Can't Take My Eyes Off
VR. A word that stands for virtual reality.
To most of us, it conjures the image of strapping something over your head and experiencing things that don't actually exist. The precise mechanics are a mystery, but the gist is simple enough — hook a device up to your computer, slap it on your face, and suddenly a virtual world is right there in front of your eyes.
Even the VTubers popping up left and right these days have some connection to VR. Projecting an avatar on screen, moving your hands, swinging your arms and legs — I'd heard you need VR-type headgear for all of that.
With the news constantly yammering on about how the metaverse has arrived, it wasn't like I had zero interest in VR myself. And a donation claiming that playing on VR instead of PC was way more fun had piqued my curiosity more than a little.
The viewers didn't seem entirely uninterested either. Summarizing the chat, half the fun was just watching a streamer flail around the first time they put on a headset and something unexpected happened.
Rather than simply showing gameplay footage and in-game plays, having the streamer actually wear the VR gear and move around made the whole broadcast far more dynamic and varied.
Of course, that came with the downside that people would get so absorbed watching the streamer that the game itself became an afterthought — immersion in the actual gameplay could drop. But then again… that wasn't exactly different from how things already were.
It was a pre-existing problem, really. My room's viewers were way too obsessed with the cam that showed my face.
Shrink the cam window even a little and the chat would instantly catch fire — a full-blown people's candlelight protest would break out. Honestly, I couldn't tell whether these people had come to watch the game or to watch me.
Viewers who normally spent every stream bickering and tearing into each other would, in moments like that, unite as one and set the place ablaze. Just watching it was enough to make me sigh.
And yet, deep down, the thought that they wanted me that badly — that they wanted to look at me just as much as they wanted to watch me play — didn't feel all that bad. If that counted as a serious condition, then sure, I had a serious condition.
"Alright then, want to look at some VR options together? Even aside from the game we just played, once you've got a VR set there are all kinds of other things you can do with it."
And so, an unscheduled shopping spree began.
The item up for purchase: VR equipment. The audience and show host combined: a cool fifteen thousand people.
"Hmm."
The chat wasn't wrong — VR gear prices were no joke. The baseline started in the low hundreds of dollars, and the expensive ones casually cleared a thousand without breaking a sweat.
There were twenty-to-thirty-dollar options too, but those were smartphone-only. To pair one with a PC, you needed at least a three-hundred-dollar unit.
Honestly? Three hundred dollars? That was an amount I could comfortably invest for the stream.
I wanted to try it myself, the viewers were interested, and buying a VR set meant I wouldn't have to stress about content for the next few days. Factor all that in and I would have been willing to drop a thousand, not just three hundred.
Besides, I'd recently been doing Ionix supporter work and raking in a tidy side income from it.
I hadn't mentioned it on stream for fear of making the viewers uncomfortable, but my earnings had long since reached the point where money simply wasn't something I needed to worry about.
The thoughtful, deliberating look I was putting on right now was partly performance. Not that I wasn't actually deliberating — I just wasn't deliberating over the price. It was the specs and the various options that had me weighing things carefully.
But the viewers watching me apparently assumed I was stuck on the cost, because out of nowhere the donations started rolling in.
"No, no. Guys. You really don't have to do this. Uh… hehe. Well, thank you. I'll take it gratefully."
"No no, absolutely not. I cannot dance for you. You know how this works, right? Do it too often and it loses all its scarcity value. You can't jack the stimulus threshold too high. Dopamine hits have to be occasional — keep it constant and your brain melts. Anyway, I will put this money to excellent use for my own selfish desires. Kidding. I'm buying the VR. Yes. Look at how vicious chat is getting. Don't scare me like that. I was going to buy VR from the start."
And with that, I purchased the roughly thousand-dollar VR setup I'd been eyeing and even showed the viewers the order confirmation. Modern convenience being what it was, I'd have the product in my hands as soon as tomorrow.
"Setup, huh."
Fair point. I wasn't completely hopeless with machines, but I wasn't exactly gifted with my hands either. There was a real chance I'd end up burning an entire setup stream just fumbling around.
"I'll just call someone to help."
"So it's me again? Every single time something comes up, I'm the first person you call, huh?"
A woman with black hair and black eyes grumbled her way into the room.
Ririyang. I'd called her over as my helper for setting up the VR.
"You never call me normally, and then the second you need something, suddenly I'm your girl. Hmph."
Ririyang seemed to be in a bit of a snit.
Honestly, I didn't fully understand the reaction. If there was nothing going on, why would I contact her? What exactly were we supposed to do during the ordinary times when nothing was happening? Women this age were exhausting, I swear.
But I knew perfectly well that saying any of that out loud would get me nowhere good.
"So, you don't want to be here? Coming over to my place?"
I went with something else instead. As if she wouldn't have messaged me all hurt about why I hadn't called her if I'd asked someone else.
After more than a year of dealing with each other, I could read Ririyang's psychology without even looking at her face anymore.
Sure enough, she continued with a faintly flustered expression.
"No, it's not that I don't want to… More importantly, the layout of your place changed a bit, huh."
"I pushed the bed back — felt like it opened the room up more. Better than last time, right?"
Successfully diverted. Seizing the opening, I even managed to bring out some hand-drip coffee, then got down to consulting her on today's actual business.
"But I don't really know either. I barely do VR streams."
"I saw you doing something with it last time."
"That was Hangang oppa who came over and set it up for me… Or should I call him right now? Want me to try sweet-talking him into it?"
If an expert was willing to come, nothing could be better. I already knew Hangang personally, so it wouldn't even be awkward.
"Just ask him. Tell him I'll buy him something expensive for dinner."
"Aigoo, and here I am, such a busy man. Really. I'm not the kind of guy you can just summon whenever you need a setup done, you know."
Hangang arrived fast. Twenty minutes, tops. I'd known he was close with Kayak, but I hadn't expected him to show up this immediately.
Ririyang found herself feeling oddly resentful toward Hangang as he walked through the door.
"What are you talking about? You barely even stream these days, oppa. Your viewers are always asking where you went."
"That's one thing, and this is another. You really are buying me something good, right?"
"What would you like?"
Hangang thought for a moment before answering.
"How about raw fish? Winter's peak season for flounder."
"Assorted sashimi with flounder in it, and a round of soju too."
"That's our Kayak-nim. She really knows how to put people to work."
Kayak ran a quick mental scan. Was there a raw fish place nearby? Well, if not, delivery would do just fine.
Humming to himself, Hangang got straight to work, and before long he had news.
"That should about do it. Want to put this on and try moving around? The finer settings are better adjusted as you go, once you're actually using it."
Kayak settled the distinctive eye-covering VR headset over her head. She flinched in surprise for a moment, then slowly found her footing.
"Oh…"
"Pretty wild, right? Try moving forward and back slowly first."
Kayak took careful steps. She lifted one foot, then spread her legs and sidestepped.
That cautious movement only lasted a short while. Before long, as if she'd finished adapting, her motions gradually grew bolder.
"Wow, guess that's a natural-born talent for you. She adapts so fast. You'll need to move pretty quick for gaming anyway, so go ahead — move however you want."
"Okay."
As if she'd been waiting for those exact words, Kayak started thrusting her arms and legs out with force. With a face and body that were the spitting image of Camilla, even her movements were sweeping and fluid, like she was dancing. Enough to draw genuine admiration from anyone watching.
"Ahem…"
Hangang, however, could only clear his throat and turn his head away at the unexpected sight. Because, well. Kayak's substantial center of gravity had started swaying vigorously in time with her movements.
"Whoa…"
Meanwhile Ririyang, relatively freer from such social conventions as a fellow woman, didn't miss a single beat of that motion and drank it all in. It really was a sight that left you with nothing but pure awe.