Reverse Hunting

That dazzling smile made me want to lift my americano and call a toast. For the first time in a long while, a woman who wasn't my mother had been saved into my phone. If you set aside the people I'd only ever met through work, that is — and I had no intention of contacting any of them again. They'd feel the same, most likely.

'I don't know what this is, but it's a nice morning.'

I'm a fickle creature. A morning that had sat wrong in my gut, vaguely off and unpleasant, turned over in a single breath because of that girl's smile. A few people were staring at me as if they couldn't believe what they'd just seen, but I couldn't have cared less. The moment the bus pulled away, a KakaoTalk chime went off, and I opened my phone.

I let out a short laugh and answered her. Nothing much — that her name was pretty too, to get there safely, to have a good day. The reply shot back razor-sharp, riding another handful of emoticons, and with every one of them my grip on reality drifted a little farther off.

'This is interest. It has to be. But why me? How does that even make sense?'

I like to think I have a pretty clear read on myself. There was no world in which something like this happened to me. I glanced around. A YouTuber's hidden camera, maybe, or one of those social-experiment setups. There was no camera. And no one was going to get a broadcast out of fooling me in the first place.

'A pyramid scheme. No. Is this a religious pitch?'

For a second, that almost held water. Even so, I knew instinctively that if it were, I still wouldn't be able to turn her down. She was far too beautiful for that. I rolled my head and shook the stray thoughts loose. Even if it was nothing but wishful thinking, I wanted to believe this was real. The way she had looked at the bus stop had been sincere. If that was acting, someone needed to debut her as an actress on the spot.

'What on earth is going on.'

Another message chimed, and I slowly typed a reply. I was still dazed, and without my meaning to, my messages were getting shorter and shorter. Hers, though, kept reaching — an obvious effort to draw me along into a conversation. It was the exact moment my old self threatened to overlap with hers.

"What? Why are you crying? Did something happen?"

"......What? Why are you talking like that?"

Every inch of him was packed tight with armor-like muscle, and here he was wrecking my perfectly good mood with that cutesy little voice. I wanted to tell him to cut it out. I held it in. Say a thing like that and I might end up crushed flat as a stomped can.

"No. What happened?"

"......What?"

Halfway through, a surge of anger rose up so hard I pulled the phone off my ear. I couldn't listen to that voice. I gave myself a moment to settle, then slowly opened my mouth.

"......Yeah. I feel the same, honestly. But what can you do. The severance already came in, and they say we can collect unemployment benefits. It's better than walking out with nothing. Take a few months off and think it through. If you just sit there you'll get depressed, so sign up for a class and study for a certification or something."

"......Hey, I'm a little busy, so I'm gonna hang up."

I wanted to tell him not to. I hung up without another word. Something was wrong. This was no time to be out on a bus tour.

"......Um, excuse me......"

"Sorry. Something urgent came up."

The moment someone spoke to me while I was staring at my phone, I shut them down and got clear of the bus stop. I hurried home in a rush, flung my coat off, and dropped straight into the chair in front of the computer.

"......"

The longer I dug through the browser, the more speechless I became.

'What is this......'

Somewhere along the way I'd started getting all my news from YouTube, so it had been a long time since I'd opened the news tab on a portal. They were the sorts of headlines I felt like I'd seen before. Something about them was unmistakably different.

'Why is every single one......'

YouTube was no different. I pulled up the trending videos, and every last one of them was a man.

I didn't have the nerve to actually play any of them, so I moved on.

'......'

I stared blankly at YouTube for a while, then started digging. If I wanted the truth, a community would tell it to me straight. But the posts going up on the anonymous office-worker board I'd always used — a relatively moderate one — began to make my head swim.

My head went hazy all over again. It was an office-worker community, sure, but it had always leaned a little toward men. I wanted to go find a board aimed at women, and then Changsu's aegyo-soaked voice brushed past me. For the sake of my mental health, I decided to pass. This was plenty.

'......So this is a gender reversal.'

It was hard to believe. Harder still to believe the world had turned upside down in a single day. But things had come this far. Believing was all I had left.

Another KakaoTalk chime. Every time a class ended she told me it was over, or sent a photo of her coffee to let me know what she was doing. This one was lunch. A salad, a boiled egg, a sweet potato. Dieting, then. Either way, she kept texting me the way you report in when you're dating someone.

The moment I answered, the little 1 vanished, and the reply came flying back at a remarkable speed. She didn't text during lectures, though, so she seemed like a diligent girl.

'It's not that I don't want her.'

Hyunji was showing me enough interest that if I asked to meet, she'd say yes on the spot. I just wasn't sure I ought to take advantage of it. And if this really was a gender reversal, wouldn't it be a problem if I threw my body around too freely — like hell it would. A body that rots to nothing once you're dead. Even if people called me a slut, I had the feeling it wouldn't do me a bit of damage.

It was more that... did I really need to make a choice with nothing on the other side of it? The brakes in my head were still on. Something like that.

'Let's be a little more careful.'

Lunchtime had already passed. Not even half a day had gone by. There was no way I'd adjusted to a situation this absurd. There had to be things I didn't know to watch for. No matter how carefully I tried to turn the situation around in my head, I couldn't know every small detail. Caution wouldn't hurt. The excitement, though — that was real.

'I've got nothing to do for a few months anyway. This. This is fun.'

I licked my lips without realizing it. As if I'd found a reason to enjoy being alive. The worries hadn't gone anywhere, but my drive was climbing. Romance cells that had all but gone extinct were beginning, one by one, to divide.

'This whole taking-care-of-myself thing. I should probably give it a try.'

The only person around me who actually worked out was Changsu. I'd built a solid wall between myself and exercise, so having someone to help seemed like the smarter move. That aegyo-laced voice, though, was a bit much.

'I'll just ask him about a gym. If I really can't manage it alone, then I'll tell him to come with me.'

I sent Changsu a message, and the reply came flying back at once.

I very nearly smashed the phone. The address, when I checked it, was close. About a ten-minute walk. Exactly the kind of distance that feels good on foot. The problem was that the moment I went to do something I'd never done, I hesitated.

'Just get out.'

Sitting at home was only making it worse. I got up, dug out workout clothes I hadn't touched in ages, pulled my coat on, and walked straight out the door.