Do You Know the Streamer Who Got Exposed?

"You little son of a…"

The status window was ruthless. It refused to let me pull any tricks.

It simply floated there, lofty and indifferent.

In other words: sit right here and gather ten viewers.

I tapped open my stream title, profile, and bio.

A ghost account, pure and simple.

A black empty screen with a meaningless LIVE indicator. A title so half-assed it made you wonder what the point even was — "Hello, I'm Ari." — and a default gray circle for a profile picture. Naturally, zero followers.

It was so utterly devoid of charm that I had to wonder who would even click on something like this.

"I wouldn't watch this either."

The title was the first thing that needed fixing. The sheer lack of effort was almost insulting. But the bigger problem was that I had no idea what I was even supposed to do.

"Games are the safe bet… do people still play a lot of LoH these days?"

The only escape I'd had during my school years, and the only game where I could actually flex some skill. The AOS title the whole country played — and the official manufacturer of mental illness. That was League of Heroes.

"First I should check if there's any traffic."

I typed LoH straight into the Shashark search bar. A list of streams popped up.

"More than I expected?"

More than expected — it was overflowing. A game over ten years old and still going strong. Worked out great for me.

"Alright, title first."

I set my hands on the keyboard, but the keys refused to move. Typing in a style I'd never used in my life made my whole body cringe.

But if I wanted to scrape together even a single viewer — let alone ten — this was the only way.

I gritted my teeth and forced my fingers to move.

Trembling…

The masculinity inside me was boiling over.

Once everything was set, I fired up LoH out of pure muscle memory.

"Login's good."

I'd half-worried that turning into a woman might've screwed with the account, but thankfully it was still alive and well. An account I'd grinded hard on until three years ago, then abandoned under the weight of real life. And that proud nickname of mine:

"IfNoRoyaltyIQuit — you've been well!"

I'd started this game on mid lane from day one. One reason only: it was the highest-impact role.

Matchmaking found a game almost instantly. Without hesitation, I clicked a character portrait.

The character I'd played more than any other, back in the day.

"Let's go."

Top: Namukai vs. Zaku

Jungle: Zhao vs. Lu Xin

Mid: Zod vs. Orara

Bot: Azrael vs. Caitlin

Support: Seulshi vs. Molga

My opponent was a character I'd never seen in my life.

"Just dodge everything and hit them, right?"

I started the laning phase with that kind of confidence — and it was almost too easy. For some reason the enemy's projectiles looked slow, while my shurikens homed in on their skull.

A clean trade, then the level-three timing. The moment they overextended one step for a cannon minion—

"You're dead."

I sent my shadow forward and swapped bodies. Shurikens launched from both me and the shadow at once, shredding their health bar to ribbons.

In that instant they opened a gate and went invisible — but there was only one place they could go.

"Where else are you gonna run except under tower?"

I flashed boldly into the enemy mid tower's range. Spun ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my E into the spot I figured they were hiding, and Orara's body flickered back into view. Auto-attacks, ignite, then a snap back to the shadow I'd left behind.

"First blood, easy."

Anyone watching would've called it a clean Zod play. After that, with the lane priority locked down, everything got even easier.

Another kill at six. One more with our jungler after invading their jungle. Then I faked a recall, roamed bot, sniped the ADC, and strolled home.

Ten minutes in, my KDA sat at:

"Still easy even after all this time, huh?"

Of course. I'd played this game before.

Still, my hands felt faster than they used to. Was this the snowball from bumping my gaming stat to A?

"Play like this and someone's gotta take interest, right?"

I glanced at the number in the upper-right corner of the stream overlay.

Sadly, nobody was watching.

"…All this play and not a single soul to see it. That was some absolute deceased-legend-tier gameplay, too…"

I refocused on the game.

Time passed. Around the eighteen-minute mark, laning was over. Mid's first tower had been down for a while, and our bot lane was pushing mid now. From this point my job was simple: farm the abandoned side lanes and assassinate during teamfights.

I was happily munching bot-lane minions nobody was contesting, eyes on the minimap — when I realized the enemy top, jungle, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mid were all missing.

Both bot lanes were shoving mid, and the area around them was warded up. Only one conclusion.

"They're hunting me."

That instant, Zaku came flying out of a dark bush, along with Lu Xin's sonic wave and Orara's skillshot. If I hadn't known, it would've been a guaranteed hit. Knowing made the response easy.

I ulted onto Jelly immediately. As it ended I dropped a W for an escape route, then shurikens from my body and both shadows punched clean through Lu Xin. An E and autos cut him in half; I snapped back to the planted shadow and got out.

Jelly and Orara never even landed a single auto — just stood there staring at the play.

I was mid-self-admiration over that perfect sequence when—

Tick—

A sound I'd never heard before hit my ears.

"Huh?"

I tracked the source to the stream overlay.

My body froze solid.

I'd been so locked into the game I hadn't noticed a viewer had come in. And below that — in the chat that had been completely empty — about three messages were stacked up.

The first chat messages of my entire life. What was I supposed to say?

"Ah… hello there, sir!"

I cursed myself internally the second the words left my mouth. I'd slammed out a greeting with the same habit I used talking to the older guys on construction sites.

"Wh-what is it?"

I shut my mouth for a second.

A girl? Obviously I was a guy. But the voice coming out of me right now was unmistakably that of a delicate young woman. And my gender had already changed, whether I liked it or not.

Swallowing my shame, I opened my mouth.

"…Yes."

My one and only viewer's chat exploded.

What is this guy even saying.

I don't have money for that kind of thing.

"What are you talking about. I play fine without that junk."

I was about to answer the chat when a teamfight suddenly broke out mid.

"Ah, damn — hang on a sec."

Our Namukai got engaged on and the fight started. As a tank he didn't melt instantly, but the situation was pretty bad. In a flash our Namukai and Seulshi burned out protecting the ADC and jungler.

"Ugh, this is chaos."

Torn between watching chat and watching the game, I still sprinted straight for mid. Even then the enemy was pushing deeper, pressuring our remaining damage dealers.

The moment their Zaku body-slammed onto our ADC—

I looped through the jungle and flashed boldly over the wall.

Something had popped up in chat, but in the heat of the moment I couldn't check.

I full-comboed their ADC with W-E-Q and melted them, then ulted Orara at the same time. At the shadow-crossing timing I hit R again, snapped back to my original position, dodged every skill, then cleaned her up with E, ignite, and passive damage.

In an instant the fight was three-on-three again — except their two damage dealers were already gone, and their tank was sucked out of position toward our side. An unwinnable setup for them. We took the final teamfight.

"Whew. Did you see that?"

A super play you'd expect out of a pro match. But strangely, Indie Streamer Explorer — who'd been spamming chat nonstop a moment ago — had gone silent.

"Hey, uh… you there?"

No answer no matter how many times I called. Did they go grab water or something?

Meanwhile the game ended with the enemy nexus exploding.

My victory.

Not a bad tier for a first placement game.

"Still just one viewer, huh…"

And then—

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick

Chat was going absolutely insane. The empty screen was suddenly wallpapered in white text.

"Uh… um, what is all this?"

Chat was scrolling too fast to even read. I had no idea how to react — and then one last message caught my eye.

"Son-cam?"

And in that moment, the status window reacted.

"Ah."

I had to keep these absolute lunatics glued to the stream for another thirty minutes.