078. Bustling Seoul Outdoor Stream
078. Bustling Seoul Outdoor Stream
I slipped out of the alleyway and entered a downtown area bustling with people.
【Reformed Guburi】─Whoa, suddenly there's a fuckton of people.
【Hottie Licker】─This is near Apgujeong Station. It was the alley we just passed through that was weird. Lick.
【Min-ji】─It's always a crowded neighborhood.
【Yoho】─Don't act like you know everything. lol
【Min-ji】─k
【Se-hun Defense Force】─Se-hun goes quiet again now that there are more people around. lolol
【Plum Tree】─He's surprisingly shy, you know.
【Bubblegum Collector】─Wakyapya! What a shy boy!
【Gyejipsa】─Shy boy!
【Drift AI】─I shall Wakyapya. I ask if he is SCP-096.
【Qkrnfl892】─What the hell are you on about.
Being cautious was only natural.
If I stood in a crowd like this holding a camera and muttering to myself, passersby's attention would inevitably fix on me.
I had no desire to repeat what had happened on the subway earlier.
‘Still, I couldn't just communicate solely through chat forever... I'd have to keep my voice as low as possible.’
I pressed the camera right up to my face.
Then I spoke in a small voice.
"Wow. The foot traffic here is insane."
【Hottie Licker】─? What did you just say? I couldn't hear. Lick.
【Se-hun Defense Force】─I couldn't hear either. lolol
【Yoho】─Isn't this the first time the streamer's been this self-conscious?
【Min-ji】─Yep. It's the first time.
【Yoho】─k
【Qkrnfl892】─lololol Se-hun's so damn cute.
【Reformed Guburi】─Speak the fuck up, you dipshit!
"I said there are a lot of people."
【Yoho】─He says there are a lot of people.
【Min-ji】─He says there are a lot of people, teehee.
【Dick Lover】─We heard him too, you morons.
【Plum Tree】─But it seems like people walking by keep staring at Se-hun.
【Reverse-Rape Maniac】─Yeah, there are a ton of people sneaking glances.
【Drift AI】─I shall speak. I state that not staring at him would be the strange thing.
【Bubblegum Collector】─Wakyapya! He's a celebrity!
【Gyejipsa】─Wakyapya!
Honestly, I felt the stares too.
No one was openly gawking, but there were plenty of people scanning me with sidelong glances.
"Usually, I don't get stared at this much... Is it because I'm holding a camera today?"
【Plum Tree】─I think it would've been the same even if you weren't holding a camera.
【Se-hun Defense Force】─fr lolol
【Reformed Guburi】─Nah, they're staring because you're holding a camera. People are less interested in others than you think. They don't just stare because someone's good-looking.
【Dick Lover】─Guburi's right. When I walk down the street, I don't look at the faces of people around me.
【Hottie Licker】─If I see a good-looking person, I stare like hell. Lick.
【Qkrnfl892】─Me too. lolol
【Reverse-Rape Maniac】─I don't stare. I'm afraid they'll bitch about being eye-raped. lol
Why were the pedestrians staring at me?
Opinions on the reason were divided.
It was a truly pointless debate.
【Min-ji】─Maybe they're staring because they recognize you, Se-hun.
"That's probably not it. If they recognized me, they would've come up and talked to me."
【Yoho】─They're still in the 'not quite sure' phase. They'll start swarming any second now, won't they?
【Min-ji】─That's right. Soon they'll swarm like a horde of zombies and ask for pictures.
【Se-hun Defense Force】─Knock it off, you crazy bitches. lolol
【Qkrnfl892】─Aren't they messing with him at this point?
【Plum Tree】─Now that I think about it, those two seem to be deifying Se-hun.
【Dick Lover】─Right? They're like some kind of cultists.
【Hottie Licker】─To those bitches, Se-hun seems to be a religion. Lick.
【Reverse-Rape Maniac】─Se-hun is totally a religion. My mom and I both follow Se-hunism.
【Reformed Guburi】─What the hell is Se-hunism? wtf
Contrary to Yoho and Min-ji's concerns.
People merely kept sneaking glances at me.
No one asked for a photo or pretended to know me and struck up a conversation.
【Drift AI】─I shall speak. I will summarize why people are staring at Gye Se-hun. 1) The camera draws their attention. 2) After seeing the camera, passersby naturally check the face. 3) They keep glancing because he is handsome. This is the sequence, and I state that it is not because they recognize Gye Se-hun.
My thoughts aligned with Drift's.
When walking down the street.
Almost no one checks the face of every single passerby.
If I hadn't been holding a camera, the attention wouldn't have been this focused on me.
【Plum Tree】─Let me summarize too. 1) He gets stared at because he's just handsome.
【Dick Lover】─What's next?
【Plum Tree】─That's it.
Well, I couldn't exactly deny Plum Blossom's opinion either.
Maybe that was the case for some people.
Everyone had different inclinations, after all.
【Min-ji】─I'll summarize too!
【Yoho】─Please don't.
Anyway.
I was relieved that no one, unlike the male student I'd met on the subway, assumed I was a celebrity and asked for an autograph.
Of course, the constant stream of stares was still somewhat burdensome.
But it wasn't unbearable.
They were simply looks of curiosity, after all.
It wasn't particularly unpleasant, so I decided to just ignore them moderately and keep walking.
*
*
*
Ignoring the stares of the people around me.
While I was comfortably strolling through the downtown area, Guburi's chat caught my eye.
【Reformed Guburi】─So what are we doing now?
【Qkrnfl892】─Aren't we just going to keep walking around? You said you'd show us Seoul.
【Reformed Guburi】─Why the hell would we want a tour of Seoul, are we cavemen?
"...Guburi. Is the stream boring?"
【Reformed Guburi】─Yeah, it's boring as fuck. How can it be fun when all you're doing is walking nonstop, damn it?
【Hottie Licker】─It's not nonstop, it's incessantly. Lick.
【Reformed Guburi】─The fuck, whatever. Same shit.
【Yoho】─I'm enjoying it? If you're bored, leave.
【Min-ji】─That's right. Leave. -_-
【Bubblegum Collector】─Wakyapya! Guburi has so many complaints!
【Gyejipsa】─So many!
【Reverse-Rape Maniac】─You should be grateful just for the fact that he turned on the stream. You're getting too greedy.
【Qkrnfl892】─fr lolol Why are you complaining when you get to see a face that's arguably top-tier worldwide?
【Se-hun Defense Force】─Top-tier worldwide? Nah, top-tier across all dimensions.
【Plum Tree】─And on top of that, it's the kind of face you get more addicted to the more you look.
【Dick Lover】─Yeah, you never get sick of it.
【Drift AI】─I shall speak. I state that Gye Se-hun's eyes are abnormally attractive.
【Reformed Guburi】─Stop blindly stanning him, you dumb bitches. It'll make that motherfucker Gye Bastard-hun spoiled.
I could understand where Guburi was coming from.
Even if I were in the viewers' shoes, a stream that was just walking around the city would probably seem boring.
I decided to humbly accept the criticism.
"Hmm... Now that I think about it, Guburi is right. I have been doing nothing but just walking around."
【Yoho】─?
【Min-ji】─??
【Reformed Guburi】─Yeah. Go into a place and scarf down some lunch or something. Give us a mukbang to watch.
"Sure, why not. It's a little early, but I don't have anything else to do anyway."
【Hottie Licker】─What's this? I thought Guburi was gonna get chat muted. Lick.
【Min-ji】─Right? Does Se-hun actually like Guburi?
【Qkrnfl892】─The chat mute angle was razor-sharp, yet here they are, surviving.
"Why would I chat mute them? It's not like Guburi said anything wrong."
【Reformed Guburi】─lolol sex.
【Plum Tree】─What the hell? Did that fucker Guburi go and learn how to pick up men or something?
【Dick Lover】─I think I know Se-hun's type when it comes to women. He definitely likes domineering women.
【Reverse-Rape Maniac】─For real? Then I'm disappointed.
【Min-ji】─He likes domineering women?
【Yoho】─Gasp?
【Min-ji】─You son of a bitch, Se-hun! Don't you dare eat!
【Yoho】─You bastard of a streamer! Get on your knees!
"Gyejipsa. Chat mute Min-ji and Yoho."
【Gyejipsa】─Wakyapya!
『'Yoho' has been restricted from chat. Time remaining: 00:05:00』
『'Min-ji' has been restricted from chat. Time remaining: 00:05:00』
【Dick Lover】─Guess that wasn't the case.
【Reverse-Rape Maniac】─Phew.
【Hottie Licker】─lolololol you dumbasses. Lick.
【Qkrnfl892】─Serves you right. lolololol
【Plum Tree】─Are they seriously that stupid...?
【Qkrnfl892】─Ah, I get it now. It's like when a pet dog you've been raising throws a tantrum, so you find it endearing and let it slide just this once.
"There is that, and I also prefer honest people over sycophants."
【Reformed Guburi】─What do you mean 'there is that', you motherfucker!
"Anyway, let's follow Guburi's suggestion and just go eat."
【Reformed Guburi】─Don't ignore me. wtf
And so, having decided on lunch.
I resolved to just pick any random restaurant and go inside.
***
The 15th floor of a building owned by the Daehan Seoul Group.
Inside the office located at the end of the corridor, three women were trembling on their knees.
"What's with the state of these junkie bastards?"
Team Leader Park scrutinized the addicts as she asked.
One of the women who had brought the addicts in answered in a stiff tone.
"They were in this state from the beginning."
"They were already like this? You didn't rough them up?"
"That is correct. We merely brought them here."
The addicts were a sight to behold.
One had a caved-in face.
Another had a face puffed up like a dumpling.
"...Well, whatever."
She found their appearances strange.
But Team Leader Park decided it was none of her business and stopped caring.
"What should we do with these bitches, Director?"
Team Leader Park turned her head toward the office desk and asked.
"..."
In front of the floor-to-ceiling window.
Seong So-ri, who had been sitting in a chair gazing at the cityscape, quietly rose from her seat.
Then, moving with an unhurried gait, she approached the addicts.
"H-hiik...!"
"B-bigGirl..."
"G-go easy on us, you cr-crazy bitch."
The addicts spoke in small, frightened voices upon seeing Seong So-ri.
One of them, her face collapsed, couldn't even speak properly.
"Everyone except Team Leader Park, get out."
The moment Seong So-ri's order fell.
The women in black suits answered with a thunderous reply and filed out of the office.
Seong So-ri stared at the firmly shut office door for a moment, then slowly turned her gaze back down to the addicts.
The moment their eyes met Seong So-ri's, the addicts hurriedly averted their gaze and shrank back.
"You."
Seong So-ri called to the addicts in a low voice.
"Y-yes!"
"Yes...!"
"Y-yehh!"
The addicts answered with choked voices.
Three knives clattered to the floor in front of them.
"Choose one of the two options. Pick up those knives and fight me like a real woman, or cut off one of your own arms."
A violent earthquake shook the addicts' pupils.
It was an utterly incomprehensible situation.
Cutting off an arm.
That was a gesture signifying the severing of ties with the organization and the intent to start a new life.
And.
Cutting ties with the organization was nothing short of a death sentence for addicts.
Because they would no longer be supplied with drugs.
"D-director... have we done something wrong, by any chance...?"
One of the addicts mustered her courage to ask.
No matter how much she thought about it.
She couldn't recall what mistake they had made.
"What did you do wrong? Right, I suppose you ought to know the reason."
Seong So-ri, who had been taking in the addicts one by one with her eyes, replied.
"The man you three harmed an hour ago..."
Seong So-ri paused for a moment, pondering the rest of her sentence.
A few seconds later, she spoke again.
"...That man is my man."
Upon hearing those words, the addicts' faces rapidly drained of color and turned deathly pale.
*
*
*
The addicts' choices were identical.
All of them made the decision to sever their own arms.
This was an extremely rational judgment.
For anyone who had dipped their toes into the underworld.
It was impossible not to know that BigGirl was a monster beyond the scope of ordinary humans.
"Hn, hngh..."
The addicts groaned, their arms severed.
The organization members dragged them away.
"Are you really letting them off with just that and sparing their lives?"
Watching them go, Team Leader Park spoke in a slightly agitated voice.
"Didn't you say these bitches laid hands on the Director's man? We should be sending them straight to a drum barrel right now...!"
"Team Leader Park."
Seong So-ri cut off Team Leader Park mid-sentence and sat down in a chair.
Then, taking out a cigarette and putting it in her mouth, she said,
"I keep telling you, we aren't gangsters anymore."
"..."
"Act according to your station."
"...Understood."
Their conversation was severed.
As a quiet silence hung over the office interior.
"So... Director."
Breaking the awkward atmosphere, Team Leader Park asked Seong So-ri a question.
"Just when did you start seeing a man?"
"It hasn't been that long."
"Is that so? I'm a little surprised, though. I thought you were solely interested in fighting, Director—I never imagined you'd also take an interest in the opposite sex..."
"...What exactly do you take me for? I'm a woman too. It's only natural that I like men."
"It's just that, from the first time I saw you back in the Seongnam Family Faction until now, I've never once seen you date a man."
"That was when I was in the prime of being crazy about fighting."
"Are you saying your interest in men has now grown greater than your interest in fighting?"
"Well, I suppose you could say that..."
Seong So-ri had no choice but to trail off.
Because the correct answer was not so much that she had developed an interest in men in general, but rather that she had developed an interest in Gye Se-hun specifically.
"Ah. And won't you introduce me to the man you're seeing? I don't mind if it's the other guys, but it's a bit hurtful that you're hiding him even from me."
"I'll tell you everything when the time is right, so just go and do your job now. I'm busy working on my phone, so don't bother me."
After answering that, Seong So-ri turned her chair.
Then, watching Gye Se-hun's stream on her phone, she posted a single message in the chat.
【BigGirl】─I see you're already having lunch.
A faint smile lingered on Seong So-ri's lips.