Legal Troubles
No matter how I turned it over in my head, the only thing I could possibly have done wrong was collecting those gift cards from the League of Champions community. I'd thought that was perfectly fair, on my end. But what if someone had picked a fight over it? What if they'd reported it as gambling? Then it would be the kind of thing that could actually get an investigation started.
I knew the law was full of those stretches where you could hang it on your nose and call it a nose ring, or hang it on your ear and call it an earring. Robbery, murder — those were obviously crimes, so they could arrest you on the spot. But fraud and things like that needed to be proven before anyone could pass judgment. Flip it around, and anything sitting in the gray area could become a crime just by someone making an issue of it and filing charges.
The whole controversy around the hacks could have ended as nothing more than a bet. But because I'd taken those gift cards — because I'd put real goods on the line — someone could just as easily call it a form of gambling. With that anxiety sitting in my chest, I waited for Kancho's messages with a restless heart. Not that "waiting" was quite the right word. The messages came flooding in as if he'd prepared everything he wanted to say in advance.
Ah. So I really was getting sued.
I had no idea how Kancho had found out before I had — I was the one being sued, after all — but then, that was just how communities worked. Anonymity made it the perfect place to drop by and brag about something. Whoever had a grudge against me had probably written a post somewhere, crowing that they'd filed a complaint, and Kancho had seen it before I did. It would have gone up while I was asleep.
My chest was pounding in a way that felt ugly, and a sour burn spread through my stomach. Even my fingertips had gone cold. It took a painfully long time just to type two characters.
I ran my tongue over my lips, which were drying out by the second. Building up to it like that could only mean one thing: he was about to tell me those people had sued me. He was giving me a heads-up so I could prepare, out of consideration from streaming together. Find a lawyer, or walk me through what else I could do.
I'd only used one of the gift cards, at least. If I refunded the rest and paid back the value of the one I'd actually eaten, maybe the penalty would come out a little lighter. The thought of going back to a life of nothing but cup ramen was bleak, but pizza and fried chicken and hamburgers had always been too extravagant for someone like me anyway.
I let the regret out with a sigh and kept waiting for Kancho to go on.
So it was a legal matter, just like I'd expected. The target, though, was completely different. He'd sounded so grave I'd been sure I was the one getting sued. Instead, he was telling me to sue someone else.
All that time I'd spent privately planning to refund the gift cards and dip into what little money I had left to pay back a pizza suddenly felt mortifying. I was genuinely grateful we were doing this over text instead of face-to-face or over the phone. Text really was the best. I'd written and deleted my replies so many times that I'd managed not to say anything stupid.
Once I let myself relax, I could think calmly about what Kancho had actually said. I'd eaten plenty of abuse, sure. But compared to what I'd taken in League of Champions, it hadn't even been that bad. Could you really file a complaint over something like that? Plenty of people talked about suing over in-game chat, and from what I'd heard, the other side almost always walked away not guilty. There were even guys who abused that, using the game as a place to blow off steam.
And apparently it was possible. Once I knew that, every insult I'd ever taken started coming back one by one. Getting used to them had never meant they stopped feeling bad. I'd just found fighting back too bothersome, and there was nothing to gain from it, so I'd ignored them. That said, I was also the kind of person who reported every single player who cussed me out in-game, just so they'd get a taste of their own medicine.
I was not a good person. I was an ordinary one. If someone treated me like shit, I didn't want them to turn around and do something nice for me. I wanted them to eat shit right back.
And once I'd settled on that, what actually worried me was something else entirely.
Ah. Right. That was the kind of person Kancho was. If he could boost his views within the bounds of what was legal, safe, and reasonably moral, there wasn't much he wouldn't do. He didn't put on a mask of virtue. He just said, plainly, that both sides would benefit. And that was exactly why I could trust him. Someone working for their own gain was far more reliable than someone doing it out of pity or a sense of obligation. He'd be filming, too, which meant he wouldn't half-ass it with people watching.
I had a pretty good idea where all this consideration was coming from. I had trouble getting around, so he was taking the extra work on himself. Using that kindness felt a little cheap, but I didn't even have crutches yet. Hauling myself to a PC cafe was more than I wanted to deal with. And now that I thought about it, printing at a PC cafe cost money too. If he hadn't offered to handle everything, going to Kancho's Studio — even if it took longer — would have been the better option.
With him taking care of every last detail, I couldn't think of anything left to worry about. All I had to do was wait for news that justice had been served, and enjoy the present in the meantime.
That was how the conversation with Kancho ended. I turned back to the chat window, which had gone quiet in the meantime.
It was convenient, at least, that they jumped to their own conclusions before I had to explain anything. The problem was that those conclusions were wrong.
I'd only corrected them so they wouldn't keep misunderstanding. Now the mood in chat had gone strange. If I told them I'd just woken up as a girl and this was the body that came with it, nobody would believe me anyway. I didn't like it when a cheerful chat window turned gloomy.
So playing the game was the right call. The fact that the game had become a vehicle for chat, instead of the other way around, sat with me in a way I didn't much like.