The Most Notorious Pervert Ever
The Childhood Friend Who’s a Legendary Pervert...
The quintessential staple of every love comedy, and the ultimate fantasy of every man.
The painfully overused cliché where a girl you've known since childhood suddenly awakens as the heroine one day.
I have one such childhood friend too.
Her—no, his name is Joo Yeonwoo.
Born in the same year right next door to me, we've remained neighbors for over twenty years. From playing house together as children to receiving our high school diplomas side by side, he's been my companion through most of my life.
If that were the case, I should have spent every day living out a love comedy with him, making all sorts of sweet memories....
But I have none of that.
Because my childhood friend has an XY chromosome and a third leg.
He's the kind of neighbor who stands beside me to pee and goes into the same changing room with me whenever we visit a swimming pool.
It was never necessary. Nor did I ever want it.
If I could go back in time, I'd absolutely shout this as my very first word instead of "Mom."
"Please sign the contract for that apartment!"
Of course, having one friend who stays by your side for life is enough to call it a successful life.
If the bastard had been an ordinary man, I would have thought the same.
But there was one fatal flaw about him that I simply couldn't overlook...
He was a legendary pervert who dressed as a woman whenever he felt like it.
Even right now.
I was the one who called him out to have lunch, so why the hell did he show up dressed as a woman?
Full makeup, earrings, a scarf he'd knitted himself, a long skirt, and leather boots to complete the outfit.
How the hell does that look like the outfit of someone meeting his same-sex childhood friend of twenty years?
"Why again?"
And yet, he casually spat out those words as though he had absolutely no idea what he'd done wrong.
"Are you seriously asking because you don't know? We're going out for lunch. Do you really have to dress like that? You could've just come out dressed like an ordinary guy in his twenties."
"Why are you forcing me to dress like a man?"
"I'm forcing you to dress like a man? No, isn't it normal for a man to wear men's clothes? How is that forcing you?"
"I'm cold..."
"..."
Blaming the weather whenever he gets cornered was his painfully obvious pattern.
But normally, what man would ever have a reason to use the expression "dressing like a man"?
Then again, I could understand it.
Because this bastard was such a perfect beauty that he could bring up the subject of "dressing like a man" himself.
He had the straight, well-defined T-zone and prominent nose bridge characteristic of a man, yet the overall lines of his face were soft and delicate like a woman's.
He was the kind of person people would describe as handsome yet beautiful.
No, beautiful yet handsome.
That suddenly reminded me of my first vacation from the military.
I had spotted an unbelievably gorgeous beauty in the neighborhood and followed her around in a daze.
Then I watched her walk into the house next door, and promptly learned the bitter truth.
It had been Yeonwoo's mother.
I suppose she had always been quite sensitive to trends.
She loved her child so much that she dressed him like a little girl and let his hair grow long.
The type of mother who got a thrill every time visitors on social media commented, "Your daughter is so pretty!"
I could understand it.
But usually, in situations like that, the child would eventually be the one to speak up first.
"Please buy me boys' clothes now."
But Joo Yeonwoo was not like that.
He wore nothing but girls' clothes throughout kindergarten, leaving both teachers and students confused about his gender.
Eventually, his father began to worry and cut his hair short, only for Yeonwoo to cry his eyes out for ten days and even go on a hunger strike.
But old habits die hard.
He started saving up his New Year's cash gifts to buy cosmetics and clothes for himself.
And this was the result.
These days, even if you gathered all his relatives together, they'd have trouble telling whether Yeonwoo had originally been a girl.
His family had long since given up.
Even my own parents, our neighbors, simply regarded the kid next door as a "girl."
But I still couldn't accept it.
How many people in this world actually get to live out their childhood-friend fantasy?
So why the hell was I the one who got stuck with this lunatic?
Rustle...
Suddenly, the inside of my arm grew warm.
I turned my head to see what was going on and found Yeonwoo clinging to my arm like a cicada that had made itself comfortable on an old tree.
"Y-You, what the hell are you doing right now? Let go of me this instant!"
"The road's frozen. It's slippery."
"What, you think I have ice cleats attached to the soles of my feet? You knew damn well it had snowed, so why did you come out wearing boots?"
"Why are you getting pissed off, fuck... Then what am I supposed to wear? What do you know about fashion?"
"..."
Wouldn't everything be solved if he just dressed like a normal man?
What reason could a guy over twenty possibly have to wear high-heeled boots with absolutely no anti-slip protection?
Whoosh...
A cold winter wind suddenly swept past us.
At the same time, whoosh! A sharp, intoxicating scent pierced my nostrils.
It was the unmistakable scent of a woman, a mixture of cosmetics and perfume that I could never have associated with an ordinary male friend.
Twitch!
And then disaster struck.
Against my will and without the slightest intention of wanting it, my body reacted on its own.
N-No!
He's my friend.
My buddy of over twenty years, the guy who has lived next door to me and seen absolutely everything there is to see.
To distract myself, I began reciting the Sailor's Creed in my head.
We are the proud descendants of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, Chungmugong, and so on...
"School's starting soon, huh?"
"Huh?"
At that moment, Yeonwoo casually spoke while staring straight ahead.
"It's March now. Why?"
"Once you go to college, you'll make tons of friends, right? There'll be girls too."
"It probably won't be that easy. I'm taking a military leave right away, so everyone else will be two years younger than me, right?"
"Then they'll be following you around calling you 'oppa,' right?"
"Even if they did, isn't it an engineering department? The so-called Engineering Goddess is nothing more than a fantasy created by the media."
That's what I said, but deep down, I was looking forward to it.
I'd enlisted in the Navy immediately after enrolling, so I'd be starting college two years later than everyone else.
Of course, there probably wouldn't be anything special within my department.
But college was supposed to be this dreamlike place where all sorts of unexpected encounters happened....
At least, that's what I'd seen in some short-form video.
So I didn't exactly believe it, but I was allowed to have a little hope, wasn't I?
Anyway, I was looking forward to it quite a bit.
My childhood-friend luck might have been completely screwed, but surely things would be different here.
Lost in my own sweet daydreams, I found myself grinning from ear to ear when...
"Fuck..."
"...?"
Why the hell was he suddenly swearing?