The Headset That No Longer Fits
While I sat there marveling at the sheer volume of fur—even I had to admit it was astonishing—I stretched my arm toward Mom like I was asking for the brush back. She didn’t seem interested in combing any more of it.
“If you’re going to brush your tail, do it here.”
“I know, I know.”
Mom pointed at the veranda and made it very clear that tail-brushing had to happen in that exact spot. I answered her emphasis on the obvious with a grumpy retort. It felt like I’d already been planning to clean the house only to get nagged about it anyway. Still, I really hadn’t intended to do it in my room.
I stood up from my crouched position.
“If you’re going into your room, put the cover on.”
“Yeah.”
I answered Mom’s next instruction and slipped the cover on. It still felt awkward, but I’d grown surprisingly used to it. The unpleasant sense of alienation I’d felt that first day had faded quite a bit.
Anyway, with Hyunseo still out of the house, the computer was all mine. The moment I rose from the blanket I dropped straight into the chair and booted it up.
Today, unlike the other day, I loaded the game I always played. I set the brush I’d brought down beside the mouse and started clicking with practiced ease. It had been a while since I’d sat down for a proper hardcore session, so I grabbed the headset hanging on the bookshelf, clamped it over my head, and launched the game.
That was when I noticed something strange—the sound wasn’t coming through properly. I tilted my head, wondering if something was broken, and pulled the headset off.
“…Ah.”
Only then did the shocking reality hit me. A short sigh of understanding slipped from my lips.
The ear cups of the headset had nothing to press against. Where human ears should have been there was only smooth skin. The old headset had become completely unusable.
What the hell…!
It was an inconvenience I hadn’t even considered after changing into this form. I stared blankly at the headset in a daze.
Of course there was no such thing as a beastkin headset lying around. The microphone I needed for the game was built into it. There was no way I could give up voice chat in an FPS.
With no other choice, I cranked the volume to maximum and tried using it the way I always had. Game sounds now vibrated and blared right beside my face. At least the audio still reached up to the top of my head.
Hmm. This should work.
It wasn’t ideal, but it felt usable enough. I gave it a passing grade and jumped straight into a match.
After queuing, it was time for character selection, objective briefing, and map deployment. The role I picked was, of course, healer.
The instant my character appeared on screen I greeted the team over the mic like always.
“Hi there.”
“Ooh, it’s a girl—”
One of the teammates reacted instantly. The character that had been running around nearby suddenly stopped in place.
GrandmaHandcartThief: team vc
GrandmaHandcartThief: claire’s voice is insane
The chat log popped up in the bottom-left corner. Claire was the name of the character I’d chosen. Looked like the guy standing next to me had typed that.
DongtakMisi has joined the voice channel.
MomFinder30000Rounds has joined the voice channel.
The moment the chat hinted that I was a girl, the other two jumped into the team voice channel like magic. DongtakMisi and MomFinder30000Rounds—quite the colorful nicknames.
“Claire-nim, say that again.”
“Yeees?”
I answered the voice that had singled me out again. A chorus of surprised “oohs” overlapped from the rest of the team. Soon another voice joined the channel that had only held two people before.
“Claire-nim. How old are you?”
“…I’m a high-school sophomore.”
This time it was a short question about my age. I answered honestly every time they asked.
“Whoa, you’re young.”
“How did a high-school girl end up playing this trash game?”
After the exclamation about my age came self-deprecating jokes about how a female student had stumbled into such a stupid game. The team atmosphere had turned strangely warm before the match even started.
Soon a notification filled the center of the screen announcing the game was beginning.
Right before it launched, one of our team characters stopped in front of mine and faced me directly.
“Claire-nim, could you give Lis-nim a fighting cheer?”
He seemed to have something to say after all. He asked me to give him a single “fighting.” Lis was the name of his character, just like Claire was mine. It wasn’t hard, so I figured why not.
“Huh? Uh… Lis-nim, fighting?”
“Ah, fighting~”
He sounded absolutely delighted. The moment the game started, his character dashed out of the base.
This wasn’t the kind of game where voice chat usually mattered that much, yet our team kept overwhelmingly crushing the enemy. We won match after match.
“Wow, Claire-nim’s actually good.”
“That’s not a skill level that belongs in this rank.”
Every single thing I did earned nothing but praise. These were the same teammates who, just days ago, had taken my heals with an attitude that said this is the bare minimum. Now even when someone died, they got encouragement instead of curses.
This wasn’t teamwork—it was straight-up one-sided pampering.
The result was another overwhelming victory for our team. Typical for a healer, I basically just followed everyone around the whole match.
Why are these guys suddenly so good? I chalked it up to lucky team matchmaking and queued again, but the next few games felt completely different from the ones I’d played a few days earlier. Sure, we lost some, but I didn’t hear any flaming like “Ah, XXX is dogshit” or “healer diff.” Even when there was trash talk, it was aimed at someone else.
My actual skill level hadn’t changed one bit.
So this was the queen-bee treatment I’d only ever heard about.
Because of that weird atmosphere I couldn’t keep playing for long. Maybe I should just mute my mic from now on.
But typing instructions in chat was way too slow. Then again, they hadn’t listened to me before anyway, so maybe it wouldn’t matter?
In the end I closed the game I usually played, launched the farming sim Hyunseo used to play, and loaded my save file. It was the kind of game where you planted crops on a tight schedule while dealing with all sorts of random obstacles, but it actually suited my taste better than I expected.
“Hyunwoo, text your sister and ask if she’s coming home for dinner.”
“Huh?”
Mom’s voice cut through while I was deep in a session. Her hands were busy tossing vegetables, so when she asked, I instinctively grabbed my phone and checked the time. It was already 7:44 p.m.—definitely dinner time.
Hyunseo still wasn’t back. I pulled up her contact with the expression of someone who would rather die than make this call. I never called her directly so I didn’t even have the number memorized. I tapped the green phone icon.
Ring… ring….
The speakerphone made the tone echo loudly through the room. Mom kept rustling the vegetables and paced around until the ringing finally stopped.
Ring… ring….
Then the tone cut off and the familiar automated voice began.
“The number you have dialed is unavailable. After the tone—”
I didn’t bother listening to the rest and stabbed the red button.
Mom sighed in resignation, turning back toward the kitchen.
“Aigoo, where is that girl wandering off to this time?”
“She’s probably at karaoke with friends or something.”
It wasn’t like this was the first or second time Hyunseo had ignored a call. I answered casually, without much concern.
“You too, in a bit! Stop playing and get ready for dinner instead of making excuses.”
“Okay.”
Mom ignored my half-hearted reply, mentioned the game I was playing again, and told me to prepare for dinner. I nodded at her decree, unplugged the headset cord, and hung it back on its hook.
It was a single-player game anyway; stopping whenever was fine. I glanced at the paused screen, then pressed ESC to continue.
“Tok!”
A short electronic sound rang out from the living room—Mom’s messenger app. Then came the sound of footsteps padding across the floor. It sounded like she picked up her phone, but she set it down again shortly after.
“She says she’ll eat and then come home.”
“Figures.”
I answered Mom in a drawn-out voice. The message she’d just checked must have been from Hyunseo. Since I almost never called her myself, she’d probably assumed it was Mom who needed something. Ignoring the person who actually called just to phone Mom instead? What a shameless girl—she could have at least picked up.
“I’m home—”
After dinner was over, the door lock beeped and the brazen little sister who had ignored my call strolled in like nothing had happened. I spun my chair toward her as she strode straight to her room. Feeling absurd, I picked a fight for no real reason.
“Hey, isn’t it common courtesy to answer the person who called you?”
“Ah, why…? It was Mom who told you to call anyway, right?”
She’d seen right through me and even guessed that Mom had made me do it. She was right, but still—there was such a thing as manners, kid. Since she wasn’t wrong, I couldn’t think of a comeback. Hyunseo glanced at my screen and asked,
“Is that game any fun?”
“…It’s pretty fun. But is there any way to stop the lightning strikes?”
Since pressing the argument further felt pointless, I smoothly changed the subject to the game. On rainy days lightning would hit the farm and I’d already lost seven expensive crops to it. I could have looked it up online, but it was easier to just ask the convenient expert standing right next to me.
“You get a lightning rod later. If you place a bunch behind the house it’ll block every strike no matter how many times it hits.”
“Aha.”
The farm-game encyclopedia flowed out of her smoothly. I let out a small sigh of understanding at the kinder-than-expected explanation. So a lightning rod appeared in the later stages.
“What’s this?”
“Huh?”
I had been burning with motivation to progress when Hyunseo picked up the brush beside the mouse and asked. This was the second time today I’d heard that question.
“Isn’t this the one for grooming dog fur?”
“Yeah, that’s right, but…”
She cut me off before I could answer. Hearing my sister state the brush’s exact purpose so confidently made me trail off without realizing it.
She started staring at me. A sly smile slowly spread across her previously blank face—the exact expression she wore when she was cooking up some wicked scheme.
…Ah, I’m screwed.
That single thought filled my head completely.