The Concept Collapses (2)

I am, at my core, a sweet Korean man — a Sweet Hannam, you could call me. The sort of person who extends a baseline of courtesy even to complete strangers.

Of course, I like to think I've gotten a little meaner since becoming Geum Taeyang. Even so… I am not the kind of man who wears a face like this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on a first meeting.

I didn't need a mirror. The woman standing in front of me told me everything I needed to know about the look I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was giving her. Not a single muscle in my face had moved, so I was probably wearing a blank expression — but the chill packed into it was clearly what had pulled that reaction out of her.

This time it wasn't Geum Taeyang's instincts moving on their own. This was me, on purpose.

At first I'd wondered whether this much hostility was really called for… but in a gender-reversed world, a woman who tails a man can stand to be treated a little roughly. With a body this superior, how was I supposed to miss someone following me that obviously?

I'd glanced back once, and she'd slipped off somewhere and stayed gone long enough that I figured she'd given up. Then she showed up again out of nowhere and started talking to me.

What the hell is this bitch playing at?

"Well? You called out to me. Say something."

"Uh, uh… th-that's…"

"Hey."

"Y-yes! S-so, um…"

A stalker, maybe? Creeping along behind me and then stammering when she finally opened her mouth — the whole thing reeked of something off. I was still looking at her when another voice cut in from behind me.

"Young man. Take this already. I told you I don't have change!"

"Grandpa, I already told you all I've got is a fifty-thousand-won bill. Just take it."

"How am I supposed to take that? I'd feel terrible!"

"There's nothing to feel terrible about!"

In this heat, he ought to have just sold off those scraps of namul and gone home early to rest. I finally had a little money to spare and wanted to do one decent thing with it. The old man was stubborn as a mule.

Not that it mattered. If even younger people couldn't beat me, what chance did an old man have?

He gave up at last and started bagging everything he'd been selling. There was apology on his face, yes — but also a flicker of delight at a situation he hadn't seen coming.

Mm. That felt good.

With a wicked little smile, I snatched every plastic bag out of his hands. Well — I'd paid a fair price, so "snatched" was a slightly strange way to put it. Still.

I turned my back ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on the old man, who had lost his entire stall and been left holding nothing but a fifty-thousand-won note, and the first thing that filled my vision was the presumed stalker. She was wearing a different strange expression now, nothing like before.

"You're still here? If you've got something to say, spit it out. I don't have time. Why were you following me in the first place? You a stalker?"

"N-no! Th-that's… you're Geum Taeyang… right…?"

"Ah."

What was I supposed to do with this. I had asked her outright if she was a stalker, and that was the answer I got.

A viewer from my stream? Had I really gone and called a viewer a stalker?

Well… she had been acting suspicious, so it had been a reasonably logical inference… but I was embarrassed anyway. Heat crept into my face.

"Uh… so you were a viewer?"

"Huh? Ah. Yes, yes! A viewer! Yes!"

Why was she reacting so hard? Was she that excited?

"You should've said so earlier. I thought some weirdo was following me. Sorry."

"No…! I followed you way too much! Yes!"

An utterly random fan meeting, right there on the street. She kept calling me Geum Taeyang, and a few passersby glanced over, but there was nothing to be embarrassed about. It was my stream. Why would I be embarrassed?

At any rate, the woman who had been wound tight with nerves at the start began to loosen up as we talked. She said her place was nearby, so I walked her there, and when we parted I split the namul and vegetables I'd just bought and gave her about half. It was too much for me to eat alone anyway, and it was my first fan meeting. I could afford that much of a little extra.

Thinking about it, the whole scene was ridiculous. A commemorative fan-meet gift… and it was namul. The look of pure moved gratitude on her face only made it funnier.

"Pfft. That was fun. Go on in. Send a donation later or something. And take that namul to your mother… no, your father."

"Okay…"

A flavorless life. Come to a gender-reversed world, and you end up living through all kinds of things.

Not bad, all in all.

Now that was a reaction.

The fact that a man like Taeyang-oppa hadn't even broken a thousand viewers was proof that something was wrong with this country. It was a genuine tragedy that I had only followed Geum Taeyang's stream today… but at this point, I still counted as an OG viewer, right?

Lethe's stream? Lethe really was a good streamer, that much was true — but that community was overflowing with losers who self-inserted as her and sat around nursing some weird moral superiority. Still, if only for introducing me to Taeyang-oppa, that stream deserved some credit.

Oppa, when are you going live?

Mm. Collective intelligence has a habit of leaping clean over any one person's expectations.

The reason I was thinking that…

My back had improved, so I'd earnestly begged Sehee and started streaming again. The viewer count had finally broken a thousand.

Lately the numbers had been climbing so fast it felt like I could barely keep up. Had I always been this big? The collab with Ari had been a genuine success, so an influx on this scale wasn't all that strange — but sudden change was always hard to adjust to.

Tomorrow morning I'd have to set up a Tgeder board of my own. Putting it off any longer would just be awkward.

Apparently a few posts about me had gone up on the community today. Not junk, either — two of them had piled up a serious number of upvotes. One was the post above, the one that had picked me out of Ari's volunteer content. And the other… so that person hadn't even been a viewer of mine.

If I ran into her again, I was going to need a proper excuse ready.

Anyway, the situation had gotten very strange. This was supposed to be a Geum Taeyang stream.

"Explain myself? Why aren't I a delinquent… I am a delinquent. I've even smoked. Never done a good deed in my life. My womb is tremb— ah, fuck."

Oh no.

I had been eating off the Geum Taeyang concept this whole time, and now a crisis had arrived.

Having people notice my good deeds was a pretty nice feeling. There were folks who secretly donated hundreds of millions, but that wasn't my style. I didn't want to go around bragging — but I didn't want to bury it at all costs, either. Something in between.

The reason I was reacting so awkwardly, though… I wasn't sure this would actually help the stream.

Chat was flying without a pause. A thousand people were looking at me. Making the right call in a situation like this was not easy. If I made a bad one in front of this many people, there would be no walking it back.

So… I chose evasion.

"The orphanage? No idea what you're talking about. What's that supposed to mean. Namul? I don't even like namul."

Damn it. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything.

Would ignoring it have been the answer? Or was admitting it the better play?

Among the viewers, the idea that I was not a delinquent was rapidly hardening into established fact. Geum Taeyang was the capital I ran this whole operation on. What was I supposed to do with this.

I needed time.

Cooking. I should start the cooking stream a little early today. I needed to stall.

"F… forget it. I'm going to go make some food."

Uh… but I'd started the cooking stream in the first place to neutralize the delinquent vibe.

If I did it like this, wasn't that going to make things a little weird?

…

…

Oh.