Chapter 7

Shin Woojin, You Damn Otaku

As soon as I returned to my room after finishing my morning workout, I went into the shower room and started stripping off my clothes—.

“Heave-ho—. Ow, it won’t come off because of the sweat.”

—only to struggle for quite a while.

“Urgh! Urgh! Phew. Got it.”

After finally returning to the state in which I was born, I immediately turned on the shower and jumped in.

Shwaaaaa—.

“Kyaaa—! Refreshing! WRYYY!!!”

In the past, I would already have been a corpse sprawled across the bed at this hour, but now things were different.

After exercising every day, at some point I had started having enough energy left to shower afterward.

Meaning my stamina had improved without me even noticing.

It feels like only yesterday that ten squats nearly killed me, but now I can easily handle one set.

“At this rate, aren’t I going to become Roonie Coleman? This Loli Coleman shall stand in the heavens! Almost said that.”

Even my calves, which until recently had been hard to distinguish from my forearms, were beginning to take shape, if only slightly.

Of course, I still had no biceps.

Honestly, I had given up on that now. Apparently, my arms were destined to be born as chopsticks and die as chopsticks.

Instead, I had lost a ton of weight. I lost eight kilograms in just two weeks. Forget Mounjaro and Wegovy and all that crap. Diet and exercise really are the answer.

“All right! Goodbye, spare tire. It was filthy knowing you. Let’s never meet again for the rest of my life.”

At 150 centimeters and 40 kilograms, I was the very definition of average.

Now Ms. Sejin had no excuse to tease me for stuffing myself with snacks and getting disgustingly fat. Not that she had ever actually done that.

“Ooh.”

After washing every nook and cranny of my body, I came out and looked in the mirror.

I was still young, but standing in the mirror was a beautiful girl who resembled my mother, whom I barely remembered.

They said she had been one of Korea’s top models, and I guess those genes had not gone anywhere.

...Well, my chest was still small.

Let’s wait a little longer on that. I am fourteen, after all. Probably. Probably.

Unless Mom had relied on the power of modern medicine and committed marriage fraud, that is!

“As expected, when it comes to boobs, huge boobs are the best.”

That was the only preference from my previous life that remained with me now.

It is a little late to say this, but my sense of myself as a man disappeared a long time ago.

Which makes sense, since this was not possession or anything. I had been reincarnated as Shin Yua.

After living in this body for fourteen years since infancy, the memories of my previous life now felt like nothing more than hazy stories from long ago.

The knowledge still existed, but in the end, I was undeniably a person with the identity of Shin Yua. I do not even remember my name from my previous life anymore.

“Hmm~ hmm hmm hmm~”

After finishing my shower and drying off completely, I hummed as I left the bathroom and changed into my freshly dried Pink Pajamas Number Three.

Of course, before that, I did not forget to apply basic skincare products.

Toner, lotion, stuff like that.

I used to hate this kind of thing.

Begone! Skincare? What skincare! Too much trouble!

But one day, Ms. Sejin discovered that none of the skincare containers had gone down at all.

I still cannot forget the horror of that day.

‘Miss. How long has it been since I bought you these cosmetics? Why is there still exactly the same amount left?’

‘Uh... well... a week!’

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t used them even once all week? Ah, your natural skin is so good that I didn’t realize you weren’t using them.’

‘Tehe...’

‘What do you mean, “tehe”? That wasn’t a compliment. Your skin is good now because you’re young, but—!’

‘Gyaaaagh, gwaaagh.’

Ms. Sejin sat me down on the bed and lectured me for an entire hour.

Something about secondary sexual characteristics, hormonal changes, sebum secretion.

Saying that if I did not take care of myself now, I would be in serious trouble later.

Why was she lecturing a twelve-year-old about anti-aging?

During that one hour, I nearly became a doctor of dermatology.

“Aaaagh... PTSD!”

Just remembering it was so horrifying that I dove straight onto the bed.

A memory I never wanted to recall again.

While I was lying there with my face buried in the bed.

Ding-dong—.

“Hm?”

The doorbell?

I raised my head.

Guests almost never came to this house.

There was hardly anyone who would come.

Who could it be?

Could it be that guy? He never said he was coming.

Curious, I sprang out of bed, opened my bedroom door, and pattered toward the entrance.

Now I can even run after exercising because my legs still work.

“Young Master! What is all this?!”

Woojin was getting absolutely destroyed by Ms. Sejin, the strongest person in this house.

In his hand was a half-open bag, with snack bags poking their heads out from inside.

“Th-This is, you see—.”

“Were you the one who taught Miss to snack like this?”

“N-No. This is the first time—!”

“Don’t lie. I already found all the snack bags. Miss confessed that Young Master brought every last one of them!”

Woojin’s eyes slowly turned toward me.

They were the eyes of someone looking at a traitor captured by the Japanese army who had given up the names of all his comrades.

I had nothing to say.

I merely gave him an awkward smile and slowly hid myself behind the wall.

Kgh, forgive me, comrade! Ms. Sejin was too scary!

“You two have fun.”

“Yes... eeeeh...”

After Woojin finally escaped Ms. Sejin’s grasp, we headed to my room together. Naturally, I probably do not need to say that every last snack had been confiscated.

Not a single bag remained. She ripped them all open on the spot and threw them into the food waste. Kghhh.

Throwing away perfectly good food! Do you not fear divine punishment?! Children are starving in Africa even now!

I will never forgive you!

“Hey. You seriously gave me up?”

“I-I couldn’t help it! Do you have any idea how scary Ms. Sejin is?”

“Fair point.”

“Right?”

“Right.”

“Hehehe.”

That is just the kind of relationship we have.

“Damn, your room is flashy every time I see it. Why do you have so much stuff?”

After entering my room, Woojin plopped down on the floor and voiced his completely unnecessary observation.

“Isn’t your room like this? You’re a rich family’s son too.”

“It’s a guy’s room. More importantly, I hate stuff like this. And our house only has sons, so my older brothers’ rooms are all bare too.”

“I never asked anyone to decorate mine like this either.”

A little late, but now that I am introducing him properly, this guy is Shin Woojin. My older cousin.

Seventeen years old, three years older than me.

He is the only relative I can somewhat communicate with.

All my other cousins are adults over twenty, so there is no way they would play with me, and we barely ever meet in the first place.

No, when I think about it, that is kind of harsh.

We all live in mansions built within the enormous grounds owned by Shinil Group, so it would actually take no time at all to come visit me. And yet they only come once every few months, or at worst about twice a year.

In this enormous clan village(?), I am basically the only loner.

Is it because I am a parentless bitch?

“But seriously, you lost a lot of weight.”

“Right? I’ve been exercising lately.”

“Exercise? You? The sun really is going to rise in the west.”

“Hey! Do you know how much I’ve suffered exercising?”

“Don’t say ‘hey’ to your older cousin, brat.”

After chatting about pointless things for a while, the topic drifted toward the family.

“Did you hear about that thing? Jisoo noona.”

Shin Jisoo.

The older cousin who had been arrested for drugs not long ago.

“Jisoo unnie? What about her?”

“What, you don’t even know that? She got arrested for drugs, but ended up getting probation. Shinil’s legal team pulled some strings.”

“Come on, of course I know that. That happened ages ago.”

“Oh, then you don’t know what she did a few days ago?”

“What did she do?”

Did that bitch do something insane again? Well, if she had gone as far as touching health supplements, other forms of delinquency would be cute by comparison...

“After she got released, Grandfather put her under house arrest. But a few days ago, she somehow got past the surveillance and ran away, then got caught again after one day.”

“Huh? How the hell did she get out?”

“No idea. Anyway, Grandfather blew up again because of it. The family atmosphere has been terrifying lately. Nobody even dares breathe too loudly.”

I swallowed dryly.

My daily life had already been locked down hard enough because of that health supplement incident.

And the embers were still blazing?

“Gulp.”

If.

By some one-in-a-million chance.

In the middle of all this, they found out I was doing internet streams while pretending to be a vampire?

I did not even want to imagine it.

That thunderous roar from Grandfather would be directed at me this time.

Streaming? It would end that very day.

No, forget streaming. I might even lose this rich unemployed life.

No.

Absolutely not.

No matter what happens, I have to hide the fact that I stream.

While I was reaffirming my resolve by myself.

“Hmm... nothing’s really changed. Well, it hasn’t been that long.”

The gaze of Shin Woojin, the pervert shamelessly looking all around a girl’s room, landed on something very bad.

“Huh? A webcam? Hey, don’t tell me you stream or something?”

Gasp. H-Have to hide it!

“B-B-Broadcasting? What broadcasting! Why would I stream!”

“Then what’s that?”

“I-I need it for studying.”

“Studying? What kind of studying requires a webcam? And since when do you study?”

Kgh.

Sharp as ever.

The excuse I used on Ms. Sejin does not work on this guy.

Well, Ms. Sejin is an old hag in her late thirties. I could somehow fool her, but this guy is YOUNG and MZ. And on top of that, he is a man.

In other words, he is interested in computers and machines. As expected, a formidable opponent...!

“W-Well, you know. They said you need one for online lectures and stuff. So you can put your face on-screen too.”

“Hmmm...”

“I’m serious! Everyone does it like that these days!”

“That’s strange. I’ve taken some online lectures too, but—”

“Anyway, just accept it! What do you know, Oppa!”

“Good grief, fine. Fine. Why are you getting so worked up?”

“Gasp... gasp...”

Phew.

Did I get through it for now?

But the crisis did not end there.

Oppa suddenly asked with sparkling eyes.

“Hey, speaking of which, do you watch streams or anything?”

Kgh, this bastard. He keeps unleashing powerful attacks one after another.

“I don’t.”

“Hah. You are wasting half your life, little sister.”

“...What are you talking about?”

“Look at this.”

Woojin casually held out his phone and tapped around until he opened an app.

When I saw what appeared on the screen, I had no choice but to be horrified.

“Gah!”

“What’s wrong?”

It was none other than a clip from my stream.

On the screen, the vampire princess was furiously criticizing the profound stench of shit emanating from the game she had been gifted.

“W-W-What is this? Some kind of cartoon?”

“This is what they call a VTuber. Hah, little sister. You’re falling behind the times.”

“Oppa, what kind of high schooler watches childish, weird stuff like this?”

I desperately hid the tremble threatening to enter my voice.

“Hoho... ignorant mortal. To think you do not know the appeal.”

The sight of a guy easily over 180 centimeters tall, with broad shoulders from apparently working out, smiling while watching a video of a beautiful vampire girl was genuinely chilling.

I mean, why the hell is this perfect honor-student bastard an otaku when he lacks absolutely nothing?

The ‘fakes’ have taken everything from us! Aaaaaagh!

...No, that is not what matters right now.

Before I knew it, the clip had ended and moved on to the next one.

‘Nghhh! Ahaah!’

...

“I didn’t know about her until recently either, but this clip is what got me into her—. Ow! Ow! Why are you hitting me!”

“P-Pervert!”

Without thinking, I smacked Woojin hard across the back.

“...You’re tiny as a bean, but your hands hit hard. Ow...”

He rubbed his back without understanding why.

But my mind had gone completely blank.

That humiliating video.

Woojin saw it.

And of all things, that was the clip that brought him in?

Then that means Shin Woojin is among my viewers. Who is he? I cannot think of any suspicious usernames...

No, what good would figuring that out do now? Finding one person among hundreds is almost impossible.

Besides, he is probably trying to hide his identity just like I am. He might even be watching without logging in...!

“Hoo... hoo...”

“What’s with you? Why are you taking deep breaths?”

...Calm down, calm down.

This bastard still does not know that is me.

A blessing amid misfortune. A truly enormous blessing.

But if.

Just if.

He found out that was me?

Just thinking about it made me dizzy.

The granddaughter of Shinil Group’s chairman streams while pretending to be a vampire and making suggestive moaning sounds.

The moment that fact becomes known—.

I.

Socially.

Die.

Not just die normally. I will shrivel up all the way down to my soul like a vampire exposed to the desert sun!

I already died once from overwork in my previous life, and now it looks like I might die of embarrassment in this one.

No.

Absolutely not.

I will protect this secret with my life.

No matter what anyone says.

No matter what happens.

Lilith’s true identity goes with me to the grave!

That is what I swore.