The Birth of Kumongdan
Before I played a game with Tsuki, I needed a name for the people in my room. In other words, a fandom name. I couldn't keep calling them "viewers" or "everyone" forever, and since I already had the stream up, I figured I might as well settle it now.
Hoyeon had looked ready to run a community poll or open some kind of fandom-name workshop.
Sorry about that. But that was never going to happen.
Letting Re:fresh's group fandom get decided that way? Fine. Handing my personal channel's fandom name over to the same process, though, sat wrong with me. Luna already had Dalmuri. If we were the only ones voting up a brand-new name, it would feel a little pointed. Yuwol would tell us she didn't mind. That wasn't how we felt.
"Jiwoo... ahem! Kuro-chan! Tsuki decided on Tsuki's fandom name!"
"Oh? Already?"
We'd only started brainstorming thirty minutes ago.
"What is it?"
I was curious what she'd landed on. From the sound of her voice, she was proud of it.
"It's... Kusamo!"
"Kusa... mo? What's that?"
I ran every name I could think of against it and came up empty. So it was an abbreviation, then? Damn it. I was terrible with those. On the outside I was a seventeen-year-old high school girl; on the inside I was a middle-aged guy who'd already eaten his fill of life. Keeping up with all the Gen Z slang was hard enough without throwing acronyms at me.
"Listen carefully, okay? Kusamo is short for Club of Those Who Love Kuro!"
"Club of those who... love Kuro? Wouldn't Tsusamo be better?"
"Club of Those Who Love Tsuki? Ehh~ Everyone who watches Tsuki's stream already loves Kuro-chan anyway. That's okay!"
Tsuki's face said she would not be talked out of this. She was a VTuber avatar, so I couldn't actually read her expression—and yet, somehow, I could see her preening on the other side of the model.
"Fine, do what you want. It's your fandom. If everyone's happy, I'm happy. The problem is over here..."
"Leesamo? Club of those who love what, exactly?"
Think about it for two seconds, they said...
This was Kuro's room. So if the name wasn't Kuro...
"Ah!"
There it was.
"Absolutely not. This is not actress Lee Jiwoo's stream. This is my stream. Kuro's."
A few people clearly hadn't caught last night's stream, or hadn't checked the community boards yet, because they started lining Kuro up next to Lee Jiwoo. I could have thrown a voice modulator on—but if you stream long enough, your grip slips and the real voice comes out anyway. That was why I left it alone except when I sang. I just hadn't expected anyone to clock it this fast.
Not that I didn't get caught from the very beginning.
"Haa... everyone, calm down first."
Telling them to calm down did not, in fact, calm them down.
BANG!
"I said settle down. Attention, all of you!"
Only after my fist hit the desk did the chat finally simmer down a little.
"I'll put this in the stream rules. Talking about other streamers is banned, obviously. Donations or messages that kill the mood are banned too. No discussion on that one—it's an immediate execution."
I drew a finger across my throat. The viewers shivered.
"That said... the people who already know, know, right? Talking about the red pill is fine. But if you start saying weird things in the middle of a game, or something that doesn't fit the moment, that's a ban too."
Everyone nodded like that much was obvious. And then came the part that actually mattered.
"Honestly, I don't care if you form cliques in here or not. Even if I told you not to, you'd just do it behind my back anyway."
Listen to them talk. They were so good at it.
I pulled up the internet to shut them down.
"Look at this."
The site I screen-shared was a VTuber community I dropped into now and then, just to see who'd debuted that day. Since last night, though, it had been wallpapered with posts about Lee Jiwoo instead of VTubers.
"Places like this too? And you're telling me you don't clique up here either?"
"Let's see... this one looks good."
I clicked a post. The title alone was already a problem.
"'Ngl aren't actress Lee Jiwoo's tits insanely hot?' This is... a VTuber community? Isn't this just some criminal scumbag?"
"So... is the person who wrote this here?"
The community username was KuroTiddies. What a lunatic.
"Everyone, find this KuroTiddies and bring him here. Otherwise... all of you die."
That little bomb sent the viewers scrambling after KuroTiddies. It didn't take long for him to show up.
Ten thousand won, and he was begging for his life.
"What do you all think I should do?"
Even if I'd wanted to forgive him, the court of public opinion had already ruled. There was nothing I could do.
"I'll give you one chance. KuroTiddies picks the fandom name. If everyone says it's fine... you live. If not, you die. Deal?"
"Good. About ten minutes enough?"
Ten minutes of shooting the breeze with chat went by in no time. When the clock ran out, KuroTiddies returned.
"Kumongdan? And what is that supposed to be?"
I frowned and pressed him.
"You can die now."
Even at the last possible second, KuroTiddies could not let go of my chest. I permanently banned him and erased him from this world.
"Hey, wait a second! You can't decide it like that! I think Kurodan would be better. Right? That was what everyone wanted at the start!"
Haa.
Fine. It was already decided. There was nothing I could do. I nodded and accepted it—the fact that from this day forward, my fandom name was Kumongdan.
"Whatever. I'm just gonna play the game. So today's game is... Survival Ground!"
I logged in and dropped straight into the room Tsuki had already made.
"Excuse me? Are you looking down on Survival Ground right now? Don't. I actually sat there wondering what to play, and I picked it because Survival Ground was also the first game I ever shot a commercial for."
"You... get out."
Unnecessary commentary. I was not smashing a keyboard this time. Also, the spare still hadn't arrived.
"I am absolutely not breaking a keyboard today. Remember that."
I laid down the law, nice and firm, and then I started the game.
And then.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
CRACK!
I lost my temper and smashed the keyboard anyway.
"No!!! That is not possible! This game is complete fucking garbage! How do you run into cheaters three times in three games!! Do your damn jobs, admins?!"
"You think I can't even afford a keyboard?! I just shot a hamburger commercial. I have money!"
Granted, I'd blown a lot of that ad fee buying burgers for the entire school... but I could still buy dozens of keyboards. And there was a movie coming up soon, besides.
"Ah... come to think of it, the movie— mmpf!"
I clapped a hand over my mouth.
Haa... this damn mouth of mine...