Convenience Store
For a convenience-store clerk on the night shift, two in the morning was the hour with the least to do. The stock had been put away long ago, and it had been twenty minutes since the last customer.
Seated behind the register, phone in hand, the part-timer looked up at the sound of the door.
Ding.
The first thing that caught the eye was the hair. White as snow. For a second it looked dyed, but the color ran clean all the way to the roots, without a single darker smudge. Straight hair, well past the waist, spilled down over a gray hoodie.
Then the face came into view.
"......She's pretty."
A plain hoodie with nothing on it, slippers on her feet, walking into a convenience store before dawn — and still she was striking enough that it was hard to look away. From the clothes alone, she might have just thrown something on and stepped out of the apartment building across the street. The face was the problem. A celebrity? A streamer? If not that, maybe someone on the way home from a cosplay.
While the part-timer privately guessed at who she was, the girl went up to the drink fridge. She crouched, pulled out a carton of strawberry milk, studied it for a long moment, and put it back. Then a chocolate milk. That one got the same brief hesitation before it went back on the shelf too. Strawberry again. Chocolate again. She ran through the routine nearly five times.
"......What is she doing?"
The girl didn't seem to notice, even slightly, that she was being watched.
I had come to the convenience store because I wanted cup ramen. More precisely, sometime past two in the morning a craving for a late-night snack had hit out of nowhere. Ordering delivery felt ridiculous when the store was right in front of the apartment, so I agonized over it for a long while. Go, or don't. I stood at the front door alone for nearly ten minutes.
If I opened that door and stepped out, it would be the first time I left the house since becoming a girl. I knew perfectly well that nobody was going to eat me. Korea hadn't suddenly turned into a danger zone just because I was a woman now. And still I was a little scared — what was I supposed to do about that? What if someone talked to me? What if they looked at this face and stared like something was off? What if, worse, I ran into someone I knew?
I worried my way through all of it, and then one fact occurred to me. It was two in the morning. Who was I going to meet, walking to the convenience store in front of the complex at this hour?
To go out, I pulled a gray hoodie over my head and put on black pants. I fretted over what to do with my hair and, in the end, left it down. I took my slippers from the shoe cabinet, put them on, and opened the door.
"It's chilly......"
I pressed the elevator button, then pointlessly drew my hair forward to hide the sides of my face.
Ding— The elevator arrived and the doors opened. Nobody inside. Good. I stepped in and looked at the mirror on the wall: snow-white hair under a gray hood pulled low, black pants, slippers.
"I look suspicious......"
I muttered it under my breath. The voice was still ridiculously girlish.
Ding— The elevator stopped on the first floor. Out in the lobby, there was someone in the security office. A sideways glance told me the guard was only staring at his monitors, so I ducked my head for no good reason and hurried past. Thankfully, no voice called after me.
I was just breathing out in relief when I took one step beyond the automatic doors, and cold air slapped my face.
"Hah. Colder than I thought."
Right — it was winter now. I'd been shut up inside ever since my body changed, and I'd completely forgotten. I tugged the hood strings to cover a little more of my face and walked toward the store. Every time the wind blew, the long hair stuck to my cheeks, and then a single strand got into my mouth.
"Ack......"
I stopped and pulled it out with my fingers. Long hair really was a nuisance. Pretty was nice. Keeping it that way took far too much work.
The street was almost empty. One taxi passed on the road, and somewhere far off a delivery scooter buzzed. The convenience store sat just across from the main gate of the apartment complex. I hadn't passed a single person on the way. It was nothing. The nerves from a few minutes ago felt foolish.
I stood in front of the automatic door and the sensor picked me up.
Ding.
I headed for the cup-ramen corner and dropped one into the basket, then a chocolate bar and a bag of potato chips. After a triangular kimbap, I went to the drink fridge. That was where the dilemma started. Strawberry milk, or chocolate milk? I reached for the strawberry and the chocolate caught my eye. I picked up the chocolate and immediately missed the strawberry. So it was strawberry after all...... I was still trading the two back and forth when it hit me. Couldn't I just buy both? Strawberry milk and chocolate milk went into the basket side by side.
"This should be enough."
On the way to the register I stopped in the household-goods aisle. Three black hair ties were packed together as a set. I liked these much more than the colorful ones I'd seen around the house. I could use them too, couldn't I? The ties went into the basket. Right beside them hung small black snap clips. I thought I might need those as well, though I wasn't exactly sure what they were for. Those went in too.
I set the basket on the counter, and the part-timer looked at me. She was a woman who looked a few years older than I was. Our eyes met only for a moment. She soon started lifting the items one by one and scanning the barcodes. Beep. Beep. Beep. I was nervous for no reason. Thinking about it, this was essentially the first time I had faced someone directly since becoming a girl. I'd asked for every delivery to be left at the door.
"Do you need a bag?"
"......Yes. One, please."
That clear voice rang through the quiet store. The part-timer's hand paused for the briefest instant. Was my voice weird? She took out a bag as if nothing had happened.
"That'll be 14,900 won."
I inserted my card. A short approval tone sounded, and the payment was done.
"Thank you."
"Sure. Have a good night."
I was about to turn toward the automatic door when the part-timer called after me.
"Um......"
An ID check? No. I hadn't even bought alcohol.
"Your hair is really pretty."
"......Oh."
Not what I had expected at all.
"Th-thank you."
Bag in hand, I stepped outside, and the automatic door shut behind me. Only after a few steps did the corner of my mouth lift a little. What was this. I felt good. I stole a glance at myself in the store window: a white-haired girl in a hoodie and slippers, holding a convenience-store bag. She did stand out. Well, yeah. I was kind of pretty, wasn't I?
I had completely forgotten that, only a moment ago, I'd been worried about people staring. I even thought it might be all right to run into one more person. The moment I thought it, two figures came walking from the other end of the alley. Two solidly built adult men. I dropped my gaze at once. Cancel that. I don't want to meet anyone. I tightened my grip on the bag and walked fast toward the apartment. I drew close to them and passed straight by.
I was just relaxing into the fact that nothing had happened when a low voice came from behind.
"Damn, did you see that?"
"Obviously. She was fucking pretty."
I pretended I hadn't heard. Only my steps got a little quicker. I came into the apartment lobby and got on the elevator, and it occurred to me that I might try the hair ties I'd just bought. I fished one out of the bag and looped it over my wrist. I tried to gather my hair into one handful, but I couldn't even get a proper hold on it.
"How do you even tie this......"
Buying a hair tie didn't mean I suddenly knew how to use one. I pulled out my phone, typed how to tie up long hair into the search bar, and a pile of videos came up.
"So this is a search I live to see."
That was when the elevator doors opened. I went inside, shut the front door, and the tension let go all at once.
"Haa......"
I set the bag on the table and pulled off the hood, and static-charged hair plastered itself all over my face.
"Agh."
I peeled it away with my hands as best I could. While I poured water into the cup ramen and waited, I checked my phone. A DiscoChat DM from Star was waiting.
I framed a photo so the cup ramen, the strawberry milk, and the chocolate milk all showed just enough, and sent it. A reply came at once.
I peeled back the lid of the ramen and typed a reply.
I looked at that last message for a moment, then closed the DM. There wasn't really anything to say.
Once the ramen was gone, the hair tie I'd left on the table caught my eye again. I pushed the empty cup aside and played the video I'd found earlier. Gather the hair in one hand. Open the tie with the other. Through once, twist, through again.
"This doesn't look like much."
I tried to gather my hair behind my back the way the video showed, and there was more of it than I'd thought. I barely got it together and hooked the tie on, and the moment I tried to pull the hair through, half of what I was holding slipped free.
"Harder than it looks."
I went to the bathroom and faced the mirror. A girl with her hair in complete disarray looked back.
......A disaster. I'd have to undo it and start over. In the end, after nearly ten minutes of wrestling with it, something halfway presentable finally emerged.
"Oh."
With my hair tied up, the nape of my neck was left bare. Just not having hair against my back and shoulders felt much better. I stepped in front of the bathroom mirror and turned to the side.
"Pretty even tied up."
It was funny, standing at a mirror and turning this way and that as a girl with her hair tied back. Not long ago I had been a guy. Now I was buying hair ties at a convenience store, searching how to use them, and checking the mirror to see if I'd done it right. People adapted faster than I'd thought.
Still wearing the tie, I cleared away the empty cup. Food I hadn't opened yet remained on the table. That could wait until tomorrow. Heading back to my room, I glanced once toward the entryway. Until a little while ago, stepping beyond that door had felt impossibly hard. I'd gone and come back, and nothing had happened. Maybe I didn't have to stay inside forever. Should I try going out once in the daytime tomorrow? A café, at least — I could manage that alone, couldn't I? Then I remembered how many more people there would be in the daytime.
"......Maybe not."
For now, I liked the small hours.
Back in my room, I sat down in the computer chair. One more message from Star was waiting on DiscoChat.
I set my hands on the keyboard to answer, then stalled, because I couldn't think of what to say. Saying no would have been simple enough. It wasn't that I didn't want to. Even so, I couldn't promise a convenience-store run with someone whose face I didn't even know. In the end I didn't reply this time either. I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed.
Lying in bed, just before sleep, I checked DiscoChat one last time.
I read that line once more, turned the phone off, and fell asleep.