The Voice That Shouldn't Have Been Heard

The mistake had come out of nowhere. After quickly finishing off Yorumi and returning to the village, I logged out of the game. I have no idea how much time had passed since then. I just lay there, still wearing the connector, staring blankly at the ceiling. The same thought kept circling through my head over and over: Am I a fucking idiot?

Arcadia Online is an MMORPG. Obviously, men can play female characters and women can play male ones. What sets it apart from older RPGs is that it provides a voice changer function tuned to the character's gender, all to help players immerse themselves more deeply.

But for someone like me—who had lived by the creed real men play male characters—the idea of using a voice changer to sound more masculine had never even crossed my mind.

“I’m actually insane. If I was just trying to blow off some steam, I should’ve thought it through before jumping into the game…”

My pointless rant echoed hollowly through the unnecessarily large room with no one around to hear it. It felt like I had just erased the last remaining trace of Han Seol—the guy I used to be—with a single stupid mistake. More than anger, I felt hollow. And on top of that, an overwhelming wave of embarrassment kept crashing over me.

To think I had used that voice in front of everyone. It felt like I had done something unforgivable to both my real body and my in-game character. Park Woojin’s 13th Shadow was supposed to be a quirky but skilled recluse master. That whole concept was now in ruins.

“…Ugh.”

A sudden, ominous premonition hit me. I bolted upright from where I’d been lying. After fiddling with the holographic panels floating in my vision for a moment, I immediately connected to the internet and jumped into the AO streaming community. My fingers flew across the search bar. The keyword, of course, was Yorumi.

This was the community site I had started visiting after quitting my trainee days, using it to vent my twisted ego. At some point it had become an addiction. The place where I had poured out my raw, unfiltered thoughts behind the mask of anonymity… and now my own story was spreading there.

Most of the posts were along the lines of “So the guy who used to write garbage like that wasn’t actually a clumsy idiot after all.” Even though I had only done it as a way to vent personal frustration, I used to enjoy poking at people, so I had written with a bit of glee. But somehow it had all circled back into a horrific self-own.

“…Fuck me.”

Yorumi’s stream had quite a large audience.

She was a beautiful woman with a devilish charm who wore outfits that accentuated an assassin’s figure. Naturally, she attracted plenty of male viewers looking for that kind of content. But she also had a strong competitive spirit and a somewhat childish side that gave her a very human appeal. She was the kind of streamer that pretty much every Arcadia Online player—regardless of gender—had watched at least once.

Maybe that was why my eyes had kept drifting toward her when things weren’t going well. …Maybe deep down I had felt a sting of jealousy, thinking something like, I worked so hard and still ended up as a worthless loser, but she gets to succeed just because she’s pretty. Anyway, even though I kept destroying her every time we met, she never gave up challenging me.

Even the little bits of advice I tossed at her in passing… maybe those had been nothing more than an outlet for my shattered self-esteem.

“That’s not what’s important right now.”

I yanked my wandering mind back on track and started reading through the community posts one by one. The pointless debate about whether I was a man or a woman continued, while other posts were filled with resentment toward me for ruining a broadcast they had been enjoying.

The auto-logged account nickname and the obnoxiously shiny “Write Post” button that seemed to say Take my hand kept catching my eye. Should I explain myself? And if I did, what exactly would I say? How?

“This is making my head hurt.”

There was nothing good that could come from revealing the truth. The calm face of the doctor who had said those words suddenly flashed through my mind. Without realizing it, I started muttering complaints. Who the hell would believe something like this anyway?

Arcadia Online provides a voice changer that matches the character’s gender. There were exceptions like event curses, but that was the general rule. In other words, if a character’s voice didn’t match their gender, it was almost certainly because the player’s real gender was the opposite.

I had zero intention of explaining anything about a “gender-swap condition.” I wouldn’t even know how. Should I just stay quiet until the topic cooled off? But even then, my life as the male Park Woojin’s 13th Shadow was already over. No, when it came to sniping, what did gender even matter? Still… the last trace of Han Seol as a man…

“…Maybe I should just eat something.”

My overheating thoughts came to a sudden stop, like a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠blown fuse. It finally hit me that I hadn’t eaten anything since morning except for some drinks, and lunchtime had long since passed. Worrying wasn’t going to give me any answers anyway. I needed to eat first.

The fridge—probably stocked by Woojin’s mom—was still well-filled. I could probably throw together something with whatever was in there. Forcing my mind away from the problem ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that had no solution, I slowly took off the connector.

-Ding!

…If only the connector I had left on the bedside table hadn’t suddenly let out a notification sound, I would have headed straight to the kitchen.

“What the hell?”

There was only one person who would contact me at this awkward hour. I frowned and picked the connector back up. The familiar home screen appeared. When I opened the messenger app that was notifying me of a new message, sure enough, Woojin’s name was at the very top.

—What did you do?

—Why

I was already in a terrible mood, and now this bastard was spouting nonsense again.

—Yorumi asked me to get her on your friend list.

What the actual fuck?

“How did you guys know? Anyway, I’ll probably turn it back on tonight depending on how I feel. Since I’m dead and can’t log in for four hours, should I just leave the waiting screen up and chat with you guys?”

These people. As Yorumi—no, now that the game was off, as Lee Haru—looked at the chat, her lips curved into a soft, faint smile.

Whether she liked it or not, these were people who liked her. In the early days of her stream there had been some creepy reactions, but now that things had stabilized, she sometimes found them rather cute.

“What cam stream? You guys should go eat lunch too.”

“Calling me out indirectly costs five thousand won, you know.”

While exchanging silly banter, Haru quietly reflected on what had happened earlier. The moment when Yorumi had spoken with a voice that was completely different from what she remembered the sniper having.

“Anyway, I’m ending the stream now. If I don’t post a notice, that means there won’t be a second part today, so keep that in mind.”

She looked at the chat spamming “fallen” with a pleased smile and firmly pressed the “End Stream” button on her sub-monitor.

…She had warned them multiple times before ending the broadcast not to spread weird rumors, and by the time the stream actually ended, almost no one was talking about it anymore. But deep down, that shocking scene refused to leave her head. How should she put it? It was like hearing the voice of a café you instinctively crave when you’re feeling sluggish around lunchtime—maybe that was too poetic.

It was a gentle voice that somehow felt incredibly charming even with just a few short words. A voice that naturally made you imagine the owner must have quite a beautiful appearance. Come to think of it, maybe if the sarcastic, blood-pressure-raising jabs she had heard every time she got destroyed had been delivered in that voice, they would have felt like genuine constructive feedback…

“No, even if a voice actor deliberately used that kind of shitty tone, it probably wouldn’t sound refreshing.”

If anything, it might piss people off even more if a voice actor did it. Haru made a complicated expression, then lightly shook her head. Thinking about it again made her head heat up, but that wasn’t what was important right now.

“Why would he deliberately… look like that?”

Haru knew that not everyone in the world enjoyed receiving attention the way she did. She also knew how much unwanted attention could pour in within the male-dominated world of online games just from having a pretty voice.

But at the very least, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Park Woojin’s 13th Shadow that Haru remembered didn’t seem like someone with such a fragile personality. If she had to guess, she had always thought he was the type who, like her, had a fair amount of attention-seeking tendencies. Of course, that was just her own baseless speculation about someone she had never met in person.

“…Still, would someone with zero desire for attention really lurk around every stream causing chaos like that?”

It was an assumption, but she suspected it came from a need for recognition. Someone with that level of skill and a voice that would clearly work in his favor had no reason to hide behind such an ugly appearance. At least, Haru couldn’t think of any.

The only plausible reason was pure desire for acknowledgment. In other words, he wanted to be recognized solely for his skill, to hear people say, “His ability is this incredible.” When she considered that the people he mainly sniped were well-known streamers and pros in the PvP scene, it seemed like a pretty reasonable guess.

And yet that same person had been hiding such a cute little secret. Judging by how he deliberately used a hideous appearance, maybe his real look was actually beautiful. All kinds of wild speculations floated through Haru’s mind. To be honest, the moment she realized she had been completely “struck” by that voice, her curiosity had begun boiling over uncontrollably.

“Friend request… he probably won’t accept it.”

The friend request she had sent quite a while ago was still pending. He seemed to be active on internet communities, but considering the terrible rumors she had heard, going to find him while revealing her identity as Yorumi felt like asking for unnecessary trouble. On the other hand, blindly searching through social media without any clues wasn’t exactly realistic either—

“…Huh?”

Before taking off the connector, Haru’s hand tapped the colorful camera-shaped icon. The other party was someone so obsessed with the player Playmaker that he used the name Park Woojin’s 13th Shadow. He was also an incredible player evaluated as semi-pro or higher. In that case, maybe Playmaker himself knew something about him.

It suddenly occurred to her that about three months ago, when she had been invited to an event for Mad Gryphon—the team Playmaker belonged to—she had followed each other on social media.

—Sorry for contacting you so suddenly, Woojin.

With that thought in mind, Haru’s finger firmly pressed the send message button.