Kidnapping Crisis
Kidnapping Crisis
Upon arriving at her studio apartment, Jeong Haram.
Ttal-kak—
The moment she locked the door, she spat out a curse.
"F-fucking bastard."
With her back against the door, she slid down and slumped to the floor.
Her heart was still pounding like mad.
Inside the empty room.
A bleak studio apartment containing nothing but a bed and a few articles of clothing strewn around.
She had spent all her time in Kang Doyoon's room except when sleeping anyway, so she didn't have much luggage to speak of.
Haram tossed the baseball cap she had pulled low over her head onto the floor.
As she lowered her head and caught her ragged breath, she saw the oversized gray hoodie she had snatched from Doyoon's room and thrown on.
It hadn't changed.
She was still a woman.
"Haa......."
To think she had run all the way to her room in a woman's body, with the switch stolen from her.
Haram roughly scrubbed her face dry as she recalled the offer Doyoon had made moments ago.
— "I'll return this to you and turn you back to normal...... but there's a condition first."
◇
Kang Doyoon had laughed, jingling the switch in the air.
Cornered against the wall, Haram had trembled while clutching her body with both arms.
"W-what condition?! Tell me already!"
"You can't even count how many times you've made fun of me, can you?"
"S-so?"
"Complete just one mission, and I'll press this right away."
"Huh? A-are you insane?! Am I your slave?!"
She had leaped up in disbelief, but there was no way to physically take the switch from his hand.
No matter how much she stood on tiptoe and jumped.
She simply couldn't reach the switch Kang Doyoon was holding up and waving around with his arm fully extended.
Damn height difference.
She wanted to punch him once and take it back, but.
'...Could I even hurt Kang Doyoon?'
Looking at her impossibly delicate wrist, that didn't seem possible either.
More importantly.
If that lunatic flushed the switch down the toilet or smashed it, she would really be finished.
"......You get exactly four hours. And if you make me do anything really weird, I'll kill you."
She had no choice but to accept through clenched teeth.
Haram should have noticed then.
That the look in Kang Doyoon's eyes—normally so obsequious and pathetic—
was something filled with a desire to dominate, something rarely seen in him.
Even his way of speaking had changed, becoming firm and weighty instead of its usual tone.
But in her desperation to end this insane situation immediately.
Jeong Haram had forced herself to ignore that subtle threat.
◇
"Aaaaaagh! Kang Doyoon, you fucking bastard!"
Haram sprawled face-first across the bed and pounded the mattress in outrage.
To let that pathetic loser get leverage over her.
"He said he'd send the mission an hour after I got home, or whatever...... Fuck, why make me wait an hour? Just give me something to do right now and get it over with!"
Peok!
Jeong Haram muttered while pounding an innocent pillow.
"Kang Doyoon was totally my personal toy!"
"He was my stress-relief punching bag!"
Her irritated punches continued.
Peok, peok, peok.
"Ow......."
Her wrist began to ache after only a few hits.
The power behind her punches against the mattress was a problem too.
Before, the sound would have reverberated with heavy thuds and filled the room.
Now it had been reduced to a cutesy little rubbing noise that went pat, pat.
"......Right. I'm a woman now."
Haram raised her hand.
The clumsy knuckles she had known were nowhere to be found; all she saw were slender fingers as white and delicate as a whitefish.
Even when she clenched and released her fist, the grip strength itself was completely different.
Her mind was screaming at the unfamiliarity, but her body accepted this strange weakness far too naturally.
Seu-uk.
Haram rose from her spot and, as if entranced, approached the full-length mirror standing in the corner.
In Doyoon's bathroom, all she had done was scream in a panic and take a hurried look.
Now it was time to calmly face reality.
"Ha... fuck. Seriously."
The sight of me, a man, transformed into a woman.
The moment she muttered that and took a proper look.
"Wow......."
Jeong Haram let out an involuntary gasp.
Was this even real?
Objectively—no, even while taking into account the subjective fact that she hated the sight of this form, she was absurdly beautiful.
Her slightly long hair swayed softly past her shoulders and below her collarbones, while the sleek, perfectly straight lines of her legs extending from beneath Doyoon's oversized hoodie were a work of art.
She had been told countless times that she looked like a pretty boy.
But with those beautiful features perfectly reassembled into a feminine form,
she even found herself wondering if she could become an actress or a streamer.
"I was already pretty good-looking before...... but becoming a woman really makes me no joke."
A narcissism born from the bizarre fusion of pride and otaku tendencies had activated.
Haram scrutinized the beautiful girl in the mirror from every angle, putting her hands on her waist and tilting her head from side to side.
"Should I start streaming now that things have turned out like this?"
She muttered that, then snorted.
What was she, Kang Doyoon? Why would she do something so pathetic?
If she got doxxed, her life would be over.
She was still laughing when.
Seu-uk.
As she moved her arm to change her pose, the inside of her wrist lightly brushed against her chest.
"Eek!"
Haram jolted as though struck by lightning and collapsed onto the floor.
"W-what the hell was that just now......!"
It had only brushed against her slightly, but a sharp jolt of electricity raced up her spine.
It wasn't entirely pleasant.
But it was an overwhelmingly intense and chilling sensation she had never experienced even once in her life, as though someone were scraping directly along her spinal cord.
Meom-meom.
Her body was trembling and shivering like an aspen leaf.
"W-what was that, seriously?"
After swallowing hard, Haram cautiously brought her fingertips toward her chest again, then.
Meomchit.
'N-no! I'm a man. A man down to my very bones!'
She had a feeling that if she touched it, she would never be able to return to being a man.
You know that cliché.
The one where a man experiences stimulation like a woman and degenerates into a submissive female.
It was a familiar cliché to the otaku Jeong Haram.
Thus, her hand stopped in midair of its own accord.
But at the same time.
Her mind spun rapidly and launched into rationalization.
'Wait. I'm a man anyway, aren't I? A man touching a woman's body is a perfectly natural and healthy instinct, isn't it? Besides, this is my body, so it's completely legal. There's no way I'd surrender to some paltry stimulation like this.'
That's right, this was simple curiosity. It was nothing more than a thorough biological investigation!
There was no way I, Jeong Haram, would lose to something as trivial as a female body's sensations.
Haram reached that conclusion, swallowed hard once more, and was just about to extend her hand with a solemn expression when.
Uuuung—! Uuuung—!
"Argh! Fuck, you scared me!"
The smartphone she had tossed onto the bed began having a noisy fit.
Haram jumped in shock and bounded away from the mirror.
When she happened to glance at the wall clock, her jaw dropped.
What the hell.
An entire hour had already passed?
'Crazy...... What the hell had I been doing in front of the mirror for a whole hour?'
Her face grew so hot from shame that it felt ready to burst.
She hurriedly crawled to the bed and picked up her smartphone. The name of the bastard.
[Kang Doyoon] was displayed clearly on the screen.
[The mission has arrived.]
[That hoodie you're wearing right now. Keep wearing it exactly as it is, go to the 25-hour convenience store in front of your place, and buy me a Lerona. You get 10 minutes to prepare.]
As Haram read through the message, the corner of her mouth twitched upward.
"Hah! That's all?"
She had been so scared that it almost felt unfair.
She had honestly thought he might make her do something perverted, but all he wanted was an ice cream errand?
Of course, she was technically wearing nothing but a hoodie without even underwear, giving her a no-pants look, but from the outside she was just a girl wearing something a little oversized.
"What a pathetic coward. After all that scheming, the most he can come up with is using me as a convenience-store runner? What a fucking weakling. Just you wait, Kang Doyoon. I'll finish this in a flash and take the switch back."
Haram snorted and walked out the front door as if to show him.
◆
Ttalang—
"Welco......."
The moment she opened the convenience store door and entered, the mechanical greeting of the part-timer looking at his phone behind the counter abruptly cut off.
Whether she cared or not.
Haram pulled her cap low and headed straight for the ice cream freezer with brisk steps.
'Damn it, why is he staring at me like that?'
She could feel the part-timer's sticky gaze digging sharply into the back of her head.
Was it because becoming a woman had made her body's senses unpleasantly sensitive?
Every single gaze felt like a needle pricking her skin.
'What a creep.'
Haram deliberately imitated the loose, swaggering walk she used to have as Jeong Haram.
'Where's the Lerona? Let's grab it and get out.'
In front of a spot where a man who looked like a physical-education major was eating cup ramen.
At last, she found the ice cream freezer.
The problem was.
'Why is this thing so deep?'
Even when she bent over and reached inside, her hand couldn't touch anything.
'What the fuck is this rigged bullshit?'
Should I go to another convenience store?
No.
This was still the closest convenience store.
The other one was toward the school, and if she went there, she risked running into someone she knew.
'...Huu.'
Having resigned herself to the situation, Haram leaned against the freezer as if hanging from it.
Her legs lifted with a Buuung.
The hoodie rolled up of its own accord, but Haram's entire attention was focused on the Lerona.
Kking-kking.
"Got it!"
Just as she stood up, flailing her legs again while holding the Lerona,
she sensed a strange presence behind her, but.
Her sense of accomplishment came first.
She picked up the Lerona and headed straight for the counter.
"I'll pay."
She deliberately lowered her voice and tossed the words out indifferently.
But what came out of her mouth was anything but indifferent: only the bright, prickly, clear voice of a beautiful girl.
"Ah, yes! 1,200 won!"
The part-timer flushed and hurriedly scanned the barcode.
His excessive friendliness made her wonder if he was really the same brusque, unfriendly part-timer as usual.
'What the hell is wrong with this guy? He's making me want to puke.'
Haram was grinding out curses inwardly as she was about to hand over her card when.
"Excuse me."
A voice suddenly popped up beside her.
When she turned around, the athletic-looking male customer who had been standing behind the ice cream freezer earlier was blocking her path.
He was a hulking man who looked well over 180 centimeters tall. Haram instinctively shrank back.
"Yes? Me?"
"Ah, it's just that...... I noticed you the moment you came in, and you're totally my type."
"......Excuse me?"
"If you don't have a boyfriend, could I get your number?"
For a moment.
'My type? My number? Me? But I'm a man!'
"Uh, I-I mean! I'm actually a man......!"
She barely swallowed the truth that had nearly jumped out of her mouth in her panic.
If she said, 'I'm a man,' here, she would obviously be treated as a crazy bitch, or the situation would become even more troublesome.
The man seemed to completely mistake Haram's rambling, flustered state for that of a shy, pretty girl. He grinned and took another step closer.
"You don't have to feel pressured. We could just have a meal together......."
Oh, yeah? Come a little closer.
I'll burst your balls with my foot.
The moment Jeong Haram took her stance.
— Deop-seok.
The athlete grabbed her wrist.
It was a heavy grip that seemed absolutely impossible to resist.
Haram's mind froze white.
The athlete whispered into Haram's ear.
"You aren't even wearing underwear. You're a pervert, aren't you? Come with me."
"N-no. You've got the wrong idea."
"Wrong about what?"
The athlete grabbed Haram's clothes and yanked.
The caught collar was pulled hard, sending the oversized neckline sliding down below her shoulder.
At the same time, even the hem that had covered her thighs was jerked up to a dangerously high level.
"Eek!"
Haram shrieked in horror.
The dazzlingly white line of her shoulders, her deeply carved collarbones, and the boundary of her defenseless cleavage, exposed without even underwear, were laid bare through the glass door.
Not only that, but the smooth lower edges of her bare thighs, hidden beneath the loose hem, were revealed in a dizzying flash.
"See? You want it too, don't you?"
The athlete continued pulling Haram along while holding her wrist.
Faced with a difference in strength she had absolutely no way to overcome.
'Wh-what...'
What should she do?
Her mind had frozen blank and white.
"I'll pay for hers too. Keep the change."
The athlete threw ten thousand won onto the counter and dragged Haram away.
At the exact moment Haram squeezed her eyes shut, not knowing what to do.
"Excuse me. She's my friend."
Kang Doyoon's voice rang out.