Becoming a Woman

"Excuse me, sir."

I was making a very polite request of the... gentleman buried in the sawdust.

No—of a crab.

A live blue crab packed in sawdust, brought over by one of Grandma's acquaintances. Underestimating its combat power had been my fatal mistake. I'd gone in clumsy with a kitchen knife, trying to pin it down, and had the blade stolen from me instead.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

I tried a few attacks with the scissors. Every single one got parried. In the end I couldn't handle the sword-saint of a crab, and here I was, begging.

"Please put it down."

But for all my desperate pleading, the crab had no intention of letting go of the knife.

"......Put it down."

The polite tone I'd been holding sharpened. Disarmed by some mere little creature, standing here with no idea what to do—if my ancestors saw the state of me, they wouldn't be able to hold back a lament. I watched the crab. The instant it showed an opening, I brought the scissors down in a decisive stroke—

Whoosh.

Another one that had been sleeping in the sawdust burst out and snatched the scissors I had left. One armed with the knife, the other with the scissors. I had no weapons left.

"......"

Motherfucker.

Like a dog that chased a chicken and ended up staring at the roof, all I could do was gape at the two crabs in the sawdust box.

In the end Grandma came and subdued the crabs for me. The same ones I'd wrestled for minutes on end—she pressed their claws shut with her bare hands and took the knife and the scissors back as if it were nothing.

"Tsk, tsk. A grown man, and you can't even catch a crab."

She set the crabs off to one side of the kitchen and started cleaning them. A little later, steam curled up out of the pot.

"Yuhyeon, finish that crab and come help with the farm work. When we're done, walk Bangul-i too."

"Yes'm."

The front door shut, and a moment later I saw her heading for the paddy beyond the yard.

Twenty-two years old. Kang Yuhyeon, a human being with nothing in particular to mark him. I lived in the countryside, helping Grandma with the farming.

My mother had run off when I was little, and I'd lost my father early. After that I was left with Grandma, who lived out in the country. The neighborhood had nothing but paddies and fields. Open a window and all you saw were mountains and plastic greenhouses, and mornings meant waking to a rooster or the chug of a cultivator.

There wasn't much you'd call entertainment out here, but a life of helping with Grandma's farm wasn't so bad. Or, to be exact, there was one entertainment. Worried I'd be bored in the countryside, she'd bought me a computer when I was small. Help with the work, come home, and there was nothing else to do, so the hours in front of that computer naturally stretched. A few years of that, and I'd gotten pretty good at games.

That MOBA where they say Satans live on the Rift—Grandmaster, no less. And that FPS where turning on voice chat only ever got you seedlings swearing, enough to make you worry for the future of the nation—I'd hit Master in that, too.

For internet streams, I mostly watched VTubers. Sometimes lying in bed with my phone, sometimes with one up on the side monitor while I played.

"Damn."

A donation popping on the birthday of a VTuber I watched all the time.

"Holy shit, she rakes it in."

It was something I felt every time I watched. VTubers make an obscene amount of money. Of course, the ones pulling in that kind of cash were a tiny slice at the very top, and there couldn't be many of them. Even so, staring at a screen where the donation alerts kept firing one after another, the thought would hit me now and then.

"Maybe I should just be a VTuber."

......

I considered it seriously for a moment. Then I gave up on the spot.

Who's going to watch a guy VTuber.

There was no reason for me to supply something nobody was asking for.

"......Guess I'll just sleep."

I plugged my phone into the charger and rolled over. Outside the window the grass insects were singing, and once, from far off, a dog barked. A quiet country night, the same as always.

The next morning.

I opened my eyes under the blanket to a strange feeling. My body was oddly light, and there was a sensation that had no business being there. Half-asleep, I pushed myself up and looked down at my body for a long while.

"......Huh."

I had become a woman.

"..............."

What is this. A dream?

I stared blankly down at myself. There were curves that definitely hadn't been there as of yesterday, and a jet-black bob falling to my jaw swayed against my cheek. I turned toward the full-length mirror standing beside the bed. A devastatingly beautiful girl with black hair and red eyes was standing there. The bridge of her nose was straight, and her lips were faintly red even though she hadn't put on any color.

"......"

I looked at the face in the mirror for a while.

I'm insanely cute?

I turned my head left and right for no real reason. The girl in the mirror turned hers the same way.

"...No way."

I pulled my ID from my wallet, and there I was, a woman. I glanced toward the kitchen. Grandma was there. Our eyes met. She didn't react at all.

"........."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

I see. So this is a worldline where I was a woman from the start.

"Ah—ah."

The voice was clear and bright, too. It seemed to sit two or three tones higher than my usual voice, but strangely it didn't grate on the ear. I cleared my throat once and tried again.

"Ah, ah, ah."

Oh.

"Jackpot."

Then there was only one thing for me to do.

"Guess I'm becoming a VTuber."

I bought a microphone with money I'd made rice-farming—Ssal-meok.

...For the record, the rice-farming here wasn't game currency. It was actual rice. Rice out of Grandma's paddy. I helped with the farm work, so I'd been taking a cut of the farm income. With nowhere in particular to spend it, I'd just been stacking it neatly in my bank account, and I'd never imagined that money would end up going toward something like this.

I tore open the mic box that had arrived, set it on the desk, and plugged in the cable. The avatar was going to be a ttutta—one of those kitbashed models indie VTubers slap together out of free or modified parts. A search online turned up free releases by the pile, and after clicking around I picked a reasonably cute black-haired, red-eyed one.

The problem was the name.

"What do I even use for a nickname?"

Using my usual game handle as-is felt a little off. I agonized for a long while, and in the end I fired up a two-character nickname generator. I hit the button, and weird strings tumbled across the screen.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Not a single one looks like an actual person's name.

I propped my chin on my hand, looked down at the screen, and picked the one word that halfway caught my eye.

"...Uh, hmm. Should I go with Mingjwe?"

I decided on Mingjwe. The reason? The sound of it was just cute. It didn't mean anything, but so what—does a nickname really have to mean something?

I turned the avatar on, roughly finished the mic test, and ambitiously hit the start-stream button. A loading screen spun for a moment. My avatar blinked blankly from one corner of the screen.

"Hmm."

An hour passed and nobody came in. Figures. I'd kind of known they wouldn't. A free-distribution ttutta for an avatar, a title that just said "yo." No stream announcement, no socials, nowhere I'd promoted it. Who was going to come find a broadcast that was just one little ttutta sitting still in the corner of the screen?

"Guess I'll just play a game."

I hadn't expected anyone to show up from the start anyway. I could just think of it as gaming by myself. I turned a game on the way I always did and queued up.

And in the middle of that Chinese-politics simulator—no, the Rift—a chat popped up.

The hand on my mouse stopped for a second.

Oh.

An actual person had come in.

"Hello."

That person used the chat window like they'd rented the whole thing.

"Hehe. Thank you for the compliment."

A laugh slipped out of me for no good reason. It wasn't the first time I'd been praised while gaming, but with the stream on, having a stranger say it straight into the chat felt strange. A moment later one more person came in. Then another. The number at the top of the screen crept up, and before I knew it, it was seven.

Ooooh......

Seven viewers. Other streamers might snort at a number like that, but to my eyes it felt like seven thousand had gathered. It meant I wasn't just talking to myself in this room—seven people, somewhere, were actually looking at my screen. Until a minute ago I'd been playing without a thought in my head, but the second I remembered someone was watching, I got nervous.

"S-seven people showed up. What do I even do for you."

I even started stammering for no reason.

Ah.

They can hear all of this.

It was obvious, and it still hit me fresh. I wondered if I ought to show them more of the game I was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠actually good at on the Rift, but I'd just run into Satans two games in a row, and I was in no mood to queue again. One more game and my mental would crack right along with it.

Or maybe I should play whatever's trending.

I skimmed the top of the streaming platform. A few big corporate channels were all on the same game. Colorful blocks and things like machinery filled the screens—a puzzle game I'd watched briefly once before. Looked like a new DLC had dropped.

"Hey, they say the puzzle-game DLC is out. Want me to try it?"

All seven of my little suicide squad, reacting on the spot.

"Nice. I'll show you my big brain."

My shoulders squared themselves for no reason. Who was I? Grandmaster on the Rift, Master in an FPS, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the rest of that long list. At least inside the territory called games, I was confident I cleared average more often than not. How different could a puzzle be? I bought the game and installed it without hesitating.

Bathed in the viewers' expectations, I stepped into the first stage. At the start I was pretty confident myself. The tutorial was nothing special, and I cleared the early puzzles in no time.

"Yeah, this is me."

I got smug for no reason, and the self-praise just popped out.

The problem started with the next puzzle. The rules were simple. Three boxes in all—A, B, and C. Push them onto the three buttons on the floor, the door opens, and you leave through it. Done. The catch was that you could only push the boxes. You couldn't pull them.

"......?"

Something was wrong. It clearly looked right to me, and I kept getting stuck anyway. Move A, and B got blocked. Move B, and C went strange. Touch C, and I had to start the whole thing over. Still, I figured a few more tries would do it.

"...No, this is a bug, isn't it?"

The word Hyeob-a-beol got under my skin, and the excuse came out on its own.

"Uh..."

The chat was starting to turn vicious. I had to wonder if these were the same people who'd been cheering me on a minute ago.

Time passed, and people started dropping the politeness.

Cleanbot suddenly started working overtime.

.........

I quietly checked the viewer count.

The viewers were clearly getting angrier and angrier, but the number floating at the top of the screen had grown from before.