An Unfortunate Household — Han Sein
"One last time. Really, the last time."
A glance at the clock told me it was nowhere near morning. Four in the afternoon — and still this cold. An awkward hour. I needed to finish the housework before she got off work, and I wanted a little time to sort through my thoughts.
[Yes.]
"Remaining time? How does that go up?"
A hologram rose into the air, and I nodded. The explanation ran long, but it wasn't hard to follow. Put simply: say I earned five points. Then I would receive five points — and she would receive five points as well. The currencies themselves were different to begin with. Anyway, the moment you obtained WP, your remaining time increased in proportion to the score. A kind of passive skill, that was the feeling. At least I wouldn't be spending my own money to buy back my own lifespan. That much was a relief, if you could call it one. There was a shop, too, apparently — but I had already taken in too much information at once, so I decided to look later.
First, I took a slow look around the tiny house. Even a casual survey left only one impression: a wretched little corner of a place. A semi-basement. A bathroom, a kitchen, and a single space pretending to be a living room. No bedroom. Was this really somewhere a person lived?
It wasn't messy. Just bare, and old. Black mold bloomed along the wallpaper. The kitchen wall had been tiled like a bathroom, and several of the tiles had come loose and fallen away.
Han Sein. That was my name — and the name of the boy who had been living in this world. Coincidence or not, our personalities were similar, too. If I had been made more feminine, I supposed this was roughly what it would feel like. Introverted, but considerate. And a home environment that left no choice but to grow timid on top of it. The place itself was enough to make you sigh. Put generously, he was the sort who never caused anyone trouble. Put unkindly, he was even more of a shut-in than that. I hadn't been like that in my past life… at least not before I became an adult.
"Ah—!"
I hurried to the bathroom. There was something I needed to check. After the knowledge of this world had been poured into me, the next thing that rose to mind was the body. No wonder everything had felt so tall.
In the mirror stood a man who looked almost like a woman. Height… a hundred and fifty-four? Even for a student who hadn't finished growing, that was far too small. Small even by the average of this reversed world.
"Ah. Aah. Ahem. Hmm…"
A soft, unbroken voice rang through the bathroom. By any standard of beauty, he was closer to a pretty boy than a rough, masculine man. No — pretty enough that you could have believed he was a girl. The black hair was typical of a Korean. But one color sat strangely among the rest. "Sat" was the right word for it. The crystal that reflected my face in the glass — the irises were red. Awkward, or unsettling; either description fit. An already timid personality had almost certainly grown worse because of them. Was something like that even possible in reality? I didn't know. This was an unreal world to begin with; fretting over it was almost funny.
The reason it had happened was almost absurd. You had to go a long way back. Han Sein's mother had been a domestic abuser. You know the type — the father who drinks and beats his wife and children. The kind of person you see on the news. That was Han Sein's mother. She had gone into hiding now, whether over the debt or something else. The reason I was bringing this up at all was that Han Sein's eyes had not always been red.
Kindergarten age, maybe. His mother had been drinking, and she hit him. The face of a child who had only just started learning to read — she struck it with her open palm. This was a reversed world. An adult woman's strength was formidable. The blow landed on his face, damaged the eye, and by the time they reached a hospital it was already too late. Miracle or not, his vision was fine. Only the red irises remained as a scar.
I let out a slow breath. Whether it was the original Han Sein's memories, or simply the heavy feeling of a third party looking on, I couldn't say for certain — but the bitterness was unmistakable. Even here, you couldn't be happy, could you, Han Sein.
A woman rose naturally to mind. His father was dead; his mother had run. The only blood relative left, and his guardian: Han Seyeon. I was twenty now. The world was a little strange, but I was an adult all the same — and still a student who had to go to school. There were special circumstances involved, but that was the shape of it. My older sister, Han Seyeon, was twenty-three. Only three years between us, and yet long enough to make us student and guardian.
In this new world, I would have to live selfishly. I did not tell myself it was an unavoidable choice. Objectively, what I was going to do could be called evil — the shape of a villain — and I would take full responsibility for it. But I wasn't going to waste energy on exhausting fretting. The reality of having to survive was already spread out in front of me.
"Before that."
There was something I needed to confirm. I took off my pants — fleece-lined slacks I'd put on because the house was cold. Plain underwear showed underneath. I lowered them carefully and checked what was inside.
Relief. Knowing something in your head and seeing it with your own eyes are very different things. Fortunately, my junior was as solid as ever. Maybe it was because the roles of the world had been flipped, but the men of this world weren't particularly driven by sex.
I carefully pulled my pants the rest of the way off and headed for the living room. I thought about looking up porn on my phone, then decided against it. I had better material right here.
In a corner among the furniture, a small frame sat carefully placed. I picked it up. Small enough to fit in one hand, almost dainty. Han Seyeon was in it. Five years younger, and still she didn't look like a child. Taller and more developed than the women of my past life — the kind of figure you could mistake for a model's. The photo showed her on a competition floor, holding a trophy. She had been a boxing prospect. Features that resembled mine, but with a long ponytail and a full, ripe swell of breasts. Not small at all. It was only a photograph, but they clearly wouldn't fit in a single hand.
The moment itself was meaningful; the outfit was extremely revealing. Maybe from the sweat — her body looked damp, and the clinging sports bra and shorts had the visual of something out of a staged adult video. In a reversed world, clothes like that raised no controversy. To someone carrying memories of a past life, the photo was pure stimulation.
I wanted to sit, or lie down — but I walked slowly into the bathroom instead. There was a trash can, and I wanted to tuck myself a little further out of sight. The Han Sein of this world had never masturbated. He had wet dreams whether he wanted them or not; periods of hypersensitivity would arrive the way periods had in my past life. People said masturbation would fix it, but the men of this world seemed to find the act itself rather unpleasant.
Anyway. In the bathroom, I slowly lowered my underwear. I was healthy down there. They say the body follows the mind, and it was true — I was already fully hard. Large enough, relative to this body, that it didn't look small. Roughly fifteen centimeters, maybe.
I held the frame in my left hand and slowly closed my right around myself. Maybe because I had never done this in this body — every movement sent up a sharp enough pleasure that soft sounds slipped out of me. Just as my height and face had changed, the way I felt pleasure seemed to have changed too. Nothing like masturbation in my past life.
"Nnh… hah… hh…"
I set the frame down carefully. The urge to finish was already rising; it was getting dangerous. I needed a little more room. I tore off a length of toilet paper and let my eyes go back to the frame. Clothes glued to skin. Between those full breasts, nipples faintly raised against the sports bra — you didn't even have to look hard for them to catch the eye. We weren't even related by blood, not really. But I still carried the original memories, and a strange sense of taboo welled up from somewhere deep. The fact that I was lusting after the person who was my older sister, and getting myself off to it — a subtle, twisted pleasure rose with that thought.
The climax came quickly. This was masturbation with a clear goal. I aimed carefully at the paper and worked myself faster.
"Hnn…! Ha… haah. Haah…"
My breath caught, then broke into rough gasps. My cock twitched and spilled a thick white load. An enormous amount poured onto the paper. I had thought I was finishing hard, but it was nearly enough to splash onto my palm. The night-flower scent of it rose to my nose. It was mine, but I couldn't keep smelling it. I threw the paper into the trash. Good timing, I supposed — someone had just changed the bag, so the little bin held nothing but the tissue stained with cum.
I closed the bathroom door and slowly pulled my underwear back on. I still needed pants, but I decided to piss first and put them on after. In the meantime, I would finish the housework. Making dinner wouldn't hurt either. The cleaning was already in decent shape — he must have been used to the chores — so all that was left was the evening meal.
I opened the refrigerator and was greeted by a barren interior. Almost no ingredients. There was enough rice left that cooking a pot wouldn't be a problem, but meat was a luxury; only a few vegetables remained.
"Hah…"
My head throbbed. This household was desperately poor. The debt their gambling, drinking mother had left behind — three hundred million won, was it?
"Doenjang-guk… at least."
Enoki mushrooms, green onion. Looking at the potatoes left in an awkward quantity, soybean-paste stew was the obvious choice. Han Seyeon got home at six; the timing would roughly work. Recalling the skills I'd learned from Chef Baek, I started cooking.