She Brought It on Herself
Had I been slipping into female corruption all this time, without even knowing it?
"Pretending to stan. Yeah, right."
I was boiling ramen for lunch and ended up checking the post, and this was the mess waiting for me. Well, I'd written the thing. Comments like these were only natural. I didn't regret it, either.
Since it had come to this, I figured I might as well watch somebody else. Today through tomorrow was a day off anyway.
"But fuck. There's nothing to watch."
I wasn't even exaggerating. There was genuinely nothing.
Mid-tier streamers existed, sure, but I didn't like them. Drop into some tiny dead-end broadcast instead, though, and that felt wrong too. Hard to explain. I had the feeling they'd fold my username away and remember it forever, and I'd feel bad enough that I couldn't even bring myself to click in.
I was still scrolling when I stopped.
"Hm?"
A familiar name. I looked closer. Ppulppulpiri.
"Oho...?"
Ppulppulpiri. Pretty famous, the reigning number one of the women's streaming scene. And why was she famous, exactly? The mouth on her? Some heaven-sent instinct for broadcast? Her mechanics?
All of that was true. The decisive reason, though, was something else.
"Because she's Choe Seohyeon's little sister."
Right. Siblings. Honestly, an unbelievable premise — a worldline where the number-one male streamer and the number-one female streamer were brother and sister. Both of them gorgeous, on top of it. The whole industry had made a spectacle out of the fact.
Which meant one thing.
"She's dead. Fuck."
Every scrap of rage I had over not being able to watch Choe Seohyeon's stream, I was unloading on her today.
"Ppul-ha—!! Everybody!"
Smooth again today. Same as any other day — nothing on the schedule worth mentioning. I was about to run the broadcast exactly the way I'd announced it, and then—
"..."
So it had come after all.
Oppa had said he was taking one day off the stream. I'd thought there was no way, but they really had shown up.
The Ppulmons all told me to ban that person immediately. I decided otherwise.
"It's fine."
"If they try anything, I'll tell Oppa. Then they won't be able to do a single thing, right?"
Telling Oppa. Looked at one way, it was an extremely childish move.
But.
The Ppulmons burst out laughing like it was the most refreshing thing they'd seen all day. I understood exactly how they felt. I mean, if you stopped and thought about everything the user called TSGoDie had done up till now...
Messages like that. Dozens of them. Hundreds. So yes — there was a reason plenty of people hated this person.
But.
Seven years already, on Oppa's stream. Five years of turning up off and on in mine. And that wasn't even the surprising part. This person never went to any other broadcast. Not the men fighting Oppa for the number-one seat, and not even in this so-called great age of VTubers — they wouldn't spare another VTuber so much as a glance. A terrifying figure. We'd been at this so long that they'd turned into a kind of variety-show tank, and everyone had forgotten, but this person was, in practice, the oldest and most loyal fan either of our streams had.
But.
A fan was a fan. That, though, was a bit much.
Sometimes I genuinely couldn't understand how Oppa put up with that kind of brute-force nonsense. Unless I asked him myself, I was probably never going to know.
"Hmm."
Anyway, I thought about the demand. Not that I meant to grant it. More that if I played the moment right, I could probably skate past it in a way that was actually fun — and I had a feeling that was what they wanted in the first place.
All right.
"Oppa will be here tomorrow, so kindly stop looking for him through me. And same as always — three-day ban~."
I skipped any further explanation and handed down the three-day ban. In the end, the medicine for a villain was a bat.
My fans, the Ppulmons, laughed and ate it up. Yeah. This was the right answer. I smiled at the laughing Ppulmons, and at the demon I'd just exorcised.
And so...
I thought that was the end of it.
It wasn't.
I'd barely logged into the game before this bastard came back to the stream on an alt.
Just like the Ppulmons said. At this rate they'd kick up a Bungtang for no reason except that Oppa hadn't turned his stream on today, and every time they did, my worth as a broadcaster would be on trial.
But wiping out every last account wasn't a good idea either. However they came off, this was a very old fan of Oppa's. So there was only one thing for me to do.
"...Hmph. You think I'm going to fold just because you said that?"
"I don't take orders from a human who's worse at games than I am."
Keep it as fun as possible. A real streamer had to turn even a mess like this into laughter.
But...
...What?
The viewers — the Ppulmons — seemed to be laughing for a completely different reason than I'd expected. So this was something I'd brought on myself?
That was when it happened.
MeltyYas — that is, TSGoDie — started laughing. And then another donation came flying in.
"..."
The confidence was absolute. Around then, I felt that something had gone wrong.
No way. It couldn't be. Right?
I'd watched enough of Oppa's stream to know better, but I'd only said it because I told myself there was no way — not now. By the time I understood, it was already far too late.
"Knew it."
Ppulppulpiri — Choe Haeun — had been fucking destroyed. By me. Ten games, ten wins. And just so we're clear, all ten of those wins were mine.
"Th-this is impossible!!!"
Choe Haeun's scream came tearing through the phone speaker. I grinned, decided this counted as a nice little warmup after so long, and fired off a donation.
"..."
At that donation, Ppulppulpiri's mental looked stripped clean. She stared into nothing, mouth hanging open.
Chat loved it. Fitting, for people who lived to run a full WWE with Ppulppulpiri. The reaction was excellent.
"D-don't laugh, you bastards!! You think it's funny that I'm getting wrecked by them?!"
"Nn—nngh——!!"
Ppulppulpiri seethed. But what was there to do? Her skill had already been laid bare under the open sky. She did seem to feel wronged about it, of course.
"Th-this really doesn't make any sense—!! Do you know what my MMR even is!!"
Her logic was clear enough. The face was one thing — and the face was certainly a thing — but they were siblings who'd risen on their mechanics, and Ppulppulpiri's were good. A woman streamer posting an MMR like that was, without question, actually good. Of course she felt robbed. So I sent one more donation.
MMR 2700.
At that single line, Ppulppulpiri spoke with a blank face.
"...No way. This person is good at this too? Wait, hold on. I've barely been playing this for a month??? Since when has this person even..."
Chat had it right. Whether I ought to call this a curse or a blessing...
There were exactly three things that had gotten better after I became a woman. First, I'd gotten stupidly pretty. Second, I stayed perfectly fine without any upkeep, and I seemed to be dodging old age itself. Third, my mechanics had gotten so good it was ridiculous.
Right. Those three, at least, even after I'd become a woman— no. Wait a second.
The second and the third, maybe. But was I even allowed to be happy that I'd gotten prettier?
Oh, fuck. Had I been falling into female corruption without even realizing it?
"Mother—"
I let the one curse out and settled myself. Then, to crown the best part of the broadcast, I sent the actual final donation.
Chat detonated. Honestly, I felt I'd done as much as there was to do.
How did I know?
Well. Look at Ppulppulpiri on the screen.
"Ngh— uuuuugh————!!!!"
Unable to hold in the rage boiling over, Ppulppulpiri shook from head to toe. Head flung back, she looked exactly like a fish flopping on dry land.
And the viewers, delighted by the sight, plastered the chat in laughter. I grinned and cut the screen.
"Ah. Another day well spent!!"
"...Haah."
So this was how it went.
I'd taken the stream off today and wondered if there was any chance — any chance at all — they wouldn't show up on my sister's broadcast. Of course they had.
"Wh-what kind of freak even is this——!!"
Years of being put through it, and the anger still wouldn't burn off. On the screen, Ppulppulpiri — Haeun — threw herself deep back into her chair. The sight of my sister like that almost made me laugh, but I did everything I could to hold it in. This was a hospital. Grinning down at my phone was not going to look good.
"Mr. Choe Seohyeon?"
"Ah, yes."
Today's appointment. Please, let the results be good this time.
A sprained wrist had been giving me trouble lately. The symptoms were mild, thankfully, and they'd said it would heal quickly, but I made my living off games, so it sat on my mind anyway. If I was getting treated, I wanted it done properly, which was why I'd come all the way to a university hospital.
Fortunately...
"At this stage, we can call it fully healed."
According to the doctor, I could go back to ordinary life. Starting games again would be fine, too.
Good.
News like that, I couldn't just sit on it. I was about to take my phone out when that person crossed my mind.
TSGoDie.
"...If I post this, he'll tell me to turn the stream on immediately, won't he?"
I'd gone on break over the wrist. The moment I said it was healed, he was exactly the kind of bastard who'd demand I go live on the spot.
"...Maybe I'll post it a little late."
It was one in the afternoon. Eat, take my time — putting the notice up around eight tonight ought to be fine. I'd already announced today as a break. And I didn't want to push the wrist the moment I'd been told it was finally all right.
"All right."
I slipped the phone back into my pocket.