Author, Please Keep Your Community Activities Within Agreed Bounds (5)
What do I do...
—Riiing...
—Rring...
—Riiing...
"O-One sec, bathroom break!"
I hurriedly killed the mic and camera, threw the intro screen back up, and typed out a message saying I was stepping away to the bathroom.
But I couldn't get up from my chair.
After all, going to the bathroom had never been the plan.
"...Uh... S-Suho?"
"Noona, why did you start a stream without me?"
"B-Because you weren't home, and I was... lonely?"
Getting scolded this hard over a stream I'd turned on out of sheer boredom seemed a bit much.
And yet, under Suho's pressing, I heard myself making excuses all the same.
The phone had gone quiet for a long while, and all it carried through the speaker was Suho's sigh.
"Uh... yeah... hoo..."
Was it really that big a deal..?
Judging by how Suho was acting, apparently.
But I couldn't bring myself to say I was sorry.
"...…"
"For now, just run a chatting stream until I get back. We'll do the viewer vote together later."
"O-Okay."
"I'll hang up now."
"Uh... yeah..."
It felt strange — Suho, who always hung up on me mid-sentence the moment something displeased him, was actually announcing that he was ending the call.
So he wasn't that angry after all...?
If it was a relief, then it was a relief.
But his out-of-character behavior left me worried all the same.
"Haaah..."
I heaved a long sigh and rubbed both my cheeks.
Why am I hanging on his every word like this...
I felt like I was being batted around by a little kid.
"Anyway, I can't just end the stream out of nowhere, and I have to keep broadcasting later regardless, so..."
I switched the screen back and turned on the camera and mic.
"I-I'm baaack, everyone."
"Haa... well, I didn't really come on today's stream to do anything in particular... I just wanted to talk with you all."
"Ah, Da-bung, thank you for the ten thousand!"
"Today's fap material," he says...
I'd turned it over in my head plenty of times before, but... to think that a man in his thirties would be the one entertaining such garbage thoughts...
Suddenly, the me on the monitor felt like a stranger.
The me coming through the cam wasn't the ahjussi in my memory.
Ah, right... I'm a woman now.
It wasn't as if I didn't know the hidden meaning behind "this is today's fap material."
No — if anything, I understood it so well it was embarrassing.
I'd just been ambushed by a mortifying remark out of nowhere.
The more I dwelled on it, the hotter my face burned, until everything felt muggy and close.
"Ah... it's... it's hot! It's been hot lately, hasn't it, everyone?"
"No, no, I'm grateful for every donation..! A donation's a donation, big or small~!"
It was money that rolled in whether I lifted a finger or not, so honestly it had always felt like free money.
Which was exactly why — every single time a donation came in, regardless of the amount — the memory of my old self, the one who'd sooner clash with my readers than reach out to them, drove a knife into my chest.
But I'm trying to change now, so...
The mistakes of the past were mine to correct going forward.
All I had to do was not forget them.
Wouldn't it be enough to simply keep regretting them?
Even if I couldn't force them to accept my apology...
The chat was still climbing up the screen.
But the moment I paused my talking to read it, messages of near-identical content flooded the window, plastering it wall to wall.
"Gam Jo-sun, thank you for the ten thousand..."
"Ah... that's, no... haaah. The chat's too faaast..."
"No... I'm not... trying to collect money..!"
"Uhh...?"
I had no idea what the mission entailed, but something had clearly been registered.
A timer popped up over the screen, covering the chat window.
The instant I clicked to drag it aside, the clock frozen at 10:00 began to move.
"Gah... why is this thing counting down?"
"No, uh... what do you mean..? I didn't exactly come here with something prepared..."
"Ah. I do intend to finish it all... I'm just torn on what to start with..."
"We'll do that later... once my manager gets here, we'll run it together."
"Do you guys actually like that kind of thing..?"
Reader reactions I could never predict when writing were one thing — the chat I could watch in real time was even harder to see coming.
Do kids these days actually get off on that creepy stuff?
"Why are you guys playing by yourselves..?"
"Phew~ You... go cool that head of yours down."
I brought my mouse over to the chat log of the rebel agitator who kept egging everyone on.
I right-clicked, and from the menu that popped up, hit the ten-minute chat-ban button.
"What... when did I ever cuss anyone out or talk like some loner loser girl..."
It was true that watching my own cam feed and listening to the voice coming out of my own mouth had started to feel strange.
It was equally true that every time I spoke, it felt like someone else talking, and that disconnect made me slow down without meaning to.
"Ah... 'loner loser girl' is going too far.."
Before I knew it, my hand had risen to cover my face.
I didn't want to meet eyes with the me on the monitor.
It felt like the me inside that screen might start cursing me out at any moment.
"Auuuugh"
I started scrubbing at my face with both hands like I was washing it, then caught myself.
"Ah... no, I can't... I'll ruin my makeup."
"Ah, quit teasing me already!"
Serves me right, huh?
The claim that all my writing had been like that hit far too close to home.
It was true.
Whenever I wrote the high-heat stuff, the women in it were usually the type who enjoyed exactly that.
It stood to reason that the viewers watching me now might assume I was someone who got off on it myself.
"No! Fiction and reality are two different things!!"
"Hey! Ten minutes for you too!"
"Phew... keep teasing me like that and it's ten minutes a pop."
It should quiet down a little now, right?
The moment I turned my eyes to the chat log to read what had finally gone quiet, I doubted what I was seeing.
"Huh?"
I found the person I'd just banned in the ban list.
The ten-minute countdown was visibly ticking along, and when I right-clicked the ID, a whole list of options came up.
"Uh... chat log... chat log... found it!"
When I pulled up the chat history and laid it over the broadcast feed, it really did look like I'd banned the wrong person.
"Uh... he...he swore, so I b-banned him!"
"The one from earlier gets thirty minutes..."
This time I froze the chat window so I wouldn't ban anyone else by mistake.
Then, calmly, I scrolled the log upward and banned the one who'd actually been the problem.
"Aigoo. There we go. Now I've banned the right person."
The chat that had been racing up the screen came to a dead stop.
What was going on?
Did it freeze because I kept banning people...?
A needless worry crept over me.
It was like telling a friend I'd fought with that I'd never play with him again, only for him to really, truly go quiet — feeling like a sulking child, I stared blankly at the frozen chat window until the reason finally dawned on me.
"Oh, right. I'm the one who froze it..."
"..I-It's my first stream, okay!!"
"Huh...?"
...What was coming had come, in the end.