Unbelievable, But True
A day had passed at the hospital.
Well. A month and a day, was it?
I wouldn't know—they'd told me I'd simply been lying there for a full month.
So when could I finally be discharged? Were they really going to spend an entire month on nothing but tests? What was the point of all that useless fuss?
They'd as good as said there was no treatment. It was pointless. All of it was nothing more than an exercise in proving I was a woman.
"Eek."
"Good morning. How are you feeling?"
"I'm hungry…"
"I told you we have a physical exam today, remember?"
The nurse unnie showed up the moment the sun rose. I'd tossed and turned before finally falling asleep, so I woke up a little worn out—but I couldn't drift off again, so I just poked at the soft, doughy flesh of my forearm. I left my chest alone. Touching that only made me feel worse about myself.
"I get to eat once this is over, right? Think they'll have something like beef radish soup?"
"Oh, come on. You've been lying in bed for a month—of course it's rice gruel!"
"Ugh…"
Rice gruel? She didn't mean that baby-food porridge they feed infants, did she? Still… I at least wanted something I could chew.
The thought of eating pork cutlets with my brother kept rising unbidden. I wanted kimchi, too. I wanted to make a thick cutlet the way I used to and dip it in the sauce I made myself.
And if the meat was good enough, it tasted even better with just a pinch of salt.
"Let's go."
"Okay…"
With the nurse unnie supporting me, I settled into the wheelchair. The only other time I'd ever ridden one was for a disability-awareness activity at school. How had it come to this?
"Wait. But if I'm like this, how are they going to measure my height…?"
"Later~ You're not here for a few days, you know. You'll be staying at least another month."
"…Huh?"
No one had ever told me that. Seeing my brother was going to take a little longer than I'd hoped. It felt a bit childish to worry about it, but he was an adult—he wouldn't be going hungry, at least.
"Haa…"
"You did well~ There's still more we could do, but how about we take care of breakfast first?"
"That's… rice gruel, isn't it."
One spoon and one bowl. It looked truly unappetizing. If you said it had no taste, that would be accurate—but this stuff really had no taste. In short, it was the taste of nothing.
It didn't taste like anything, so calling it "tasteless" was fair—and somehow that made it sound even worse than ordinary bad food. It simply had no flavor at all.
"Sigh…"
"We're going to be seeing each other for at least another week. Why not try thinking of it as a little tastier?"
"Eck, no thanks. Can't I at least get porridge?"
I scooped up a spoonful. It felt exactly like ladling water into my mouth. Honestly… I wasn't even sure this could fill a stomach. I didn't want to eat it, but I forced it down anyway. I had to put something in me.
"Porridge's out, too. If you ate that now, you'd throw it right back up. Just listen to me and in three days at the latest you'll be able to handle porridge, and further down the line even a low-sodium meal will be no problem… so hang in there a little longer."
"Okay."
I didn't have any medical knowledge, and it wasn't as if the nurse unnie was scheming to keep me hospitalized longer, so I decided to trust her and go along with it.
Watching her stifle a quiet sigh, I felt a little sorry for her.
"Haa… You're the nicest patient I've ever had."
"Eh. Really?"
Even as I said it, I'd been half-convinced I was being a handful—but apparently my fussing barely ranked above a toddler's tantrum.
"Yes. Really!"
She sat down beside me and launched into story after story. Patients who snuck in instant noodles because they hated the gruel. Patients who flipped their trays. Patients who insisted they weren't sick and tried to run away…
They were all horror stories about nightmare patients, so I found myself thinking, Wow, people that crazy actually exist—though I also wondered whether she was even allowed to talk about her work like this.
"Haa… That felt good… Ah! I'm Choi Suhyun. We'll be seeing each other's faces for a whole month, so take care of me, okay? Jiwoo."
"Yes. Nice to meet you."
"Hm? Oho…"
While I was off on some pointless tangent about whatever the laws of hospitals might be, Suhyun let out a little sound of wonder, as if she'd spotted something fascinating.
"Is there something on my face?"
"Ah. Have you looked in a mirror yet? You're curious, right!"
I really did start to wonder if something was stuck to my face. There were no mirrors nearby, I couldn't move around, and I hadn't particularly cared what I looked like—but now that she'd brought it up, a little curiosity stirred.
"Well… I haven't, actually. I suppose I should see what I look like…"
"Then… may I show you?"
"Um… sure."
Suhyun pulled out her phone and angled the screen toward my face.
What would I look like—
"Ah."
"Well? First impressions of your own face?"
I lost the ability to speak. To cut to the chase: I was pretty. Extremely pretty.
The short, spiky hair that had once pointed at the sky now fell to my shoulders, and when I touched it, it slipped through my fingers like gleaming gold thread.
My once-small eyes had grown larger; double eyelids and thick lashes made the gaze look deeper, almost cold. My skin was as white as the first snow of winter.
There wasn't a single blemish to be found. In a way I looked pale, but it didn't read as sickly—more as if I'd always been this way, naturally.
How… just how?
"…I'm a woman."
"And a stunning beauty at that. When you smiled earlier, I genuinely thought you were an angel."
Even hearing something like that, I wasn't sure I was supposed to be happy about it. For now… I was a man… or was I a woman?
The sheer excellence of the face staring back at me triggered a full-blown case of cognitive dissonance. If I'd been ugly, I could have just covered my chest and pretended to be a guy. Looking like this… there was no hiding it.
Suhyun chatted about this and that a while longer, then said something had come up and left.
The lively room went hollow in an instant. I lay on the slanted hospital bed—neither fully reclined nor sitting up—and stared at nothing but air.
I could see the window trembling in the wind.
It still didn't feel real, but the green leaves had already turned red, and every so often a hard gust slammed into the glass and set it shaking. Nature was doing its best to show me that autumn had well and truly arrived.
I wanted to go home that very second and check whether my brother was eating properly, but I couldn't, so I just kept staring blankly out the useless window.
Time… crawled like hell. Only a single day had gone by.
It felt exactly like the day I'd enlisted.
People said it was better to get military service over with early, so I'd taken the fastest route available and signed up as a cook.
I'd taken the physical before graduation and practically fled into the army the moment I finished school. Not that anyone had been chasing me.
Well… and then after I got out, that so-called older sister of mine showed up out of nowhere, announced she was getting married, and somehow I ended up becoming friends with my brother-in-law…
Becoming friends with my brother-in-law wasn't the part I minded.
It was that the reason we'd gotten close was because of her.
We could have met under ordinary circumstances.
From the very first time we met, my brother-in-law and I had struck each other as somehow remarkable.
"Perfect."
I still couldn't get over how good it felt to be discharged from the military.
The world outside looked rich somehow, and watching people hurry this way and that toward their own purposes felt both alien and wonderful after so long. My steps were light.
Best of all, I never had to eat mess-hall food again.
Well… it had already been several months since I'd gotten out. My hair was fully civilian by now.
Even Maljong, whom I'd thought I'd never see again, had turned up once—and after that, I could barely remember when I'd even been in the service. The faces of my squadmates, my juniors, my seniors had all gone hazy. We never kept in touch, so of course I'd never run into any of them in civilian life.
—Sizzle!
I bought a bag of frozen fried shrimp and dumped them straight into a pan of hot oil. I still didn't understand why the army never served fried shrimp.
Homemade really was the best.
I fished out the golden, perfectly crisped shrimp and piled them on a plate.
"Whoa…"
The crunch hit first, and right behind it came the pure taste of the shrimp inside. Fresh, piping-hot fried food was playing in my mouth.
My tongue was having the time of its life. This was heaven.
I'd bought a mountain of them so I could gorge, and already half the bag was gone.
"Haa…"
I'd have to buy more later. Eat them with meals, snack on them when I was bored—that kind of thing.
—Ding-dong~
"Huh. Who's that."
Dad hadn't mentioned anyone coming over. On the intercom screen stood a man I didn't recognize no matter how hard I ransacked my memory.
"Who is it?"
My voice came through the speaker, and the man looked down at the camera.
Even this close to the lens, the proportions of his face barely changed—he was handsome enough to pass for a celebrity.
The lightly draped coat and black turtleneck suited him ridiculously well.
Those long, straight legs in slacks made me think for a second that he'd shown up in a full suit.
So… who exactly was this good-looking guy, and why had he come here?
"…Excuse me?"
Even through that grainy resolution, his features were sharp. How on earth had my sister managed to snag someone like him?
"Um… if you're looking for my father, he's not home right now."
It was Saturday. Dad was at work anyway. He'd be back in the evening.
"Oh. You really don't have to…"
So… was I supposed to call him my brother-in-law now?
My brother-in-law set a box down to the side, bowed his head toward the camera in greeting, and turned to leave. I just stood there, dumbfounded, watching him go.
Noona… no. Human Maljong. What the hell did you do?
…Ah. The basket.
I cracked the door open. A box sat beside it. He'd brought tangerines, since it was winter. Even at a glance they looked plump and high-quality.
Looks like this is all I'll be eating until spring.
"What's with the tangerines?"
"Some guy who says he's my brother-in-law stopped by."
"Well, well. These are something else."
We put the tangerines on a plate and shared them in the living room.
"They're good."
Dad nodded quietly as he said it. He wasn't much of a talker, but when he did express something, he meant it.
That was probably why we'd turned out all right. Mutants like my sister notwithstanding.
"So, was this brother-in-law fellow anything like her?"
Anything like her…?
"Not even close. He was so handsome and kind I started wondering what the hell Noona had done to land him."
If my brother-in-law's nature really was what I'd seen—if that was truly who he was… aigoo.
I felt a little sorry for him.
There was no way Maljong had spent those years she vanished off the face of the earth repenting and learning how to cook. Not a chance.
She'd shown up at the house without a word of warning and demanded we hand over a bankbook she'd stashed away. People like that don't turn over a new leaf.
"Mm… poor guy."
"Yeah. Tell me about it."
Figuring they'd probably be divorced before long, I got ready to head out.
"I'm off~"
"All right. Take care of it."
I was headed to the convenience store. Not to buy anything at those ridiculous prices—I was going in for a part-time shift.
I didn't really have any big dreams, and just holing up at home made me feel too self-conscious. So I'd taken a job at a place that was close to home, had low foot traffic, and was actively hiring.
The night air was pure winter. My breath fogged in front of me, and even in a thick coat the cold was vicious.
"Hello~"
"Yeah."
I swapped with someone who looked ready to collapse from sleep. The dull, half-swallowed reply was all the proof I needed. Now it would be my turn to get sleepy.
No customers, and time refused to move. I wandered the aisles looking for anything that needed restocking and found a few half-empty shelves. You're supposed to fill them before you leave, you know.
"Haa…"
Complaining wouldn't make the previous guy come back and do it, and I was starting to get drowsy myself anyway. Cleaning was the one chore I actually liked.
"Ugh…"
That didn't mean I enjoyed cleaning up after other people's messes. It just made me mad.
—Jingle
"Welcome."
My body reacted to the chime on pure reflex—the same way my ears used to lock onto the reveille bugle in the army and haul me upright before my brain caught up. The sleepiness cleared a little as I moved to find the customer.
"…?"
"Hello~"
I knew that face from somewhere. Handsome. The hair, the shape of the face—all of it.
It wasn't as if handsome men were rare, but I was certain I'd seen this one before. Was it my brother-in-law?
No way… well, it was possible, but running into him like this?
While those thoughts tumbled over each other, the man was already at the counter with two triangle kimbap and a bottle of water.
"That'll be three thousand eight hundred won."
"Here you go."
Even as I rang him up, the strange sense of dissonance wouldn't leave. If anything, it was getting stronger…
Well. If we were meant to meet, we'd meet. Korea wasn't as big as America, and while I didn't put much stock in fate, the people you're supposed to run into somehow always find a way.
Or maybe it was just coincidence.