Purchase Complete
Before picking up the plastic bag, Lee Do double-checked the position of the price tag. The ten-won label, visibly misaligned from the pack of chewing gum, seemingly pointed toward the bags hanging beneath it.
Lee Do glanced past several unfamiliar handles that had begun trickling into the chat feed. The viewer counter read 126—more than double his usual audience before stumbling into this convenience store. Under normal circumstances, he would have jumped for joy and welcomed every new viewer by name, but right now, he had neither the time nor the composure for pleasantries.
"Sorry to everyone who just got here, but I'll explain later," he murmured grimly. "Right now, I need to get the hell out of here first."
"What?" Lee Do blinked, his gaze snapping back to the scrolling text. "Uploaded what?"
Lee Do clicked his tongue. There was nothing he could do to stop it, and frankly, internet gossip was the least of his concerns. He forced his attention back to the ten-won label.
The first rule. The price of goods cannot be paid in cash.
Yet the price tag on this plastic bag clearly demanded ten won. It was a blatant contradiction.
"If this really costs ten won, what the hell are we supposed to pay with?"
Lee Do paused. Now that he thought about it, that was true. When he had first tried to pay for the beer and snacks, he had asked whether cards were accepted. The part-timer had answered without hesitation: Yes, they do. Yet she had refused to take the card. At the time, he had assumed she was playing a cruel word game.
"...She did say cards work, didn't she?"
"Paying for a finger in installments on a credit card would be a hell of a lot scarier," Lee Do muttered dryly.
Lee Do crouched in front of the plastic bags and studied the label once more. It sat slightly away from the gum, tilted undeniably toward the hanging bags. Even so, his fingers hesitated. He had seen with his own eyes what had become of that middle-aged man; in this place, a single careless error could cost him his life.
"There isn't... some other hidden rule, is there?"
Lee Do froze mid-reach, then slowly straightened his back.
"...Right?"
In any ordinary convenience store, customers didn't grab plastic bags off the shelf themselves; they asked the cashier at checkout. But could he even ask the employee anything? Asking about prices was strictly forbidden. Would asking for a bag violate some unwritten regulation? It was entirely possible.
"Fuck. Doing anything here is terrifying."
Lee Do cut his eyes toward the counter. The night-shift part-timer remained rooted in place, doing absolutely nothing except watching him. When their gazes collided, the corners of her lips curled upward into a calm, pleasant smile. Lee Do immediately broke eye contact.
"I hate that smile most of all."
The woman in the hoodie approached with trembling footsteps. "Do you think... that's the one?"
"Based on the price tag, yes."
"Then if we buy it, we can get out?"
"I sure hope so."
She bit her lower lip, her anxious gaze constantly darting toward the glass entrance. Lee Do pulled out his wallet and checked its contents.
"Do you have a card on you, by any chance?"
"Yes, I do."
"I'll test it first."
"Why you?"
"Well, I'm the one broadcasting this mess."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"...Fair point."
"Are you insane?" Lee Do snapped under his breath.
The woman flinched and stepped back. He waved his hand frantically to dispel the misunderstanding.
"Ah, no, I wasn't talking to you!"
"...Pardon?"
"The chat."
"Oh."
"Right, got it," Lee Do muttered.
The viewer count had reached 173 and was creeping steadily upward. Tearing his eyes away from the screen, he turned back to the display rack.
"Here goes."
He reached toward the plastic bag.
His hand halted mid-air.
"What is it?"
Lee Do blinked and leaned closer. "There's a price tag right here..."
He crouched lower, inspecting the label from the front, then the side, and then the front again. The ten-won sticker was wedged squarely between the gum and the plastic bags.
"...Ah."
Beneath the lower rim of the hanging rack, half-tucked under the shadow of the shelf, rested a tiny, transparent object. It was so small and clear that he had overlooked it entirely. He brought the phone camera right up to it.
"Looks like a disposable lighter," Lee Do whispered.
It was a clear mini-lighter, resting on the lower lip of the rack. And positioned directly beneath it was the label: 10 won.
"...It wasn't the bags at all."
A cold, hollow laugh slipped past his lips. If he had acted a second sooner, he would have grabbed the wrong item. In this convenience store, that tiny blunder could have sealed his fate.
Lee Do glanced up at the viewer count. 241 viewers. Nearly five times his usual audience.
"...People really won't stop coming in."
"To everyone who just arrived," Lee Do said, his voice dropping into a stern, measured register. "Argue about whether this is staged or not later. For now, do not pull pranks saying there's something behind me. Right now, I can't afford to guess what's real and what's a joke."
The chat's frantic scroll noticeably slowed.
"That goes for you too," Lee Do added.
Squatting down, Lee Do inspected the lighter from above, below, and both sides, confirming its exact alignment with the price tag. There was no doubt left: the ten-won price belonged to the lighter.
"This is it."
Slowly, deliberately, he extended his hand toward the shelf. His fingers closed around the plastic body of the lighter. He waited, holding his breath, but neither the skin of his fingertips nor the glowing guidance board showed any reaction.
"Alright."
Standing up, he walked steadily toward the register and set the lighter onto the counter in front of the cashier.
"I'd like to buy this."
The part-timer looked down at the lighter, then lifted her eyes to meet his.
"That will be ten won."
This time, he hadn't asked the price. She had stated it first. Reaching into the inner fold of his wallet, Lee Do drew out his bank card.
"I'll pay by card."
She held out her hand, and this time, her cold fingers accepted the card. Lee Do's heart slammed against his ribs.
Beep.
The terminal fell silent for several agonizing seconds.
The crisp, familiar mechanical chime rang out. The part-timer handed the card back to him, her expression pleasant and flat.
"Your purchase is complete."
Ding-dong.
The glass automatic doors slid open with a sharp hiss before the automated voice had even faded, as if practically shoving him toward the street.
Lee Do stared at the open doors, exhaling a long, shuddering breath.
"Kim."
Lee Do turned his head. The woman in the oversized hoodie stood completely frozen in place. Only he had the right to leave. She did not.
"I can just buy another one of the same thing, right?"
He hurried back to the display rack, scanning the empty shelf space. There had only been one lighter. The woman's face drained of color as she caught his expression.
"Was there... only one?"
"Looks like it."
The chat fractured into fierce debate. Lee Do stared at the threshold, just paces away. Beyond the glass frame lay the open night, yellow streetlights, and an asphalt road. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to bolt.
He had met this woman less than an hour ago. He had no obligation to risk his life for her. But as he hesitated, the image of that black snack bag flashed unbidden across his mind—and the terrified, smiling face of that middle-aged man trapped upon its glossy surface.
"...Fuck."
Lee Do tore his gaze away from the exit.
"Let's find something else."
Her eyes widened. "You're... not leaving?"
"If I leave you behind, the internet will tear me to shreds for the rest of my life."
"Kimchi, you're getting banned," Lee Do muttered without looking up.
A faint, breathless smile touched the woman's lips for the briefest fraction of a second. "Thank you."
"Save the thanks until we're outside."
Together, they scoured the shelves with renewed urgency, examining every label with microscopic care. The viewers joined the search, parsing every frame of the video feed.
"You guys know this place better than I do now," Lee Do said under his breath.
The viewer count had already surged to 386 and showed no signs of slowing down.
"What?"
The rate at which the views were climbing unsettled Lee Do, but he had no spare bandwidth to worry about algorithms. "Isn't there anything else priced in money?"
A hundred won? Nothing. Five hundred won? Nothing. Ordinary monetary denominations simply didn't exist here. Had that ten-won lighter truly been the only exception?
Just as despair began to settle in, a new alert flashed in the chat.
"What about it?" Lee Do glanced down at the lighter clenched in his palm. "What's wrong with it?"
Lee Do snapped his head back toward the shelf where he had found the lighter. In the transparent plastic compartment he had presumed empty, tucked flat against the rear wall, lay a second lighter.
"Wait."
He brought the phone's flashlight right against the clear tray. The transparent plastic casing had blended seamlessly against the acrylic divider, rendering it nearly invisible unless viewed from an exact, narrow angle.
"Look at you, getting popular, Nyannyan," Lee Do murmured with a lopsided grin.
Lee Do checked the tag beneath the slot. 10 won. Same product. Same price.
"This is it."
The woman stepped forward and scrutinized the label herself multiple times, making absolutely certain.
"It matches."
"You have your card, right?"
"Yes."
She reached out and carefully picked up the lighter. Just as before, the warning board overhead remained dormant. She walked over to the checkout counter.
"I'd like to buy this."
"That will be ten won," the cashier replied smoothly.
The woman handed over her card.
Beep.
Ding-dong.
This time, the chat exploded with a desperate barrage urging both of them out the door. The viewer count reached 721.
Lee Do's brow furrowed in irritation. "Hey," he snapped, glaring into the lens. "I told you. Stop spamming that there's something behind me. I can't tell if you're trolling or if something's actually there."
A few guilty messages were deleted instantly, replaced by chastised murmurs.
"Let's go," Lee Do said.
He didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. Crossing the threshold, he stepped through the automatic sliding doors, and the woman followed half a step behind. No wall of refrigerators materialized. His sneakers hit solid asphalt, and the icy bite of late-night autumn air brushed against his cheeks.
Lee Do didn't stop. Five paces. Ten paces. Twenty paces. The woman kept close, matching his stride.
"...I think we made it out," she whispered, her voice trembling.
"Let's put a little more distance between us and that place."
The viewer count crossed 1,327. Lee Do blinked in disbelief, rubbing his eyes.
"...Why are there so many of you?"
He didn't even need to wait for an explanation. A tidal wave of comments flooded the screen, every viewer answering at once.
"Whoa."
For the first time in his streaming career, Lee Do couldn't keep up with the chat. The text surged upward in an unbroken blur. Usually, he could read nearly every single comment with ease, but now sentences flew by faster than his eyes could register. Even amid the torrent, only a handful of familiar names somehow caught his eye: RamenWithKimchi, Wants to Clock Out, Bangguseok Kim, and NyanNyanPunch.
"...This is getting out of hand."
Only when he reached the safety of the pedestrian crosswalk did he finally turn around.
"Let's check."
He turned his smartphone camera toward the alleyway they had just fled.
There was no convenience store.
All that stood there was a dim, darkened commercial storefront. The space beyond the glass doors was pitch-black and barren—no shelves, no glowing signs, no refrigerators. The bright green-and-white banner of 24-Hour Woori Convenience Store had vanished as if it had never existed in this reality.
The woman stared in dazed shock, her voice barely a whisper. "It's gone..."
Lee Do wordlessly aimed the camera closer toward the vacant storefront. Thousands of viewers witnessed the exact same void. Disbelief, demands for recordings, and arguments over whether this was the same spot tore through the chat feed.
The viewer count skyrocketed: 1,891... 2,104... 2,557.
Lee Do stared at the climbing digits, his mouth dry. Even at this very second, someone was clipping his broadcast, uploading it to major boards, and dragging hundreds of new people into the stream.
"We literally just walked out of there!"
Lee Do found himself completely agreeing with that sentiment. The face of the man who had vanished inside that convenience store lingered fresh in his mind. This was not something to laugh and banter about for views.
"Alright, for today's stream—"
He choked on his words. The viewer counter was doing something unnatural: 3,411... 3,708... 4,102... Even without refreshing the app, the number ticked up by the hundreds every second.
"What the hell is this?"
The acceleration turned dizzying: 5,386... 6,104... 7,219...
Lee Do stared dumbly at the screen. In two full years of daily broadcasts, he had never once laid eyes on digits like these. Normally, hitting even a thousand concurrent viewers would have made him shriek with triumph, taking endless screenshots to treasure for the rest of his days. But right now, there was no joy—only a creeping, nauseating dread.
The smiling face of that man trapped on the snack bag flashed across his mind, superimposing itself over the glowing counter. Lee Do swallowed a mouthful of dry spit.
Viewers: 8,431.
"...For now," he began, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat and steadied his tone. "I'm going to wrap up today's stream here."
A roaring wave of objections instantly drowned out the feed.
Yet among the swirling chaos, the four familiar handles cut through the noise.
Lee Do stared quietly at those four lines, exhaling a slow breath. He nodded.
"Yeah."
He moved his thumb over the red broadcast termination button. But right before he tapped it, a final cluster of comments flashed across the bottom of the feed.
Lee Do's brow twitched. He leveled a sharp glare directly into the camera lens.
"And one last thing."
A cold smirk touched his lips.
"Anyone telling me to go back in gets a permanent ban."
He tapped the screen.
The broadcast severed instantly. The live feed vanished, replaced by the application's gray post-stream summary screen. Out of sheer habit, Lee Do glanced toward where the chat box had been, but there were no more scrolling words to read. Only then did the distant rumble of traffic along the main boulevard finally filter through his ringing ears.
He stood motionless on the pavement for a long time. Beside him stood the woman in the oversized hoodie. Behind him lay the cold, pitch-black vacancy of an abandoned commercial storefront. In his jacket pocket rested a ten-won disposable lighter.
Lee Do stared at that final record for a very long time. In two years of broadcasting, it was a number he had never dared imagine even in his wildest dreams.
Yet the only words that slipped past his dry lips were an incredulous whisper:
"...Why the hell did this blow up?"