I Became a Woman (1)
"The CSAT is right around the corner. What the hell is this score supposed to be?"
Father was looking at the report card. It was the September mock exam results sent over by the re-study academy. Two wrong on math, one wrong on English. Everything else was a clean hundred. With scores like these, I could get into the humanities track I wanted — even Seoul National University wouldn't have been out of reach.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I'm sorry…."
It was, without question, a score that placed me in the top 0.1% nationwide. The kind of result friends looked up to with envy, the kind academies eyed greedily for promotional material. But there was one person — just one — who erupted over it.
My father.
"……."
I hung my head and stared at the floor.
Click. Click.
The sound of a lighter, and then the smell of cigarette smoke rose into the air. There was a time when Father lighting up meant a fight was about to start. Mother would usually come flying out of nowhere, shouting that he was out of his mind, that she couldn't breathe — and Father would dig in his heels, insisting he could smoke however he damn well pleased in his own house.
"Yoon Doyun."
"…… Yes."
"With garbage scores like these, what medical school do you think you're getting into? Huh?"
"……."
"Hey! You little shit — she left because of you. You know that?"
"I'm sorry."
"If you're sorry, then do it right. Perfectly healthy kid, and I feed you, house you, pay your academy fees so you can retake the exam — do I look like a sucker to you? Huh? That why you do whatever the hell you want?"
"I'll do better. I'm sorry…."
"A bastard like you should've been aborted!"
And with that, he walked out. The front door slammed shut with a bang that set the air inside the house trembling.
Aborted. Aborted….
Was I really that worthless?
…The night Mother left, I'd sensed something off and couldn't fall asleep. At first I thought it was a burglar. Soft footsteps trying not to make a sound, and yet the noise of someone rummaging through the house. My bedroom door opened, and I cracked my eyes just enough to look. It was Mother. She came toward me and reached out a hand. But her hand never quite touched me. She drew it back at the last moment, turned, and left the house.
Had Mother regretted giving birth to me too? Had she thought, I should have just gotten an abortion? …She must have regretted it. That was why she abandoned me and left.
Yeah. That had to be it.
"……."
Tears welled up and blurred my vision. They fell with soft little pats, leaving dark spots on the floor. I had gotten so used to crying without making a sound that the drip of water hitting the ground only stood out all the more.
I waited on my feet for hours. Without taking a single step, I waited.
From outside came a raucous racket. Shouting? A fight? Neither. It was singing. A song with no pitch and no rhythm, the kind that was pure torment to listen to. That song came to a stop right outside the front door. I heard the beep of numbers being punched into the door lock.
The door creaked open, and a thick wave of alcohol mixed with the perfume of some unfamiliar woman pushed its way inside. I watched Father stagger in, thoroughly drunk. Our eyes met.
"You little shit. Looking at your father like that? You worthless, ungrateful bastard!"
His shoulder tensed, his arm came up, and a thick palm cracked hard across my cheek. My head snapped sideways and my body hit the floor. The world spun. I planted one arm on the ground and tried to push myself up.
"Guh—!"
A kick drove into my stomach. The strength drained out of me, and the body that had been trying to rise flattened against the floor again.
"I'm sorry. Father, I'm sorry…. I was wrong."
"Ah, for fuck's sake…."
He shoved me aside with his foot and lurched off — then went sprawling in a clatter of limbs. With his balance wrecked by the alcohol, he couldn't even get back up. That seemed to enrage him further; he let out a long, animal howl, and then he was snoring.
"……."
I got up, went into the master bedroom, dragged the blanket out, and carefully draped it over him. Then I went to my room. My cheek stung. My stomach throbbed. I lay on the bed and curled up around my knees. When I held myself like that, the pain would usually fade.
"…… Mom. I miss you."
That night, I couldn't say whether the moonlight was bright or not. Inside the blanket, everything was simply dark.
Morning came. The day brightened. Light that put moonlight to shame reached even inside the blanket.
"Haaah…."
Something was wrong with my body. My stomach still hurt. No — it seemed worse. It felt like someone was scraping out my insides raw.
"Ugh…. My stomach…."
I threw off the blanket. There were bloodstains on the bed. I was so startled I just sat there gaping like an idiot. What was this? What was going on? What happened?
I carefully got down from the bed and checked the living room. Empty. Father must have gone to work. I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.
"…… Huh?"
Mother was there. Younger than Mother, and smaller, but unmistakably a woman who looked like her — standing inside the glass. I touched my cheek. The woman in the mirror touched hers too.
Oh. No way. Is this… me?
I touched my chest. There was a clear mass of soft flesh under my hand. When I squeezed it, a strange sensation ran through me. What my fingers felt was soft and yielding, but from my chest itself came a feeling I couldn't put into words, flooding straight into my brain.
Then those bloodstains earlier….
"It's TS Syndrome. Going through menstruation after a sex change must have been quite a shock. There's nothing wrong with your body, so please try not to worry."
I had come to the hospital with Father. At the sound of a woman's voice he'd never heard from me before, Father was thrown — and once he saw me with his own eyes, he was thrown even harder.
"TS Syndrome? What is that supposed to mean? My child is a boy!"
"Yes, well…. It's not a common occurrence, but you're familiar with them, aren't you? The anomalies — Gwei and the like. This is one of those unexplained phenomena."
"An anomaly…?"
"To be frank, this isn't even a disease, so there isn't much we can do for you. Still — the cramps might be severe, so shall I at least prescribe some painkillers?"
"Haaah……."
I looked at Father. His face was complicated. My stomach was complicated too, in its own way. I'd thought I could endure a fair amount of pain — but this was, how to put it, a lot more than fair.
"Father."
"…… Painkillers. Yes. Please prescribe them."
I followed after him as he shuffled out. I didn't know what he was thinking, but he didn't say a word. We took the stairs down to the hospital lobby. People paid us no particular attention. They glanced once, assumed a father and daughter had come to the hospital, and moved on.
"Go to the pharmacy, pick up the medicine, and meet me in the parking lot."
"Yes. I understand."
Haengbok Pharmacy. A pharmacy sitting in a monopoly position right in front of a major general hospital. Looking at it, I wondered how much that place must pull in. A hundred million won a month in pure profit, maybe?
I went in, handed over the prescription, and sat in a chair to wait. TS. I'd dreamed of all sorts of futures — but becoming a woman had never been one of them….
"Yoon Doyun? Your medication is ready!"
I took the medicine. Whether the person behind the counter was a pharmacist or just part-time help, I couldn't tell — but my resident registration number and personal details still listed me as male while my appearance was female, and their face showed a flicker of confusion. I fled out of there and got into the car. Father must have been chain-smoking; the stale reek of it filled the air.
"I got the medicine."
"…Doyun. I called the academy. They said you don't have to come in."
"So I stay home?"
"Yeah…. Dad believes in you. You know that, right?"
"Yes. I understand, Father…."
An involuntary shut-in life began.
The moment I woke up, I worked a few simple math problems to shake off sleep — an alarm set on my phone that wouldn't turn off until I'd finished them. I ate, washed up, and sat straight down at my desk to grind through the day's assigned set. Start the timer, solve, stop when it rang. Check the answers, write up the error notes, take a short break. When lunchtime came I made lunch; when evening came I cooked for two, Father's portion included.
No energy wasted on commuting. No noise from other people. Concentration came easily. And ever since becoming a woman, my libido seemed to have dropped — the dirty thoughts that used to surface on their own every night had gone quiet. That, at least, meant no wasted strength on pointless things.
Father, though, seemed to be a different story. The faint perfume of a woman that used to drift in once or twice a month was now showing up roughly every three days. And when he passed out drunk, it wasn't snoring anymore — he kept calling Mother's name over and over. That was the other thing that had changed. Well. Even I could see that my face looked an awful lot like hers. Was that why? Sometimes when I came out of the shower, he'd glance at me. Of course he thought he was being subtle — but pretending not to notice that sticky gaze was harder than just acknowledging it.
A month passed like that.
"Ugh…. It hurts……."
Why was a woman's body this much trouble? Glad the libido went down? Fuck that. The monthly magic day had arrived. The second period of my life simply hurt.
It feels like someone's scouring my guts with a steel scrubber….
I couldn't do anything. I just lay on the bed groaning. The studying scheduled for that day, breakfast, lunch, dinner — all cancelled. I was lying in the darkened house with not a single light on when I heard the door lock.
He must have been in a serious hurry; it took two or three failed tries before the door opened.
"Doyun! Yoon Doyun!"
Heavy, pounding footsteps. Toward the kitchen. Toward the bathroom.
"Where did this kid go with all the lights off?"
Thud, thud.
He practically ran through the house — and then my bedroom door opened. Father stood there, breathing hard, staring at me.