Stiff Speech
Gym, home, gym, home. The loop was simple. Until the shoot, I had nothing in particular to do, so I worked out and otherwise kept myself busy with hobbies.
I watched YouTube. I watched livestreams. I even put on a few men's streams for market research, but they were so nauseating I couldn't stand to keep watching.
In the evenings, I watched baseball. The Daejeon Eagles. Of course I didn't know a single player. They were all women, after all. Women casually throwing 140, 150 km/h — that was something else. And amazingly, the Eagles here were in last place too. Disband already, you last-place trash.
I even had a few jerseys lying around, names I'd never heard of stitched across the back. Women's names, so they had to be Eagles players. I looked it up — their cleanup hitter, currently out with an injury. No wonder. I'd been watching every game and she never appeared.
Time slipped by inside that monotonous pattern. After that first call with Nellka, we exchanged a few more messages. Specifics about the shoot. How far we could go with the language.
And then, today.
The shoot had arrived, and I was lying around at home, taking it easy. Around eight, maybe. The doorbell rang.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
"Who is it?"
I set down my phone and walked toward the front door.
"Who's there?"
"Ah, it's the security guard."
Security? Why would security be here this early in the morning? It was a woman's voice, but that was only natural. In this world, a female security guard was the default.
"I have something to check. Could you open the door?"
"Yes. One moment."
I opened it without a shred of suspicion. The moment the lock clicked, the door flew wide and someone burst in, shouting.
An intruder?!
Startled, my hands moved on reflex. I seized her by the collar and dropped low.
"Uh?"
I heard her yelp as I twisted, pulling her arm in tight against me. Her body sailed over my head and hit the floor with a thud.
A perfect shoulder throw.
Caught completely off guard, she lay sprawled flat on the floor, groaning.
"Ghhhkk...!"
Holy hell. What a way to start the morning. If it hadn't been for the technique I'd learned from a soldier who'd done judo before enlisting, this could have gone badly.
I pressed a hand to my still-pounding chest and checked the intruder's face. Wait. I'd seen this person before.
"...Nellka?"
"Park Beomjun, you... I'm reporting you. Nngh."
The intruder — no, Nellka — let out a whimper and closed her eyes.
"Did you get that?"
"Yes. Perfectly."
The person who'd been filming in the living room answered.
"Beomjun's deadpan, ooooh. That's incredible."
"Thank you."
Right. This had all been staged. A bit of theater planned out over several discussions. The blank expression wasn't acting — I was just tense — but if they liked it, fine by me.
"Shall we check the footage?"
We huddled together and replayed the scene of Nellka getting thrown.
"Oh. Insane."
"Wow. That's intense."
"You really tossed her clean."
Everyone had something to say, watching Nellka sail through the air.
"Urgh. There goes my image..."
Only the victim herself was complaining.
"That's just your image anyway, Yeram."
Even that got shut down by her manager. The senior manager, I think? Her name was Gwak-something. I had no talent for remembering names.
"Nn. If we're done checking, let's move on."
Nellka, who had stormed all the way to Park Beomjun's apartment to demand an apology. Even after getting attacked, she held the upper hand as the conversation continued.
"A ban attack and a physical assault on top of it. You really are a terrifying person, Beomjun."
"I apologize."
We'd only sketched out the general situation. There was no script. A shoot running on one hundred percent pure ad-lib. There was no telling what would come out of Nellka's mouth.
Talking to a woman was hard enough without having to guess the conversation too. Could there be a more nerve-wracking situation than this?
Wound tight. I didn't even know what I was going to say next when Nellka opened her mouth.
"You're not a spy sent by a rival YouTuber or something, are you?"
"That is not the case."
"Really?"
"Yes."
Nellka watched me with suspicious eyes. Then she continued.
"Then please answer my questions honestly."
"Yes."
"Your real name is Park Beomjun?"
"Yes. That is correct."
"Age?"
"I am twenty-five."
"Do you live alone?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Thank you."
"Excuse me?"
"Sorry?"
"You just said thank you..."
"I did?"
"Yes."
"I see."
Nellka closed her eyes and nodded, looking thoroughly satisfied. So this really was a gender-reversed world. The second she heard I lived alone, her whole face just... melted. She was trying so hard to keep a straight face, but the twitch at the corner of her mouth was plain as day. There was something almost pervy about it, and I felt a little of the fight go out of me.
"What."
"Excuse me?"
"Why are you looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"You just looked at me like I was the most pathetic person alive."
"I did?"
"Yes!"
"I see."
I nodded. I could barely keep up with answering. There was no way I knew what face I was making.
"Did you just copy me?"
"I did?"
"Yes!"
"I see."
"Hey! You did it again!"
I didn't even know what I was saying. I was just letting out whatever surfaced in my head.
I met Nellka's eyes as she stared at me, wide-eyed. A neatly tied ponytail dyed pink. In contrast to the loud hair color, her small, delicate features called to mind a kitten. Her eyes were so round and bright I could practically see my own face in them.
She raised her voice, a flicker of anger on her face.
"Beomjun! Is this really the time to be joking? Do you have any idea whose fault it is I got banned?!"
"I am not."
"How are you going to make it up to me?!"
"Excuse me?"
"You snatched that donation without a word and I got banned! Take responsibility!"
I was going to lose my mind. This energy. I didn't have the stamina to keep up. I'd overestimated myself. So much for opportunity. I should have been counting myself lucky the conversation had even held together this long.
"I apologize."
"Noooo. What I need right now isn't an apology, it's compensation. Compensation for the ban!"
"What would you have me do?"
Nellka closed her mouth for a moment, thinking. She'd probably already planned the compensation, but for the bit she even hummed a thoughtful hmm as she pretended to consider.
"Before we talk about compensation, can I ask you something I'm curious about?"
"Yes."
"Is your speech always like that?"
"Excuse me?"
"Your speech. You've been using that stiff formal register this whole time."
"Ah, is that so?"
"See! You're doing it again. Danakka speech."
I was so tense I didn't even know if I was talking properly. I had no bandwidth left to worry about my speech patterns. How many women were even in this apartment? Unlike at the gym, I could feel their eyes on me with painful clarity. Honestly, just getting the words out without stammering deserved a round of applause.
"Was your family strict? Military household?"
"Ah. Not a military family. I was an NCO."
"...Excuse me?"
The uniform in my closet with a sergeant first class rank insignia. My training history on the reservist website. The sergeant first class rank listed in my training records. Whether the records had carried over from my original world or not, I could even issue a certificate of military service from the government website.
"You were an N-NCO?"
"Yes. I was discharged as a sergeant first class."
"For real? Like, actually?"
Nellka stared at me like she couldn't believe it. You could think, why wouldn't you believe a person — but she had every reason not to. From what I'd looked up recently, men made up two percent of the military in this world. Considering women were about seven or eight percent of the military in my original world, that was roughly four times lower. In a world where only women had a service obligation, male soldiers weren't merely rare. They were the stuff of legend.
"Yes. Really."
I'd had a rough time of it for a while after getting out. The military speech would slip out at all hours. I'd been embarrassed more times than I could count. I thought I'd completely kicked the habit, but I guess the second I got nervous, it came right back out.
"D-do you have any kind of proof? ...Ah, wait! I believe you, it's just the viewers might not. Really! I'm worried some skeptic's going to come after you for it."
"Yes."
Nobody even said anything. I'd just looked at her, and Nellka was already tumbling out frantic excuses.
I pulled out my phone and logged into the reservist website. The moment I authenticated, my training record popped up like a ghost. I set the phone on the table and showed her.
"Oh! Reservist training! So you actually go? Most male soldiers don't."
"Yes. I go..."
Suddenly I was pissed.
Fucking reservist training! If I'd had any choice in the matter! Goddammit!
"No way. It's real."
Nellka held the phone up to the camera. She's showing that, huh. They'd mosaic it in post, I assumed. I watched her quietly. Noticing my gaze, Nellka handed the phone back with an awkward face.
"I've just never seen a male soldier before. Hehe."
"Ah, right."
I took the phone and slipped it into my pocket. Maybe it was the irritation of thinking about reservist training. I found that the tension had drained out of me without my noticing, leaving me calm.
"So what would you like me to do?"
"Huh? ...Ah! Compensation! Right! ......So."
I waited for Nellka to open her mouth. Whatever it was, it had to beat reservist training.
"So."
Anything but reservist training!!
"Um, sorry, did I do something wrong?"
"No. You didn't."
"But your face..."
"What about my face."
"It's really scary..."
Nellka's eyes slid downward, sneaking a glance. Whatever my expression was doing, she was reading the room like a puppy with its tail tucked between its legs.
I looked at the mirror sitting on the dining table. Some young man with fire blazing in his eyes stared back. He looked exactly like someone pissed off about upcoming reservist drills.
"Ah.... Reservist training."
I'd discovered a way to fix my habit of freezing up around women. All I had to do was think about reservist training.
Fucking reservist training.