I’m a Guy, You Know?
“Is that… a livestream you’re doing right now? Am I on air?”
Kim Jun-su had just been staring blankly at Lee Harang, as if even looking at him was enough to make him laugh.
At Harang’s words, he snapped back to his senses and nodded hastily.
“I’m sorry for filming without permission. The thing is, I’m actually Black Star, a game streamer, and I was just──”
“How many viewers do you have right now?”
Jun-su had been trying to explain himself quickly, hoping to smooth things over before they turned awkward and maybe even offer some kind of compensation, but Harang cut him off with a question.
“Huh? Uh… about ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand live viewers? Wow, you’re a huge big-shot.”
Harang didn’t know much about the streaming world, but even he knew that ten thousand people watching a live broadcast was a massive number.
Of course, there were more viewers than usual today, but still, that was impressive.
Jun-su, who had been desperate to make a good impression on Harang, suddenly felt his shoulders unconsciously straighten with pride.
But that feeling began to shatter the moment Harang corrected his “misunderstanding.”
“Make sure you and your viewers get this straight.”
Harang rummaged around and pulled something out.
It was his resident registration card. He held it so the back digits were hidden, showing only the number that marked his sex, then thrust it toward the camera.
“I know I look like a beautiful woman… but I’m a guy, okay? A guy with a Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon, the kind of guy who starts every morning with a full-on hard-on, just like you losers.”
And if you don’t get that his taste is totally normal and he just likes pretty girls as much as he does, then quit making stupid assumptions and get lost, he barked at them.
A rough, filthy way of speaking that clashed violently with his gorgeous face.
He looked like an angel on the outside, but inside, he was clearly a demon. It made sense, really.
At those words, not only Jun-su but every single viewer in his chat immediately descended into full-blown panic.
The Black Star viewers went back and forth through donations, questioning everything in real time.
Listening to them, Harang clicked his tongue with a face that said, I knew this would happen.
The memories left in this body were the same.
No matter how much he explained, no matter how many times he showed his ID, there were always people who refused to believe him.
Human beings were creatures who only believed what they could see with their own eyes.
Harang wasn’t going to back down here. He was going to go all in.
That way, he could burn into the minds of the roughly ten thousand viewers in his channel, plus a few extra, that he was a man—and use that as a springboard to become just a little more famous, which would mean more people would stop mistaking him for a woman.
That was Harang’s plan.
He would make the public recognize that he was male, so from now on he could cut off all the irritating creeps who kept trying to hit on him thinking he was a girl.
Sure, there’d probably be a few with weird tastes who’d still come after him, saying they didn’t care if he was a guy as long as he looked like that. But most people would back off.
“Hold the camera steady.”
“Huh? Wait, what── C-cut it out?! What are you doing now?!”
Harang started stripping off his shirt right there on the spot.
Jun-su yelped and jerked the camera away, and the people playing games in the PC café all looked up in unison, eyes widening.
“Why’d you move the camera? I told you to keep it steady.”
Harang complained that he’d specifically said to keep filming, and Jun-su exploded.
“Do you want to ruin someone’s life?!”
He had only gotten as far as taking off the top layer, but still—a sudden strip show?
The image of his channel getting suspended and himself slapped with an indecent exposure complaint flashed vividly through Jun-su’s mind, and he recoiled in horror.
If you didn’t want to give him your number, you could just say so—did you really need to try to bury him like this?
What a terrifying woman—no, man? Anyway, a terrifying person.
The flutter of first love was already fading, replaced little by little by embarrassment and confusion.
“What’s the problem? Male streamers take their clothes off all the time.”
“No, that’s….”
It was true that some male streamers stripped whenever they got the chance and messed around by drawing weird stuff on their bodies.
There were even people who took their shirts off whenever they got heated during intense matches, so often they joked that they were basically wearing a gaming suit.
But those people and Lee Harang were on completely different planets.
Look at that collarbone.
Look at that pale flesh, that skin that somehow looked soft just from a glance.
Man or woman aside, if that went live, the stream would be banned.
And there was no way unbanning it afterward by explaining he was actually a guy would be a simple job.
So, to protect his own livelihood, Jun-su had no choice but to turn the camera back.
And naturally, that choice was met with outrage.
The viewers were going wild.
But Jun-su ignored the donations flying in as if his life depended on it—because, frankly, it did. This wasn’t a one-day stream and done deal; he could afford to ignore how much money they threw at him.
My stream is not that kind of stream!
With that single-minded resolve, Jun-su resisted Harang’s crimes.
“Tch.”
Harang clicked his tongue in displeasure and, as if telling him to check anyway, held out his chest.
Instead of taking his shirt off completely, he simply grabbed the hem and lifted it.
“Hah….”
And when the truth before his eyes was laid bare, Jun-su lost the ability to speak.
“You’re really… a guy?”
It wasn’t that his chest was merely small.
There, plainly visible, was the flat male chest he probably saw every day in the shower.
And, strangely enough, now that the shirt was lifted, it was obvious… he was very muscular.
The body’s original owner, Lee Harang, had worked out hard, trying with everything he had to break free from the curse of being an otokonoko.
But as if mocking those efforts, his shoulders never really broadened enough to become truly masculine.
Even with clothes on, you couldn’t tell he worked out at all.
“Why are you a man…?”
So the person I fell for at first sight was a guy?
Realizing that, Jun-su felt as if his brain had been shattered.
That face, that body—how could it be a man?
It felt like his pure, innocent crush had been trampled to death, and tears threatened to burst from his eyes.
Some of the seasoned gentlemen in the chat probably thought this was even better.
But not Jun-su.
No matter how pretty and beautiful he looked like a woman… a man was still a man.
The feelings that had been blazing only moments ago froze over in an instant, and both body and heart naturally shrank right down.
It wasn’t as if the other person had meant to trick him, either—he’d just assumed, on his own. Honestly, Jun-su still couldn’t believe it.
If this were all some joke by a pickup artist who enjoyed mocking people, he’d almost prefer that.
A man with that face, that appearance, practically matching his ideal type?
Jun-su covered his face, feeling as though he’d been completely toyed with.
“Why is this happening to me…?”
Watching him, Harang made a dumbfounded face.
This is like getting slapped in the face by someone who’s about to cry….
He was the one who wanted to get angry, and yet this guy was the one throwing a tantrum?
“Hey, mister. I’ve had to deal with this kind of thing so often that I’m the one who wants to cry here.”
He waved Jun-su off and told him, in no uncertain terms, that if he was going to keep getting in the way of business, he should just leave.
Honestly, if he’d wanted to, he could have tried to market himself on a bigger stream with more viewers and really hammered into the world that he was male. But this was enough.
Now that the word was out, he’d get attention on his own, and from there he could correct people’s mistaken assumptions little by little.
Maybe I should just keep doing personal streams consistently.
Lee Harang, with the angelic face that had once belonged to this body.
In short, “Cheon-Harang” had been bullied from a young age and had grown afraid of standing before other people.
Being mistaken for the wrong gender was hard enough, and showing too much skin—like he had just now—was especially terrifying.
Back in school, people had even stripped off his clothes by force to “check” whether Cheon-Harang was really a boy, and then tormented him for it.
He hadn’t even been able to entertain the idea of becoming an entertainer.
That trauma had made the public itself frightening.
He was the opposite of the ugly, criminal-looking Lee Harang—“Chu-Harang”—who had been forced to live shut away because everywhere he went, people treated him like a criminal.
But now that “Chu-Harang” had become “Cheon-Harang,” he had no hesitation about showing himself.
In fact…
People really react like this to my face?
He kind of enjoyed it.
And honestly, why wouldn’t he?
He was the kind of guy who had once worn a mask to the bank just to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, only to be mistaken for a robber.
But now?
The world was going wild over his looks in a good way.
It was only natural that he’d want to enjoy that reaction and soak in it a little longer.
And if that made him more famous, got people talking about him, and gradually reduced the number of people who misunderstood him, then so be it.
That was why he was thinking of trying internet streaming, something he’d never have imagined doing back when he was Chu-Harang.
But… he’d need to know at least something about stream setup and the like.
“Hey.”
And right in front of him was the perfect helper.
“……Yes?”
“You feel bad about something, don’t you?”
“Ah, well, yes….”
He’d barged in with a camera, assumed Harang was a woman on his own, and generally committed a full set of offenses.
Even now, it was hard to believe the other person was a man with that face… but even if he had been a woman, it would still have been something he should apologize for.
Using that guilt, Harang declared his intentions.
“Then I’m thinking of trying this internet streaming thing. Help me out.”
Harang had decided to use a major streamer as his ladder.
From Jun-su’s perspective, this wasn’t a bad proposal either.
“I get mistaken for things like this a lot. But if I get famous enough that people recognize me, I won’t have to keep explaining that I’m a guy. I’m not really into becoming an entertainer, so I’m thinking of trying streaming.”
Until now, it had just been a passing thought, but since things had worked out like this, he might as well give streaming a shot.
At Harang’s shameless but straightforward and perfectly reasonable request for help with things like setting up broadcasting equipment, Jun-su thought about it for a moment and then nodded.
He did feel bad, and besides, he was convinced this would make excellent stream content.
Just bringing Harang on as a guest and talking about random things with him would already be a broadcast-worthy moment.
That was only natural. There had even been female streamers overseas who pretended to be otokonoko streamers, milked all the attention they could get, and then got exposed, tanking their popularity straight into the ground.
That was proof there was demand for that sort of thing.
But Harang was the real deal?
Just having him on and chatting would already make the viewership angle razor-sharp.
From setting up every piece of equipment to a joint stream. Damn, that’s some tasty content.
It was a different kind of content from Black Star’s usual style, but as long as it wasn’t something that would kill them, streamers would do anything for views.
It wasn’t as if being a former pro gamer meant he had to do nothing but play games on stream.
“When should I start helping you?”
By now, the sting of heartbreak had vanished, replaced by the heart of a professional streamer.
He would never be fooled by that face again.
Anyway, he was a man.
He’d treat this strictly as business.
Just as Jun-su was making that vow, Harang propped his chin on one finger and tilted his head, looking thoughtful.
The instant he made that pose, like a character straight out of a Japanese comic, Jun-su’s heart, traitorous as ever, gave another violent thump against his chest.
Don’t act up, damn you.
He beat his chest with bloody tears, while Harang, paying him no mind at all, finished checking the time and said, “How does tomorrow evening sound? Are you free?”
“Absolutely.”
Idiot, we have a joint stream tomorrow!
By the time reason screamed that, it was already far too late.