Life Is the Real Deal

After that whole mess, the drinking session didn't last much longer. The mood had been thoroughly killed, the atmosphere gone ice-cold like someone had dumped a bucket of water over the table.

Nikang's complete transformation into a shell-shocked wreck played no small part in that, either.

She'd been so rattled that she kept insisting I needed to go to the hospital, even though I was perfectly fine. Apparently she was convinced I'd gotten hurt wrestling with that guy.

Just like how it pisses you off when a sober person keeps telling you you're drunk, being treated like a patient when nothing's wrong is incredibly annoying. So to prove I was fine, I scooped Nikang up and carried her straight home.

There'd been a bit of a scene, but nothing that would actually cause problems. I hadn't over-restrained the guy or beaten him senseless — I'd just grabbed his wrist and subdued him cleanly.

If anyone was going to file a lawsuit, it'd be Nikang, the one who'd nearly gotten punched after telling him to go back to his seat. There was zero chance of me getting sued for assaulting him. The witnesses at the bar would back me up on that, too.

The real problem came the next day. That evening, while I was taking a day off stream and browsing the community boards, I stumbled across a certain post.

A video shot in terrible quality. A woman yelling that she's calling security. A man throwing a tantrum and raising his hand. And immediately after — a silver-haired woman snatching his wrist and wrenching it upward.

"Aigoo, for crying out loud…."

I clicked my tongue as I watched the clip.

Yep. The stars of that video were me, Nikang, and the drunk guy. The whole thing we'd gone through just yesterday was already circulating around the community boards.

I had no idea when someone had filmed it, but the video was unmistakably focused on us. The quality was bad, sure, but not recognizing us would have been the weird part.

If I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could tell it was me, then it wasn't a stretch to assume my stream viewers would figure it out too. The post had only just gone up, so nobody had spotted it yet — that was the only reason it hadn't blown up.

It wasn't like I was reluctant to tell my viewers this had happened.

I mean, I hadn't committed a crime or anything. If anything, I'd stopped an incident before it could happen. Nikang herself had thanked me endlessly for it. I'd done something worth praising, plain and simple.

Still, I was a little embarrassed about it, so I was hoping the video would spread as slowly as possible.

The fact that it had already hit the popular posts meant that ship had sailed, but I still desperately hoped my viewers at least wouldn't realize it was me.

Yeah. My wish was clearly not going to come true.

"Yeah, well… some of you already know and some of you don't. Long story short, I was out drinking with Nikang, some guy picked a fight, and yeah. Stuff happened."

I'd hoped this topic wouldn't come up on stream at all. But to some degree, I'd seen it coming. The moment my name started getting thrown around on the community boards, I knew this situation was inevitable.

I'd also known this question was going to come up for sure. How the hell had I subdued a full-grown man that effortlessly?

Nikang, who'd been right there, and the security guard who'd come running — they'd both asked me the same thing. That's how abnormal and bizarre the whole scene must have looked.

I hadn't hit any of the guy's weak points. I hadn't twisted any joints like some self-defense technique. I'd just purely, simply grabbed his wrist and overpowered him with raw strength. That was only possible if your physical ability was overwhelmingly superior to the other person's.

Honestly, I couldn't give people a clear answer about the part they were most curious about.

I barely had a sense of how I'd done it myself — what kind of answer was I supposed to give when they asked?

When things got critical, the world suddenly slowed down? When I put force into the hand holding him, the guy couldn't move an inch?

Both of those sounded way too uncanny, so I dressed it up into something that at least made sense.

"I just… grabbed him because it looked dangerous, yeah. I think the boxing lessons I took with Coach Im Jeong-hwan a while back might've helped."

"You guys sure know a lot, considering the quality was so bad you could barely see anything. Oh, a high-res version came out? Beats me. I have no idea who filmed it… I didn't even know I was being recorded."

It was while I was chatting with the viewers about the whole bar incident that it happened.

"Huh? His Instagram?"

That was a pretty shocking piece of news. Yesterday's drunk — a guy whose name I didn't even know, whose face was the only thing I could remember — and now word was that his personal info was already half-doxxed.

The viewers' opinions were split. Roughly speaking, the "that's going too far" camp was at about three, the "go kill him" camp at five, and the "I'll follow your lead" camp at two.

Honestly, even that ratio was impressive. Viewers fundamentally loved anything sensational.

I wasn't going to judge them for it. That was the essence of internet streaming to begin with. What was so wrong about chasing thrills and raw entertainment?

But this time, I really didn't feel like it. The guy getting doxxed was inevitable at this point. In an age where the internet had advanced this far, the moment you caused an incident, getting your personal info dug up was just how things started.

But hunting down his personal social media just to pile on insults or send him DMs was a whole different beast. It was a step further — less like watching an incident from the sidelines and more like dipping one foot into it yourself.

Plus, I'd been starting to feel the weight of my own influence lately. Being a streamer meant sitting in a position where I could actually make the "Buster Call" my viewers joked about into a real thing.

If I whipped them up with a "let's gooo~," most of the people watching right now would mindlessly pile on and flood him with abuse. Even though they personally had zero grudge against the guy. Mob mentality was a terrifying thing.

And if someone got sued over it? Life was the real deal, and you measured your own angles — I couldn't take responsibility for them that far.

Beyond the possibility of viewers getting countersued, there was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠also a psychological burden that made me hesitate.

I mean, if I genuinely issued an attack order, wouldn't that just be mass cyberbullying?

"That one's out of my hands. If they went even after I told them not to, they might not even be my viewers — maybe they just saw it on the community boards and went to terrorize him on their own."

There were always people like that. The hyena types who showed up whenever there was a fight brewing online.

I figured the guy must be having a rough time with those people latched onto him — but on the other hand, that level of heat felt about right. I hadn't liked him, so having someone else cuss him out for me was pretty satisfying.

He had done something wrong, after all. Yeah — a full swarm of my entire audience would be overkill, but a little spice of that intensity was fair game.

Nikang's scream was still ringing in my ears. Judging by the look of him, his hands had a bad habit of wandering. I hoped this would be the wake-up call that fixed it.

"Alright, forget about that guy and let's just do our thing. Whether he gets flamed into filing a lawsuit or just burns his account, that's his problem."

About three hours into the stream after that, word came in that the guy's account had been deactivated.