Author, Please Keep Community Activity Within Agreed Bounds (1)

I woke in the deep dark before dawn. Maybe because I'd gone to bed early.

"Hm?"

Starved for warmth, was he? Well, he was still a young kid — that tracked.

I gently peeled Suho off of me where he'd wrapped himself around me in his sleep, then fished some water out of the fridge.

Yesterday's broadcast had been recorded, and Suho had promised to save the chat log for me, which meant I had some reviewing to do. I'd spent the entire stream fighting to keep a smile on my face while my mind went completely white. I prayed, earnestly, that remembering not one word of it was simply first-broadcast nerves.

"A cup... ugh."

I opened the cupboard to grab one and stopped short. Most of my old cups had been in sorry shape, so I'd bought two of everything while I was at it — which meant nearly everything I owned now came in pairs. Yeji had picked them out, insisting the two designs matched, they were pretty, and the price was right; separately I'd never thought anything of it, but set side by side...

Anyone with eyes could see these were couple cups.

Not that I had anyone to invite over. I'd never carry a water cup outside anyway, so they were destined to live out their days in this kitchen regardless.

"Eh... it's fine, right?"

I took the cup at the front of the shelf, filled it nearly to the brim, and headed for the workroom.

"Mm."

Stepping inside, I was greeted by a window with no blinds, the world beyond it laid out in full. The night view through all that glass was honestly lovely.

"Oh... wow, that's pretty."

I curled up on the chair with my knees drawn up, leaned against the backrest, and stared out. The dark sky and the buildings flickering to light one window at a time made for a genuinely first-rate view.

Are the people over there heading in for a dawn shift... or still stuck at their desks from yesterday?

Either way, they were all just sad little fireflies.

Before I knew it, I'd sunk into that peculiar dawn melancholy, sipping my water and gazing out the window like a man with nowhere to be. How long did I sit there, idly turning over this and that for story material, before I finally snapped back to my senses?

"Right. This is not the time."

I booted up the computer and settled properly into the chair.

I couldn't remember a single thing I'd said yesterday. I needed to check whether fear and nerves had wrung any regrettable sounds out of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me, and I wanted to see how people had reacted, too. Suho had saved the chat log separately, but since I'd been planning to watch the replay anyway, I logged into Neotube and Twitwitch.

"Mm..."

These goddamn pop-up ads...

I'd be streaming every time I sat down to write from now on, and closing a fistful of ads each and every session was going to get old fast.

I should just build a plugin and make them go away.

A few hours of tinkering and I could probably whip up something serviceable for personal use without ever releasing it publicly. Development had always existed to shave off tedium and hassle in the first place, so I could simply build things piece by piece whenever I hit a wall mid-chapter.

"Huh?"

I rubbed my eyes. Blinked. Blinked again.

"A million won? Huh??"

No matter how many times I looked, a figure north of a million won sat there under total donations received.

"Wh-whaaat???"

I did remember one person dropping 500,000 won. It was such an absurd sum that I'd gaped and even managed a flustered thank-you on air, so of course it stuck with me.

He was the lunatic who described it as 'popping my donation cherry,' but he was still a precious reader...

Even his username alone had screamed premium donor, the kind who throws money around. And he hadn't been alone — people had trickled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in with everything from the 1,000-won minimum up to a few tens of thousands, most of them attaching something they genuinely wanted to say, or a word of encouragement. I'd greeted them as they came, but I'd never imagined they'd added up to this.

Running a household, I'd thought about nothing but expenses and never once spared a glance at income, and now, alone in the dark, I cringed at myself. Why had it never occurred to me that small things pile up?

When did it swell into this?

I'd been fully prepared to sponge off Lee Suho's money for the foreseeable future, so money had never held much pull for me — but one look at what a single broadcast pulled in and my eyes nearly spun in my head.

"Going pro at streaming... no. No, no."

My goal was to finish every last work and get the ASCS cure out of him. To go back to being a man.

"Money is a scary thing."

If it had been some astronomical sum, I'd probably have gone numb with disbelief instead. But a realistic number landing in my account stirred up greed all on its own. Terrified that writing was about to become my side gig and internet broadcasting my actual job, I made a show of ignoring the Withdraw button, clicked the replay instead, and put in my earphones.

It had been a broadcast of just over an hour, so I skipped through the recording in chunks. Somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like rewatching my own stream and started feeling like catching the highlights of a streamer I liked whose live I'd missed.

And the more I watched, the clearer the picture became: the figure on camera was a beautiful girl, but the tone and mannerisms were, to anyone with eyes, those of a corporate drone pickled by years of office life. The face and the outfit said twenty-something young lady; the mouth said thirty-something ahjussi.

And yet the chat overflowed with adoration — which, I could only conclude, meant the world was even more warped than I'd given it credit for.

No, wait. Given my readership, that's only natural.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Twenty-nine works to my name. Twenty-eight of them TS stories. Of course the ones who showed up raving were those readers.

"Hmm..."

For my next work, maybe I'd try a novel about an author who spends her career writing TS stories, then gets TS'd by illness and turns into a beautiful girl.

No — at that point it's not a novel, it's a memoir.

Whether I counted as a beautiful girl was a matter of subjective opinion, fine, I'd grant that — but the fact that I'd written TS stories by the dozen and then been TS'd myself was beyond dispute. I might keep my mouth shut about it, but Suho appeared to have read every word I'd ever written, so he'd smell it the second I typed it. Before I even got around to litigating the fuzzy border between memoir and novel, the whole premise of a next work was rotten from the word go.

"Twenty-nine books, when am I supposed to finish them all... AAAAAGH!!"

Screaming while clutching my head did, admittedly, leave me feeling lighter.

As for the chat log — a few messages had pushed the envelope, sure, but these were my readers; ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠they'd more than earned the right. It didn't even sting, really. Mostly I was thinking, look at these bastards, pacing themselves so responsibly, as I snickered my way down the scroll. Before I knew it, I'd read the lot. Maybe because I'd only skimmed past the pure gags and the repeats, I burned through both the recording and the entire chat log in no time.

What's this, then?

The words "The broadcast has ended" had me thinking the log was over, but there was still scrollbar to spare. I inched the mouse wheel down, and out came a cascade of links.

"Did Suho put these together?"

Judging by the addresses, most of them were communities. Had he rounded up forum threads about me too, figuring I'd be curious?

Lee Suho, you sly little thing.

Deep thinker, for a runt, I decided, and clicked every link open one by one before settling in to read them at my own pace.

Please, please, just let there be no vicious abuse...

Even if it broke my nerve, I'd end up reading them anyway — but that didn't mean I wanted to see anything truly ugly.

First up was EC, one of the communities infamous for its heat.

It wasn't as scorching as its reputation promised. All it really gave me was a long, hard look at my readers' deep-rooted distrust.

Next...

DC Record — the gentlest of the bunch, or so it had seemed.

What on earth was a "tissue consumption promotion" author?

They were so overjoyed at my return that it made me feel guilty instead. In this apology, I hadn't offered a single excuse. The twenty-something woman Song Gaon had spoken as though taking the thirty-something man Song Gaon to task — exactly as I'd seen it, exactly as I'd felt it. Framing it as having simply become the twenty-something woman, and calling out the thirty-something man I'd always treated as a stranger, had left me strangely cleansed.

No excuses had surfaced. I hadn't even reached for the handy little word "slump."

True, I had been in a slump — but if I'd buckled under it and folded, I should never have put out a new work at all. And if I'd conquered it instead, I should have picked my old serials back up. That is how foolish the thirty-something man Song Gaon had been.

Even if I change back, I am never pulling a stunt like that again.

All I'd ever done was gouge out the hearts of the readers who'd stayed. New readers, naturally, took one look at my pen name on a story and ran the other way.

Who wants a vanished story — one that only stokes an imagination destined never to reach an ending?

"Aigoo..."

The longer I browsed the communities, the more the sighs piled up. Two of the threads were scathing critiques. And yet even in those, not a word was hurled at me personally. One reader had written up everything I needed to fix like a full-blown academic paper — pacing and beat distribution across the plot, serialization schedule, and on and on. They were all things I'd thought of myself, and just as carefully shelved. I read that meticulous breakdown slowly, carefully.

One sip of water, one scroll. By the time the glass was empty, I wasn't even halfway through the post.

"Hmm... maybe I'll leave just one comment...?"