Poison Gas

The overtime shift finally ended well past eleven at night. I stepped out of the company building only to find that the last bus I usually took had already left. With no other choice, I boarded a different route that would at least get me somewhere near my destination. Inside the bus, men just as exhausted as I was sat scattered throughout the seats. Ties loosened, eyes glazed over as they stared blankly out the windows—it looked exactly like my own future.

The bus slowed as it hit traffic, then suddenly came to a complete stop. All at once, the interior lights went out. Total darkness swallowed everything.

Why did the lights just…?

The moment I tried to stand, the lights flashed back on with a jolt. But the scene inside the now-bright bus had completely changed from just seconds before. The men who had been sitting here and there now stood up in unison, surrounding me. Strangers whose names and faces I didn’t know. Every single one of them had a hand at their crotch, staring down at me with wet, feverish eyes. Strange, twisted smiles spread across their lips as dozens of hands reached toward me at once.

“Ah, aah! No!”

I screamed and curled into myself. The next instant, I bolted upright in bed. Long strands of hair whipped across my cheek like a lash. Cold sweat trickled down my spine.

“……It was a dream.”

I gasped for air, eyes darting around the room. Luxurious silk sheets. An absurdly spacious bedroom. And beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the glittering early-morning Han River. This was Cha Seolah’s family home in Seongsu-dong, 2012.

My vision felt strangely constricted. The two heavy, massive mounds that I had personally sculpted with my own hands the night before—kneading them until my fingers went numb—now jutted prominently beneath my pajama top. When I looked down, the reliable “comrade” that had been with me my entire life was nowhere to be found. In its place remained only the strange fullness and emptiness left by last night’s frenzied indulgence, along with smooth, soft skin.

……So I lost one and gained two.

A hollow chuckle escaped me. Damn it. After ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ravaging this body so violently last night, had my brain already started adapting? The absurd situation felt sickeningly real.

The memory of rushing to the bathroom in the middle of the night because I had to pee, then habitually lifting the toilet seat, flashed through my mind. The humiliating moment when I’d been startled by the empty sensation in mid-air and had to sit down immediately. The sensation of “sitting to do the small business”—something I had never once been conscious of as a man—now brutally reminded me that I could no longer exist solely as Baek Gangho.

I swept my long hair back, and the unfamiliar scent of the shampoo I’d noticed yesterday wafted between my fingers again.

“Ha…… I’m really going crazy.”

I pressed a hand to my forehead and let out a deep sigh. The wet hands of the men reaching for me in the dream overlapped with what I’d done to my own body last night, sending chills across my skin.

That was when the smartphone on the bedside table began vibrating loudly. The old model common in 2012 displayed the caller ID: “Mom.”

I hesitated for a moment before answering. As “me,” I had never heard this voice directly, but an instinctive warmth imprinted in this unfamiliar female body moved my fingers.

“……Hello?”

The voice on the other end was endlessly affectionate.

[Our daughter! Were you still sleeping? It’s your entrance ceremony today—you can’t oversleep!]

It was completely different from the rough, gruff affection my mother in my previous life had shown her son. A relaxed, gentle tone. The kind of ticklish speech that unconditionally affirmed the other person’s existence. It was a sensation Cha Seolah must have taken for granted her entire life, but one Baek Gangho had never experienced.

[Seolah, are you listening? Don’t be nervous, just go and do well. Who could possibly dislike our daughter? You know Mom and Dad are always cheering for you, right?]

“……Yes. I know. Thank you.”

I answered awkwardly, suppressing my cheapskate instincts before ending the call. The self-loathing stirred by this unfamiliar tenderness was stronger than any guilt I felt toward Cha Seolah’s real parents.

I set the sleek white smartphone down on the desk. In 2012, simply carrying a phone with this smooth design was practically a symbol of wealth. Suddenly, I thought of my parents back home—parents I had barely visited even during holidays during my accountant days, always using work as an excuse. They must have been overjoyed somewhere in the countryside when they heard their son had passed the exam. They were real, existing somewhere in this time as well.

I hurriedly opened the closet. I had originally planned to just grab any pair of pants I saw. But the moment I opened the door, a translucent blue window shimmered into my vision.

……Points?

Only then did a hazy memory surface. Right after I died and was frantically shaping this body, swept up in violent desire, the moment I hit complete. As my vision warped and my soul was shoved inside, something like an insurance policy had scrolled past in the corner of my sight—line after line of text and sentences. It had the same design as this.

Reading contracts thoroughly was an occupational habit of mine, but at the time I had been too overwhelmed to even process my own body’s sensations, let alone my consciousness. In the end, it seemed some contract had been forcibly approved through unconfirmed acceptance, and its price was now appearing before my eyes as numbers.

Without knowing what a single point even meant, I found myself picking up a light, flowing dress instead of pants, as if in a trance. The moment I stepped out the front door, another message appeared.

This wasn’t just a simple status window. It was a bizarre ledger that let me directly adjust the numerical values of my life, like an RPG game. Since I already thought Cha Seolah’s current charm was excessive enough, I held off on choosing with vague suspicion. Between cleaning up the bedsheets and erasing the traces of last night’s aftermath, I had already wasted too much time and had no room left to hesitate.

Whether this body had no tolerance or because I had messed with the stats while creating it, it was excessively sensitive. I layered an elegant ivory coat over the frilly dress I had chosen under the pressure of that contract, and stepped out.

The reflection in the mirror looked exactly like what you’d expect from the only daughter of a wealthy family—neat and formal.

***

The freshman orientation that took place over several days before the entrance ceremony had apparently been absolute chaos. Kids who had just turned twenty were drunk on the liberation of being “adults” and “college students,” legally eating, drinking, and partying themselves ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠half to death. In those two nights and three days, I had already figured out the three female students among the forty new classmates. We had stayed up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all night drinking together, gotten to know each other’s faces, shared disgusting drinking habits and embarrassing dark histories, and formed a strange sense of camaraderie—or perhaps disillusionment as members of the opposite sex.

Kang Jinwoo had stayed out of that madness. He felt neither lingering attachment nor interest in a department he had only crawled into by matching his scores after twelve years of study. If things got bad, he planned to attend just one semester before escaping to the military.

“Hey, Jinwoo. Don’t regret skipping orientation for real. There was a girl in the Korean Literature department who looked like a legit celebrity, I’m telling you?”

The guy yapping nonstop beside him was Do Taehoon, a high school classmate who had ended up in the same department. They had barely exchanged greetings back in school, but the moment they shared the common ground of the same major, he started acting like they’d been best friends for ten years. A textbook example of a girl-crazy guy.

“Yeah, must’ve been nice.”

“Look at this bastard’s reaction. Hey, a senior from our department told me the male-to-female ratio for this year’s class of 2012 is thirty-six to four. But apparently there’s one girl who doesn’t even answer her phone. Either someone wrote her number down wrong or she went somewhere else—either way, her info never got updated, so everyone’s pretty much given up. I think her name was Cha Seolah?”

Kang Jinwoo nodded vaguely and looked toward the entrance of the grand auditorium lobby. The only reason he had bothered showing up to this boring event was because Taehoon had stubbornly insisted they go to a PC bang afterward.

That was when an unfamiliar silhouette appeared beyond the lobby’s transparent sliding doors. In an instant, the noisy lobby that had sounded like a marketplace fell silent as if by magic. The glass door slid open, and in walked a woman elegantly draped in an ivory coat.

“……Hey, Do Taehoon.”

“……Y-yeah.”

Taehoon’s mouth hung half-open, spit flying as he had been talking. Tall, model-like proportions. But what truly stole everyone’s gaze was the overwhelming volume that couldn’t be hidden even beneath the coat.

Kang Jinwoo unconsciously swallowed dryly.

Theater and Film department…? There was no way someone like her was in our department. He was about to look away with that thought when she walked straight up to a senior holding our department’s sign.

***

The inside of the grand auditorium was sweltering. The heat radiating from thousands of freshmen combined with the heater running at full blast made the air stifling in no time. On the stage, a tedious congratulatory speech droned on like background music.

Just as drowsiness was about to hit, Cha Seolah—who was sitting diagonally in front of Kang Jinwoo—shifted in her seat. She must have been hot; she undid the buttons of her coat one by one with slender fingers, then carefully slipped it off. She folded ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the coat neatly and placed it on her lap.

The moment that tidy movement ended, what had been hidden was revealed. With the thick barrier of the coat gone, the destructive curves of Cha Seolah’s upper body were blatantly exposed beneath the thin frilly dress. Her heavy breasts strained the fabric so tightly it looked like the buttons might pop off at any second. Every time she breathed in, that unreal mass swayed beneath the thin material.

“……Huk.”

Someone sharply inhaled. The eyelids of the male students who had been dozing off from the boring speech shot wide open in an instant.

Kang Jinwoo bit his lip as he stole a glance at her profile. A face so pure it could only be described as innocent, contrasted against an overwhelming physique that stimulated every male’s lust to the fullest.

……Wow. She really is poison gas.

The crude dialect line spoken by the protagonist of last year’s nationwide hit drama flashed through his mind. Incredibly, devastatingly beautiful, yet possessing a fatal charm that could suck the soul out of a person and destroy them. She herself seemed completely unaware, simply smoothing the coat on her lap, but that indifferent attitude only carved up the visual centers of the men around her even more mercilessly.

Kang Jinwoo shook his head and forced his gaze forward. But the sensual afterimage of her side breast was already burned into his retinas and refused to disappear.

A strange feeling came over him. With beauty like that, there was no way she didn’t notice the hundreds, thousands of eyes pouring onto her. Normally, one would either enjoy those gazes or feel displeased and push them away. Yet Cha Seolah paid no attention whatsoever to the greedy stares of the men devouring her. Instead, she was staring fixedly at a single point straight ahead, as if possessed.

As if her very life depended on it.

The place her gaze reached was a secluded corner of the Business Administration department seats, where thousands of people were all mixed together.