Silence had settled over the room.
The room was silent. Only the room was.
The screams bursting inside my skull were so loud it felt like my brain would explode any second.
‘Aaaaack—!’
A scream sharp enough to tear flesh couldn't make it past my lips, only circling inside my throat.
As if I'd forgotten how to make a sound, I just gasped for ragged breaths and gripped the blanket tight.
Pitifully pulling up the pajama neckline that kept slipping off my shoulders with soft tugs, I planted my feet on the floor.
The very pajamas that had fit me with comfortable looseness just yesterday no longer let my hands out the sleeves.
I barely pulled my trembling hand free and held it before my eyes.
Only now did things start coming into focus, one by one.
The hand I hadn't been able to look at properly because I was too panicked earlier.
The palm I stared at blankly was so very small.
The fingers stretched out long and slender, composed of soft curves instead of knobby joints.
And why were the fingernails so tiny and clean?
As if entranced, I approached the full-length mirror.
Unable to find the courage to raise my head, I stood before the mirror for a long while, staring only at the floor.
What entered my vision were ankles so thin they looked ready to snap, and small white toes poking out past the hem of the pajamas.
Slowly. Really, very slowly, I raised my head.
The me I knew did not exist in the mirror.
A woman with a face I'd never seen before.
There stood that college freshman-looking woman I'd seen in the bathroom mirror earlier.
How to describe it—a frail skeleton composed only of fat and soft flesh, without a single muscle to be found.
At this height, would she even be around 140 centimeters?
If yesterday's me had seen this woman, I probably would've felt the urge to protect her.
‘Why do I have to be so short too…!’
When I made a stupid expression, the woman in the mirror made the exact same one.
The next thought that flashed through my head was a practical sense of injustice.
‘Ah…….’
Something every male in the Republic of Korea must go through.
The military.
The most painful time in my life, yet a time when I'd tried to live as ordinarily as everyone else.
"Mi… my military service. My eighteen months……!"
My voice came out thin and trembling. Eighteen months.
The sergeant's honorable discharge I'd earned by devoting my youth was gone, erased by some unknown transformation overnight.
Memories of standing night watch in that shitty mountain valley on the Gangwon-do frontline, cutting through minus-twenty-degree knife winds, flashed by like a film reel.
The snow removal at dawn, the weed-whacking in summer when poisonous plants broke out over my whole body, and those flavorless meals I'd forced down while watching my seniors' moods…….
Even my service number was all messed up, so I couldn't even enjoy the final months of my discharge.
‘Completing my service as a sergeant was my one and only greatest life achievement….’
Now there wasn't a single scrap of muscle left on my body.
Not forearms that looked like they'd break if bumped, but forearms so frail they looked like they could be snapped with both hands.
This was no longer a body that could protect anything. It had become a body perfectly suited to be protected by someone—or to be violated.
‘Though I didn't exactly have a sturdy build that could protect anyone to begin with….’
"Uuuugh……."
As my resentment toward the military began to subside, one problem came to mind.
‘What about the reserves? What about this year's reservist training?’
It was horrifying just to imagine. Squeezing into combat fatigues with this body and going to the reservist training center?
I could picture myself being plastered all over internet communities as some crazy bitch who showed up in a military uniform despite being a woman.
No, I'd probably get filtered out right at the entrance when they checked my ID.
But what if I didn't go? I'd get reported for violating the Military Service Act and become a convicted criminal.
Go and get punished by law. Don't go and get punished by law.
This was a situation with no answer.
"No, more than that…… next month's graduation ceremony…."
I ruffled my hair fiercely. In one month was my university graduation ceremony.
The diploma I'd barely earned after pouring in expensive tuition for four years.
My parents would come with bouquets. What expression would they make if some strange woman stood there blankly instead of their son?
‘Where did our son go?’
‘I'm your son, Mom. I woke up like this.’
This insane conversation could never work.
A son gone missing overnight, replaced by an unidentified woman.
No, I couldn't even go to the graduation ceremony in this body to begin with.
Why, why did this happen?
What caused me to become like this….
A disease? Is this an illness?
If so, a hospital…… yes, I have to go to the hospital.
Then which hospital should I go to?
Obstetrics and gynecology? Urology? Internal medicine?
Or should I just barge into a university hospital?
‘No, I can't. Absolutely not.’
If I revealed I'd turned into this body, it was only a matter of time before the whole world focused on me.
I'd definitely be reported to academia as a rare case.
How would doctors look at me?
Would they really see me as a patient who needed treatment?
Or just new material for a paper to raise their own reputations?
If this was really a disease where a man changed into a woman, not just the medical world but all of society would go crazy.
I don't hate my country.
If anything, I have a pretty strong patriotic streak.
But I had a bone-deep distrust, regrettably, in the way the state protects individuals.
You know—that thing where if you dig up your front yard and find Goryeo celadon, rather than thanking and compensating you.
They turn your front yard into a construction site and say, 'More artifacts might come out, so don't come in for the time being.'
The imaginings snowballed with no sign of stopping.
I vividly pictured myself lying on a cold operating table covered in sheets, limbs tied down.
Under the blinding light shining into my eyes, researchers whose expressions I couldn't see would look down at me and definitely say—
‘This is for the good of the world. Please endure a little longer.’
No, before that, would they first take all kinds of CTs, MRIs, and X-rays?
Then they'd extract every bodily fluid they could drain from me—blood, cerebrospinal fluid, and all sorts of nameless secretions—and inject me with unknown drugs to observe my reactions. It was obvious.
Even if I screamed in pain, they wouldn't listen to me.
I'm just a job seeker with no connections, no money, and no power.
Even if I suddenly disappeared, no one would look for me, and it wouldn't make the breaking news.
My imagination had already dragged me down to the depths of hell.
"Haa……. Haa……."
My breathing grew rapid, my chest felt tight, and my vision blurred.
My dream was to get an ordinary job like everyone else, earn a decent salary, have drinks with friends sometimes, and grow old normally.
Ah, of course, even if I'd stayed a man, I probably wouldn't have been able to date.
Still. Did it have to. Now. Why.
"Hn, hh……."
Something hot welled up from deep in my throat.
It was as if a hot iron ball had risen up and firmly blocked the center of my neck.
Water pooled at the corners of my eyes. I tilted my head up, at least to keep it from falling.
My vision wavered. The liquid pooled at my eyes helplessly flowed down my cheeks.
I tried roughly wiping it away with the back of my hand, but once the tears started flowing, they wouldn't stop.
I had to endure.
No, I believed I could endure.
When I was a man, no matter how hard it got, I gritted my teeth and endured.
I was the guy who'd clenched his fists and bit his lip until it bled, enduring when trash seniors in the military insulted my parents' names.
That's right. A guy, not a bitch.
But why.
Like this.
"U, uugh…."
Why did this throat, this frail body, try to scream on its own?
In my head, I tried to analyze the situation calmly.
I'd thought I'd be composed even if something like this happened to me.
‘Men aren't supposed to cry.’
In the mirror within my sight, a woman wiping her tears was reflected.
I tried to wipe away the flowing tears with my hand, and the woman in the mirror did the same.
"Hu… uhn."
How many years had it been since I cried? When was the last time?
I couldn't even remember.
"Hha, ugh… uuu…."
At the sound that finally burst from my lips, I got chills.
It wasn't the low, heavy sobbing of a man.
Of course I knew that. I'd already become like this.
It wasn't crying filled with deep sorrow, nor was it a wail that would move anyone's heart.
It was a thin, seeping sob so pathetic it provoked protective instincts.
Was this the only way this body could cry?
Then, a momentary fear flashed through my brain.
‘What if the neighbor hears this?’
In the small hours of the morning, if it became known that some unidentified woman was crying in a male college student's studio apartment?
What if I got reported for a noise complaint and the police burst in?
It was miserable.
Even at this moment, my situation—having to stifle myself and watch the neighbor's reaction immediately—was unbearably wretched.
"Ught… uuu… hic."
I hastily grabbed the pillow rolling around on the bed and buried my face in it.
For a long time, I could only curl up inside it and tremble.