything up now. Sushi for lunch?”
“Sushi sounds great.”
