You Planned This From the Start
“You’re a real fucking psycho.”
“…Sorry.”
Even after collapsing from exhaustion and waking up, the pain was still there. It hurt far worse than I’d expected, and something about my pelvis felt twisted out of place—my gait had gone completely wrong. Between my legs still throbbed with every step, turning walking and sitting into an awkward, shambling mess. All of it kept dragging last night back into my head, and irritation surged up hot and sharp.
He must have been embarrassed too; he sat alone on the sofa, fiddling with the corner of his mouth. The way he kept his lips clamped shut without a word made me want to look anywhere else. It was the first time I’d ever seen my own face look that irritated. Before, looking at it from the outside had only ever felt awkward. Now the silence pissed me off, and I had the feeling that anything he said would piss me off just the same. My feelings were a tangled mess.
“What the hell is wrong with you? It’s not like my body went into heat or something—you couldn’t even hold it in for that? Goddamn it.”
Heat climbed the back of my neck until it felt like it would snap. I’d already told him once and he’d ignored me and done this anyway, so I doubted he’d listen now. Still, giving up on talking felt wrong too, and I was stuck. I almost turned away and let it go, then the anger surged again and I jabbed a finger at Song Haneul.
“You are seriously…!!”
My voice cracked with how worked up I was. But the words died. At the end of my pointing finger, my wrist was flushed an ugly red. The memory of last night—held down, unable to move even a little—rose up and left me feeling powerless. The index finger that had been stretched straight slowly curled in. I clenched my fist tight and pulled it in against my chest.
Not even a wild animal would do this—fucking someone without caring about blood ties—and there was nothing I could do about this crazy bitch. Before the swap there hadn’t been the slightest sign. Had she always had some twisted fantasy about this? Or after the bodies switched, had I somehow led her on without even realizing it?
It was ridiculous, but even if I had done something like that, it was still Song Haneul’s own body. Strictly speaking, the one who’d been jumped was me. But once the bodies went back to normal, it would be Song Haneul herself who’d have to deal with the fallout.
Fuck. I muttered it under my breath and raked both hands through my hair. I felt like I was losing my mind. The hangover from drinking myself stupid was already bad enough; being forced awake in the middle of it left me with the crawling sensation of bugs skittering around inside my skull. Scratching didn’t help at all, and my teeth ground together.
“Aaaagh—aaaaaaaagh!!”
Nothing was going right, and the irritation climbed until it filled my entire head. I stamped my feet and screamed like I was having a fit, but it barely took the edge off.
“Hey…”
“Don’t touch me!”
I slapped the approaching hand away and was left with nothing but ragged breathing. I glared with both eyes wide open, grinding my molars.
“…I said don’t touch me.”
I said it a second time because I was sure he wouldn’t listen otherwise, and I trembled. Without meaning to, I’d already flinched at the thought that I couldn’t win with strength. It was humiliating—cowering in front of Song Haneul just because of a difference in power. Trying to find courage only brought back the memory of last night, of being held down helplessly and used, and I couldn’t fight back. We hadn’t even been talking about a physical fight, yet my mind kept sliding that way. I started wondering if it was because I normally only ever thought about solving things with force.
Was this the kind of situation where you called the police?
But in the end the one who would go to prison was my body. The person who got reported and became a criminal wouldn’t be Song Haneul—it would be Song Hamin. Even if I told him to get out and sent him away, what would happen when the bodies switched back? I was the victim, yet the one who got cursed out and locked up would still be me.
In the space of a heartbeat I ran the numbers and bit down on my lip. Just standing here was already uncomfortable. My pelvis felt so twisted I was sure my whole body was about to collapse. I stared down at my shaking legs, closed my eyes, and let out a trembling breath.
“I must have been out of my mind.”
Song Haneul’s voice came out quiet and even, and my eyes simply blinked open. Looking down, all I could see was my own chest. No particular feeling rose. Yesterday’s memories flooded back in vivid detail. Remembering the sensation of being pushed into made the ache between my legs throb harder. A stretch of time filled with nothing but pain. Because it had happened while I was half-asleep, I couldn’t even remember how long it had gone on. All I retained was how hard it had been, and right now everything still felt hazy.
“You wouldn’t do something like that unless you were crazy.”
“What are you doing?”
“Why do you care?”
“Ah—I’m going to wash up.”
I let out a long, irritated breath. The sharp snort made Song Haneul, who had been acting like a guilty criminal, take a step back.
The shower poured water down like rain. Standing under it for a long time didn’t clear my head. If anything, closing my eyes made my skull feel heavy and dizzy. I was tired enough that I could have just collapsed right there and slept. After a couple of deep breaths I crouched down and let the water run between my legs. It stung, but the pressure was strong enough that it at least felt like I was getting clean. I’d woken up in the middle of it, so I had no idea how much he’d done, but if anything like semen was still left the way it had been before, that would be a disaster. It was Song Haneul’s body, sure, but nobody knew what might happen right now, and that made me anxious right along with her.
“Ugh… nn…”
How the hell had I ended up like this? Trying to look at myself objectively only left me feeling pathetic.
“Ha.”
A hollow laugh slipped out. Every complicated feeling was mixed together so thoroughly I couldn’t even name them. I sat propped against the bed like I was lying down and just tapped at my phone. Catching sight of the fluid-soaked blanket that had been thrown onto the floor made my chest tighten for a second. Curses I’d been carefully avoiding tried to climb out of my mouth. Once they stuck, they tended to stay for a long time, which was a problem—but the only words that could express how I felt right now were those, and that left a bitter taste.
Even chatting with friends felt distant and surface-level. Setting aside the ones still in the military, everything was game talk. With the knowledge I already had, keeping up the conversation wasn’t hard, but whenever someone suggested actually playing I had to sidestep it. Drinking plans were off the table too, which made it worse. Several friends kept saying that now that I was a civilian again I should come out and drink, and I turned every single one of them down. Contact already felt thinner than before. Keep refusing long enough and people naturally stop offering.
There were still a few game parties that got proposed fairly often, but even those I avoided—I didn’t even join the chat rooms. It felt like I was actively working to stay on the outside. A couple of them worried about me, but that wasn’t purely a good thing either. In this mood, nothing was going to feel good no matter what I did.
How did it come to this?
“…….”
My body was falling apart piece by piece. Muscles and joints creaked and complained. In the end I let the collapsing body drop flat, stared blankly at the ceiling for a while, then closed my eyes.
Did the rules even mean anything anymore? They’d crumbled so fast I had to wonder what the point of them had been. I’d thought it would be enough if I was careful. The fact that there had been something I needed to be careful of was almost funny.
I still didn’t know how I’d ended up like this, and I didn’t want to know. What the hell did someone have to do to lose their mind so completely that they’d treat their own body that way? I couldn’t report it, and I couldn’t even let my anger cross a certain line—because I was terrified last night’s violence would come back again.
There was nowhere to ask for help. My body and my entire life were being held hostage; unless I was ready to destroy myself, I couldn’t even go outside and scream. The weight pressing down on my shoulders left me feeling completely powerless.
“Hey, Song Hamin.”
“…….”
He poked his head around the doorframe, and I just glared without a word. Even looking at him took effort, so I let out a long breath and shut my eyes again. I was too tired to deal with him. I couldn’t even figure out how I was supposed to act.
So this was what people meant when they said things that happened inside a house were hard to report. Even if it hadn’t been my life or my body, the atmosphere at home, what the neighbors would think—all of that would keep rising up and make it nearly impossible to speak. You’d need the kind of resolve that said “I don’t care if I ruin my own image, I’m burning everything down” before it became possible. I understood that now.
“Aren’t you going to eat anything?”
The sheer shamelessness of it. He jumps me and now he’s asking if I’m hungry. I didn’t even bother opening my eyes. I didn’t want to be interrupted right now. I wasn’t hungry in the first place. My lower belly was still throbbing; eating wasn’t going to be easy.
“Get lost.”
“Okay.”
At least he backed off without a fight. That wasn’t entirely bad. No—shouldn’t he be apologizing and offering to do something? Did kids these days not even know how to say sorry? We were the same age, yet the environments we’d grown up in were different enough that the gap could be this wide? Had he just made the wrong friends?
Every kind of thought crowded in. By this point it felt like I was desperately hunting for someone to blame, and that only made me feel worse about myself. I didn’t even understand why I was thinking these things.
“Ah, fuck it.”
In the end I spat out the curse that had been circling inside my mouth the whole time. I wanted even a little bit of relief. I heaved my heavy body up and groped around. I pulled a tissue from the pack on the vanity, blew my nose, and opened the trash can to throw it away.
I was about to toss it and turn away when the two used condoms sitting there stopped me cold. Someone had roughly covered them with tissues, but not enough to hide them completely. The sight of the used condoms made the corner of my mouth twitch. The unsettled feeling refused to leave. I stood there with my shoulders slumped and stared for a long time.
For some reason, tears started falling on their own. Something inside me must have broken. The fact that the tears came without permission proved it. I yanked out a thick wad of tissues and pressed them over my face, holding them there while I forced myself to breathe slowly and deeply. I didn’t know why I kept needing to take these huge breaths. I just wanted the tightness in my chest to ease even a little.
Once I’d wiped the tears away, I dumped so many tissues into the trash that the contents inside were completely hidden. Covering everything with that crumpled mass of paper made it a little better. As long as I didn’t have to see it, my mood wouldn’t swing so wildly.
I slapped the lid shut—and then froze. My trembling hands opened the trash can again and rummaged inside. One torn, two used. The moment I saw them, I couldn’t hold the anger down anymore. Everything I’d been trying to suppress finally burst.
“You—you fucking bought them for this!? You planned this from the start…!!”
Had buying the condoms been part of the plan all along? An indescribable sense of betrayal surged up and I spat the raw emotion out.