KEG 84

The man with his arm around my shoulder asked warily.

“What’s going on? Do you know him?”

“…He’s a hyung I know.”

“Is he gonna stream too?”

“No, he just came along because I said I was nervous.”

I made up an answer on the spot. But inside, I was sweating bullets.

Why is he acting like this all of a sudden? He should just stay quiet.

Regardless of what I was thinking, Baek Yejun walked over and pulled me toward him.

“I’m his boyfriend.”

An unexpected statement came out of Baek Yejun’s mouth.

Fucking hell.

Suddenly, I got goosebumps and felt like the ground was crumbling beneath my feet.

“Huh? I thought you said he was a hyung you know.”

“No, uh…”

As usual, the moment I think he’s being helpful, he acts like a total asshole.

I quickly checked the expression of the man I’d been standing shoulder-to-shoulder with.

He looked calmer than I expected.

“Are you gay? Well, gay guys are good at hiding their partners, so it’s neat, I guess.”

He seemed to take it in stride. He even eyed Baek Yejun up and down and sized him up as “pretty decent.”

I’m pretty sure when I looked it up earlier, it said having a partner was a stolen content weakness for internet broadcasters.

“Ah, it’s fine~ Married women and men all strip and dance too.”

What kind of industry is this? It’s even filthier than the animal kingdom. At least animals don’t sell their bodies on live streams.

“If you’ve got a secret lover, spill the beans right away. We’ll handle that too.”

The more I learned, the more shocking it got.

I glanced sideways at Baek Yejun. He was staring right back at me with a smug look.

I really wanted to punch him.

“Seongho, wouldn’t it be safer if I went with you?”

Baek Yejun pretended to hug me and subtly pressed down on my abdomen where I’d been stabbed. The pain made me close my eyes.

“…Hyung, don’t be a dick.”

“You started it.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

The man watching us laughed.

“This is pretty good~ You guys have some chemistry. This’ll sell well.”

I gave up trying to figure out how this whole setup worked.

I decided to just accept that this was an industry where they sold anything they could get their hands on. Trying to understand it any further would probably just give me a headache.

“Anyway, this whole building belongs to our company. We’ve even converted the commercial spaces without signs into broadcast studios.”

The man led us inside the building.

“We’ll provide all the equipment and lighting, so don’t worry about that. And if you want to spruce yourself up a bit, just let us know. We’ll cover the cost of plastic surgery too.”

“Plastic surgery?”

“Yeah, don’t go ruining your face with cheap fillers from some local clinic, go to the hospital I’ll introduce you to.”

“Isn’t that all debt?”

He was subtly dodging the issue by talking about “providing” and “supporting,” but there was no way they’d give that stuff to a complete rookie for free. They handed it over so readily because they were confident they would recoup the investment costs.

It reeks of shady business.

“You’ll make it all back in a month or two of broadcasting, we’re not that kind of scumbag, okay?”

And just like that, they were proven to be scumbags. Those bastards always insisted they were different.

The man walked into a spacious office area inside the building, then led us further in to a luxurious, white-toned private office.

“Director, the goods have arrived~”

“Goods”? Was he talking about me?

He opened the door and stepped inside, where a middle-aged woman who had been staring at her computer screen greeted us.

“Nice to meet you. Were you cold on your way here?”

Trimmed bob, a calm demeanor, and black horn-rimmed glasses.

A cross necklace around her neck and a plain, makeup-free face.

To anyone’s eyes, she looked more suited to being a librarian than working in internet broadcasting.

“The room temperature is a bit low. They say a little chill is good for your health. Would you like some black tea?”

The director politely led us to the sofa. She even poured our drinks herself.

The only sound was the clinking of the teaspoon against the teacup.

“Is there a particular reason you wanted to work with our company?”

The director set down her tea and sat demurely as she asked the question.

“I watched BJ Lee Seul’s stream.”

Lee Seul.

That was the nickname of the woman presumed to be Lee Sangwoo’s girlfriend. Now that I thought about it, her initials matched Lee Sangwoo’s.

I heard she debuted last year too.

The time they’d been dating roughly overlapee with her career.

“Ah, her…”

The director looked displeased.

“She’s pretty, though… I don’t get why guys like girls like that.”

“Director, he’s gay. That’s his boyfriend right there.”

“Oh my.”

The man who had led us into this room chimed in. I wanted to deny it, but I held back because I thought it would just make me look suspicious.

Tap-

Baek Yejun silently leaned his head against my shoulder. Seeing that, the director and the man nodded in understanding.

“Yeah~ Better to be gay than to date some weirdo who’s just a thorn in their parents’ side.”

This sucks.

Don’t admit it.

It’s eating me up inside.

“But he’s so stiff. He’s like a soldier.”

“Ah, he looks pretty good when he puts on a face. I checked him out earlier, and he’s usable.”

Both of their gazes landed on my face. When I tried to put on a smile, the director’s face brightened a little.

“Well~ I guess this will do. No need to go under the knife. Your skin looks firm too.”

The director smiled kindly. But what she said sounded like she was grading a cut of meat.

Why are all the people I’ve met here so rude? If that’s the case, they shouldn’t even pretend to be nice.

“Manager, is Lee Seul broadcasting today?”

The director addressed the man as “Manager” and asked if Lee Seul was broadcasting.

“Yes, she should be on air right now.”

“Oh? That’s good.”

The director elegantly set down her teacup and rose gracefully from her seat.

“Newbie, what’s your name?”

“Ha Seongho.”

“Right, Seongho-ssi. Want to go watch Lee Seul broadcast?”

“Yes.”

I answered without hesitation and stood up to follow the director.

Just as I was about to walk away, Baek Yejun remained rooted to the sofa. I had no idea why this guy had been acting like this since earlier.

“Yejun-hyung, let’s go.”

When I grabbed his hand and pulled him, he finally followed me. If I had my way, I’d grab him by the collar like I usually do, but there were too many eyes watching. I couldn’t make any sudden moves until we got close to our target.

The broadcast studio was in the basement. The deeper we went, the more the mix of the latest pop songs seeping out into the hallway filled my ears. Even though the soundproof walls kept the noise from getting too loud, it still felt noisy.

“Good afternoon!”

“Director! Have you eaten yet?”

Imposing guards stood watch in front of several soundproofed rooms.

They were burly men who didn’t wear suits and seemed to lack any sense of professionalism, but the word “guards” was the only description that came to mind.

“Shh, shh~ Our angels are on the air~”

When the director gently admonished them, the guards immediately stopped talking.

Every time the director made a “shh” sound, a puff of breath escaped her lips. Even considering that this was a basement, it was strangely cold.

“It’s a bit chillier down here than upstairs, right? We’ve adjusted the temperature on purpose because there are so many computers running.”

It seemed like a display of their financial power, and the ability to maintain such a large facility with multiple state-of-the-art computers at a low temperature.

But to me, it just gave the impression of a freezer.

“Mom.”

A man who had been loitering in the hallway approached. He called the director “Mom.”

“Hey, didn’t you go to church? Didn’t your dad call you?”

“Ugh, I go every day, so why does he keep calling me….”

“What are you going to do with such a ​visit our site​lack of faith? The future that lies ahead with such an anxious soul….”

The director suddenly started lecturing the man.

The man appeared to be the director’s son. He resembled the director in that he had a clean appearance that seemed out of place in a setting like this.

“Who’s this? He’s wearing a school uniform?”

When the man asked which school I went to, I just made up the name of some random high school. I was glad I’d taken off my school badge and removed my student ID before getting out of the car.

“Haa~ I can just tell what kind of life you’re leading~”

The director’s son sneered at me as he walked past.

He’s a bastard who really knows how to get under people’s skin. I hope I never run into him on the street, even later on.

“This is Lee Seul’s room. You can see it through the window, right?”

I peered inside through the small, dusty window in the soundproof room’s door.

I saw a woman sitting back in a chair, sipping a drink and chatting. She was stolen content dressed simply in a plain T-shirt and shorts.

“She looks a lot different from the photos I saw online.”

“If she just strips all the time, it doesn’t sell well. Until someone pays up, she just pretends to be friendly, read the chat, and eat her meals. Why live a hard life doing menial work~”

If anyone heard that, they’d think it was the easiest way to make money in the world. If it were that easy to make money, why would ordinary people struggle so hard to go to work every day?

Crash!

Just then, the sound of a chair falling over came from Lee Seul’s room.

As the gaming chair used for broadcasting disappeared, the dark area under the desk that had been hidden was revealed.

A person was crouched there.

And that person pulled Lee Seul under the desk and grabbed her by the hair. Not a single scream could be heard from inside the room; only the sound of the latest pop songs drifted out softly.

“Oh my, looks like she didn’t react even though she got paid.”

The director remarked calmly.