Don't Get Drunk and Cause Trouble
To make it through this month, I needed another seven hundred thousand won.
I could earn it working part-time jobs, sure. If only I didn't have PTSD from interviews, that is.
The oppressive atmosphere of the interview room. The suffocating formal suit. The interviewers' razor-sharp stares. The rejection emails that never failed to remind me I was a useless human being.
"I'd rather die than go to another interview!! I have to... I have to make this work with streaming somehow!"
Just as everyone has a plan, I too came up with one that sounded pretty decent at the time. The way Isaac Newton discovered gravity by watching an apple fall, I conceived my brilliant scheme while staring at a beer can.
"This is lesson number one: consume a sufficient quantity of alcohol. This is lesson number two: start the stream while you're tipsy and your courage is nice and high."
Once I was drunk, my unconscious mind would handle the streaming for me. After all, the concept of a drinking stream already existed in the world.
"Perfect. Problem solved, clean and simple!"
Or so I thought at the time. Completely unaware of just how enormous a disaster the thoroughly plastered version of myself was about to unleash.
The beers I'd bought yesterday looked like they wouldn't be enough, so I went out and grabbed a few extra bottles of soju as well. The part-timer at the convenience store who'd asked for my number wasn't there.
"She already got my number, so she'll call when she feels like it. And if she doesn't, oh well."
Muttering that to myself, I lined the soju bottles up neatly inside the fridge. Then I flipped the plastic bag upside down. Several packets of jerky came cascading out with a rustling clatter. Each one cost over two thousand won—terrifyingly expensive little bastards.
"Normally I would never be able to afford luxurious snacks like this for drinking... but there's no way I can show myself on stream eating beer and plain rice."
That was why I'd bought the jerky even though it strained the budget.
"Absolutely no beer and plain rice on stream!"
Talking to myself like that, I cracked open a can of beer. Gulp, gulp. If I tried starting the stream sober, I'd just sit there stammering and flailing until the alcohol kicked in. Better to drink now!
Gulp, gulp—kaah~!
After emptying the whole can, a mild, pleasant buzz settled over me.
"Straight into the stream like this—let's gooo~!!"
"Yeah, yeah. Today's a drinking stream. I couldn't think of anything to do on stream, so I'm just gonna drink."
"It's fine. I'm a day-two no-name streamer with thirty viewers. Compared to the big corps this is basically a school club—who's gonna care what I do?"
"Before I start drinking, let me answer some of the stuff that came into the mail inbox."
"Hooh? Is this a challenge directed at me?!"
"Ah...."
"Hmm.... Alright. Holding out sober any longer is gonna be tough. Time to crack open a can right this second."
Crack.Fssss...! Gulp, gulp...
Those three little sounds hit my ears and I felt my mood rocket straight to maximum High!
"Heeung~!! Yes, yes, that's the stuff! Let's dive back in! Now that I've become the ultimate life-form, I'm okay with any sexual harassment you throw at me!"
"And hey guys, I've got one little proposal. I'm broke as hell right now, so today if you donate ten thousand won or more, I'll do anything you want. No promises you'll be satisfied, but still."
"Yep. Anything."
"Mmm... I'll finish reading the rest of the mail first."
"Hey, I predicted it too, you know. So I'll throw in an upvote myself!"
"I'm a no-name. That means I always have to react to chat."
"Alright, alright, cutting the long story short, let's move on to the next mail."
"If I had a main job, would I be sitting here complaining that I'm short on living expenses? I am genuinely, actually broke!"
"House security officer, rice-eating youth, unemployed NEET, isekai reincarnation hopeful number 1023, and various other extremely noble professions."
"If I wanted to become an idol or actress—or even just a model—with this face, I'd still have to go through interviews, right?"
"I hate interviews!! If I ever got my hands on the power to rewrite common sense, before I made everyone walk around in bikinis I'd erase interviews from the face of the earth!!"
"Waaah! My living expenses!! Of course I'll do it for you.
I love you, titties!"
"Of course I prepared some! I'll go grab the three bottles of soju that have been aging in the fridge right now."
The moment I said that, I pulled the soju out of the fridge.
"Ta-da, I have returned with the goods."
I held one bottle in each hand and clamped the third between my teeth as I looked straight into the camera.
"Biting down on nicely finished glass actually feels pretty good, you know. I used to roll the glass marble from ramune around in my mouth like candy—though I almost died when it got stuck in my throat once."
"I'll say it one more time: the streamer you are currently watching is a woman. Just because my hair is short, my voice is low, I'm a little tall, and my chest is just a tiny bit small, please abandon the prejudice that I'm a man."
"Hey, hey! Chat is being too noisy. At least focus while I'm drinking."
"A soju glass? Using one of those would just mean more dishes to wash! A true master of the martial world drinks straight from the bottle...!"
I twisted the cap off the soju bottle. Then I clamped the bottle between my teeth and tilted my head back at a forty-five-degree angle.
Gulp gulp gulp!!
Once the bottle was half empty, I pulled it from my mouth. A warm, tipsy heat climbed from the tips of my toes all the way up to the top of my head, and then—
Like the pin being pulled from a grenade, something inside my skull went click and unlocked.
And then....
"Reproduce. Reproduce. Mate. Implantation. Pregnancy....."
"I.... like women..."
"And... I.... am a man. I am not.... a womaaaaan....!!"