Work Text:
Suddenly, the number of viewers plummets. Like a tide rushing out.
Shi Luo pauses before matching into another game. He’s on his third hour tonight, catching up on his obligations to the platform. Hair a mess under his headphones, squinting catlike at the barrage to figure out what happened.
There’s usually an ebb and flow to the viewer numbers. Shi Luo has a good sense of the rhythm. A sharp increase or decrease means that something specific has happened, though.
Something specific is usually Shi Luo’s shameless boyfriend causing trouble.
“What has he done now?” Shi Luo asks, his voice lazy. Not nervous.
[hahahahaha he’s nervous]
[Evil doesn’t know? That makes it even better hehehe]
Fuck. That isn’t a good sign.
[Check Whisper’s stream!]
[No, don’t check! We didn’t say anything!]
[Stop, you idiots, never say not to check! Shi Luo, it’s very safe to check because there’s nothing to see!]
Shi Luo is alone in the training room right now, so Yu Sui must be streaming from his room. Their room? Shi Luo sleeps there more often than not, but it still feels like Yu Sui’s room, in a good way. He belongs there because he belongs to Yu Sui.
“You can’t use reverse psychology after you’ve already warned me,” Shi Luo tells his viewers. Leaning back with his phone, he signs onto a small side account to find Yu Sui’s stream.
The room channel is extremely ominous: Help me vote on something important, thank you
Shi Luo’s lips twitch, craving a cigarette. He bravely joins the stream.
His own barrage continues chatting merrily.
[He’s looking, isn’t he?]
[I’m there on my phone too but I didn’t see him join]
[He must have a new account—did anyone catch the name?]
[It’s no use, too many people are joining Whisper’s stream, hundreds a minute!]
But Shi Luo isn’t looking at his own barrage. He’s too blinded by the poll pinned in Yu Sui’s livestream, the votes skyrocketing as Yu Sui calmly murders his opponents in the game.
What costume will Free Evil wear for Halloween?
- FOG Striker
- Cat
- Princess
Shi Luo stares, unblinking. There are fifty-two votes for striker. There are over five thousand votes each for cat and princess, and they leapfrog over each other every second as hundreds more votes pour in.
[Did he see it yet?]
[He isn’t reacting, maybe he’s really not checking?]
[You must be new. This is his “bluescreen, crash, computer must restart” face hehehe]
Maybe when he first started dating Yu Sui, he would have bluescreened. But now, Shi Luo is frozen because he’s contemplating his counter-move.
He decisively sets his phone aside and opens a poll in his own livestream.
“Sorry, I forgot we agreed to do this,” Shi Luo says, attempting to channel his boyfriend’s shamelessness. “Let me fulfill my part of the arrangement…”
[Arrangement? Did he know?]
[Stop trying to be calm, we can see how red your ears are]
[!!!!!! this poll !!!!!]
Shi Luo opens the poll:
What costume will Free Whisper wear for Halloween?
- Nurse
- Bunny
- Schoolgirl
Then he changes the name of his livestream directly to:
Decide what costume Whisper will wear for a special Halloween stream
Then he sits back and waits.
The viewer count surges.