So, Are You a Virgin, Galju?
……Ugh. It's finally done.
Han Chaeyeon slid limply down her chair like melting ice, her face exhausted and drained.
On her monitor, a ten-minute compilation of the Fur Wheel Slayer highlights was playing on loop.
……Time to upload it.
She hadn't slept in over forty-two hours now.
Her head throbbed. Her heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vice, pounding violently.
…Ah. It was a good life.
She was in such bad shape that dying from acute myocardial infarction or a cerebral hemorrhage at any moment wouldn't have been surprising.
Even so, watching the ten-minute video on screen made a smile bloom on her lips without her realizing it.
-Heh heh.
She had reviewed over a hundred replays. From those, she'd carefully selected only the most spectacular, jaw-dropping moments and condensed them into this pure, concentrated essence.
An overwhelming sense of accomplishment coursed through her body. She couldn't stop smiling.
The perfectly chosen background music. The exquisite zooms and cuts timed to the parrying moments.
In the decisive scenes, she had slowed the playback just enough to clearly showcase Luru's beautiful movements.
Luru shaking the blood off her spear and striking a neat pose. The arrogant sneer that appeared on screen.
And the enemy collapsing.
It was perfect.
The proud satisfaction welling up in her heart mattered more to Han Chaeyeon than the desperate SOS signals her body was screaming at her.
……Now, upload…….
Click!
Just as the video began uploading to YouTube at its painfully slow pace—
-Bang! Bang! Bang!! Bang!!! Bang!
The front door was being pounded with ferocious force.
……Hic, gasp!
Sleepiness fled in an instant as her body snapped rigidly upright.
The middle-aged woman's voice came immediately after.
"Student!!! Are you home?!?! The rent still hasn't been deposited!! You promised you'd pay this month, student!!"
………….
She froze solid, shoulders hunched up in fear.
"Student!!! Open the door for a second!!! Are you just going to stay inside all day?!?"
She didn't want to go out.
She didn't want to face her.
She didn't want to be evicted.
She didn't want to end up on the street.
She didn't want to go back home.
She didn't want to return to America either.
Her mind went completely blank with those thoughts.
-Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
……I'm scared.
This time it really felt like she would be kicked out.
Then where would she go?
'………Ah.'
…Where can I even go?
No, does someone like me even have anywhere to go in the first place?
…Maybe someone like me was never needed at all.
The fatigue crashing over her. Her mind, no longer functioning properly because of it. The fear and awkwardness filling her entire body.
The sorrow surging up from her paralyzed reason. The deep self-loathing that came with it.
Han Chaeyeon had always lived with a positive, can-do attitude, but right now she was cornered so badly she couldn't manage even that.
She felt her eyes growing hot. Her legs trembled uncontrollably. No matter how hard she tried to steady her breathing, it wouldn't calm down.
The steel front door showed no mercy, screeching relentlessly.
-Bang!! Bang!!-Bang!!-Bang!-Bang!!
'…Should I just ignore it?'
Her mind tried to dodge the situation that way, but her nature was that of an honest honor student.
……Huu, eugh, huuu-uuu-uu-uuu.
She slowly exhaled her shaky breaths.
Then Han Chaeyeon stood up from her seat.
With her slender legs she crossed the tiny room and stopped in front of the front door.
The steel door rattled violently, banging and clanging.
After steeling herself several times, she opened it.
-Creeeeak.
At the same time, the door was yanked open with a violent tug.
A very angry middle-aged woman was glaring fiercely at her.
Han Chaeyeon flinched back a step in surprise. Fear stung her nose and blurred her vision slightly.
"Stu!!…dent………?"
The middle-aged landlady, who had been about to shout, suddenly swallowed her words.
Her face, which had been full of indignation, shifted into one of genuine bewilderment.
It was only natural. Standing before her was a girl who looked completely wrecked.
Five months ago, when she had first moved into this room, she had been a bright, cheerful girl who smiled all the time.
The friendly, hard-to-hate type of gentle, sociable girl.
But the one standing in front of her now was a girl pushed to the very edge of life, looking like she might collapse at any second.
A face frozen in fear.
Eyes darting around restlessly.
A body shrunk in defeat.
Hollow, sunken eyes.
Bloodshot eyes.
Heavy dark circles.
Eyelids so red they looked ready to spill tears at any moment.
The landlady had been ready to explode in anger, but the sight instantly filled her with pity.
……Sigh.
The landlady let out a long sigh and continued.
"……Well, have you been going through a lot lately?"
At those words, everything that had happened over the past few months flashed through Han Chaeyeon's mind in an instant.
Endlessly submitting resumes to YouTubers looking for editors, only to be rejected by every single one.
Getting fired from part-time jobs for being incompetent.
Trying to tutor using the name of her prestigious university, only to face overprotective parents who interfered constantly, or parents who blamed her for their child's complete lack of interest in studying.
And then the bold demands for full refunds.
She had just turned twenty. She didn't know much about the world yet, and even she felt she wasn't very good at teaching, so she had no choice but to swallow her tears and refund everything.
The restaurant part-time job she somehow found next got hit with a thirty-day suspension for food sanitation violations just four days after she started.
The nearby convenience store job she struggled to get ended in less than a week because an old man came in every day at the same time to hit on her.
On the YouTube side, feminist groups protesting and framing her as a "wanderer hater" for not making healing highlight videos.
Hate comments flooding in from accounts created the same day, all because she used footage of their favorite pro gamer losing.
Macro-generated ad comments that had started sticking to her videos more and more lately.
YouTube analytics that had shown almost no meaningful growth for weeks.
The stocks she had carefully saved up, all turned to zero because of some insane elected official in America.
The reality that she hadn't had a proper meal in days because of it.
All those things filled Han Chaeyeon's head.
And in that moment, the landlady's warm, concerned words—something she hadn't heard in so long—completely broke her.
"……Hic."
-Plop. -Plop.
Tears fell before she even realized it. Big droplets rolled endlessly down her cheeks.
"Hic, huuuuuh, huuuuuuu……."
She cried so bitterly.
The landlady hugged her warmly, saying, "It's okay, it's okay, student. Everyone goes through times like this."
Han Chaeyeon sobbed her heart out in that warm embrace for a long time before her strength gave out and she slipped into sleep right there.
The landlady laid her down on the bed, took out the piles of trash bags that had accumulated in the house, and carried them out for her.
"……Aigoo, such a young girl…."
'I guess I'll have to wait just one more month.'
Before opening the door to leave, the landlady looked at Han Chaeyeon sleeping with soft, even breaths and thought that to herself.
-No way?
-(Beep beep? Miku con)
-Lmao
-Go to the internet broadcasting gallery
-Then go to the Celt of Heroes gallery
-Okay then I guess we have no choice but to talk about it here
-Thanks thanks
-What are you guys even doing?
-That's just your wishful thinking lol
-(Hehe Luru con)
-Stop
-Stop
-I get it so stop you fucking bastard!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Upvoted
-Real lol
-She's probably been getting gangbanged by the neighborhood kids since middle school lol
-Anyone who defends a girl who posted nudes as a virgin is lol
-Lololololololololololol
-The gallery master is not a non-virgin you fucking bastards, stop slandering her
-Student^^ Take the post down~
-Where does our Suni live? Where does our Suni live? Where does our Suni live? Where does our Suni live? Where does our Suni live? Where does our Suni live?
-Our Suni~~ do you have a tolerance to Tylenol?