Yu In-ah
"Come to think of it, you're right. I've heard a man's resident registration number starts with a 1 or a 3."
I glanced at her resident registration number, which began with a 2, then checked my own. It still started with a 1. Apparently even this world's rules hadn't changed on that front.
"So you photoshopped your ID and even played a shutter sound to pretend you'd just taken the picture? Pretty cunning."
"Th-that's... kuh....."
"...What's going to happen to her?"
"Hard to say. We'll have to get her to apologize to the viewers, at least."
A light stretching sound came through the call.
"Want to just keep an eye on things for now? I'm wiped."
I was feeling pretty worn out myself. Checking how Elmil reacted, then getting some rest, seemed like the right call. It felt like my mental stamina had been wrung completely dry.
I lay down on the bed.
.....Maybe I'll sleep for just a bit.
"........What time is it?"
I rubbed my eyes and sat up. I'd clearly been out for a while. A check of the clock told me about five hours had passed since she'd run off the call.
".......Nothing happened, right?"
I opened Discord.
Three hours ago.
Damn it.
I typed a reply at once.
After sending it, I checked the other channels. Nothing important in any of them. So she'd only messaged me, then.
She replied the moment my message went through. Had she been sitting on our chat window for two hours straight, fidgeting herself into a knot?
I'm starting to feel a little guilty.
The truth was, I'd also done it because leaving things alone felt like a recipe for this blowing up.
She just kept repeating I'm sorry. There was no conversation to be had like this. Would a voice call even change anything? That was doubtful too.
And beyond all that, there was something else eating at me.
......Guess I don't have a choice.
I was going to have to meet her in person.
"So, as of now, we've roughly settled on a time to meet."
I filled Yo-ona in on where things stood. She'd helped me enormously — the least I could do was keep her in the loop.
She wasn't wrong. Right now Elmil was too panicked for that to work, but give it a little time and a call would almost certainly be enough.
There was a bigger problem, though. One I couldn't say out loud to the woman on the other end of the line.
The fact that I was a netkama.
Being a male impersonator streamer in this world wasn't particularly an issue. I wasn't trying to gain anything unfair, and male broadcasters already had a high chance of ending up dead — you could even call it a survival strategy. And yet. Sitting there hiding my gender while telling her that deceiving your viewers was wrong stabbed at my conscience a little too deeply. That was why I wanted to speak to her with real honesty. Why what she'd done was wrong. Why she shouldn't have done it.
"I'll be fine. I've got a plan, more or less."
I grabbed my clothes, got dressed, and headed out. At this hour, she was probably there.
I scanned the courtyard until I spotted her, which didn't take long at all.
"Hyojin~"
"Ah! Chaeho!"
I waved, and she waved back as she came running over.
"Feels like it's been forever.."
"Haha. It has been a few days, yeah."
We traded a little small talk as we sat down on a bench.
"Here. For you."
I held out a drink.
"Strawberry latte. Unsweetened, so it shouldn't make you gain weight."
"Ah.... thank you!"
She took it, drew a long sip through the straw, and looked up at me.
"So what brings you out here?"
"Well.... I have a favor to ask."
"Y-yes?"
I didn't bother beating around the bush.
"Do you happen to know any restaurants that are... safe?"
"What??"
"A r-restaurant? Why....?"
"I, uh... I've got a meeting with someone a little dangerous, and I figured if anyone would know a safe place, it'd be you."
"Ah......"
She lowered her head, looking faintly disappointed. I offered her a small smile.
"I, I do know one.... but it's a bit expensive......"
"That's fine. I've got plenty of money."
"......Ah."
Color rose in her face. The feeling that she'd just glanced at my lower half was probably my imagination.
"Oh, want to exchange numbers? It's a little inconvenient not having a way to reach each other."
"Ahah...? Ah! Yes! I'd like that!"
She wrote down her number immediately and held the screen out to me.
"010... alright, got it."
I called her. She answered with trembling hands.
"There we go. We'll call each other now and then, yeah?"
"Yes, yes!"
Not long after I got home, she sent me the restaurant's address. It was run by the security firm she wanted to join, which meant it would definitely be safe.
"........Wow."
I stared, dazed, at the luxurious building in front of me. This was the place Miren had asked to meet. Just being asked to meet at all had been more than I deserved — and it was a restaurant like this?
Is Miren rich or something?
I shuffled inside, hovering at the edges of myself.
"I'll show you to your table. May I have your name?"
"Ah, ah — Yu In-ah..!"
"Yes, Ms. Yu In-ah, you're confirmed. After a brief verification, we'll escort you in."
I completed a quick authentication on my phone, and they led me to one of the countless private rooms.
The door slid open. A richly appointed room came into view, every inch of it expensive — and inside it.....
"A-a man?"
"Hey."
"M-Mi-Miren?"
"That's right. Sit down. Food'll be out soon."
I sat, fumbling through the motion, and dishes began arriving just as Miren had said they would.
No way. Miren is a man?
The voice was almost identical. Really, aside from the missing crackle of static and a slightly deeper register, nothing about it had changed at all.
I shook my head hard. N-no. Think about this properly. Miren was always a masculine type, so looking like a man wouldn't be that strange.
"Miren, are you perhaps..."
"Yeah. I'm a guy."
"I can show you my resident registration number if you want."
So he really is a man.
I lowered my head and sliced into the meat. As expected of a place this expensive, it was ridiculously, unfairly good.
".....And call me Kim Chaeho. Your name's Yu In-ah, right?"
"Looking at your resident number, you're two years younger than me. I'll drop the formalities."
He finished saying it and quietly went back to cutting his meat. I had no idea how to even start a conversation, so I just kept eating too. The pressure sitting on my chest was so heavy I couldn't tell whether the food was going in my mouth or my nose.
"......What do you think?"
"W-what?"
"About what you did."
........
I bowed my head. I'd known it was wrong. There was nothing I could say. I really was garbage, so the only word I had was sorry.
"I just want to hear it from you. Why you did it."
"I'm not trying to blame you, and I'm not trying to judge you."
......
I quietly set down my utensils.
".......I was jealous."
Why was I saying this?
"Why does that person get to do so well? Just because they seem like a man?"
I started telling a lie that wouldn't even hold together. Why? Was the handful of conscience I had left trying, all sticky and clinging, to cover up something ugly and true?
"So I wanted to stand in front of you too. I wanted to look you in the eye and tell you I was better!"
Was the speck of shame I'd crushed down finally getting in my way?
"That's right! I wanted to be recognized too! I wanted to use you!"
I only realized I'd been shouting after the words were already out. I lowered my head again. A long silence settled over the table, and he didn't say a thing.
".....If you want to cuss me out, go ahead. I know I was wrong too."
He picked up his spoon again.
"....I didn't come here to say anything. I just came to listen."
"When you want to talk, talk as much as you want."
And then he went back to his meal. I stared at him, blank. Then I opened my mouth again.
"......I've wanted to stream since a long time ago."
A tiny piece of real truth, buried under all the lying, started coming out of my mouth.
"So I tried. And I flopped."
"I quit after a few months. There was no future in it."
He just kept listening.
"Even so, I wanted to stream again, so I started getting ready."
"And I never started. I was afraid I'd fail again."
"Then I found you by chance."
"You were exactly the type of person I hated most."
"Unlike me, you weren't staking your life on streaming at all, and you didn't even seem grateful for results you didn't deserve."
"I hated every last thing about you."
"But being that popular... it wasn't just luck."
"I got hooked. I watched every stream. Market research, I told myself. Whatever excuse I could find."
"Then one day I realized."
"Ah. I like this person."
"From that day on, you were right there next to my dream."
"I wanted to be with you. I wanted to do this together with you."
"But whenever I came down from those daydreams, everything was so dark."
Nothing in that room. Just silence. A life that felt light-years away from the one I'd wanted. And inside it, all I'd done was dream about him, and about streaming. Without lifting a finger.
"And then one day, my parents started fighting because of me."
"I cried my eyes out, holding my breath under the blanket."
"Then all of a sudden it felt so unfair that I posted a debut announcement."
"And that's how we ended up here."
I picked up my fork and knife again. But even after cutting the meat, I couldn't bring it to my mouth. The tears I'd been holding back broke loose.
He put his arms around me — a small, careful hug. And then I really started to cry. As if, in a place like this, it was all right.
"Hic.... I'm sorry... sob.... I didn't want to do this either......."