Riiing— riiing—
The dreadful alarm announced that it was 5:40 a.m.
The starting time I’d heard during the interview was 9.
And the real starting time I heard after getting hired was 8:20.
The company was a bit far, too, so it took a little over an hour one way.
In other words, I had to catch the 6:30 train at the very latest to get to work safely on time.
“Ugh……”
The sun wasn’t even up yet.
With my eyes still closed, I reached toward where the alarm was ringing.
Strangely, my hand wouldn’t reach.
Annoyed, I sat up and grabbed my phone.
Once I sat up, my body felt heavy.
Maybe I should say my shoulders and neck hurt a little.
I must have slept wrong.
I let out a short sigh and stretched, and a voice slipped out on its own.
“Ugh…… I’m dying…”
What?
Something about my voice just now sounded strange.
“Aah. Ah?”
What came from my throat wasn’t my own deep, low voice, but the low, husky voice of a woman who had just woken up.
A voice so pleasant it almost felt a little coquettish was leaking out.
“Wh… what?”
Even the voice sounding so flustered wasn’t mine.
Confused as to whether I was dreaming, I hurriedly ran to the bathroom.
And when I saw myself reflected in the mirror.
“Wow, fuck……”
A curse came out on its own.
“She’s prettier than most actresses……”
A beautiful face that didn’t suit harsh words at all.
The eyes were sharp, but she would definitely look pretty when she smiled.
She was wearing only a white T-shirt and men’s underwear, but because her overall style was so elegant and aloof, it didn’t look awkward at all—if anything, she looked graceful.
How should I put it?
Like the classic student council president type.
“My height is a little… shorter, I think.”
I could feel that I’d gotten shorter. I’d been around the mid-170s, so this was probably somewhere in the high 160s.
I turned around and examined myself, and my long black hair, reaching down to my waist, swayed lightly.
As I turned, there was one part I became aware of.
“Breasts……”
They had quite the presence.
I’d never really spent time with women, so I didn’t know what cup size they were, but they were definitely big enough to draw the eye.
Maybe that was why I couldn’t look at them properly.
It felt awkward, so my gaze kept sliding away.
And since I kept looking away, my eyes kept going to the face.
The woman in the mirror moved exactly as I did, but this wasn’t me.
I tried pulling on my cheek.
Whenever I watched movies or cartoons, I always wondered why everyone pulled their cheeks like that.
“I geh ih now.”
Muttering to myself with my cheek pulled, I confirmed with certainty that this wasn’t a dream.
“Haa……”
I returned to the bed and sat down.
They say when you have too many thoughts, your mind goes blank. That was exactly what was happening to me right now.
I had lived my whole life as a man.
Of course I’d lived as a man, since I’d been born one. It was obvious.
Can a person’s sex really change like this?
If so, then why had I lived all this time as a man?
My thoughts kept linking one to the next, stretching on somewhere endlessly.
And at the end of those thoughts, I arrived at one question.
“Why… did I become a woman…?”
Muttering to myself, I placed both hands on my face.
A soft, yielding sensation.
The feeling was so foreign that I pulled my hands away without realizing it.
I didn’t know the cause. And right now, more than the cause, I was worried about work.
What was I supposed to say when I got to the office?
I woke up all of a sudden and became a woman?
No, was work even important in this situation?
My head was filled with question marks.
Who would think I was a man when I’d changed like this?
“Ah, my ID.”
I hurriedly took out my wallet.
Still, something that could prove my identity should be left…
“……Not anymore.”
The name written on my ID wasn’t my original name, Choe Minhu, but Choe Yeonbi.
“…….”
Just in case, I checked my driver’s license too, but there as well, the three characters for Choe Yeonbi were boldly written.
“Who the hell is Yeonbi……”
What on earth had happened in a single day?
I thought hard, trying to recall how this could have happened.
Roughly speaking, I’d eaten dinner at a convenience store, taken the subway, and as soon as I got home, I’d taken off my clothes and gone to sleep.
That was everything I’d done.
I hadn’t done anything different from usual.
I’d looked at my phone before going to sleep like always, too.
Then suddenly.
“No way…”
I remembered seeing that community post yesterday and pressing the red button like crazy.
Clutching my pounding heart, I checked my bank account on my phone.
After entering the simple authentication code, the account I opened showed—
“One, ten, hundred…… one billion, ten billion…”
And then.
“Five hundred billion……”
A sum I had never once seen before, never even imagined, was stamped in my account.
After seeing that amount, I barely managed to calm my trembling hands and set my phone down on the bed.
The red button.
That red button had been real.
I breathed in deeply, then breathed out.
In and out, over and over, for a long while.
As soon as my heart had calmed down somewhat, I picked up my phone again.
Was this reality?
It was reality.
Even when I looked in the mirror, I was a woman.
The appearance of Choe Minhu was nowhere to be found.
My memories and the clothes I had worn until yesterday were all still the same, but I was not me.
The messenger app was the same.
The messages I’d exchanged with people at work, and the messages with my friends, were all still there.
“Did… only the actual person change…?”
I didn’t really know what had happened.
It seemed that these were all the traces left in this world of the person named Choe Minhu.
Even if I went outside and screamed that I was Choe Minhu, I was Choe Yeonbi.
In other words.
“……He’s completely gone.”
Choe Minhu no longer existed.
All the years I had lived had vanished.
“…….”
It felt a little bitter.
Had all those years I’d endured, struggling desperately just to survive, become meaningless?
While thinking that, I suddenly opened the banking app again.
When I thought of the amount I’d seen earlier, my heart began pounding again.
The money was still there.
Five hundred billion.
Just in case, I checked the account holder, too, and it said Choe Yeonbi.
It wasn’t money someone had transferred to me; it was simply money sitting in the account.
Literally legitimate money, money that had already had taxes deducted.
Suddenly doubting whether it was money I could really use, I went to an online shopping mall cart and bought the computer monitor I’d put in there long ago, planning to buy someday.
After a few verification steps.
The bank transfer went through immediately.
“…It really works.”
Of course I could use it. It was money.
Muttering to myself, I stared blankly at the account balance that had gone down by 200,000 won.
“Five hundred billion……”
After I’d been staring blankly at the account for a long while, an unpleasant name suddenly covered my phone screen.
“Team Leader Bastard”
“……I’m quitting.”
There was no longer any reason for me to keep working at that company.
As soon as I hung up, a text came from the team leader.
[?]
A single question mark.
When I checked the time, it was already when I should have arrived at the company.
Of course, since it was a completely different time from what was written in the contract, strictly speaking, it was only natural that I wasn’t at the office yet.
Seeing that question mark made me angry.
And now, I had become someone who could get angry as much as I wanted.
[Team Leader, this company is honestly so fucking low-class that I can’t work there anymore. Hope you enjoy staying there for the rest of your life]
As soon as I sent the message, the read receipt popped up.
[Mr. Choe Minhu. Have you lost your mind? You don’t seem drunk, so what, are you acting like this because you got told off a little yesterday?]
A reply came right away, as if he was flustered.
He thought I was Choe Minhu. Seeing things like this, it seemed the existence called Choe Minhu did remain in people’s memories.
“What a relief.”
What a relief that he hadn’t forgotten me.
[No? I’m not drunk. Oh, but Team Leader, please stop wearing those clothes. You seriously look like an old man. I bet you were planning to come to work wearing that again today too, weren’t you?]
[Hey. What the hell are you doing, you little bastard? We took in some punk from a weird-ass university and this is how you act?]
[Team Leader, you also graduated from a university that hands out diplomas as long as you pay them, same as me lol. And even though you went to a better school than I did, you act even more uneducated than me. Do you really think you’re in any position to bring up educational background?]
I didn’t stop there. Using the advantage of youth, I kept sending messages before the team leader could even reply.
[No wonder almost everyone there is family. Watching you all flock together and run that shitty little company was honestly impressive. What an amaaaazing education you must have used to build that company~]
[You fucking little brat you son of a bitcchh]
He must have been really angry. He was even making typos.
[Oh, and that work you gave me last time that you said absolutely had to be done by today? I have it right now, you know? I’m going to throw the USB away now, so take care of it yourself ^^]
A call came in again.
Did he think I’d answer?
In the first place, it wasn’t my voice anymore, so I couldn’t answer.
“Blocked~”
I blocked him without hesitation and rose from my seat, feeling refreshed.
Right before I blocked him, I’d vaguely seen some texts about suing me and whatnot, but I wasn’t scared at all.
Choe Minhu no longer existed in this world.
More precisely, the Choe Minhu he remembered was gone now.
“…Go ahead and sue me a hundred times.”
I felt so relieved.
It was like a knot that had been stuck in my chest for years vanished all at once.
Until just now, I’d been so tired I wanted to sleep even three minutes more, but now my mind was completely clear.
“Should I think about what to do from now on?”
With my mind cleared, I poured some coffee I had at home and set it in front of the desk.
It was a refreshing morning unlike any I had ever experienced.
####
“Hmm… This should be enough, I guess.”
With a paper cup in my mouth, chewing on it, I stared at the monitor.
Items organized in Excel, and the approximate prices of those items.
“I can’t go doing something stupid and lose it all……”
There are fools in this world who kick away tremendous fortune even when it comes to them.
I didn’t want to become one of those fools.
So, carefully. And systematically.
“First, should I buy myself a car?”
I decided to spend lavishly.