An Old Friend
I hate this. I really do.
I just hate everything. Everything in my sight. Ever since my first stream ended in that disaster, I didn't want to do anything at all.
Honestly, the moment people started flooding in, I thought, Oh, this might actually work.
After all, even putting the whole "being a girl" thing aside, I was naturally confident in my skills.
The more popular a game is, the more a "high-skill stream" is bound to make money. Especially in the game I play.
Besides, I was someone who practically lived in the highest tiers, bouncing between Demigod and Challenger like it was nothing.
So, I foolishly thought I could make some sort of income even without a microphone.
But seriously, think about it.
Someone who used to play seriously without a mic every day suddenly says they're turning it on, and when they do...
It turns out she has a crazy, beautiful feminine voice? And when she turns on the webcam, she's the prettiest girl in the city?! On top of that, she's stacked?!
How could that possibly fail?
...Well, it failed spectacularly. Fuck.
The stream I started while running my delusion engine at full throttle, dreaming of making big bucks, was completely shattered under the weight of my accumulated karma.
...Of course, it was partly my fault. I put "female" in the title to bait people, which led to them fighting for over thirty minutes about whether I was actually a girl or not.
Providing the catalyst was my mistake, sure.
But that doesn't mean all the blame lies with me.
It's just too unfair. I played so well.
I took that trash-tier female character, got a flawless team wipe, and pulled off a massive comeback victory all by myself, but nobody even watched my gameplay. That's just cruel...
Why couldn't they just go, "Whoa!" or "Wow!" and praise me, and then throw some money my way?
...Is that too shameless? But I want to make money from streaming, too. Whenever I open the banking app on my phone and see a balance of less than twenty thousand won, my breath catches. Life is just too hard. Even my younger sister, Mirae, who used to send me money every month, stopped contacting me and sending money since last month...
Was I too arrogant?
Was the problem that I blindly believed everything would work out just because of this new body?
I thought only blessings would await me after becoming like this. I thought my future would be full of exciting, glamorous days...
That was an incredibly selfish thought.
"Sigh... I don't want to do anything."
I don't want to turn on the stream again. I don't want to play games. I don't even want to move...
Most of all, I hated the thought of streaming to a chat flooded with trolls.
No matter how many times I opened Notepad to type out "please stop," what was the point if they weren't even looking at the screen?
To prevent that kind of situation, I at least had to reveal my voice.
I had to reveal this beautiful, god-given voice—which anyone would instantly recognize as a girl's—to those fools.
But... what can I do when I don't have the money to buy a mic?
...Even if I hadn't gone to the convenience store yesterday, there wasn't a single decent mic I could afford.
Ever since I became a woman, my already empty bank account has only dwindled. If they were going to turn me into a girl, they could have at least fixed my bank balance too. I want to be a rich, unemployed slacker who only does what she wants.
Despite having no money, I didn't even think about going outside.
Even though, unlike before, this body was more than capable of earning money.
But I really don't want to work a part-time job.
The way people look at me still scares me... My body freezes up the moment I realize someone is staring. Even if I don't hate the attention itself anymore.
...I will never work a part-time job. Not now, and not in any future to come.
So, the only thing I can do is stream. The only thing I can force myself to do, as someone who hates leaving the house, is stream.
...Out of all those people typing in that ruined chat, will even one person recognize my effort?
I really don't know.
A rattling sound echoed.
It was the sound of my nearly broken chair.
And curling my small body into such a chair, it was only natural for it to make that noise.
I just put on some music, wore my headset, and mindlessly spun the chair around... and around...
Ah, doing this actually makes time fly... It's kind of fun, too...
Before I knew it, my greedy mindset of I'm going to make big bucks streaming! had vanished. I was just killing time mindlessly, as if healing my lethargic body and mind. Naturally, being a hardcore otaku who listens to Japanese music more than my native tongue, I had Japanese songs playing.
Maybe I should just go back to sleep. Even if I turn the stream back on, the chat will just be flooded with the same garbage anyway...
Ding.
Just then, an unfamiliar sound broke through the music playing in my headset.
It was a Discord notification.
Who on earth would message me...? I thought. I kept it open every day, but I opened the Discord window, which had no servers and barely any friends.
What's gotten into them...?
Ding, ding. The messenger program chimed, serving as my sole window to the outside world.
Of course, even that had practically become useless, barely ever ringing anymore.
But after a very long time, Discord began to chime.
...And from a very familiar name, at that.
Someone I had never met in person.
But precisely because of that, someone I could call a friend.
If there was anyone who perfectly fit the definition of an "internet friend," it was this person, who still actively went by the slightly edgy, late-onset-eighth-grader nickname, Earth is Boring...
We used to run into each other often while gaming.
Out of nowhere, they sent me a friend request asking for a carry, and that somehow sparked a connection that lasted to this day.
They were someone I could comfortably call an old friend. After all, we had known each other for five years.
I didn't know how they viewed me, but...
At the very least, I considered them a friend.
After all, they were a kind soul who had humored me every single day back when I practically sang about wanting to die like it was a daily chant.
It was incredibly embarrassing that they knew about my past.
Still, getting a message first like this made me realize that, hey, I actually do have someone I can call a friend.
Just trivial chatter.
Come to think of it, these were the kinds of conversations we used to have.
...Before I started whining about wanting to die, we used to hang out and talk about nonsense like this every day.
Well, those fun times ended when they got "busy with real life."
That was why hearing from them like this felt so nostalgic.
His online status indicator switched to offline.
It seemed he had no intention of talking to me anymore. And I didn't really know how to keep the conversation going either.
...Should I ask him to buy me a mic?
At my message, the green light on his profile lit up again. It was the online indicator, showing he was reading my message.
...Huh?
A moment later, my phone buzzed. When I checked it, he had actually transferred enough money for me to buy a high-quality microphone.
Seriously, I had just thrown that out there without thinking, and I never expected to actually get the money.
...Well, I'll put it to good use. Thank you, sensei, sob sob...
I sent him a message expressing my gratitude.