“Gl?”
It felt like someone had just grabbed me.
Pepe blinked rapidly and looked around.
Dayoung’s room, just like always.
The bright lighting stung slightly, making Pepe squint.
A strange foreign sensation sat lodged halfway up their throat, filling them with a subtle discomfort that was impossible to shake.
‘What was I doing here? Why do I feel like this?’
As Pepe struggled to recall, a voice cut through their thoughts.
“Pepe, what are you doing?”
Dayoung hurried into the room, urging them along.
“W-what do you mean, Dayoung-gay?”
“Are you seriously out of it? We need to get ready for the stream. We’re doing a collab today, remember? You, me, and Unnie.”
“Huh? Huhhh? Me?”
‘A collab with Bitch Sehee and Dayoung-gay? That means…’
“I’m the one streaming?”
“Of course, you’re the one streaming. Who else would it be? You signed the contract as an STK streamer, remember?”
Dayoung spoke as if stating the obvious, and Pepe instinctively agreed.
‘Yeah, that’s right. I’m definitely STK streamer Pepe. But… how is someone like me even streaming?’
The fragmented pieces of memory refused to fit together no matter how hard Pepe tried.
Instead, a sharp headache pulsed through their skull, and a piercing ringing in their ears made their whole body ache.
“Ugh! My head!”
Clutching their head, Pepe squeezed their eyes shut to endure the pain.
Watching them struggle, Dayoung’s eyes widened in alarm, and she quickly shook Pepe by the shoulders.
“Hey, are you okay? Damn it, why are you acting like this before the stream?”
“I-I’m fine, Dayoung-gay.”
Maybe it was thanks to Dayoung shaking them.
The headache and ringing that had tormented Pepe just moments ago disappeared like magic.
It was as if everything they’d just felt had been an illusion, like waking from a hypnotic dream into reality.
Pepe, still dazed, stared blankly into the air.
Their entire body screamed that something was wrong.
‘But what exactly is wrong?’
Pepe looked around again. Dayoung’s room, just like always.
A computer turned on.
A virtual reality device that looked like it had been developed specifically for them.
Merchandise photos hanging on the wall—pictures of Bitch Sehee, the STK gaming team, and Dayoung-gay together.
Everything seemed normal, yet it all felt disturbingly out of place.
It was as if they’d caught a glimpse of some forbidden truth about this space, this situation, this world—an unsettling mix of fear and a thrilling anticipation tangled within them.
***
“Dayoung-gay….”
“Hm? Why? Is your head hurting again?”
“No, it’s not that… just… how exactly do I stream?”
Without realizing it, Pepe asked the question in an absentminded voice.
And the moment they heard their own words, an eerie chill ran down their spine.
Dayoung let out an exasperated sigh at Pepe’s dazed expression, as if they were asking something ridiculously obvious.
“You were the one who made such a fuss about debuting as a streamer before. Don’t you remember? The gate that opened in Seoul—monsters started pouring out, and Unnie and the rest of us teamed up to stop them.”
“Oh, so that’s….”
“Seriously, did you hit your head or something? That was when your identity as a hero got exposed, and now you’re streaming because of it. You were begging to sign with STK—what’s with you today?”
‘Oh… is that how it was?’
Dayoung’s words sounded so natural that Pepe scratched the back of their head in embarrassment.
As they listened, the mosaic of their fragmented memories slowly began piecing itself back together.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
A gate had opened in Gwanak, and everything was chaos.
Bitch Sehee, Dayoung-gay, Ajin-gay, and Yuri-gay had sealed away the hero’s power and made a new contract with this star… And with that, we broke the curse and fully unlocked the hero’s strength.
Then, together, we defeated the monsters.
It had been tough—especially when a new Demon King appeared later.
But in the end, even they couldn’t stand against the united strength of our hero party.
That’s how my identity as a hero was revealed, and suddenly, I was in the spotlight.
At Gwanak, after the gate had closed, there was a grand parade celebrating the arrival of a new superhuman hero.
The feeling was incredible—totally euphoric.
Bitch Sehee, who had just been a regular streamer, and Dayoung-gay, Ajin-gay, and Yuri-gay, who were just an editor and high school girls before—suddenly, we were all famous.
Flashes of memory played vividly in Pepe’s mind.
I was revealed to the world as the hero party’s mascot.
I filmed tons of commercials.
We went on a world tour.
We even brought peace to conflict zones and were praised as messengers of peace.
And after successfully unifying North and South Korea, I was hailed as a national hero.
Now, with a top-tier exclusive contract from STK, I was spending my days streaming.
That’s right.
That’s everything that’s happened.
As the memories settled into place, Pepe’s mind felt clear.
It was like a fog had lifted, allowing the bright morning sun to shine through.
“Guess I was just zoning out.”
A chuckle escaped their lips, a natural smile forming.
***
“Alright, let’s start the stream. We’re doing a face-cam stream first, so the lighting is good. Pepe, you ready?”
At Dayoung’s prompting, Pepe hurriedly floated over and took a seat in front of the monitor.
Dayoung glanced at them briefly, as if checking if they were really okay, then, seemingly satisfied, clicked the “Start Stream” button.
Bright lighting.
The stream displayed on the sub-monitor. And then…
[Peha!]
[Our Forming is here too?]
[Wait, where’s Friede?]
[She’s not coming today. She went to the U.S. ^^]
[Pepe-gay… are you going with the nationalist boomer concept again today?]
[Our one and only icon of conservatism, Pepe ᄃᄃᄃ]
[You’ll be at Tapgol Park soon at this rate.]
A flood of viewers rushed in right from the start.
Suddenly, Pepe felt their chest tighten with emotion, their eyes growing warm.
They had been streaming all this time, so why were they getting like this now?
‘No, no, this wouldn’t do. A streamer shouldn’t be getting all teary-eyed.’
Pepe grabbed the neatly folded fabric beside them and spread it wide.
—Flap!
A Taegeukgi, the flag of South Korea, delicately designed with the Taegeuk and trigrams on a white background.
Draping it over their shoulders like a cape, Pepe turned to the camera and shouted:
“YEAH~!”
[YEAH~]
[00~]
[YEAH!]
[YEAH]
[This guy’s insane! You’re all insane!]
“This is Pepe’s absolute peak-tier stream, starting now!”
Dayoung watched in exasperation before letting out a helpless laugh.
Meanwhile, Pepe, waving the makeshift cape again, couldn’t help but smile with pure joy.
‘Dayoung-gay… are you happy?’
As for me…
‘I’m happy.’
Even though the bright lighting shone down at the center of the room, it created the strange illusion that everything around it was drying up.
Moving their fingers fluidly through the air, Pepe manipulated dazzling beams of light, scattering them like sharp, brilliant sparks.
The intricate, almost grotesquely delicate strands of light connected to the head of a green frog, twitching and shifting in response to Pepe’s every move.
It was a task requiring even more concentration than playing a game.
Just as they were fully focused—
“Huh?”
Dayoung’s sudden gasp broke Pepe’s concentration.
Their perfectly moving fingers stopped for a moment.
It wasn’t an accident—rather, it was safer to take a brief pause than to force the process while their focus was disrupted.
‘But what had startled her?’
Pepe lifted their gaze, meeting Dayoung’s, but she awkwardly averted her eyes, clearly flustered.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, sorry. I was just really surprised. But look at this.”
Dayoung, acting as an assistant, pointed under the table with a bewildered expression.
Pepe followed her gaze to where the light was focused—beneath it, lying unconscious and bound, was a winged green frog.
It was Pepe.
The countless strands of light Pepe had woven were part of a procedure to reshape consciousness and thought.
The magic-infused strands infiltrated the nerves and brain, purging anything impure.
It was a process they had deemed too dangerous to leave unattended, something Pepe and Dayoung had mutually agreed upon.
The reason Pepe had donned the hero’s armor was to ensure swift and precise execution without complications.
‘If a demon saw this, they’d probably mock them for being no different from their own kind.’
‘But what choice did they have?’
Left unchecked, things would spiral into disaster.
“Unnie… this bastard is smiling.”
At Dayoung’s remark, Pepe instinctively turned back to look.
The bound Pepe was smiling—softly, peacefully, with an expression far too innocent to be associated with their usual self.
‘What kind of dream is making them smile like that?’
‘Is there really something to smile about?’
For a second, Pepe considered taking a peek into their dreams but quickly dismissed the idea.
There was no need to go through unnecessary trouble, and honestly, whatever they saw probably wouldn’t be pleasant.
Shrugging, Pepe replied indifferently, “Leave them be. They must be having a good dream.”
Well, once the procedure was complete, they’d be reborn.
Hopefully, they’d stop causing trouble for Dayoung.
Stop acting like a troll and making a mess of everything.
Taking a deep breath, Pepe refocused and resumed the process.
—Ziiing!
With a sharp hum, the strands of light twisted deeper into Pepe’s brain, purging the corrupted energy even more intensely.
At a glance, their once-soft smile seemed to contort into something more twisted, grotesque, almost unnatural.
In the eerie silence of Dayoung’s living room, only the faint, rhythmic sound of the purification process echoed.