Bamboo Forest Manager

Early the next morning.

Since the day was already ruined, I decided to just have breakfast and leisurely return to the dormitory.

“Hmm, hm hm.”

My second brother offered to take me there, so I sat beside him at the steering wheel.

“What song are you singing?”

When I asked him about the Japanese song playing from the speakers, he looked at me curiously.

“Hmm? Don’t you watch anime often? Don’t you know this one?”

“I do watch, but I skip the openings. I can’t even understand the lyrics anyway.”

“Watch both the openings and endings. That’s how you really enjoy it.”

“Nope.”

Then what’s he humming about? He could be saying something weird in Japanese for all I know.

“Did you always like anime songs? You didn’t seem interested before.”

If my memory serves me right, I remember you didn’t really like anime.

“That’s right. But since my girlfriend likes it, I naturally came to like it too.”

“Woojin, let me give you some advice-.”

“Don’t. I don’t want to hear it. I can tell it’s going to be something extremely cringeworthy.”

“Love is-”

“I told you not to.”

“Tsk, the moment you hear about my views on love, you’ll think I’m such an amazing person.”

“Can you let me off? I’ll just take the bus.”

Only then did my second brother shut his mouth.

Anyway, he’s so different from my eldest brother.

After a while, my second brother couldn’t hold it in and spoke again.

“But Woojin.”

“What now?”

I resolved to ask him to let me off again if he started talking about love, but it wasn’t that.

“Is there anyone in your department who’s lively and talented? Someone suitable for internet broadcasting.”

“Internet broadcasting?”

“Yeah, it would be nice if they’re pretty. These days, they can cover their face or be a virtual YouTuber, right? So, they just need to be charming and witty.”

“Is this for your business?”

“That’s right, managing and fostering internet broadcasters. My girlfriend is a highly popular internet goddess, so we expanded quickly by absorbing all the surrounding broadcasters.”

“Hmm.”

“Of course, we don’t accept just anyone. Yoon-ji and I will do some screening. Since one controversy can ruin everything, the past is quite important too.”

“I’m not really interested in that field, so I don’t know much.”

The only thing that comes to mind is…

“There was someone at our school called Popo. She did internet broadcasting and was known as the goddess of the engineering department.”

At my words, my brother nodded with a bitter smile.

“I know, isn’t she famous at your school?”

“The Construction Engineering department is almost full of her fans. They flood the Bamboo Forest with posts.”

Come to think of it, there were talks recently about how she hasn’t been broadcasting much.

“Popo, we originally wanted to recruit her too. She’s good-looking and articulate. Plus, she eats heartily and a lot, so he’s really popular.”

“Hmm.”

I remember during the festival, she ordered 20 servings of stir-fried pork, saying she would crush it.

I almost challenged her to a fight right then.

“But she declined, saying she was already affiliated elsewhere. It’s a bit disappointing, but in the end, it was her choice.”

“Is she broadcasting these days? I heard people saying she wasn’t anymore.”

Didn’t anonymous friends from the Construction Engineering department write posts in the Bamboo Grove, crying and begging her to come back?

Some strange guy even demanded I send her a list of posts with few comments.

“She does broadcasts. Since she’s a college student, she did take a break for personal reasons but recently came back. It’s going well these days.”

“I see.”

It wasn’t a big deal after all.

Anonymous friends sure know how to make a fuss.

‘I haven’t logged in recently.’

With the new semester starting, the Bamboo Forest would be active, but I’ve been neglecting it due to my recent circumstances.

Although I trusted Yu Arin, honestly, saying I trusted her and dumping all the work on her wasn’t much different.

‘I feel sorry.’

I’ll talk to her later to apologize and either take over the management for a while or let her graduate from being an admin.

‘Since I thought of it, I should check it now.’

Anyway, my second brother didn’t seem to have anything more to say, so I turned on the Bamboo Forest.

“…Hmm?”

The latest post stopped on February 1.

- Anonymous69: Sex!

Ironically, the last post written by Seo Yerin was about sex, but the important thing is that it’s now mid-February.

I wondered what it was, then noticed a new announcement I hadn’t seen before.

- Anonymous59 (Admin1): The Admin abandoned it, so I won’t manage it either. Bye.

Then, all posts were frozen, so no one could write anything.

‘Yeah, I thought it was too quiet.’

Thinking about it, there’s no way Yu Arin would just let it be if I wasn’t managing it.

It was bound to happen.

Last time, I promoted Admin1’s permissions because she asked, and now she did this, Yu Arin.

Thud.

I immediately lifted the ban on the Bamboo Forest and posted a new announcement.

- Admin: Our shop is open as usual.

I thought this would trigger an alert, so I decided to wait a bit.

- Anonymous90: Sex!

- Anonymous69: Sex!

The sex duo appears simultaneously, signaling the reactivation of the Bamboo Forest.

I can clearly picture Seo Yerin already throwing a tantrum, complaining about being late compared to Anonymous90.

- Anonymous209: Gasp! Gasp! I can breathe again!

- Anonymous367: Finally, the bamboo forest! I had so many questions I wanted to ask!

- Anonymous178: Damn it, admin! Do you want to die? I almost suffocated because of you.

- Anonymous93: It’s all good, just don’t shut it down again. Without this, it’s a pain to educate freshmen.

↳ Anonymous228: Agreed; we used to tell them to check the bookmarked summary posts in the bamboo forest, but explaining everything without that was maddening.

↳ Anonymous398: Freshmen were really frustrated too. They couldn’t even ask questions if they wanted to.

↳ Anonymous407: Agreed, agreed.

↳ Anonymous84: Wow, now there are users in the 400s. Just legendary.

↳ Anonymous234: The 300s were exclusively for the Civil Engineering Department, but now it seems that won’t be the case.

- Anonymous301: The Civil Engineering Department and Popo are invincible gods.

↳ Anonymous302: The Civil Engineering Department and Goddess Popo!

↳ Anonymous303: The Civil Engineering Department and Goddess Popo!

↳ Anonymous304: My favorite ice cream is also Polapo!

↳ Anonymous305: I only eat grapes when it comes to fruit!

↳ Anonymous11: Look at these idiots having fun.

- Anonymous11: Damn administrator. Do it moderately. Have some responsibility.

↳ Anonymous198: Admin No. 1 is the problem. The administrator should tie up No. 1, drop candle wax on him, poke him with self-pleasure devices, and torment him.

↳ Anonymous59 (Admin No. 1): Damn, I’ll sue you, you bastard.

↳ Anonymous198: I’m sorry. Please forgive me just this once. I won’t do it again. I have no money ㅠㅠ

- Anonymous44: Today’s cheerful ghost story. This story happened at Gahyeon University 5 years ago…

- Anonymous243: Thanks to not being able to write in the bamboo forest, I made many friends. I’m really grateful.

↳ Anonymous263: ? Even Ani-zwa made friends?

↳ Anonymous243: Hime-chan, Sakura-chan, Hana-chan, Yuki-chan, Haruka-chan-

↳ Anonymous11: Fucking hell, a friend is someone you can actually talk to, you dumbass. Since you’ve never made a real friend, you think the girls in your monitor are your friends now.

↳ Anonymous94: What’s really pissing me off is that you call them ‘chan’ instead of ‘jang’ to act cute, which makes it even more annoying.

↳ Anonymous408: 11, you’re being too harsh; they can consider them friends if they want, why are you swearing so much.

↳ Anonymous11: Fuck off. So if you watch porn, is the porn actress your girlfriend? Then you must be jacking off all day watching your girlfriend get fucked. There’s no way you’re appearing in porn.

↳ Anonymous408: …….

- Anonymous7: Hello. This is my first time using the Bamboo Forest. This is about a friend I know, who has a close female junior. But it seems like she has a lot of guys around her…

↳ Anonymous117: Isn’t she just a slut?

↳ Anonymous185: Agreed. While you lose sleep over her, she’s losing sleep rolling around in bed with other guys.

↳ Anonymous426: Wow, my new dream is that female junior.

↳ Anonymous64: But the number is 7 and it’s your first time using Bamboo Forest. Are you a professor?

Seeing the flood of comments, I felt somewhat content but immediately began blocking those who crossed the line or posted photos.

Buzz!

It was my phone ringing.

It was a call from Yu Arin.

“Hello.”

- Have you come to your senses? Finally decided to open the Bamboo Forest?

Her sarcastic tone made me sigh.

“Hey, but how could you shut down the Bamboo Forest completely?”

- There’s no choice. At the beginning of the semester, a lot of weird posts come up, and it’s too busy to handle alone.

“Well, that’s probably true.”

I hadn’t managed the Bamboo Forest at the beginning of the semester, so I couldn’t quite gauge how difficult it was.

- Are you in the dormitory? I don’t seem to see you around school.

“No, I’m outside. I’m on my way back now.”

- Did you have a day off today?

“I just had some business at home, so I went out for a bit.”

- You went home?

After a brief pause, Yu Arin raises her voice.

- Oh my! Woojin! Arin is actually sooo hungry right now! I want to eat beef!

“Damn!”

I almost hung up the phone without realizing it.

- …That’s so harsh.

Yu Arin’s voice became smaller as if she was hurt.

But I feel like I’m the victim here.

“You buy it.”

- If the youngest son of a rich family visited home, wouldn’t he have at least 100,000 won put in his pocket? Let’s eat with that.

“Since you just ear-terrorized me, you should buy.”

- What ear terror? It’s bursting with charm.

“Seriously, I thought my phone was going to explode. I thought it was a curse.”

- Do you want to get beaten up?

I wasn’t planning to contact her for a while, but somehow we ended up bickering naturally.

I was about to hang up.

“Woojin, is that a friend?”

The older guy next to me was looking at me with twinkling eyes.

“Crazy! The car in front! You should be looking ahead when driving, where are you looking?”

“Oh oh oh?! I almost died!”

Are you going to drive like that, you bastard!

We opened the window and apologized at the man’s shout.