I Became an Angel
“Brother, do you believe in the Way?”
The moment that voice suddenly rang out while he was walking down the street, Lee Harang—already in a foul mood—answered as if he’d stumbled onto just the right target.
“Yeah, I do. The Way means TS, right?”
What era was this in, anyway? Who was still using that “Do you know the Way” line?
He decided to blow off some stress by pretending to be a lunatic and messing with a cult scammer.
No, not pretending—at this rate, he really might be a lunatic.
He looked terrifying.
He gave off a suspicious vibe.
That alone was enough to land him in a situation where he was being treated like a sex offender for something he hadn’t even done, and now he was running to the police station to clear his name.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do about being born with this face?”
Lee Harang knew it better than anyone.
His face looked exactly like a criminal’s.
Because of that, he’d suffered every kind of unfair nonsense imaginable since childhood.
Whenever something got stolen in class, he was the first one accused. Being a delinquent was practically a given, and later on people even tried to pin gang-related crimes on him.
It was happening again now.
He’d gotten a call out of nowhere from the police, only to be treated like a sex offender.
Someone had reported a peeping tom at the women’s restroom, and when they checked the CCTV, there he was, caught on camera walking past.
It was so absurd, so ridiculous, that he’d strongly insisted he had nothing to do with it.
“If you’re innocent, then just stay calm.”
That was the sort of crap the police said to him.
As if physiognomy were science.
As if their tone said they already knew he was the culprit for sure.
Fuming, Lee Harang had immediately stormed toward the police station, determined to shove his face right in front of the officer who made the call and have it out with them.
And then, just when he was so angry his skull felt like it would split and he was on the verge of tears from the injustice of it all, a cultist happened to speak to him.
Grinning like he’d just caught a fish, Lee Harang grabbed the scammer and launched into a sermon about the TS Church he’d once seen online and decided to believe in on a whim.
“Do you understand? If you want to be reborn in the next life as a beautiful little girl like that, you have to believe in the TS Church.”
“T-thank you for your words. I’m actually in a hurry, so….”
“Hey, where do you think you’re going? I’m not done talking! You gonna believe in the TS Church or what?!”
“Eep—!”
As Lee Harang, who looked like he’d definitely used a sashimi knife or two in a dark alley somewhere, marched forward huffing and puffing, the cultist turned and ran for his life.
A chase began naturally, as if the whole thing had been scripted.
“Let’s believe in the TS Church together and be saved!”
You weren’t at the level where plastic surgery would fix anything. The only answer was to be born again.
Just like someone had once said in the past, if he was going to be reborn, Lee Harang sincerely hoped it would be as a girl—through the TS Church, of all things.
Then he wouldn’t have to keep getting falsely accused of being a sex offender, and people wouldn’t just snort at his explanations no matter how hard he tried to defend himself.
And that wasn’t all.
He’d be able to live easily, leaning on a gorgeous face.
When he thought about all the hardships he’d endured in life because of his brutal-looking face—hardships other people never even had to face—he really did want to be reborn as a beautiful girl in the next life and get reimbursed for everything.
“W-wait—TS Chur… huff, mangaa!”
It was a fierce chase.
He was right on the cultist’s heels.
Beeeeep—!
“Ghk?”
The instant he heard a horn, Lee Harang was sent flying through the air by a violent impact.
A truck that had suddenly burst out from the sloped alley slammed into him head-on.
He was struck, lifted into the air for about three seconds, and then rolled across the pavement.
The impact was so severe it was a miracle he hadn’t died instantly, but that was as far as the miracle went.
He couldn’t even twitch a finger, and both his vision and hearing were blurred and waterlogged, as though fog had settled over them.
Feeling his whole body rapidly go cold, Lee Harang died like that.
“Damn…”
His situation was so unfair that tears slipped down his cheeks.
Born with a fierce, sinister-looking face, how much misery had he been forced to endure?
He’d held on by telling himself there’d be good days eventually, and this was how it ended.
Not only had he been falsely accused of being a sex offender, but he’d been hit by a truck while running off to explain himself.
It was one thing to say he’d gone too far picking a fight with a cult scammer, but wasn’t dying for it a bit much?
“This… this is way too unfair, isn’t it?”
He came to hate the heavens that had given him such a fate, and he resented God himself.
If there really was a God or a heaven or whatever, and if they had even a shred of conscience, then if there was going to be a next life—
“Repay me—”
Thinking he ought to be compensated for all his hardship, Lee Harang closed the eyes he didn’t want to close.
His eyelids felt so heavy it was like he’d pulled an all-nighter for thirty hours straight, and he couldn’t resist them any longer.
And then Lee Harang….
“This is me? This gorgeous girl?”
He was born again.
───────────────
“Am I dreaming?”
Staring dumbly into a mirror, Lee Harang pinched his cheek.
“Ow!”
His cheek was so soft it felt like it might leave a mark on his fingers.
The moment he pinched it, a sharp sting shot through him.
He’d done it hard on purpose, thinking of the rough skin from his previous life—the kind of face that looked like it would wear down asphalt if you rubbed it against the pavement.
He’d misjudged the force, and now a little pinch mark was left on his cheek.
In the mirror, the short-haired angel with tears welling in her eyes kept rubbing the spot tenderly.
That… is me?
This was less self-hatred than the birth of something even worse: narcissism, the kind he’d never even had a trace of before.
Looking at his reflection, Lee Harang reached out with shaky fingertips and traced his own face, his expression dazed and strangely euphoric.
He still couldn’t believe this was real, so he touched himself again just to make sure.
“I was sure I was dead for good….”
No, he had died, hadn’t he?
The memory of his death was still vivid, along with the unmistakable touch of it.
He reflexively covered his mouth and swallowed down the wave of nausea rising in his throat.
No question about it.
Lee Harang had died.
But death hadn’t been the end.
Rather, that death had become the trigger that allowed him to begin a new life.
And as a beautiful angel like this!
“…Good call, believing in the TS Church.”
Lee Harang muttered foolishly, then started grinning like an idiot.
Only now was he beginning to accept the miraculous situation that had happened to him.
I really got my compensation.
All the hellish suffering from his previous life—it had all been for this moment.
…Honestly, maybe not, but if he thought of it that way, it was at least some comfort to offer his past self.
He’d been born with a criminal’s face, falsely accused of being a sex offender, and died in a traffic accident while running to protest it.
He had to at least think of it as labor put in for this moment, or his former self would seem far too pitiful.
“May you rest in peace.”
Clasping his hands and praying for himself, Lee Harang started searching the room.
He’d thought he was dead, opened his eyes, and found himself in an unfamiliar room with an unfamiliar face.
For now, he knew he’d died and come back to life, and he knew he’d become a girl—though whether it was really thanks to the TS Church, he had no idea.
The problem was that beyond that, he knew nothing at all.
“There’s a wallet….”
To figure out exactly what kind of person he’d become, he checked the ID.
“The name’s the same?”
Lee Harang.
Twenty-two years old.
A part-timer, though in a different line of work.
Seeing that even the age matched, he widened his eyes.
“What is this, some kind of parallel world?”
The more he learned, the more intrigued he became.
Looking a little further, he found a diary inside a drawer.
When he opened it, it was full of what looked like journal entries.
Lines packed with complaints, grievances, sadness, and more.
As he read them one by one, memories left in his body gradually began to surface.
“Looks like he was an orphan too. His life was similar to mine. So this really is a parallel world or something?”
It was fascinating.
But what was there not to accept, when he’d already died and come back to life?
“An orphan, so military service was automatically waived just like in my old life. …Military service?”
Feeling a sudden, intense wrongness, Lee Harang stopped reading the diary on the floor and shot to his feet.
Then, without a hint of hesitation, he yanked down his pants.
The moment he saw the thing boldly asserting its presence, his jaw dropped.
“Why are you down there?”
So that’s why it had felt so solid down there.
There was clearly a larger Moby Dick than the one from his previous life resting there.
“I… I’m not a girl? With this face, and I’m not a beautiful girl?”
But then why were these clothes women’s clothes?
With a cautious heart, he examined “that place,” and thankfully—if one could call it that—there was no axe mark.
It wasn’t some kind of intersex body. He really was male.
Judging from the diary and the memories that surfaced, it wasn’t as if he’d transitioned or anything. He’d been like this from birth.
So the Lee Harang here had probably struggled over that.
That face that wasn’t masculine at all.
All the hardships that came with it.
He’d had trouble even using public restrooms; as a child, people bullied him by calling him a girl, and once he grew up, women still didn’t treat him as a proper man.
No, it went beyond not being treated like a man. Some people even felt jealousy and hatred toward the prettier Lee Harang and actively bullied him because he was more beautiful than they were.
So—
“He killed himself.”
Only now did Lee Harang notice the bottle of pills sitting by the bedside, and he muttered bitterly to himself.
Even though their circumstances were different, he couldn’t help feeling a kinship with someone who’d suffered because of their looks and then died in an accident, just like he had.
So having something can be a hardship too, huh.
Honestly, Lee Harang could sympathize with his counterpart in this parallel world, but he couldn’t really understand him.
A small, beautiful boy who could make women jealous.
In Japanese, an otokonoko.
In Korean, a “lady boy.”
In English, a tomboy.
He couldn’t understand how someone blessed with that kind of face had lived such a difficult life.
Beauty so striking it made women jealous?
A face so beautiful that donors mistook him for a girl and sent women’s clothes?
Wow… why not just enjoy it?
With that kind of uniqueness, why not become a celebrity or something? Why go through all that?
Because his looks had been mocked since he was little, and it had become a complex?
Ha. Meanwhile, some people would try to report you as a wanted criminal just for walking by!
Pouting as he grumbled, Lee Harang suddenly saw his reflection in the mirror and froze.
“Wow, even when you’re angry, you’re cute and gorgeous.”
Then, utterly smitten by his own face, he broke into a silly grin all over again.
He really couldn’t understand it.
All he felt looking at this pretty face was: I like it.
But then that very evening, Lee Harang came to understand the hardships of an otokonoko.
“U-um… I really like your style. Could I get your number…?”
Sir, please don’t do this while I’m working.
“Where do you think you’re sticking that dick, you bastard? Get the hell out of here right now—!”