What's So Scary About It?
What's so scary about it?
Whatever the thing may be, once you just start doing it, a way forward tends to present itself.
At least, that's how I see it.
And so, about a month after I'd casually fired up a stream with that kind of attitude—still without any real interaction to speak of—word of mouth must have started circulating, because my average viewership had climbed to around two hundred.
Truthfully, whether I turned on a stream or just played alone, nothing about the game itself changed—and yet something about the feeling was different. Knowing that an unspecified crowd of strangers was watching me play made the whole thing a little more fun.
MonkLoveSquad donated ₩1,000
Delent, what Monk traits do you mainly run?
Small donations like that would pop up now and then.
"I like parrying, so I usually take Reliable Counter… though Swift Strike is pretty good too."
No matter how much money you have, it has a way of draining away. These people were kind enough to help cover the PC café fees that kept bleeding out of my pocket, so in cases like this I made a point of answering thoroughly and in good faith.
Anyway, the important thing was that the atmosphere had settled into exactly the kind of skill-focused stream I'd been hoping for.
…They're reacting to this?
The higher the tier climbed, the more the level of opposing players rose beyond any comparison to before. Unlike the lower ranks, where all kinds of users were scattered about, I had entered the Master bracket—where only the absolute top-tier players competed.
At this point, even landing a parry was difficult. What that meant was that canceling every basic attack and imbuing every action with purpose wasn't a mark of skill anymore—it was the bare minimum the tier demanded.
And unlike me, who hadn't even racked up a hundred ranked games, this was a bracket packed with proud ghost friends who routinely dumped a thousand games into a single season. So now I, too, had to play with a certain respect for my opponents.
Well—in the end, it just meant it took a little longer to kill them. The result was the same.
"Hmm…."
Toner, cream, sunscreen, foam cleanser. I sat staring at these four cosmetics laid out in front of me, sunk deep in thought.
Applying them was a genuine hassle, but the set that makeup artist Yun A-gyeong had gifted me on the movie set still hadn't run out. And then there was the sunscreen that actor Seo Hyeon-woo had given me, insisting this summer was going to be especially brutal.
Out of respect for the people who'd gone out of their way to give me these things, just shoving them into a corner would have been rude.
This face of mine was so small that I'd thought no amount of product would ever finish it off—and yet looking at the nearly empty cream jar, hollowed out to nothing, it seemed even that had an end after all.
……Was I disappointed?
…No. If I actually end up going the actor route, skincare is going to matter.
If streaming flopped and job-hunting flopped too, then setting aside the options of bouncing between part-time gigs or becoming a total freeloader, there wasn't much left for me besides acting. Separate from the fact that my acting ability wasn't anything special, this face alone could probably make a living off a few photoshoots.
…And if the figure caught up later, maybe even modeling?
Anyway, this wasn't about developing an interest in cosmetics. This was about designing Han A-yeon's future in a more positive direction.
So I messaged the person who, as far as I knew, was the closest thing to an expert on lotions and skincare: Seo Hyeon-woo.
Of course. A man who made his living on his face and his acting—and who was genuinely good-looking with excellent skin—was bound to know a thing or two.
The summer that had made even the trip to the PC café a miserable ordeal of blistering heat finally passed, and autumn—the season of harvest—arrived.
Autumn was my favorite season. The wind blew just right, the sunlight wasn't too harsh, and the cool weather put me in a good mood. A season that always took the middle path, you could say.
Slap, slap.
Still, I should keep putting on the sunscreen, right?
The UV rays weren't as strong as in summer, but when I'd only asked for a product recommendation, Seo Hyeon-woo had gone and shipped an entire gift set to the orphanage under my name. Out of respect for the sender's goodwill, I was diligently applying it every day.
And today wasn't an ordinary class day—it was a field trip to Lotte World. Technically, it was Children's Grand Park next door rather than Lotte World itself, but either way, the fact that I didn't have to sit through boring lessons put me in a fine mood.
"The Viking! Let's ride the Viking!"
"I want the bumper cars!"
"I'm so jealous… I want to go to an amusement park too."
For the record, just because I'd cast myself as an outsider and barely exchanged words with anyone didn't mean there were no kids at the orphanage from the same elementary school. In other words, a few others were heading out on the same field trip.
Be that as it may, I slipped out of the bustling orphanage alone and headed for school.
"…."
Maybe I should ditch halfway and hit the PC café…?
Fantasies are only beautiful when they remain fantasies. Even if I'd left the orphanage alone in true outsider fashion, I wasn't so reckless as to actually go through with a plan that shameless.
"A-yeon~!"
Besides—I had a friend here who actually liked me.
"Hi, Hye-yeon."
Lee Hye-yeon came bounding up warmly on the way to school, and we walked the rest of the way hand in hand.
After a tedious round of safety briefings and the homeroom teacher's explanations, we were on the bus bound for Children's Grand Park.
"These are really good. Where'd you get them?"
"Those?…Just a gift from an uncle I know."
Adults seemed pathologically incapable of not stuffing snacks into anything meant for kids—tucked inside the cosmetics package had been a little bag of cookies.
I wasn't the type to put sweets in my mouth unless I specifically craved popcorn, so I'd just been holding onto them. But with the field trip coming up, I'd brought them along.
More precisely, I'd brought them to offload onto Lee Hye-yeon… no, to give them to her as a gift.
"You bought me snacks last time. You eat all of these."
"No way! Mom says delicious things have to be shared with friends."
…What an admirably wholesome little heart. I made a show of reluctantly picking up a cookie.
It looked tasty enough, but I had a feeling it'd be dry and crumbly the moment I bit in. A strawberry candy would have been better.
Crunch.
…Oh.
Not just some cheap cookie after all. Given that the sender was a famous actor, I hadn't really expected bargain-bin snacks—but even for someone like me who hated dry food, the texture was surprisingly satisfying.
Still, dislike was dislike. After a stretch of halfheartedly nibbling and chatting with Lee Hye-yeon about the rides, we arrived at Children's Grand Park—a place where anticipation and dread coexisted in equal measure.
Personally, my impression of amusement parks had never been favorable. Not because the rides were scary—simply because there were too many people. Waiting over an hour just to ride one attraction? Was that even reasonable?
And what if, after all that waiting, the ride turned out to be a letdown?
Some people might consider it only natural to endure for the sake of a single moment of fun. But for me, at least, artificially manufactured thrills and terror never delivered more dopamine than necessary.
In that sense, today was fine. Amusement parks were usually packed no matter where you looked, but a weekday morning was a different story. Relatively quiet, you could say. Aside from elementary school field trips like ours and the occasional family that had carved out special time, there was barely anyone around—it was downright deserted.
So I'd been planning to just grab something tasty, park myself on a bench, and kill time….
"That one! Let's go ride the Viking!"
"I don't really…."
"Oh?…Okay…."
"…I'm kidding. Come on, let's go!"
Looking at Lee Hye-yeon's dejected face, there was simply no way I could brush her off. I took her hand and headed for the Viking.
"Waaah…that looks so scary."
"If you get scared, you can hold my hand."
The line was so short that waiting barely meant anything, and we boarded almost immediately.
"No way! It's moving!"
I could feel the Viking vibrating. For all her talk about how scary it looked, the moment she got on she was bouncing with excitement—watching Lee Hye-yeon, I couldn't help thinking that kids really were just kids.
Thump.
And in the middle of that thought, my heart began to pound hard.
Thump, thump!
My grip tightened. My shoulders hunched. My toes curled and my thoughts locked up. In the most literal sense, my entire body was rejecting the present situation with extreme prejudice.
…Come on, what's so scary about this.
Moments like these called for a change in perspective. Settle down, heart. I tried to empty my mind as if it were nothing. I told myself it wouldn't be scary, and it wouldn't be fun either.
"Uh, uhh…!"
At least, that was true until a moment ago…!
Clunk.
Maybe it was because Lee Hye-yeon had insisted on the end seats and I'd climbed on without thinking—but the instant the Viking started swinging back and forth, an indescribable weightlessness crashed over my entire body.
Whoosh.
With every pass of the Viking's back-and-forth arc, building force little by little, my heart felt like it was dropping out of my chest.
"N-no, this is way too hi—!"
"It's okay, A-yeon!"
Wait—what am I even holding onto right n—
"Kyaaaah!"
Whoosh!
The world flipped upside down. My vision pitched wildly up and down as the scenery before my eyes swapped places at a terrifying speed.
"Are you okay?!"
Through the roar of the wind, I caught a fragment of Lee Hye-yeon's voice.
…What? Is it over?
I opened the eyes I'd squeezed shut. Instead of the welcome sight of solid ground greeting me, the massive support pillar of the Viking loomed dead ahead.
"Ah…."
At the highest point of the arc, the Viking hung suspended in midair for a fraction of a second. Anticipating the violent freefall that would follow, I denied reality for the briefest of moments.
"…!!"
I'm going to die.
I'm dying.
I'm actually going to die!