Worry

People say it all the time—that the eyes are the windows to the soul.

When I heard it, I didn't think much of anything. Eyes were just eyes. Windows could drop dead.

That was how simply I'd always thought of it. Now, though, my thinking had shifted a little.

They were hot. Had my question set a match to Lac's fuse? Even a fool, meeting eyes like those head-on, would have understood with perfect clarity what they were trying to say without a single word. This was trouble. I'd just been handed a confession I hadn't seen coming in the slightest.

A glance around told me the cam sat behind Lac, so we hadn't been caught. Not yet. I needed to get this under control, so I put on a stern face I had no real reason for and spoke.

"The drill instructor already warned you to answer snappily. Trainee, prepare for PT number eight. Execute!"

Luckily, I got the situation smoothed over before the cam swung around to Lac's face. For a moment his expression went bitter; then, as ordered, he dropped into the stance for PT number eight. I had no obligation to receive his feelings, but we were close enough that I couldn't help feeling sorry.

"Huff, huff! Seven... done. I couldn't carry, but you'll still come visit me, right?"

"Five more!"

"Ghk!"

Wagyu, blessed with absolutely no sense for the room, had just been struck by lightning out of a clear sky.

The stream wrapped up in triumph. A topic you don't see every day had given it freshness, and a spread of gags had locked in the fun, so of course it was going to land. Even holding a report card like that, though, the aftertaste was bitter.

"Since when?"

"No idea."

I sent Wagyu and KingAnt off first on some half-baked excuses. Then it was just the two of us, and Lac's drained voice came out thin and strengthless.

"I'm sorry, but I've never felt that way about you."

"...That's cruel. Still, thanks. For cutting it clean, so I don't end up hanging on."

With even that last scrap of hope collapsed, Lac's head sank lower and lower. Looking at him so thoroughly wilted, everything we'd been through together came flooding back. Mia had always been in the mix, of course, but Lac had stayed a good friend—someone I was genuinely tied to.

"Aigoo..."

If I'd been a man, I never would have done it. I would have torn into him instead. What's a man doing this droopy for? But maybe this, too, was because my body had turned female. Lac looked so pitiful that before I knew it I'd stepped in and drawn that deeply bowed head into my arms.

"...!"

At the soft, yielding press against his head, Lac startled and tried to look up. I barked at the squirming idiot to hold still, settling him while my hand stroked along his lower back.

"This noona's giving you a special service today. So knock it off. Men don't cry."

"I wasn't even crying!"

At my shameless line, Lac laughed like he couldn't believe it. Hollow, maybe. Either way, a lot of feeling sat inside that laugh.

I stroked his back a few more times, then smacked his shoulder blade hard enough to clap.

"Ow!"

"That's to knock some sense into you."

I pushed Lac, head up now, out of my arms. Regret and awkwardness were sharing his face, and I gave him a light smile.

"Well? Nice, wasn't it?"

"...Ha! Don't even start. I must've had my eyes on crooked. Complete tomboy, and I went and imagined things."

I knew, and so did he—how sloppy the lie was, and that somehow we had to make that lie into the truth. So I didn't even consider forcing some empty comfort on him.

"Serve well. Come back safe."

"I've still got over two months left, you know!"

"I'll come visit."

"...You'd better."

Anything more we traded would only have been shouting into a void. We were both wearing sheepish faces when my phone started buzzing up a storm. Nice timing, I thought, and checked it—only for the two syllables lit on the screen to make me hesitate.

"..."

A chill I couldn't name slid down my spine.

All the way home, Mia had me suffering. The second I picked up she was on the verge of tears, demanding how I could do this to her, and I had no choice but to apologize on loop like a man soothing his girlfriend, insisting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠over and over that it was my fault.

For about twenty minutes I fired off every apology in the book—"I really was wrong," "I committed a sin worth dying for," "I'll never let something like this happen again"—and only then did Mia's anger ease enough for her to tell me why she was pouting.

It skirted sophistry, but I'd coaxed Mia well enough, and that was plenty.

"Haaah... I'm dying."

I was home. Between shoving Lac's feelings aside and soothing Mia, the exhaustion was no joke. I washed up in a rush, shed my clothes like a shell, and dove straight onto the bed.

"Haa..."

"Not really!"

I figured I'd done as much as I was going to. And it wasn't as if I could date a man.

"I'm a man! You gonna keep spouting bullshit?"

The Helper said nothing. It turned the chat window transparent and held me up in it like a mirror. The dissonance around the face nagged at me, but to anyone's eyes I was unmistakably a woman. Words failed me for an instant. I clenched my teeth and answered anyway.

"But my mind is..."

"Eat shit."

I turned my back on the Helper and closed my eyes. I was already worn thin, and I had no idea why it would say something like that. I was tired. I left my eyes shut.

"Hey, hey. Why's Alssu trying to floor it from the first drink?"

"Because I want to drink, that's why!"

A get-together with friends. My mood had been unsettled all day. Part of it was the day itself, but Lac's confession yesterday had landed on me just that hard—and the effect wasn't about feelings between a man and a woman. It was the problem of my self, the one I'd been forcing myself not to look at.

"Fuck! I'm... a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠man. That's what's right, so why am I a womannn?"

"Already wasted. Sure, sure, you're a man. Total tomboy. Heh."

"Should I film this and drop it in the group chat? Black history for life."

"You trying to shoot a spy cam with the cops right there?"

My friends' jokes drifted in, faint and blurred. Annoying. Loud. I might as well finish the thought I was already on.

That I hadn't felt any real rejection at Lac's confession, and that I'd pulled his head into my arms under the excuse of comforting him—neither was something the old me could even have imagined. I was changing, little by little. Into someone who wasn't the original me.

Skirts and stockings I wouldn't have laid a finger on at the start, even underwear, had become natural to wear, and my behavior and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my way of thinking were shifting underneath, without my noticing. Lac's confession had been the moment that forced me to recognize changes I'd been working so hard to look away from.

It scared me. Because at this rate, I felt like I was going to lose the original me entirely. When my sex turned male again someday, if everything about me had already been made female, what was I supposed to do?

My head ached. I was a tangle. I shook off the hands of friends trying to stop me and threw back another glass. The world spun, and in that dizziness I could forget every worry that had been pounding in my skull.

"Hey. Snap out of it."

"Ugh... huh?"

A cold touch brushing the nape of my neck brought me around. I forced my eyes open and found Myeonghun pressing a hangover drink, clutched in his hand, against one part of my body and then another. The cold chased the haze off. I snatched it, knocked it back in one go, and looked around. A bench in the park that sat between the bus stop and home.

"When'd we get here?"

"What do you mean, when. I nearly died hauling your drunk disaster of an ass, and you're still not with it."

So he'd carried me all the way here while I was plastered. A gym trainer, all right. Those muscles weren't for show.

"The others?"

"Already gone. I live nearby, so I get stuck with this crap. Seriously."

The way he shrugged, he was clearly fishing for credit. Cute. I reached up—his head sat higher than my eyes—and gave Myeonghun's hair a slow stroke, then another.

"What are you doing?"

"Hm? You did something cute, so I'm praising you."

"Keep messing around and you're dead."

"What was that? Trying to get scolded by your noona?"

I put strength into the hand that had been patting and pressed down hard on his head. Myeonghun hammed up the pain and cackled, then said it like it was nothing, almost in passing.

"Has it been rough?"

"..."

For a second I couldn't get a word out. A brief silence, and then Myeonghun spoke again.

"You can hold on, though?"

"...Yeah."

"Then that's enough."

There wasn't much else to it. He only tacked on, tossed off like an afterthought:

"The others were worried too."

So why did it comfort me this much?

Waving at Myeonghun as he headed for his own place—late, he said—I held onto the thought. However I change, those guys will still be my friends. The fear of what this changing self would become seemed to shrink, just a little. Maybe the drink was still in me. Warmth was spreading through my chest.

And the next morning, a video went up in the group ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠chat.

Friends could drop dead.

That bastard of an enemy and I were settling this today, life or death. No question about it.