First Stream! (2)

Saturday, around three in the afternoon.

Dongsuk had been sitting there wondering what to do with a weekend that had barely gotten started when a thought wandered in: might as well go live. He fired up a personal stream.

The going-live alert trickled viewers in one by one.

"Uh... beats me? I didn't have anything in mind. Figured I'd just mess around in a game... Playing alone is whatever. Streaming it is way better, right?"

He genuinely had nothing planned. The only thought in his head was that sitting at home staring at a wall paid nothing, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and going live at least made him money.

"Alright, launching a game first."

In that same light mood, he booted up the hit title Legend of Legends.

"...Ah, shit."

He hadn't logged in for so long that the update alone was estimating thirty minutes. Sitting still and staring at a progress bar sounded miserable, and Dongsuk found himself wondering what other streamers were up to.

"Then how about a streamer tour? Thirty minutes is the perfect window for a quick taste-test."

It was a bit he'd run a few months back. A tour of girl cam streams.

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

He'd been scrolling through them when a woman's broadcast hit him somewhere south of the belt, and before he knew it he'd thrown money at her, gotten into a fight with another viewer, and been kicked. Even now, the memory made his face twist.

"Ah, come on... what kind of insane take is that. When did I ever cling? I was still a nobody back then. It's different now. One look at my ID and they'll be bowing their heads."

He tried to explain himself. Chat had no interest in listening.

He wanted to drop a mass execution — bans all around — but the instincts of a long-time streamer whispered that a backlash would follow. Absolutely no executions here.

So instead, as an example, he banned a handful of people who weren't even subscribers. Fresh blood, new arrivals.

When new flesh grows in, you're supposed to cut away the rot. Dongsuk was doing the exact opposite. Bit by bit, his room was sickening. Rotting from the inside.

"Hmm... maybe it's the early time slot. Not many cam girls on. Just a bunch of VTubers... huh?"

One line of chat snagged his eye.

Kuro... that woman who hung me out to dry.

Dongsuk ground his teeth, the fact that he was still live completely forgotten.

People had mocked him before, sure — but only inside the bounds of a bit. That much he could live with. A woman who came at him with open hostility, though? That was a first.

"Ohhh, really? The Kuro who took first place over. whelm. ing. ly in that project is streaming? Should we go take a look?"

Watching chat refuse to take his side, Dongsuk quietly shipped a few of them off to timeout jail and stepped into Kuro's stream.

The channel, it turned out, wasn't Kuro's at all. It was Luna's. On screen, Luna and Kuro were running a just-chatting stream together.

Fuck... that voice is top-tier.

Her personality could be garbage, but the voice itself was the best he'd heard out of any VTuber. The kind you'd want sitting next to you every single day, just so you could keep listening.

The tour had dragged his viewers in with him. Luna's chat ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠exploded.

A flood of questions tore up the window. Kuro offered everyone an equal shot.

"Is everyone that curious about me? There are a lot of you, though... I'll spin a roulette!"

"Not bad. First stream and she's not even nervous — she's already laying down a system... I've got a question of my own. Might as well throw my name in."

The roulette turned with Dongsuk's ID in the mix.

It whirled fast, then slower, then slower still, and stopped on a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠single name.

"Oh? It's Dongsuk...?"

"Wow. What a coincidence."

The moment his ID came up, Dongsuk just stared at the monitor. He genuinely hadn't thought he'd get picked.

Chat piled on the worry. Fair enough. During the project he'd ground his teeth every time Kuro appeared and done everything he could to tear her down. She'd taken first anyway, like she was laughing at the effort, and he'd been the only one left looking like a joke.

"Aww, don't worry. I know."

He did know. Knowing was as far as it went. It wouldn't show in what he did.

You really thought you could dunk on me?

He typed out his "curious" question in the spirit of let's see how you like it.

The second Dongsuk's chat popped up, I killed my mic.

The word ignored sat wrong.

"Unnie, I can't just tell them the truth, can I?"

"Obviously not. The agency still has it listed as confidential."

I had to invent something that wouldn't be the truth and would still make sense to chat. How do you make people swallow a story like that? I sat there with my arms folded, turning it over, then switched the mic back on.

"Aaand — can you hear me? I needed a second to gather my thoughts."

It wasn't the first time the question had come up. The moment we'd opened just-chatting and asked if anyone was curious about Kuro, it had been the very first thing in the window.

I'd brushed it off as personal circumstances.

Dongsuk's wording had poked the people who'd accepted that answer back into curiosity. Chat was hemorrhaging.

If I didn't put this down fast, today's stream was dead in the water.

I barely talked everyone into starting this thing. I am not ending it here.

And Dongsuk's little scheme? I'd already read the entire thing.

"Today's stream isn't my real debut. Originally I wanted more time to finish preparing before I went live. As I said earlier, there are personal circumstances, and there are agency circumstances. I'll be launching a stream under my own name in as little as three months, as long as six. Until then..."

I glanced at Luna sitting beside me.

"I'll drop by Luna's streams now and then. Is that... not enough?"

I folded a little aegyo into my voice and made a heart with my fingers.

My hands and feet wanted to curl up and die. I wanted to scream.

The response from chat was overwhelmingly good.

"Will that do, Dongsuk?"

The second I said it, a familiar ID crawled back up the chat.

"No. And I already know you came all the way over here to stir up trouble. Please leave."

While I was talking, the hand on my mouse clicked his ID.

"Byeee~!"

I waved him a little farewell and kicked Dongsuk from the stream.

A quick check of his broadcast on my phone showed him sitting there with a slack, emptied-out look on his face — shock from the ban, apparently.

Who told him to poke the bear? The one who picked the fight was in the wrong.

I glanced sideways. Luna was giving me a thumbs-up. Nice one.

Not long after Dongsuk got the boot, the viewers he'd dragged in started peeling off one by one, and the stream settled back into something peaceful.

"Alright then — any other questions? Now's your chance. No telling when the next one will be."

I locked back onto the stream. Questions climbed the window at a slower pace than before. I picked one and answered.

"Ah — that's an easy one. I'd wanted to be a VTuber for a long time, and they happened to be recruiting for the project, so I signed up."

"A friend made my avatar. And the price is a secret. They asked not to be identified."

I'd actually asked Lee Boram if I could mention her on stream. She'd shaken her head so hard I thought it might come off, looking like she was about to pass out. I needled her a few more times after that. Every single attempt, she came close enough to foaming at the mouth that I had to give it up.

Donations kept coming in after that, questions riding along with them.

"If you mean the avatar, you're looking at her. If you mean the real thing... what do you think?"

I tossed the question at Luna beside me.

"Hmm..."

She folded her arms and looked me up and down.

"Good. Best I've ever seen."

The certainty in that answer plastered chat with demands to see for themselves.

"What kind of question is that. Well... one thing I can tell you is that I'm bigger than my avatar."

There was no real reason to hide it. Once the drama aired, people were going to talk about my looks anyway.

"I answered. You're banned."

I clicked the viewer's ID and dropped the hammer.

Chat kept stacking up demands for evidence. What was I supposed to do with that? I couldn't exactly put them on camera.

"Luna. I need a favor."

I made the call.

"You sure?"

"I came prepared for this much."

"Well... if Kuro's okay with it."

Luna's hand moved toward my chest.

The feeling of someone else touching them... how do I put this? It was a little embarrassing.

"Wow... t-this is... a G? No... more like an H, maybe?"

With Luna's help, the incident was just about to settle — and then:

Haa. That lunatic.

I couldn't exactly whip them out on stream. I filed that bastard's ID away for later.

After that, the questions kept coming, and I answered them properly.

I checked the time. A stream that had started around three in the afternoon was somehow on its fourth hour.

"Alright — I'll take one last question, and then we'll wrap up."

Luna had clocked the dropping energy and was already sliding in with a nice assist when—

Ding.

The donation chime I'd gotten used to went off, and a message printed across the screen.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

I frowned.

"Don't tell me you missed the song I performed?"

"Haa... if you can't even focus. I'll say it one more time."

I stood up and pointed straight at the monitor.

"Idols don't take boyfriends."

That was just my personal opinion, of course.

A small newspaper office.

Unlike the papers attached to major networks, this one was tiny — five people, that was the whole staff. But they had one enormous advantage of their own.

That advantage was a cyber-wrecker channel on NewTube with 1.3 million subscribers: Today's Hot.

All five of the people gathered here had once been working journalists on the way up. Right up until pride, and a reporter's sense of self-respect, had run them into their bosses and gotten them thrown out.

For some reason, all five of them were sitting in a row in that little office today. Across from them, a young man sat with one leg crossed over the other, drinking cheap instant coffee mix.

For a while the six of them simply faced each other without a word. The silence finally got to the paper's chief — the man who had built the Today's Hot channel — and he opened his mouth.

"So. May we know why you called all of us here?"

Tak.

The young man set his cup down, reached into his bag, and laid a single USB drive on the table.

"...And this is?"

About ten seconds of quiet stretched out. The chief asked again.

"Let's watch the contents first. Then we'll talk."

"...Understood. Hey — computer."

"...Why is it always me for this crap..."

The youngest of them got up, grabbed the nearest laptop, and brought it over. The USB went in. A single video file appeared. The chief didn't say a word. He just clicked it.

A racket spilled out of the speakers, and two familiar men filled the frame. The video opened on the pair cheerfully knocking their glasses together.

They hadn't even gotten through the whole thing and the chief's brow was already folding in on itself. The words were nauseating. His head went light.

Click. A door opened, and a new figure stepped into the room on screen.

"Huh...? That woman—"

"Shh."

The chief clamped a hand over the youngest's mouth before he could wreck the mood and dragged everyone's attention back to the footage.

Actress Han undid the front of her dress. The video ended there.

Five minutes. That was all it was. The blast radius was enormous.

"Well?"

The chief could not, for the life of him, understand why this man had brought the footage here. Take it to the people in it and you could squeeze them for a few hundred thousand dollars at minimum.

"What's your reason?"

The young man thought for a second, then spoke.

"I... I just want my film back. From these demons. And for that... I need your help."

The chief was still a little puzzled. Evidence of a single victim wasn't enough to do real damage.

"Do you happen to have more footage?"

The man nodded again, grabbed his bag, and upended it.

USBs clattered out across the table in a rush. If one drive was one victim, there were more than twenty people in that pile.

"This should be more than enough. I've wondered for a long time, you know — whether these people were really as clean as they looked. All right. From here on, leave it to us."

He held out his hand, voice full of certainty. The young man stood and took it.

"Thank you. When will this go public?"

"Is there a deadline?"

"...Yes. It has to be finished before filming starts next month. If I want my movie back."

"So preparations on your end are already more or less done, then."

The chief smiled, thin and sharp.

"A week will be plenty. It won't be me moving — it'll be all of us. And that..."

"...will be the end of Director Shin Yo-han."