adora • lookism

18. Crystal Choi

The first time Gun brought one out, Crystal had found herself squinting for several minutes at the nebulous black object rolling around in his palm, and ultimately hadn't been able to stop herself from asking, "Oppa, is that... a jellyfish?"

"Yeah. I got used to the octopus," he had said.

Which. Ok. What the hell did that mean.

Around her, the auction suddenly exploded in noise. Some girl from Chanel Private School had bid $1000 on Daniel Park.

"Going once for $1000!"

Seeing that no one else seemed about to put in another bid, Crystal finally raised her arm.

"2000 dollars," she said calmly, at the same time as she heard a high, sweet voice call, "2000!"

Crystal paused to look towards the speaker.

For whatever reason, so did Gun.

"That's the girl I met at the convenience store the other night," Crystal told him. She peered past the stage at the girl standing on the other side, next to a tall boy with bleached hair that covered half of his face. The girl also seemed to be trying to look for Crystal, going up on her tiptoes to get a better view. "I figured out where I knew her from; she's a popular guest for one of our top streamers."

The other evening, Crystal had made Gun-oppa wait in the car for over a quarter of an hour while she chatted with the girl in the convenience store. He had complained rather a bit, and Crystal also felt a bit bad for making him idle outside without a word of explanation, but it hadn't been for no reason. After all, Crystal certainly wasn't some saint of tutoring who went around helping everyone that struggled with their homework.

It was just that the girl's face had been so familiar, even though Crystal hadn't been able to remember her name no matter how she'd racked her brains. Figuring that this must mean that the girl was probably one of the streamers under Paprika TV, and assuming that she couldn't be unpopular if Crystal knew her face that well, Crystal had made the executive decision to save the girl a bit of time. Under-eye circles were not good for business.

As soon as she'd gone home that evening, Crystal had done some searching and figured it out. She did know the convenience store girl. Very much so.

'Riri', which probably wasn't her real name, was the friend of one of Paprika TV's top streamers, Yui Kim. She was also someone Crystal had recently had her eye on recruiting. The streams that Riri featured on always entered within Crystal's list of top earning streams of the day; imagine how much more revenue Riri would be able to bring the platform if she became a regular streamer? As the CEO of Paprika TV, Crystal couldn't let such a golden fish swim away without a word.

Crystal tilted her head back towards the other side of the stage and met the eyes of 'Riri', who had finally spotted her and was staring back with her mouth rounded in a slight "o" of surprise.

Now they were no longer under the unpleasant fluorescence of the convenience store, Crystal studied the other girl: fluffy dark hair, currently tied up in a high, bouncy ponytail. A little face with big sunshine eyes, glossy like well-polished pearls in the daylight. A plush mouth with pink lips. It had been hard to tell while she was sitting, but she was notably shorter than Crystal's current body, perhaps not too much taller than Crystal's original body. The oversized blue zip-up that she wore over her neat school uniform made her seem younger and smaller than she was, especially while standing next to the tall blond.

Was the hoodie the blond boy's? Boyfriend? But if the blond was her boyfriend, why was she bidding on Daniel Park?

"$3500!" 'Riri' shouted.