The Unexpected Voice
No, what? So, that’s…!
The next morning, Soyun woke up from bed in a good mood.
“Hwaaam…”
Still half-asleep, she yawned and headed to the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of water.
“Puhah…”
Buzz—
When she went back to her room to shower, her phone was vibrating.
“Huh?”
She didn’t usually get calls this early, so she answered out of curiosity.
“Hey! Kits, did you check the community yet?”
The caller was the president of the virtual group she belonged to.
Surprised by the sudden call, Soyun replied,
“Huh? No, I just woke up…”
“Sigh… Then turn on your computer right now.”
“What?”
“And tell me—you’re not involved with that Menhera user or anything, right?”
“No, we just met in-game that one time…”
By this point, even Soyun realized something was seriously off.
Out of nowhere they were asking if she’d seen the community, telling her to boot up her PC, and then hitting her with that weird question about Menhera.
“Did something happen with that person…?”
“Yeah. People are freaking out saying you have a boyfriend.”
“So go live and clear it up first. I need to clean up our café posts too, so let’s talk details later.”
“Haah… Got it.”
Letting out a sigh, Soyun hung up and sat in front of her computer.
Whirr— With the sound of the fan spinning up, the PC powered on.
Today, the boot time felt painfully long.
She didn’t blame herself for this happening. When you’re a virtual streamer, getting tangled up with certain viewers is just part of the job.
But they’d only played together once! She still couldn’t understand why that was a problem.
She’d just thought he was good at the game and wanted to play together, that’s all.
“Haa…”
She quickly set up the stream, cleared her throat, and went live.
- Is that really her boyfriend???
- Did she lie to us this whole time
- Uuu… my horns are gonna break…
Most of the chat was playful, but Soyun knew that if she slipped up even once, the mood would flip instantly. She spoke carefully.
“Hello, everyone.”
- You never asked random people to play other games with you lol
- Hello? I guess
“Um, so…”
“You all think that Menhera user is my boyfriend, right?”
“Let me say this clearly: no, he’s not.”
She chose her words as carefully as possible, speaking one sentence at a time. This was the first time a stream that had always been fun now felt suffocating.
“First of all… I only met that user yesterday. The membership gift was just me saying thank you.”
“I didn’t even know what kind of player he was in that game…”
“The game felt harder than others, so I added him as a friend just to get a little help.”
- And then he became your boyfriend later, right??
- “I didn’t know what kind of player he was” = she knows exactly what he does
- Whoa!
“No, that’s not— I mean…”
No matter how much she explained or how truthfully she spoke, people refused to believe her. There were some things that simply didn’t get across no matter what you said.
Plus, the viewer count was way higher than usual—plenty of people had probably come from the community just to watch the drama.
Realizing that, she started feeling the weight of countless eyes on her.
Over ten thousand viewers.
When she imagined all those gazes focused on her, her throat tightened.
While she was still trying to gather her thoughts, a donation popped up.
Menhera—the very person who had recently started watching her streams—had appeared.
“Y-you’re a girl?”
- No proof, no trust
- Hmm…
- Lmao they’re both just messing with us (message deleted)
Even though the viewers seemed skeptical, the only way left to prove it was to verify Menhera’s words.
“Um, Menhera-nim, can you use Mico?”
“Miro, if you could just turn on your mic for a second…”
- These days it’s hard to tell if someone’s using voice changer
- What if she just brought someone else?
- Fr lol
She couldn’t even focus on the chat anymore.
Actually… were any of these people even her real viewers?
All she could do was wait for Menhera’s reply and pray this would end quickly.
These days, who even played games without using Mizcode?
Well, Menhera always seemed to play alone, so maybe.
- Who doesn’t use Mico;;
- She’s installing it rn
- Hey hey hey lololol
“Huu… Everyone, please don’t swear or mock a regular person, okay?”
Even while saying that, she desperately hoped Menhera would join soon.
“Hmm… I didn’t expect it to turn out like this.”
I’d only planned to mess around a bit while playing together.
Somehow it had turned into a whole controversy about whether I was Kits’ boyfriend.
At first I just wanted to watch how she’d handle it, so I tuned into the stream—but the chat was way more toxic than I thought.
The manager was deleting the worst messages, but there were too many for them to keep up.
Kits was telling the truth, but in a stream full of trolls from every corner of the internet, the truth didn’t matter.
“Tch.”
Normally I wouldn’t have bothered helping, but watching my brand-new toy get wrecked felt a little sad.
So I sent a donation to lend a hand.
Luckily, Kits grabbed it right away, and now I was installing Mizcode just like she asked.
“Hmm, nickname…”
[MenheraJeongbyeong]
I picked my usual nickname and sent another donation to Kits.
Watching Kits’ voice grow more and more watery, I figured I should hurry up and help.
[Ah! Yes! I’ll send it right now!]
A Mico friend request flew over to Kits, and I accepted it immediately.
I thought she’d call right away, but instead she checked something else first.
[Huh? This person’s account was literally created today.]
- Did she make a new account?
- Crazy bastard lol
- This is ridiculous
The insults that popped up got deleted after five seconds.
Anyway, once Kits finished checking, the call came through.
When I picked up, I heard her voice.
[A-ah, can you hear me…?]
Over the call, her voice sounded even more tearful than on stream.
She’s gonna cry if this drags on, I thought, and turned on my mic.
“Aah… Hello?”
…What the hell, is this thing broken?
After adding Menhera as a Mico friend, Soyun carefully spoke.
“A-ah, can you hear me…?”
While waiting for a reply, the indicator that Menhera’s mic had turned on appeared.
[Aah… Hello?]
The voice that followed was… honestly, how to describe it?
It was nice.
Just pleasant to listen to. Smooth, with a hint of playfulness—nothing grating at all.
Completely caught off guard by the unexpected voice, Soyun unconsciously glanced at the chat.
- Whoa noona
- Is this real?
- Insane lol
- Her voice is insane
- Holy shit she’s actually a girl?
- Whoa
- Kyaa
- Is she a streamer too?
All the insults aimed at both her and Menhera had vanished, replaced by nothing but comments marveling at Menhera’s voice.
[What the hell, is this thing broken?]
Menhera’s swear slipped out in between.
“Pfft.”
Soyun, who had been on the verge of tears just moments ago, burst out laughing. Only then did Menhera continue.
[Ah, what? You can hear me? Why aren’t you answering?]
“No, it’s just… your voice is completely different from what I imagined…”
[Really? I thought this was pretty normal.]
Normal…? Well, there were plenty of people with nice voices.
“A-anyway! Everyone! You saw that, right? Menhera-nim is a girl!”
Soyun spoke confidently, thinking she’d finally survived.
But the viewers’ doubts hadn’t completely disappeared yet.
- Fr she could’ve just brought someone with a nice voice
- If she turns on Bless Raider and shares screen I’ll believe it
- Sounds good
The idea that it might be a stand-in was ridiculous, but to completely erase their suspicion, she had no choice but to follow their suggestion.
“Um, Menhera-nim? Could you share your Bless Raider screen?”
[Sure, one second.]
Fortunately, Menhera agreed without hesitation.
Click click— A few mouse clicks came through Menhera’s mic, and then screen sharing turned on.
“Wow… It really is you…”
“Thank goodness…”
- This is real
- Kyaa
- That nickname pisses me off every time I see it;
- Menhera why did you throw the game when we met last time
[When we met? I didn’t throw it. I was playing seriously.]
[I don’t know who you are, but everything I do has a reason.]
While Soyun finally felt a sense of relief, Menhera chatted with the viewers and suddenly entered practice mode.
- Is she about to show us something?
- Insane girl lol
[Yes, I’ll show you.]
Honestly, Soyun was starting to wonder if Menhera was actually crazy, but she kept that thought to herself.
After all, right now Menhera was basically her savior.