Prologue: Overnight Transformation
I grew up under my father's violence.
My mother died giving birth to me, and Father hated the child who had stolen her life.
Even so, I never hated him in return, nor did I ever run away from home. I might not have been able to fully empathize, but I understood his feelings to some degree. Besides, he made good money. As long as I endured the occasional drunken beatings when he stumbled home, life was more or less bearable.
That did not mean I could keep enduring the violence forever. Until then, gaming had been how I weathered Father's abuse. But after repeating the same cycle for so long, the mercilessness of the violence began to outweigh any pleasure the games still gave me.
I needed a new hobby—something that could free me from Father's violence. Father never cared what I did, so as long as I did not go overboard with the spending, he would not mind where the money went. After all, I already had a hundred million won sitting in my bank account.
And so I began searching for a new hobby to replace gaming. Guitar, piano, hiking, singing, composing, video production, drawing… I tried so many things. Not a single one sparked my interest.
Is this what they call game addiction or something…?
A state I had never even noticed while I was still playing. I had found games so tiresome, yet after just one month I was already missing them.
Back home, I confirmed Father was not inside and headed for my room.
Whirr—
The quiet hum of the computer powering on. The moment I heard that soft noise, the irritation coating my heart began to ease. Once it booted, I quickly moved the mouse and launched a game.
The one I fired up was Legend of League, or LeoRi for short. This title, which had thrived for over a decade, was practically the representative game of planet Earth. It was that popular, and I was one of those who enjoyed LeoRi a great deal.
"Maybe I'll warm up a bit on my smurf…"
After a month off, loosening up on a secondary account seemed wise. Though it is embarrassing to say myself, my main account's tier sat inside the top 0.01 percent.
"I've probably been demoted from inactivity…"
If I had known, I should have played at least one match. Regretting that, I was about to log into the smurf when—
Bzzz—
The phone I had left on the bed started vibrating. I pushed the chair back, reached over, and picked it up.
The screen read Father.
"…"
A call from the man who had never once phoned me in my entire life. Swallowing the tension in my throat, I answered.
"Are you the son of Mr. Son Yeon-woo?"
A voice I had never heard before. Just who was calling me from Father's number? Pushing the rising questions aside, I slowly opened my mouth.
"Yes. He's my father, but what…"
"Mr. Son Yeon-woo has passed away."
Father was dead.
The cause of death was a collision with a bus that had run a red light. That impact sent him into a second collision with a truck coming from the opposite lane. It was a chain-reaction traffic accident no one could have survived.
I was not sad. I did not shed a single tear. To me, Father had been someone even less than a stranger.
So after finishing his funeral, the first thing I did was move. I no longer wanted to stay in a house full of Father's traces. More than that, the place was far too big for living alone. I had always thought the house excessively spacious, so I decided on a decent one-room studio nearby. In the process I had to throw out most of my belongings, but that was actually a relief. Most of the stuff in the house had been Father's anyway.
"Hoo…"
After finishing the move into the studio, I looked around. It was bigger than a typical one-room, but not bad at all. Since I had disposed of every piece of furniture from the old place, the interior of my new studio stood completely empty.
"I'll just buy a good bed."
I never liked unnecessary spending. I had no desire to buy furniture I would not even use.
"But what about this…"
I found myself fretting over a picture frame I had brought along without thinking. It held a photo of my mother—whom I had never actually met—and a young Father smiling happily together. I had wanted to get rid of the frame too, but a moving-company worker had stuck his nose in and made me bring it.
I dragged over the chair I had been sitting on and reached for the frame. It was an old-fashioned piece with something like styrofoam packed behind the photo. The marks of time were plain to see.
"I'll just toss the frame."
I could not bring myself to throw away the photo itself, so I separated the frame from the picture. I could simply stick this photo in a corner of the desk drawer. With that thought I opened the drawer, and in the process the back of the photo naturally came into view.
On the reverse side were crooked letters so hard to make out they were almost illegible.
Ha-young, I'm sorry. Son, my son Min-woo, the things I shouldn't have done to him…
Riiip—
Riiip—
"Yeah. Better to just throw it away."
The moment I saw the back, nausea rose up. I tore the photo to shreds in irritation and dumped the pieces into the trash can.
KRA-KOOM—
Thunder crashed. When I pulled back the curtain, rain was already pouring outside—really thick sheets of rain, falling in torrents. I stared blankly at the scene, then closed the curtain again, spread a blanket on the floor, and lay down. Exhausted from the move, my eyes closed almost at once.
"Ugh… so thirsty."
The first thing I felt upon waking was a severe thirst. Right behind it came a considerable headache and the sense that my body was burning hot. I forced myself up and staggered toward the fridge.
Gulp gulp—
As the cold water entered my body I felt somewhat calmer. The dizziness in my head seemed to settle a little too… though my body was still hot.
A cold, maybe?
Had I caught a cold from sleeping on the floor for the first time in ages? My body might not have adapted to the new environment yet either.
"Cold medicine…"
I would have to go out and buy some. These days everything got delivered, but did cold medicine not get delivered? Just in case I searched "cold medicine delivery," yet every single result that came up was some "cold medicine ad" I had never seen before. So I had no choice but to go outside. Honestly, it was a pain.
Grrr—
Should I go out to buy cold medicine or not? As I fretted over that, my stomach clock went off. Checking the time, it was already morning.
"I should just order delivery… huh?"
I had been humming with excitement at the thought of ordering delivery when I cut myself off mid-tune. Unless I had misheard just now, my voice sounded a little strange.
"Ah, aaah."
Testing my voice a few times confirmed it. Overnight, my voice had changed—into a very feminine one at that. My gaze naturally dropped downward. What met my eyes were two massive mounds that had not been there before.
Squish—
Knead knead—
When I touched the mounds with my hands, the sensation was incredibly pleasant. How addictive that soft, springy feel was… wait a second.
"…A woman's breasts?"
These are a woman's breasts. Why do I have these…?
Suspicion turned to conviction. Conviction turned to certainty. Certainty bred chaos. My already dizzy head grew even more complicated. I rushed to the bathroom and checked my reflection in the mirror.
Long straight hair where black and red mixed in harmony. Eyes that glowed with a red different from blood. And above all, two enormous mounds asserting their overwhelming presence… and a woman so beautiful it was hard to believe. That woman was the one reflected in the mirror I was staring at.
"What the fuck."
I spat out a curse from sheer disbelief. But even the voice uttering that curse was sexy.
…I wanted to deny the reality before my eyes. But I simply could not.
Overnight, I had turned into a woman.