Friend
Neo forced an awkward smile and sneaked a glance at the chat.
The chat was already a wall of doom, and the viewers who'd flocked in for the inflammatory stream title were raining blows down on him.
You guys were right there trash-talking with me!…was something he couldn't exactly say out loud. Neo's streaming style had always leaned toward the sunny side of things, which meant — like it or not — there were definitely viewers who'd been genuinely disappointed by this whole mess and were already on their way out.
"Ahem."
Neo rolled his eyes around carefully, cleared his throat, and quietly changed the stream title.
Pro Gamer Tours the God-Tier "Hacker" Monk
"Hss… the parry timing is so goddamn artistic I still have my doubts, but… actual hackers can't pull off this kind of clunky movement.
He keeps trying to play mind games, except he's so bad at it nobody can even tell whether it's a mind game or not. No! Why are you just sitting there waiting for the Monk to come back topped up on health?! Kill him now and strip the buff!"
"Haha…"
Dermang, still completely oblivious to the situation, kept right on reviewing the replay.
I'm screwed.
It was too late to tell him to stop. And even as Dermang's breakdown continued, Neo couldn't quite let go of his suspicion.
No, for real… that isn't hacks?
No matter how he looked at it, the plays landing one after another were borderline impossible — but how was he supposed to argue when a professional gamer who did this for a living was saying otherwise?
Whether he understood it or not, Neo was just an ordinary streamer who happened to be decent at games. All he could do was keep his mouth shut.
"Wow, this isn't even a tournament match. If the Monk's made it this far, you pile on and kill him in one go — why are you wandering off separately to die for him?!"
Fortunately — if you could call it that — Dermang's scathing critique didn't go much further. Before he left, saying his coach was calling him, he tacked on one last remark.
"Bottom line, the enemy team was all running potato hacks, and the Monk is… just a smurf who's ridiculously good?"
Dermang dropped out of Miscode. In the silence that settled over the voice chat, Neo was the first to speak.
"Uh… Delent noona?"
"…Yes."
Her tongue sounded a little mashed, and a crisp crunching noise mixed in through the mic.
Was she seriously sitting there munching on snacks, watching this whole thing unfold like it was entertainment?
"I'm sorry!"
Whether she was or wasn't, Neo didn't care. To stop the controversy from snowballing any further, he looked straight into the cam, straightened his posture, and bowed his head.
If Delent had decided to press him on it, Neo was fully prepared to keep his head down and apologize over and over until the end of time.
"It's fine. Just think of it as a fun experience."
But the moment he heard those words, Neo could finally breathe a quiet sigh of relief.
Crunch.
I savored the salty potato chips and watched the stream. A pro gamer's replay review would've been decent viewing on its own, but knowing I was the one at the center of it made it that much more entertaining.
Yeah, diving in there really was a bad call.
The other side had just been so bad that they'd eaten it anyway. Watching a pro observe the replay was, in all kinds of ways, useful study material for Rune Breaker.
…I still have this much left?
The bonus realization that I'd somehow barely made a dent in the chips was just a side note. Checking the bag at the point where I should've been finishing up and still finding it packed was one of the perks of this body.
I watched the chat's opinion slowly shift and enjoyed Neo's reactions all the way through the end of the replay.
It is weird, though.
Even looking at the replay myself, there were plenty of strange things about that Monk's play. Overwhelming physical mechanics paired with clumsy macro. You could call it the gap created by having zero knowledge of Rune Breaker while carrying outstanding talent and decades of accumulated gaming experience.
"I'm sorry!"
At this point, the choice was mine. Do I dig into Neo for trying to bury an innocent player, or do I forgive him generously?
The first option had the merit of letting you freely vent the greasy little desire every human keeps tucked in a corner of their heart, all from behind the mask of anonymity.
…Do I really need to?
But things that leave a bitter aftertaste are better left undone from the start. That holds true whether you're an adult man or a ten-year-old elementary school girl in another world — anyone, really.
And the guy was just trying to make a living. No need to be too harsh about it.
"It's fine. Just think of it as a fun experience."
So I decided to forgive him cleanly. Though calling it "forgiveness" was a stretch — from a streamer's perspective, it was just one more minor entry on the controversy and incident résumé.
"I'll be heading out now."
"Huh? Wai—"
Today's dopamine quota was fully topped up. PC bang time was too precious to waste any further, so I shut down the computer cleanly and stepped outside.
It struck me, suddenly, that even when you know what kind of reaction someone wants from you, it's hard to just ignore it. Maybe it was because I'd started settling into Han A-yeon's life, and because the feeling came from a place of goodwill.
"Ta-da — a present!"
"…Wow! Thank you!"
Or maybe I just wasn't the kind of person cold enough to shatter someone's expectations without a second thought.
Under the banner of a back-to-school gift, Yun Hyeon-mi — a life guide and caregiver at Pure Orphanage — held out a present. To hide the awkward look on my face, I grabbed it right away, bowed my head, and tore into the wrapping.
Inside was a small crossbody bag with an impressively cute squirrel face on it.
…So that was why she'd asked me what my favorite animal was the other day?
I'd wondered why I'd seen the other kids clustered together showing off their things to each other — everyone except me, Pure Orphanage's resident outsider.
"Hehe… You like it, don't you?"
Never mind that this kid-body's soft emotions had taken a shine to the crossbody bag. Honestly, what surprised me was the fact that I was genuinely happy to receive this gift.
I'd told myself I couldn't possibly have felt something like exclusion. But no matter how mature an elementary schooler I was, I was still just one human being — a social animal that draws emotional stability and comfort from talking with other people.
The simple fact that someone had been looking out for me, regardless of age… delivered a satisfaction that was hard to put into words.
"…Thank you."
I felt a soft touch stroke my hair. To keep the sentimental feelings welling up in check, all I could do was murmur my thanks in a low voice.
The weekend arrived. Unlike the vacation season, the orphanage's schedule was leisurely. Some kids studied hard in the study room; others went outside to play.
Where did I fit in?
Creak, creak.
Nowhere at all. I just sat on the old swing, short legs kicking back and forth.
The weather was nice and the breeze was cool, so sitting still on a swing and soaking in the atmosphere was… decent enough, my ass.
It was just a friendless elementary school kid parked on a swing, spinning pathetic little daydreams.
"Hah…"
I wasn't some emotionless psychopath. Going roughly two months without a single real conversation — always wearing a mask every time I dealt with other people — was harder than I'd expected.
Right. It was time to admit it.
To summarize my current state: I was lonely.
The method for fixing that loneliness was very simple. Blow off the stress in some extreme way. Drinking or smoking, for example.
…Setting aside whether either was even possible, let's rule those out for now.
After wringing every drop I could from my still-narrow imagination — the one that still thought drinking and smoking were the gold standard — I came up with a method that was at least halfway decent. Keep communicating with other people, steadily, and gradually get my peace of mind back.
Excluding the boys who, thanks to this face, started getting ideas after a couple of eye contacts or a few exchanged words.
The easiest approach would be girls my own age. But strike up a conversation with early-teens whose top interests, after Pretty Pretty Erina, were Petit Petit Luca?
No… absolutely not.
I'd rather die. And as for having an open, honest talk with an adult man — the demographic whose conversation code currently matched mine best — finding one was a problem in itself, and even if I found one, there was no way he'd go for it.
And if some guy did go for it, I'd be the one turning him down.
Creak, creak…
In the end, I was back at square one. The crossbody bag was wedged uncomfortably between my side and the swing chain, but for some reason I didn't want to move it. A small part of me even wanted to sit with that discomfort a little longer.
…This is seriously pathetic.
I should just go to the PC bang. Who needs real friends?
The thousands, tens of thousands of ghosts living on the internet — those are my friends.