A Battle of Wills

A post that had gone up on a streaming community.

The global community is a hodgepodge of every kind of human being imaginable. For every person creating something from nothing and reaching for the stars, there is someone turning something into nothing and insisting the Earth is flat.

Of course, the ones who go around sexually harassing people are part of that hodgepodge too.

To dress it up in unsavory terms: a kind of conservation of idiots. And a gender-reversed world would hardly be any different. Why would it be?

Anyway, those problem cases are distributed across the globe in more or less the same proportions.

And then there was my chat. What on earth was going on here? I had loosened the reins on sex jokes, that much was true — but this was just a gathering of sexual harassers, wasn't it?

How had it come to this?

When I had been touring other streams to study broadcasting, I had seen chat rooms packed with so-called toxic viewers. The kind who spammed every line, or donated under bizarre nicknames like StealsGrandmasCartYY.

But this was different. This was just a festival of sexual harassment with no humor and no heart.

Since I had not been born in this world, I had not thought much about harassing chats until now. But if it got too bad, people were bound to get uncomfortable, and new viewers would stop coming.

It was not as purely entertaining as I had thought it would be.

Plenty of people probably liked a chat that was looser than other streamers'. Still, maybe I had let it run too thoughtlessly.

"Hey. Isn't there way too much sex talk in here? You think this kind of firepower makes sense in a room with eighty people?"

"No. Sex jokes don't even register with me when I hear them. I just don't want people who wander in to turn around and run."

By "the streamer" they meant me…… I never thought I would live to hear that. I had lived a life that was the very definition of wholesome. This was slander. It absolutely was.

And then I looked at myself on the screen, and the thought vanished in an instant. ……Looking like this, of course I heard that kind of thing.

If it had just been the tan. If I had skipped just the tan, the whole vibe would have been completely different.

No. I could not think like that. No matter what anyone said, I at least had to push back against that kind of trash talk!

"I have lived a genuinely wholesome life. I am so wronged because of you people. Always making up that kind of nonsense. Let's try chatting wholesome for just one day."

"What…… you know what, never mind. And if you think I'm handsome, just say I'm handsome. Why do you have to slam a sex joke in there? I don't get it."

Damn it. In my previous world, nobody had said a word. Granted, these jeans were ripped worse than the ones I had worn back then.

I zipped the leather jacket all the way to the top, grabbed a pillow off the bed, and covered my thighs completely. Then I scooted the chair back so my whole body was in frame, sitting primly.

I folded both hands over my knees, put on a gentle smile, and made my voice as soft as I possibly could.

"Do I look a little more demure now…?"

"If you promise to cut back on the sex jokes from now on, I'll stop…."

"Hurry up and promise… I said I'll stop, okay…?"

These people were sitting there having a battle of wills with me. Were they that obsessed with sexual harassment? What kind of lives were they even living?

Come to think of it, the two thugs I had fought with before were the same. No matter how much I looked like a slut…… I mean, a thug, who in this day and age dropped a stream of curses just because someone would not give them a phone number?

People like that could exist, sure, but the odds of me running ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into them should not have been that high.

Maybe the improved luck I had gotten since coming to the gender-reversed world came with side effects. That would explain these faintly unhinged people who kept latching onto me, too.

……If that was the case, it was not a problem that ended just because I worried about it, so I would have to live with it. Nothing in life was ever easy.

Well, the harassment itself was a problem I could solve easily enough by banning more strictly — but that was not a decision to make lightly. Whether a tighter chat would actually help me was something I needed to sit with and think about seriously. Maybe I could even ask Lethe for her opinion.

And looking at viewers who could not last a single day of wholesome chat without staging a revolt, maybe keeping the room free was still the better call for now.

I would think about it more later. A few sex jokes were not going to kill me.

Meanwhile, while I had been thinking about something else, the mood in chat had only gotten more heated.

Sexual Compliments did ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nothing for me, but I could not yield a battle of wills like this. I was grateful they came to watch, but the initiative on my stream had to stay with me!

……And I just did not want to lose to those bastards.

Keeping my expression under tight control, I dropped a line.

"And just where do the likes of you get off trying to beat me…? Why don't you give up already and be good in chat for one day… If you can't even manage that, you get selected out, you know…. Fufufu."

"Taeyang doesn't really know naughty words, but… you lot are some truly fucking awful little shits… hohoho…."

"…You think I'm going to lose to you…? I will never give up…."

Bringing up the harassment had not been for this, but still.

Fine. All the way, then.

One in the morning. The venom had long since drained out of the viewers' chat.

"Are you people actually insane…? How many hours has this been?"

Of course, I had been exhausted for a long time already too.

Hours of not yielding a single line, with the bit and the harassment flying in every direction. Could a stream like this even pick up new viewers……?

Anyway, the battle of wills with chat that I had started on a whim was…… my win, in any case. Why?

Because the viewers had finally stopped dropping sex jokes, and I was still holding the bit!

"Ugh… that's all for today's stream. You lost in the end. What a lovely sight. Fufu…."

"…Ah."

Mm. It was my win anyway. It absolutely was.

I peeled off the leather jacket and found the short sleeves underneath soaked through with sweat. The temperature had been climbing as summer drew closer, and I had been broadcasting for hours in leather, so of course.

What had I even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠done with my day……?

I sat in the chair, seized by self-recrimination for a long while, then shook my head hard to knock the thoughts loose.

I considered doing my usual stream recap, but today's broadcast had been completely unhinged, so it did not seem like it would help.

I stared blankly at the TwizyTV screen still up on the monitor, and yesterday came back to me, so I searched for Lethe's stream.

It had only been a day, but she was a friend I had made after a long time. And I had not actually watched her broadcast all that much.

Looking at the date of the last stream registered on her channel, though, it seemed she had been off for five days straight, including today.

TwizyTV let you chat even when a stream was offline, so I slipped into Lethe's chat and found a handful of viewers gathered there, pining after her.

The idea to take off through today had been mine. I had not known she would actually go through with it.

Lethe…… that is, Ari, had told me yesterday about fighting with her boyfriend and asked for advice, but it was not as if I understood how men in this world thought.

So what I had offered, more or less, was that she should take a break from streaming and stay with him.

Well. Seeing that she had not gone live all day, maybe they had made up.

I was curious, honestly, but I could not quite bring myself to call first and ask. I had dropped some truly bizarre lines when we parted yesterday.

……Life.

Thinking about embarrassing things for no reason only soured my mood.

Ah, whatever. Time to sleep.

A strangely draining day.

I had not even showered…… but I did not care about that either. I just lay down.