One Evil After Another

How long had I cried? Perhaps I had finally calmed down a little, because my tears began to stop. As I gradually calmed down, the trembling in my body slowly subsided too. The unnie who had been holding me tightly lifted her head once I had calmed down, and our eyes met.

"Have you calmed down a little?"

"Yes... Thank you, unnie."

We had cried our eyes out, so we roughly wiped the tears from our disheveled faces with tissues, then went to the bathroom and washed our faces. Every hospital employee we passed asked us whether we were all right. It made sense. People passing by the counseling room might have been startled by the sobbing coming from inside, and they probably would have been surprised to see our faces ruined by tears. When we returned to the counseling room, the counselor was nowhere to be seen, perhaps because the counselor had stepped out for a while.

"It's almost lunchtime, so let's rest here for a while and then go eat."

"Yes..."

After calming myself with the tea that had been prepared, I looked around the counseling room. There was still a little time before lunch, so I decided to wait here and then go to the cafeteria. Unnie and I waited in the counseling room, then went down to the cafeteria twenty minutes after lunchtime began.

"This is your first time eating at the hospital cafeteria, right, Jia?"

"Yes, it is."

"Unlike patient meals, the food here is prepared closer to what ordinary people eat. It's still less salty, though."

"That's perfect for me."

My body was gradually improving, but according to the hospital's test results, my intestines were still weak, so I had been told not to eat irritating food. In the first place, my appetite had decreased so much that I couldn't eat much anyway... I put only a little rice on my tray, chose a seat in the corner, and ate with unnie.

"But Jia, you said your university graduation ceremony is coming up, right?"

"Yes, in early February."

"Your name change won't be completed until the middle of March at the earliest, so the ceremony will be before then, won't it?"

"Yes, I suppose so?"

"You worked so hard and persevered through university. Don't you think you should attend your graduation ceremony anyway?"

"Can I go in this body?"

"Wouldn't Mr. Minsu be able to suggest some way?"

But if my identity changed, I wouldn't be able to use my diploma or driver's license anymore... Even if I attended the graduation ceremony, everyone would think I was someone who had come in someone else's place because no one would know me... Would there be any meaning in going? I could think about it after today's counseling session. The session wasn't over yet, after all... As before, it took me quite a while to eat, so I couldn't finish quickly. I couldn't tell whether it was merely my impression or how much smaller I had actually become, but even my face seemed a little smaller when I looked in the mirror, so it seemed right to assume that my entire body had shrunk overall.

Unnie waited until I finished eating, and afterward I held her hand as we went back up to the seventh floor.

"You didn't bring a toothbrush, did you?"

"I thought we'd be finished before lunchtime..."

"Here, I have an extra travel set, so I'll give it to you."

"Thank you, unnie."

I felt strangely happy as I brushed my teeth beside unnie with the travel toothbrush set she had given me. Unless I had specifically made plans to meet a friend, I had always been alone. In high school, I had to eat alone unless I followed the group that had at least accepted me, and after even that group abandoned me, I ate alone throughout my entire third year. University had been the same. I hadn't known anyone at all during my first year, and then the pandemic made everything remote. Everyone in my class already moved around in their own groups, so there had been nowhere for me to fit in.

But things were a little different now. There was someone who cared about me and looked after me. I wasn't alone anymore, so I wasn't lonely, and it felt good. Of course, I had to abandon the connections from my past... If I kept my old identity and word somehow spread, people would curse me all over every site on the internet, and I could naturally be photographed without my consent too. Even celebrities with good images were photographed, so if I became a celebrity with a bad reputation... It would be horrifying.

"You're embarrassed because you're still not used to it, right?"

Unnie spoke as we left the bathroom and walked toward the counseling room.

"Yes... It hasn't been long yet, and... the sanitary-product disposal bin..."

"Ah... I suppose that still feels awkward."

"Yes... I'd only seen warnings asking people to keep the bathroom clean and not flush feminine products down the toilet. It was my first time seeing a disposal bin..."

"I can imagine... If you move before your period starts, I'll explain everything to you then."

I nodded and returned to the counseling room. Unnie and I slightly bowed our heads as we greeted the counselor, then sat down. The counselor said, 'If there are parts that are difficult to talk about, like earlier, you don't have to say them.'

"To continue from where I stopped earlier, I ended up sinking down on the first floor and crying like that..."

"Did anything else happen afterward?"

"I may have been crying rather loudly, and since it was late at night, a man saw me and told me to calm down and go inside my home."

"You must have been very embarrassed."

"Yes, extremely... And perhaps because he saw me go inside, the two people who lived there came over and said they had heard that the person who lived here had been taken away, but a woman they had never seen had entered the house, so they had come because of that."

I also told the counselor that the man who had comforted me and the man who had come with him were people I had often encountered and greeted when I was a man. We weren't close, but they definitely knew me, so it had been frustrating and awkward when they treated me like someone they had never seen. It had also been a little frightening to face two men from so close up with a body that had become smaller and weaker.

"It must have been difficult to adjust to your suddenly changed body, and then you had to face something like that."

"Yes... I was definitely the same person I had been before, but the fact that I had found it even slightly frightening made me wonder whether the person I was before and the person I am now were really the same person."

"You and the person you were before are certainly the same person, and your memories are completely intact. But the many ways in which your appearance has changed made you think that way."

The counselor stopped there, took a deep breath, and then cautiously began speaking with a more serious expression.

"I heard from Ms. Jiyeon that you put... your hand to your neck."

When that subject came up, Jiyeon unnie's expression darkened too, and I swallowed nervously.

"Could you tell me why you did that...?"

"..."

"You don't have to talk about it if it's too difficult... But you weren't alone at the time, were you?"

"No..."

"You can tell me slowly, so please talk about it once you've calmed down a little."

After calming myself for several minutes, I began to speak. On Saturday morning, after cooking and eating with Jiyeon unnie, I wondered whether I had gotten used to calling her 'unnie' too quickly. I knew that the forms of address I could have used before were strange in this body, but it still seemed as though the word 'unnie' had become natural to me too quickly. Before I had even had time to truly feel that I had changed, I had grown accustomed to my body while trying on clothes at the shopping mall.

"I also had this strange thought that perhaps I had originally been a woman but had developed a mental illness and imagined myself to be a woman dressed as a man. But considering my figure, disguising myself as a man would have been impossible, so I wondered whether my original body had actually died and I had possessed someone else's body instead."

"After thinking that far, I was awake, breathing, and my heart was beating... Of course, I couldn't feel my heartbeat well even when I put my hand over my chest. I wanted to be sure that I was alive, so I tried feeling for my pulse at my wrist, but I couldn't feel it clearly there either. When I put my hand to my neck, I felt it throbbing, thump, thump, like a heartbeat, and I thought, 'This can't be a dream, can it?' Before I knew it, I had tightened my grip..."

After hearing that much, Jiyeon unnie silently hugged me once more.

"...I see. Anyone would suffer mentally after going through such a drastic change. You've held up well, Ms. Jia."

The counseling continued for a while after that, but the main advice was to talk with trustworthy people around me whenever I was having a hard time, and that if staying home became difficult, taking walks and getting out could help. The counselor said many other things too, but those were all I remembered. I felt tired today and thought it would be best to go home, so I ended the counseling session, said goodbye to Jiyeon unnie, and took a bus home.

*

"Haa..."

I had a lot on my mind. When I had briefly lost control of myself, Jiyeon unnie had been there with me, so she must have been very shocked and distressed too... Still, after letting everything out during today's counseling, I felt as if my mind had cleared a little. Everything had gone well, but for some reason the bus had been rather crowded today. The people staring at me probably didn't mean anything by it, but seeing all those gazes made me more conscious of my body. Whenever I felt an intense stare fixed on me, my shoulders would shrink back...

"Excuse me!"

I got off the bus and straightened my shoulders, which had been hunched uncomfortably, then sensed someone approaching me. It might have been my imagination, and I was exhausted and wanted to get home and lie down as quickly as possible. I should ignore it...

"Excuse me, miss!"

He seemed to be calling me, but I was certain he was a strange person, so I pretended to look around and continued toward home. 'If he follows me all the way to my house, I'll report him...' He wouldn't really follow me, would he...?

"Excuse me!"

The man calling me blocked my path, making it clear that he really was addressing me.

"W-who are you?"

I had thought that he would leave if I ignored him, so I was extremely flustered when he suddenly blocked my way.

"I'm a popular streamer. By any chance..."

"No, thank you."

I had absolutely no intention of accepting some kind of scouting offer. If someone simply asked for my number, that meant they had approached me out of ordinary goodwill, so I could understand that. If someone spoke to me because they wanted to return something I had dropped, that was fine too, because I was grateful. But an offer like this felt like, 'I want to make money by using you. Since you'll make money too, everyone's happy,' didn't it? I disliked that, so I refused without listening any further.

"It's a really good opportunity, so just once..."

"If you keep following me, I'll report you to the police!"

I made my refusal even clearer to the man, who kept following me without understanding what I was saying.

"Haa, fuck... You really don't fucking get it..."

"W-what?"

"Your body is fucking hot, so come on my broadcast, you fucking bitch."

"Hic... N-no, thank you..."

What the hell...? Was there really someone who would say something so blatantly on the street?? What had happened yesterday made me even more frightened. Ah! Right, I should contact Mr. Minsu in a situation like this...! I hurriedly took out my phone and tried to call him. But I had forgotten to update the phone's facial recognition, so I had to enter my password to unlock it.

'Hurry... hurry...!'

I hurriedly called Mr. Minsu and put the phone to my ear. The man began getting irritated. I kept walking while looking straight ahead and gripping my phone tightly. The ringing sounded much longer than usual.

[Yes, I'm on the phone.]

"Mr. Minsu, it's me..."

[Is something wrong?]

"A man who says he's a streamer keeps following me... I'm walking away from him. I'm walking toward my house from the café we stopped at together last time. Sob, please help me..."

[Yes, I'll go right now. If necessary, shout and run. Just in case, contact the police immediately too.]

"Y-yes..."

After my call with Mr. Minsu ended, I focused on the sounds behind me. The man was still following me from a distance, and since I had never seen him anywhere around here before, it was obvious that he was following me rather than simply heading home. I called the police immediately as well.

[Yes, this is the police.]

It was the voice of the female officer who had come yesterday.

"I'm the victim from yesterday, when you came to the scene..."

[Oh, the person from yesterday! Yes, what happened? Are you in immediate danger?]

"Yes. I'm at... I'm walking from OO-gil, past M Café, toward the residential area. A man claiming to be a streamer keeps following me..."

[Sigh... It's that man again. We'll come right away. If he approaches you, shout loudly for help and run straight ahead.]

"Yes, understood..."

[You don't have to answer me, so don't hang up. Put the phone in your pocket.]

Following the female officer's instructions, I put my phone in my pocket and continued walking at the same pace. Then a familiar vehicle stopped in front of me, and Mr. Minsu got out. When the man following me saw that, he closed the distance and ran toward me.

"Ms. Jia! Get in the car first!"

"Yes!"

I dashed to Mr. Minsu's car, got into the passenger seat, and locked the door. Mr. Minsu blocked the man as he charged at us and held him so he couldn't escape. Five minutes later, a police car arrived. When the police asked us to come along and give statements, Mr. Minsu and I exchanged glances, then nodded and agreed.

*

"Haa... I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Let's assume for argument's sake that you're right this time. But with your record, who would believe you?!"

"Ha, do you have evidence?"

"We do. You were recording a video, weren't you? That recording is still there."

The man was startled when he heard the officer and slapped a hand against his forehead with a sigh.

"You have that many prior convictions... If you keep this up, you could really end up in prison, you know? Don't you know how sensitive the courts are about sex crimes these days?"

"Ha, I didn't touch her or anything. The only things that might be a problem are one thing I said and the fact that our paths happened to overlap, making it look as if I followed her. That's all."

"Good grief... You fucking idiot, have you already forgotten what you just said? It's all saved on your phone."

"Oh."

"You think that's all? You filmed another person without getting her consent, so you'll obviously be in trouble for violating her right to her likeness, and for illegal filming too."

As soon as the officer finished speaking, the man began laughing and saying, 'Fuck, I'm screwed lol,' while still snickering that he had gotten content for his broadcast. Five minutes later, Jia was sitting with the female officer a short distance away from the man, giving her statement, when she was startled to see Mr. Minsu bowing his head to her.

"...Ms. Jia, I'm sorry."

"Yes?"

"I should have stayed by your side..."

"No, it's all right. I was simply on my way back from the hospital. Who could have known something like this would happen?"

"That may be true, but considering what happened yesterday..."

Mr. Minsu trailed off. I knew what he was trying to say without hearing the rest. I was frightened too, especially because it overlapped with what had happened yesterday.

"Ahem. Anyway, that streamer is such a vicious offender that he may actually go to prison this time."

"That would be a relief, but... I heard that I appeared in the video he recorded..."

"Oh, don't worry about that. He's caused so many problems that we seized the device immediately."

"That's a relief... Please make sure it's deleted."

"We'll delete it as soon as we finish processing the case."

The female officer said that and stepped away for a moment, then another police officer came in.

"You're the victim, correct?"

"Yes, that's right..."

"Since there was also yesterday's incident, we investigated a little. The man from yesterday and the man from today are part of the same group and have been committing crimes together."

"...!"

I grew afraid. I remembered a case I had seen on the news a few weeks ago. They lured women off the street with money, brought them onto their broadcasts, and afterward... Ugh... Just thinking about that news made me feel as if I were going to vomit.

"Th-then that man and the man from yesterday...!"

"Are you all right?"

"Urk... Ugh..."

Nothing actually came up, but I genuinely felt as if I were about to vomit. Tears welled up when I realized that I had nearly fallen victim to the kind of vicious crime I had only ever seen on the news.

"Oh dear, what am I doing? I'm sorry. Everything is finished, so you may leave now."

"Yes, understood. And please dispose of the recorded video as soon as possible. The phone as well."

When the officer said that we could leave, Mr. Minsu emphasized that the footage and device had to be destroyed, then took me toward the car. Still, since this had happened after I had received psychological counseling and calmed down considerably today, I thought I would be able to settle down again after a few days of rest.

*

Minsu had been looking into the property he had promised to find for Ms. Jia. He searched through listings while even taking notes in a small notepad. Since it felt unsafe to leave Ms. Jia alone, he couldn't delay any longer.

"Just a moment. I'm getting a call..."

He excused himself to the real estate agent and stepped outside to answer the phone. When he picked up, Ms. Jia's voice sounded urgent and trembling as she asked for help. He told her he was on his way and instructed her to contact the police immediately. Then he apologized to the agent, saying an emergency had come up and that he would return tomorrow, rushed to his car, started the engine, and sped off.

"Damn... Wasn't yesterday's bastard the only one?!"

As he drove toward Ms. Jia's home, he saw a man following her. He stopped the car in front of Jia and blocked the man's path, his face twisting in anger. That man was someone who committed every kind of vicious crime. He even broadcast some of them live, and whether because he had money or powerful connections, he never stayed in prison long and was released again and again.

"Haa... These bastards are running wild without knowing their place."

"What? Who the hell are you? Hahaha! Who do you think you are?! I can just run away, that's all. Of course you've called the police too!"

The man mocked me and tried to run away, but I immediately jumped out, knocked him down, and subdued him.

"Now that you know the police have been called, just let yourself be arrested."

The police arrived afterward and arrested the man. I felt sorry for Ms. Jia, but we had no choice but to go to the police station to give our statements.