Want to Touch?
“You two been doing okay?”
“Yeees, welcome home.”
“Mm. Ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen in ages, so I got back a little late. That friend is ridiculously busy too—if not for chances like this, who knows when I’d see them again.”
Mom laid out her reasons for being late like some kind of excuse, even though no one had said a word about it.
I kept telling myself I ought to act more like Song Haneul, but I couldn’t quite remember how she usually treated Mom, and the whole thing just felt awkward. I fretted over whether I looked weird. Figuring out that we’d swapped bodies wouldn’t be easy, but what if she still sensed something off? My chest tightened at the thought. No matter how hard I tried to stay natural, there was no guarantee it would actually work.
“By the way, Haneul.”
“…Uh, yeah?”
The sudden use of that name left me a beat slow. After getting used to being called Hamin, answering to Haneul didn’t come instantly. I already had plenty I was trying to hide, so every little thing made me extra careful. Another worry piled on—what if something this small gave us away? At this rate I was going to start sprouting gray hairs.
“Job hunting can take its time, but you’re not just cooped up in the house every single day, are you?”
Thankfully, it was only ordinary motherly fretting. Come to think of it, I’d rarely ever seen Song Haneul leave the house either. Aside from going out with me, she basically never went out at all, right?
“Ah, um… I’ve been heading out a little here and there.”
“Really? That’s a relief, then. If you stay locked inside all day your brain turns to mush. Even while I’ve been home you haven’t stepped out once.”
That’s just because Song Haneul never goes out, I thought.
“I-I went out for a bit today too.”
“With Hamin?”
“Y-yeah.”
Mom’s gaze shifted to Song Haneul standing off to the side. She was quiet for a moment, then gave a small nod.
“It’s good you two get along. Mm. Just don’t stick together too much, okay?”
“As if I’d stick to that guy.”
I answered with exaggerated disgust, but my insides were churning. She was definitely still in the suspicion stage. There was no other reason to say something like that. Running into the two of us together in the middle of the night was more than enough to raise questions.
“Is that so…? Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be lecturing kids who are already grown.”
My show of revulsion made Mom laugh a little sheepishly. But I couldn’t take comfort the way I used to, telling myself everything had ended well. Even if she was smiling on the outside, inside she was probably still watching us with that “what if” in her eyes. Now that things had come to this, we would have to keep some distance for a while whether we liked it or not. Or would putting too much distance between us look even weirder? I tried to act the way I always had, but I could barely remember what “always” felt like. Everything that had happened lately had been so intense and vivid that it blurred out the rest of my memories. Just yesterday alone was more than enough.
Song Haneul standing next to me had to be thinking something similar.
Ah, shit. What do I do?
I’d gotten used to Song Haneul’s body, but it still wasn’t comfortable. Putting on underwear was one thing; having to act like Song Haneul in every other way was hard on multiple levels. Even though we were twins born on the same day, the difference in gender meant the way we treated Mom and Dad was completely different. When our parents weren’t around it didn’t matter much, but while Mom was staying home the gap showed clearly. Of all times, this had to be when I became Song Haneul. The road ahead looked bleak.
I couldn’t just casually suggest we switch back either. Suspicion had already sprouted; I had no desire to turn it into certainty. It wasn’t only about our own mutual resistance. I was freshly realizing just how heavy public opinion and other people’s eyes could be. This wasn’t something you could brush off with an “ah, whatever” while chasing physical pleasure.
I really had no idea.
Just knowing Mom was watching us with suspicious eyes made my insides burn. Every single gesture had to be careful; the house was starting to feel like a prison. I wanted to get out as soon as possible. Going out alone still felt a little off, though—those two times I’d been by myself, random numbers had kept texting me.
Separately…?
At home was one thing, but outside there wasn’t exactly a convenient place for what we needed. Were we going to have to rent a room again? The memory of that four-hour rental vanishing into thin air made me hesitate a little. Still, no better plan came to mind. We couldn’t just sit around waiting for Mom to suddenly have plans—especially when we had no idea whether those plans would keep her out late. Gambling on that would only cost us. The only return would be getting our original bodies back and feeling a bit more comfortable. That wasn’t nearly enough reason to pile more certainty onto the suspicion we were already under.
For now we had no choice but to live like this. No more, no less—just act the way we always had. Don’t do anything weird and get caught. I swore to myself we wouldn’t be found out and tried to smooth down the anxiety in my gut.
We really did live like dead mice for three whole days. Whenever I ran into Mom in the living room I made a point of sniping at Song Haneul with little jokes and jabs, hoping the bickering would put her even a little more at ease. Whether that wish got through or not, we didn’t even have to wait a full week—she suddenly made plans and went out.
“Mom’s gone.”
“…I seriously thought I was going to die.”
Going out alone felt awkward; going out together drew too many eyes. Song Haneul might have been used to holing up at home, but living that life in her place had me climbing the walls. In the middle of it all I found myself glaring for no good reason at Song Haneul, who had the nerve to stroll off to the convenience store by himself like it was nothing.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You looked pretty comfortable this whole time.”
“…Well, I don’t have anything to worry about, do I?”
The sheer shamelessness of the answer left me speechless. Dragging the conversation out any longer wouldn’t change anything anyway.
“So what are we doing? …How long do you think Mom’s plans will take?”
“Beats me…”
I wanted to switch back as soon as possible. Being able to and choosing not to was just a loss. But Song Haneul seemed to be hesitating a little. That lukewarm attitude almost made me snap; I held it in only because I knew this was the time to talk him around.
“Look, staying like this is only going to make her more suspicious. You know that too.”
“I know, okay? Are you calling me clueless or what?”
“That’s not what I—anyway.”
“Going right now is pointless. Let’s just go out while Mom’s still around.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t say she’d be back late today.”
Song Haneul rubbed his chin, turning Mom’s words over. Normally if she was going to come home late she would mention it; the fact that she hadn’t was making him drag his feet. Put that way, I understood the hesitation.
“Ah… really?”
“She could just grab a coffee and be back in no time. Then us being gone for more than four hours would look even weirder.”
“Then how about we finish it quick at home?”
“Huh?”
“I’m not saying we do that—I mean we switch our bodies back.”
For a second the whole point almost got lost. I reminded myself that renting a room so we could have sex for four straight hours had never been the goal.
“Ah. Aaaah.”
Song Haneul seemed to catch on a beat later and nodded. It was almost funny how “let’s switch bodies” had instantly turned into “let’s fuck” in both our heads. Maybe just thinking about a rental room dragged those memories up automatically. Still, when it came time to actually suggest it, the corner of my mouth twitched.
“If holding each other isn’t enough, just get it hard. You only need to be inside for a second.”
My voice was shaking too.
“…And if Mom walks in while I’m still inside you, you think we can handle that?”
“We just hold each other for a bit in my room. The second you hear the door open, you get out fast.”
“So once we’re back to normal I pull out and leave first—that’s the plan?”
“Yeah, basically.”
“What about clothes?”
My eyes wavered for a second, but a few dresses I’d seen around came to mind right away.
“There’s a dress. That should hide it, right?”
“…You pervert. You’re thinking about that right now?”
“You knew about it too, didn’t you?”
“I only realized when you said it.”
Song Haneul really did treat me like a total pervert. I felt a little wronged, though. My head was just spinning faster because we were running out of time—it wasn’t like I went around thinking about this stuff every day. The fact that I had no better way to explain it was just frustrating.
“Anyway, let’s just get it over with and switch back…”
“I’m not even hard. How are we supposed to fix that?”
Ah, so this is where we start?
I was so floored for a second that words failed me, but Song Haneul’s reaction—now that he had my body—was easy enough to predict. It felt a bit like toppling a sandcastle. For three days the only relief he’d had was probably jerking off, if that, and I hadn’t seen any signs of even that. Even if he had, getting off by hand was a completely different story from reacting to a woman’s body. All we had to do was get undressed.
“Inside.”
The living room was absolutely out of the question. The wide-open space made my skin crawl. The thought that someone could just fling the door open and catch us made me even more reluctant. In that sense my room—where Mom almost never came—was the safest place.
Pushing Song Haneul into the room went fine. After that my mind went completely blank. To switch back he needed to be hard, and the fact that I had to make that happen made my body freeze. Usually I just let myself get swept along by Song Haneul’s freewheeling pace whenever he wanted to work off desire. Having to take the lead myself felt strangely awkward.
While my body hesitated, my wandering gaze finally met Song Haneul’s. The indifferent look in his eyes made my whole body lock up. Fumbling, I unhooked my bra and pushed my swaying breasts forward.
“…W-want to touch?”
Why the hell was I trembling like this?
It only made me feel even more embarrassed.