Nothing Beats Eating a Hamburger
The best part of the day was always when I was eating a hamburger.
Transference itself wasn't exactly a shocking event. It happened all over the world, and most people went through it at some point, so I'd always figured, Eh, it'll happen to me someday.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼." (Then why the hell do I look like this?)
It wasn't as if I'd secretly identified as a woman all along. I was Lee Yumin, a man's man from the day I was born — there had never been a single crack in my life for anything feminine to wedge itself into. Every crush I'd ever had, going all the way back to childhood, had been on girls, and not once — not one single time — had I ever felt a flicker of attraction to a man. If I ranked the things I loved, it came out something like: hamburgers ≥ women > men. Yes, in my head, men ranked below hamburgers.
Oh, a man who gave me hamburgers might climb the ranks a little. But even he couldn't beat women or hamburgers.
….
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼!" (This is why you just sound like a lunatic obsessed with hamburgers!)
I grabbed both ends of my blanket and hugged it tight. Wrapping myself in the fluffy comforter seemed to calm the whirlwind in my head just a little.
Why me, of all people…?
Just yesterday I'd been holed up at home, grinning ear to ear at the thought of the hamburgers I was going to eat — and sometime between then and now, I'd turned into a white-haired girl. A white-haired girl who couldn't even talk, no less!
"⎼⎼⎼⎼……." (My life…….)
A mute who couldn't speak wasn't merely barred from being a mage — they weren't even treated as a proper person. Nobody went full medieval savage about it — You there! You cannot speak?! Guards!! Put this voiceless wretch to death at once!! — but mutes were quietly looked down on, quietly pushed to the margins. It was about the treatment a Korean gets at a swanky French restaurant, you know? No overt discrimination, but they somehow take forever to notice your raised hand, somehow manage to be cold in every little way. They treat you with the mindset of Why would someone as superior as me be kind to an inferior Easterner? — except aimed at mutes.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼!!" (You garbage mages!!)
I could have picked you out the moment you walked into the shop! If you're going to butcher incantations with naming sense that bad, why not just go to a naming office instead!? Imagining that insufferable lower-world mage face sent heat rushing to my head, and I rolled back and forth across the bed wrapped in my blanket like a pill bug.
My body had apparently shrunk more than I'd realized, because the bed that had once fit me just right now looked enormous — like a double had grown into a king.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼." (Uuuuuu.)
Growl.
Rolling around in bed since morning had my stomach screaming at me to feed it.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼." (Uuuuuu.)
I unwound the blanket coiled around my body. I was hungry, after all — I had to eat something.
Sliiip.
With the comforter that had mummified me gone, my thin, impossibly soft body lay bare.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼!" (Hnnnngh!)
I climbed off the bed and stretched luxuriously, and a lovely fragrance drifted in from somewhere. Sniffing around for the source, I discovered it was coming from the arm I'd stretched up overhead. I shifted my gaze to the back of my hand — and long, slender, snow-white fingers caught my eye.
Sniff. Without thinking, I brought my right hand up to my nose and breathed in.
"⎼⎼." (Oh.)
Sniff. A faint coconut scent wafted up — the kind you want to keep smelling forever. Not overpowering, but once you caught it, you couldn't stop.
Chomp.
To savor the pleasant scent a little longer, I gently bit down on the back of my hand. The coconut fragrance spreading through my mouth seemed to steady my whole body and lay a soft peace over my heart.
There I sat, face completely slack, gnawing away at the back of my own hand, when a tremendous realization struck me.
Hold on… didn't I not shower yesterday?
….
So does not showering make me smell good? Or do I smell good enough that I don't need to shower? It was a chicken-and-egg conundrum. Cause and effect had twisted into such a beautiful knot that it left me utterly lost.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼…." (Uuuuu….)
No amount of sitting and agonizing would ever produce a definitive answer. Right… I'll just shower and find out…
There was, after all, an extremely effective way to settle the question. Uu. Somehow I could already feel guilt crawling up my spine… but this was my body now. Time to own it! Hnnngh….
If such a thing as a checklist of duties every TS-protagonist must perform existed, I had completed not a single item on it. Well, it feels wrong, okay? It feels like committing a sin. In short: I simply did not have the nerve to casually handle a defenseless woman's body. What happens in thin books is not reality.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼." (Hup!)
Crawling around buried in a hundred stray thoughts, I somehow arrived in front of the refrigerator. I yanked the door open and surveyed the contents. Bottled water. Bottled water. Bottled water. Bottled water. Hamburger wrapper. Why is that in there. Bottled water. Bottled water. Bottled water.
Yumin, sweetie — how do you even live like this? A human hippopotamus, plain and simple. Then again, when every single meal is a hamburger, of course the fridge would be bare.
Speaking of which—
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼." (There's not a single leftover hamburger….)
I seem to remember proudly declaring to my mom, once upon a time: I'm only ever going to eat hamburgers! No need for silly side dishes! If I could meet the Lee Yumin of back then, I'd smack him upside the head and strong-arm him into stocking up on instant ramen at the very least. But I'd heard that turning back time was the province of celestial mages — for a lower-world mage like me, it would remain impossible even if I wished on it my whole life. As they say, you don't go staring up at a tree you can't climb.
Growl.
"!"
My stomach threw another tantrum demanding food. Funny — someone who eats hamburgers every day of his life knows mealtimes with pinpoint accuracy.
I fumbled for my smartphone and opened a delivery app, found the nearest burger place, and picked a reasonably priced burger. Taste wasn't the priority here. Getting anything down was. Can you cut me some slack? I'll eat something delicious later, I promise. I'd more or less settled on a menu and was finally reaching for the order button when —
I saw it.
Delivery fee: 5,000 won…?
This I could not pay. No matter what happened, no matter what it cost me, I could not pay a 5,000-won delivery fee. Panicking, I scrambled through every other burger joint I could find and checked their fees. 5,000. 4,500. 5,500… Even in an age where magic had advanced so far that hamburgers were delivered by portal, this crossed a line. The delivery fee was nearly the price of the burger itself — how was that supposed to make sense? Skip one delivery order and you could afford two whole hamburgers. Who in their right mind orders delivery, then?
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼…!" (If only making gold with magic weren't illegal…!)
For a moment, I envied the mages who made their living slaying monsters. No — I'd always envied them, but now I envied them more. At least they weren't so destitute that a delivery fee made their hands tremble.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼…." (Haaah….)
Which left exactly one option: going outside myself. Nothing for it, then. When you're broke, you're supposed to put up with the inconvenience.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼, ⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼." (Well then — first, I guess I shower.)
If I was going out, I had to wash. However lovely the fragrance I produced naturally, it still felt off somehow. There are certain duties a person owes, you know?
"⎼⎼⎼⎼…." (Phew….)
I let out a deep sigh and began stripping off my clothes one piece at a time in front of the bathroom. When I lowered my gaze, a figure full of soft curves and yielding flesh met my eyes. Clutching my swirling sanity with both hands, I made my resolution.
Eyes shut. Move fast!
"⎼⎼⎼⎼." (Whew.)
The way my soft skin moved beneath my own hands seemed to open up entirely new possibilities in me. I finally understood why Bernard had cried out so desperately for unicorns. Truly, the unicorn was the beast of possibility.
"⎼⎼." (Hnn.)
Still damp, I brought the back of my hand to my nose once more. Sniff. The coconut scent, moistened with water, bloomed all on its own.
Ah — so this is just how my body smells now. If I'm going to smell like this every day, I'm going to end up sniffing my own wrist at all hours. That's… actually kind of a problem.
Nose working overtime, I toweled off the last of the water. Once I was thoroughly dry, I grabbed a T-shirt and shorts lying around and threw them on. With my body smaller, clothes that had once fit loosely now hung off me entirely — but draped this way and that, they were just barely, precariously wearable.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼…." (Phewww….)
Now came the time to leave the house and step outside.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
My heart pounded wildly, refusing to listen to a single word I said. Honestly, it had been ignoring me for a while now — probably ever since the moment I'd taken my clothes off. Uuuuu….
"⎼⎼⎼⎼…." (Haaaaah….)
I exhaled a long sigh rising up from my dantian and slowly opened the front door. For a hamburger, there was nothing I couldn't do.
Even if it meant walking out of the house without a scrap of underwear on!
Whoever dreamed up the magitech kiosk — what kind of head did that idea pop out of? Science and technology might get treated as a lowly discipline, but did they really have to be violated this thoroughly? As of today, I stand with science and technology. From this moment on, every attack on science and technology is, so to speak, an attack on yours truly.
Anyway.
I'd ordered my hamburger through the kiosk and was now sitting obediently in my seat, waiting. I rocked side to side, faithfully counting down the moments until my burger arrived.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼." (Hehe.)
Today's menu: the bulgogi burger. The reasoning? Easy to eat, kind on the wallet, excellent value for money. Thankfully, unlike yesterday, I did not commit the atrocity of impulsively adding fries and a cola. The transference must have been shocking enough that I could finally exercise a little self-control.
"Customer number 274!"
"⎼⎼!" (On it!)
I scurried over, picked up the tray bearing my hamburger, and carried it back to my seat. A lone bulgogi burger, yes — but to me, it was a savior, the thing that would carry me through this entire day.
Come to think of it, though — my body was smaller now. Hadn't my appetite shrunk along with it? Which would make me something close to a perfect life-form: eat one hamburger, and I'd never go hungry for the rest of the day! Eureka! This was a revolution! A revolutionary revolution that made the revolutions of Russia and France look like child's play. Two whole revolutions, happening at once!
Brimming with swelling expectation, I took a bite.
Two buns standing firm, supporting the contents above and below; between them, a sauce-slathered beef patty (magically raised) and crisp lettuce in perfect harmony. A classic — but a classic for a reason. Maybe it was because I'd already been through so much, large and small, before this bite, but the taste felt all the more extraordinary. Even if ten thousand kalpas drifted past, I might never forget this moment.
"⎼⎼." (Sob.)
Tears I hadn't meant to shed streamed down both my cheeks. A man's man like me doesn't cry — but today's me was an estrogen-rich young lady, so a few tears were permitted. Besides, when a grown man sits there crying, people react with What's his deal? — but when a pretty girl cries, concern comes pouring down like Oh no! Is something wrong? So really, crying a little was fine.
And so I was munching through my hamburger, one sobbing bite at a time, when —
[⎼⎼, ⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼.]
"?"
[⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼.]
From somewhere, a soft, mournful voice rang out with perfect clarity. I whipped my head around, scanning my surroundings — but it was the ordinary scene of an ordinary burger joint: everyone chewing at a respectful distance from everyone else. Just the quiet sound of hamburgers being chewed, and the occasional murmur of conversation. Nobody was anywhere near me.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼-?" (What? What is it?)
[⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼.]
Wait a second… something about this…. I had never heard it before in my life, and yet it was somehow familiar….
Burger clamped in my mouth, I sank into deep contemplation. The answer came faster than I expected.
"⎼⎼!" (Oh!)
That was my own voice!
Since my entire vocal range consisted of ah and oo, it took me a little while to catch on — but I was certain. Not the gruff baritone of Lee Yumin, man among men, but the voice of Lee Yumin the pretty girl — thin, delicate, and cute.
….
But then… why was it echoing inside my head…?