Even If I Deny Reality

Even if I denied reality—

When I opened my eyes, my field of vision sat lower than usual. My already short stature felt even smaller somehow. Just to keep a normal line of sight, I had to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tilt my head up, and the inconvenience of it was starting to grate on me.

"What the hell."

Even my voice felt wrong. Low and unpleasant—the damp, hikikomori-adjacent tone people had always pinned on me—except the sound that came out of my throat was nothing like that at all.

"Eh… huh?!"

Emotion flooded up thick and fast. I hadn't known I could make a voice like that.

Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe this was just a particularly nasty nightmare.

"Don't fuck with me. Seriously."

A refined, powder-scented tone rang out—a pitch I had never once produced in twenty-three years of life. The disconnect hit me hard.

What is this? What the hell happened? What did I even do last night?

…I dug uncomfortably through my memories, but all that surfaced was the image of myself drinking alone. The bitter clarity of emptying soju glasses by myself was still vivid. After that, everything cut out.

There was no guilt yet—no sense that I'd done something unforgivable. Honestly, I probably hadn't committed any real crime.

So why was I stuck in this situation? Why this strange voice, this unfamiliar ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠viewpoint, these shoulders that felt nothing but heavy?

"…Ah, shit. What is this?"

No. It couldn't be. I couldn't possibly be the protagonist of some plot-hole-riddled nonsense. This had to be a dream, or a hallucination.

The weird lumps of fat that kept drifting into my peripheral vision tried to smash that belief to pieces, but I could just write them off as hallucinations and be done with it.

I'd been sitting around doing nothing but loafing lately, so I'd just put on weight. That was all. Parked in front of a computer all day, I'd probably developed a case of turtle-neck boobs.

That had to be it. There was no way something like this was real.

And even if it were real, there was no way it should be happening to me.

"This isn't right. For real."

This wasn't supposed to happen. Why me, of all people? Out of seven billion people on the planet—fifty million in this country alone—why the hell did it have to be me?

I don't want to live as a woman. The world was already getting less safe and harder to survive in. And now I was supposed to live as a girl all of a sudden?

Why? What is this? Am I supposed to sell my body or something?

If there's a god out there, please just give me an answer. Please.

But wait—what did I even look like now? If I'd become a woman and still turned out ugly, I was pretty sure my spirit would just snap clean in half.

Before I could sort through the riddle of questions still tangled in my head, I found myself standing in front of the mirror, eyes blown wide.

Another wave was about to crash over an already miserable day. I didn't dare hope for much, though. Even as a woman, I was sure I wouldn't look particularly good. Probably looked like I belonged on a women's rugby team.

If I'd turned into an ugly woman, what was I supposed to do now…? My already wretched life felt like it was about to plunge straight into the floor.

I was scared. Terrified. I couldn't find the courage to look in the mirror at all.

I took one deep breath and finally stepped up to it—but I still couldn't bring myself to look at the reflection. I simply didn't have the guts to face whatever I'd become.

"It'll be fine…"

I muttered the words in that awkward new voice. At last, unable to hold the fear any longer, I opened my tightly shut eyes.

"Holy shit…"

What swam into my bleary vision was a hair color so close to colorless it had no business existing in a country still rooted to its Confucian core. Hair white as first snow spilled down, trying to wrap around my waist.

Emerald eyes followed after it—and then there was the chest, swaying with even the slightest shift of my upper body, and I found I couldn't look away. I was face to face with my own transformation.

"Is this real…?"

…I'd become a woman. I'd cracked myself over the head with a bottle and woken up a beautiful girl. Just thinking about it made my skull hurt.

"Okay, but the clothes…"

Why did they feel so revealing?

A gray hoodie and dolphin shorts were doing their best to cover the places that shouldn't be seen—but even so, they couldn't hide the way my chest pushed out.

"In the first place."

I had no memory of buying clothes like these. There was no way I'd ever owned women's clothes.

"What the hell…"

It wasn't like some default starter item, either. The clothes I'd stripped off before falling asleep were still sprawled beside the bed—and yet here I was, wearing something I'd never seen before in my life.

It was bizarre. But that wasn't what really bothered me.

…Did I actually become a woman?

The figure in the mirror looked completely foreign. Even my voice came out high and cute, layered over with a tone that wasn't mine.

…I couldn't find a single trace of my old self in that reflection. The pathetic face I'd looked at my whole life had become a relic that no longer existed in this world.

How was I supposed to accept this?

"Fuck."

Even the rough language came out pretty. That, in its own way, was weirdly exciting.

Not that I had anything left to take care of those urges with.

…I was going to lose my mind. Was I supposed to be happy about this, or curse it?

"This is me…"

I pinched one of those snow-white cheeks for no good reason. It hurt. And why were my nails so long? One wrong move and I'd draw blood.

"Damn, she's gorgeous…"

I gave the long, gravity-obedient chest a tentative squeeze.

Something about it was… ticklish. Oddly firm. Not as soft as I'd expected…

Just grabbing at it didn't feel particularly good, either. More than anything, it was heavy. Pure hundred-percent fat mass, I guess.

What were these awakening pouches doing on a body this small?

"Ah…"

My shoulders genuinely started to ache. This fragile frame was not built to support something this size. A sudden fear wrapped around me.

Was I really going to have to live in this body for the rest of my life?

I wish this were a dream.

…Yeah, right. If it were a dream, I'd have woken up a long time ago. And at this point, stubbornly insisting it was a dream was starting to feel ridiculous on its own.

"…Wow."

As of yesterday, I'd been inventing every excuse in the book to trash-talk women—and now I'd become one. And not just any one. The face looking back at me was actually pretty decent. The minor problem was that I was the one who had to operate it.

What kind of prank was this supposed to be? And what about my legal identity now? Didn't these things usually just handle the paperwork for you?

No. The kind of bastards who'd pull a stunt like this probably weren't that considerate.

Where was my resident ID? Where the hell had I left my wallet when I passed out?

…Found it.

It was hanging precariously from the pocket of the pants still crumpled on the floor. In a rush, I flipped the wallet open and checked my ID.

Unfortunately, nothing on it had changed. A shabby male face was still stamped there. My current appearance was nowhere to be found on that card.

…I was so fucked. The only scrap of me left on that ID was the androgynous name "Han Seohyun." This little plastic rectangle could no longer prove who I was.

What the hell was I supposed to do now? I'd just become an illegal resident overnight. I'd stopped being a citizen of the country I'd lived in my entire life…?!

I'm screwed.

Properly, thoroughly screwed. What now? Rent was due next week. Utility bills. Oh, and I still needed to find a part-time job. Didn't I have an interview scheduled for this morning…?

"…Ah."

Why was everything going this way? Was it even possible to get a new identity issued? Becoming a woman in the first place was already a disaster—and showing up at this age to reissue an ID would look weird as hell. Fuck.

What do I do?

More pressingly: I was hungry. The day after drinking myself stupid, and my stomach was still growling. Normally I'd have braced for my guts to be completely wrecked. The fact that I had no hangover after pouring that much booze down my throat was probably the one stroke of luck I was getting.

…That was the new body, too, no doubt. I felt weirdly refreshed, like I'd been reborn.

But in place of the hangover, there was a different kind of wrongness. Something free-roaming and unpleasant circulating through me—a sensation I'd never felt before, like my blood was flowing the wrong way.

…I'd seen this on the Awakening boards.

If you suddenly felt like you were going to throw up and everything went nauseous, you were supposed to shout "Status Window" out loud. All those macro-spam posts about "signs of awakening" this and that—why were they popping into my head now, of all times? The same garbage posts I'd dismissed as trash, why now?

…No. I'd already turned into a woman. Awakening on top of that wouldn't even be strange.

"…Status Window."

A word I'd shouted before, just to endure a miserable life—a mysterious phenomenon that had never once answered me.

Except now, as if responding to my call, blue lettering swirled into existence in front of my face. The characters snapped into neat alignment and poured information into my stunned brain.

…A bizarre class name caught my eye. Not "mage"—magical girl. What kind of word was that?

"What…"

And right after it came a dense wall of skills.

…What am I even reading right now.

A magical girl? I'd finally gotten the awakening I'd been waiting for all this time—and my class was magical girl?

"Wow."

This was genuinely going to drive me insane. And why were there so many skills? Was this normal? Even so, it felt like way too many.

"One, two…"

Six of them. They'd really packed the skills in like a heaping, overstuffed bowl of rice just because I was a magical girl.

I tried to hide behind the irresponsible thought that things would work themselves out somehow. That, I realized, was the first step toward inviting disaster.

"What was the password again?"

The disaster began the moment I tried to unlock my smartphone. Face recognition didn't work. After wrestling with the little machine the second I woke up, the conclusion I reached was pure despair.

So I tried the passcode instead—and damn it, I'd set it so long ago that the numbers were fuzzy at best.

"Bullshit."

Just like that, I lost one of my dearest friends. A comrade I'd bonded with over years of sharing faces no one else should ever see—gone.

To unlock it, I needed some way to prove I was still "me." And right now, I had nothing of the sort.

"Should I just factory reset it?"

It wasn't like anyone was going to contact me anyway. To me, a smartphone had never been more than a tool for gallery-scrolling and jerking off. The second that hit me, I reset it without hesitation. A clean screen, wiped of everything, would greet me soon enough.

"Haa…"

But the problems waiting for me weren't limited to a phone.

"What do I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠do?"

I'd lost everything overnight. The filthy life I'd lived as Han Seohyun—my very identity—had vanished. I had, it seemed, become a woman. A girl with no way to prove who she was.

"…Haha."

I had no idea anymore. Maybe I should just look in the mirror again.

Yep. Chest still ridiculously huge. Height… hovering right around the edge of 150 centimeters, give or take.

Why put a chest this size on a body this small? My shoulders were already screaming… Sure, it looked good, but the second I thought about actually living like this, it was just a catastrophe. This wasn't an awakening anyone could celebrate.

"AAAAAARGH!"

I couldn't hold the frustration in and let out a raw scream.

Why the hell was I a woman? Fine—awakening was good. Being able to make money was good. I'd take that. But why was my class Magical Girl? And what even was Nejeri? Was that supposed to be my stage name or something?

…Why?

Why, damn it? What did I do wrong?? I was a healthy young man!!! As of yesterday I was a legal adult male who could drink just fine, thank you very much?

"What do you mean, magical girl?!"

Give me my life back. How am I supposed to live now?

"Please stop joking… for real…"

All I could do was accept this miracle I so badly wanted to reject. The fact that I'd awakened. And on top of that, the pitiful reality that I'd become a magical girl—I had to swallow it whole, exactly as it was.

…I didn't know anymore. Fine. Whatever. Let's just enjoy it.

Maybe I was just tired. I couldn't think straight. Honestly, none of this felt ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠real.

So I just…

Just stared at the stranger's face in the mirror, and repeated the same words like someone who'd already given up.

"…Haha."

Face is so pretty. My chest is, like, super big.