Laying Down the Law
And so, G-STAR came and went.
Even if the whole thing had been a cosplay outing under Nikang's direction, it hadn't been a bad experience at all. Posing for photos like the other cosplayers, browsing the booths, meeting fans—every bit of it had been the kind of fun that sticks with you.
Someone once said you have to live a life of density. They were right.
People always say time seems to move faster the older you get. Fall into the same familiar routines day after day and everything dulls over, and before you know it, nothing of real substance has happened—yet time has already slipped clean past you.
Novel things you've never tried before. Interesting, unusual experiences. You have to deliberately seek those out and keep your brain stimulated. Only then does a stimulated mind forge vivid memories, and time stops feeling like it's racing away.
On that front, I hadn't felt time flying by lately at all. The old me would already have been muttering about another year gone, another birthday coming, cursing how merciless the years were.
These days were different. G-STAR just now, the pro league match I'd watched live before that, sitting in on Sihyeon's class observation, meeting the editors and hiring them—none of it was anything I'd ever done before.
There might have been some rough patches, but there was never a dull moment. The current me was living a life of density.
Streaming, which I turned on if not every day then often enough, was another factor that kept my life from going flat. Even when I was just playing the same old Abyss, one day's stream and the next day's stream always had a different flavor, and that alone made my everyday life more colorful.
At that, chat flooded with stuff like oh, cosplay, Camilla appearance. I just shook my head at the sight of it.
"What costume change. Who wears something like that on stream. You sit in comfy clothes if you want to stream for a long time. Are you looking down on the girl streamers who broadcast in cute outfits right now… When did I ever say that. You, get out."
A minor side effect of G-STAR.
Once it came out that unlike Nikang or Ririyang, Kayak had just changed clothes and that was the end of it, viewers somehow kept asking me to switch outfits. Like changing clothes alone counted as cosplay.
Getting Camilla's default skin look as a gift from Nikang had been a bonus. She said it wouldn't suit her anyway so I could have it. Well, I took it gladly. The outfit itself was pretty, and I figured wearing it around on my own sometimes might be a nice change of pace.
But that didn't mean I was going to put it on just because the viewers asked. Like any human relationship, someone who does everything they're asked loses their appeal. I had zero intention of becoming an easy woman—or an easy streamer.
Outfits like that are supposed to be event-only, worn once in a while. That's the golden rule. Same as the dense life I was talking about earlier—even a fresh look gets old if you see it every single day. In short, pacing matters.
More than that, these people just wouldn't take no for an answer. Always poking and prodding.
Was it really because the new viewer count had shot up lately? Ever since the numbers grew, the proportion of viewers who just wouldn't listen had grown right along with them.
Which meant it was time to lay down the law.
"Hmm…."
A few sharp-eyed viewers were already typing, but it was already too late.
I'd start simple—with the cam.
Click—
One mouse click, and my face on stream—the cam feed that had been showing me—vanished.
The ones who looked like recent newcomers were still going on about the cam being off, begging me to turn it back on, clearly not grasping the situation yet.
On the other hand, the ones who'd been watching my streams a while—the longtime regulars—knew exactly what this was.
"This kind of thing is collective responsibility, you know. Chat is basically a group too. When you live in a group, you get chewed out together even when you personally didn't do anything wrong. College group projects, the military… uh, yeah, I shouldn't be talking about that."
The military had slipped out naturally as an example. But I couldn't actually speak on that. I'd gone, sure, and tasted the pure essence of group living there—but none of that existed anymore.
Just recently some other female streamer had put her foot in her mouth about the military and gotten completely canceled. Kim Jaejun and Yu Sia had both given me a firm warning to be careful on that subject.
I was watching my words too. The smartest move all around was just never bringing up the military on stream in the first place.
"Hmph…."
I clearly had a contrarian streak in me—a bit of that contrary frog personality. The second people just accepted it like this, my mood completely recovered.
So I clicked the mouse again.
Click—
…Okay, this was kind of fun.
And with the chat turning so positive again, I somehow got the urge to mess with them a little more.
This time I adjusted the cam size. I didn't turn it off, but the cam window on stream started shrinking smaller and smaller.
And so I shrank the cam, then enlarged it again, watching the viewers' reactions roll in the whole time.