From Now On, Kill Each Other
As a general rule, reality never quite lives up to the imagination.
The real face of a no-cam streamer. The person whose voice alone you knew. The true identity of a female gallery regular who'd racked up a cult following. And so on.
There was a reason people had started calling a VTuber's real face "the red pill." From time immemorial, the truth had a habit of betraying people's expectations in the most devastating way possible.
A chaotic, painful truth versus a peaceful, satisfying lie. And yet, despite everyone's attempts to stop them, there had always been those who stubbornly set out in search of the truth.
Historically, explorers of that particular breed were destined for disappointment every single time.
The utopia they'd gone looking for had never existed in the first place. What they cracked open, crowing that they'd found the One Piece, was never some ultimate treasure — it was Pandora's box.
From the start, the odds were about as good as a long-shot gamble.
A washed-up veteran who'd been playing a game nobody else touched for years. The founder of a community overwhelmingly dominated by men. A freak who adored Camilla to a suspicious degree. The promotional ambassador of a dead game. An immortal ranker.
For someone carrying all those descriptors to also be a woman was already astonishing enough — and on top of that, a beauty?
Realistically, what were the chances of that?
Yu Sia herself was something of a rare specimen — a female gallery regular who also happened to be a moderator — but next to Kayak, she was nothing.
Which was why Yu Sia hadn't let herself get her hopes up. Expectation only made the disappointment worse, so ahead of the meeting she'd made a deliberate effort not to picture Kayak's face at all.
For someone who, as a fan, had half-regarded Kayak as a celebrity, that was no small feat.
After all, ever since the days when they'd founded the gallery together, back when Kayak was streaming with no mic and no cam, Yu Sia had wondered countless times what she might look like — what her voice might sound like.
Embarrassing memories, all of them. Looking back now, it had been something almost like a parasocial crush. The kind of meaningless daydreaming everyone did in school.
Of course, that had been back when her head was full of flowers, and more recently she'd already learned that Kayak was a woman. So that was all behind her now.
In any case, as a fan, Yu Sia had resolved that even if Kayak's appearance turned out nothing like what she'd imagined, she would never let a single flicker of disappointment show.
Strictly speaking, there was no reason to be disappointed in the first place.
She hadn't liked Kayak for something as shallow as that. The voice had been surprisingly good, sure — but Yu Sia had been a fan since the no-cam, no-mic days.
That put her in a completely different category from the rootless newcomers who'd sprung up like weeds lately. The ones who called themselves fans after getting hooked on Kayak's voice or her chest. The ones who littered the gallery with sexual harassment posts.
Yu Sia was different from people like that.
Unlike those who fell for someone lightly based on surface-level traits alone, she had liked Kayak for who she was on the inside, going all the way back.
She could say that with confidence. And she genuinely carried a quiet pride about it, too.
"…"
But right now, face-to-face with Kayak, Yu Sia realized that all that pride — all that fretting about not looking disappointed — had been completely, utterly meaningless.
All she could do was stare, blank-faced.
What was this woman? What on earth was this face?
The more she looked, the more astonishing it became. Similar to Camilla, and yet, on closer inspection, something else entirely — as if someone had taken Camilla and rendered her into a real person, and this was exactly how she'd turn out.
"—nim? …yo."
Yu Sia had been gazing at that face for a long while, the way one might admire a work of art, completely unaware that Kayak was calling her name —
"Sia-nim!"
"Y-yes?"
Kayak suddenly shoved her face right up close and called her name, and Yu Sia jolted and answered.
"Are you feeling okay? Your face is all red."
"No, I'm fine… Yes…"
Yu Sia gave a small nod to Kayak, who was looking at her with worried eyes.
She hadn't done a single thing yet, and already the meeting with her idol was a success.
"So Sia-nim is a woman. I had no idea."
"Yeees… I thought Kayak-nim was a guy, too."
"Jaejun-ssi is a surprise as well. I'd heard from Sihyeon that you used to do video work."
"Yes. Ahem! Yes. I majored in that in college."
Yu Sia, looking dazed as if she might be unwell, and Kim Jaejun, answering stiffly the moment he was addressed.
Both of them seemed tense; neither looked particularly well.
The second my questions ended, silence settled over the table.
These weren't even formal interview questions — I'd just been asking out of curiosity. But these two seemed to think every question of mine was the starting gun for a job interview.
Honestly, I had no intention of staging some rigid, by-the-book interview. Who was I to be interviewing them, anyway?
I'd just wanted to chat about this and that and get a feel for both of their personalities.
But whether it was nerves or just how they were wired by nature…
Come to think of it, the last time I'd met Kim Jaejun, he'd been just as off-kilter in front of me.
Even now, neither of them could hold my gaze while answering. Whenever I tried to make eye contact, their pupils would tremble and they'd subtly spin their eyes away.
What was with them? If this had been an interview at some major corporation, both of them would have been eliminated on the spot.
I wasn't exactly the most outgoing person myself, but somehow these two seemed even more socially awkward than I was. I'd been planning to loosen the atmosphere a bit first and then ease into a conversation about editing, but…
"When did you two start watching my streams?"
"I've been watching since the first stream. Not the really old ones — the first stream after you came back."
"I-I've been watching since the very first stream. The real original ones."
"Hmm. I see."
And with that, silence fell again.
That, too, had just been a filler question because I had nothing else to say — but Kim Jaejun, whose viewing history was shorter, looked as restless as if it had been a real interview question. Yu Sia, for her part, wore a faintly triumphant expression.
Should we just drink?
When it came to people getting comfortable with each other, nothing was easier than borrowing the power of alcohol.
Sit around together, tip back one glass, then two, and as eyes and tongues loosen and everyone starts showing the ridiculous sides of themselves they'd never reveal to strangers —
Even a naturally taciturn person would, without realizing it, get swept up in the mood and let slip a word or two of whatever they'd been holding inside.
Of course, the easier the high, the louder the voices got, and fights broke out often enough because of it — but that was a risk well worth taking. The upside of getting close that easily was overwhelmingly larger.
Should I just go for it? For real?
"Haa…"
I was swept up in the impulse for a moment, then came back to my senses.
After the mess that had just gone down recently, I was already getting tempted again? Absolutely not. Not happening.
I smacked my lips in regret. The two of them, pretending not to notice, kept sneaking glances at me.
Alcohol was, unfortunately, off the table. I'd already asked all the ceremonial questions worth asking. Time to move on.
I stood up abruptly from my seat and asked,
"You two play Abyss, right?"
"…You want me to 1v1 Camilla against this person?"
Yu Sia looked at Kim Jaejun once, then back at me, as if double-checking that she'd understood correctly.
I smiled and nodded in confirmation.
We were at a PC bang near the café. Being a weekend afternoon in a reasonably busy area, the place was fairly packed. We'd almost failed to find three seats together.
Fortunately, we'd managed to claim a decent spot.
After confirming the mice and keyboards at our seats were working fine, I'd just finished explaining to the two of them why we'd come to a PC bang.
"Is it like… the winner becomes the editor, or something…?"
"Not exactly — but it does put a few plus points in my mental scorebook."
"That's the same thing…"
"From now on, kill each other. Got it. Understood."
Honestly, their editing skills were about on par with each other. That being the case, I had no choice but to pick the person I clicked with better.
This Camilla 1v1 match was meant to figure out who was more compatible with me.
Among people who loved Camilla and were good with her, there were no bad people. My plan was to use this chance to see who was the superior Camilla player.
I just held the seats and watched their screens.
"Oh, Platinum. Jaejun-nim, what's your most-played?"
"I play a lot of Lenok."
"Hmm. Lenok…"
I couldn't hide my disappointment. Still playing something like Lenok? Through this tournament, I'd clearly demonstrated that Lenok was an inferior hero to Camilla.
"…Didn't you play Lenok in the tournament too?"
"That was for the performance. My main is Camilla. You saw that yourself, Jaejun-nim."
"I'm a Camilla main!"
Yu Sia, on the other hand, proudly showed me her screen. It wasn't an empty boast — her match history was plastered wall-to-wall with Camilla.
"Oh… you have played a lot. But."
For some reason, that match history was stained blood-red.
How many losses in a row is this?
"Hehe…. It's part of the grinding process. You said it yourself on stream, Teacher. Camilla is hard when you first start."
"You just said she's your most-played."
"Sh-she is my most-played now! I've played her the most this season!"
Yu Sia puffed out her chest with a little ahem. The dozens of Camilla-only games in her history were certainly impressive. She'd practiced after watching my streams, she said.
"Think you can beat Jaejun-nim? He's Platinum."
"If it's a Camilla mirror match, I should still have a shot… right?"
The tier gap between them was significant. Yu Sia was Silver; Kim Jaejun was Platinum.
But Yu Sia had a point — this wasn't ranked. It was a simple 1v1.
With Camilla locked in as the 1v1 character, Yu Sia, who'd been playing her until recently, would handle her far better.
Huh. I'd set this up myself, but it might turn out to be a surprisingly close match.
In high spirits, I settled in to watch their game.