Worry and Choice
Too loud. My head is ringing, a dull throb riding a low wave of nausea.
I blink a few times, and the moment I wince at the blinding light on the ceiling, a voice comes in from beside me.
"You awake? Since when are you this much of a lightweight? One beer and you're already loopy. Here, drink this."
"Huh? Y-yeah."
A few more blinks and the world snaps into focus. What's in front of me is a famous hangover drink, and the one holding it out is Yoonjin.
Why are you looking down at me? Don't tell me—!
Did I seriously just become the golden sun?!
I bolt upright.
"Hahaha, so anyway, that member said he'd be back next week..."
Not even close.
We're still at the barbecue place. I must have dozed off for a minute from the alcohol. I snatch the hangover drink out of Yoonjin's hand—he's staring at me like I've lost my mind—and knock it back in one go.
Screw it. I'm never drinking again.
Shut up!
The drink pulls me back together fast. Both the booze and the cure hit instantly—rebuilding this body as a woman's seems to have changed my constitution more than a little.
"You were always a lightweight, but today's bad even for you. Don't force it. Just eat the meat."
"...Fine."
I take back the golden-sun thing. I was just about to say that yeah, he really is my friend—when a hand slides, ever so casually, around my waist. And what is that supposed to be?
"You know the hand comes clean off if you mess around, right?"
"Ahaha! In case you were cold."
"It's summer. You're dead."
The fabricated memories keep sharpening. Right. This is exactly how it always was with Yoonjin—the kind of relationship best summed up as a guy's girl-friend and a girl's guy-friend. Just friends. Officially.
"Anyway, Hani, you're still on break, right?"
"Huh? Uh... yeah."
"I asked you back then if you could work, remember? At our gym."
"R-right. You did."
As the talk moves on, the planted memories rush in to fill the empty spaces. I have a recollection of him floating the idea about two months ago, almost in passing.
"A spot just opened up. Dad already said okay. It's nothing hard—you watch the front desk, and once a day you help restock towels and the other supplies."
"Uh... about that."
The words die in my throat.
What do I do?
I'm streaming now. Working at Myeonghun's gym is impossible. I could spare some hours, sure, but when my survival hinges on points, taking any job outside the broadcast is far too steep a penalty.
Then I'll just be honest and turn him down... no. Wait.
I was about to say streaming would make it tough, but the way the other two are locked onto our conversation snags at me. Honestly, Byeonghan isn't the problem. If this lands wrong with Yoonjin, it's a year's worth of ammunition at the very least. And if he ever actually watches that Half-Cam video I did, I can count on at least a week of him never letting me live it down.
No choice. I'll have to talk my way around it.
"Ah, sorry. I appreciate you looking out for me, but I actually just started at a café near my place."
"Yeah? Then it can't be helped. Quitting right after you start would screw that café over, too."
It takes a small-business owner to know a small-business owner's heart. Myeonghun nods as if it all makes perfect sense. He settled on his path early, helping the father who'd run the gym since he was little—finished high school and nothing past it, went straight into the military, and came back to work in earnest. Byeonghan is the same kind of case: graduated high school, did his service, and passed the police civil-service exam the very next year. They really do live hard.
"..."
"...What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
This one, on the other hand, is a genuine mystery. He enlisted during his first year at a junior college, came back, graduated, and walked straight into a famous game company. Of the three of them, he's doing the best by a mile. When did he even build programming skills like that?
I thought all he ever did was chase girls.
"Hey, I've been behaving. Why are you being scary?"
I must have been staring a hole through him. I turn away without a word and devote myself to the meat.
The talk goes on, easy and low. They've noticed the state I'm in; nobody is pushing drinks anymore.
"Hani's really not feeling it today. Let's save round two for next time and call it here."
"Okey-dokey. Same place next time?"
"We'll think about that when we get there. I'm heading out first."
Yoonjin, who lives the farthest, mimes a palm-heart at me as he goes. I answer, naturally, with a middle finger. After that the rest of us walk to the bus stop together. Myeonghun and I take the same bus; Byeonghan takes the subway, but he insists on waiting until we're on our way. A bona fide angel, wings not included.
"I'm off."
"Yeah. Get home safe."
Myeonghun and I board together. The road has gone dark without my noticing, streetlights laying themselves along it. One stop before mine, he presses the bell and stands.
"It was good seeing you after so long. Let's do it again."
"Mm. Take good care of your dad."
We trade a quick high five before he steps off. Same as ever—cheerful, and always full of fight. I give him a small wave through the window as he shrinks away, and the bus pulls out.
Streets sunk in the dark. I'm alone again.
"Not bad, I guess."
Meeting old friends in a woman's body—if I said I hadn't been worried, I'd be lying. But the goddess's power is no joke. Leaning on the memory edits, I managed to fall in with them to an almost startling degree.
"No, that can wait..."
I got through it without a hitch, but the tension of watching fabricated memories come alive hit me more than once or twice. The fatigue from it has me wanting nothing more than to fall into bed. I have no desire, in this state, to pile my parents on top of everything else.
Maybe I should be grateful I'm an only child.
Whatever comes later is a problem for the me of that day.
I wash up quickly, sit down at the computer, and open a notepad.
Simple enough. It's about time to invest the points, and under two separate plans I've been turning over which way to go.
The first, appearance, is straightforward. Push past the Half-Cam into a mask cam. Wear a slightly oversized mask that hides the lower face completely, and dump all 1,300 points into the eyes. That would leave me with pretty eyes and an ordinary nose and mouth—a badly unbalanced face with no harmony to it at all—but I have no plans to go out for a while anyway, so it doesn't matter. No. Even if I do end up going out, the mask is never coming off. Then, mask only, I can debut a proper face cam with looks nearly at celebrity level.
It's a stopgap because I'm short on points, but that's actually better. Going step by step lets me farm aggro more often and string it out longer, and people's anticipation explodes.
Once they've seen the mask cam, they'll be dying for the full face cam with even that gone.
The second is voice... this might honestly be the bigger long-term play. The synergy with what I already have is solid, too.
If appearance is the edge when it comes to pulling in Water Balloons, voice is what grows the number of viewers. It pairs well with the vocal mimicry I've already learned, and with the ability to vary my tone. And it doesn't stop there—it has room to expand into singing-related skills, too. Really it's only a question of order. Both are abilities I have to get, directions I have to go. I'm just weighing which tech tree would grow the channel faster overall.
And then a proposal like this shows up.
It isn't an official tournament run by the platform. The interest around it is big, though. On Shindaeryuk TV, one of the three biggest names on the Legend of League side: LosesLaneBlamesSupp—BlamesSupp for short. A marksman streamer proudly sitting in Challenger, the highest tier, averaging five to six thousand viewers, with deep connections among the other BJs. That BlamesSupp put together a small four-team tournament, and one of the four captains is BJ Lac.
BJ Lac, with whom I picked up a little familiarity because of the business with Mia. He asked whether I'd want to join his team.
I'm Diamond IV—endlessly low next to Challenger BlamesSupp and Grandmaster Lac—so the natural question is why an offer like this would come to me at all. Platform tournaments are just like that. When they build the teams, they cap the tiers so as many different BJs as possible can play. One from Challenger through Grandmaster, one from Master through Diamond, one from Platinum, two from Gold through Silver. That sort of thing. Viewership depends on skill, sure, but it also swings hard on fandom, so the tier caps exist to pull in popular BJs who aren't ranked all that high.
Figures. Nobody works the fine print like Lac.
This tournament has a stack of rules, and one of them is that a team with two female BJs gets a +1 tier on the restriction. From what I heard, he's already brought in Mia, a Gold support—recently demoted. If I join as well, the bonus lets them add one more Diamond BJ instead of a Platinum.
Lac's Grandmaster, me plus one other Diamond... and two Golds. The team's level wouldn't actually be bad.
Set it next to BlamesSupp's already-locked roster of Challenger, Master, Platinum, Gold, Gold, and we'd be Grandmaster, Diamond, Diamond, Gold, Gold. A little behind, but not so far we couldn't scrap.
Of course I'm joining. No question. This thing has more reach than a Miracle Crew collab. But if that's how it is...
I'd been planning to pick voice. There's the synergy with abilities I already hold, and I figured it would do more to lock in viewers. But if I can get into content where that many viewers are already guaranteed, the math changes. The audience is already there. Then the size of the fruit that falls to each of us depends on how strong I look.
"Appearance, let's gooo!"
"Yeah, no. Just open the ability list."
And just like that, the memory of my first day as a woman comes back. Becoming a woman was one thing. How bitterly I'd resented the face staying exactly the same. I'd wanted to coast through life on an appearance buff.
"Dreams... come true!"
Ambition is burning.