The Perfect Ten
In the meat restaurant, amid the loud chatter and clinking of soju glasses, Kang Jinwoo kept stealing glances at the empty seat. “Do Taehoon said he was going to buy ice cream. Why isn’t he back yet?” Kang Jinwoo set his chopsticks down. Truthfully, it wasn’t Taehoon who was bothering him. It was the ‘girl’ who had followed him out. His earlier cool-headed decision to just head to the PC bang had already flown off to Andromeda.
“...Jinwoo, where are you going?”
“Yeah, I’m worried that idiot might cause trouble. I’ll be right back.”
Leaving Choi Suyeon—who had called out to him—behind, Kang Jinwoo kicked his chair back and strode out. At the entrance to the alley, he found Do Taehoon standing in a threatening stance in front of a shabby-looking exam-prep student, with Cha Seolah standing blankly beside him.
* (Rewinding time a little)
“...Yes? D-did you call for me?”
Baek Gangho, who had been squatting, sprang up like a jack-in-the-box. The cigarette clamped between his lips dropped to the ground. A stunning beauty well over 170 centimeters tall was staring straight at him, so the socially awkward twenty-one-year-old ‘me’ nearly went into panic mode. He tried to hide his agitation by pushing up his glasses, but his eyes held more wariness than excitement.
That’s it. That exact look.
It wasn’t unfamiliar. Back in the day, whenever a pretty woman approached, the first thing I’d feel was suspicion—Why me? It was a petty, narrow-minded defense mechanism that immediately labeled her a salesperson, a cult recruiter, or some new kind of scam artist.
“Ah, um…”
The moment I opened my mouth, Baek Gangho took a step back and cut me off.
“I-I don’t have any money. If this is one of those ‘Do you know the Way’ things, go bother someone else. I’m busy right now.”
Without even thinking to pick up the cigarette he’d dropped, he turned toward the goshiwon door as if fleeing. I was about to get the door slammed in my face before I could even show a shred of cleverness.
“Seolah! What are you doing over there?”
At that moment, Do Taehoon came panting up from the alley entrance. He subtly hid me behind him and shot Baek Gangho a menacing glare.
What’s with this guy all of a sudden?
“Seolah, why are you in a sketchy alley like this… Huh? Who the hell are you? You some kind of creep?”
Just as Do Taehoon looked ready to shove Baek Gangho aside, Kang Jinwoo—who had followed close behind—grabbed Taehoon’s shoulder in a firm grip.
“Hey, Do Taehoon. Ease up. You’re drunk. Stop picking fights for no reason and let’s go.”
Kang Jinwoo’s calm, cold voice instantly cooled the tension. He gave the flustered Baek Gangho a short, polite nod, then turned his eyes to me.
“Let’s go. Everyone’s waiting.”
On the way back to the restaurant under Kang Jinwoo’s so-called protection, my emotions were a tangled mess. I felt strangely irritated that the pathetic-looking Baek Gangho was being dismissed, yet I couldn’t deny that the consideration from the guys who had come looking for me felt… not entirely bad.
The twenty-one-year-old Baek Gangho, watching us from beyond the goshiwon gate, seemed convinced we were all a bunch of weirdos.
Survive
⏳ Remaining Time: 29 Days 17 Hours
As first meetings between Cha Seolah and Baek Gangho went, this one was the absolute worst.
* * *
In the end, the drinking party wrapped up. Even though they would see each other again tomorrow in their major classes, Do Taehoon and Choi Suyeon said their goodbyes, claiming their subway lines went in opposite directions. I had wanted to go home alone, but for some reason Kang Jinwoo stuck to my side the whole way to the station. He didn’t say a single word the entire time. The silence stretched on until we finally reached my stop.
Right before the train doors opened, Kang Jinwoo suddenly spoke.
“Why the hell do you act like that?”
“...Huh?”
“...Don’t just follow anyone around. Get your head on straight. It’s embarrassing to watch.”
The words burst out of him like a sudden acceleration, sounding almost like a scolding. It was absurd—a twenty-year-old lecturing a thirty-five-year-old man. But when I noticed the tips of his ears turning slightly red, I stepped off the train wrapped in a strange, indescribable feeling.
* * *
When I got home, I spent a long time washing up. Baek Gangho sank into a luxurious bathtub he had never even glimpsed in his entire previous life. The sensation of soft bubbles against my skin felt so foreign that I kept running my hands over this body, still unable to believe it was mine. It felt like I was finally soothing the resentment of my past life—never once able to enjoy a proper half-bath in my own (well, half-owned) house because I was always tiptoeing around my wife.
As my body grew languid in the hot water, an alert appeared at the bottom of my vision.
Today's Settlement
Outdoor Guide (Skirt) Completed: +1
No Gaze Evasion: +1
Public Recognition Acquired (100+ people): +2
What the hell am I even supposed to spend these on?
I hadn’t examined it properly that morning because I’d been busy getting ready to leave, but the blue text floating in my vision was clearly some kind of game interface. It stayed hidden until I consciously focused on it, then gave me missions and rewarded me with points to raise my stats. That kind of system.
What is it even for?
It wasn’t like I was going to defeat a demon king or raise a princess. The explanation said I could use the points to enhance passive traits like Charm or Luck, or even active skills like Speechcraft and one-time abilities. The potential uses seemed wide, but in my previous life I’d never had time for games like this. And more than anything… I needed to be able to trust it.
Though the fact that I’ve become Cha Seolah is already completely insane.
Still, if I followed the system’s logic, these points were probably meant to be tools for seducing Baek Gangho while I was in Cha Seolah’s body.
“...What a damn perverted system.”
Feeling dirty at how perfectly it seemed tailored to someone’s intentions, I lay down on the bed without bothering to put on clothes. The house runs on central heating, and they crank it up because it’s still a little chilly outside, so the room is actually pretty warm.
Even lying down, the weight of my breasts kept making its presence known, but a pleasant wave of exhaustion washed over me. Tomorrow, I had to find some crack in that iron wall of a guy no matter what.
* * *
After snapping at Cha Seolah on the subway and returning home that night, Kang Jinwoo lay on his bed staring blankly at the ceiling.
I must be crazy. Why did I butt in like that when we’d only just met?
It wasn’t like him at all. The guy who had only planned to go to the PC bang had ended up tagging along to a bothersome group dinner, then barged into an alley to rescue a classmate who was standing there dazed in front of some dirty-looking exam student. And as if that wasn’t enough, he’d blurted out unnecessary advice when they parted ways.
Just then, a loud noise came from the living room. Kang Jinwoo opened his door. His high-school-aged younger sister was sprawled on the sofa wearing an oversized hoodie she had clearly bought from an online shopping mall, her greasy bangs rolled up with a curler.
“Hey, Kang Jinwoo. When are you actually going to buy me those sneakers you promised as a high school entrance gift?”
Calling her older brother like that…
At his three-years-younger sister’s voice, Kang Jinwoo suddenly remembered Cha Seolah from earlier that day. So-called “hot girls” or “solid seven girls” could be found now and then if you looked around. He hated to admit it, but even his own sister would get called pretty if she put on makeup and dressed up properly. But Cha Seolah today… she was on a completely different level from any woman he had ever seen.
Unlike his sister’s dry, frizzy hair, Cha Seolah’s locks shone as if they received daily care at an expensive salon. Unlike his sister’s baggy T-shirt, her dress perfectly traced her body and created an almost unreal silhouette. And above all, that aura. The flawless symmetry of her features, the overwhelming presence that seemed to freeze the air around her—details that could never be faked with effort.
So that’s what a perfect ten woman looks like.
The kind of person you only saw in videos, or might encounter once in a lifetime even in the middle of Gangnam. Only now did Kang Jinwoo understand why he had reacted so uncharacteristically earlier. She wasn’t just a pretty classmate. She was on such a different plane that it felt wrong for her to even be mixed in with ordinary college students.
So why had a girl like that been standing in a moldy-smelling goshiwon alley, staring at a guy who looked worse than his own sister?
“Oppa? Hey! Are you ignoring me?”
At his sister’s irritated shout, Kang Jinwoo let out a dry laugh and closed the door.
“...I guess I’ll actually try attending properly this semester.”
Lying down on the bed again, he thought about it. He wanted to know exactly what kind of person Cha Seolah was, and why she had been with that exam-prep guy. It was more than simple curiosity. It was closer to the instinctive desire to conquer that any man would feel upon encountering a “perfect ten woman” for the first time in his life.
* * *
The next morning, the moment I opened my eyes, blue text blocked my vision like an advertisement for some freeware program.
Naked Sleep Bonus: +1
“...Ha, this is actually insane! So it really is an adult game system…!!”
The voice that slipped out of me while I was still half-asleep sounded so lovely it still felt foreign. Last night the central heating had been cranked up too high, so I had used the excuse of being hot to sleep completely naked. That was the problem. The system was handing out perverted rewards for every single action that helped me grow accustomed to this body’s senses—even trivial daily habits like this.
This wasn’t a fantasy adventure to slay a demon king, nor a princess-raising simulator. It was clearly a malicious system with the explicit goal of training ‘me’ into a ‘female.’
The class schedule I checked with a sick feeling in my stomach was even worse.
A 9 a.m. major class followed immediately by liberal arts. The major is unavoidable, but this schedule isn’t even in Cha Seolah’s own memories. It’s too suspicious. Did the original her register for this, or is it the system’s arbitrary design?
The history department’s major class that started at nine was pure torture. The brutal schedule felt like being thrown back into high school. The moment class ended, Choi Suyeon—who was sitting next to me—packed her bag and started talking.
There were only four female freshmen in the entire history department. Two of them had been friends since middle and high school and stuck together, so to the left-out Choi Suyeon, I seemed to be her only lifeline.
“Hey, Seolah. Isn’t our timetable actually crazy? I went drinking yesterday and when I got home my dad almost killed me. A 9 a.m. class is just too much for a human being.”
I let Suyeon’s empty small talk go in one ear and out the other as we walked down the hill together toward the next liberal arts lecture. The whole way past the steep slope, she chattered about making dinner plans with a senior and her worries about tonight’s arrangements. I nodded at appropriate moments until we entered the lecture hall and sat down side by side.
The professor soon entered. Declaring without any academic courtesy that he would deliver a full lecture from day one, he opened the attendance sheet as if the add/drop period didn’t even exist.
“...Baek Gangho.”
The moment the name was called, the back door of the lecture hall burst open. I sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of the man rushing in. Faded jeans and a plain checkered shirt. It was the past version of myself—Baek Gangho—from the alley last night.
No way… even here?
It was too precise to be a simple coincidence. I could feel Kang Jinwoo’s gaze boring into me from somewhere in the back rows, making the nape of my neck go cold. Meanwhile, Baek Gangho—who had taken the seat right in front of me and was pulling a notebook from his bag—didn’t seem to notice my existence at all.
Without realizing it, I clutched the hem of the skirt that had ridden up my thigh. I hadn’t cleverly orchestrated any of this. But instinctively, I understood exactly where these maddeningly intertwined coincidences were driving me.
In the end, to avoid soul deletion within a month, I had to create a crack in that guy’s iron wall no matter what. Pride and dignity were things I had tossed into that hot bathtub water last night long ago.