Try Not to Cry
Hwayeon and Dohee's rivalry went back a long way. Dohee, eight years a BJ, had been selling the matchup as chest versus hips ever since the day she debuted on KoreaTV, which put the bad blood at nearly eight years.
When Hwayeon was the unrivaled top female cam, she hadn't cared what kind of fuss Dohee made. However desperately the other woman thrashed, she only just cleared the Million Club, while Hwayeon never fell below two million and, on nights the whales clustered thick, pushed past the five- and six-million clubs as well.
Now their positions had reversed. Hwayeon was on the tail end of her prime, and though Dohee's momentum had died down considerably, she still kept a decent grip on her whales. Some months she cleared a million; some months she didn't.
Hwayeon, by contrast, had found it hard to pull even thirty thousand a day before Kim Taeyoung arrived. Broadcast every single day and she might barely cling to the Million Club—except no female cam actually went live every day. Oddly enough, the whales came in far more readily for the girls who only broadcast now and then.
"Me? I'm bad at getting along? As if. Your income's looking a little better these days, unni, if you're thinking of coming out here. I was a nervous wreck wondering whether you even would."
Dohee laid the provocation on thick. The main draw of this Seed Company show was a team battle, but the teams were already locked. They had been split in advance specifically to force rival matchups, so of course Hwayeon and Dohee were on opposite sides. Their feud ran deep enough that the two had been booked as a set; if one fell through, the other booking collapsed with it.
"You've even got time to worry about my income. Still that idle, are you?"
"Ha. Unni never changes. From what I saw, you've got exactly one whale. Think that's going to be enough?"
"Worry about yourself."
"I would, if there were anything to worry about. Whatever. You're the one getting humiliated today anyway. Do your best. Just don't cry afterward."
Dohee turned sharply and walked off. She was sure of herself. For today she had called every one of her whale oppas, and they had sworn they would make her number one. Locking down that promise had cost her plenty, but if it meant putting Hwayeon under her heel, she could endure it.
"BJs, gather round, please. Head up to the second-floor studio."
Twenty minutes to air. Seed's manager called the female cams together, and they climbed to the second floor in the sort of flashy hall dresses a room-salon girl might wear to work the floor. Seed's studio made no secret of how much money had gone into it.
LED screens sheeted the floor and the walls. Four enormous speakers stood ready for the sound, and four station-grade cameras waited to cut to the BJs one by one. On cost alone it came to nearly a billion won.
No one there was surprised. Seed Company's annual revenue cleared forty billion won. Set beside that, a billion-won outlay was a trifle.
A copyright-free track played through the standby, and photos and clips of the BJs appearing today cycled across the screen. Ordinarily this slot belonged to the signature reactions of the Seed Company crew—Seed's broadcasts always opened by promoting those—but today every participant was a female cam who didn't belong to the company.
Right before the broadcast began, viewers crashed in like a tide. Seed Company's average audience sat around five or six thousand, and the count had already passed twenty thousand. An Excel Broadcast stocked with the all-time top female cams was simply too strong a draw.
"Five minutes to air!"
A staffer in the monitor room shouted, and in the same moment the big prompter across the front put the time on display.
The female cams seated behind the V-shaped table checked their makeup one last time. No one dragged the pride war up from the first floor. Everyone gathered here had been broadcasting for three years at minimum and drew a hard line between inside the camera and outside it. Pay them, and they could kiss on the cheek someone they had been calling a fucking bitch and a dog of a woman only a moment before.
"One minute!"
The show was about to start. Hwayeon felt a tremor in her chest. How long had it been since a broadcast shook her like this? Ten years a BJ, she no longer got nervous even on official broadcasts or awards shows.
She was shaking because of the competition. This was an Excel Broadcast that ranked them on nothing but raw pulling power. Lose here in wretched fashion, and she would be certifying, in the open, that she was a has-been.
That was why she had clung to Kim Taeyoung. Even when she had ended up taking an enema and anal with no discussion beforehand, she had smiled and played cute. All of it for her pride. For the single determination to shine in this room. Now it was time to be paid back.
"Ahem. All right, everyone. Mic check, one two, one two. You can hear me all right?"
Seed's greeting patter began, and his bedrock viewers threw chat up in a wild thicket. See-men was short for Seed Amen. It looked like a cult answering its preacher, but it was only one of the customs of Seed's room.
"Mmm. Seeing you again today, after yesterday, seems like a good thing. Yes. I drank too much last night.... Mmm. I'm not in great shape. Yes. Still, we ought to do what we have to do, shouldn't we? Yes...."
He carried the opening alone in that slow drawl. A first-time viewer would have found it stifling, but the bedrock audience listened to him with the ease of habit. A few minutes of mumbling ended, and the real content began.
"Mmm. Yes. Then—three-shot."
At Seed's word the camera zoomed out. Seed sat in the center, Hwayeon on his left, Dohee on his right. Hwayeon was introduced first because her career was the longest of the three. No female cam senior to her had come. Among the female cams of KoreaTV, anyone with more years than Hwayeon was either a true has-been or already retired.
"Hello."
Hwayeon and Dohee greeted almost at the same time. It put her in a slightly foul mood. She didn't show it, crinkling her eyes in a smile as she looked into the camera. The interview began with her.
"Aigoo. Ancestor of the female cams. First-generation female cam, Hwayeon."
"Ah! Seed oppa! It's been forever and this is what I get? And I'm not first generation, I'm second, okay?"
"Ahaha. That's right, that's right. Yes, second-generation female cam Hwayeon. First, thank you for accepting the invitation. Yes."
"If you're thankful, don't make fun of me."
"Aigoo, still sharp. Same as ever. Mmm. The temper hasn't died."
"Oppa!"
"Ahaha. I know, I know. My eardrums are going to fall off. Mmm. And yes. Next. Another fossil over on this side. Miss Dohee. Long time no see. How many years has it been for us?"
"It's been a while, Seed oppa. About... four years? Five? Somewhere around there."
"Mmm. Yes. It really has been a long time. Have you been well in the meantime?"
"I've been perfectly well. I don't think Hwayeon unni over there can say the same."
That fucking bitch? I was deliberately not scratching her because we're live, and she comes at me first?
"Hahaha. The mind games are already something else. Mmm. Yes. As I told the viewers a little earlier, today's broadcast is a team survival showdown. We'll be divided into a Red Team and a Blue Team. Where Team Leader Hwa is sitting is the Red Team. Opposite her, where Team Leader Do is sitting, is the Blue Team."
Dohee had landed a clean hit, but Hwayeon couldn't get angry. That was the flaw of a mob collab. Act selfish and the viewers came down on you in a pack. She had long since made her peace with hate comments, but if those comments wore down her image, the whales stopped flowing in. That was the problem.
Short interviews followed. Ten seconds or so apiece—two or three remarks exchanged, and done. It seemed far too brief, but an Excel Broadcast had always been that kind of place. If you wanted a female cam's private life, you watched her own stream.
This was an arena. A contest over who could earn more money.
"All right. Mmm. Then let's begin in earnest."
The comic banter from the male regulars they called waiters had finished as well. Seed gave the signal for the real start, and on his cue a staffer in the monitor room released the Moon Balloon donations that had been held back.
"Strawberry up!"
"Strawberry up!"
The real dance floor opened. Moon Balloon messages from the whales who had fired their donations in advance, from the very start of the broadcast, came crashing in all at once.
To whatever song the roulette landed on, the BJ named in the message stepped out and danced. A four-digit donation meant a solo reaction from that BJ. Anyone who hadn't been called, BJs and waiters alike, leaned into the mic and shouted out the whale's name in the gaps of the beat.
Backed-up donations kept the songs coming without a break. The BJs could check their order on the prompter set up in front of them, so nobody fumbled. When the turn ahead of them ended, they walked straight out and hit the reaction.
Why isn't he coming.
The prompter showed up to twenty donations at a time. Who had sent it, how many, what the song was, what the message said—all of it appeared at once. Among the donations waiting in line, the person Hwayeon was looking for was not there. The one she wanted was, of course, CoinGodGodGod. However long she waited, Coin God's donation refused to come up.
"Ahem."
Seed cleared his throat and slid a glance at Hwayeon. Buried under the music, it wouldn't be picked up on the broadcast, but to Hwayeon it rang perfectly clear. The reason he coughed and stared was obvious. She was the only one whose donations weren't bursting at all.
In the midst of it, a five-digit Moon Balloon burst. This was not a one-on-one death match. In a team survival showdown, once a donation of five digits or more went off, every member of the team had to go out and dance—the lead female cam set in the center, the rest standing behind her like a folding screen.
Hwayeon stepped onto the stage with a rigid face. She didn't really know the choreography to "Wop," but it didn't matter. Most of the dances on an Excel Broadcast were routines stitched from the basics. Shake your hips a little, ride a body wave, and you could copy them without much trouble.
He didn't pull a Donation-and-Run on me, did he?
Hwayeon thought it while she danced behind Yungseah. It wouldn't be that. No—it really must not be that.