“Is no one here yet…?”
Weekday, 10 AM.
Maybe it’s because of the time, but the cafe is pretty empty.
Yusia opens the door and takes a seat where she can clearly see the entrance.
Every time the door opens, she lifts her head like a meerkat, glancing over to check.
It’s as if she’s waiting for someone.
And then it happened. The door opened, and a man walked into the cafe.
The man looks around and heads straight for Yusia.
“You came early; I thought I was the first one here…”
“No, I just got here too.”
It’s a face she’s gotten pretty used to. The man scratching his head and sitting down is someone Yusia had been waiting for.
His name is Kim Jae-jun. He’s one of the editors working with Yusia on Kayak’s V-tube.
That’s right, today’s meeting was set up to discuss the future of Kayak Tube.
Once a week, Kayak and the other two editors gather to discuss “Is Kayak Tube Okay Like This?” (a title created by Kayak herself).
This meeting is led by Kayak. If it proves difficult for everyone to meet up, they’ll hold a meeting on Discord instead. That’s how important the V-tube is.
However, today’s meeting wasn’t just about discussing the V-tube.
At least, that’s what Yusia thought.
“You’ll know when Kayak shows up, right?”
As she sent a signal, Kim Jae-jun nodded resolutely. He had already gotten a hint from Yusia.
Kayak was recently receiving an overwhelming amount of attention. It was the ripple effect from finally revealing her true face.
She had known this day would come. She had somewhat expected the strong reactions from people. Yusia was quite shocked when she finally met Kayak in person.
However, just because she anticipated it, it didn’t mean it was any less of a big deal when Kayak’s face was revealed and this kind of reaction occurred.
Being a streamer means living off of attention. There are indeed those who deliberately stir up social controversy just to draw interest; some even think negative comments are better than none.
After all, people easily forget issues. Unless it’s something like a major crime, most just pass it by.
As long as it’s entertaining, who cares about any controversies? A phrase that rings true across every streaming platform.
It was a phrase that pierced through all the streaming forums.
“Still, attention isn’t necessarily a good thing.”
For streamers, attention is like a double-edged sword. It’s good to have, and you need it, but with the focus comes the need to manage the risks—it’s like a poisoned holy grail.
The Abyss gallery isn’t just a place for abyss stories. Just like Kayak, it talks about the streamers playing the games, not just the games themselves. This has been an old tradition dating back to the days of terrible games.
Yusia, who lived among that gallery, had seen a lot of bad examples.
There were streamers marked at specific coordinates in the gallery. It was very common for them to lose their unique broadcasting style or quit entirely under the overwhelming attention.
That’s why Yusia was worried. She feared Kayak might lose interest in streaming just like them, or suffer a slump due to the excessive attention after showing her face.
Recently on the stream, she had been swinging swords with Kim Jae-jun so hard. Perhaps because of that, the chat was pretty clean; however, with so many people showing up, it was expected that Kayak’s mental stamina was taking quite a hit.
Excess is worse than deficiency; anything in excess can often be worse than having none at all. Moreover, Kayak didn’t seem to be the type who was overly ambitious about the broadcasting aspect.
“If she were planning to grow her stream, she would’ve shown her face and started much earlier…”
Having watched Kayak since the no-cam, no-mike days, Yusia was certain. Kayak wasn’t someone entangled in greed or a thirst for fame. In fact, she had often shown an unexpectedly humble side.
No matter how enviable something may seem to others, it holds no meaning if the person doesn’t want it. Instead, it just feels overwhelming and burdensome.
Thus, the two editors had conspired before today’s meeting. It wasn’t anything significant to call a conspiracy, but if they had to name it, it could be called the “Kayak Comfort Plan.”
The plan was to relieve Kayak of the fatigue she would have experienced after revealing her face to so many people and to ensure she didn’t lose interest in streaming.
It wasn’t much different from how managers care for their celebrity clients. Although they were just editors, both were deep fans of Kayak, so they didn’t want to overlook any little detail.
“I noticed she really liked the blueberry thing last time.”
“Since almost everyone is here now, let’s order it in advance. I think warm drinks would be best. She’s been using her voice a lot lately, so a warm tea would do….”
“Since everyone is here, let’s order something in advance. I think warm drinks would be good. You’ve been using your voice a lot lately, so how about some warm tea…?”
When it came to talking about their common interest, Kayak, Yusia and Kim Jae-jun were a perfect match.
It was during their preparations to welcome Kayak when they were really getting ready to take care of her.
Ding-dong—
‘She’s here!’
At last, Kayak arrived.
Yusia and Kim Jae-jun exchanged glances as they observed Kayak walking toward them.
‘Huh?’
But for some reason, Kayak looked very different from what they had anticipated.
“Good morning. Looks like you’ve all been here for a while? Am I the last one to arrive?”
With a subtly raised corner of her mouth and humming a merry tune, she was the complete opposite of what the two editors expected—worn out and tired from people’s attention.
They exchanged puzzled looks with each other.
*
“Um, Boss. Are you okay?”
“What do you mean?”
She replied while sipping the yuza tea Yusia had recommended, “It’s nice. The warmth feels good inside and eases the fatigue a bit.”
“It’s fine, as long as you’re okay.”
“Right, Jae-jun, you’re doing alright too, right?”
“Yes. Nothing much going on.”
After checking in on Yusia in a similar fashion, they officially started the meeting.
Is the Kayak Tube okay as it is? Let’s shorten it to Kai-Gwaen.
Was the Kai-Gwaen meeting with the editors already at its 26th session today? It felt nostalgic to think that so much time had passed.
When I opened the V-Tube channel, I boldly set a strategy to run two barracks at once. It could be considered a kind of last resort.
However, whether it was because I chose the right people or my own star power, despite the bold investment, the results began to show from the very first month.
Currently, the subscribers had soared past 400,000 and were nearing 500,000.
I just had a feeling I had to pick these two. Choosing just one would have felt like a waste.
In fact, there were many concerns about my choice back then. I had received various emails.
Some warned that if I ran the V-Tube like that, it would fail; others claimed it would be impossible to avoid a deficit, leaving me unsure whether they were worrying or cursing me.
But I proved them wrong in the end. Achieving this level of success in just half a year made me quite scared of my own capabilities.
I was starting to get scared of myself.
Maybe I should have gone into business. I shouldn’t just be living the life of a wage slave. The thought that I might have squandered this foresight and my unique talents was quite terrifying.
“Hehehe…”
“…Boss?”
Lost in my thoughts for a moment, I noticed Kim Jae-jun staring at me as if he sensed something was off. Right, we were in a meeting.
“Uh, what were we talking about again?”
As I cleared my throat and pretended not to know, thankfully Kim Jae-jun withdrew his concerned gaze and continued speaking.
“We’ve gotten a lot of ad inquiries. Three for me and four for Yusia.”
“Ads….”
Now that I think about it, have we even done an ad so far?
We did run an ad for Envision, a game that once rivaled Abyss. Since then, we had been broadcasting without any ads.
“What kind of ads did we get?”
I had set it so that ad-related emails would go to the editors, not my inbox. It wasn’t my demand; it was a voluntary choice by the two of them.
“The game ads are the most numerous… there’s also a cosmetics ad. It’s for a pretty famous brand. It does suit Kayak’s image.”
“What is my image exactly…?”
“Clean and fresh… I think that’s how others see it too.”
Honestly, this was unexpected. A cosmetics ad? As someone who had only been thinking about game-related stuff, it was a bit baffling.
This had to be due to my face being out there, but should I see that as good or bad? One thing was for certain; it didn’t really tickle my fancy.
After that, Yusia explained in detail what ads had come in, their requirements, pay, and so on…
And so, the hardest part remained.
“I think all of them look fine. I reckon you can pick and choose based on how much you want to take on, Boss.”
“I agree.”
“Hmm….”
Too many choices can also be a problem.
After considerable time and deep thought, I finally chose one ad.
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