This Isn't Right

Name: Lee Kangjun. Age: twenty-eight. A four-year university in Seoul, military service done, then a full year thrown at the job hunt. Now a second-year working adult, being ground down in real time inside a black company. An ordinary young man.

Yeah. I'm normal. Turn it over as many times as I like, and I'm perfectly fine.

And yet the woman reflected in the mirror will not disappear.

So the answer really is a dream, isn't it? Yeah. This has to be a dream.

The thought loosens something in me, and I swallow.

"Hack— hack!"

Stupid. The foam I'd whipped up brushing my teeth had just launched a terrorist attack on my throat, and the coughs kept coming as if I'd choked. I rinsed my mouth in a hurry and stared hard into the mirror.

"……."

I blinked. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I pinched my cheek. The body's answers came back perfectly natural, sharp enough to hurt. This was absolutely not a dream.

"Crazy……."

For a second it was like anemia hitting all at once — dizzy, the world in front of my eyes going black. What in the world was this? I couldn't make sense of any of it.

I fall asleep and wake up, and my junk is gone and I'm a woman? This isn't some game, or a novel…….

I set my back against the hard tile of the bathroom wall and let out a long breath. My thoughts refused to settle. Rubbing gently at the throb around my skull, I turned my eyes to the mirror once more.

I'd been too rattled to notice at first, but looking now, the features were strangely familiar.

"Huh?"

No. Not just familiar. Close to home. The moment I realized it, a curse leapt out of my mouth.

"Are you kidding me!"

Jokes I used to trade with friends ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back in school came rising up.

"……."

Set aside a jawline gone a little slimmer and a skin tone a shade brighter, and it was the face I'd always seen. If the little sister I'd only ever imagined — only son that I was — had actually existed, she would have looked exactly like this.

"No, this is a bit……."

Read a gender-swap novel and the lead usually transforms into some incredible beauty. This ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was cheating. I wasn't even asking for silver hair or odd eyes, or the kind of overwhelming visual presence that drags every gaze in the room. Even so, who was going to like an avatar that took a man's face almost as-is and only flipped the gender?

No. That wasn't the important thing right now.

Maybe it was because I was in the middle of something this absurd, but my head didn't feel sound. I shook it from side to side, flung the stray thoughts off, stepped out of the bathroom, and headed back for the bed.

"……."

I dropped onto the mattress and wrung my recent memories dry. Everything has a cause and an effect. Which meant there had to be a reason my sex had suddenly turned female. What happened yesterday? I squeezed my brain for it.

Waking up the same as always, and the commute. Work hours at the company, stress climbing all the way to the crown of my head. The trip home after overtime, gone in a flash. Dinner nowhere in my thoughts — clothes flung off any which way, straight down in front of the computer. All of it was there.

"There's nothing? What? Nothing different from usual."

I combed the memories more carefully. Getting caught mid-shift secretly trading stocks when a price alert I'd set went off, and getting chewed out for it. Helping a grandmother with a heavy load on the subway stairs on the way home. And then…….

Same as always, I was digging through popular YouTube videos, got sick of it, and went looking to see if there was a personal broadcast worth watching. And then—!

Something surfaced. A light little happening, trivial if you wanted to call it trivial. With a trembling hand I pressed the computer's power button and sat down in the chair. Last night flickered past behind my eyes.

The small hours, too worn out even to play a game that asks you to use your head. At a time like that, there's nothing to agonize over. You put on a broadcast where a song easy on the ears is flowing, or where the person has a good voice, and you watch.

With that broadcast running as background noise, I search whether anything has changed in the finances or the business of a company I bought into recently — the schedule of government policy, the going price of key raw materials. When even that gets old, I open the official site of the mobile game I mainly play and check patch notes and guide info.

"Hm?"

I'd been watching personal broadcasts for five years already. Military service sat in the middle of that, of course, but it still meant I'd put in my time. In that sense, I'd sampled most of the broadcasts that ran in the dawn hours. Familiar broadcast titles, familiar names of BJs and streamers.

"Clickbait?"

A grotesque nickname and a broadcast title I could say, beyond any doubt, I had never seen before yesterday.

The broadcast had started about an hour ago, and the current viewer count was three. A score that cut my anticipation clean in half. Even so, the mouse was already pressing the enter button. Spending a moment for the sake of curiosity was far too easy.

"MostlyClear, welcome. You too shall become my devotee."

"……."

The BJ's voice, the instant I entered the broadcast. A concept? Or maybe a cult had finally expanded all the way into internet broadcasting. Without meaning to, I thought the voice wasn't bad, and looked at a broadcast screen dyed solid black. A pitch-black screen with not a single setting applied. And nothing like music, either, to fill in whenever the voice went empty.

A complete beginner? If you're going to broadcast, at least lay down a decent background first. This is exactly the problem. These days every dog and cow switches a stream on with no research and no prep, just because they decided to broadcast.

I hadn't expected anything, so the disappointment wasn't large. A maybe had simply turned into an of course. In the meantime, the BJ's voice went on.

"This world is far too hard. All of them draw near wearing kindness as a disguise, looking only upon this body's outward form, yet within they are steeped in cunning and malice. I strove for a month, and still I could not make even a single devotee."

The broadcast was a mess, but the chat was worse. Three viewers who were obviously toxic had occupied the chat window, taking turns roasting the BJ. Even so, the mentality of a BJ who kept the concept going without flinching was impressive for a beginner — and still, this was a waste of time. I could say, plain as day, that the very first broadcast had aimed itself the wrong way.

But, well…… it's fine for killing time.

A person can't live on proper meals alone. Sometimes you want to reach for junk food. Sometimes you want a snack.

After about ten minutes, I could become a full member of the room. That isn't to say I'd taken the side of the three toxic viewers. Across five years of watching more broadcasts than I could count, manner in chat was an iron rule I'd always kept. I had only offered "advice," hoping the broadcast would head somewhere better and grow.

If you're committing to a clergyman's concept, set a background screen that suits it. Background music in the same vein wouldn't hurt. Greetings and reactions, too — how ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠about preparing something like a slogan with a religious color to it? The nickname is too long; looked at long-term, a lot of viewers will have a hard time coming in. Change it to something short and memorable.

At first I'd tossed it out like a joke, but once the planning sense hammered into me by slave life at a black company got added on, a surprisingly plausible broadcast concept was taking shape. The toxic trio, who'd started out sneering, seemed to catch an interest; they tacked on advice of their own and played along. The BJ, who had been quietly watching the chat, spoke in a trembling voice.

"Never, since I came to this other world, has a devotee drawn near me with such fervor. Thank you. Thank you. MostlyClear, above all among you, possesses the virtues of an excellent administrator. I shall repay that, as is only proper."

Were they trying to make me a broadcast manager? In a broadcast of barely four people, counting me? I was tilting my head at that when the broadcast cut off without warning.

A shame — but only for a moment. Broadcasts and videos are everywhere, after all. That was what I'd thought, right up until yesterday…….

I logged into Shindaeryuk TV, one of the two major platforms where you can watch broadcasts, and the inbox — glittering harder than usual today — snagged my eye. Inside it, a single letter under the sender Haruogaamurdiaskagani.

Shit. I think the PTSD is about to hit.

I wasn't certain, but I had a feeling the cause of my sex changing overnight was sitting inside that letter. The dread of it was exactly like the enlistment notice I'd gotten in my early twenties. A finger shivering hard managed, just barely, to click the left mouse button.

The contents of the letter rose, small, in the upper right of the monitor. What was the truth? Could I go back to being a man?

"……."

The white was background, and the black was writing.

"Is this page count for real?"

Pack one page to the brim and Shindaeryuk TV's inbox system boasts about half a sheet of A4. Black characters crammed so tight you couldn't see the white behind them were flaunting a length of fifty pages, and they blocked the view in front of my eyes.