A Different Kind of Normal
Futanari. It wasn't my thing. In a situation where putting a man on screen was already something people went out of their way to avoid, I figured it was the kind of thing that should only ever be done sparingly — under careful judgment and the strictest standards.
Even in the world I'd come from, there had been intersex people — calling it a "condition" always felt a little cruel — individuals born with both sets of genitals. But I'd only ever encountered the idea sexually, never medically, and that colored everything.
"Uh… uh…"
Soyeon was looking at me the way you'd look at a psychiatric patient — awkward, uncertain, a little alarmed.
Even so, I couldn't swallow the revulsion. The disgust at a male organ was there, of course — but more than that, I was terrified of watching the solid foundation of this insane world's basic background knowledge crack apart under my feet.
Water flows downward. Fire rises. Mana, sword-ki, whatever — those could flow down or flicker up and I'd still find a way to accept them.
What I meant was: propositions built on common sense were not supposed to change.
If this was how it was going to be, then why no warp drives? Why no time machines?
I wanted to throw Soyeon out. I felt terrible about it, but right that second I wanted nothing more than to sit down with the cheap AI inside that cracked PDA and learn the entire history of humanity from scratch.
I'd already skimmed it once, but most of what I'd read had been about the present situation. Waking up to find yourself starring in an isekai castaway story and immediately searching "futanari," "intersex," "elves" — that would make anyone look like the weird one, wouldn't it?
…Is there a Korea? No — do men even exist here? I'd only been conscious for half a day, not even a full one, and I hadn't seen a single man. If that turned out to be the reason, I might actually lose my mind.
"Ugh… uh. Uh."
"Um, Admin— unnie? I, I'm sorry? Can I… put my clothes back on for now…?"
"…"
I just nodded. My mouth kept opening and closing, still hunting for the right words and finding none.
The way she grabbed the wide sweatpants pooled at her feet and pulled them back up looked, to me, like a doctor trying to erase the cause of a PTSD patient's trauma right in front of them.
That felt unfair.
"So, hehe. Ah — intersex-phobia… is that it? Sorry. I, I didn't know…"
"…No, th-that's— that's not it. I just… I was just startled."
Soyeon scratched the back of her head awkwardly, standing there at a complete loss, not even managing to shift her weight. Somehow that was enough for me to claw back a scrap of social function and answer her.
"Today, um. Should we wash separately today? I didn't think you'd be this shocked. Ah, damn. Would it be easier if I just left? Then tomorrow—"
"…"
Something felt off. I was the one who should be like this — so why was Soyeon this flustered? Sure, anyone would panic if you screamed in their face, but this looked like something else entirely.
Watching her back as she moved to leave the room, I let the thought spill out without any filter at all.
"……You, you said we'd washed together before, d-didn't you?"
The hand on the doorknob froze. Wait. Wait a second.
Of course — the old me. The "me" who'd been memorized under the name Han Yeoreum was a different person from who I was now. But if that were true, she shouldn't have been able to say she had no idea.
"Then there's no way you wouldn't kn— no, wait, hang on. The way I keep mixing formal and casual speech, and… we were close, right…?"
"…Ah…"
Trembling, Soyeon barely managed to turn her head toward me. She stood like that for a long time.
And then—
"I-I'm so sorry! Administrator!!!!"
It was the first time in my life I'd seen a real dogeza. Well — if flattening your entire body against the floor counted as one.
I managed to calm her down enough to get her sitting on the edge of the bed, kept a careful distance (it looked like I'd hurt her), and listened. Her explanation was simple. The main point was that she hadn't had any lewd intentions.
They'd already eaten together, slept in the same space, drunk together — she'd just wanted to get a little closer. Honestly, that was hard to understand…
But if I classified Soyeon as a woman rather than a man, it wasn't that unbelievable.
You know — women go to the bathroom together. Whether that means actually doing their business side by side or just fixing makeup and checking the mirror, I had no way of knowing.
Maybe both. One person making a little trickle sound while the other tidies their hair in the mirror… the mental image was a bit strange, though.
More than anything, I didn't put much stock in this particular explanation.
Someone who, the moment their companion lost their memory, tried to look at the naked body of a woman they'd always liked? Even allowing for how little I understood this world's common sense, that was pure eromanga-level plotting.
So for now I managed to send Soyeon away, and spent a long while skimming the encyclopedia-like entries built into the PDA.
I was critically short on common sense.
The conclusion?
What else would it be. It just… existed. I took it more calmly than expected — probably because I'd already been hit with one massive shock injection.
It wasn't something that had suddenly appeared, or something whispered about and treated as taboo. It was a gender that had been around since the days when humans still flinched at fire.
Denying it wouldn't help. In a world I might never leave — a world I didn't even know if I could leave — all it would do was slow down how long it took me to adapt.
The word for it was intersex, so "bisexual" had been replaced by "dualsexual," and there was a separate word for people attracted only to women… beyond that, thankfully, not much else had changed.
Something to work through by thoroughly beating up the mattress before bed. Given everything else that had landed on me, that felt about the right scale for this one…
And so, the next morning. Dahyeon — who I was fairly sure had never opened that door before — walked in, looked down at me while I was still asleep, and pulled me along by the hand until I had no choice but to attend.
When the door opened, the not-particularly-large conference room was packed. Soyeon was seated right beside what looked like the head of the table.
"…"
She dipped her head in a little bow — still, apparently, unable to forget the horrified look on my face from yesterday — but that wasn't what mattered right now.
…But how did she even get into my room? How long was she watching me sleep? Please tell me I didn't say anything weird.
I stood there awkwardly until people made a path for me.
A few left the room and came back in before I could finally sit at the head of the table. Even in a situation like this, they seemed determined to acknowledge my rank.
I looked around the room again.
Everyone was a woman. Maybe the escape pods had been split male and female, or maybe this colony ship had been designed from the start to keep men to an absolute minimum.
Which meant some of these people — or most of them — might have… that.
I should look it up before bed. Individual profiles might not be there, but the overall sex ratio should be listed somewhere.
"…First, um. I'll run the meeting."
Soyeon's voice.
Not too many people, not too few. If I hadn't been trapped in this body, the original "me" might have gone full authoritarian dictatorship — but for now, at least, we were calling it a meeting.
"Everyone's eaten, right? Haha… honestly, I barely managed."
A thin little laugh leaked out at her words. It sounded forced.
"Um… at least no one's seriously hurt… no one here, anyway, so that's a relief. Anyway. We need to start thinking about what comes next…"
I had nothing to do in this meeting. Every so often, questions about how I was doing came at me in different tones from different people, but beyond saying I was fine, there wasn't much.
I had zero knowledge. If it were just a matter of forgotten access codes or permissions, I might have contributed something — but all I had was a high-school education and how to file taxes.
…I'd watched a few wilderness survival videos, sure, but I doubted that would help.
So all I could do was listen.
People said they needed to go outside. Whatever else, they had to get out there, assess the situation more clearly, start repairs, and at the very least figure out farming and food supply — those had become critical problems.
"…We came here for the resources, you know."
Opinions on the "mission" had split roughly down the middle, and while I was still puzzled by that, Soyeon whispered it close to my ear. The breath against my skin might have been stimulating to someone who hadn't dated since middle school — but unfortunately, my heart had already checked out.
"Ah…"
"I'll introduce everyone properly later, okay?"
She finished the whisper and pulled the room's attention back to herself.
"Alright! Everyone settle down! We've got plenty of time. Let's start by sorting out the external activity problem. As for the permissions side of things — that's going to need a little more time anyway!"
"But is it really okay to just go out?"
Someone's voice. I looked up to find a woman with a messy bun staring at me — no, at Soyeon beside me.
"What about atmosphere checks? They ran them from the mothership, sure, but we don't know how accurate that was. And we don't even know how to read the data."
"Ahem. Well, I can read most of it! We've got sealed suits, so we put those on, go out, take manual samples, and check them that way—"
"All of that… by hand. Ha. Fine. Okay, I get it."
I flinched. My body trembled a little. Whether that was my own will or some instinct hardwired into this female body's genes, I couldn't tell.
"Um. Haha…"
With nothing left to say, Soyeon just smiled like that.
And so, the second day of colonization passed.
I'd spent the entire first day unconscious, so I really was just circling the edges of everything.