“Honestly, if you’re thinking about sucking on the gal owner’s milk, totally upvote it, lol!”
“So, is this about filtering or not?”
“From the moment they started the game and opened the gallery, the founder turned out to be an ultra-big-breasted girl? Seriously, can you just tell the truth a little better, haha?”
Click click.
In a dark room, a woman is moving her mouse around with a frown on her face.
With every click of the mouse cursor, texts get deleted and someone gets blocked.
Cans of caffeine-packed energy drinks are scattered across the desk, and deep dark circles are etched under the woman’s eyes.
You can tell she hasn’t slept and looks exhausted. But she couldn’t fall asleep.
She had a mission to complete. Especially now, there were many aspects that required management.
Current time, 4 AM. Even for an average person, it’s well past bedtime, but the reason she can’t sleep is simple.
It’s because she’s an administrator of a specific community. More precisely, she’s a big shot in a large community called the Abyss Gallery.
The woman, Yusia, a big shot in the Abyss Gallery, muttered irritably.
“Seriously, enough already. Can’t we just filter the words a bit?”
As the wise man said, for every five people, one is trash; the Abyss Gallery, with its large crowd, was never particularly clean.
The moment the admin steps away, they would drop tactical nukes, stir up drama, and kick off meaningless controversies.
It was the same chaotic scene you’d expect from any big community, but today felt worse than usual.
Probably because of something that happened a few hours ago.
When it was revealed that Kayak was a woman, it caused a huge uproar, and now, it seemed some of the hidden truth had been exposed.
The impact was likely double the shock from the handcam reveal.
“It was destructive for sure…”
Yusia’s face turned slightly red as she recalled the deleted stream from just a few hours ago.
That kind of size! Yusia had gone to middle and high school but had never encountered anything like that in her life.
Buzz buzz—
As Yusia was caught up in her absurd thoughts, she shook her head and snapped back to reality.
She didn’t even have the luxury of getting lost in such thoughts. Although there were many administrators managing the gallery, right now, she was the only one available.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
As Yusia managed the gallery, she let out a sigh. The reason the gallery had come to this state was because of another flashback to Kayak’s antics.
“I never thought she’d be this clumsy.”
Sure, back when Yusia was playing Abyss with her, and even when she was founding the gallery, Kayak had been so sharp. How had she ended up exposing her vulnerabilities like this?
“Well, it’s been a while.”
Three years of silence. The time that Kayak vanished along with the announcement of Abyss’s shutdown.
They weren’t exactly in touch, but Kayak had ghosted entirely without a word.
She had returned since then, but surely, Kayak wasn’t exactly the same as before. A lot must have happened without her knowing.
It was even questionable whether the Kayak Yusia had known was still the same Kayak now.
The person she remembered and the one broadcasting now were similar yet different, making Yusia feel embarrassed to even say they were close.
Maybe, back then, Kayak had only thought Yusia felt close.
Staying up all night talking, learning how to punish the evildoers of the gallery, and those days when Yusia was making Kayak’s mad movie.
Those were now faded memories only Yusia held onto. At least, that’s how she felt.
Even though Kayak had returned, she hadn’t reached out to her like before.
“It can’t be helped…”
Due to some unspoken rules, they hadn’t shared names, ages, or genders. In fact, now it felt regrettable that past had been like that.
Even while feeling a hint of disappointment in Kayak’s attitude, Yusia resolved to understand her.
There must be a reason why a specific streamer shouldn’t have personal ties with a gallery manager that could influence public opinion—she thought.
For Yusia, it was just watching from afar and wishing for Kayak’s success. In fact, with how well her streaming had been going lately, Yusia herself felt pretty good about it.
“Should I make some videos for her when I get the time…”
It was during this thought process that, amidst her breather, a post went up just as the comment generation was slowing down.
In no time, the entire gallery started lagging with an overwhelming number of comments.
“Huh?”
Noticing the unusual activity, Yusia quickly found the post causing it and checked the contents. The title alone was already suspicious.
The title alone was something else entirely.
[Hello, it's Kayak.]
The moment I saw it, I couldn’t help but think, “Is this some kind of bait?”
A few regulars in the dawn gallery must have thought the same, as similar comments popped up in the thread.
“Is this a impersonation? Pull the bait moderately, please,” some commented.
But Yusia knew. She recognized that the person writing this truly was the Kayak she knew.
“The gallery log…”
To be precise, she figured it out. There was only one Kayak with this nickname and activity record in the gallery.
Sure enough, beneath it were comments filled with excitement, as if they had also figured out the author’s identity.
In an instant, the gallery was bound to light up. And why not? The very person who had been feeding the rumors had dropped in on the community.
And not just to spy during these times but actually writing a post? Yusia couldn’t quite comprehend Kayak’s actions but diligently zapped a few of those troublesome comments.
Comments about wanting to grab some breasts or cups, making her blush as any woman would at such remarks.
Even after all those times managing and viewing similar posts in the gallery, Yusia felt especially uneasy about this kind of harassment.
In truth, maybe Kayak didn’t care about those comments at all or had become immune to them after all those years in the gallery.
Yet still, Yusia felt uncomfortable enough watching that she worried if Kayak might feel bothered by such comments, so she fought to keep the post safe.
That’s when she was finally able to focus more on the content of the writing, having danced around the comments for quite a while.
It was a lengthy post, but the content was simple.
It was about looking for an editor to cut VTube videos.
“An editor…?”
Yusia’s eyes sparkled in the darkness as she read through the whole post.
*
“Hmm…”
I was sitting in front of my computer with a serious face for the first time in ages, looking at something.
I was sitting in front of my computer, watching something.
That something was a video edited from my broadcast.
I was in a situation where I announced everywhere that I was looking for an editor.
For now, a bit shyly, I left messages on my main hubs, my Abyss gallery, and the Twishi broadcasting feed. That made two places.
I thought about leaving messages elsewhere, but I realized I had nowhere else to post.
When I asked around, people usually leave messages on their SNS accounts to interact with fans, but since I didn’t have that, this was the best I could do.
Besides that, there was the method of turning on a live broadcast every day to recruit an editor, but I didn’t want to… I wasn’t ready to go live yet.
Still, I couldn’t just sit idle, so I was doing what was necessary outside of broadcasting—looking for an editor.
I was checking the videos sent to me one by one, but somehow, the volume was unsettling.
It hadn’t even been two days since I posted, yet a considerable amount had already piled up, and at this rate, I might end up watching videos all day long.
I might have to close applications earlier than anticipated.
“There are a lot of applicants…”
I couldn’t help but hum a little tune. It was a hassle to keep watching, but I was feeling very good overall.
Honestly, the conditions weren’t that great, yet so many people applied.
I couldn’t offer a high pay, and I hadn’t even launched the channel yet, so I couldn’t be sure if Vtubing would succeed.
And yet, here I was, with applicants lining up.
Was this how a startup CEO felt when employees eagerly vied for a position? Nothing had been decided yet, but I was feeling rather good.
Thus, I had no choice but to carefully watch each video, being extremely cautious.
I couldn’t just dismiss someone as lacking skill because their quality was low—I had to realize that these people were fans supporting me.
I wasn’t cold-hearted enough to cut off my fans so easily.
Just then, while I was examining the videos with that prudence…
“Huh?”
A familiar feeling washed over me; a nickname I felt I had seen somewhere, an editing technique that seemed oddly recognizable.
“This person….”
One of the applicants caught my eye.
It was the same person who had edited my highlight video, the one I had submitted to a competition just recently.
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