Disappearing from Existence
The hospital room door opened again the moment the doctor left. The familiar click of heels, the familiar scent, the familiar face. But that face and those movements held no trace of worry or relief.
"...You're awake?" It was my wife.
I drew a thin breath and leaned back against the headboard, trying to steady this unfamiliar body. My wife didn't step inside the room. She stood with her arms crossed, looking down at me.
"So... how is it?" Her words sounded less like a question and more like a routine formality.
"Well..." I began weakly, but the awkwardness of my own voice made me close my mouth again. It was only one word, yet the sound that came out still felt completely foreign. This strange voice seemed incapable of conveying sincerity even to myself.
My wife glanced around the room and snorted. "A private room? Do you know how much it costs per day?"
"...That's not what matters right now."
"No, that's exactly what matters. You can't work, insurance won't cover any of this, and we're just bleeding money on hospital bills."
I couldn't say anything.
"What are you going to tell the company? 'I've turned into a woman, so I'm taking sick leave'?"
Her tone dripped with sarcasm. I quietly turned my head away. Every word, every glance, even my breathing felt cautious.
"It's not like they'll just fire you, right?" She pressed on without giving me a moment, her calculations cold and precise. Her eyes weren't those of someone afraid of losing me; they were the eyes of someone afraid of losing what I provided.
I couldn't answer. Nothing I said here would be understood or met with any empathy.
She strode right up to the bed and continued with a sneer. "Hurry up and fix this somehow! Are you trying to kill me like this?"
Only then could I finally speak. "I'm... I'm confused too... It's hard. I don't know what's happening..."
My voice cracked and faded. But she kept talking as if she couldn't hear me at all.
"Seo-a's academy fees are due this month. And I need to buy Seo-jin that iPad."
"Do you really need to talk about that right now?"
"Then what? The world stops turning just because you're lying there? A private room is expensive, so get discharged and go back to work! Or are you saying I should be the one working?"
Her words stabbed into my chest like a blade. To keep myself from collapsing, I gripped the edge of the bed as if it were a wall.
In the silence of the hospital room, the mechanical beeps were the only thing that still made me feel like a living person.
That was when the door opened again. Seo-a walked in, still fiddling with her phone.
"Ugh, what are you doing, Mom? Let's go already. I'm gonna be late for school."
My wife checked her watch, nodded, and left without another word. Only then did Seo-a glance at me.
"Tsk... what the hell."
That single phrase, empty of any concern or pity, cut deeper than silence ever could.
After Seo-a left, Seo-jin came in. Earphones jammed in his ears, he looked me up and down.
"What? You're actually a girl now?"
Contempt dripped from his voice. Then he lifted his phone.
"Hold still. Let me take a picture. I told the guys and they all want to see."
I had no idea what to say. Not a single word came out.
"Well... at least you'll make bank now."
His words carried a nasty, suggestive weight, but before I could respond he turned away, slammed the door, and disappeared.
I sat there motionless for a long time. Seeing them had made my already heavy body feel even heavier. My eyelids seemed ready to close forever in that exact position.
The machines kept beeping in their steady rhythm, but the sound felt like it was drifting farther and farther away.
Am I... even alive?
I lifted my fingertips. The faint trembling, the way my clenched fist closed around nothing but air. All my relationships had been severed long ago. All that had remained was me. And now even that last thread was about to snap.
Between the fading machine sounds, only the ticking of the wall clock struck my ears. I didn't want to know what time it was, or what day. It didn't feel like I was lying in a bed. It felt like the entire world was pressing down on me, burying me alive.
I didn't feel like myself. The body was foreign. The voice felt hollow. Even my thoughts couldn't seem to reach anything real.
"...Would dying be better?"
The moment the thought slipped out as words, the air in the room turned ice-cold.
Suddenly I remembered my phone. I spotted the smartphone on the bedside table, picked it up with a trembling hand, and pressed the power button. The battery had enough left for the boot screen to appear.
Once it finished loading, I turned on the display with shaking fingers.
Messages Received: 23
Missed Calls: 11
Most were from the company.
Team Leader, are you not coming in today?
How should we handle this report?
Please reply.
The last message was from HR.
The short sentences took an eternity to read. A headache split through my skull again and nausea rose in my throat. I set the phone down quietly and closed my eyes.
My body was slowly getting used to this form, but my mind was growing more and more alienated from it. Could I really go to work like this? Could I take responsibility for the kids like this?
...Could I?
The thoughts wrapped around my head until my body could no longer endure it. Consciousness simply slipped away.
When I opened my eyes again, it was already dawn. The hospital room felt filled with nothing but loneliness, as if the world had turned its back on me. The machines continued their steady beeping, but the sound no longer felt like it was keeping me alive. It felt like shackles preventing me from dying.
When I touched my wrist, all I felt was the sting of the IV needle. My family wouldn't remember me. If I disappeared, they would worry about money before they felt any sadness. The company would probably abandon me too. No understanding. No sympathy.
And the world wouldn't mourn the death of someone like me. At most, a small article would appear: "Patient dies from TS syndrome." Then it would be buried as if I had never existed.
"...I wish this were a dream."
The words left my lips before I could stop them. But this wasn't a dream. It was a reality I couldn't wake up from. It wasn't the life I had wanted, and it wasn't a weight of pain I could bear.
An unfamiliar body. An unfamiliar voice. Unfamiliar eyes. Even my own shadow no longer felt like mine.
Who... am I right now?
The question kept spinning in my head. It didn't wait for an answer. When I searched my memories, a name surfaced. A family. A job. But they felt like someone else's outdated documents, like records of a person already dead.
Seojun. Man. Breadwinner. Team leader. Father. Husband. There had been a time when those words described me. But now no name fit. No one asked if I was okay. No one called my name. It was as if my existence had already been erased.
I really have disappeared...
The words didn't leave my mouth, but they echoed endlessly inside my chest. I looked out the window. There wasn't even a streetlight on. Nothing but a gray world.
Morning arrived, and the sound of a nurse's footsteps stopped outside the door. Without knocking, the door opened carefully.
"I'll check your temperature."
The young-looking nurse approached the bed and spoke in a mechanical voice. She never once looked at my face or met my eyes. She didn't call my name. I was simply a patient. Nothing more, nothing less.
The thermometer touched my ear and was withdrawn. The nurse wrote something down in silence and left.
...Of course she doesn't know me.
It was strange to hope that people who had no reason to worry about me or remember me would suddenly do so. I was becoming more and more transparent. My body existed, but my heart drifted somewhere unreachable.
In this hospital room where no one called my name or met my eyes, if the IV came out, the nurse would probably walk right past without noticing. My family would worry about the hospital bills first. The company would only care whether I returned to work or not.
What was the point of continuing to live? The world turned perfectly fine without me. I wasn't needed anywhere.
Was I really... finished?
If this unfamiliar body was truly me now, then where had the old me gone? I wanted to be forgotten. Completely. Cleanly. So that even I wouldn't remember, as if I had never existed at all. I no longer wanted to beg anyone to remember me or to catch me when I fell.
Even the sting of the IV needle in my skin had grown dull. Breathing, blinking—none of it felt like proof that I was alive. Maybe if I quietly disappeared like this, no one would even notice. I couldn't tell whether that thought was sad or fortunate.
The fading footsteps filled the room. I quietly closed my eyes. Praying for time to pass quickly, I let my body and mind sink deeper into the darkness.
Did I ever have a place in this world? Or do I even have one now?