“Hey, guys, it’s your favorite mukbang-overwatch-football-sims streamer ManduBoy on your feed!” Woohyun greets his viewers cheerily with a wave before lifting up the two drinks he holds in his hands. “Why, yes JackOfAll00, this is my favorite hot tea and cola combination drink!”

He chuckles as the chat lights up with exclamations of support and disgust (more of the latter really). “Ohhh quite a few angry people tonight! Well, you’re about to get angrier if you’re here for an overwatch commentary because it’s a Sims 4 night with my new schedule which is up on my website which my kind bots are spamming riiiight now!”

Woohyun switches into the Sims 4 screen, checking his monitors to see if the greenscreen is working. “I’m still getting used to this fancy greenscreen the boyfie set up for me but hey it’s nice to not have you guys yelling at me to move my handsome face because you can’t see how badly my sims need a shower or some sh—sugar like that.”

He blinks innocently at the camera with a too-wide grin. He’s well aware that everyone on stream is probably going to make a clip of this so he makes sure to angle his face just right.

“Ah, yeah, the boyfie is the best. He’s swamped with work right now but once this project launch is done he’ll be puttering in the background as per usual. No, kelsey3000, I will not be showing pics of his face because it’s for me and me alone.” He wags his fingers at the camera.

“Anyhoo, I was thinking of doing another request lot so head on over to my Twitter right now and vote on the polls!” He schools his face into a stern look. “Remember, vote DON’T comment. Again, vote DON’T COMMENT.”

“Oh, thanks for the sweet cheers honeymandu, iNeedAGF69—no one is going to date you with that username, come on, man!” He continues reading off the list of cheers and follows, making sure to insert a burn here and there to keep his watchers entertained. It’s exhausting but he really wants people to feel like he’s actually paying attention instead of mindlessly reciting what’s on the screen.

Woohyun pauses to take a drink, looking pointedly at the camera as he takes measured sips from both his mug and his glass. It’s an inside joke but unfortunately for Woohyun the exact moment he checks his screen a comment pops up. Not just any comment but a comment from Sim Guru Fox, his mortal enemy, the bane of his existence. A little bit of the tea spills from the side of his mouth and he hastily swipes the trail away with the back of his hand to the deep consternation of his adoring streamers.

“YOU!” He exclaims, pointing to the camera for dramatic effect. He announces the presence of the spawn of Satan, Woohyun’s archnemesis, with exaggerated vitriol (that is also littered with tiny giggles as Sim Guru Fox blubbers around the comments asking how to make his font bold).

When no one on chat offers particularly helpful advice, Sim Guru Fox settles for writing in all caps, “BUILD CHALLENGE: TINY HOUSE, 32 SQUARES, 12000 SIMOLEONS, 3 SIM HOUSEHOLD, NO MOVE OBJECTS, NO DEBUG.”

Woohyun scoffs. “Easy peasy.” He’s bluffing a little because he’s fairly new to building on the sims, he enjoys the game play much more and up until a few months ago, he’d never played on a lot that he himself built. It changed when he did a live reaction stream to lilsimsie’s video series “Everything Wrong With [Insert Expansion, Game, Stuff Pack] and Sim Guru Fox came into his chat and challenged him to do original builds on stream.

He boots up a new game and uses his self-sim and his partner to test the lot using the genetic randomizer to make them a baby. Woohyun stops before he moves on. “Wait, wait. There’s no way I’m doing this with a toddler. Although… Hang on, toddler beds are much smaller than regular beds so that might save us some much needed space. What do you guys think?”

Sim Guru Fox: Do you think? Ever?

“Ya!” He yells crossly. “I am talking to my loyal streamers, my beautiful yeobongs, not you, you fox-faced miscreant.”

He’s slightly proud of the insult but his pride takes quite the beating when Sim Guru Fox replies with, “It’s spelled m-i-s-c-r-e-a-n-t, by the way. And my boyfriend loves my face.”

“I know how to spell it!” He exclaims. “Thank you recon8ct for defending my honor but no, those are the boyfies degrees on the wall. I’m still working on mine because I am young and beautiful and really not into taking full loads that will only burden me with higher fees and force me to work for corporate, full offense to boyfie. You could be here cuddling with me and the cats right now if you’d listened to me.”

He thanks more followers for cheers and follows and replies to some more chats as the loading screen … loads, pointedly ignoring the questions about whether his boyfriend is also watching the stream. As his family of three appears on the screen, he quickly moves them into the smallest empty lot, making sure to change their household funds to reflect 12,000 simoleons.

“Okay, cheats off after this! Let’s do this!” Woohyun says clapping his hands and rubbing them together. He follows lilsimsie’s advice and builds his main box, adding onto it here and there to make the build look more interesting. His builds are usually more modern-contemporary so they’re not really “toddler-friendly” but he tries to go with what he knows to make this challenge as easy as possible.

He chatters on as he goes through the exterior of the build, be the fact that he even has to use the precious budget for a mailbox and outside bin. “I swear, this is just one of the dumbest things ever. Why do I have to do this? This is my self-sim’s hard earned, or hard-cheated, money! If they want to send me bills and keep my home nice and tidy, they should be the ones spending for it.”

Woohyun is as happy as he could possibly be with the exterior given such a limited budget when he moves on to the interior… which he realizes is much too small for the proposed number of inhabitants. “Why did no one point out how freaking tiny this is? Wait, I need a floorplan… Or, geez. Okay, yes, fine, Mr. Roboto and company, you did point it out and I did say ‘It’s fine’ a million times but… YOU SHOULD HAVE POINTED IT OUT IN ALL CAPS?”

He rubs the back of his neck and exhales, pouting as he tries to figure out the layout of the build.

Sim Guru Fox: Easy peasy, huh?

“Don’t speak.” Woohyun warns, lifting a finger. “I can totally do this.”

Sim Guru Fox: Within this century or what?

Woohyun ignores him (making sure that the Sim Guru is well aware that he saw the message and is choosing to ignore him) and thanks his streamers for the cheers before going into a mini rant about evil Sim Gurus who hijack streams instead of focusing on making a better game.

It takes him an hour and a half of deleting and editing before he finally has an exterior and a layout he can be happy with (and is actually playable). He had to take a fifteen minute ice cream break when Sim Guru Fox and his streamers very unhelpfully pointed out, after he had settled on a bathroom configuration, that since he had a toddler, he needed a bathtub and a potty, but he finally has a fully functional build with exactly zero simoleons left.

“Hah! In your face, Sim Guru Fox!” Woohyun gloats. It’s definitely the most hideous build he’s ever done but he completed the challenge. He pouts at the comments. “Don’t be mean, she’s a fixer upper but with a few extra simoleons, we could glam her up. If only windows didn’t cost like, a GAZILLION simoleons, she’d be much prettier.”

Woohyun continues talking and chatting, going back to build mode since one of his patrons requested he do a ten minute improve your build challenge with the same restrictions except with an unlimited budget and move objects. “Sim Guru Fox ran away with his tail between his legs! That’s a really good one, jjongie09.”

Woohyun is about to start the timer when he hears the unmistakable sound of his boyfriend entering their shared apartment. “Hang on, boyfie break!” He runs offscreen, nearly forgetting to remove his headset (it wouldn’t be the first time).

“Boyfie!” He squeals excitedly, fitting his palms to his boyfriend’s face before planting an obnoxiously wet kiss onto his squished face. “I’m just going to finish up a build challenge then I can start dinner, okay?”

“Eung, thanks, baby. I’m going to wash up. I e-mailed your paper back, I looked it over during the train ride home and it looks really good.” His boyfriend said, rubbing their noses together before he moved further into the apartment, Woohyun couldn’t get a word in before their cats found their way to the other man, rubbing against him contentedly. For a guy who claimed to be afraid of living things, he sure did attract a lot of them. He stopped at the door of his office to watch Sunggyu bend down to murmur a quiet hello to their two companions. Laughing a little as Sunggyu flinched when Angery booped their noses, Woohyun tuned back into his stream with a deep sigh.

“Guys, I have an announcement. I… am in love with the boyfie.” He said. The chat went wild as per usual.

Have some mercy for the chronically single!!!

You guys are damn cute!

MY DADS!!!!!

Drop the pics, man.

Fifty cheers for these confident gays!

You always do this…

Woohyun is blushing a little as his streamers keep the string of compliments and well-wishes coming. “Okay, time to focus, we have a home improvement challenge and a boyfie to feed!”

He wraps up the stream well after that, just in time for Sunggyu to stick his head into the office. “Feed me!” Sunggyu demands. “What kind of relationship is this? I work, I clean, I care for the kids! The least you could do is feed me!”

Woohyun carefully shuts down his equipment, his smile growing as Sunggyu continues to nag him. “I thought we weren’t going to call our cats our children?”

Sunggyu narrows his eyes, “I’m not talking about the cats, I’m talking about those brats we call friends. I ran into Dongwoo at lunch today and he was about to get scammed! Again! And Myungsoo and Sungyeol picked up yet another expensive hobby! They’re going to be stealing from my lunch box and eating ramyun for dinner for months to pay for goddamned golf clubs.”

As Woohyun pads to the kitchen, Sunggyu follows with the now empty mug and glass in his hands. “How was your day? I had three developers meetings today and I am tired of hearing my own voice.” Sunggyu asks as he deposits the dirty drink containers in the sink.

“It was good until a bored Sim Guru decided to hijack my stream.” Woohyun replies playfully, voice low. He’d already done most of the mise en place after his last class and before the stream so cooking is just a matter of dumping the right ingredient in at the right time. “God, it took me forever to decide on that first layout and then you guys reminded me about the toddler! I was about to have an aneurysm!”

Sunggyu laughs, setting the table with rice and side dishes. “I can’t believe you considered not giving the toddler any toys! That was just spiteful.”

“That kid was a headache and a half, okay? I couldn’t even play test properly because toddlers are too hard to control!” Woohun exclaims as he puts the finishing touches on their main dish. He doesn’t bother plating it up as Sunggyu would just complain about having to do even more dishes. “What was that about by the way? That challenge had nothing to do with the surveys you guys have been sending out.”

Sunggyu shoots him a tired smile, “Maybe I just missed you during work?”

Woohyun rolls his eyes at the misdirection and tries not to look so pleased. He loves moments like this, when Sunggyu is too tired from work to filter his feelings, sure, he said that to distract Woohyun from what EA had planned but he also meant it. He's fully fluent in Kim Sunggyu by now. “Dig in before you face plant onto your rice.”

“That was one time!” Sunggyu complains, spooning up some stew.

After dinner, Sunggyu shoos Woohyun away to the bedroom so he can do the dishes in peace. Woohyun checks on the cats and touches base with their friends, nagging at them to stop making his boyfriend worry so much, before settling into the bed.

He wonders how Sunggyu wants him, on his back? His side? He’s in the middle of testing out positions when Sunggyu wanders in, practically collapsing onto the bed and snuggling into Woohyun until his head is tucked under the younger’s chin, arms wrapped around Woohyun’s body with one leg thrown over Woohyun’s hip.

“Hi.” Sunggyu breathes out.

Woohyun replies, “Hi.” He shifts a little to get more comfortable and makes sympathetic coos at Sunggyu’s whining. “Here, just like this. We’re good, okay?”

“I’m tired.”

Woohyun pats Sunggyu’s hair and plants a kiss on the crown of his head. “So sleep. I’ve got you, my fox.”