A Body to Live With
Adding Yorumi as a friend on the messenger app marked the end of their first meeting. This time she didn’t even glance back as she hurled the connector aside. A belated chill finally crawled down her spine. Had she left a window open in the other room? The sun was already slanting low beyond the glass; lunch was clearly off the table.
“Ugh, it’s cold.”
She rose slowly from the bed, only to realize her back was strangely damp. The wild temperature swings of late spring, perhaps. Around noon it grew hot enough to feel like summer, yet a short while later the air turned crisp as early spring. It was the kind of season where nothing—not clothes, not conditioning—ever quite worked out neatly.
The slightly oversized T-shirt fluttered and clung to her skin in a way that felt far from pleasant. Deciding to skip lunch and just shower, she reached to yank the shirt off, then froze at the odd weight she felt on her chest.
“…No. Ha.”
It was the body she had to live in from now on, but expecting to get used to it overnight was asking too much. The guilty feeling of doing something criminal made her instinctively scan the room before she headed, overly cautious, toward the bathroom entrance tucked in the corner of the master bedroom.
“…This is my own body. It’s not like I’m doing anything weird.”
Who the hell would complain about her doing something weird to her own body? Muttering excuses to no one in particular, she stopped in front of the laundry basket someone had left by the bathroom door. Only then did she notice her hand trembling as it clutched the hem of her shirt.
Yesterday she had squeezed her eyes shut, convinced she shouldn’t do this, and simply splashed water over herself. But she couldn’t keep living like that forever. There was no going back to her original form, so she had to face this flesh—truly face it—if she was going to keep moving forward.
“Hup…!”
She clamped her eyes shut and ripped the T-shirt off in one fierce motion. She must have sweated more than she realized; the sudden rush of cool air across bare skin made her shiver.
“Whew… Right. It’s my body. There’s no problem with looking at it.”
Repeating words she felt she’d said just yesterday, she took slow, deep breaths for a long ten seconds, trying to calm a mind that refused to cool down. She refused to repeat yesterday’s performance—eyes closed, just splashing water and fleeing. With that resolve, she forced her trembling eyelids open.
The white wallpaper covering the master bedroom ceiling came into focus. She lowered her gaze slowly until the bathroom door and laundry basket appeared. The bundle of fabric in her hand was, of course, the shirt she had just removed. Dropping her eyes a little farther, the pale curves of a female body gradually filled her vision.
The first thing she saw was a pair of beautifully rounded mounds rising in elegant arcs. She deliberately tore her gaze away from the rosy peaks that drew her eyes and looked lower. The slanting sunlight threw deep shadows that made her already slim waist appear even more dramatically narrow.
“…No problem at all.”
Just as she had noticed at the hospital, the frame was quite slender. The delicate waist made her hips look comparatively fuller, yet the overall impression was still far from voluptuous. The legs stretching down from the plain underwear were long and pretty in their own way, but they didn’t spark any particular sexual interest.
In most novels, the moment someone transformed into a beauty there was always a scene of ecstatic realization—“Is this… me?”—but she only felt…
“Hmm…”
She tossed the shirt into the laundry basket and turned toward the full-length mirror standing in the corner of the bedroom. Even so, standing there with her nipples openly visible felt too embarrassing; she lifted both hands to cover them lightly. What the mirror showed was a girl wearing nothing but panties, her expression solemnly determined.
Overall the lines were slender. She hadn’t noticed while wearing baggy clothes, but aside from breasts that could at least be called perky, the body gave a strong impression of insufficient flesh. If anything, it inspired pity more than lust.
“The face is acceptable, at least.”
Her small lips pushed out in a pout, as if dissatisfied with something. She would have preferred something a little more sensual. The unheard complaint simply dissolved inside her head.
“…Guess I should shower.”
How ridiculous must yesterday’s version of her have looked to anyone watching? The thought came suddenly as she walked silently into the bathroom.
The shower that followed was so calm she almost wondered if it was too calm even for her.
***
“Heading to see that hospitalized friend again today?”
“Ah, Sang-jun hyung.”
Woojin’s gaze, already aimed at the practice-room door, shifted toward the voice. The man waving at him had a warm, friendly face and an easy smile that was plenty charming even if no one would call him strikingly handsome. The tension that had been locked in Woojin’s expression eased a little.
Kwon Sang-jun had played the role of big brother in Mad Gryphon ever since Woojin joined as a trainee. From the very day Woojin entered the team, Sang-jun had kept an eye on him and looked after him like a true older brother. Of all the people Woojin might run into inside the Gryphon building, he was probably the most comfortable.
“I heard his eyes are open now. You know the coach is sharpening his knives, right? One more sloppy mistake and you’re dead.”
“He was just discharged yesterday. My parents kept nagging me to stop by his house at least once because they’re worried.”
“What kind of deep family connection makes even your parents push like that?”
With an awkward smile, Woojin gathered his few belongings and headed carefully for the practice-room exit. Sang-jun was trustworthy, but he still didn’t want to talk about Han Seol with anyone unrelated.
“Better slip out before Coach shows up.”
“After what you pulled last year, Coach is practically vibrating with excitement, saying Gryphon’s finally going to conquer the world. At least try to match his energy.”
“Sorry, as always.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me.”
Still, this visit would probably be the last one for a while. As he left the building, Woojin reflexively returned the occasional greetings that drifted his way. His steps quickened once he was outside. Using the stairs instead of the elevator had been a good call; he never ran into the furious coach.
His feet felt strangely heavy as he walked toward the main road to hail a taxi. He fiddled with his phone and saw two messages in quick succession: his mother writing “Go see if he’s living like a proper human,” and his friend writing “Die, you popular bastard.”
“…She really doesn’t seem to care that much herself, though.”
Honestly, claiming the sight of his transformed friend wasn’t strange would be a lie. They had already spent years wearing masks, pretending everything was fine between them. The awkwardness was simply hidden beneath those masks. He didn’t want to add more stress to a friend who was already confused, so—
No. Actually, this much was probably fine. Ever since that day, Woojin had assumed Han Seol must resent him. But because she was fundamentally kind, she would console herself by thinking the only one worth hating was the drunk driver who had died at the scene. She would try to hide her feelings, even though anyone in her position would want to resent someone.
In reality, she probably did resent him.
It had been Woojin who begged his parents to go on that trip. It had been his stubbornness that turned it into a family vacation. There were more than enough reasons for Han Seol to resent him. At one point he had even thought it would feel better if she just cursed him out.
Their relationship was like a dormant volcano—emotions piled up awkwardly between them. They both knew the other felt uncomfortable, yet neither could acknowledge that discomfort. It was a strange, delicate bond. How relieved he had felt inside when they finally gained a shared goal called “the game.”
He could only lean on Han Seol’s kindness—the way she pretended nothing was wrong. Afraid that even that fragile balance would shatter, he had never found the courage to take the first step himself. He turned his eyes away from his own pathetic helplessness. After telling the taxi driver the destination, all he could do was smile faintly at the mental image of Han Seol preparing extra side dishes for him while acting as if she hadn’t.
Would it stay like this forever? Could they at least remain friends like this? The taxi sped away from the noisy main road. When he got out near her new apartment, his feet carried him to the nearby convenience store in a daze. Two cups of instant rice, one can of beer, one can of cola.
The only thing he could do was keep wearing the same mask he always had, pretending nothing was wrong. So today, too, he would do his best to act like everything was the same as before. His fingers entered the familiar door-lock code. With a cheerful chime the door swung open.
The savory smell of frying ham immediately tickled his nose. Unexpectedly, the scent of bean-sprout soup that accompanied it felt warmly welcome.
“Seol-ah?”
“Come in and sit. It’s almost ready.”
The voice still sounded a little unfamiliar, yet the corners of his mouth lifted before he could stop them. Woojin’s steps moved slowly past the entryway and toward the kitchen where the food smells drifted. Today as well, just like always. He repeated the fresh determination with every step.
“Guy who earns a fortune still wants to raid a poor man’s pantry.”
At the sudden nearness of Han Seol’s voice, Woojin quickened his pace. After steadying himself, he walked down the short hallway, turned the corner, and saw her standing there as if it were the most natural thing in the world, stirring a ladle in a pot.
“It’s bean-sprout soup… Aaaaaack?!”
Han Seol was wearing nothing but one loose T-shirt.
“…? Did you run into a wall or something?”
Her light-brown eyes narrowed in clear annoyance at his sudden shout. For a long moment, Woojin couldn’t say a single word.