warm like a gun | ot23 nct; ot5 red velvet

Chapter 6

"Thank you for joining me today," Johnny says, watching the flood of comments come in as he catches his breath. "If you enjoyed yourself, please consider subscribing. You can find more information about that, as well as the different membership levels, on my about page, which my bot should be putting in the chat right now. See you guys next time!"

He switches off the camera and closes down the webpage, shutting the laptop and pushing everything into a little heap closer to the door. He groans, and lies back against the cool tile, closing his eyes.

He gives himself a minute or two, then stands and forces himself to take a quick, very cold shower. The water bill is always too expensive for him to let the water heat up, but especially now, without his father's income, money is tighter than ever.

Now clean, Johnny stores away all his electronics and toys in the drawer of the coffee table, and flops down onto the couch. He's not a camboy by choice, though it's not necessarily something he's ashamed of in and of itself. He was going to be an athlete, get onto one of the big volleyball or basketball teams, and dig his family out of poverty. He'd been practicing since he was little. But it just never worked out; he's just not good enough. He goes to tryouts whenever he can, but he never even gets past the first round. He was shit at school, so he can't take on any kind of academic career, and there's no way he'd ever be a cop, so camming it is.

It's not all bad, and it's pretty profitable. The one thing Johnny can say for his years of sports is that he's come out of it with a great body, so that boosts his popularity a bit. All he has to do is act sexy on camera, and the site he uses has a pretty fair rate for creator memberships, so it most certainly could be worse.

It's not a secret among his friends and family, either. Though Johnny takes care to remain faceless on the internet to protect his identity, he doesn't bother hiding it from the people in his life. Most of his friends think it's kind of cool; Ten had once kindly informed him that if he didn't know him personally, and he had money, he'd be Johnny's biggest fan. Johnny hadn't really known how to take that. His mom knows, too; that's why she's out of the unit right now, to give him a little privacy. He checks the clock; 18.27. She should be back soon with groceries.

His mom has a small cooking channel that gives them a bit of revenue. It's nice because it's all food they would be eating, anyway, so she could make money off of something she'd be doing either way. Johnny's dad, before he vanished, had been a factory worker for Body Systems, a medium-sized pharmaceutical company. Together, they made just enough to keep the bills paid and themselves fed, with just a little extra to sock away. Sure, they live in a little matchbox apartment, and Johnny sleeps on the fold-out couch because it only has one bedroom, but it was good.

Without Johnny's father, though, it's difficult. Johnny had moved from streams twice a week and new video uploads every other week to streams three to four times a week and weekly video uploads, sometimes more when he had the motivation or the time. His mom had tried to expand her channel to more general homemaking topics, just so she'd have more content. It works well enough, but they rarely have anything leftover.

Johnny sighs and sits back up. He should start preparing for dinner. His mom isn't filming anything tonight, so he can go ahead and set some things up. He stands, stretching, and sees his reflection in the window. He realizes it's gotten dark, and goes to close the curtains. When he does, he notices a man standing under one of the lamps outside, just off the path. Johnny flinches, yanking the curtains shut. He never shows his face when he cams because he enjoys his privacy. He's heard cases of stalker fans before, and wants nothing to do with them. He really hopes the guy on the street isn't here for him, but he swears he was just standing there, watching for something.

He shakes himself a little. There's not really anything he can do about regardless. Dinner, however, is a completely different question. Johnny washes some rice and sticks It in their beat up old rice cooker, then pulls out some clean pots and pans. He sets the kettle to boil and finishes putting the clean dishes away so the drying rack is clear for this evening, and then washes some vegetables. As the water begins to boil, he hears the lock click.