Who Are You…?

It was a question worth considering.

Did the body and the mind truly exist as separate things?

Until not so long ago, I had leaned hard toward materialism. But what about now? I still regarded the mind as wholly mine—yet I could not bring myself to think of this body as mine at all. Of course I couldn't. Until literally yesterday, I had been moving around in an entirely different one.

So were body and mind separate? I couldn't quite declare that either. I had never experienced the pure isolation of “mind” alone. After all, even my consciousness could only perceive the world while it was sealed inside Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol's flesh. And right now, that flesh was making its demands with considerable vigor.

Growl—!

Quite the impressive rumble. No matter how profound my meditation on self and body might be, it did nothing to soothe the pain of an empty stomach. At this moment, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol's body was ruling my mind.

…I needed to eat.

The rice cooker in the corner of the room was blanketed in a thick coat of dust from long disuse. Hopeful despite myself, I opened the refrigerator and found only a half-empty 1.5-liter bottle of water. Exactly what kind of meals had Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol been surviving on?

I checked the delivery apps—the order history was spotless. The trash can by the studio door, however, was overflowing with triangle kimbap wrappers. So she had been getting by on convenience-store food. Living alone does make cooking and cleaning a chore, I supposed. Still—not owning a single cooking utensil seemed a bit extreme, Miss Eun-gyeol… At the very least some eggs, rice, and a frying pan would have been nice. I was no master chef myself, but if the alternative was convenience-store kimbap every day, even a plate of soy-sauce egg rice at home would have been an improvement.

“…….”

I couldn't very well keep starving, though. I would have to follow Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol's example and buy some triangle kimbap at the convenience store. Which meant I also needed to know the state of her finances. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠If I had any guarantee that I would wake up back in my own body tomorrow, I would have felt too guilty to spend a single won. But as long as this was not a dream, I would probably be living in this body for the rest of my life. Therefore this was not theft.

With that convenient rationalization, I opened the banking app. The six-digit password written in the memo pad unlocked it without trouble. And then—

6,570 won.

That was the balance that greeted me. Looking at the previous transactions, I found a payment of 5,200,000 won to an electronics shopping mall. I could guess easily enough what that purchase had been. She had dumped her entire fortune into VTuber equipment… Before I took over this body, Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol had apparently placed the biggest bet of her life. For me, it had become the worst possible choice.

6,570 won was barely enough to survive a single day. This was no longer a question of getting used to the body—I simply had no food for tomorrow.

Uuuugh… What now? Should I look for a part-time job? But what kind of job? The only part-time work I had ever done was convenience-store shifts or warehouse labor—physical stuff. Doing those same jobs in Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol's body would be rough. The only realistic option left was convenience-store work… Could I even handle customer service in this body? I still wasn't used to it.

Ah!

A brilliant idea struck me. I looked at the VTuber gear that completely filled the desk. If I sold all of that, I could at least put out the immediate fire. The only problem was that I had no idea what any of it was currently worth…

Growwwl—!

I would think about that later. First, food. Food. Eating meant going outside, which inevitably meant changing clothes. I was wearing pajamas, but I could hardly walk out the door in them. I opened the wardrobe… and found it packed with women's clothing.

Fuck. I was supposed to put this on? Still too soon… maybe forever too soon…

After digging and digging, I finally found a pair of baggy sweatpants and a zip-up hoodie. Well… this much I could manage.

“…….”

Should I try changing?

I began fumbling out of the pajamas. How many people in history had ever experienced this—looking at a body that was not their own from the first-person view? And that body was, by any objective standard, extremely attractive. Strange… It felt unfamiliar, and my eyes kept drifting, yet I felt no arousal. …Probably because the masculinity that would have produced that excitement was gone. Sadly.

In a vaguely melancholy mood, I finished changing. Hooking the bra was something of an ordeal, but I managed it somehow. Feeling a subtle wrongness at my chest, I slipped on the Crocs by the front door. Time to head out.

Outside was already dark. A check of my phone showed 10 p.m. Right. I had woken up in Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol's body in the evening. Her days and nights had been completely reversed. The studio apartment was not near any nightlife district; the streets were nearly empty. Fortunately, a convenience store stood close by—maybe a one-minute walk.

Ding-a-ling-ling—!

An electronic chime rang as I opened the door. A young man who looked like the night-shift worker glanced up from his smartphone behind the counter.

“Oh, welco—”

What? Why did he stop mid-greeting? It was odd, but not something I needed to press. What should I eat… After a moment's debate I headed for the corner with the triangle kimbap and boxed lunches. Wow, prices really had gone insane lately. Boxed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lunches over five thousand won? Pass. I grabbed a two-pack of triangle kimbap and a cup ramen, then headed to the register.

The clerk had been staring blankly at me the whole time. When I set my items down, he lifted the barcode scanner with trembling hands.

“O-oh, today you're… having ramen too.”

His voice was tight with nerves as he made small talk. Since this was the closest convenience store to the studio, Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol must have come often. But why was he so scared?

“Ah, yes.”

I had no idea what she usually bought, so that was all I could manage.

“Th-three thousand seven hundred won.”

“Okay.”

I held out the card. The clerk fumbled through the payment. And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠just as I was about to turn with my food—

“Um, excuse me! From the first moment I saw you, you've been my complete ideal type…! Could I maybe get your number?!”

My face twisted before I could stop it. Me—who had never once received a confession from a woman—was now being confessed to by a man? There was a limit to how far you could take a joke… Ah, I really could not stand this. I couldn't exactly start swearing at the clerk either, so—

“No, thank you.”

I answered flatly, left his deflated sigh behind me, and walked out of the store.

“Ugh.”

Just thinking about it again gave me chills. Well… strictly speaking, the clerk had confessed to Jeong Eun-gyeol, not to me. But the person who actually received the confession was still me, wasn't it? …Ugh. A memory I wanted to erase as fast as possible. Shuddering, I hurried back to Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol's studio.

Inside, I boiled water in the electric kettle and poured it over the ramen.

Slurp.

Mm. The flavor was reliably consistent. …But after one cup of ramen, I was already full? I didn't think I could manage the triangle kimbap. Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol must have been quite the light eater. Well… good fuel efficiency wasn't a bad thing, I supposed?

Stomach filled, it was time to continue worrying about practical survival. I put the kimbap in the fridge and sat down at the computer chair.

Alright… How was I going to stay alive from here on? The best option was still selling the VTuber gear on the secondhand market. I could check the going rates easily enough; since Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol had a purchase record of about 5.2 million won, researching the prices would be even simpler. Hmm. It would help if the original boxes were still around. Having the boxes or not can change the resale ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠price quite a bit…

I searched the studio high and low. In the end I found them—various boxes on top of the wardrobe and under the bed. And under the bed I also came across something unexpected… A small mint-colored notebook in my hand. A diary?

I opened it without thinking… and immediately closed it again. It was a journal. Looking at it felt wrong. Hmm… but reading it might let me understand Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol far better. After a brief tightrope walk between guilt and curiosity, I decided to read it.

Hmm. Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol had been laboring under a serious misunderstanding. The clerk hadn't been afraid of her—he had been embarrassed. I kept reading. From then on she continued to tear down her own appearance. She had been asked for her number fairly often, yet she always dismissed it as a dare or people mocking her for sport. Her complex about her looks must have been severe…

I looked at the vanity mirror. Yes, her features were a little sharp, but her beauty was so dazzling it almost hurt the eyes. What on earth had planted an appearance complex in someone like this?

I closed the diary. The last entry was dated yesterday. Judging by the overflowing enthusiasm, I could set aside the uneasy suspicion that Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol had made some terrible choice that caused me to wake up in this body.

Still—an appearance complex. For someone with Miss Jeong Eun-gyeol's looks to feel that way was clearly not normal. There must have been some trigger. I didn't know what it was, but the reason her phone contacts were completely empty was probably that complex. The clothes in the wardrobe reeked of mothballs; she had barely worn any of them. My guess was that she had watched VTubers while living as a complete shut-in. And then she had made her own big decision: to make contact with the world, even if only indirectly—through the form of a VTuber. For that, she had invested every last won she owned.

Now that I understood why she had bought the gear, the idea of flipping it on the secondhand market felt a lot harder. I looked back and forth between the boxes scattered across the floor and the VTuber equipment installed on the computer, and let out a long sigh.

What the hell was I supposed to do with all this?