The Fan Cafe

The next day.

After I ended yesterday's stream, I set up a social media account and a fan cafe, one of each, to use as places to talk to people. I dropped the links into the stream announcement and gave them a little push, and members started showing up faster than I'd expected.

"Oh..."

I stared at the number for a long while. Fifteen people. Anyone else might have called it nothing, but to me it felt enormous. Fifteen people had gone out of their way to find my stream, and had even joined the fan cafe on top of that.

Hehehe.

The corner of my mouth crept up before I noticed.

That evening, six o'clock. I sat down at the computer the way I always did, switched on the avatar and the mic, and started the broadcast.

"Hello, everyone. Good evening."

The moment the stream came on, familiar names began filling the chat.

"Bangul-i? Doing great. We went on a walk together again today."

"...Excuse me? I'm the one walking Bangul-i?"

I glanced over the chat, then pulled the fan cafe up on screen.

"Today I thought I'd try reading the cafe. I only made it yesterday, and fifteen people have already joined and even written posts."

There were about ten posts on the board. Hardly enough to take long, but once they were up on the screen the place actually looked like a fan cafe. I started at the top and clicked through slowly. People saying the stream had been fun. Short notes of support. There was even a post begging me to never, ever do puzzles again.

...Was it really that bad?

A few posts in, one title snagged my eye harder than the rest.

"...Huh?"

A weird noise slipped out of me on its own. Lua. A VTuber I'd checked in on now and then even before I became a woman. A famous corporate VTuber, the kind whose average viewership ran into the thousands. Someone like that had watched my clip?

Only half believing it, I opened the post. The attached video was Lua, plain as day, laughing while she watched my puzzle clip. And of all the moments she could have picked, it was the stretch where I'd been lost in the exact same spot for more than six hundred tries. True to a major-agency broadcast, the chat pouring down beside her was no joke. Try to read a line or two and it was already shoved off the screen.

"Ah, no, guys. There were plenty of cool moments when I was on the Rift, weren't there? This is the one you sent?"

A new fan-cafe alert popped up. A post that hadn't existed a moment ago.

This one was from yesterday's Rift game: the instant lobby politics started brewing, I'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠slammed an all-mute in a tenth of a second. In the video, Lua watched the play, laughed, and said:

"Come on... Mute-Control just doesn't look cool at all. If you're going to send something, edit me a Mingjwe montage and send that."

"Well. Hah."

Pressing the point didn't look like it would get me anything worth hearing. I grumbled and clicked the next cafe post.

It had already been a full week since I started streaming, and somewhere in that week my whole routine had turned into a proper 0-Tier Viewer's. Stream on at six in the evening, stream off around seven the next morning. I didn't drop straight into bed after that. I matched Grandma's hour for heading out to the fields, helped for about an hour and a half, washed up, and only then went to sleep. Eyes open again around four in the afternoon, then back to getting ready for the broadcast. Round and round.

Still, helping with the farm work early meant I got dragged out under the blazing midday sun a lot less these days. Morning light was still something I could stand, and the wind coming off the mountain was fairly cool. Squatting there, pulling weeds or tidying between the crops, my hands stayed busy while my head had nothing to do, so Grandma and I naturally fell into talking about this and that.

The trouble was that once either of our mouths came unstuck, we hardly ever stopped. Before one of us could finish a story the other would start their own, and listening to that would remind us of something else, and by the time we noticed, a whole furrow was done. In the end we made a rule between us. Thirty minutes of speaking time per person. Of course, it was hardly ever kept.

Grandma's main subjects were, broadly, two. Cursing politicians, and cursing Mom, who'd left home. Around the neighborhood she was known for a good temper. In front of other people she almost never ran anyone down, and she tended to laugh most things off. Alone with me, she was a little different. Once she got onto someone she didn't like, she poured out curses like she meant to lightly wipe that person's whole clan off the map.

"Yuhyeon, why in the hell does that sumbitch act like that."

Grandma, cursing some politician, or maybe someone else entirely. I'd nodded off in the middle and hadn't caught who. I yanked a weed, flung it aside, and hummed along.

"I know, right. Wonder why."

My subjects, on the other hand, were games, internet streaming, and VTubers. At first Grandma didn't understand a single word. Just explaining what a VTuber was took forever, and I'd nearly given up first while trying to explain the difference between viewers and followers. But human beings adapt. I kept stubbornly repeating the same stories, tacked explanations on whenever a gap opened, and even mixed in the tiniest bit of gaslighting (?). These days Grandma roughly followed what I was saying.

"...So lately I started being a VTuber. Dozens of people watch. I'm telling you."

Grandma stopped the hoe and lifted her head.

"Aigoo? Why's dozens of folks watchin' you with that cartoon hide ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flipped on?"

"Because it's fun, obviously?"

"And you keep at it clear till dawn. Those little shits watchin' your broadcast don't go out to work?"

I thought for a second. Seven in the morning, me asking whether anyone was heading to work on a weekday, and chat going completely to hell.

"...Probably not."

"Aigoo. Tsk tsk. House must be doin' well."

She clicked her tongue like none of it made sense, then ducked her head again. I gathered up the pile of weeds beside me.

Once the farm work was done and I was home, I washed and threw myself onto the bed. Maybe because I'd stayed up the whole night and then spent the morning in the fields, I didn't last long after my eyes closed. I slept straight through, deep, until four in the afternoon.

Four-thirty. I woke, washed, filled my stomach somehow, and slowly started getting ready to stream. The computer came on, and I was checking this and that the way I always did.

"?"

The hand on the mouse stopped. I'd emptied the inbox completely not long ago, so there was no reason for it to have piled up like this. Ten messages in a single day, no less. Wondering what could have come in such a flood, I opened the inbox and skimmed the subject sitting at the very top.