The Hunger Awakens
It was the middle of the night when my eyes opened.
I never turned the lights on anyway, so of course everything around me was pitch dark. Normally, waking up like this left me so drained I'd just lie there for an hour. Today, though, I felt strangely clear-headed—clear enough to sit up right away.
I didn't know why. Maybe I'd worked my body hard enough that I could finally sleep deeply. Maybe the pizza had given me nutrients I didn't usually get. Or maybe it was simply that, for once, I'd felt something like genuine enjoyment.
Not the cheap, peripheral thrill of killing an opponent and winning a game. Actual, emotional enjoyment.
Before falling asleep, I'd been half out of it, rambling and chatting about whatever came to mind. Looking back, it was kind of amazing. I'd assumed talking to people would only ever make me recoil—and yet it had been fun.
It wasn't that I was incapable of conversation. Twenty years of talking to other people didn't just vanish. Well—factoring in early childhood when I couldn't speak, more like a little over a decade. Still, after becoming a girl and being locked up at home, I'd barely had any reason to talk at all.
The fact that I'd been able to chat without that old resistance was probably because I never had to look anyone in the face. Even at Kancho's Studio, I'd been pretty stiff, honestly. Sitting in front of a computer instead of facing two people head-on had made it a little more bearable. I was used to playing with the girl next door behind me, so that much attention I could handle.
The hardest part had been getting carried on Celesty's back. I'd been a mess for a while after that. Even then, not having to look at her face meant I recovered pretty quickly.
But the conversations with viewers were, by nature, ones where you never saw anyone's face. That was probably why I'd managed to chat just fine. And it hadn't been the kind of chat where people asked after each other's parents, either—just perfectly normal conversation. All the more reason.
So there was nothing strange about me staggering up and hitting the computer's power button first thing. Ah—but I'd done that even before I started streaming. Nothing different from usual, then.
I dropped into the chair. The moment I sat, something felt sticky against my hips. Probably because I was wearing a swimsuit instead of underwear—the sweat just wasn't wicking. The weather was getting warmer on top of everything, and I'd gone outside like this.
Yesterday I'd gotten used to it, and there'd been too many other things to worry about to notice. Waking up, though, it was hard to ignore. A swimsuit really didn't cut it as underwear. Unless I was going out, I should just wear a hoodie or a shirt around the house. Better ventilation. More comfortable.
Ever since becoming a girl, I barely sweated at all, so I almost never felt this kind of clamminess. This was bad enough that I actually needed a shower. I headed for the bathroom.
Come to think of it, back when I was a guy I never skipped a single day of showering. It had been automatic then. Getting used to this life had made even showers feel like a chore. Realizing that made me feel like I'd truly gone to seed, and the high from yesterday's stream drained right out of me.
But then again—I had gone to seed. There was no particular reason I had to be otherwise. I was going to die once the money ran out anyway. The gift cards had only bought me a little more time. One eye gone. One foot gone. All I had left was an ID card. Being decent at a game? I couldn't even go pro. Was there any value in living?
Just scrape by and die. That was the right call. Yeah.
……And yet.
And yet.
The moment I saw the light—greed had taken root.
I didn't want to go back to how things were. Just waiting for the day I'd die. Waiting for the money to run out. Without even the courage to actually die, stretching out the deadline on cheap cup ramen.
The fact that I was going to die eventually didn't change. But did I have to stay miserable until then? If I had a choice, I'd rather be happy. Enjoy myself.
So I'd start by showering regularly, every single day. Make it so the girl next door couldn't even nag me about it. Maybe she'd even praise me for it. No—I wasn't showering to get praised. I just wanted to look a little more like a functional human being.
Unlike the past month, walking through the now-spotless living room felt almost criminal. Like my grimy self was dirtying the clean floor. So I crawled toward the bathroom on all fours. If I fell like last time, there was no girl next door here to call for help. If I'd just crawled around the house from the start, I never would have gotten hurt—and the downstairs neighbors never would have had reason to glare.
I peeled off the swimsuit, waited for the water to warm, and once it felt about right, stuck my head under and soaked myself. Waterlogged hair clung heavy to my body—heavy enough to throw off my balance. But that was a hassle I dealt with every shower. I braced against the wall out of habit, finished up, and threw the clothes I'd been wearing in with the backlog of laundry.
……Was it okay to run the washer at night, though? The master bedroom was a decent distance away, so maybe it was fine? I fretted for half a second, then decided that if the sound of a kitchen washer could reach the downstairs master bedroom, the building might as well collapse and it wouldn't be surprising. I wasn't going to worry about it. If it was actually loud, the neighbors would come up again.
Feeling freshly clean for the first time in a while, I crawled back to my room and immediately fired up the game and the streaming software.
Would people actually show up this time? Earlier, Celesty had drawn in a decent crowd, but this round it would only be people coming for my stream. I checked the time on the computer—right at midnight. People who had to get up early would already be in bed, but for people like me, this was prime time. Maybe it was okay to hope a little.
And as if to answer that hope, viewers started filtering in right away. Not the helper bot, either. If they were chatting, they had to be real people. ……AI wasn't advanced enough to watch a stream and type in chat, right?
Reading those chats, questions bubbled up in my head. Had they been waiting for me? How had they found the stream the second I went live?
Then again—even on NewTube, you got a notification when a channel you subscribed to uploaded something new. Streaming platforms probably worked the same way. An alert when a streamer went live. That kind of system had to be built in. I more or less talked myself into it and answered the viewers.
Ah. This. This was it.
I loved this kind of pointless talk so much. Already, people were tossing around silly things with zero thought behind them, just watching and laughing. Even that little "lol."
In-game, people mostly used it to sneer or mock, so seeing it usually put me in a bad mood. Here, though, it made me feel lighter too. Maybe even text-laughter was contagious. My mouth didn't curl up, and I didn't snort out loud—but with the clean feeling from the shower layered over this kind of cheer, I could have been satisfied without even playing.
Of course I wasn't actually going to skip the game. Chat was fun right now, sure, but everyone had come to watch me play. You didn't skip the burger just because the fries tasted good.
So sometimes a viewer would drop a baffling donation and vanish. Either way, they'd given it, so I just had to accept it gratefully. I could put it toward a wheelchair.
But once one person donated, it was like it sparked a competitive streak. Another donation followed right after.
Noel, would you have a moment to talk? I'm contacting you regarding a legal matter.
"Huh?"
This time the confusion actually came out of my mouth. A legal matter, out of nowhere. I didn't think I'd done anything wrong. ……Unless receiving those gift cards was the problem? Right—it hadn't been one or two. I'd gotten close to twenty gift cards. Maybe something legal had actually come of it.
I canceled the match and answered Kancho right away.
Even the viewers were trembling over it. I chewed my lip and fretted right along with them.