Possession
I got possessed....
And as a woman, no less!
When I woke up, the area around my chest felt so heavy that I went to check, and there it was — a lump of flesh that definitely hadn't been there yesterday.
I touched it absentmindedly, felt the sensation register as mine, and realized this body belonged to me.
Hmm... once some time passed and I calmed down, I slowly began sorting through this body's memories.
Her name was Lee Yeonwoo.
She was twenty years old.
Same name as me?
According to the memories, we'd gone to the same school, been on good terms in a roundabout way. The school was identical to mine — no, wait, hold on. Even her parents and younger sister were the same?
"Well, holy shit."
I swore in as feminine a way as I could manage while my thoughts reeled.
I had been TS'd. Regressed, too, as a bonus.
***
I managed to sync the mind of a man with the memories of a woman.
Honestly, "sync" was putting it generously.
It didn't feel like a female psyche had fused with mine so much as this body's memories had simply been injected into me, so I never really questioned whether my identity was male or female.
...Female, I suppose... now, anyway.
No, wait — I'm talking about the mind, not the body.
I'm maintaining the ego of a perfectly healthy young man.
...Except I'm going to have to live as a woman, aren't I?
My situation came with a very useful habit.
Putting complicated things off for later.
I decided to leave it to Future Me.
According to the memories, nothing else had changed in the world besides me, so it should be fine.
Anyway, as a result, I became the only person in the world who'd grown up in the same environment as two different genders.
Am I still "me" even with the sex change? My hobbies were broadly similar, at least. My university major and a few other things differed a bit, sure.
But little details like that just meant extra life experience, so that's a win.
Not double XP, but I'd at least snagged the 1.4x event.
I decided to stop thinking and go check the mirror.
On the way there, I noticed the room was my old one-room apartment, familiar enough — but my eye level was different, which kept throwing me off. When I checked, I clocked in at 170cm. Tall, for a woman.
This is what 170 looks like...?
One of the few advantages I'd had as a man was being over 180cm, so I'd expected to land somewhere in the mid-160s....
I stood in front of the mirror, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath.
This is a TS situation, right? And if I lower my head, there are things that'll be visible, right? How bad is it?!
With those expectations, I opened my eyes.
The figure reflected in the mirror was shocking.
I can only assume that when Mom failed at softening my original face, she dumped all that leftover energy into building this body instead.
In gaming terms, it's like a pity system or hitting the ceiling.
She was the prettiest person I had ever seen in my life.
Celebrities included.
And this was right after waking up, with my hair sticking out in every direction — isn't this kind of against the rules?
I swept a hand through the tangled long hair for no particular reason as I thought about it.
And also... it was terrifyingly good-looking....
I'm the type who usually walks around expressionless, but whose face goes through wild swings whenever I'm having fun.
So before my energy kicks in, I used to get asked pretty often whether I was angry.
Apparently that impression carried over even after becoming a woman.
For starters, the eyes were scary.
Narrow them even slightly, and you could suppress a three-hundred-man riot on glare alone.
Thankfully, unless someone had death-wish levels of nerve, nobody was likely to try for my number.
And even if they did, one wide-eyed glare would probably send them running on their own.
But the face is so pretty that it might actually come across as a kind of charm....
I don't know....
And then there was the figure, which was no joke either.
Something about the mirror image seemed above average, so I dug through the memories, and the number D carved itself into my brain.
...THIS is a D?
Unfamiliar and uncomfortable, sure, but apparently the body was sturdy — my shoulders didn't ache or anything.
The waist tapered in nicely, and there was a distinctly visible line across my stomach.
And apparently it wasn't just the chest — the hip line was outstanding too?!
Seriously slender, big-chested, and great bone structure. A truly blessed body.
And another thing! Since when can a human face be this small?
The proportions are genuinely absurd.
Looking more closely, I noticed her ears weren't even pierced. Wondering why, I searched the memories and found that she'd decided she was already at peak prettiness and saw no need to try improving on perfection.
...Okay, yes, she's beautiful, but wow, self-admiration much?
I stared at the mirror again.
...No, she's right. Yeah, the woman was correct.
That's it! The ultimate form of tuning is factory stock!
A body with zero miles on it is a good thing, so let's think positive.
"Ahhh!"
Next, I checked my voice.
I'd heard plenty back in my male body that I had a nice voice, so I expected good things — but this went way beyond.
How do I put it... a low register with a youthful tone?
Yeah, a pleasant low voice with a distinctive, distinct timbre.
Since what I hear and what others hear are different things, I turned on my phone's recorder, recorded myself, and played it back.
Whoa....
It was the same budget model as my old phone from my male days, but the voice coming out of the speaker sounded as clean and crisp as if it had been professionally mixed.
Some people value a voice over a face, you know?
With mine, it'd be a genuine dilemma.
"Damn... I really should treat my parents to a meal sometime...."
Wow, I got chills!
My voice is SO good!
Am I becoming a narcissist here?
My self-esteem wasn't exactly low when I was a man, but this body looked built to send it even higher.
Speaking of which — this body is twenty, right?
My original age was twenty-eight. Two years into my first real job after graduating engineering school.
Which meant I now possessed eight full years of information from the future.
University, huh... I should drop out.
The company I joined after graduating was your standard piece-of-shit workplace.
The memory of desperately suppressing the urge to quit while grinding through actual work was this vivid — and I'm supposed to do it all over again?
Especially when, over those eight years, just stocks and crypto alone would earn enough for three generations to live off of.
I can't do it.
Honestly, becoming a celebrity or a model would be better.
But that means revealing my face, doesn't it?
Hmm... though looking at how celebs can barely live normal lives, that seems like a raw deal too....
The idea of having to live forever careful and guarded just because my face is public doesn't sit right with me.
Oh? Celebrities?
Come to think of it, this would have been right around then.
The beginning of the VTuber group that would one day rival celebrities in popularity in Korea.
VTubers existed before, sure, but they were niche.
Before that group came along, anyway.
And no, it wasn't some miracle of a scrappy little startup.
An entertainment company that had seen the business succeed in Japan gathered up talent and built it.
Company scale... around second-tier for an agency, at the time?
Probably, yeah.
But being the company it was, I remember their first original song blowing up massively, and their broadcast presence growing right along with it....
I was never a fan, but I listened to their music a lot.
They even set the record for number one on the music apps later on.
VTubers, huh....
It's a real dilemma.
With this face, modeling or celebrity work would definitely pay more....
But I'm still groaning my way through adapting to this body....
And with no guarantee that'll ever change, doesn't a VTuber — performing with just a voice — sound more comfortable?
With THIS voice, no less?
Besides, I only need to earn enough to keep investing in crypto, right?
And it's a now-or-never opportunity, too....
After mulling it over, I made up my mind.
That's it! TS means streaming, and the current market trend is VTubers!
In the future, VTubers sweep the ENTIRE YouTube livestream super chat rankings!
Given the popularity from before my regression, I'd out-earn plenty of run-of-the-mill models!
I don't even have to reveal anything except my voice and a bit of basic info!
I calmed my excitement down and forced myself to think coldly.
There's no guarantee I'd pass the audition anyway — if I get in, great; if not, it just wasn't meant to be.
Right, it's not like I ever actually watched that group's videos.
Their first original song was a girl-group track that happened to suit my taste, so it sat in my playlist, that's all....
Hold on. And I'd be singing that with THIS voice?
Yeah! Let's do it!
Midway through my cold, rational assessment, I realized — for the second time — that my justification was more than sufficient, and decided to act.
Ah!
I'd unconsciously clenched my fist, and the jolt of pain made me flinch and look — my fingernails had dug into my palm, leaving marks behind.
Adapting to a female body is going to take a while....
...First things first: trim the nails.
***
I submitted my application online.
It looked like a simple résumé would do, so I put my real-world office skills to work and produced a clean, easy-to-read document.
Then I checked the schedule.
Interview screening: next week....
Audition date: three weeks out.
Location: Gaon Entertainment Headquarters.
Preferred qualifications: singing, dancing, etc....
Hmm... so even a known agency runs on this kind of thinking, huh?
I dug through communities and such, and the general consensus looked like this:
Can't say I'm one to talk. Before my regression, I thought exactly the same at first.
But the songs were good, so it seeped into me naturally, you know?
Now that the information gathering was done, my next step was hunting for a vocal academy.
Going with a well-known place — even if it wasn't nearby — was the safe bet, so after a thorough search I found one and made the call.
Ring ring.
"Yes, this is Debon Vocal Academy."
"Hi, I'd like to register for lessons."
"Oh, of course! First—"
She asked me a bunch of questions, and we settled on a proper consultation at the academy tomorrow.
Still, before going, I wanted to gauge what this voice could actually do, so a few songs at the neighborhood karaoke joint were in order.
Beep-beep, beep-beep.
"Unni? What's up?"
Unni....
The unfamiliar form of address made my whole body flinch.
"Unni?"
"Karaoke machine."
[...Machine.]
For the record, my little sister's name is Lee Nayeon, born the same year as me.
In other words, a current high school senior.
***
"Unni!"
"Oh, you're here."
The sound of my apartment door opening, and in came my sister.
"Why aren't you dressed? What are you doing?"
"Hmm..."
To explain the situation simply: while I was inspecting my body earlier, the sense that this was *me* had been rare.
Fair enough, really — a body I'd used for twenty-eight years had vanished, replaced by a twenty-year-old model carrying similar memories.
But now that I fully registered it as mine, getting dressed had become... a delicate matter....
If the sense of self were smaller, I could've done it like dressing up a doll — happily putting together cute outfits....
I had the memories of a woman, but my psyche was still anchored in a male ego, so there I stood, too embarrassed to put clothes on. That was the current situation.
I explained it internally while summarizing out loud.
"I was giving you an opportunity."
"What opportunity?"
"The opportunity to pick out my clothes."
"...What anime did you watch yesterday?"
Look, it'd be awkward for me to choose, so I need your help. You dummy.
"Just throw on a hoodie or something."
Thankfully, she'd recommended something safe.
"Yeah, that's better."
At Nayeon's suggestion, I pulled a black hoodie out of the closet, grabbed some sweatpants, and put together an all-black ensemble.
"Unni... can you PLEASE wear something cute for once?"
"You picked it."
"No! Not the type of clothes — the design!"
...It's clean and tidy, isn't it?
"Try dressing properly yourself, and if you end up prettier than me, I'll consider it."
"You evil witch...."
Objectively speaking, my sister Nayeon is a beauty.
To use a metaphor — the certifiably intimidating type?
Not as fierce-looking as me, but still on the wild side.
But who am I? A person who got TS'd, that's who.
Of course I'm the prettier one.
"Let's go."
***
Arriving at the karaoke place we used to frequent near the university district by my old apartment, I sang a song and came to a realization.
This is... kind of unfair, actually....