I'm Not a Man (False)

Click. Click.

Scroll.

"Why isn't there anyone worth watching these days?"

Ever since the streamer I'd followed last year graduated, I'd spent a whole year drifting with nowhere to settle. I was starting to wonder if it was time to pull my feet out of this scene for good. Even the restaurant crawls and mukbangs that were all the rage among the big companies had gone stale. I'd started hunting through the no-name streamers on the off chance a hidden gem was buried in there somewhere, but so far the haul had been nothing. And still the old memories had their hooks in me, so here I was, months later, scraping the bottom of the barrel.

"Newcomer... Stream Day whatever... They're all carbon copies of each other."

And that was when, in the middle of browsing, I happened to stumble across a stream that was just a little bit unusual.

For something calling itself ordinary, there was no virtual avatar — the kind every stream had — just a black screen sitting there blank. Some kind of stand-out-from-the-crowd strategy? It wasn't going to pull any eyes, that was for sure. And if it was a strategy, it had already failed. The stream had been live for about ten minutes and the viewer count was still sitting at zero.

"It stays at zero even if I refresh."

Well. There weren't many people watching streams at this hour anyway.

"I'm curious, though."

What kind of content did a streamer with literally zero viewers even put on?

Click.

I joined the stream without a second thought.

"............"

For a second I thought I had the sound turned off. But no matter how far I cranked the volume, all that came through was the crackle of a microphone. What? They're seriously not saying anything? A dead-air stream was something I hadn't seen in quite a while, and it threw me for a moment — though I'd run into this kind of thing a few times before.

"...... Beats me? I haven't decided yet."

I froze, my hands stopping dead on the keyboard. What was that? A man's voice?

The voice that had come through the speakers was closer to a man's than a woman's, no question. But even with how striking it was — and I hadn't heard anything like it in a long time — there was enough static mixed in that something about it felt instinctively off. A voice changer? Or maybe they were just using a garbage microphone?

I started typing again.

"............ I'm a woman."

Ah.

The strength drained right out of me, and I took my hands off the keyboard. So they were using a voice changer.

When I stopped chatting, they went quiet too. For a reason I couldn't quite name, a strange feeling tugged at me, and I started typing again.

That was over the line.

The thought hit me the instant I sent it. Every time I'd dropped a chat like that, the streamer had either blocked me or ignored me outright. This room didn't have enough viewers to bother with a ban, but they were definitely going to take it the wrong way. I stared at the black screen, itching to delete the message on the spot.

"Yeah, I'll consider it."

...... Was that... fine?

I kept staring at the black screen, sinking into thought. What was this? It was just a black screen. The voice was a man's, sure, but it was processed — manufactured. And honestly, even the way they talked was half-hearted. So why...

did it feel so good?

That was when I finally understood the strange feeling I'd had this whole time.

This person. They were like a man. Even more like a man than the male streamer I used to watch. I could smell it in here — that scent of a man I'd never caught as a kid, or growing up, or even talking with the grandpas at the nursing home. If that thing that only ever existed in comics had stepped into the real world, I had a feeling this was exactly what it would be like. Completely, utterly a man.

Once I'd realized that, my heart started beating a little faster.

"...... I like jeyuk, gukbap, that kind of thing. Pork cutlet every now and then."

"Nothing professional, but I like soccer, yeah."

"Huh? What bread? And I'm in a teamfight right now, could you maybe hold off on the questions?"

"IoI. Ah, that crazy troll bastard!"

.........

Click.

I hit the record button for the first time in a long while. This was the real thing. The genuine article, no room for doubt. Every single answer had come in from somewhere I didn't expect, and more than anything, they were so male. I'd even gotten used to the crackle in the voice by now — I'd reached the point where she looked completely, perfectly like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a man.

"Uh, what is?"

"Sure, I'd appreciate it."

Alright... so what should I try next........

The person and the concept itself were as magnetic as they could possibly be, but it felt like they hadn't done much streaming.

"Yeah. Not sure if it'll be interesting, though."

He threw the game on stream right away. And then he went straight back to focusing on it.

"Uh.... it's called IoI. Basically you push the lane and break the jewel-thing in the enemy base."

He kept explaining the game while trading blows with the other team.

"So right now we're fighting, and this is...... ah! Got them!"

"Oh! Two in a row!"

The enemies he'd been fighting crumpled through their death animations, and a line of text flashed across the screen.

"Ah, yeah.... well.... thanks."

I bolted straight for the bed.

"Wooooaaah!"

This was all-time. This was beyond anything I had imagined. It felt so good I didn't have the words for it. Getting shy over that? This was a whole different league. Wasn't this that exact moment you only ever saw in comics — the guy who lights up when a girl praises him? I wanted to pile on the praise right then and there and dote on him endlessly.

I calmed myself down and sat back in front of the computer.

I had not, in fact, calmed down at all. I started dumping everything I was feeling.

So the netkama strategy was a bust after all.

A few minutes after I went live, still nobody had shown up, so I queued into a game. Then, coincidentally, someone wandered in not long after. They said hello, offered some advice, and then suddenly started pelting me with questions. Up to that point it was fine, more or less. Nobody starts out perfect, and I figured this wasn't a bad way to get going.

The problem started when I shared the game screen.

I happened to pick up a double kill right then, and when they praised me I just said thanks. After that they went quiet for a while — and then, along with a message about not being able to hold back, they laid down an unbelievable streak of language the Clean Bot flagged as inappropriate. Then they got auto-banned.

I never saw what they actually wrote, but after I wrapped the stream and counted, they'd sent exactly thirty-one censored chats. What could they possibly have typed that much of?

Well...... I had a rough idea. Thinking about how the other women in this world tended to react, it was probably....

......Nah. No way. What was there even to sexually harass? I'd even said I was a woman. Better to just figure I'd randomly run into a lunatic.

Anyway, I finished that match and killed the stream. After that person, people would browse through now and then, but nobody typed in chat. The demolished state of the chat window probably had something to do with it — a long, unbroken streak of Clean Bot censors stretching down the screen. To anyone just coming in, it probably looked like I'd been in a parental-insult flame war with a viewer.

"What do I do."

The voice changer didn't even seem to be doing its job. How did I get found out in a single sentence?

"I don't know."

I'd sleep on it first and think later. I'd try again tomorrow, and if there was still no answer, I was going to have to decide whether to bet my life on this — or just enjoy a week of it and go back.

I wouldn't come across any of these posts until a little later.