Friends
Curing hair loss was, it seemed, still a feat beyond humankind.
The moment the market opened the next day, I dumped the shares in question, tears and all. The loss burned, but other stocks had climbed handsomely, and hitting seven hundred viewers had earned me points besides, so I decided I could stomach it. Today, on top of that, was a day off from the broadcast—not some hiatus I'd declared on a whim, but something I'd posted notice of a full week ago.
"I said I'd see Yoon-jin, Byung-han, and Myung-hoon all at once, so... I can hardly not show up."
Kim Yoon-jin, Sohn Byung-han, and Park Myung-hoon were all friends from high school. Yoon-jin and Byung-han had been in my class freshman year; Myung-hoon and I got to know each other sharing a class sophomore year. All three of us lived in the same neighborhood, and through all three years of high school we stayed thick as thieves.
High school friendship, such as it was, mostly meant stopping by the PC bang on the way home every day to game together, or passing comic books around... but they were genuinely happy memories all the same.
Ah, I want to go back to then.
Those days when I enjoyed today without a single worry about the future. Kids these days have it so competitive, the world's grown so harsh, that they say the suicide rate is soaring—but anyway, back in my day, that's how it was.
"You little—!"
Some pack of demons, barging in on a perfectly beautiful memory. Anyway, my tie with those guys was stubborn enough that we'd even gone to visit one another in the army. We'd kept a little distance while I was grinding through the job hunt, but they understood that much, as adults, and once I was hired we went back to meeting about once a month.
Last month I'd only just turned into a woman and was in no state for anything... I skipped once on some vague excuse about being sick, but doing it again would look bad. Ugh. My head hurts.
The Helper had said it—that every relationship I'd had up to now had been memory-manipulated. So the guys would all be thinking of me as an easygoing, unfussy girl friend.
But me? Can I really treat my friends the same way? Like before...
The hand that, the moment we met, would smack the back of my head, all warm and glad it had been so long. The voices heaping praise on each other's looks while insisting we looked even uglier after a month apart. Even the sight of us drunk, arms slung around each other's shoulders, roaming the streets. Plug the me of now into any of it, and not one of them came easy.
"...I know."
The meetup was at six in the afternoon. The place was our regular barbecue joint—the one we ended up at about half the time anyone suggested getting together.
"Hoo..."
My mind was made up. Today, for the first time in a long while, I was going to see people I'd missed.
The first time I got to show off the basic makeup I'd studied so hard this past month, and the audience was my same-sex friends. Ironic. Of course, for the moment they were the other sex... anyway, the second I put on a little makeup, everything in the world felt like a hassle. Honestly, dressing up with care for a comfortable hangout with my closest friends seemed ridiculous too. So I went out in a plain short-sleeved top and shorts.
And regretted it almost at once. On the way to the meeting place, the stares of men poured over me without end. I figured I'd be fine, since I hadn't really touched my face, but the lines of a body that could put a model to shame—and a midsection hard-carrying the whole look—had pulled every bit of aggro in the street.
Damn it. Should've come out bundled up tight.
The Helper was oddly talkative today. Anyway, as it said, I was already committed. I went to the stop, caught a bus, rode five stops, and got off.
"..."
What had I been so afraid of? I remembered not being able to step outside for more than three days after I first turned into a woman. With my sense of self in inevitable chaos, I'd been terrified that the moment I faced other people, they would see me as a woman. But more than a month had already passed, and I was proud to say my heart had found a fair amount of calm in that time. Coming out this far today, a scoff slipped out of me.
Nothing had changed. The doodles in the corner of the bus stop, the ones I'd scribbled with my high school friends, were still there. So was the spot where the comic rental shop used to be—the one I'd stop by every day, waiting on the new volumes of the series I loved, though the place had long since gone under. The old gas station, the traffic lights, the street trees: all the same. The trees did seem to have grown a little bigger.
"Hasn't changed a bit."
The familiar street set my heart at ease. Humming along to a song drifting out of a phone shop nearby, I arrived at the meeting place before I knew it. A check of the messenger app told me Byung-han was already there; Yoon-jin and Myung-hoon weren't yet.
"He's fast."
Well, I'd expected as much. He'd always been stricter than anyone about keeping time. Since I knew he was already inside, I didn't wait any longer and went into the restaurant.
"Welco— oh! Long time no see. Why'd you skip last month? Everyone else showed up."
The moment I stepped into our regular barbecue place, the owner greeted me like an old friend. Not a hint of awkwardness, even though I—once a man—had become a woman. I'd known it would be like this, but it still felt a little bitter. I didn't let it show, and greeted him back.
"I was a bit sick the day before. And if I skip once in a while, these idiots remember how precious I am and watch themselves."
"Ha ha ha! Same as ever."
When I laid it on, the owner laughed out loud and waved me in. Our designated seats. At some point the ever-prepared Byung-han had started calling the restaurant on meetup days to book, and the owner gladly left our table empty that day.
"Oh, you're here?"
Inside the room were two tables that could seat four, and Byung-han, sitting in the middle of the row along the wall, raised a hand.
"Everything all right?"
"Nah. Same as every day."
Byung-han pushed his glasses up and smiled. Such a good kid. Not especially tall, average build, a face that was always about to smile—and astonishingly, this friend was a police officer. It wasn't just me, either. Among the group, Byung-han becoming a cop was a mystery.
The door rattled open.
"Fast as ever. First place again today?"
"Hani-hani, it's been a while."
Yoon-jin and Myung-hoon came in at the same time. The tall one, handsome face slicked over with shameless charm, was Yoon-jin. Myung-hoon, true to being a fitness trainer, was only average height, but seriously muscular.
"Hey. I told you not to call me that."
Where had my original name, Lee Kang-jun, gone—changed, right down to the name on the records? A bitter reality, and one that couldn't be undone. If I resented it, all I could do was gather points faster...
"Come on, I already ordered. Sit down."
Byung-han smoothed the moment over with practiced ease. Myung-hoon went to the far side and sat beside him, which left Yoon-jin, naturally, next to me.
Let's not get the wrong idea. Yoon-jin is a name you could take for a woman's, but he's a man. And not an ordinary man—the closest thing to a playboy among my friends.
"Hani-hani, seeing you after so long, I think you've gotten even prettier."
"Keep that up and you're getting hit."
As I talked with them, the memories rewritten by the goddess's power began to seep naturally into my head, a little at a time. Conveniently, the school we'd attended had been co-ed, so most of those memories were similar enough. But among them was one very large problem.
You insane goddess. This guy confessed to me?
For a moment I couldn't help but go round-eyed with shock. It had been delivered so playfully there was no way to tell whether he'd meant it, but there had been something like a confession in our senior year. No—that memory had been created, and my mind was already accepting it as natural.
Terrifying, the power of a goddess. To plant a memory this hideous and grotesque in a person's head and make it feel like the obvious truth.
"Hm? You sick somewhere? Why's your face like that?"
"Pfft, you still don't get it? It's obvious. Yoon-jin keeps being all greasy, so she's completely grossed out."
Byung-han, worried over my stunned expression; Myung-hoon, a little off the mark but weirdly dead-on about the completely grossed out part... and last of all Yoon-jin, wearing a wounded look.
"How long are you going to ignore my sincere— ghk!"
"Delete the photos you took with girls off messenger, then talk."
I delivered justice with a punch driven into his gut, and then we got down to actually talking. Yoon-jin tried milking the injury, and when that didn't work he bounced back and joined in. He liked women too much, that was all; underneath, he was a decent guy. Loyal, sociable, good to his elders.
"By the way, you working out these days? Your chest looks bigger."
"Shut up!"
Thud—!
A decent... guy, I think.
Anyway.
"Alright, meat's coming in. Scoot over a little."
Side dishes and meat were set down, and Byung-han volunteered for the tongs and scissors. Aigoo, kind to the point of stupidity. While he worked, Myung-hoon laid out the chopsticks and the rest, and Yoon-jin tossed out a dirty joke whenever he got bored.
No, seriously—are you actually a decent guy? Don't tell me my memory got tampered with.
Anyway, the meat was soon on the grill, and we casually ordered two bottles each of soju and beer. I'd always been a soju drinker, but on the first day I turned into a woman I'd learned exactly how weak this body was to alcohol, so I went with beer.
"Alright then, cheers!"
"Cheers!"
Once we judged the meat more or less done, everyone toasted and cracked the first glasses together with a satisfying clink. I'd begged off in advance and only filled mine a third of the way.
"Acting coy in front of your friends?"
That came from Yoon-jin at my side, and the elbow he caught in the ribs for it was nobody's secret.
"Kyah. Now this is the taste. About once a month, you're supposed to fall from grace like this."
"Take it easy. I'd rather not watch you regret it tomorrow and drop a novel in the group chat."
"I got it, man. You're real stingy."
For Myung-hoon, a fitness trainer who managed even what he ate, the meetup that came around about once a month was a rare chance to loosen his belt and enjoy himself. So when I'd said I was skipping last month, he might have been even more disappointed.
"Come on, eat some of the sides while you're at it."
Byung-han moved the grilled meat onto his friends' plates, one piece at a time. Aigoo, that ridiculously good-natured idiot. Seeing my friends for the first time since becoming a woman, I seemed to have gotten a little sentimental.
Was that why?
I did something I had never once, in my life, done to my friends.
"Huh? What are you doing?"
"...Quiet. My arm's about to give out. Just open your mouth."
"Uh? O-okay."
Before I knew it, I'd wrapped a ssam—meat folded into lettuce—and was feeding it to Byung-han. Myung-hoon's and Yoon-jin's dumbfounded faces flickered past, and so did Byung-han, flustered, opening his mouth to eat it anyway.
Figuring they'd found their opening, Myung-hoon and Yoon-jin were about to speak, wicked little grins already in place. I answered by lifting a middle finger, just a little.
"Isn't the special treatment a bit much?"
"You act differently, so you get treated differently. Shut your mouth and eat."
I filled Yoon-jin's glass—his lips already pushed out in a pout—until the soju threatened to spill over. The air between us turned into the usual bickering. Myung-hoon laughed out loud at the sight of it, and Byung-han watched his friends with a quiet smile tucked at the corner of his mouth.
This was our everyday.
Things that had happened at the gym. A drunk kicking up a fuss down at the substation. Even backbiting about the boss at the game company where Yoon-jin worked. We chattered away happily, one glass and then another, and my vision grew a little hazier than when we'd started.
Hmm... what was it again? There was something that caught me off guard when they first walked in.
"Whoa? You drunk already?"
Yoon-jin waved a palm back and forth in front of my eyes.
Right. That.
Unlike the black hair in my memories from when I'd been a man, Yoon-jin's was dyed a bright blonde.
Don't tell me—after chasing women that hard, you went and turned into a Golden Sun?
My consciousness drifted, fading out.