Feel-Good Story Live Streaming の短編小説 & 小説

At a highway service area, the man parked in the next space points under his van and shouts that it's leaking fuel and is about to explode. I am a veteran auto mechanic with ten years of experience. Without hesitation, I slide under the vehicle and, within ten seconds, clamp off the fuel line. The moment I crawl back out, I catch the smell of mineral water. The owner, Billy Dickson, immediately pulls out his phone and starts a livestream while several of his accomplices pin me against the hood. "Watch this, everyone! We set the perfect trap and caught a gang of catalytic converter thieves! See how smoothly he got under the chassis? He's obviously a repeat offender. Every missing part at this service area has to be his doing!" Covered in dirt and grease, I try to explain to the crowd that I only cut the line because I thought the vehicle was about to catch fire and endanger everyone nearby. Billy spits a thick wad of phlegm right onto my shoe. "Who asked you to stick your nose into my business? You crawled under my van because you wanted to steal parts! Either you pay for a brand-new vehicle today, or I'll hand you over to the police and make sure you rot in prison!" Not wanting to delay getting my wife, who's about to go into labor, to the hospital, I grit my teeth and transfer them 20,000 dollars to settle the matter privately. Three days later, on a long downhill stretch of a winding mountain road, Billy's van completely loses its brakes. Black smoke pours from the tires. He recognizes my car and frantically blares the horn. Rolling down his window, he begs me to tell him how to survive. I simply press down on the accelerator and widen the distance between us, my face completely expressionless. "Back for another livestream to chase views? Give me a break. To prove I'm not a car thief, I already threw my wrenches into the river. You'll have to figure out for yourself how to jump out of the van."

"He forced me! That night, he got me pregnant." Before the Werewolf High Council, at a public trial livestreamed for the world to see, a low-ranking Omega named Selena cradled her belly and accused me. "I tried to fight back, but I was utterly paralyzed by his Alpha presence. He broke the leg of someone who tried to stop him!" Outside the Council hall, furious protesters brandished signs, their shouts branding me a monster who couldn't think past his dick. Online, every comment section was flooded with the same demand: "Execute that monster Alpha!" The stock of the Blackstone Group, the empire I built from nothing, plummeted. Even the elders I myself had elevated were now clawing over one another to strip me of my Alpha title. When the Chairman brought down his gavel, I stepped forward, slowly raising my hands to unbutton my shirt. "I am a female Alpha." "So please, tell me, in front of the entire werewolf world, how exactly did I get you pregnant with something I don't have?"

Mom and Dad aren't bothered at all when I completely start slacking off. Kennedy Quinlan, my girlfriend's brother, who has established a reputation as a genius inventor, completely breaks down, while I slack off instead of conducting research in the lab. In my past life, Kennedy files an identical patent application just one day before I do, causing everyone to brand me as a fraud and accuse me of blatant plagiarism. I try to explain myself, but no one believes me. Kennedy eventually launches a live stream to blast me online, accusing me of trying to scam my way into their family's fortune. They run a massive cyberbullying campaign against my whole family. Mom and Dad only want to clear things up, but Kennedy's crazed fans push them off a high-rise building, leaving them to die in unresolved grief. Unable to handle the blow, I fall into a severe depression and end up slitting my wrists. I still can't wrap my head around the whole situation, even in my final moments. It is obviously the fruit of my own painstaking research, so why does someone else get to file the patent first? I suddenly open my eyes and find myself back on the day before my invention is stolen.

On the day the channel Edith Parker and I run as a couple surpasses 30 million followers, I finally step in front of the camera for the first time as a fan event reward. I woke up at 5:00 am to get styled and try on more than ten suits. But right before filming starts, Edith stops me. She says, "Holden, let Caden appear on camera instead. He looks better on screen. The fans will like him more." Caden Sparks is my best friend. I stand there stunned for a long time, but I eventually nod. From that day on, Edith and Caden pretend to be a couple on camera for three years. I remain behind the camera. I write their scripts, set up the lighting, and edit their videos. I watch the comments flood in again and again. Someone writes, "They really look like they love each other. I'm obsessed!" I also watch Edith grow more comfortable holding Caden's hand. Then, on the three-year anniversary livestream, the host asks them, "What was the moment that made your hearts race the most?" Edith and Caden smile at the same time. "The day we appear on camera together for the first time." At that moment, the entire comment section explodes. And I sit alone in a dark corner, suddenly barely able to breathe. So, for three years, they pretend to be a couple. But I am the only one who still believes that is all it is. After the livestream ends, I remove all my access from the channel dashboard. Then I open the overseas filming invitation sitting in my inbox for half a month. I calmly reply, "I accept." From now on, I won't play a part in their romance anymore.

After the college entrance exams ended, the class heartthrob suggested the whole class take a trip together. To save on costs, he rallied everyone to go sightseeing at my house instead. "Didn't Nico say his house was bigger than the Palace of Versailles, with more servants than anyone could count?" Everyone watched me like they were waiting for a show, eager to see me humiliated. I kindly warned them that once you set foot in my house, there was no leaving. Tyler Knight, the class heartthrob, laughed. "Doesn't matter. If your house is really that big, we'll stay for the rest of our lives. No, scratch that, we'll stay for the next eight hundred lifetimes. "Nico's really committed to the act. I want to see how he keeps bluffing once we actually show up at his place." Since everyone was dead set on going, I had no choice but to call my father, the King of Hell. "Dad, my classmates are coming over in a few days. Tell Agnes to make a few extra pots of her special soup."

Everything runs perfectly at my grilled‑fish restaurant until a famous food‑blogger Brandon Cooper turns up unannounced to film a review. To my horror, the moment he gets a good look at the fish in my tanks, his face goes pale. "Look, everyone! This is an endangered fish. Eat any one of these, and you could end up behind bars!" Overnight, my restaurant's shut down, I'm under investigation, and my entire family's being harassed online. Everything I've built over the past ten years is nearly destroyed. Once the investigation findings came out, the truth finally came to light. I got my chance to turn the tables. "I've lost at least two million dollars since my restaurant was shut down. It's time for you to pay up!"

The captain of our college cheer squad was drowning. I fought to pull her ashore and performed mouth-to-mouth in front of the entire student body and faculty. But three days later, she went live, sobbing, and accused me. "Owen Ellis pushed me into the water... He's wanted to force himself on me for ages! "He threatened me, too. He said if I didn't sleep with him, he'd post photos of him kissing me on a porn site and ruin me!" Overnight, I went from a lifesaving hero to a would-be rapist reviled across the internet. The university expelled me. My parents were doxxed by online mobs, lost their jobs, and both sank into depression. In my darkest moment, I stood at the same lake where I'd saved her and jumped. As the water closed over my head, a notification lit up my phone. The cheer captain was smiling on her livestream as hundreds of thousands of fans flooded the chat. The stream title read: "A Strong Girl Rises from the Ashes." When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment she started drowning. She was thrashing in the water, those wet eyes locked on mine, and she cried out. "Owen... save me..."

When the kiss cam swept across the stands at the baseball stadium Warren Doyle, a married investor in the league, had his arms around his PR director and was kissing her. The two of them went up on the jumbotron, and the crowd erupted in hoots and cheers. Warren stormed into the camera bay and demanded I hand over my camera. I told him the camera pointed wherever the control room told it to. He stared at me for a few seconds, then suddenly let go and let me leave. I thought that was the end of it. The next day, audio from the crew channel shot to the top of the news feeds, with nothing left in it but two ambiguous lines from me. "Camera locked on row seven. Keep rolling. Don't cut." Overnight I became the shameless camera operator who'd filmed them on purpose. I was suspended from my job, my father's food cart was trashed, and Warren sued me for a million dollars. But he didn't know that the recording he was using to convict me could only ever convict him.

Tomorrow was supposed to be my engagement party with my fiance, Jason Miller. To surprise him, I flew back a day earlier after spending three long years studying abroad in London. The moment my plane landed, I called him. But he just laughed and casually dropped a bombshell. He had lost a high-stakes poker game, and he had just wagered me off to his friend as a free maid for a month. Before I could even speak, my phone lit up with a notification. He had added me to his wealthy inner-circle group chat. The title was vicious. [Congrats to Marcus on his new ugly maid!] Jason dropped a photo of me, from before I left the country, into the chat. In the picture, my skin was broken out, my hair was a wild mess, and I had severe buckteeth that made me look completely awkward. The group chat exploded. "Holy crap, Jason! You're brutal! She looks frightening!" "A bet's a bet, Marcus! You gotta bring the monster to the yacht party tomorrow!" Someone immediately set up a poll, betting cash on whether I would actually have the nerve to show up in a swimsuit. Jason instantly dropped ten grand on the poll, betting I would hide in embarrassment. "Sorry to ruin your eyes, bro," he texted the group. "Just think of her as a free circus act." I stared at the screen, a cold smile touching my lips. He never bothered to call me while I was away. He had no idea I spent the last three years in Europe undergoing three hundred thousand dollars' worth of top-tier facial reconstruction and styling. He had no idea that a single unedited photo of my face was now pulling hundreds of thousands of followers online. They wanted a show? Tomorrow on that yacht, I would give them one.

The night before the Global Finals, my boyfriend, our team captain, handed my starting spot to an academy trainee just to indulge her. Every question I got wrong, I had to hand over a piece of gear that had carried me through championships. But every answer had been rigged from the start. In the end, he pulled my account key and gave my Finals seat to the trainee. "Just let her play one match. You're twenty-six, stop being so petty." I snapped my account card in half on the spot and signed the termination papers they'd drawn up. The whole team expected me to crawl back to base. But when the Finals lineups took the stage, I was wearing our rivals' starting jersey, standing on the other side. They still had no idea who had really been carrying whom to those three straight championships.

I'm working the overnight shift at a convenience store, restocking shelves, when a female live streamer bursts through the front door at 2:00 am. She holds her phone out in front of her, broadcasting live to over 600 thousand viewers online. The camera sweeps across the store before zeroing right in on me. "You're still working the overnight shift at a convenience store at your age? Are you just not planning on getting married?" I don't even bother looking up. "Not really interested." She gives me a knowing smile. "Oh. I guess your income doesn't really allow for it, huh?" The comments in the live chat explode instantly. [A night shift clerk talking about marriage? How absurd!] [He's only making 1,500 dollars a month, and he thinks he can afford a wife?] [LMAO! As if any woman would actually marry him.] [Just a sexually frustrated guy trying to save his pride.] [ROFL! What a brutal reality check!] I place the last bag of chips onto the shelf and stand up. "Come. Let's talk." The next day, the streamer is canceled and banned across the internet.

Hearing that my son was dating an A-list pop star, I intentionally put on a pair of comfortable, casual clothes to visit him on set. The moment her livestream began, Janice Swanson's eyes landed on my old-fashioned outfit and the battered thermos in my hand. Pure contempt flashed across her face. The live chat erupted into a frenzy. [Where did this redneck lady come from? Did she wander onto the wrong set?] [She looks so cheap. Are those clothes from a bargain bin?] [Is this one of those relatives who shows up looking for a handout?] Janice covered her mouth and gave a light, knowing laugh, putting on an air of generosity. "Come on, guys. She's just one of Brandon's distant relatives. Her family's having a hard time right now, so it's understandable that she can't afford designer clothes." Then, she lowered her voice and warned me out of range of the mic. "Listen up, old lady. Don't embarrass me. Play along with me later, or I'll make sure you regret it." I stood there, stunned. My outfit might look simple, but it was actually a bespoke handmade piece from a top Italian atelier. It was priceless and unobtainable to the public. Oblivious, Janice shook her head and sighed dramatically for the camera. "I honestly feel bad for her. I heard she was Mr. Castillo's mistress when she was younger. Now that she's getting older and he's cast her aside, she has come crawling to us for money." The story was so absurd that I almost laughed. "Whose mistress? Richard Castillo was begging me last night not to cut off his allowance."

In the continent of Elysium, magic has dried up and monsters have descended. The only way to survive is to participate in a game called "Hide and Seek." Only the winning races receive rewards and a chance to live. The Werewolf Clan drew me—a twenty-two-year-old half-blood werewolf. I was painfully thin, having been locked in a dungeon for the past fifteen years. The live chat scrolling before my eyes was filled with despair: [What the hell? This is our clan’s representative?] [A girl a strong breeze could knock over? Is she even an adult?] [I bet she bursts into tears the second she sees a monster.] [It’s over. We’re so dead. I knew we’d lose this time. Are the werewolves really going to be wiped out...] But they didn't know that staring at the gloomy, ancient castle, I wasn't scared. I was thrilled. Best of all, I’d already found an interesting helper: a man kneeling to kiss the back of my hand, calling me his... "little master."

My wife, three months pregnant, falls into the lake while I'm fishing nearby. As I watch her struggle in the water, I shout anxiously, "Stop thrashing around! You're scaring all the fish away!" My fishing buddy stares at me in disbelief and demands to know why I'm still worried about fishing instead of saving my wife. I calmly rebait my hook and cast it back into the lake. "She'll be fine in the water for a little while, but if that big fish gets away, it's gone for good. Besides, what if I jump in and drown too? Better leave the rescuing to the professionals." Just then, sirens sound in the distance. The rescue team finally arrives, and everyone around us breathes a sigh of relief. But one of the rescuers freezes when he sees me. "Gary? What are you doing here?" Then, he realizes the woman in the lake is my wife. "That's Claire? She went through seven rounds of IVF to get pregnant! Why aren't you saving her? You're the best swimmer on the team!" The tourists around us erupt in outrage. Meanwhile, Claire's struggles grow weaker and weaker until only one hand remains above the surface. At last, my expression changes. I shoot to my feet. Everyone quickly moves aside, assuming I'm finally going to save her. Instead, I pull hard on my fishing rod. A huge fish bursts out of the water. I immediately break into a grin.