I Woke Up as a Woman
When I opened my eyes, I saw Noona and Mina’s faces.
I scanned the room to get my bearings and realized I was hospitalized. I remembered blacking out suddenly, but was it serious enough to warrant this?
“Why am I in the hospital?”
“You don’t remember? You suddenly collapsed at home and ended up here.”
“How long has it been?”
“Two weeks?”
“We’ve been taking turns caring for you the whole time.”
The thought of two full weeks hit me like a truck. Surely it wasn’t anything life-threatening?
I checked my body and found nothing particularly wrong.
According to Mina, I had collapsed at home. She immediately called Noona and rushed me to the hospital. Every single day since, the two of them had taken turns staying with me.
So Mina had been going to school while caring for me?
I felt an overwhelming wave of gratitude mixed with guilt toward her. She had eaten and slept at the hospital for me. From now on, I was going to make it up to her somehow.
That aside, two weeks in the hospital and my hair had grown this long. I lifted a strand and let it fall through my fingers. For some reason, the color was no longer my original black—it was a soft silver. And why did it feel like something was missing from the bottom?
I had to keep listening to their explanations while my unease grew.
According to them, the color had already turned silver by the time we arrived at the hospital that day. They reserved a private room for me because I was still unconscious. They were guessing that the missing part had disappeared overnight and I had become a girl.
The doctor glanced at my resident registration number and couldn’t hide her suspicion.
The last digit was clearly a three, yet this child was a girl?
Noona and Mina explained that they had misreported my birth as male because they had always thought I was a boy since childhood.
The doctor nodded slowly. She said it happened sometimes—people occasionally misgender a child—but changing a resident registration number after more than ten years was something she had never seen before.
Noona added that she had never felt any discomfort about it before and had simply delayed the change until now.
In the end, the doctor concluded I had been a girl from the very beginning.
Noona and Mina acted as if they had prepared for this exact situation, kissing me to cover their tracks. They had originally been thought of as a girl, but in front of the resident registration number they had no choice but to use that excuse.
“So actually, only the three of us know Jiyoung’s original gender.”
“It’s too shocking. I’m still in disbelief.”
“And there’s good news.”
“Eh? Good news in a situation like this?”
I had expected nothing but bad news after the gender change, yet she called it good news. I was genuinely curious.
Probably something nice had happened while I was out.
“You were already cute, but now you’re even cuter.”
“That’s not a good thing, though.”
“Why not? You’re adorable right now.”
“No way.”
As a guy who had always been told I was a girl, I could only sigh at Mina’s words.
It was bad news, not good news.
I had already been treated like a girl and received compliments on my cuteness, and now it was reality.
Still, when I thought about it, becoming even cuter probably wouldn’t change my life that much.
“We checked if anyone else had gone through something similar, but no such case exists anywhere in the world. That’s why we decided not to tell anyone.”
“Maybe if we keep our mouths shut, no one will ever know.”
“Hair color changes happen all the time, so that’s not an issue.”
“Honestly, this is unbelievable. We were all shocked too.”
“I actually like it. You’re so cute now, Jiyoung.”
Noona and Mina told me not to tell anyone about the sudden gender change.
I agreed. Mina added that this was a unique case worldwide, and if it got out, my daily life would become incredibly difficult.
I fully agreed with her.
If the truth came out, some crazy scientist might kidnap me to figure out how my gender had changed. I had seen enough crazy scientists in fiction to know they were terrifying.
“Everyone at school has thought you were a girl since elementary.”
“That’s what I gave up on. Honestly, I gave up a little.”
“Even if you had nipples or a beard, the misunderstanding would have been cleared up immediately. But even when you were a boy, you looked like a perfect girl.”
“Somehow you kept wearing the boys’ uniform since middle school and no one believed you.”
“Middle schoolers who knew you since elementary still thought you were a girl back then. They just assumed you wore pants because you didn’t like skirts. That’s why you got so many confessions from boys. You looked so cute in that boys’ uniform.”
Mina smiled as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
At some point, no one asked me about my gender anymore.
Mina had never told anyone else that I was a boy.
It surprised me that she hadn’t even told her close friends the truth.
Thinking back, when friends asked her during elementary school whether I was really a boy, she would just say to ask me directly.
Most of them would nod as if they already knew the answer.
“Teachers might still think I’m a boy if they see my resident registration number.”
“Because of the number? None of the teachers have actually seen my body.”
“True. There’s no way to know someone’s gender without seeing them.”
“But what am I supposed to do from now on?”
“Do you need to worry about it? Just live like you want to, like before. Other friends probably won’t notice any difference, right?”
“The only changes are that my hair and face are a little cuter. That’s it.”
“So I can still do sports as usual?”
I had always been more interested in the sports boys played than the ones girls played.
“So it’s fine to live like normal.”
“Yeah. No need to wear skirts or anything. Friends will just see a cuter version of Jiyoung with the changed hair color.”
“Ultimately, that’s the plan?”
“Yeah. You’re just too cute now.”
In the end, my friends would treat me the same as always, and no one would realize I had been a boy?
It was a win-win situation for me.
If I could just change the resident registration number, it would be the perfect crime—no one would ever know.
No, that wasn’t a crime.
Thinking about it, living as a woman with my looks probably wouldn’t be bad at all.
It might even be better than before.
“So when can I get discharged?”
“You can leave right now. The hospital will send you out immediately. Your body is perfectly fine except for the unconsciousness.”
“I’ll handle the discharge procedure now.”
After finishing the simple discharge process, I finally arrived home after a long time.
It felt like I had only slept for a bit, yet two whole weeks had passed.
I had to go to school tomorrow. According to Mina, I could just act normally, right?
The male uniform size didn’t exist, so they had made a special one for me. Since it was still a boys’ uniform, it should be fine, right?
I didn’t need to buy a girls’ uniform just because I was now a girl, did I?
When I was in middle school, there were pants in the girls’ uniform, but I had always insisted on wearing the boys’ uniform.
My school had very lenient rules, and no one ever complained about me wearing the boys’ uniform.
In fact, other girls sometimes wore pants too, so there was no issue with me wearing only pants.
Now I had to get used to a female body, and the thought made me suddenly shy.
I didn’t even remember what a girl’s body felt like except from when I was a little kid in elementary school.
First, I needed a bath. I was cutting my hair today.
“Noona, I’ll take a bath first.”
“You have long hair. Do you know how to tie it?”
“Just tie it roughly? I’m cutting it soon anyway, so rough is fine.”
“What? Why would you cut such pretty hair?”
When I mentioned cutting my hair, Noona jumped in alarm and strongly opposed.
This was too inconvenient. I wanted to go back to a bob.
Somehow, I got the feeling Noona wouldn’t allow me to cut it.
I had originally been allowed to cut it to a bob.
Could I at least do that?
“I want to cut it to a bob. It’s way too long.”
“You want to cut hair that looks this good and pretty? Absolutely not.”
Noona refused firmly and kept touching my hair.
Even if the bun was perfect, I still wanted to cut it.
Tying it up afterward would be a pain too. I was ready to save my allowance and cut it.
Since Noona had a weak heart, she would probably find a way to give me allowance again.
I had already given in for the bob, but this was too long.
“Seeing you make that tired face, you’re just too lazy to manage it, aren’t you?”
“Huh? How did you know?”
“It’s obvious. You think hair care is tiring, right? As a girl, I’ll help you as much as possible, so don’t cut your hair. Tying it up isn’t that hard.”
Noona’s words made sense.
I liked bathing, so even if I took my time, it wasn’t tiring.
The part after tying it up was the real pain.
If Noona taught me how to manage it until I got used to it, that would help a lot.
I didn’t know what I needed as a woman, so without her help I might struggle ahead.
I had no choice but to accept Noona’s offer.
“Okay. But you have to help me properly.”
“Yeah, I’ll teach you properly.”