It's a Gender-Reversed World (2)
"What? Pe, pervert... hehe...!"
"Where exactly do you think you're looking...!"
"What, I... it's just that..."
The moment I pointed it out and called her on it, her face flushed bright red.
Huh?
I'd only been teasing her halfway, but this was nothing like the Kim Arin I knew.
It was fascinating, honestly.
After a full week of observing her from the desk right next to hers... I could say this with confidence.
She had never once been this shy before.
If I mapped it onto my past life, it was almost exactly the way a delinquent boy acted around the outcast girl he liked... the same reactions someone shows when they're interested in another person.
Wait... could it be...?
No way, right?
It couldn't be... could it?
But I've never been able to leave a question unanswered.
Wanting to confirm it, I poked at her one more time.
"Did you really think I wouldn't notice you staring at me openly?"
"S-sorry... my eyes just kind of moved on their own... I'm a girl, so instinctively I just... haha..."
"And you call that an excuse...?!"
"I really am sorry... did that upset you?"
She genuinely seemed apologetic.
Kim Arin dipped her head slightly.
Judging from her reaction...
It really did look like she had some kind of interest in me.
Was this actually happening?
Back in my past life I was a total outsider, a hopeless outcast, so of course no one had ever liked me before...
I'd never even had the chance to develop feelings for anyone myself.
Come to think of it...
I'd been too busy struggling to escape the bullying to think about anything else.
Making friends with someone...
Falling for someone...
All of it was somebody else's story as far as I was concerned.
Of course, I'd never experienced any of it firsthand...
but from watching the people around me, there were things I'd picked up naturally.
How people behave when they like someone.
What kind of reactions they show when interest in another person starts to bloom.
You didn't need to live through those things yourself to understand them well enough.
So Kim Arin's reactions right now...
I had a vague sense of what they meant.
Still, I shouldn't jump to conclusions.
But then...
"Um... your gaze is drifting down again...?"
"Ah, sorry..."
"Haah... well, I suppose it happens. I understand..."
"What? You... understand?"
"N-nothing. Forget I said that..."
I could see Kim Arin straining to force her eyes upward, desperate to keep her gaze from sliding down.
She was doing it even now.
Then again...
In my past life, I'd caught glimpses of girls' bra straps peeking out from behind their shirts at school too...
Or when a girl was especially well-endowed...
Sometimes her uniform would puff out so noticeably that the curve was impossible to miss.
And yes, I'd stolen glances at that more than once without even meaning to.
Come to think of it, the girls back then noticed all of that, didn't they?
Just like how I can see Kim Arin's eyes darting around right now.
Ugh.
Embarrassing, I guess you'd call it.
Even though I'm a boy in this world...
It's less that I'm ashamed of someone looking at my chest, and more that...
maybe because of the bullying I went through in my past life, the gaze itself feels unpleasant before anything else.
What's even to like about this chest?
I lowered my head and rested a hand on my chest.
Fidgeting with it, I found...
perhaps because I was a male going through puberty in this world...
only a slightly rounded swell where the flesh had begun to rise.
The fact that my male body had this plump little swelling on its chest felt... awkward, somehow.
Maybe because I'd been a man in my past life...
this somehow felt even more shameful...
But then...
Kim Arin hurriedly lunged forward and blocked my view of myself.
When I lifted my head to look up at her...
she was pinching her nose shut this time.
Her face crimson all the way to her ears, she shouted at me.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing...!"
"Huh...?"
"Th-that is...!"
"What?"
"Th-the thing is... m-maybe you should take your hands off your chest first...?"
"Huh?"
"Not 'huh'..."
This flustered, scrambling version of Kim Arin was another first.
She sure was showing me a lot of unfamiliar sides of herself today...
Why, though?
Was I the only one out of the loop here?
Come to think of it, she had pressed herself right up against me, blocking everything from view.
Annoying.
She was only ever this friendly with me, so surely I could tell her to give me some space.
"Um, could you back up a little? You're way too close..."
"No... that's the one thing I can't do..."
"Huh...?"
"Do you seriously have no self-awareness? Or are you just pretending not to...?"
"Me? I'm not doing anything at all...?"
"Want to lower your head and take a good look at what you're doing...? Mmph...!"
Kim Arin clamped her hand over her nose again.
Hold on.
Was blood seeping out between the fingers pinching her nose?
By now it really was too strange to ignore...
so, as Kim Arin suggested, I tilted my head down for a look.
Without even realizing it, I was still kneading my own chest through my shirt.
The swollen mound of flesh compressed under my hand...
the squished flesh spilling out between my fingers...
"Wh-whoa...?"
"Oh, you finally noticed? Are you out of your mind?"
"I-it's just... I wasn't doing this on purpose..."
"Take your hands off first, then explain... can you do that?"
"Y-yes...!"
At her urgent demand, I snatched my hand away from my chest.
Which meant that I...
had just openly fondled my own chest in the middle of the classroom?
And in a suggestive way, no less...
Mapped onto my past life, it was the equivalent of a girl casually playing with her own breasts in front of everyone.
Would any girl actually do that?
Even back then, that would have been a rare sight to behold...
Because I'd been a man in my past life, I'd never fully registered how taboo it was.
I'd been unconsciously touching myself, wearing the blank expression of someone completely oblivious.
Doesn't that make me look like a total slut?
A shameless, lust-driven tramp...
Terrified that the whole class now saw me as some kind of promiscuous slut,
my head drooped all on its own.
My ears were probably burning red by now.
More than shame itself, it was the worry of being branded a tramp in front of everyone that weighed on me.
Mortified as I was... I still worked up the nerve to speak to Kim Arin.
"I-I'm sorry..."
"No, what do you have to apologize for...? You startled me, that's all."
"Trust me, the feeling's mutual..."
Neither of us knew what to do, so we just stared at each other in silence for a while.
Meeting her eyes felt awkward for no reason, and my gaze kept wandering all over the place.
Kim Arin was the first to speak, hesitantly.
"Seriously, don't boys have any sense of shame?"
"W-well..."
"What kind of guy just openly gropes his own chest in a classroom...?"
"Could you... just think of me as a hopeless innocent...?"
"Haah... I'd say you're less innocent and more dangerously oblivious, honestly."
"R-really...?"
"I mean, you hate people looking at your chest, but touching it yourself doesn't bother you at all? What's up with that...!"
Kim Arin smacked her own chest repeatedly, as if my behavior frustrated her beyond words.
If I translated it to my past life, it was exactly the kind of scolding a boy would give a girl with no sense of caution...
but I could sense a flicker of genuine worry underneath, too.
Though, well, the lustful way she looked at me was still stronger than the concern.
Maybe it was the impression from our first meeting...
Anyway...
Is something wrong with me?
This really is a world I can't adapt to, no matter what.
Every unconscious little gesture I made seemed to send the girls around me into a frenzy.
Ah...
Maybe Kim Arin was right. Maybe this really is what they call airheaded charm.
Just then.
Behind Kim Arin, I heard the girls chattering among themselves.
"Fuck... that's so fucking hot..."
"Hey... c-can someone... bathroom... now..."
"Haah... y-yeah, I need to go too..."
Two girls opened the back door and hurried off toward the restroom...
Don't tell me...
It's not what I think it is... right?
"K-Kim Arin, could you move for a sec?"
"H-huh...? Oh... sure..."
Once Kim Arin stepped aside...
I finally understood why she'd blocked my view so desperately.
Everyone who had come back to the classroom after finishing their lunch was staring straight at me.
The atmosphere in the room had been frozen solid from the very start, as if I'd committed some catastrophic offense.
I could feel stares aimed my way from every direction.
Had it been like this since the moment I started touching my chest?
Only now was I registering it.
Even when the two girls had been sexually harassing me earlier, the rest of the class had stayed quiet...
but now they were all sneaking glances at me, sizing up the situation.
Regardless of gender, every eye in the room was fixed on me.
"Ah..."
"Haah... Seo Hajin, you're seriously... driving me insane..."
Kim Arin, right beside me, let out an enormous sigh.