Chapter 2: So you were already broken in, you b*tch.

There’s a saying about music that resonates with the soul.

Music that brings emotion, thrills, and joy usually brightens your heart just by listening, sends your energy soaring, and makes you feel like you’re floating on clouds.

Of course, when personal taste gets involved, experiencing such music might become a once-in-a-lifetime difficulty.

The chances might be low, but wouldn’t there be at least one person somewhere in the world who listens to Mozart and thinks, ‘Hmm… sounds kinda sh*tty?’ before going off to listen to electronic music?

Compared to that, I’m quite lucky.

Because both before and after my body changed, I could feel the same way listening to Haruka’s songs.

Still, the feeling when I first heard Haruka’s song after becoming a woman was slightly different.

How should I put it, it felt like something vibrated deep within my womb while also being gently pressed from the inside?

“That’s Haruka for you.”

Making a strange woman’s insides tremble like that.

I marveled quietly at my oshi’s demonic charm and looked down at my thin, elongated fingers.

‘…Like in some erotica, would it feel better if I pressed down firmly on the womb area?’

I carefully gathered my fingers and pressed the soft flesh.

The sticky texture of bare skin naturally clung to my fingers, and when I applied pressure without thinking, it yielded softly and deeply, like pressing into a high-end hotel bed.

It felt like rubbing it like this would make me drowsy…

“I’m not really sure.”

Anyway, I can’t just stay still like this, so maybe I should start moving.

“Ugh.”

Moving this unfamiliar body, I navigated the equally unfamiliar studio apartment, grabbed a towel, quickly washed my sweat-soaked body, and got out.

Hmm… I should probably grab two or three towels next time.

The floor has become a complete water park.

Still, after somehow managing to wipe the floor, I started applying various things to my body, but I couldn’t tell what was what.

For now, I read the labels carefully and only applied what seemed essential.

I wanted to just slap on some all-in-one skin lotion like when I was a guy and be done with it, but since I have this clean body now, I don’t want to cause any blemishes. Yep.

…Honestly, just drying my hair is exhausting.

By the way, during the shower, I didn’t feel like I was going to lose my mind seeing a strange woman’s naked body for the first time… not really.

It seems my brain recognizes it as my own body; I was surprisingly calm.

Honestly, it’s a bit disappointing.

I was expecting the usual event from novels like this, looking in the mirror, getting turned on by my own body, and doing… things, but surprisingly, there’s no reaction at all.

Anyway.

“Mmm~ Is this the scent of a young woman?”

After finally managing to dry my hair and slathering cosmetics all over my body, a nice scent suddenly wafted up, and I buried my nose in the crook of my arm.

…It’s an unfamiliar scent.

Since I’ve never had any connection with a woman in my life, it feels kind of nice.

Like the kind of smell that gently rises when you blow raspberries on a baby’s tummy covered in baby powder… Hmm. Is that right?

But thinking about it, I did fight through hellish competition to buy and spray the perfume merchandise containing Haruka’s scent, so is this actually the second time I’m properly smelling a woman’s scent?

“……Ah, right. My body.”

Come to think of it, is my old body still around?

I pre-ordered Haruka’s original song merchandise; did the package arrive safely?

“Crazy.”

What about the lovely merchandise and fanbooks left in my studio apartment…?

“…Anyway, it’s not as good as Haruka’s special perfume.”

I snorted and stopped fidgeting and sniffing.

Right. Cheating is bad.

Of course, I’m not against hako-oshi (TL: Having multiple favorites in a group), and I also like Haruka’s fellow members, though not to the point of calling them my oshi.

Still, in my life, Haruka alone is more than enough, overflowing even.

So there’s no time to enjoy sniffing another girl’s scent…!

After that brief deviation, I decided to investigate the current situation.

“A month… has passed already?”

First, the date had changed.

About a month seems to have passed since before the body swap.

When I used what looked like this body owner’s old budget phone to call my previous number, some stranger answered and said my body’s remains were in the morgue, asking if I was an acquaintance and wanted to come see it later for the funeral.

It seems my former self is dead…

Well, I had no family, acquaintances, or friends, so it seems like I died alone, but who’s handling the funeral?

To think I lived life as a burger-flipper at McDonald’s and ended up dying alone.

“Tears… aren’t coming……”

I felt a bit gloomy, but I was also strangely calm, to the point where I felt awkward about myself.

Was I a psycho? Or is it because I have no relation to this body’s original owner?

Like, maybe because the brain changed, the cognitive abilities changed too, something like that.

Anyway, next priority is investigating the personal details of this current body.

If this isn’t a dream and is a situation I’ve only encountered in subculture, I’ll have to live in this body from now on.

First, I gathered my thoughts and searched the phone further; it seemed she didn’t have parents.

“You had a rough life too, huh.”

I felt a sense of kinship because my parents also passed away early.

And it seemed she had just become an adult this year, and looking through her contacts, she didn’t seem to have many friends.

Strange.

When I looked in the mirror while washing, she had quite a cute and pretty body.

Among girls, you could guess she might have been bullied, but it’s a face guys wouldn’t just leave alone.

In fact, this type is likely more popular among peers than women who are too mature and sexy, making them seem unapproachable.

You know, the kind of cute and approachable-looking girl who makes you think, ‘Maybe even I could somehow…?’

Of course, that’s just my standard…

Suddenly curious, I searched every corner of the studio apartment, straining my short arms, and couldn’t help but sigh.

“So she went to an all-girls middle and high school.”

In the graduation photos, which looked like they were from her middle and high school days, there was the stereotypical gloomy, glasses-wearing loner girl #1 with bangs covering her face, like you only see in manga.

Did her cute face only show when her bangs were pushed back during the shower?

What a waste, why did she do this? She even had good eyesight but wore those unflattering Harry Potter glasses.

Anyway, the owner of this body seems to have been as much, or even more, of an outcast than I was during my school days.

At least I had my fellow VTuber otaku friends.

‘Though we had a huge fight and split up because our oshi groups were all different…’

Anyway, there’s really nothing to see here.

The phone messages, call logs, chat histories, and the auto-logged-in social media accounts are almost ghost accounts. The only saving grace is that her ID photo was taken quite prettily without those crappy Harry Potter glasses…

Ah, I did find one thing, a Twitter account. It seems this girl was also a VTuber fan whose oshi was Haruka.

Haruka’s oshi mark (TL: The symbol representing the streamer, often using emojis) – the yellow bird and cheese emojis – were in her bio.

Right. Actually, I had already suspected it.

“So this body was already fully trained, huh, you little b*tch.”

Otherwise, no matter how good Haruka’s song is, it couldn’t possibly make my womb tremble to that extent, right?

……Or could it?

Anyway, since I found a clue, I need to find the rest.

Since the clue points towards VTubers, let’s start there.

Being a VTuber fan is actually harder than you might think.

It’s naturally difficult for those who don’t speak Japanese, but being a fan of Korean VTubers is quite hard too.

That’s why fans tend to leave traces everywhere, and thanks to this girl being a VTuber otaku, gathering information seems like it will be easier.

First, in the case of a hardcore VTuber otaku like me, who even other otakus and normal people find repulsive, you don’t just follow on Twitter to hear news about your favorite members or participate in events, you also join the fan cafe,

“Bingo.”

You have to know all the social media platforms where artists post fan art,

“Wow, she has them all installed.”

You need to subscribe on YouTube and follow on the live streaming platform Twitch, of course, as well as subscribe to VOD channels and even Kirinuki (clip channels) in case you miss something from other members’ streams.

“This b*tch really is a VTuber otaku.”

Furthermore, if there’s a member like Haruka who uploads songs separately on Soundcloud, you have to find and subscribe to truly be considered living the true VTuber fan life. 

“Whoa… even this?”

Of course, if you go to certain galleries in underground communities, guys like me can find and bring back almost all news and events about the members and the group within a minute.

But there’s no way this seemingly timid girl would have gone to such a crazy place…

So, in the end, all I could do was dig through her Twitter account or rummage through her Naver ID.

‘First, let’s check her fan cafe activity history.’

……Wait, she draws fan art?

In fact, it seems she drew some of the high-quality fan art pieces that I used to carefully select, bring to the gallery, and get featured as recommended posts.

At this level, she should have expressed her ego at least once when Haruka toured the fan cafe, saying ‘I’m that female fan!’, but this girl seemed to have drawn purely out of fan love.

I’m starting to like the owner of this body more and more.

“Mhm. You were a true member of Rainbow.”

‘Rainbow.’

This was our fandom name.

My oshi’s group, ‘Bellus’, their 1st generation uses the activity name ‘Crystal’.

Just like their shining jewel-like name, the members themselves named the fandom during their first collaboration stream, hoping we would also become a shining rainbow.

It’s a bit cheesy, but it’s a name we’re proud of.

From there, individual member fandoms split off, each with their own names, and similarly, the 2nd generation will get a group name and their own fandom names will emerge, but fundamentally, we are Rainbows.

Among such Rainbows, there’s an unspoken promise: the absolute prohibition of ‘ego expression’.

Maybe it’s easier to think of it in terms of idols.

An idol is doing an Instagram Live, but in the comment section, five idiots are not only forming their own clique but also start a separate room, rating the members’ faces and provoking others.

Any fan who isn’t bothered by that is a saint.

There are guys like that over here too.

Typically, the kids who engage in toxic cliques using Twitter Spaces (TL: Similar principle to Instagram Live but audio only), or even turn on their own Twitch stream, tag the members, and then stir up trouble.

And Kirinukers (TL: Kirinukishi, Kirinuker, Clipper: People who make clip videos), who betray the name ‘clipper’ by streaming themselves, forming toxic cliques, stealing viewers, and even damaging members’ images by editing videos to their liking, are also included in ego expression.

Because of this, there was even a member who suffered early on because a weird image got attached to them, attracting trolls to their live streams.

Those guys only watched the Kirinuki clips, beat dead memes into the ground, or pushed strange narratives until they were annoying enough to get banned.

“…They should have at least managed their comments properly.”

That member was so traumatized by the incident that even now, she can’t watch her own Kirinuki videos.

Even now, just thinking about it makes me grind my teeth without realizing it.

Moreover, such toxic cliques and malicious editing are strictly forbidden by the company and are written in the members’ streaming rules.

If you insist on doing what’s forbidden, you’re not really a fan.

In that sense, doesn’t this girl deserve praise?

A Rainbow full of fan spirit who, despite having such brilliant talent, only uploads fan art.

“And she’s also a cute girl (important)!”

If I had even a little talent for drawing, I would have continued this noble work, but I don’t know if this girl’s talent has been passed on to me.

I’ll have to check later.

While thinking such thoughts and digging through her emails, I discovered something strange.

[Dear Ms. Woo Seowoo,]

[This is Kim Kanghyun, CEO of the virtual idol group ‘Bellus’.]

[As a result of our internal document evaluation, we are pleased to inform you that you have passed the document screening for the ‘Bellus 2nd Generation’ recruitment.]

[The interview schedule is as follows:]

[1st) Month X, Day X, 2 PM]

[2nd) Month X, Day O, 2 PM]

[3rd) Month X, Day Y, 2 PM]

[4th) Month X, Day Z, 2 PM]

[5th) Month X, Day G, 2 PM.]

[Ms. Woo Seowoo, you are scheduled to attend the 5th interview date.]

[If you wish to reschedule, please reply at least 2 weeks in advance.]

……?

What in the world is this.

I blinked my stiff eyes, perhaps from reading text after a long time, and looked it over again.

It was some kind of notification about passing a document screening…

“Wh-what…? Applied where…? Passed where……???”

Cancel that.

I take back all the praise from before.

This gloomy b*tch’s ego was beyond imagination.

Her name is Woo Seowoo?

As expected, it sounds truly goofy.

I immediately lifted my butt and delivered judgment with my palm.

Smack!

You bad b*tch!

Smack!

You should have just stuck to forming toxic cliques on Twitter!

Smack!

How dare you try to form cliques with the members!

“Heu-eung.”

…Wait, but this interview date is today?