Episode 33: Counseling (Just Chatting)
"Ugh... perverts..."
Not a single person in here was normal.
Wanting to watch a minor squirm with embarrassment was perverted, sure — but fine, that much she could allow. The world was wide and full of people, and every one of them came with a private taste and a private hunger. On the internet, where anonymity kept the real world from ever touching you, airing that taste cost nothing. She could understand, more or less, why they were doing it here.
This, though, she did not understand.
"No, seriously... I'm insulting you. Why do you like it..."
If someone called you a pervert, the normal response was shame. Wasn't it?
So why did these people enjoy being called perverts???
"You're realizing that now?"
Only then, it seemed, did the fact that she was seventeen sink back in. The chat flooded, one apology after another, a wave of please-forgive-us.
"As long as it isn't too far, I'm not going to sue anyone, so don't worry about that..."
Good news for them, maybe. Unless it reached Cries's level, she had no intention of pressing charges — and she didn't feel any particular sexual shame, either. The idea that she, who had been a man, would flinch at a few words like that was ridiculous to begin with. Acting like a girl, or calling someone oppa, still embarrassed her. That part hadn't changed.
"I told you not to talk among yourselves. And this isn't because of that."
Learning that her viewers wanted to watch a high school girl squirm, and that they liked being called perverts by that same girl, was a considerable shock. It still wasn't why she was like this. Her energy hadn't dropped. She wasn't drained.
A few things the viewers had said a moment ago were simply stuck in her chest.
"Mm..."
Honestly, she didn't think these people would be much help. A few days ago, maybe. Today they had lost her trust.
Perverts, the lot of them.
"So, um..."
Even so, the only people she could bring this worry to were the viewers watching her stream. She decided to set down what she'd been holding.
"High school starts in nine days, and I'm really worried."
As she'd said before, she had no memories of high school at all. Back when she was Choi Eunha, a boy born in 2003, she had attended through the first year — but the entrance ceremony was online, the classes were online, and after that she dropped out. For all practical purposes, this would be the first time.
"Yes. It's my biggest worry these days."
The entrance ceremony was nine days away. Nearly two months had passed since she became a girl, and aside from the single day she went to be fitted for a uniform, she had not set foot outside once. A high school life that demanded she show up every morning came at her a little frighteningly.
"Nnngh... is that how it is...?"
She had lived school that way in middle school, too, now that she thought about it. These days, once a teacher decided you were a problem kid, they ignored whatever you did so long as you didn't disrupt class.
When she first woke in this body, the workbooks and practice notebooks on the desk had made her wonder whether the girl version of her had actually studied hard. The problem sets were untouched, no different from new, and the notebooks were clean white paper, not a single page written on. Girl or boy, was Choi Eunha simply Choi Eunha? She had asked the housekeeper on the sly, and the answer was that she had never once seen her studying, then or now.
"But then—"
"Friends? I don't have a single one."
Choi Eunha, the boy born in 2003 — back when she was a boy — had at least a few people she could call friends. The girl had not one.
"That's why I don't go out. I just turn the stream on at home every day and play."
The numbers saved in her phone were exactly five: Mom, Dad, Eunseo-oppa, the housekeeper, and Driver Kwon.
"These last two months, I've probably talked to all of you more than anyone."
The housekeeper was busy with work. Her brother and her father often came home late, so a goodnight before bed was the whole conversation. Without these people, she doubted she would have managed ten words a day.
"So come hang out on my stream a lot. If you don't, I might die of boredom."
Why am I a fox again?
She was just moving the cursor over to pass judgment on the few chats ruining a perfectly warm mood — a five-minute ban — when a donation landed.
"Oh, don't worry about that. I'll go live as soon as I get home."
Her goal for high school was to spend three years half there and half not, quiet as she could manage, and then graduate. After school she would stream and build her weight class, and once she had the diploma she meant to make a deal with her father. Announcing she was dropping out to become a streamer was insane no matter how she turned it over, and even a father as hopelessly soft on his daughter would not accept that. Which meant she had to graduate. And that, in truth, was the worry.
"Ah. I don't study."
Hard things like that — studying? What even was it? Something you ate?
Nothing to be proud of, but she had no memory of holding a pen for more than an hour in her entire life. Well. There was the art academy she went to in kindergarten. Correction: aside from that art academy, she had no memory of holding a pen for more than an hour.
"Studying just... doesn't seem to suit me. And these days there are plenty of ways to succeed that aren't studying."
Saying that when she had never even tried was probably out of line.
"I'm good at games, so when I think about a path, this one fits me better."
She had no reason to abandon a road where she could do better, and live better.
"Ah."
"...I'm not going pro."
Thank God the viewers couldn't see her face.
"Competing, being compared to other people — I don't really like that."
The mood, which had been a little bright from talking with chat, sank all at once. If they could see her now, the look on her face would be slightly rotten. That was how unpleasant the question felt.
Pro gamer. She used to think it was her calling — a lifelong dream, her one and only goal. She had retired, become a woman, and landed at seventeen, four years younger than the body she'd had, young enough to be a prospect with every advantage a pro could want.
She was never going to be a pro gamer again.
"Eunha."
"...Yes?"
Her father did not look like himself.
Usually the sight of her face undid that cold expression until it went soft and loose — she wasn't sure she should say it, but a little foolish. The father in front of her now wore the cold look she had seen so often back when she was a boy.
"Let's talk for a moment."
Shit.
Did I do something wrong?