Finding My Voice In Her Skin

"E-ehhh?! What the hell is this shit?!"

"No no no no!! Why do I have 5k friend requests?! Who are these people?!"

"What do you MEAN you want to [BEEP] [BEEP] ME?!"

Angel was trapped in a never-ending spiral of panic, confusion, and sheer disbelief as she stared at the flood of notifications on her phone.

But before all this chaos—let's rewind a bit.

...

..

.

"Phewww! Finally done."

Angel stretched her arms, cracking her knuckles with a satisfied sigh. A quick glance at the clock—4 PM.

Yeah, probably a good time to log off before her mother came home and found her glued to the damn PC again.

With that, she shut down her computer and flicked off the extension cord.

Turning back toward her bed, her gaze landed on her phone.

"Hmm... I should probably add Raymundo, at least… since he was so damn insistent on getting my socials."

She tilted her head slightly, staring up at the ceiling in thought before nodding to herself and reaching for her phone.

The moment she unlocked it—

"W-What the??"

Her lock screen was buried under an avalanche of Facebook notifications.

5,000?!

What in the fresh digital hell—?!

Angel's heart pounded as she hurriedly unlocked her phone, a cold sweat forming. Did she accidentally post something stupid? Did she trigger some kind of social media landmine?!

The moment she tapped the Facebook app—

"E-Ehh?! What the hell is this shit?!"

There it was. 5,000 friend requests.

What. The. Hell.

"No no no no!! Why do I have 5k friend requests?! WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?!"

And it didn't stop there.

"My DM requests are FLOODED—!"

Frantically, Angel scrolled through the messages.

「So you are real!」

Angel: ??? Of course I am?!

Another one—

「Must really be AI-generated.」

Angel: WHO IS?!

And then—

-Dick pic.-

Angel: "GYAHHHHHHH!!!"

She collapsed onto the floor, defeated. This… this was the price of beauty, wasn't it? She wanted to cry.

Still, curiosity (and masochism) got the best of her. She kept scrolling.

Most were the usual: "I found you!" or "No way, this has to be AI." But then—

A message.

A message so cursed that her soul nearly left her body.

「I wanna %#^^$@#%# and %%@#%^& you, and we will ^$&^&$」

Angel: °A° … wha—

WHAT IS THATTTT, BROTHER?!

Even though she used to be a man, goddamn! The sheer degeneracy and desperation radiated off the screen.

Angel wanted to yeet her phone into the sun, burn it, smash it into tiny, irrecoverable pieces.

What the hell had she gotten herself into?! It hadn't even been a day, and she was already drowning in this madness!

And then—

Content creators were in her DMs too?!

NOOOO.

This was supposed to be a simple slice-of-life—why was it turning into a fantasy showbiz light novel?!

Still, she had to get to the bottom of this somehow!

There was no way this was just about her looks.

It didn't take long to figure it out. A popular post of her at the mall with her mom had already made the rounds, landing straight on her new account's radar.

And if that wasn't enough—social media influencers were making videos about her.

Some were calling her a clout chaser. But technically? Nah. She only made a personal account, not a public page. That's why it capped at 5k friend requests—she wasn't about to accept all of them anyway.

Most of these people probably just wanted to add her for bragging rights.

Like—

「Look! I'm friends with this person on Facebook!」

Guh. Just thinking about it made her want to barf.

Still, the more she scrolled, the more concerned she felt.

Sure, the initial confusion was gone—now she knew why 5,000 people were swarming her. But that didn't make it any less overwhelming.

Could she even do anything with this sudden attention? Maybe she could tell these people to read her light novel… but—

Would they actually read it? Or would they just do it because they liked her face and not her writing?

Ugh. None of her books had ever gained traction before. What if they were just bad? And she hadn't even started her new one yet.

She was cooked.

That's why—for now—her priority hadn't changed.

Raymundo first. These new "fans" second.

With a decisive nod, Angel puffed up her chest and sent a friend request to Raymundo.

Even though it was tempting, she would never, ever use her looks for clout.

Let people say whatever the hell they wanted!

There wasn't really a way to properly resolve this situation.

"You can either wait for it to die down or use that opportunity to rise!"

Angel muttered to herself.

It was unfortunate, really. Sure, gaining fame in another way could be empowering. But that wasn't her goal. Writing was.

It didn't take long before Raymundo accepted her friend request. Soon enough, a message popped up in Messenger.

「I didn't know you were so popular」

Angel rolled her eyes.

「Oh pleaaaaase~ I only just found out」

She replied. And it was true. Whatever the hell was happening on social media didn't matter to her unless it involved her or her family. So she only found out after making the account.

Well, at least Raymundo was added as a friend on Facebook now, wasn't he? That was the main goal anyway. With that settled, it was probably time to cook some rice.

Angel pulled open the curtains to her room. The sun was barely shining.

"Shit, must be close to 6 PM."

Her face darkened. If she stalled any longer, she would feel THEE WRATHHH of her mother.

Without wasting another second, she bolted out of her room and into the kitchen.

"Good!! The rice cooker was cleaned beforehand!!!"

Angel despised cleaning the rice cooker. If she saw it already washed—courtesy of her mom or dad—she was immensely grateful. What a spoiled child.

Without further ado, she hurriedly poured two cups of rice—yes, just two—filled the pot with water, measured it with her finger, and once it hit the first line, she wiped the bottom dry and placed it into the cooker.

Plugged it in. Set it to cook.

"PHEWWW!"

She wiped the imaginary sweat from her forehead.

"Now, where was I? Right, my phone."

Angel headed back to her room. As she plopped onto her bed, a mild stomach cramp made itself known. Tolerable, though. Probably because she hadn't eaten any snacks? Who knew. She was used to it by now…