Virgin Bitch (1)

They say the face completes the look — and you can never really ignore how much appearance shapes a first impression.

No. Taken far enough… looks decide everything.

Two days in a row now.

As if to prove my luck had completely lost its mind, I was the only man who kept getting pulled onto loading duty. Did that even make sense? Except it was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠happening to me right now.

Had I just been too good at the job? I'd outperformed most of the women by a wide margin, sure… but who memorizes a part-timer's face and hands out assignments based on that? The Logistics Shift Manager had taken a real interest in me on day one, but that was still an insane theory.

It had to be an insane theory.

Today I'd clicked so well with the older woman on my line that I'd put on an even more spectacular show than the first day. And because I worked hard and stayed polite with the adults, the other ladies had taken a liking to me too — I'd gotten way too friendly with the loading veterans. No matter how I looked at it, they kept calling my sloppy, unreliable-looking face handsome, even holding me up against their own daughters and singing my praises. Someone even offered to set me up with her girl. The others shut her down on the spot, but still.

I'd gotten carried away and worked even harder.

Anyway. Tomorrow, nobody was going to put me on loading. They couldn't. I just wanted to coast a little in sorting, damn it.

This body had performed exactly as I'd expected — ridiculously well. So well I had to wonder if a physique like this was even meant for loading work. Combine that with Mr. Kim's loading strategy, and I'd put on the show I mentioned.

But in the end I was still just human. Against the overwhelming force of parcel loading, I was helpless. Even sitting still in a chair, doing nothing but talk, my whole body ached. Yesterday and today, both streams, I'd had to cancel a cooking broadcast — one of my more popular formats.

This body could usually push through a lack of sleep just fine, but with the fatigue stacking this hard, the dark circles had dropped in overnight. Even a freak physique had its limits, apparently.

At least the viewers were into it. Small mercies. People I would never understand, no matter how many times I looked.

"I'm just tired. What's so great about that…?"

"You want Minecraft again next week too?! You'd better watch your mouths…"

It was Friday.

I'd already told the viewers we'd go back to Switch games starting next week, so we were sticking with Minecraft through the end of this one. I hadn't been the type to game much to begin with — no time, always exhausted — so filling the leftover hours with Minecraft alone had been plenty of fun. Now I'd been on the same game for weeks, and I was going out of my mind.

Not that I could just come out and say Ari had taken the Tintendo Switch, so Minecraft was all I had left. That would sound weird. I'd told them I was playing it because it was fun.

Come to think of it, the extra thirty thousand won I'd gotten after work these past two days had been a surprisingly big help. Tomorrow I'd almost certainly get slotted into sorting, so the extra pay would dry up — but even sixty thousand won would be enough to buy a fun game for the stream. And how many games could you play on a Tintendo Switch? Until I replaced the computer, I needed to squeeze every last drop out of that console.

Right now, with the Switch I'd been using gone, growth had stalled for a bit — but looking at the stream as a whole, it was climbing just fine. Four hundred viewers was the baseline now.

Next week. A new Switch. New games on stream. It would grow even bigger. I'd pay Sehee's tuition, move into a nicer place. If that wasn't a perfect life plan, I didn't know what was. Follow it, and I could become Yohan Orphanage's greatest success story.

For now, back to the stream. Only ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an hour left until I signed off.

Hmm… where had that extra pay even come from? They hadn't given it only to me, right? I hadn't stood out that much, right?

…Right. Probably.

My life is nothing but a comedy.

Joker. You were right.

If a man getting assigned to loading three days straight in this godforsaken gender-reversed world's warehouse wasn't a comedy, what was? And with a complete beginner who didn't know a thing, no less.

I wasn't trying to be the kind of asshole who blamed the newbie — but this one was a special case. In all my life I had never met anyone with so little work sense. She didn't even look like she was trying. She just kept glancing at me, over and over… was this what they called eye-fucking?

The boxes started to pile up. Sweat-soaked hair stabbed at my eyes. Sweat ran down after it, and they stung. Inside the truck I slammed into the cartons with my whole body.

I was going to lose it. Why did it have to be like this on the last day?

Curses rose all the way to my throat, but there was no time to spit them out.

Box.

Box.

Box.

I shoved the last carton in by sheer stubbornness and tried to walk out of the truck.

No. I didn't walk out.

"Agh…! F…fuuuck…"

My back went. A maddening pain crashed in. The world went thin and distant.

After that, I didn't remember a thing. Had the Logistics Shift Manager helped me? The older women from yesterday had come over too, I think. Somehow I'd gotten on my feet and made it home.

How I'd gotten there hardly mattered.

Facedown on the bed, I thought: life was a pile of shit. At least for me.

It really was a miserable day.

Saturday, six in the evening. About eight hours since I'd gotten home.

I'd spent four of them facedown on the bed, swearing, and the other four lamenting my lot ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in life. Time passed surprisingly fast that way.

Why was I at home? Because I didn't have money for a hospital. It wasn't the first or second time I'd thrown out my back. A few days of bed rest would probably do it, right?

I'd always done a lot of physical labor, so there were always pain patches in the house. There was a time when putting them on by myself brought on a grief I couldn't stand. I was fine now. I'd adapted. Live hard enough and the useless feelings go dull.

The orphanage tomorrow… it was a shame, but of course I couldn't go. I'd thought about taking a break from streaming too, but tomorrow was the regular off-day anyway. And a stream I could do even facedown on the bed. The webcam could cover the whole mattress, so it was possible.

I'd left mid-shift, so I hadn't gotten a proper day's wage, which meant the Switch was out of reach for now. If I skipped streaming on top of that, an already slow growth curve would only get slower.

I crawled in some unholy posture, turned the stream on, crawled back to the bed, and dropped onto my stomach. Then I opened my own broadcast on my phone and watched the chat.

"Hey hey. Good to see you, guys."

Same volume as always, but it came through the stream just fine. I'd dragged the mic all the way to the bed.

"You little shits… I'm like this because I threw out my back… Turning the stream on in this state should be enough. And I don't make that much money. Say that with a donation."

These people. Now they were inventing a girlfriend I didn't have just to roast me. Damn it — a lower half I'd never used for anything sexual in my life, and I'd been turned into a zero-sex slut.

Was this… a maiden bitch? No. A Virgin Bitch, then.

"Cut it out… I hurt it doing loading, what are you talking about."

"They said every other job was full, so they put me on loading for three days straight."

"Well… I look stronger than most women, don't I? And if you don't want to believe it, don't. I'm not going to talk you into it."

"A few pain patches and it'll be fine within a week. I'm broke this month. No money to spend on a hospital."

I said I was fine, and they were still this worried. I'd had a light injury before, and this body recovered fast. It wouldn't even take a week to heal all the way.

I looked down at my phone with that thought, and the chat was split. People who believed me and were worried, and people typing like I was lying. Objectively, even I would have trouble buying it. A guy who looked like a slut, coming home with a wrecked back from loading work.

If I'd had the Logistics Shift Manager's number, I could've proved it a little.

Chat I'd normally shrug off was getting under my skin. Maybe irritation had piled up because nothing was going my way.

"I told you not to believe it if you don't want to… Anyway. I'm doing a radio stream from bed today."

That was the mood we started in. Still, I'd picked up a lot from watching other streams, so even a plain radio broadcast I could pull some entertainment out of. Whenever the audio went dead, I spun up a story and kept talking.

About an hour in, the chats calling me a liar started to fade. My condition was off today, so whether those chats vanished or not, I was still in a foul mood. Showing it, though, was a bad move for a streamer.

Anyway, as time passed, the people who'd believed me started sending money through video donations. Maybe I was reading too much into it… but a single video gave you a lot to talk about, so maybe they were being considerate on a day I had to radio-stream for seven hours. Right or wrong, I was comfortable and the vibe had come back to life, so I was grateful either way.

I had fun with the videos they sent, so the video donations started coming in even more.

And then, in the middle of that easy atmosphere, one video dropped.

"What? What kind of video is this?"

Some woman streamer. I'd seen her face a few times on the site. She was working out on camera, yelling at her chat about why they wouldn't believe her. The comments under her stream were packed with jokes. That's not a gym body.I look more jacked than you and I went to bed after fried chicken last night. Playful atmosphere aside, looking at it objectively, her physique was pretty solid.

The viewers kept baiting her. And at the end of it, the streamer ripped her top off at blinding speed.

Underneath, she wasn't wearing anything. Two swaying masses spilled into full view.

"Fuck!!!"

Chat was pouring into my stream, but I had no room to care. I launched off the bed like I'd been sprung and ran for the computer. Let something that explicit go out on stream and I was getting banned, no question. Every second counted.

Crack—

A hideous pain slammed through my back with a terrible sound, but I couldn't stop. I collapsed over the desk, grabbed the mouse, and killed the video.

I was furious, and my face was going red from the sudden dirty clip.

"Hoo… shiiit… You can't send something this dirty!! I almost got banned, fuck!!"

My back was already finished, my stream had nearly gone under, and the viewers were reacting like I was the weird one. Pain, misery, irritation — none of it would stay in line. Tears welled up for no good reason.

"Hnnngh… you pieces of shit… you bastards…"

I couldn't take the pain anymore. I went down on the floor where I was. My phone was still on the bed, so there was no way to see the chat flooding in.

Through the mic that had bounced off the bed with me, nothing but sniffling filled the stream for a long while.