The Uninvited Guest
I stopped by the neighborhood household goods store, Everything's Here, and made straight for the toy corner on the second floor.
The reason?
No point hiding it.
I was prepping for the stream.
To hold a trial, you need the proper tools of the trade. And that tool?
The gavel a judge slams down when delivering a verdict.
What, Korean judges don't use gavels? Doesn't matter.
In internet streaming, the look of the thing is what counts. Historical accuracy is optional.
But buy a wooden mallet and you've got a noise complaint waiting to happen with the downstairs neighbors. So what I went with instead was…
Squeak—!
This squeaky toy mallet right here.
Except the impact on this one felt a little weak. I hung it back on the rack and picked up the one hanging next to it.
Boing!
Not bad. Decent thwack to it, and lighter than the last one—wouldn't wreck my wrist. I swung it through the air a few more times, testing the balance. The light rebound through my fingertips was surprisingly satisfying.
As a gavel for keeping order in the court, I was just about ready to declare it highly suitable, when—
"Um, excuse me…"
While I stood there wearing a look of quiet satisfaction, a part-timer rearranging the display nearby spoke up with a distinctly pained expression.
Hmm… another lamb bewitched by Jeong Eun-gyeol's beauty, is it…
"If you keep swinging that around in the store…"
"……"
Okay, not that.
Maybe I was being a nuisance. Come to think of it, every pair of eyes in the place did seem to be fixed on me.
…This is mortifying.
"I'm sorry."
I bowed my head to the clerk, then fled the scene with the squeaky mallet in hand.
After paying, I headed straight back to my studio apartment. Once home, I set the mallet on the computer desk.
With that, preparations for Philosophy Court were complete.
I was just about to start the stream setup—already half second nature by now—when my phone buzzed.
Vrrr— vrrrr—
Jeong Eun-gyeol's smartphone gave a short vibration. A CocoaTalk message.
"……"
Sure, the phone had gone off a few times over the past week. With only four numbers saved, I'd known it had to be Jeong Eun-gyeol's family—but I'd been deliberately avoiding them.
If I was going to live in this body for the rest of my life, though, I couldn't dodge contact forever.
So… how should I even reply…
Not long after I hit send, another message from my sister came through.
Uh… that's a little awkward.
After sending that, I took hold of the mouse.
Stream time was almost here—nine p.m.
<Philosophy Court> is now in session. Dissecting every debate the world has to offer.
I took one deep breath and hit Start Stream.
Even if the setup itself felt familiar by now, the nerves right before going live still refused to settle.
"Well, then."
I picked up the squeaky mallet and gave the desk a light tap.
Boing—!
"I hereby call the first session of Philosophy Court to order."
On screen, the cat-eared magical girl wore an expression of absolute seriousness and solemnity.
The chat window lit up almost immediately.
Hmm. Not a bad response.
"Very well. Let us begin the first trial."
For the record, I didn't have a dedicated submission box, so cases came in by email.
"A great many stories have arrived by email. From among them, I have selected one truly profound philosophical dilemma. Our first case. The title: What If Your Lover Turned Into a Cockroach?"
I opened the mail and began to read.
"Professor, if one day your lover suddenly turned into a cockroach, what would you do? I would build a house just for the cockroach—no, for my lover—and raise them with love for the rest of my life. But every friend has a different opinion, and we can't settle it. Please deliver a verdict."
I glanced over the chat for a moment, then opened my mouth.
"Build a dedicated cockroach house and raise them with love. An approach so thoroughly K-romance it hurts. I urge you to prostrate yourself and beg forgiveness at Franz Kafka's grave. Dragging this question into the sentimental territory of 'can you still love them if their appearance changes' is to avert your eyes from the essence of the matter. Sartre said it, did he not: existence precedes essence. Your lover has lost the essence of 'human' and acquired a new existence as 'cockroach.'"
I looked into the camera and spoke with cold precision.
"To force that cockroach into the husk of its past, lock it in a prison you call a house, and toss it scraps of food—that cannot possibly be love."
I gave the desk a light rap with the squeaky mallet.
Boing—!
"This is nothing more than reconstructing Michel Foucault's panopticon in the corner of your room. Imprisoning a being that has become a cockroach, surveilling it for life, all so you can soothe yourself with the self-congratulating image of 'the pure-hearted soul who cares even for a lover turned into a bug'—it is a vicious violence, a hunger for control."
"Do not project the past onto a bug and demand a selfish love from it. Respect your lover's new existence. Freedom is what a cockroach is owed. Therefore, I deliver the following verdict."
Boing! Boing! Boing!
"Do not cage a being in the violence you call love. Roll up a newspaper at once, or take up the insecticide. That is the most philosophical salvation you can offer a pitiful existence that has lost its human flesh."
The viewers' reactions were excellent. The avatar on the monitor held its blank expression, but I was barely holding back the urge to smile.
Playing with people by talking absolute nonsense… this is surprisingly addictive.
After that, I took all kinds of cases and kept spinning nonsense for the crowd.
"That concludes today's session of the court."
I tapped the desk lightly with the squeaky mallet.
Boink!
"As always, there is no homework. Sleep well."
Leaving the disappointed viewers behind, I hit End Stream.
Click—
The notification chimes and chat sounds that had filled the speakers vanished as if they'd never been, and the room was left with nothing but the low hum of the computer fan.
"Whew."
I let out a breath and set the headphones on the desk. Licking dry lips, I thought it over.
Nearly three hours of nonstop talking had left my throat raw, and a thin film of cold sweat clung to my back. Even so, the heat of the last few hours still lingered at my fingertips, refusing to fade.
Honestly…
This is insanely fun!
I'd never in my wildest dreams imagined that the humanities and philosophy books I'd read just to mine material for web novels would come in handy like this. What was this feeling? Something I'd never experienced in my life. As if the people watching the stream were looking up to me as a person—or something like that.
I didn't really know, but maybe this was what singers felt on stage?
Sure, I was streaming under the shell of an avatar, in Jeong Eun-gyeol's body rather than my own original one… but if I'd stayed a man, the odds of me ever becoming a VTuber would have converged on roughly zero percent. Back then, there had been nothing special about me at all.
"Eun-gyeol… maybe being a VTuber really would have been your calling."
Thinking that made me a little sad. It might have been a perfect chance for her to overcome her complexes…
I opened the platform's payout window. The donations from today alone were pretty solid.
By the clock, it was already half past midnight. I threw myself onto the bed and unlocked my phone at the same time.
A few more messages had piled up from Jeong Eun-gyeol's little sister.
"Huh…?"
I looked at the calendar.
Tomorrow was… Saturday.
And what was I supposed to do about that? I knew absolutely nothing about Jeong Han-gyeol.
The messages kept coming.
"This is a problem."
I had no idea what kind of relationship Jeong Eun-gyeol and her sister Jeong Han-gyeol had. Worse still was the possibility that Han-gyeol would look at me and sense something off. My habits and way of speaking were still basically the same as when I'd been a man.
No matter how identical the voice and appearance were—could you really fool family?
"…Ah, to hell with it."
I tossed the phone onto the bed.
Even if I did know everything about Jeong Eun-gyeol, perfectly imitating her was impossible anyway.
So what was left…?
Just face it head-on.
The next evening.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
The doorbell rang through the studio. A little tense, I opened the front door.
Standing outside was a short-haired young woman with shopping bags in both hands.
So this was Jeong Eun-gyeol's younger sister, Jeong Han-gyeol… True to sharing blood with Eun-gyeol, she was a genuine beauty. The resemblance was there, but oddly enough her features were rounder, her whole presence brighter. Unlike Eun-gyeol's catlike eyes, Han-gyeol's curved softly at the corners—she looked genuinely kind.
Same blood, and yet the aura they gave off could be this different. Interesting.
"What are you doing, Unnie? Staring like that."
"Oh, you're here. Come in."
A dry greeting slipped out of me before I could stop it.
"I'm wearing boots… I can't take my shoes off holding all this… You're not gonna take them?"
I flinched—but surprisingly, Han-gyeol didn't seem to find anything strange. I took the shopping bags from her and set them in a corner of the studio.
Meanwhile Han-gyeol—ah, just Han-gyeol. She pulled off her shoes, looked around the place, then turned her eyes on me.
"Huh. Looks like you're doing better than I thought. Why'd you cut contact for a whole month?"
Even before I'd entered Jeong Eun-gyeol's body, she apparently hadn't been great about staying in touch with family. I had a rough idea why.
Eun-gyeol had spent over five million won preparing for her stream. She didn't have a job, so how she'd gotten the money was more or less clear. A few weeks before buying the gear, a deposit had hit her account under a name that looked like her father's.
What excuse she'd used, I didn't know, but—
"So, are you still going to the academy?"
Shit.
Of course. Tuition money, was it…