The Stream Blew Up

"Excuse me."

A voice spoke up from beside him. It was the woman in the oversized hoodie.

"Yes?"

"What... what are we supposed to do now?"

"...I honestly don't know."

Lee Do didn't have a clue either. Should they head straight to the police? And if they did, what could they possibly say?

"We got trapped inside an anomalous convenience store where the price tags demanded human fingers, an older gentleman vanished and his face ended up printed on a bag of snacks, and we escaped by buying a ten-won lighter"?

"We should probably go to the police, right?" the woman asked, breaking the silence.

"I was thinking the same thing, but..."

"But?"

"I just don't know how we're supposed to explain any of it."

The woman fell quiet. Together, they turned their gaze across the street toward the empty, darkened storefront staring back at them. If there was any evidence at all, it was the livestream footage saved on his phone. And even then, Lee Do had recorded it himself. If someone accused him of staging an elaborate prank, he had no defense.

"Still, we have to report it," she said softly.

"If only for that man's sake."

Lee Do nodded. The middle-aged man. They didn't know his name, or his phone number, or anything about him. He was simply an ordinary stranger who had been trapped in that convenience store alongside them. And now, neither of them knew where he had gone. They couldn't even be certain whether he was still alive.

They called emergency dispatch first, but the situation proved far too bizarre to articulate over the phone. In the end, they decided to walk to the nearest local police substation and give their statements in person.

"Let's head to the substation first."

"Will you... come with me?"

"I was in there too, remember?"

"Ah..." The woman dipped her head slightly. "Thank you."

"Like I told you back inside, save your gratitude for after we get out."

"We are out."

"Fair point."

A faint smile touched her lips. Just as Lee Do was about to smile back—

Bzzzt.

His phone vibrated in his grip. Once. Twice. Three times. It buzzed relentlessly without pause.

"What is this?"

He tapped the screen awake. Notifications were cascading down the display at a dizzying pace.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

No matter how far down he scrolled, the feed was bottomless. He pulled down to refresh the app, and the follower count updated instantly. It had jumped by over three thousand since before he started the stream—and the counter was still ticking upward by the second.

"This is insane."

"What happened?"

"Followers keep pouring in."

The woman leaned in slightly to peek at the glass. "Must be because of the stream earlier."

"Has to be."

It was the obvious conclusion, but the sheer velocity was unprecedented. The digits shifted every few seconds. Then, a different push notification caught his eye.

Lee Do tapped the alert. It led straight to a major online community forum, and the headline alone was anything but ordinary.

"...Did they really have to throw in 'nobody'?"

Lee Do blinked, staring at the view count. Forty-eight thousand. Posted only seventeen minutes ago, yet the comment counter had already blasted past a thousand. He scrolled down.

"Why're they airing out my viewer count like that..."

Beside him, the woman stifled a laugh.

"You're laughing, aren't you?"

"No."

"You definitely laughed."

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine. It's the truth, anyway."

He scrolled down a little farther.

Lee Do lifted his thumb from the glass and turned his head. The woman in the hoodie was looking down, tapping anxiously at her own phone.

"Excuse me."

"Yes?"

"Are you okay with your face having appeared on the stream?"

She froze in place. "My face?"

"Yeah."

"Did it show a lot?"

"...Quite a bit."

Any lingering trace of amusement vanished from her expression. She stared down at her screen, her brow furrowing deeply. "I'm not a public figure or an influencer."

"I figured as much."

"I just... go to school."

School. Lee Do took another look at her. He had been too frantic earlier to pay close attention, but without the adrenaline clouding his vision, she looked considerably younger than he had assumed.

"College student?"

"Yes."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-three."

"Young."

"What about you, mister?"

"...Mister?"

"Ah." She slapped a hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry."

One of Lee Do's eyebrows arched high at the word 'mister.' "I'm thirty-two."

"Oh."

"What's that 'Oh' supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, really."

"I guess thirty-two is practically an uncle to someone twenty-three."

"I really didn't mean it that way..."

"Never mind."

Lee Do returned his attention to the thread. New comments were multiplying by the second.

Lee Do tilted his screen away from her sightline. "Okay, this is getting out of hand."

Having caught a glimpse of the text before he moved the phone, she clenched her own device tightly in both hands.

"Should I take down the VOD for now?" he asked.

"If you take it down, does it go away?"

Remembering how fast the internet moved, he couldn't offer an easy reassurance. Clips were already circulating, and people had almost certainly downloaded local copies. Even if he pulled the original broadcast now, completely wiping it from existence was impossible.

"It won't disappear completely," he admitted.

She let out a heavy sigh. "Please take it down anyway."

"Understood."

Lee Do immediately opened his creator dashboard. The VOD for today's stream had already crossed ten thousand views. He changed the status to private and hit confirm. The video disappeared from public view, yet the community post remained alive and well.

Lee Do apologized first. "I'm sorry."

She lifted her head. "For what?"

"If I hadn't been streaming, none of this would have happened."

"If you hadn't been streaming, we might never have made it out alive." She looked directly into his eyes. "I saw it earlier. The chat was feeding us clues the entire time—about the price tags, the notice board... all of it."

Lee Do had no rebuttal for that.

"So keeping the stream on was the right ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠call."

"Even so, having your face plastered across the internet is another matter entirely."

"That..." She lowered her gaze back to her phone. "I'll worry about that later."

Bzzzt.

This time, it was her phone that vibrated. The instant she checked the caller ID, whatever color remained in her cheeks drained away.

"Who is it?"

"A friend."

"Already?"

She swiped to accept the call. "Yeah."

The voice erupting from the speaker was so shrill that Lee Do caught every word clearly.

"Hey! That's you, right?!"

She winced, pulling the phone an inch from her ear. "...Yeah."

"Are you insane?! What on earth was that?! Where are you right now?!"

"I don't even know."

"What do you mean you don't know?! You're all over the internet!"

She squeezed her eyes shut. "I know."

"It's already in our university department group chat!"

"...Already?"

Lee Do quietly averted his gaze. It was fast. Terrifyingly fast.

"I'll call you back later," she murmured.

"Wait, hold o—"

She cut the line. A brief, heavy silence settled between them.

"She says it's already in my department group chat."

"The internet really is terrifying."

"Wasn't the convenience store the truly terrifying thing?"

"Both are terrifying, just in completely different ways."

A quiet, humorless chuckle escaped her lips. "I suppose so."

They walked in silence for a moment. The local police substation was about a ten-minute walk away. Lee Do pulled up a search bar on his browser and typed in his streaming handle: Great Demon King Sejong. A deluge of autocomplete suggestions flooded the screen.

"Why is that last one even on here?" Lee Do's brow furrowed.

There were dozens of related threads circulating across various boards:

[Video] Scene Where the Convenience Store Clerk's Mouth Rips Open

[Analysis] Likelihood of Great Demon King Sejong's Stream Being Staged

[Question] Who Is That Girl?

[Summary] Great Demon King Sejong Convenience Store Incident from Start to Finish

He tapped the final post. It had been uploaded only eight minutes ago, yet the breakdown was remarkably detailed.

"...They summarized it better than I could have."

She leaned over slightly to inspect the screen. "People really don't waste any time."

"Though they got one detail wrong."

"What detail?"

"We don't know whether the store dissolved into nothingness or not. All we know is that it disappeared."

"Isn't that the exact same thing?"

"What if it just moved somewhere else?"

The moment the words left his mouth, both of them stopped dead in their tracks. Their eyes met.

"...Somewhere else?"

The faint trace of humor on her face vanished entirely. Lee Do turned his own hypothesis over in his mind. The convenience store had vanished. But had it truly ceased to exist? Or had it merely relocated to another street corner?

"No way..."

Lee Do glanced back over his shoulder toward the empty storefront they had left behind. They were already too far away to see it through the evening haze. The woman rubbed her arms through her oversized sleeves, shivering slightly.

"Please don't say things like that."

"I'm the one who said it, and even I'm getting chills."

"What if it really does appear somewhere else?"

He had no answer for that.

Right then, his phone buzzed once more. This time, it was an incoming phone call. Caller ID: Mom. Lee Do stared down at the glowing letters. The woman glanced over at the display.

"Aren't you going to answer it?"

"I kind of have to."

He swiped the green button. "Hey, Mom."

"Where on earth are you right now?!"

Her voice was sharp enough to slice through glass.

"Outside."

"Outside where?!"

"Just around the neighborhood."

"What in the world were you doing on your broadcast?!"

Lee Do squeezed his eyes shut. "You saw it?"

"My friend sent it to me!"

"...Why is your friend watching my stream?"

"Is that what's important right now?!"

Her volume spiked another octave through the receiver. Lee Do held the phone an inch away from his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ear.

"They said a person disappeared! Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?!"

"I'm completely fine."

"What about the police?"

"On my way there right now."

"When are you coming home?"

"Right after I finish up at the substation."

"Call me the second you're done!"

"Got it."

"And don't you ever go into weird places like that again!"

"It's not like I went in there on purpose."

"Don't go hunting for dangerous places just for your broadcasts!"

"I told you, that's not what happened."

"Even when you quit your job to do this streaming nonsense, I told you—"

"Mom." Lee Do pressed two fingers against his temple. "The company went bankrupt. That's why I left."

A brief beat of silence hung on the line.

"...Anyway! Call me as soon as you finish at the substation!"

"Alright."

Call ended. Lee Do let out a long, weary exhale. Beside him, the woman had both hands clamped firmly over her mouth.

"Are you laughing at me?"

"No."

"You've been laughing an awful lot today."

"I'm sorry."

"Whatever."

"Did your company really go bankrupt?"

"...Is that what you're curious about right now?"

"No."

"Yes, it went under."

"Ah."

"I told you to stop with the 'Ah.'"

At that, she finally broke into outright laughter, and Lee Do couldn't help letting out a dry chuckle of his own. Just minutes ago, they had been standing on the razor's edge of death. Yet getting chewed out by his mother had an uncanny way of yanking him straight back to mundane reality.

The glowing sign of the local police substation came into view ahead.

"There it is."

"Yeah."

They stopped at the curb before the crosswalk. The pedestrian signal glowed red. Just then, Lee Do's phone vibrated again. This time, it wasn't a direct message from the streaming app. It was another forum notification.

Without thinking much of it, he tapped through. One headline immediately seized his attention.

"...What?"

Lee Do read through the brief message. Comments were firing off beneath it at breakneck speed.

The woman slowed her pace and peered over his shoulder. "What is it?"

"This convenience store." Lee Do tilted the screen toward her. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠"Someone claims they've seen it before."

Her eyes locked onto the text. "The exact same store?"

"They're still searching for the photo."

The pedestrian traffic light clicked to green, but neither of them took a single step. Lee Do repeatedly pulled down to refresh the thread. The comment counter climbed. Then, a new comment from the author appeared at the top of the feed.

A photo loaded beneath the comment: a snow-covered rural road flanked by modest roadside commercial storefronts. And wedged right between them hung a distinctive blue and white sign.

The image resolution was poor, but the lettering was unmistakable: 24-Hour Woori Convenience Store.

Lee Do pinched the screen, expanding the image until the sign filled the display. The layout, the font, the color scheme—it was an exact match for the one they had stood beneath tonight.

"It really is the same one," she murmured under her breath.

"Yeah."

An update was edited into the original post.

Lee Do stared silently at the screen.

Gangwon Province. January of last year. Tonight, Seoul. And right now, neither location possessed a convenience store on any map.

The chilling possibility he had floated as a half-serious joke only minutes ago was no longer a laughing matter. Judging by the rigid tension in her posture, she had arrived at the exact same conclusion.

"Excuse me."

"Yes?"

She hesitated for a beat, as if catching herself. "Come to think of it... I never even asked your name."

Only then did Lee Do realize it too. Throughout the entire ordeal, neither of them had learned the other's name.

"I guess we'll find out when we write our witness statements at the substation."

"I suppose so."

"More importantly..." Lee Do shifted his gaze back to the glowing screen, down at the photograph of the convenience store from January of last winter. "Let's figure out what on earth this thing actually is."

High above them, the crosswalk light clicked back to red. Only then did they slowly step back from the curb.

Inside Lee Do's coat pocket, cold against his knuckles, rested the transparent plastic lighter he had bought for ten won.