Abandoned House Experience Broadcast [2]
The place Choi Eun-ha had brought him to was a large, state-of-the-art study room right in the heart of Gangnam, outfitted with every modern facility.
"...Big-shot YouTubers really do play in a different league..."
"It's just vanity."
Other people had already arrived in the room. Two of them stood out immediately.
"Hellooo, viewers! This is your clapping shaman, from channel ClapClapClap! Today, I've come to experience an abandoned house together with Tsukumo Momo, and—"
A polished young man in a semi-formal suit.
"Fufu, mic test. Is this broadcast actually on? Ah, it is? Ahem. Pleasure to meet you all. I am Ghost Hunter Chaser. Today I have been graciously invited, as an expert, to Tsukumo Momo-chan's abandoned house experience. As the last ghost hunter of the twenty-first century, I shall protect Momo-chan with—"
A bespectacled man, hauling in an array of machines of unknown purpose and running checks on them.
"They're experts who were invited, just like you, oppa."
"So I wasn't the only one they called."
"I told you, didn't I? The guy's got a big ego. Calling in nothing but male experts — looks like she's trying to stage some princess fantasy where three men fawn over her. So, what do you think?"
"About what?"
"Are those two the real deal?"
"How would I know that?"
"You don't? Don't psychics just have to glance at each other and they can tell who's legit?"
"It's not a scout meeting. You can't verify someone by ogling them."
Chatting away about this and that, the two of them took a spot a little apart from ClapClapClap and Chaser. Then, a short while later, one more person entered the presentation room.
Partially dyed hair, an outfit dominated by pink and black, a hoodie with cat ears, and a black mask — the fashion known as jirai-kei, the so-called "landmine girl" style.
And that landmine-fashion girl was today's boss — the woman who'd paid a million won a head: Tsukumo Momo.
A streaming selfie stick was already in her hand. Which meant that, from this very moment, they were live. ON AIR.
"MomoTomo, everyone — konbanwa~! Tsukumo Yugi here~! Today is the long-awaited red pill outdoor stream, keeping my promise for hitting one million subscribers~!"
Tsukumo Momo. A YouTuber who had recently crossed the one-million-subscriber mark, and a popular VTuber averaging more than five thousand concurrent viewers.
"Red pill" being the term for a VTuber revealing the real face hidden behind the virtual avatar — something most of her peers refused to do. Momo, on the other hand, showed her face without hesitation whenever it suited her. Her roleplay was comparatively loose, true, but the biggest reason was that she was a former idol trainee and had full confidence in her face.
Her willingness to pop the red pill divided opinion, sure. But thanks to it, unlike other VTubers, she could do outdoor content too — which made for its own kind of differentiation.
After greeting her audience, Tsukumo Momo went around to greet the collaborators who'd agreed to help with this abandoned house experience.
"Ah, ClapClapClap-nim! Thank you so much for doing the fortune-telling content with me last time. Looking forward to our collab today!!"
"Oh, please, our viewers have been begging us nonstop for another collab with Momo-nim~"
When ClapClapClap touched her shoulder in that oily voice, Tsukumo Momo clicked her tongue inwardly.
'Shameless creep, flirting openly on stream...'
Every single collab, that covert little touch. A thoroughly repulsive human being. But ClapClapClap's shamanic channel had a thick, loyal fandom and collabs with him performed well, and as a proper mudang he at least guaranteed a baseline of safety on content like this. So she endured it.
"Ah! Chaser-nim, thank you so much for coming even though I contacted you so suddenly!"
"How could I leave Momo-chan to face the battlefield of an abandoned house all alone!"
Tsukumo Momo barely managed to keep her cracking smile in place. Chaser was, like ClapClapClap, a genuinely big name in paranormal and horror content. She'd invited him hoping for the trickle-down audience effect — she could hardly show open dislike.
Having finished her greetings with the collab members, Tsukumo Momo finally approached Choi Eun-ha and Kim Yi-yeon.
"Alright, everyone — from here on out, we have special guests! First, as some of you may remember from before, Momo's real-life bestie Eun-ha, and then a new-face psychic introduced to us by Eun-ha~!"
"'Momo' my ass. You're Korean, use your Korean name — Han Ji-soo."
"I told you to call me Momo on stream, remember? And for your information, I'm mixed. Nothing wrong with using a Japanese name."
Tsukumo Momo slid in close and pinched Choi Eun-ha's side.
"Aaack!"
The squabbling besties and the side-pinching went out live to the whole broadcast, but it didn't matter. This far was the template, after all.
"Now, now — Eun-ha is just an option on today's stream. The real star is someone else entirely. Hello hello, I'm Tsukumo Momo! What should I call you?"
"Just call me Kim Dosa."
"Wow! It's Dosa-shir~!"
"Looking forward to working with you today, boss."
"Huh? Why am I the boss? If anything, you look like the oppa here?"
"What does age matter? Whoever pays the money is the boss."
At Kim Yi-yeon's deadpan directness, Tsukumo Momo burst into a snort of laughter.
"I was so curious what kind of person the 'real psychic' Eun-ha mentioned would be, but you're way more fun than I expected. I have high hopes for your skills too!"
"My skills are guaranteed. Are you familiar with the Corner Man ghost story, by any chance?"
"Yes! It's been trendy with students lately, right? A lot of my viewers say that because of the Corner Man rumor, they're scared to turn a corner in an alley~"
"They won't need to be anymore. I exorcised the Corner Man."
"...I'm sorry, what?"
"Details are a trade secret, but I smashed his face in with a headbutt, so there's nothing to worry about now. The whole Room-7 Red Mask Dis-Man catch-all ghost story is gone for good, so everyone can turn around in alleys with total peace of mind."
'What the hell is this lunatic saying?'
Tsukumo Momo was flustered — but surprisingly, the viewers' reaction wasn't bad at all.
While he was at it, Kim Yi-yeon also pulled out the Post-it talismans he'd brought along, and the peachwood sword carried in his talisman bag.
"Um... what's this?"
"As you can see — talismans and a peachwood sword."
"Peach...wood... sword? That poor sad little block of wood...? No wait, more importantly, why on earth are your talismans written on Post-its?"
"Because they stick. What are talismans for, if not sticking somewhere? In that case, writing them on something designed to stick is just common sense."
"That's..."
Wait — is it?
He said it with such matter-of-fact certainty that she was almost convinced for a second.
"Is that seriously your answer? Anybody's going to be suspicious when a 'talisman' is scribbled in red marker on a Post-it. And what is that sad little wood chip supposed to be?"
"I told you, a peachwood sword. Carved from peachwood — straight-up lethal for exorcism..."
"You call THAT a sword? That poor pathetic block of wood?"
"I went three days without proper sleep carving this thing..."
That was when Choi Eun-ha jumped in to needle him, and Kim Yi-yeon hung his head gloomily under the continuing barrage. The viewers' reaction to this little comedy duo climbed fast.
'The reactions are actually pretty good? No — way better than with ClapClapClap or Chaser!'
Tsukumo Momo had invited Kim Yi-yeon half in doubt, after hearing about him from Choi Eun-ha. But who'd have thought it? For all his untrustworthy appearance, his material was delicious. In that instant, the star of today's broadcast was decided in her heart.
"Ahahahaha! You really are way more fun than I expected! I'll be looking forward to your performance at the abandoned house!"
Having finished her greetings, Tsukumo Momo launched into the presentation about the abandoned house they'd be visiting.
"You've all been briefed already, but the place we're heading to now is Sunshine Village — one of Korea's three great haunted houses!"
Sunshine Village was an abandoned property ranked among the three great haunted houses of South Korea. The building had once been a restaurant in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do, but after the business failed it sat neglected, dark rumors spread, and it became the ruin it was today.
"But everything I've heard says it's just a place that went under because the food was bad. Hardly a haunted house, is it?"
"What does that matter for a broadcast?"
"...Fair."
As Kim Yi-yeon tilted his head and muttered, Choi Eun-ha shrugged and answered. And so, after the brief rundown, the collab members boarded a pitch-black van that wouldn't have looked out of place ferrying celebrities.
"Ooooh, MomoTomo, everyone! Just thinking that we're heading to the worst, most haunted cursed house in all of Korea has me trembling already! Kim Dosa-shir will protect me—"
"Haha, don't be frightened, Miss Momo. Am I not right here beside you?"
ClapClapClap cut in before Tsukumo Momo had even finished her line.
'No way I'm losing screen time to a bone-in-his-throat creep like that.'
ClapClapClap was displeased that Kim Yi-yeon had stolen his share of the spotlight during the member introductions.
"Don't you worry about Momo-chan. With this ultrasonic spirit-wave scanner I've prepared, no supernatural phenomenon is any match for us."
Just as Tsukumo Momo had actively reached out to Kim Yi-yeon, her fan Chaser also surged forward to seize his moment. But Tsukumo Momo's attention was on neither of them.
"Um, Kim Dosa-shir? Why are you trembling like that?"
"Bad memories from Gangwon-do are coming back to me..."
"Bad memories?"
"I once followed a cult, got locked up in a building in Gangwon-do, and had to escape..."
"What is that fascinating-sounding story? Tell us more — no, wait, could you save that story for a proper session sometime?"
"Would there be an appearance fee, like this time?"
"Of course!"
"Then of course I'll tell it."
ClapClapClap and Chaser, once again edged out by Kim Dosa, gritted their teeth.
"Hm. I wonder whether you can truly protect Miss Momo from the vengeful spirits, being quite that nervous."
Seizing his opening, ClapClapClap addressed Kim Yi-yeon with thinly veiled condescension. But Kim Yi-yeon answered without missing a beat.
"I'll deliver value for the money, so don't you worry."
"With those Post-it talismans of yours?"
"Yes. Post-it talismans."
Kim Yi-yeon peeled off a single Post-it talisman and handed it over.
"Looks aside, the effect is guaranteed. I wrote a whole stack for today, so have one."
"...I have talismans of my own. I'm quite alright."
ClapClapClap irritably drew a traditional yellow talisman from his coat. And at the sight of it, Kim Yi-yeon's face twisted into a strange expression.
"I see."
Even in transit, Tsukumo Momo kept the talk centered on Kim Yi-yeon. That ClapClapClap and Chaser, robbed of their screen time, would start clamoring for the camera's focus the moment they reached Sunshine Village was, in a way, the natural outcome.
"Ooooh! The wailing of the vengeful dead is ringing in my ears!"
"My ghost-capture device is going haywire! This place is, for all intents and purposes, a hell descended upon the mortal world!"
Having dutifully captured both of their theatrics in turn, Tsukumo Momo finally pointed the camera at Kim Yi-yeon.
"What does it look like to you, Kim Dosa-shir? Think there's something here?"
"Hard to say. Won't know until we go in and take a look."
The moment he said it, Tsukumo Momo clicked her tongue inwardly.
'Amateurs, honestly. This is exactly when you're supposed to ham it up — "I can feel a dreadful presence!"'
They were setting up cameras inside the building, about to begin the broadcast in earnest, when—
"J-Ji-soo, you need to take a look at this..."
"Huh? Manager unni, what's wrong?"
"The building owner says they can't give us filming permission here..."
"WHAT!?"
The owner of Sunshine Village, who had granted filming permission for a modest fee, had suddenly changed his mind. At first he'd agreed to it lightly — but then he'd learned that Tsukumo Momo's subscriber count was far larger than he'd imagined.
Years ago, he'd suffered endlessly from trespassers who came "urban exploring" and trashed the place top to bottom. Only now had things finally quieted down — and the thought of a famous streamer drawing a fresh flood of nuisance visitors had driven his decision.
For Tsukumo Momo, hearing this on the very day of the shoot, the situation was enough to make her climb the walls.
'Goddammit. We're screwed.'
Concurrent viewers were already in the five digits, and the money spent renting staff and equipment ran into the hundreds of units. Canceling the shoot here would mean swallowing a loss far too big to shrug off.
"What do I do...!"
That was when Han Ji-soo's manager spoke up carefully.
"Um, Ji-soo? When you posted the horror-experience announcement, quite a few viewers sent in tips about places. One of them is near here. Want to go take a look?"
"Show me one."
Han Ji-soo quickly scanned over the tipped location the manager showed her and nodded.
"Looks good. Let's go there for now."
A crow in place of a pheasant. Better to visit an unverified spot than to cancel the shoot and eat nothing but losses.
"Everyone, I'm so sorry, but the filming location has been changed! We'll need to move again — but don't worry, it's nearby, so it won't take long!"
And so the group set off for the viewer-reported haunted house, about thirty minutes away.
The house in the report was a two-story building at the foot of a mountain, set a little way off the road. A considerably luxurious private home — according to the tip, it had been built by a wealthy bachelor as a place to spend his retirement. That man of wealth was now dead, and with no wife, no children, not even distant relatives, the property's ownership hung in limbo, abandoned and alone.
"Good writing, though."
Tsukumo Momo burst into a snort of laughter at the solid backstory.
"That'll pull the viewers in."
The moment the production crew moved to enter the building to set up the cameras—
"Wait!"
Kim Yi-yeon shouted.
"What is it, Kim Dosa-shir?"
"Are we filming here?"
"Yes, this is the place one of our viewers reported."
"...Can't we do it somewhere else?"
"I'm sorry — what?"
"I'm pretty sure if we go in there, we're gonna get screwed over..."