Pre-Stream Preparations

Once it clicked that the streamers I actually needed to watch and learn from were the women, not the men, I ran a new search.

Working through them one by one from the top, I felt my rotting eyes start to heal.

In a world overflowing with women, the ones who'd clawed their way to the top as female streamers were beauties you'd almost never see on the old Earth. There probably weren't more than a handful of celebrities from my old world who could stand next to them.

A few of those female streamers were especially huge. Two of the stranger ones were Cho Yo-yo and Hae-myo.

Cho Yo-yo stood a little over four and a half feet tall, with a child's face and a child's frame, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and she streamed under a sexy concept. She was an adult, of course — older than me, even, if only by a year.

The odd part was that she was popular with men, too. Apparently the men of this world were so put off by female sexual desire that they disliked the very things that marked a woman as a woman — a full chest, a full ass. Women, for their part, seemed to find those same features attractive. Which meant Cho Yo-yo's childlike body was, to a man, the ideal.

Hae-myo looked as delicate and doll-like as a figurine, but she was so aggressively into men that people called her man-crazy. In this world, anything involving men brought the Male Management Bureau down on your head, so people generally kept their mouths shut about them in crowded places — online or off. In that sense, her concept was a straight-up gamble.

The Bureau went easier on celebrities and streamers, sure, but easier was not the same as safe. Pull it off and you'd own a character nobody else could touch. Fail, and it wouldn't just be your streaming career that died. It could be your entire life.

Hae-myo had won that gamble in a landslide. She'd walked away with the one-of-a-kind "man-crazy" persona and become a massive star.

Both of them were what people called mega-streamers — corporate-scale names whose subscriber counts had blown past ten million.

For the record, women were more popular than men in this industry. For one thing, the public already looked sideways at male streamers. For another, a few scandals in the past had pushed people toward agency-managed male celebrities over anyone broadcasting on their own. Put simply, when a strictly better version exists, nobody bothers with the knockoff.

"Luckily, it doesn't look like I had any major problems in the past."

The loft had bedding and a wardrobe, but it also had a bookshelf. The only things on it were diaries — the same design as the one I'd first found on the table. There was nothing else, so they barely filled a shelf and a half. I got through all of them in about half a day.

The result: nothing worth worrying about. He'd been alone for as long as he could remember, dropped out of middle school, and locked himself in the house. Judging by how unstable his mind had been since then, lasting until twenty-three before his life ended almost counted as holding on for a long time. It was… pitiful.

"I'll be happy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠enough for the both ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of us."

I said it for no particular reason.

I kept studying female streamers like that, and before I knew it, it was time for dinner.

Dinner was a simple fried rice. I pulled a few vegetables I'd stocked in the fridge, along with eggs and ham, chopped everything fine, heated oil in a pan, and started with the green onions. Once the scallion smell rose, I added the chopped vegetables and ham, stir-fried them, then cracked in the eggs. When the vegetables were nearly done I added the rice, drizzled on oyster sauce, seasoned with salt, and let it crisp up just slightly against the pan.

"Not bad."

Fried rice can taste like a completely different dish depending on what you throw in, but this combination worked pretty well. Nothing special. Nothing off-putting, either.

"Will I ever have someone to eat with?"

Hmm. I definitely would. I'd make sure of it by being proactive about it.

After I finished eating and cleaned up, I went back to thinking about the stream.

"If I want to do reactions, I'll need to turn the cam on. But starting no-cam and then going face-cam in a single day would look weird."

Watching female streamers, I'd written down every kind of reaction I could find. After working through them, the conclusion was obvious: I needed a camera. What if I only turned it on for reactions? I'd go full cam eventually, but in the early days I could play the contrast for effect.

"…Haah. No. That's not even the real problem."

The real problem was that the reverse-rape incident kept grabbing me by the ankle. If I showed my face to an unspecified number of people, I'd obviously attract even more attention than I already had. Would there be someone among them like the person who'd attacked me? On the vast, endless internet? That was a question nobody could answer with a straight face.

Which meant that until I felt psychologically safe, I'd keep flinching at sudden flashes of fear, and I'd keep hesitating to turn the camera on.

"Today I'll stick to reactions I can do without a cam."

Among the countless types of reactions, there were some that worked fine without a camera. The quality would be disappointing for something worth a few million won, but I'd have to live with it.

"I'll hold off on the computer a bit longer."

I needed to buy one eventually, but I didn't have to do it today. I had 1.63 million won left in my account, and I had to live on that for a month. The four to five million I'd earned today wouldn't hit my account anytime soon, so it was better to buy the computer later.

"I could buy one with the thirty percent discount…"

The Male Livelihood Support Policy didn't just hand you a monthly stipend of one million won — it slapped a thirty percent discount on everything. Using that, I could stretch as high as 2.3 million. Still, it seemed smarter to wait until I had more breathing room.

Today's stream had exploded because a Grade 1 man had suddenly appeared. Tomorrow, things might have calmed down.

"Yaaawn. Am I tired?"

Apparently pouring that much effort into talking to people — something I didn't normally do — had piled up a serious mental debt. Before I could get too lazy about it, I brushed my teeth in a hurry and crawled into bed early.

The loft was still a dump.

"Hello?"

The next day. I didn't wake up until past eleven, ate lunch, and sat on the sofa to rest. Then I got curious about my assigned Escort Officer — a woman named Lee Se-a — and gave her a call.

The number wasn't saved in my phone, but I found it on a site called the Male White Paper. The Male White Paper was a government-run site that published information related to men. Once a man completed identity verification, he could use a whole range of systems. After verifying myself, I pulled the number for my assigned Escort Officer, Ms. Lee Se-a.

"Do you have a moment?"

She sounded composed, but there was a faint tremor running through her voice. Becoming a male Escort Officer was every woman's dream job, which meant the process was brutal. Most people washed out during the training that drilled you to watch every word and every gesture so you wouldn't make a man uncomfortable even standing right next to him. And yet this woman, who'd survived all of that, was trembling like this.

Did I do something to her in the past?

I didn't know. Nothing like that was written in the diaries. In a situation like this, it was better to just ask than to sit there guessing.

"Um — did I do something? Say something harsh a long time ago, or…"

That was a relief. The diaries might not have been the whole story. Then again, a guy who was terrified of women wouldn't have gone outside without an Escort Officer. There was no mention of him ever leaving, so he really must have stayed home the entire time.

"I actually called to say I look forward to working with you. We're going to be spending a lot of time together from now on."

I could hear her fluster coming through the speaker, vivid and unguarded. Even a woman who'd survived that kind of training was still a woman. It was a line that could be misunderstood, but it wasn't a lie. Just because I'd nearly been reverse-raped a few days ago didn't mean I planned to lock myself in the house forever. I just needed to be safe when I went out. Meaning it would be good ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to go out with someone who could actually protect me.

"Would you come out with me tomorrow?"

"You don't have to rush. I'll give you plenty of notice."

After hanging up, I leaned back against the sofa. A lingering impression hung in the air. Hers was a clear, pure voice — the kind that made you imagine little bells chiming. The kind of voice you just wanted to keep listening to.

"I'm looking forward to this."

I let my expectations swell about what kind of person she'd be. If her personality was good too, wouldn't it be nice to live together? She was my assigned Escort Officer, and she'd be able to protect me a lot more reliably if she was close by.

Hmm. Is that too hasty?

I seemed to have changed since coming to this world. Originally I wasn't this impulsive, and I didn't have slightly perverted thoughts like that, either. The silver lining was that in this world, a personality like mine was something everyone wanted and almost nobody could have — an extremely excellent, highly desirable personality. Meaning people would praise me for it. Nobody would give me grief.

"A kind male streamer… Would it be okay to add that?"

If I mixed a little sexiness into the kindness, would that work? Maybe that was what they called the innocent-sexy concept. Or the virgin-sexy one.

"I don't need it right now, so I'll try things out a bit more before deciding."

If I did go that route, I planned to show the "sexy" part only in tiny, infrequent glimpses. The main character trait was kindness, so there was no reason to lock it in at the start of the stream. I could wait and see how the broadcast developed. It wouldn't be too late.

"Will this reaction be enough?"

For now, I'd prepared a reaction for the million-won donation. I'd also filtered out other reactions I could reasonably pull off, but it would be better to ask the viewers for their opinions. This laptop couldn't run games anyway, and it would all be Just Chatting, so I needed content that worked fine with nothing but talking. In that sense, picking reactions was content that allowed plenty of interaction and was great for figuring out what the viewers actually wanted.

"The question is whether I can fill more than three hours with that… Well. I'll just have to try."

I planned to start the stream in the afternoon, same as yesterday. Actually, I needed to adjust the time slot too. Yesterday and today were the weekend, so people showed up even for a lunchtime stream. Starting tomorrow, that wouldn't be the case. In that case, it might be better to just go live every evening.

With nothing left to do, I got up from the sofa and went to the kitchen. The original owner of this body never cooked, yet the kitchen fixtures were ridiculously high-end. A state-of-the-art oven, a built-in refrigerator, a built-in water purifier — the works. The catch was that there wasn't a single piece of kitchen furniture, so I'd had to buy everything from scratch.

"Maybe I should make a snack."

Cooking had been a hobby of mine, and I used to whip something up whenever the mood struck. I'd been so busy being chased by work that even that had become rare, but there'd been a stretch when I worked my way through restaurant kitchens, so I could cook almost anything.

"If I'd known it'd come to this, I would've studied it properly."

I was good enough to hold my own in a restaurant, but I didn't know enough theory or ingredients to actually sit a certification exam. You just make enough food and it becomes second nature. You pick things up as you go. Not that a certification would have meant anything in this world anyway.

"Hm? What if I just got a certification as a hobby?"

That was a pretty good idea. I'd tossed it out as a joke, but it seemed like a solid hobby to pick up outside of streaming. I could do cooking content, build my image, and it would be great to upload to places like NewTube.

"Ha. Already thinking about NewTube. Look at me, all grown up."

I let out a hollow laugh at myself and made a snack. I cut bread crusts into bite-sized pieces, tossed them in caramel sauce, and baked them in the oven — rusks. Good thing I'd bought every kind of sauce when I ordered groceries online. After about twenty minutes in the oven, I had a bowlful.

"A little too sweet?"

I might have put too much sugar in the caramel sauce — the sweetness came on a bit strong. Still, they were good for snacking on when I was bored.

It was a good time to stream, so I brewed some coffee and brought it back to the sofa with the rusks.

"Shall we start the second stream?"

I went live with a flourish.