This chapter is more of an author's note than anything else, but it does contain an explanation that is somewhat important to the plot, or at least, it will help you better understand how the characters communicate and perceive each other through the chip implanted in their brains.

As you might remember, Yoongi is a selective mute, meaning that his voice hasn't been heard by anyone in a very long time, not even by his parents. But, the thing is, the main plot of the story is him talking with Hobi through the chip, so this might seem like it presents some kind of plot hole. What's the point of him being selectively mute through his voice irl, if he can still normally talk with and be heard by everyone through the chip?

To better understand what I'm going to explain to you now, you need to know what "Qualia" is. I'm probably not the best at explaining it, so I'm going to copy/paste the explanation Vsauce on YouTube gave in his "Is Your Red The Same as My Red?" video. I highly recommend watching the whole video, and the channel, in general, is highly recommended too, but for now, the following paragraph is the only one you need to know for the sake of this story.

"Let's say I met an alien from a faraway solar system who, lucky enough, could speak English, but had never, and could never feel pain. I could explain to the alien that pain is sent through the A-delta and C-fibers to the spinal cord, the alien could learn every single cell and pathway and process and chemical involved in the feeling of pain, the alien could pass a biology exam about pain, and believe that pain, to us, is generally a bad thing. But no matter how much he learned, the alien would never actually feel pain. Philosophers call these ineffable raw feelings "qualia", and our inability to connect words to these raw feelings, our inability to explain and share our own internal qualia is known as the Explanatory Gap."

How this translates to the context of this story is like so: while people communicating through the chip can understand the information transmitted about the other's voice, like the words they're speaking, how loud it is, and the general frequency of their voice (from which they can deduct if the voice is masculine, feminine, or androgynous), they still haven't actually heard it in real life through their senses (aka their ears lol), so they still don't know how the other sound like.

An exception occurs in the cases where the people communicating have already met and heard each other irl. In these cases, their brains can put the pieces together and "imagine" the other's voice while talking to them, which then would just feel like talking to someone on the phone. An important thing to remember about this case is, if two people met and talked irl, in order for them to "hear" each other's voices through the chip, they need to introduce themselves the first time they talk so that in the future, their brain immediately recognizes them when they hear the other through the chip. Therefore, if someone hears you talk irl, it is not enough for them to recognize you if you talk to them through the chip without introducing yourself. (they might figure it out through context during your conversations of course, but that's not the point I'm discussing here).

TLDR explanation: you still don't know what other people sound like even if you "heard" them through the chip, unless their voice has passed through your ears irl, and they've introduced themselves when while you're talking through the chip.

Please remember that this is a science fiction story, so my explanation might to an extent not be accurate in relation to what qualia actually is, but what's important is how it's interpreted through the story, so that the plot makes sense in the universe I'm presenting it in.

If you have ANY questions regarding (or not regarding) the topic, or if you want me to re-explain something to you, don't be afraid to drop a comment!

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Author's note:

To be honest, I have yet to fully plan out this story, so this is what I'm currently doing, meaning that it's still probably going to take a while before I post another update, so my apologies for that. But for the sake of the story, I can't keep on updating without concrete plans. Thank you for understanding!