Band-Aid Bra and Dawn Feelings
I looked up at the night sky. I found myself thinking that the way I stared at it, almost spellbound, made that sky feel like an incredible sight.
That night sky, which always carried the darkness that seemed ready to swallow everything whole and had scared me as a child, felt unbelievably beautiful tonight.
Countless stars glittered as if begging me to look at them.
And among them all, the moon stood out with the strongest presence of all.
Everything was as it always had been, the kind of ordinary night sky I should have taken for granted, and yet for some reason I thought it was beautiful.
Then, naturally enough, a cold wind that fit the season and the late winter chill swept clean through me.
...Honestly, it was fucking cold. Cold enough that I regretted dressing like this.
A hoodie that hung down to my thighs and dolphin shorts, neither of which were meant for a night where the temperature dipped below freezing. Thanks to that, I had accidentally ended up with a bottoms-missing fashion statement. Embarrassing as hell.
The wind blew over my bare legs, with not even a single warm layer like stockings to help me out.
The winter wind was vicious, determined to freeze me to death.
But what I was most aware of was not my slender, smooth legs without a single scar.
What kept drawing my attention was the chest I had covered with clothes.
Why the hell was this person worrying about a chest that had some fabric on it, instead of the legs that were completely exposed in this cold wind?
Well, because right now I had a Band-Aid stuck on my chest instead of a bra.
And not just anywhere. On the two rounded, tempting buds that poked out like ripe forbidden fruit.
...Yeah, I knew. At this point I deserved to be treated like a complete lunatic, maybe even worse than that.
I was thinking the same thing myself. That I was doing something that looked like it had wandered straight out of some doujinshi.
But what was I supposed to do? I didn’t have money for underwear, and I didn’t even have underwear to buy. What the hell was I supposed to do, ahh!
I had finally decided to go out after ages.
And then, just as I was leaving the house, something that would be impossible to describe as simple clothing kept brushing against the part of me that stuck out even when I was dressed... and it hurt like hell, while also making me feel weirdly good...
But I was hungry, and I couldn’t just ignore my stomach screaming at me, so the solution I came up with was a Band-Aid.
I remembered, clearly enough, that thing I had once seen when I was younger, and even now because of my still very active libido, when I had seen someone stick Band-Aids over their important bits and claim that counted as underwear.
That perversely ridiculous, somehow genius, somehow awful idea of covering your most important parts with nothing but Band-Aids popped into my head.
So I clutched my stomach, which felt like it might starve to death at any second, squeezed my eyes shut, ignored the voice in my head repeating that this was wrong, and ended up sticking on my breast Band-Aids before stepping outside like this.
...Yeah, I really had lost my mind.
I did have reasons, or at least things that could pass for reasons, for coming out dressed like this.
First, it was already late enough that I figured no one would be paying attention to me.
Second, even if there were people around, I knew that humans usually weren’t all that interested in strangers anyway.
With the thought that I was about to die from hunger if I didn’t hurry up, I started walking to the convenience store about fifteen minutes from home.
...Of course, today was weirdly crowded.
And I’d briefly forgotten that no matter how little humans pay attention to other people, if someone looks absurdly beautiful, their eyes are going to get drawn there no matter what.
...And just like that, people’s gazes started gathering on me one by one.
With a woman this pretty passing by, who wouldn’t look?
...There was one thing I’d overlooked.
Apparently, I was more numb to other people’s stares than I thought.
Come to think of it, before I became a woman, I had been disabled and had to use a wheelchair, so people staring at me was, in a way, inevitable.
If a disabled person passed by, anyone would glance over at least once, wouldn’t they? I had been one of those people who became a sight to see.
So it made sense that I’d gradually become desensitized to people’s looks.
...But tonight, the stares that should have been there were impossible to miss.
The gazes from people I’d always hated, the ones I used to run from the moment I felt them, were incredibly clear with every step I took.
"Whoa, what the hell is that person?"
"Was there someone like that in our neighborhood?"
Because the looks being thrown at me right now weren’t the usual ones of pity or sympathy.
They were looks I had never once felt before in my life, looks packed with admiration and envy for the way I looked, looks that said they envied me.
Of course, I was still scared of people’s eyes.
I could say that with confidence. My personality wasn’t the outgoing kind to begin with, and after everything I’d gone through, that fear wasn’t something I could just fix.
But the gaze I truly feared, the one that used to make me feel real terror.
The looks from all those people who pitied me, the looks I’d hated and avoided until now.
Those were gone from me now.
I had completely shed the body I used to despise.
I had transformed out of that old body, the one that had felt like a filthy, worthless husk, and become who I was now.
Because now I had a body anyone would love, a body anyone would envy.
...The only slightly annoying thing was this:
"Whoa, isn’t she not wearing pants?"
"Damn, she’s insanely pretty."
"Her chest is huge."
"Can a face like that even have a chest like that? Have you guys ever seen that before?"
"Walking around like that is kind of asking for it... she’s practically tempting us."
It was the whispered sexual harassment from high school boys, muttered so I wouldn’t hear them.
...Is this the first time you’ve seen boobs? What is wrong with you people?
What was even more embarrassing was that I didn’t even want to hear what those boys were saying, but I still heard it anyway. There wasn’t exactly anything I could do about that.
Still, I got it. When a person who was so beautiful it felt wasteful to call her anything else walked around the neighborhood, anyone would turn their head. And if they happened to be high school boys with more than half their brains occupied by lust...
Honestly, part of me wanted to call them out with a flat, "I can hear you~"
But I’d once been that kind of immature idiot myself, and I really had been. I’d been a man whose head was ruled by lust, after all.
So I could understand those kids. And because of that, I could more or less ignore the harassment about wanting to touch my chest or shake it around.
What they were saying about me wasn’t to tear me down, anyway. It was just amazement at how much I’d changed.
In fact, I wanted them to keep going. The stuff about my chest, though... I’d rather they didn’t. It was embarrassing.
...Even the fact that I could think like this about myself felt like a change I would never have been able to imagine only a short while ago.
Though I wasn’t sure I could honestly call something that came from pure luck a change.
This snow-white, deep silver hair, and eyes red darker than anything else in the world.
These doll-like proportions and features, like someone who didn’t belong among ordinary people.
A face anyone, man or woman, would envy and admire.
My body had become someone completely different from the me I used to be.
I still didn’t know why I had ended up like this, but if that was what it took to make me change little by little,
If it would turn me into someone with a future worth hoping for,
Then I’d enjoy this life without a single regret.
And so I finally arrived at the narrow convenience store.
As expected, the part-timer had been staring at his phone like he didn’t care about anything, but then he looked up at my face once, froze in surprise, and kept glancing at me over and over.
...Well, of course. He probably never imagined someone like this would show up around here.
For some reason, the reactions of that clerk, the startled looks people gave me, were starting to become fun.
"O-oh, welcome."
The clerk greeted me then. It had probably already been a while since I came in.
It was painfully obvious what he was thinking, but whatever. Humans were just that kind of creature.
...If it had been the old me, I would have ignored the greeting I’d just received and hurried out to find what I needed as fast as possible.
Yeah, definitely.
I had been scared of talking to people at all.
But starting today. From this very moment, with this body.
"Hello."
I decided I’d try changing that personality of mine little by little.
These days, convenience stores have everything, don't they?
Medicine, disposable plates and utensils, the basics, plus tasty-looking food and luxuries like ice cream that made me wonder if that price was even real.
It was the kind of place that, despite looking like a tiny convenience store in the countryside, somehow had everything you could need.
Among all those snacks and daily necessities, what I picked was a small cup ramen that started with the syllable for meat, plus a variety of triangular kimbap.
Cheap junk food and snacks for gaming.
I piled them all up in my hands, just over ten thousand won worth, and set them on the counter.
"C-checkout..."
"Yes! I’ll help you right away!"
...Why were you suddenly raising your voice? That was awkward as hell.
Not that I couldn’t understand.
Beep. Beep.
I could clearly hear the sound of the barcode scanner.
There was a fair amount of food, so that sound seemed especially loud.
"That'll be 10,480 won. How would you like to pay?"
"...I’ll use a card."
Do convenience stores still actually say the price out loud these days...
I’d already been reaching for my card because I didn’t want some pointless conversation like that.
"I-I can take it from you if you..."
...You can just tap it in.
Even knowing there was a card in my hand, he was still asking me to hand it over to him. Was he hoping to touch my hand at least once?
...Looking at how red the clerk’s face had gotten, it seemed like I was right.
And for some reason, that made me want to tease him.
Well, I might end up touching his hand someday by accident.
But when someone’s thoughts are written all over their face like that, it actually makes me not want to let them touch me. It’s kind of irritating.
So I deliberately made a show of giving him the card he wanted.
"Here you go."
I politely and respectfully set the card down on the counter for him.
The expression on the clerk’s face at that moment was honestly... the kind that made teasing him worthwhile.
What a shame.
I did feel a little sorry for him, but I had no reason to indulge one person’s desires just because he had them.
If he’d acted like nothing was on his mind, I might have let him touch my hand. Too bad for him.
It wasn’t until a little while later that the clerk finally picked up the card resting on the counter, looking disappointed.
After that, the payment was processed very quickly, and he asked whether I needed a bag.
Since carrying all that by hand would be a pain, I answered in a calm voice, "Yes."
Then the clerk took out a bag and packed all the food into it.
"P-please come again!"
He slipped the card into the bag with a little too much care, then held the bag out to me as if he knew one thing and nothing else.
So that’s how badly you wanted to hold my hand... I couldn’t help thinking that, and for some reason I felt sorry for him.
Still, I took the bag from his hand without letting our fingers touch this time either, and then left the convenience store behind.
That’s just how people are. When someone makes their motives that obvious, you end up not wanting to give them what they want.
And besides, his face of utter despair was kind of funny. Hehe.
"...Ha, it’s cold."
Stepping out of the store, I felt the same cold wind and the same uncomfortable neighborhood street full of people’s stares.
The wind was still sneaking through the gaps in my hoodie, and the chest I’d only managed to cover with Band-Aids still bothered me, but at least the two fruits that had been stinging and hurting before I put them on weren’t hurting anymore, so that was enough.
I should really buy proper underwear soon. At this rate, I might end up sticking Band-Aids below too.
...I looked back up at the night sky. The sky I’d seen once on the way here still hadn’t changed; the moon and stars were shining with that same strangely bright intensity.
Come to think of it, wasn’t today supposed to be the day when some moon that appeared once every two hundred years was supposed to rise?
For a human who’d live, at most, a little over a hundred years, a moon that only came around once every two hundred years was basically a collab-limited gacha pull you’d never get twice, so I might as well look at it all I wanted today.
A rare moon that only rose for a few hours, barely enough to count as a day.
And right now, the time when that moon could be seen so clearly was dawn.
Yeah, dawn.
The dawn when everyone was supposed to be asleep.
Only now did I realize the reason so many people were out on the streets tonight was that moon.
I didn’t know if everyone else thought the same thing I did, but a lot of people were taking pictures of it at a time when they would normally have been asleep. It would have been stranger not to notice.
I hadn’t felt like taking a picture myself, so while the moon was busy drawing everyone’s attention, I tried to walk home as if I were fleeing.
But for some reason, with that huge moon hanging there and the romantic look of my own neighborhood caught under it,
the particular kind of surging emotion that belonged only to dawn kept swelling inside me.
Maybe that was why I was moved by the fact that I had just done something that should have been perfectly natural.
For other people, and now for me, it was completely ordinary. But until just yesterday, it hadn’t been ordinary at all that I had finally done it.
"I went to the convenience store by myself."
For some people, that was normal, and failing to do it would be weird. But for me...
Every day...
The me who had to crawl because even moving from the bed to the desk was a struggle.
The me who couldn’t clean or bathe on my own.
The me who found it hard even to go outside without someone helping me.
I was walking on my own two feet now. I had walked all the way to the convenience store by myself.
Overwhelmed by that surging dawn feeling, I stopped too, and looked quietly up at the night sky.
I was so moved that I started crying.
Because I remembered the version of myself who used to imagine, only in dreams, what it would be like to be able to use my legs again, and the version of myself who had never given up hope even when I still couldn’t use them.
The tears began falling one drop at a time, like faint rain before the storm, and then soon enough they were pouring down with the strength of an endless monsoon.
...This was all because of dawn feelings.
Normally I wasn’t even the type to cry this easily, so why was I suddenly doing it now? Especially out here, with so many people around.
I wasn’t crying out loud. But the sobs still leaked out.
The people who had been looking at the moon turned their gazes toward me, standing in the middle of the street and crying.
And because that was so humiliating I wanted to die, I ran home.
I’d been out of practice running for years, so I should have lost my balance, but instead I made it home at a very fast pace without even falling over.
I dumped the food I’d bought wherever it landed, then flopped straight into bed.
It was way too early for sleep, by normal standards.
As soon as I lay down, my consciousness vanished in an instant, and for the first time in months, I fell asleep with the moon as my friend.
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