01. I Became a Girl.
01. I Became a Girl.
"Eut... heueut... wait... this is, a bit strange... heu-eung...!"
Long black hair, with looks that could blow pretty much any celebrity out of the water.
She was petite, but had an unrealistically voluptuous figure.
...And that woman was me.
───
2:00 AM.
A pain like something piercing my brain suddenly struck my head.
"Aaagh......! Ugh......! Wh...... what the hell......?!"
I couldn't even form proper words.
Cold sweat poured down incessantly under an agony that felt like my whole body was being crushed to pieces. I curled up tightly and gritted my teeth, but the pain didn't lessen in the slightest.
At that moment.
Udududeuk.
A chilling sound echoed from deep within my body.
It felt as if my bones were being reassembled one by one.
"Aaaagh...!"
How much time had passed?
About five minutes.
After a bout of hellish agony, the pain miraculously began to subside.
Drenched head to toe in sweat, my vision slowly faded to black.
───
"Heuak?!"
When morning came, I woke up screaming.
"Haa...... haa...... haa...... W, was it a dream......?"
My breath came in ragged gasps.
Wiping my cold sweat-drenched face with my hand, I got out of bed.
The moment I pushed myself up to get some water.
"What kind of bullshit dream... euat?!"
Hwicheong-
My body felt weird.
My center of gravity was oddly pulled forward.
My field of vision was also strangely low.
"Uh...?"
Almost tripping, I frantically grabbed onto the headboard.
Perhaps because I had been in a daze from suffering that pain since dawn, my surroundings only then started coming into focus.
And then, a bizarre foreign sensation on my chest.
"......?"
I looked down.
There was something there that shouldn't be.
And a massive one at that.
"...?"
My train of thought ground to a halt.
After a moment, I slowly raised my head and looked at my hands.
"...What the."
My hands had gotten smaller too.
My feet, too.
Seeing how low my line of sight was, it seemed my height had shrunk as well.
"....?"
Still unable to accept this as reality, I stumbled toward the bathroom.
───
I stood before the bathroom mirror.
And at that moment.
I froze.
Standing in the mirror was a woman I had never seen before.
Long black hair.
A petite frame.
And a face so gorgeous it felt unrealistic.
"...."
I turned my head to the right.
The woman in the mirror turned her head in the exact same way.
I raised my hand and touched my face.
The woman in the mirror also touched her own face.
I took a step closer.
The woman in the mirror also stepped closer.
My frozen thought circuits slowly began to spin again.
"...Huh?"
My voice wouldn't come out properly.
"Eh......?"
I stared at the mirror again.
"Uh...... uh?! What the hell is this?!"
I frantically felt all over my face.
Eyes.
Nose.
Mouth.
It was completely my sensation.
Yet the face wasn't me.
"...This is me?"
I couldn't believe it.
"I, is it still a dream......?"
I pinched my cheek with all my might.
"Ouch......!"
It hurt like hell.
"......Why does it hurt?"
It wasn't a dream.
My frozen thought process desperately kicked into gear.
But no matter how much I thought about it, no answer came.
"So...... I'm...... this woman...... and......"
I stopped mid-sentence because even to myself it sounded absurd.
"No...... I turned into a woman...... and my body...... became a woman's too...."
I looked at the mirror again.
"Is that why my line of sight was low......? I don't even look like I'm 160 cm...."
I tried to sort out the situation as calmly as possible.
"Was that excruciating pain at dawn... the process of my body changing?"
I raised my arms and turned them this way and that.
The muscles that were definitely there just yesterday had vanished.
"But... how?"
I clenched and unclenched my fists.
"Something like this... is actually possible?"
There was no one to answer me.
"...Should I go to a hospital first?"
However, a practical problem soon came to mind.
"What kind of hospital would I even go to?"
There was no way to explain it either.
"I was a guy until yesterday, but when I woke up, I was a woman."
Who would believe that?
"Haah... I'm losing my mind, seriously."
I aggressively scratched my head in frustration.
Then, just as I went to pull out my phone from the pants I had tossed aside yesterday.
Tuk.
My wallet fell to the floor.
"Ah shit...... I dropped it."
Just as I picked up the wallet to put it back in my pocket.
My hands stopped.
"......Wait."
Something was off.
I slowly opened the wallet.
And pulled out my resident registration card.
"Ha...?"
In the photo was the woman I had just seen in the mirror.
Even the back digit of my resident registration number was... 4.
"What in the world...."
My name.
My date of birth.
My address.
Everything was the same.
Only the photo and the gender had changed.
As if someone had secretly swapped my ID card.
"Ha...... haha."
An incredulous laugh escaped my lips.
"Haha......! Hahaha......!"
My hands were shaking.
"Fuck...... what is this?"
I flipped the ID card over and over.
"This is a dream, right?"
I muttered as if asking myself.
"Yeah...... I'll wake up in a bit."
Yet no matter how long I waited, reality didn't change.
"...Please."
The strength drained from my legs.
I slumped straight down onto the floor.
"Wake up...."
I muttered while staring up at the ceiling.
"It's a dream, isn't it...."
However, as time passed, one single truth became increasingly clear.
This was not a dream.
It was reality.
"Fuck...."
I rubbed my dry face with both hands.
"Just what the hell... is going on...."
───
First, I turned on my phone.
It was because I thought there might be some kind of clue.
"...The fingerprint recognition works."
The fact that even though everything else had changed, my fingerprint remained the same was absurd in its own right.
A dry chuckle slipped out.
"Seriously, what is this..."
I checked the gallery first.
Photos.
Contacts.
Messengers.
Mobile ID.
No matter where I looked, there was nothing out of place.
No.
To be precise... it was far too perfect.
All the photos showed the current me.
The 'male' me that existed up until yesterday was nowhere to be found.
As if I were a person who had never existed from the start.
"...Is God playing a prank on me or something?"
My ID card changed.
My phone changed.
Then... what about the people around me?
My heart began to race.
Could the entire world have changed?
Did anyone exist who remembered me?
After agonizing over it for a long while, I opened my contacts with trembling hands.
And first of all, I called omma.
The dial tone rang a few times, and.
"Hello?"
I heard omma's voice.
The moment I heard that familiar voice, my tension eased slightly.
However, the following sentence left me completely speechless.
"My daughter~ What made you call so suddenly in the morning~?"
...My daughter.
None other than omma called me her daughter.
At that moment, it felt like something deep inside my chest collapsed.
It felt as if my entire life lived as a man had been completely denied.
My eyes grew hot with tears.
Still, I tried my best to act like nothing was wrong.
"...Just...... I wanted to hear omma's voice...."
My voice trembled.
"S, since I heard your voice, I'll...... hang up now."
Tears felt like they were about to burst out.
"Yeah... I'll visit sometime soon. Take care of yourself."
I barely managed to hang up.
And at that moment,
"Heup......."
Tears fell.
"Heueuk...... heuaaaang......!"
The emotions I had been holding back erupted all at once.
In an unfamiliar world.
In an unfamiliar body.
I felt like I had been cast away all alone.
I wept loudly for a long time like a little child.
It was then.
Ppik.
Ppik.
The sound came from the digital door lock.
"...?"
I stopped crying and raised my head.
There was only one person who came in and out of this place like it was her own home.
My girlfriend, Hayeon.
If so... what kind of presence was I to Hayeon?
If this was a world where I had been a woman from the beginning...
"...."
Dozens of thoughts flashed through my mind in an instant.
Hayeon probably wouldn't remember the male me either, right?
Ttiririk.
The door lock unlocked.
The moment the door opened.
Hayeon froze.
"...Who are you?"
Her voice was thick with guard.
I held my breath.
Don't tell me... Hayeon and I have truly become complete strangers?
Just as I thought that, Hayeon looked around the house and spoke again.
"...This is my boyfriend's place... who are you?"
"...!"
Boyfriend.
My breath seemed to stop at that single word.
Hayeon remembered me.
At least, the 'me who was a man.'
I hadn't been dropped into an unfamiliar world all alone.
There was someone who remembered me.
Though faint... a possibility of turning something back had emerged.
"You... remember me, right?"
I didn't know what to say.
Even the question that came out of my mouth sounded strange to my own ears.
Hayeon tilted her head slightly and looked at me.
"...Yeonwoo is an only child, though."
After thinking for a moment, she asked cautiously.
"Do you know me? What's your relationship with Yeonwoo?"
At that moment, it became clear.
Omma knew me as her 'daughter.'
Yet Hayeon knew that I was a man.
It was just that... she didn't know that I was Yeonwoo.
My heart beat like crazy.
'How do I explain this?'
'What can I say to make her believe me?'
'I have to convince her somehow.'
Tens of thousands of thoughts flashed through my head.
Yet nothing came together.
In the end, the simplest, most primitive words burst out of my mouth.
"I am... Yeonwoo."