The ID Card

I stood in front of the mirror a little longer, but nothing changed. My hair was still pure white and long. My voice was thin and fragile, and the body under the T-shirt was nothing like yesterday’s.

No matter how I looked at it, this didn’t seem to be a dream.

“I really turned into a girl.”

Saying it out loud made it feel a little more real. I looked once more at the face in the mirror, then left the bathroom. I had no idea what I was supposed to do right now, but I couldn’t stand there staring at my reflection forever.

It was so absurd that a laugh slipped out of me. I went back to the bed, picked up my phone, and the moment I checked the notifications, my expression hardened.

Comment alerts from the Cheongram Gallery, and a stack of messages piled up in the group chat. Above all of that, three missed calls.

After the CSAT ended yesterday, we’d only talked by text. If I picked up now, what exactly would happen…

“Uh, Mom?”

No. Anyone who heard me would know it was a girl’s voice. This wasn’t the sort of thing I could bluff off as a cold. I sounded like a completely different person.

Right then, the phone started ringing again.

I stared at the ringing screen for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a while, then pressed decline and sent a text right away.

The lie didn’t even come with much guilt. How was I supposed to explain something I didn’t understand myself? After a moment’s hesitation, I sent a single heart.

There was a message from my father, too—if I needed anything while filling out applications, I should tell him anytime. I answered that one the way I always did. Thank you. As long as we were talking by text, there was no problem at all.

“Haa… what am I supposed to do?”

I set the phone down and picked up the wallet I’d tossed beside the desk. I took out my ID.

“…Huh?”

Inside the ID was a girl I’d never seen before. No—more precisely, it was the face I’d been looking at in the mirror just moments ago. Pure white hair, and a small, pretty face. The girl in the photo was staring straight ahead with a face identical to mine.

“When was this picture even taken?”

There was no way I remembered it. This ID had definitely been in my wallet right up through the CSAT yesterday. I’d even shown it to the proctor inside the exam hall myself, and the photo on it then had unmistakably been my face. A boy’s face.

With a trembling hand, I checked the resident registration number. The front digits were the same. The first digit of the back half was not.

4.

The number that meant female. The name, the address, and the issue date were just as I remembered, but the photo and the sex had been rewritten to match who I was now.

“So it wasn’t only my body that changed…”

In case it was nothing but a fake ID altered on the outside, I decided to try phone identity verification. I entered my name and the changed resident registration number, then requested authentication. A moment later, a text arrived.

I entered the number from the text.

“It went through normally…”

So at least it wasn’t only the ID that had changed. My sex, as registered with the state, had itself become female. Confirming that didn’t put me at ease. If anything, it was stranger. Turning into a girl was already impossible to explain, and now even the records on file with the government had changed overnight. I couldn’t begin to guess how.

Still, at least I wouldn’t be stuck indoors because of my ID. Maybe I ought to count that as a relief. Handing identification over at a bank or a hospital shouldn’t be a problem now, and once I got into college I wouldn’t have to worry about making a student ID either…

Wait. Did that mean the people around me had their memories changed, too? Until yesterday Mom had known me as her son, and my friends had obviously known me as a guy. Had their memories been rewritten the same way the ID had…? If so, I had no sense of what had become of the memories that had only been possible because I’d originally been male.

I fiddled with the ID for a while, then slipped it back into my wallet.

“Well. There’s nothing I can do about it anyway.”

The conclusion was simple. Today, I do nothing. If the ID had already changed to match how I looked now, then at least I didn’t have to worry about submitting applications or registering for college. I didn’t need to check yet what had happened to everyone else’s memories, either. I’d been living apart from my parents to begin with, and my younger sibling was too buried in preparing for next year’s CSAT to notice much of anything. If my friends asked to meet, I could just say I was tired.

I’d always liked staying home anyway. A few more days without leaving my room, and no one would think it strange. No—right after the CSAT, maybe ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even a few weeks would pass without comment.

Is this it? Simpler than I thought.

The moment I settled on that, I was suddenly hungry. Maybe because I’d fallen asleep last night without a proper dinner. I opened a delivery app and ordered gyudon from the place I always ate at, and I didn’t forget the request.

“…Should I shower before I eat?”

I got up from the bed and headed for the bathroom again.

Even after I turned the shower on, I stared at the ceiling for a long time. In front of me was the naked body of a girl I was seeing for the first time in my life. And it was mine.

I couldn’t bring myself to look down. Even the way the water ran along those unfamiliar curves felt awkward. My head knew that girl was me… but looking at her as if it were nothing was too much to ask.

Even after ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I somehow started washing, just touching my own body was an ordeal. My arms and shoulders were fine, but every time my hand brushed my chest I flinched without meaning to. It was strange, feeling an unfamiliar sensation in my palm and in my body at the same time. Not that I could wash everything except there.

…Farther down was worse. I knew I ought to check how it had changed. I still didn’t have the courage to look properly. I dropped my gaze and looked away again and again, and in the end I squeezed my eyes shut and washed in a rush.

The trouble didn’t end once I was clean, either. No matter how long I stood there with the hair dryer, my hair refused to dry. Eventually my arm started to ache, and I left the bathroom with it only about half dry.

“Washing up is stupidly hard…”

Come to think of it, clothes were a problem too. When I opened the closet, there were clothes hanging there that hadn’t existed until yesterday. The hoodies and short-sleeve tees were familiar, but mixed in beside them were a few skirts and dresses.

“Even the closet got hit by a reality rewrite.”

They were pretty. The way I looked now, they’d probably suit me well enough. …I still didn’t want to wear them yet.

I was a perfectly normal guy.

In the end I picked out the gray hoodie and black shorts that looked the most familiar, and put them on.

Ding.

The delivery alert went off. I didn’t open the door right away. I checked the entryway camera first, and there was the driver stepping into the elevator. Only after I watched the floor number on the screen tick downward did I carefully open the front door.

The hallway was, of course, empty. I grabbed the bag and hurried back inside.

“Nom.”

While I ate the gyudon, I checked the messages on my phone. My friends were going on about the CSAT being over and asking when we were going to hang out, and before long someone suggested everyone hit a PC café today.

…I can’t go like this.

I made some excuse about not being able to get out of bed and turned the phone off. It wasn’t a complete lie. I really didn’t want to go outside.

All of a sudden I wanted to use the computer. I cleared away what I’d eaten, went into my room, and turned it on.

Whirr.

The monitor brightened with the familiar boot sound.

…Same as yesterday.

The computer was the same, and the account was the same. Sayu was still logged in at the top right of the browser. When I opened the Cheongram Gallery, the comments on the post I’d written yesterday had grown overnight.

The hand that had been tapping the keyboard paused.

Thinking about it, whether I’d been a guy until yesterday or a girl starting today didn’t matter at all on the gallery. Nobody there knew my sex anyway. When I wrote something, that was Sayu.

Taktak. Taktak.

I tapped out a few more comments. Some people had dragged in the predicted math cutoffs just to argue, and others were already whining that they didn’t want to go sit the essay exam. It was the same scenery I’d watched until I was sick of it before falling asleep yesterday. And yet ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it was comfortable to a strange degree. Out in the real world, everything had changed overnight. In here, nothing had changed at all.

“Haaam…”

I hit refresh, and new posts came up.

There was no reason to hesitate. The moment I commented that I’d join too, a reply landed almost at once.

When I opened my gallery log, a single secret note was waiting in the guestbook.

Click.

I set the cursor on the link and pressed it.