A Lie Is Still a Lie
“To keep your balance in three dimensions, you need at least three legs. People call humans higher animals for walking upright, but that’s only because we can constantly correct our balance on two unstable legs. That doesn’t mean the state itself is stable. Even with two legs, people trip and fall all the time — and I only have one foot, so of course I can go down like that. That’s all it is. So you really don’t have to worry so much.”
As if toppling over with a crash were some kind of catastrophe. Celesty had been making such a fuss that I needed a calm, long-winded explanation just to settle her down. People usually got tired of listening once you started talking like that.
Even so, Celesty wouldn’t stop looking me over from every angle.
“How am I supposed to not worry? The crash was loud enough to hear from outside! Are you sure you didn’t break a bone? Can you move like this? Like this?”
She waved her own arms and legs around, striking ridiculous poses to demonstrate — and yet she was careful never to let so much as a fingertip touch me. That was strange. We were both girls. Did she really need to be that cautious?
Of course, for someone like me — someone whose body went rigid, trembled, and shrank away the moment another person got close — this much distance was comfortable enough. Or maybe she was keeping space because the viewers were watching. Everyone already knew Celesty was a girl, but she herself kept insisting she was a guy, and this was a world where a man couldn’t just casually put his hands on a woman. It might not end at light teasing.
Well, Celesty wasn’t actually a guy, so the viewers would probably stop at ribbing her. I moved my body just enough to show her I was fine. Copying her little dance routine would have been too embarrassing, so I simply wriggled everything from my hands down to my toes.
Even after that, Celesty’s brows stayed locked in a worried slant. I changed the subject to pull her attention elsewhere.
“I’m fine, really. Anyway — even if I’m better at top-lane laning, Celesty’s tier is higher than mine, so you’re still the better player overall.”
The same thing I’d said earlier. Any gamer would prick up their ears at a line like that. Nobody in the world gets upset when someone praises their skill.
Just as I’d hoped, the pitying curve of Celesty’s brows smoothed out. In its place came the look of someone who’d heard something that rubbed her the wrong way, and she started arguing.
“Hold on. You’re saying higher rating automatically means better? Thaaaat kind of hurts my pride! What about other metrics?”
“Well, you did lose to me in top lane, that’s a fact… But that’s because your main role is ADC. And also because I saw your Vayne and counterpicked Teemo.”
“Uuuuugh… You’re trying to comfort me, right? Why does this feel so weirdly unsatisfying?”
I had been trying to be objective. Honestly, the Vayne play Celesty had shown me was the kind of play that prayed for the opponent to make a mistake. She’d taken sustain runes; all she had to do was minimize losses. Instead she’d gotten greedy, stepped up one pace too far, and died — maximizing the damage. Knowing that and applying it in a real game is skill, sure. But for an ADC whose job is mostly to sit in a safe position, follow the standard item build every patch, and pour out damage on whatever the team feeds them, there was no real need to master that kind of thing. At most, you’d grab a defensive or magic-resist item when the enemy had a lot of assassins, or a cleanse item when they had too much CC.
In that sense, I could say with confidence that I had the edge over Celesty. Before I became a girl, the game had just been something I played casually to hang out with friends. Once I got into it, though, I dug deep, and the knowledge piled up. Top lane is especially like that. Winning lane is the foundation of the whole game plan, so you obsess over laning even harder — which levels let you fight advantageously, which item builds give you a little more edge. You have to know those things.
I didn’t bother telling Celesty any of that. She was live, and her chat would be packed with her fans. Plenty of viewers liked to tease her, but there was an unspoken rule: we can tease her, not you. Like how Black people can call each other certain names, but if someone else does it they get shot.
I thought I’d smoothed it over well enough. Celesty, however, dug in her heels and threw down a challenge.
“You’re going to have to show me the basis for that judgment, Noel! I object!”
“What? I’m telling you, you’re better at LeoChamp than I am.”
“I don’t take advice from people in a lower tier than me! Stream and prove it!”
She had to know it was sophistry. I’d just said she was the better player, and now she refused to accept the word of someone worse than her at the game. It was the same shape as This sentence is false.
But the moment she told me to stream and prove it, I realized the whole thing had been bait to get to that request. She’d been looking for any excuse at all — just to make me broadcast. If that was the case, I could live with the stretch of logic. Deep down, it felt good to have my play acknowledged. Even knowing the real purpose of the stream was just to check that I was still alive, it felt strangely like I’d finally found the one thing I’d done that wasn’t completely meaningless.
I knew it was meaningless, of course. I was good for a civilian, but nowhere near good enough to go pro. If it could never be a career, could a hobby really be said to have meaning? And yet someone was affirming my play. …It was a little bitter, relying on other people’s evaluation for self-worth. But I had nothing left, so even that was something I welcomed.
Everything I’d studied so hard for from elementary school through high school had become worthless overnight. I couldn’t go back to college in this body. Ah — from the day I was born until now, my whole life had been nothing but becoming a trophy for my father and mother. All of that had been denied. The only thing I’d chosen for myself was this game. And that choice had been affirmed.
“Okay, sure… But how do I even do it?”
“Wait, for real? You’ll do it?”
“I don’t watch streams, but I know LeoChamp isn’t that demanding on hardware. It should run fine alongside streaming software.”
I nodded again at Celesty, whose eyes had gone round. I wondered if she and the viewers understood — I wasn’t doing them a favor by streaming. They were the ones giving me a chance.
“Uh, okay. Then can I go into your room? I’ll install the streaming programs and everything on your computer… Oh, right, you’ll need a mic too. I’ll grab you a decent budget one. Cam? No way, chat. Even if she’s making her streaming debut, Noel is a regular person. That’s why I’ve been carefully keeping faces out of frame this whole time.”
Chattering back and forth with her viewers, Celesty installed various programs on my computer. There weren’t many of them, and the installs themselves didn’t take long, but she spent a while fiddling with the settings. More than anything, I was relieved she wasn’t insisting on a camera. Plenty of people who came for my gameplay would take one look at my face and leave in disgust. Celesty herself streamed without showing her face, so I could do the same. Right now she was still half-pretending this was just a crossdressing bit and that the face on screen wasn’t hers — but that was her business to manage.
I gave her the chair and curled up on the bed, watching blankly as she worked. Looking at her back, so earnest about helping me, I started to feel guiltier and guiltier. Whether the viewers had put her up to it or she’d taken donations for it, they were the ones helping me, and sitting here doing nothing felt wrong. A one-sided relationship where only one person gives, like the one I’d had with the couple downstairs, could never be healthy. Later, if Celesty used this as leverage to ask me for something, I’d have no choice but to say yes — even if it was a request I didn’t want to grant. I hated being in debt. But I had nothing I could give right now.
…Maybe I should at least send her a gift card, I was thinking, when the pizza in the fridge crossed my mind. It had probably gone cold, but it hadn’t even been a full day since it was made. Warmed up, it should still taste fine.
“Celesty. You’ve been cleaning and everything — you must be tired. Want some pizza?”
“Pizza? Oh, right, you said you were eating the pizza you brought back as spoils. Leftovers?”
“Yeah. Eating a whole pie in one sitting by yourself is pretty hard.”
“Mm, true. Pizza’s such an awkward food. Too much for one person, a little short for two. Three people and two pies is the sweet spot. What? You’re saying a guy shouldn’t eat that little? Since when do guys have to eat a ton? Some guys eat light! Ah — anyway, I’ll gratefully accept!”
It wasn’t even my money that had bought it, so I didn’t mind sharing. I only felt a little bad offering leftovers. Celesty took even that cheerfully.
The moment I tried to get up, though, she hurriedly stopped me.
“Ah — your leg’s hurt. Just sit. I’ll heat it up myself. Where is it?”
“In the fridge. Grab a cola too if you want.”
“Ehehe, thank you. Hey, chat, ‘stealing her food’? That’s harsh. Noel’s the one offering. What? This is her four days of rations? W-well, eating the same cold reheated pizza for four straight days would get old! I’m doing her a favor by finishing it before it goes bad. I’ll leave a gift card when I go, so Noel gets to eat freshly made food next time — win-win, right? Wait, what.”
Still holding her phone with the stream running, she headed for the kitchen — and then fell suddenly silent. There shouldn’t have been anything special in the fridge once you took out the pizza box. Why the quiet? Worried she’d seen something she shouldn’t, I crawled out of the room on my hands and knees.
There was Celesty, standing in front of the open fridge with the pizza box open, staring blankly into it. Had the pizza already gone bad? Impossible. The weather had gotten a little warmer, but I’d put it straight into the fridge. It couldn’t have spoiled that visibly already. …Was it because of the single slice I’d taken a bite of and left?
I’d just figured that out and was about to tell her to heat a different slice when Celesty spoke. Her voice was strangely thick with moisture.
“…Noel. Did you only eat one slice? Were you seriously planning to live on this for four days?”
“Huh? Oh — yeah. But one slice filled me up. I was originally going to do two a day, but I got so full I was actually a little worried. If I stretched it to eight days it’d go bad, so I figured I’d finish the one I’d started once I got hungry again later… Just heat a fresh one for yourself. Not the one I already bit.”
“…….”
Celesty’s face twisted.