Accepted
It was 11:40 at night. Sitting in a patio chair outside a convenience store, I twisted the cap off a bottle of soju.
"Park Min-goo, this is your quarterly performance? Thirteen years with the company, and you're worse than a new hire."
The department head's voice was still ringing in my ears.
He'd said it that afternoon in the conference room. Standing beside him, the deputy general manager had just crossed his arms and nodded along.
Last month, I'd spent three grueling months landing a client contract — and the deputy general manager had filed it under his own name and walked away with the credit.
I poured the soju into a paper cup and downed it in one go. My throat burned.
This was hardly the first time.
Over thirteen years at the company, my superiors had stolen my achievements countless times. When the numbers were good, they became *their* accomplishments. When something blew up, the blame landed squarely on me.
That client, as it happened, was one the department head had been skimming from the back end. He'd quietly bump up the delivery unit price, then pocket part of the difference in cash envelopes.
I'd seen the deputy general manager carrying one of those envelopes twice. The client's own manager had let it slip during a night of drinking, too.
I knew, and I pretended I didn't.
Thirteen years at that company, and I was still a Manager — stuck at the same mid-level rank forever. My results got snatched away, every disaster became my sole responsibility, and whatever might have earned me a promotion was taken from above.
Somewhere along the way, I had become a career Manager, going nowhere.
Where would I even go if I quit at forty-three?
I peeled open a cup ramen. Steam billowed up. As I slurped down the noodles, I turned on my phone.
An office workers' community forum.
Everyone there was the same. Cursing their bosses, cursing their salaries, posting about how badly they wanted to quit.
Scrolling down, one funny title caught my eye.
「I Dreamed of Becoming a TS Billionaire」
Someone had written it as a joke. In the comments, people were listing their own wishes, saying they'd like to become one too.
"Maybe I'll give it a shot."
Blame the soju.
I hit the write button and tapped out the words one letter at a time with my thumb.
After hitting post, I snorted to myself.
"What am I even doing right now."
Two trillion won.
Drunk-me was writing all kinds of nonsense.
The comments came in fast.
I poured another shot of soju and hit refresh.
One more comment had appeared at the very bottom.
It was from an account I'd never seen before.
No profile picture. No activity history. Nothing.
"What the heck is this."
I snorted.
You run into every kind of prank on forums these days.
I stuffed the phone back in my pocket and drained the rest of the soju.
By the time I got back to my studio apartment, it was past midnight.
The room was about six pyeong — barely eighty square feet.
A room I'd lived in for twenty years.
Mold bloomed along the window frames, and the boiler shuddered violently every time I turned it on.
On top of the bookshelf sat a framed photo of my parents.
It was taken when I was twenty-three, one month before they died in an accident.
"I'm home."
I always greeted the photo.
Thirteen years of coming home to that greeting.
Without even loosening my tie, I collapsed onto the blanket still in my suit.
8:30 report tomorrow.
Another day of seeing the department head's face.
And the deputy general manager's crossed arms.
"I want to quit it all."
I muttered at the ceiling.
Tonight, the mold stains looked bigger than usual.
My eyelids grew heavy.
When I opened my eyes, the ceiling was far too high.
The mold stains were gone.
Instead, a round light fixture hung from the center of a smooth, pristine white ceiling.
The small of my back sank strangely into the mattress.
This was not a twenty-year-old blanket.
It felt like lying on a cloud.
"Where am I?"
The moment the words left my mouth, I flinched.
My voice was wrong.
High and clear.
Not my voice.
"Ah. Ah. Ah."
Every time I made a sound, an unfamiliar woman's voice came out.
I tried to bolt upright, and the weight at my chest lurched heavily forward. I lost my balance and toppled back onto the pillow.
"What the— why is everything so heavy."
Slowly, carefully, I sat myself up.
Pale pink silk pajamas clung to my body.
There was no way I had put these on.
Last night I'd passed out in a full suit, tie and all.
And then I looked down.
I couldn't see my feet.
No — I couldn't even see my knees.
The front of the silk pajamas swelled out in two soft curves, blocking my entire field of view.
I stayed frozen like that for a long while.
My mind went completely white.
"My chest is so big I can't see past it."
I said it out loud, and a sigh followed.
"Haaah."
I pressed a trembling hand to my head.
The hair spilling over my fingers was long.
Black hair, flowing down to my waist like silk.
My hands were different too.
Not thick, calloused knuckles, but slender white fingers.
When I climbed out of bed, an enormous window came into view.
One entire wall was glass.
Beyond it, a river flowed.
The Han River, glittering in the morning sun.
A few bridges were visible in the distance.
"The Han River?"
There was no way the Han River was visible from my studio.
My old room's view was the neighboring building's wall whenever I opened the window.
A large mirror stood against one side of the room.
Someone was reflected in it.
A woman.
Early twenties, with a face of quiet, luminous beauty.
Large, clear eyes. A straight, elegant nose. Small lips.
A face I'd never seen even on celebrity billboards.
And the body below that face was even more unreal.
A voluptuous figure visible even through the silk pajamas, a waist that looked like it would fit in two hands, hips curving in soft lines, legs that went on forever.
The kind of proportions you only saw in foreign photo shoots.
The woman in the mirror opened her mouth.
When I opened mine.
I raised my right hand.
The woman in the mirror raised her left.
"No way."
The woman in the mirror said the same thing.
In a high, clear voice.
My face flushed hot.
The cheeks of the woman in the mirror turned red too.
Reflexively, I covered my eyes with both hands.
In forty-three years of life, I had never seen a woman that beautiful that up close.
And it was *me*.
I peeked again through my fingers.
She was still there.
"My name is Park Min-goo. Forty-three years old. Park Min-goo of Sales Team 2."
I said it out loud.
The beauty in the mirror repeated it exactly.
She didn't look anything like Park Min-goo.
There was a document envelope sitting on the nightstand beside the bed.
When I opened it, the contents spilled out.
A resident registration card.
The face in the photo was that same woman from the mirror.
Name: Yoon Seo-rin.
By the birthdate, she was twenty-one.
A few bankbooks, a personal seal, some document that looked like a property registration.
The address was the top floor of a famous mixed-use luxury tower on the banks of the Han River.
And a brand-new phone.
"And what's this now?"
I powered on the new phone's screen.
Strangely enough, the moment I touched it with my thumb, the lock released instantly.
A few notifications were waiting.
[Welcome to your new home, Ms. Yoon Seo-rin.]
[A new account has been opened.]
And below that.
₩2,000,000,000,000
I counted the digits.
Tracing each comma with my finger.
Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands.
I miscounted once.
Counted again.
It was only on the third try that I got it right.
Two trillion won.
I dropped the phone.
Thankfully, it landed on the bed.
"Two trillion?"
Where had I seen that number before?
Something clicked into place in my head.
Last night.
The convenience store patio chair.
The soju.
The community forum.
*I want to live comfortably as a TS chaebol heiress.*
---
My hands were shaking.
I immediately opened the browser on the new phone and went to the office workers' community.
The place where I'd posted last night.
I typed the title into the search bar.
「I Want to Live Comfortably as a TS Chaebol Heiress」
No results found.
"……Huh?"
I searched again.
Nothing.
I searched by my own username.
Still nothing.
The post I had written just last night had vanished entirely.
The comments too.
And that—
[Accepted / Processed.]
That reply, too, was gone without a trace.
"What the……"
I stared at the screen for a long time.
Had I been so drunk that I'd just dreamed the whole thing?
And yet.
The account balance glowing on the phone screen was impossibly vivid.
₩2,000,000,000,000.
Too many digits for it to be a dream.
"No way."
I looked at the mirror with trembling hands.
A woman anyone could see was beautiful.
Check.
A body beyond unreal.
Check. A chaebol heiress with two trillion won.
Check.
Just then, an alarm went off — not from the new phone, but from somewhere across the room.
Beep beep beep—
7:30.
My alarm for work.
My body moved on reflex.
For thirteen years, I'd woken to that alarm, washed up, knotted my tie, and caught the bus.
I looked around for my suit.
But there was no suit.
I stood there blankly for a moment before it dawned on me.
The suit was back at the studio apartment.
So was my phone.
All I had left now was this house, this new identity, and this new phone.
"……The office."
Last night's post flashed through my mind.
*I want to live without money worries, without being ground down by office life.*
I looked down at the new phone resting on the nightstand.
There was zero chance the department head would be calling.
Park Min-goo's phone was sitting in that studio apartment right now.
The laughter burst out of me all at once.
"Does this mean I don't have to go to work?"
For the first time, it became real.
Truly.
I didn't have to go to the office.
---
The house was enormous.
*Enormous* didn't even cover it.
The living room alone was bigger than several of my old studio apartments put together.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the Han River spread out in a single sweeping view.
In the kitchen, some coffee machine I couldn't even name gleamed under the lights.
I stood in front of it for a long time before finally giving up.
Too many buttons.
I opened every drawer, but there was no mix coffee anywhere.
Just drawer after drawer packed with those capsule things.
"What kind of house doesn't have a single stick of mix coffee in it?"
I poured myself a cup of water from the water purifier.
It was refreshingly cold.
Come to think of it, I *had* written that I wanted everything I did to go well, didn't I?
I crumpled up the leftover paper scraps from the document envelope I'd torn open.
At the far end of the kitchen, across the living room, I spotted a trash can.
A good ten meters away, at least.
Park Min-goo was the kind of man who couldn't even land a paper cup in the trash can one meter away from the office pantry counter.
I threw it.
The paper ball arced across the living room in a perfect parabola and dropped dead center into the trash can.
Not even grazing the rim.
"No way."
I thought about trying again, then stopped.
It felt like wasting luck to spend it on something like this.
---
There was also a room called a walk-in closet.
When I opened the wardrobe, exactly three outfits hung inside.
A black leather miniskirt with a knit top.
A sky-blue pleated skirt with a blouse.
A long beige dress.
All three were skirts.
"Pants?"
I rummaged through every corner of the closet.
Nothing.
Three skirts. That was it.
I picked up the miniskirt.
It was about as long as two of my palms put together.
I tried to picture myself walking outside in it.
Just imagining it made my knees wobble.
I shut the closet door quickly.
The clothes problem could wait until tomorrow.
---
I sank into the sofa in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows and watched the Han River.
Morning sunlight shattered across the water.
Had I ever just sat and looked at the river at this hour before?
For twenty years, at this hour, I'd always been dozing on a bus.
My stomach growled.
Strange. My face, my body, my voice — all of it had changed — but the very first thing that came to mind when hunger hit was exactly the same as always.
That gukbap diner in the alley near my client's office.
Milky-white broth piled high with scallions, a piece of cubed radish kimchi on the side, and one big heaping spoonful.
"I want gukbap."
My parents' photo was still back at the studio apartment.
So was the broken watch my father had left behind, and the notebook I'd kept for thirteen years.
I'd have to go collect them.
I'd have to write a resignation letter too.
The whistleblower post as well.
There was a lot to do.
And yet, strangely, none of it felt urgent at all.
A beauty in silk pajamas buried herself into the sofa, gazing out at the Han River.
Tapping her lower back.
"Aigoo, my poor back."
The body had changed, but that sound stayed exactly the same.