002. Pecking Order Sorting
Anyway, that aside... what was I supposed to do now?
Glancing around, I found iron bars standing where a door should have been, sealing off any way out of the cell. Only now did I actually take in my surroundings: a small closet built into one wall, and a makeshift toilet tucked into the corner. At least it looked like the essentials for daily life were all there.
Then again, locked up behind bars, it would have been a disaster not to have a toilet inside. At least a locked cell door wouldn't produce the darkly comic scene of me wetting myself in here. That much was a mercy.
More importantly... what on earth had Suyeon done to end up in a place like this, sitting there and simply staring at me? That yellow name tag meant she was a death-row inmate. Suddenly, I was curious. I, after all, had been locked up for murder committed at school — maybe she was something like me?
Just venturing a guess, here. It wasn't as if I could ask her outright. Most people either wanted to hide their crimes or spin them into heroic war stories. Which kind would Suyeon be?
While I sat there silently deliberating, my heart — champing at the bit — had already tipped all the way toward asking. I'd worried it might be rude to pry at a first meeting, but I had never once in my life been able to stand not knowing something, and my mouth opened all on its own. I began to speak in a voice that crept along the floor.
"U-um, Suyeon...?"
"Yeah? What?"
"I, um... I have something I'm curious about..."
As I hesitated, lips flapping, Suyeon waved a hand at me.
"If you want to ask something, just ask away. It's fine. Okay?"
What a relief. Suyeon actually seemed fine with it.
"Oh, really? I can really ask?"
"Yeah. So what is it?"
"Um, well, you see..."
"Mm."
"How did you end up in here, anyway?"
"What about you?"
Instead of answering, Suyeon shot the question right back at me, as if she were the curious one now. And I had nothing in particular to hide. I mean, I wasn't exactly the victim... but sure, I'd committed murder — I could still say, chest puffed out, that it had been at least partly self-defense. I brought the whole thing up like a war story.
"I, um, used to go to school, and I killed several of the delinquents who bullied me."
"Huh... you?"
"What's with that look you're giving me...?"
Her expression said the fact that I'd killed several people was somehow astonishing. No... more precisely, she seemed to think I didn't look like someone with the guts to commit murder. Then again... I suppose that was the kind of pecking order death-row inmates lived by.
"Hah... yeah, that's what I thought~"
"Excuse me?"
Anger flared in me at being so casually brushed off, but I forced myself to ask calmly. Because I was dying to know how someone this brazenly dismissive of me had gotten in here in the first place.
"More importantly, Suyeon... why did you become a death-row inmate?"
"Ah, that's..."
At my question, Suyeon paused, as if giving it some real thought, and the mischief slowly drained from the face that had been grinning until a moment ago. She seemed to be seriously mulling over what I'd asked... though even I couldn't tell what exactly she was weighing. Had I really just asked something that out of line...?
But maybe it wasn't entirely the wrong question after all, because as the silence stretched on, a distant, wistful look crept onto her face. I, who had been sure I was fucked, exhaled in relief and felt my chest unclench. And I sat there waiting for the moment those sparkling eyes would open and she would give her answer...
...when Suyeon finally opened her mouth, as if she'd made up her mind about something. Looking at me with a strangely suggestive expression, no less.
"I raped women."
"...What?"
For a second I was sure I'd misheard. The answer was so far beyond anything I'd imagined that my head went briefly, completely blank. When I tilted it in confusion, Suyeon spoke again.
"I raped women. That's why I'm here."
"B-but Suyeon, you're a woman..."
"So what if I am?"
She said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, nodding along like it went without saying. What? Was I the weird one here? Her words simply made no sense to me. Normally men and women liked each other, right? Which meant sexual desire, naturally, existed between men and women, too.
But... a woman had raped women? Why? How? The mere fact that the Suyeon in front of me had raped other women sent a shiver crawling up my spine, purely on instinct. I addressed her again, my eyes brimming with doubt.
"A woman, with another woman, that's..."
But Suyeon didn't wait for me to finish. Before I could even get the words out, she grabbed my arm—
"Wh-what...?"
"Stay still."
—and shoved me flat onto my back. My lower back, my hips, and my tailbone slammed into the floor all at once.
"Ahhk..."
A moan burst out of my mouth all on its own. Maybe it was the shock of being shoved down so suddenly — call it surprise — but a stinging ache came flooding in. A few tears leaked out as well, and I squinted up at Suyeon, the woman who had just knocked me flat.
But... hold on. Wasn't she pinning me down right now? When I forced my pain-twisted eyes open and looked up, they locked with Suyeon's as she loomed over me. Her hands bore down on my shoulders, and the thought that those eyes belonged to a predator made me cower for an instant — though I did my best not to let it show twice.
"W-why would you suddenly shove me down like that...?"
"What do you think?"
The corners of her eyes curled slyly as she asked, and the truth was, I genuinely had no idea why she'd thrown me to the floor. No... did she know I used to be a man, or not? Why would she pin down someone who had been a man...
Huh? Wait. I had turned into a woman's body. So if Suyeon was a woman, and she was pinning down a woman's body, then... Eh? A woman pinning down a woman? Oh, right — the question I'd failed to finish asking earlier had been exactly that: how does a woman rape another woman? But... uh... was I fucked?
"What? Looks like you're finally starting to catch on?"
"Th-that's..."
"You couldn't wrap your head around a woman raping another woman... am I right?"
"Ah... I get it now, but... um..."
"Nah. The way I see it, you still don't get it at all."
"I do! I said I get it!"
"Just with words?"
"...What?"
"Is understanding it with just words supposed to count?"
"What is that even supposed to mean...?"
"It means you're a woman now too, so you'd better learn to understand what it feels like to like women."
"...What?"
I couldn't make sense of such an absurd demand. I used to be a man. No — I am a man, down to my heart. And yet... something felt off.
"So you're telling me to like women?"
"Yep."
"Um, I already like women, though..."
"Nope. Wrong."
"How am I wrong?"
"You're a woman now, aren't you?"
"...Huh?"
The instant Suyeon pointed at me and called me a woman, something surfaced in my mind. It felt as though she was looking at the man I used to be and seeing... not a man, but a woman. Huh? This whole thing felt like she was forcing me to see myself as a woman — to like women. No way... it couldn't be... right?
"I'm not a woman, I'm a man?"
"Hm? You?"
"No, I mean, I was a man? You know that."
"Yeah. I know it very well."
"Then why do you keep asking me...?"
"Why indeed? Haven't you known the answer all along?"
"Huh...?"
In that instant, the truth I'd been denying was turning into reality. The weight pressing down on my shoulders grew heavier, and then—
"Ugh... wh-what are you doing? That hurts, you know..."
"What does it look like? I'm going to devour you. Right here."
"What? Devour me?"
"Mm-hm."
"No, I mean, I'm a man—"
"See? You still think you're a man."
"No... I'm, well, a man..."
My voice trailed off. I should have argued back — but then, without warning, Suyeon's sleek hand slipped inside my prison uniform top. She laid it on my chest and began kneading the soft flesh, pressing down as she played.
"Our Minsu is such a cute little thing to look at, too..."
"Mmph...!"
"Even your moans are cute?"
At the sound that had slipped out of me, Suyeon wore the expression of... someone determined to brand it into me, with my own body, that I was a woman. Right now, I wanted nothing more than to keep denying it — because she was seeing me as a woman and forcing her hands onto my body. Onto these breasts that had grown on me when I was remodeled into a female one, no less. Why? Why on earth?
"Why are you doing thiiis, ahh... mmph...!"
"Because it's fun?"
"No, what's fun about thiiiis...!"
"You keep insisting you're a man, and yet your body is so honest. Isn't it?"
"Ngh...!"
I wrenched my eyes open and glared up at her with everything I had. That was all the strength I could muster, anyway — no matter how much I wriggled...
"L-let go of meeee...! Mmph..."
"Don't want to? I intend to keep going."
That sly, teasing look as she toyed with me was infuriating. I was the one who'd been remade into a woman and might have to live locked up in here for the rest of my life — and I resented how blithely Suyeon talked. Actually, she'd been suspicious from the very start. I mean, who goes and gropes another person's chest, right out in the open, the very first time they meet? ...People like her, apparently.
"Mmph... hahng...! Nnh... p-please..."
"What's this? You said you hated it, so why are you making such happy sounds? Hmm?"
"Noooo, these just come out on their owwwn...!"
"Really?"
They really did come out on their own — I was only telling the truth. Not that I would ever willingly admit it felt good. Somehow it felt like losing to the woman in front of me. And the mere fact that I, once a man, was spilling such lewd moans at all...
"Th-this is too embarrassingeee...!"
"What? I can't hear you~?"
"Mmph...! Mmhh...!"
And now, to top it all off, she'd pinched my nipple between her index finger and thumb...
Somebody save me...