Fainting

"Hmm... What time is it..."

When I opened my eyes, unnie was cooking, her slightly damp hair flying as though she had just finished washing up.

"You're awake, Jia?"

"Yeees... I'm awaaake..."

Hmm... I could hear an egg frying on the heated pan. I rubbed my blinking, barely-open eyes and tried to clear my vision. My glasses... Where were my glasses?

"Jia, what are you looking for? Sit down and eat breakfast."

"My glasses... I can't see my glasses..."

"Were you wearing glasses?"

"Huh? Was I...?"

For now, I sat at the table and enjoyed a delicious breakfast: toast topped with the fried egg unnie had made, along with cereal. I opened the 1.5-liter bottle of milk on the table, poured some into a bowl, and soaked the cereal thoroughly. Since eating the cereal immediately would make it a little hard, I waited for it to soften in the milk while taking a bite of toast. Perhaps because unnie was being considerate, she had placed a fried egg on a single slice of nicely browned bread. With this small mouth, making a sandwich with two slices of bread would have been awkward to eat...

"Mmm~ It's delicious."

"Is it tasty? That's a relief. But did you wear glasses before?"

"Yes, my eyesight was bad, so I wore glasses, but I was taken to the hospital without them, so I didn't realize it. After becoming this body, my eyesight returned to how it was before it got worse, so I can see really well."

After eating breakfast with unnie, I drizzled ketchup over the last half slice of toast and ate it. One bite of toast followed by a spoonful of cereal made the texture even crunchier, and eating it with the milk was really delicious. I had looked for my glasses because I had been so groggy after waking up, but it was wonderful not to need them anymore. Steam fogging up my glasses whenever I ate hot food, especially freshly cooked ramyeon, had been so inconvenient, and I was thrilled not to have to deal with that anymore.

"Unnie is getting off work a little early today, you know? Let's go to a hair salon together afterward."

"Yes, I'll be happy as long as I'm with you, unnie."

Unnie finished breakfast and got ready for work. I considered going out too, but I couldn't risk getting caught up in another incident, so I decided to stay quietly at home today. We had also made plans to go to the hair salon...

"I'll be back~"

"Have a good day!"

I gave unnie a bright smile and waved as she left for work. She must have been in a good mood too, because she answered with a bright smile.

"But what should I do now?"

Left alone in the house, I got bored and decided to turn on my phone and browse the internet. Huh? This picture... Is that me? When was it taken? You can't see my face, but this is... a secretly taken photo? Isn't it?

"What should I do about this...? Should I call Mr. Minsu?"

He had said his schedule was empty today, not that it was his day off... If I contacted him and asked for help, wouldn't a day off become a workday for him...? What should I do...? While I was worrying about it, my phone rang.

"Huh? Is that Mr. Minsu?"

I had agonized over whether to call Mr. Minsu, and then the timing turned out to be perfect.

[Ms. Jia, I'm sorry for calling so early, but there's something I need to tell you.]

"Yes? Did something happen?"

[Have you happened to see the picture on the internet?]

"Uh... Is it a picture of me?"

[Ah, so you saw it.]

"The one I saw was only a picture of my back, though..."

[Normally, something like this would be difficult to deal with, but considering that your identity is special and that there would be nothing good about the picture spreading, I've been tracking down and removing every instance of it.]

"Huh? You're right. It disappeared when I refreshed the page."

[...Actually, there were also pictures that showed your face, but we caught the person who uploaded them. An article about the illegal filming will be posted today, so there shouldn't be any more incidents like that for the time being.]

"Wow..."

[Are you all right?]

"You're incredible. That's so cool."

[Is that so? Thank you.]

"But isn't today your day off?"

[In my line of work, I don't really have designated days off. Any time I have no work is a day off. My schedule is empty today, so I'm taking it easy.]

"If you're free, would you like to go out with me today?"

[Are you sure? I hope I'm not taking away from your personal time...]

"I'm fine~ Even if Jiyeon unnie gets off work early, it's five o'clock, so I'll be terribly bored until then."

[Then I'll come right over. Have you eaten breakfast?]

"Yes, unnie made toast, so I had a hearty breakfast with cereal."

[Would you like to go grocery shopping together?]

"Sure! I'll cook for you."

I washed up and dried my hair, then texted Mr. Minsu, 'I think you can set out now.' Under normal circumstances, he could probably have left immediately and still arrived at the right time... but washing and drying my hair could take an hour if it took a long time... Besides, I had realized the same thing when dressing up my game character, but I really had nothing to wear. I had lots of clothes, but nothing to wear.

Besides, unlike in a game, clothes became dirty in real life, so I couldn't simply rotate through the same outfits.

"Hmm~ What should I wear~?"

If we looked enough like a couple to other people... should I just put together something that felt like a date outfit? A skirt that reached above my knees... Since the weather was cold, I needed something warm. I could just wear a pretty skirt with reasonably coordinated colors on top and bottom. I didn't have much of a fashion sense, but now that I had an appearance capable of compensating for that, I might as well make use of it.

"...Should I put on stockings too? Since I'm wearing a skirt anyway..."

I carefully put on a pair of pantyhose and was pulling on my skirt and top when the doorbell rang.

"Huh? You shouldn't be here already!"

I thought I had chosen my clothes fairly quickly, but I must have spent some time deciding on the colors. I struggled to pull down the top that was stuck squarely above my chest, then opened the door to find Mr. Minsu staring at me in surprise.

"Um... Ms. Jia, your clothes, your clothes are..."

"Yes? ...!!!"

I apologized to Mr. Minsu and pulled my top down. I thought I had pulled it all the way down, but perhaps because I had done it so hurriedly, some of my stomach must have been showing.

"I'm sorry for startling you. Since I was going out, I wanted to dress prettily, so I spent some time deciding what to wear..."

"Ahaha, I see. You look pretty even without makeup, so anything would look good on you."

Unable to bear the embarrassment rushing over me, I couldn't take my hands away from my face. I couldn't even say, 'What are you talking about?!' to Mr. Minsu, because I had been the one to say that I was trying to dress prettily first... I had brought it on myself. Even I thought I was adapting to this new body far too quickly. If this had happened in a 19+ novel, I would already have gone completely girl-brained... Ahem, what was I thinking...?

"Where should we go?"

"Let's go to E."

"Sounds good! Let's go right away!"

I considered putting on heels since I had gone to the trouble of dressing up, but I hadn't bought any to begin with, and I had never worn them before, so I wouldn't have been able to walk properly. Instead, I chose some suitably casual shoes. My feet had become incredibly small too, so I couldn't wear my old shoes anymore... Every time I looked at my feet, their reduced size felt strange. I had never paid much attention to my fingernails or toenails beyond clipping them, but now that my feet were pretty, it was difficult not to take care of them.

My fingers had been fairly long for a man's, but I had never thought they were pretty. Now, whenever I looked at my hands, I sometimes felt as if they weren't mine. After looking at the somewhat dark hands and feet of a man, suddenly seeing these white, pretty—and even smaller—hands and feet gave me a feeling of cognitive dissonance. So... I still felt as though my past were being denied, but I had decided to leave the past behind now...

"Ms. Jia?"

"......"

"Ms. Jia!"

"Huh? Yes? Did something happen?"

"You suddenly seemed to lose yourself... Are you feeling unwell?"

"I'm gradually getting used to my body, but I never paid attention to my hands and feet before. Seeing these white, smaller hands and feet makes me feel as if my past is being denied..."

"......"

This time, Mr. Minsu listened to me without saying anything. Was it because I had said something too gloomy? I had messed up again...

"Hh... hic, sob..."

"M-Ms. Jia...?"

"Everything has been erased as if it never happened... Sob, my parents too, and my friends. I can meet them, but I mustn't. I'm supposed to forget them and live on, but they keep appearing in my dreams... Sob..."

Why was I suddenly acting like this? Was it all because of estrogen? Unable to control the emotions surging up inside me, I let tears fall from my eyes of their own accord. At least I hadn't put on makeup in the first place, so I didn't have to worry about my tears ruining it.

"It's all right. I'm here, aren't I? When Jiyeon isn't around, I'll protect you from all the sadness and pain you're feeling, Ms. Jia."

"Th... hic, sob... Tha...nk you. Phew..."

"Are you feeling a little calmer?"

"Yes... Actually, thinking about the military at the end made me angry, which helped me calm down."

"Ahaha."

In the end, I washed my face and calmed myself with deep breaths before leaving the house and getting into Mr. Minsu's car. Only then did I realize one uncomfortable thing. Since my breasts were so large, the seat belt fit tightly between them and made them stand out even more... I can't describe it very well, but roughly speaking, it felt like having a tightly wrapped bandage around me...

"May I turn on some music?"

"Yes, just turn on Bluetooth."

"You like pop music?"

"I listen to metal too. I listen to anything, regardless of genre, as long as it's exciting and I like it."

As I watched Mr. Minsu park when we arrived at the shopping mall, I was surprised by something. Mr. Minsu was incredibly good at parking... No matter how many times I practiced, I could never park in one attempt, but Minsu must have been driving for a long time. He seemed completely unconcerned as he slid smoothly into a perfect parking spot, and he looked incredibly cool to me. After that, we took the escalator and went inside to shop, chatting about this and that along the way.

"Do you prefer meat or fish?"

"I like both."

"I don't actually cook very often... So I think we should buy something as foolproof as possible, like marinated meat."

*

I came to the shopping mall with Ms. Jia to buy groceries, only to run into someone I didn't want to see. While Ms. Jia and I were choosing various things to cook for lunch later, I spotted my ex-girlfriend in the distance.

“...I should avoid her.”

But Ms. Jia had asked me to wait while she looked for something... Looking at her, it seemed that woman was coming this way. It was too late to hide now, and if I pretended not to know her, things would probably pass without incident.

‘Will Ms. Jia really be all right?’

The thought suddenly crossed my mind. She had gone through that incident on Monday, and she had said she had been struggling mentally even before that and received counseling on Tuesday, only to run into a criminal that very day... She had also lost herself earlier while thinking about her past...

‘Does she simply need time to adjust, or is her mind reaching its limit...?’

If that wasn't it, then perhaps she had always been that fragile but had never had a chance to show it. That would make sense too. How could I help her...?

“Oh? Aren't you Jeong Minsu?“

”...Who are you.“

”Oh my~ Did the shock back then make you erase me from your memory~? It's me~ Your ex-girlfriend, Kang Sua.“

”I don't have anything like an ex-girlfriend.“

”Goodness, that stiff attitude you show toward people you've decided to exclude is still exactly the same, huh?“

“Disappear from my sight right now.”

Kang Sua was an unpleasant woman with a terrible personality, and the worst kind of person in many ways... I had dated her for about six months when I was younger—or rather, when I was more immature—but she gradually revealed her greed and became the sort of person who tried to take what belonged to others.

“Oh? Mr. Minsu, who is that woman?”

“Huh? What, is she your current girlfriend?”

This was bad... Whenever Kang Sua saw someone younger, prettier, and better-built than her, she went into a fit... And just from her looks, Ms. Jia appeared younger than her too...

“Who is that woman? Jeong Minsu!”

“You're drawing too much attention. Let's go to a café.”

“Hmph, fine. You'll come crawling back to me anyway.”

*

After asking Mr. Minsu to excuse me for a moment, I went to the bathroom and sensed that something was wrong.

‘My lower abdomen has been hurting often lately, and my discharge has become sticky...’

Could this be... ovulation? But my lower abdomen hurt far too much for that... I should go to the hospital tomorrow, right? It had also become really difficult to hold in my urine... Had my bladder gotten smaller too? I think I had learned that women's bladders were somewhat smaller than men's... After washing my hands carefully, I returned to Mr. Minsu and found a woman I had never seen talking to him about something.

“Oh? Mr. Minsu, who is that woman?”

The woman who had glared at me with hostility asked whether I was his current girlfriend, but I wasn't his girlfriend... She seemed like the sort of woman who was easily set off when her pride as a woman was pricked... My head began to spin. Afterward, we went into a café, where Mr. Minsu and the woman sat facing each other, and I took the seat beside him.

“Hey, Jeong Minsu, that woman is your girlfriend, right?”

“No.”

“Heehee... Don't lie. You switched to a younger, prettier bitch than me, didn't you?”

“Um... I...”

“You stay out of this, big tits.”

“That was a little harsh...”

“Shut up.”

The woman looked at me with eyes that seemed capable of killing someone, so I decided to remain quiet. I still wasn't confident enough to argue with another woman.

“Kang Sua, are you seriously incapable of growing up?”

“Yes, yes~ I may be a little slimmer~ Even slimmer than your current girlfriend, too. Because I’m not. ma.ture.”

“I keep telling you that this person and I aren't dating. Haa... Did you really approach me just so you could act jealous like this?”

“I'm leaving soon.”

“Why should I care?”

“What?”

“Just get lost. It would be great if you went wherever you were going and never appeared in front of me again.”

The woman called Kang Sua turned her gaze toward me when Mr. Minsu refused to listen to her.

“Excuse me. Are you Mr. Minsu's girlfriend?”

“No, I'm not.”

“You're not? With a face and body like Minsu's, he should be more than worth dating. And he's good in bed, too.”

My face turned bright red at those words, and I barely managed to open my mouth.

“Mr. Minsu has rescued me several times, but we really aren't dating.”

“You're not even seeing where things go? There isn't even any chemistry?”

”No. If you look at it one way, you could say we're in a somewhat professional relationship. Please don't misunderstand any further, and listen carefully to what Mr. Minsu is saying.”

I was having a hard time enduring the increasingly severe pain in my lower abdomen, so I wanted to end the conversation.

‘Something really seems to be wrong... Can it hurt this much even when I'm not menstruating...?’

Cold sweat gradually broke out, my consciousness grew hazy, and I couldn't think straight.

“But you know? From the way Minsu has been talking, my relationship with him...“

”Please stop and go home now... Mr. Minsu is telling you he doesn't want this...“

Since she was someone I could no longer communicate or converse with, I stood up and said,

”What? How could you know what happened between Minsu and me...“

I could no longer hold on to consciousness, and I fainted. The last thing I saw was Kang Sua trailing off as she watched me collapse, and Mr. Minsu's flustered face.

*

Nothing will happen to Jia today, right...? She seemed to be in good condition yesterday...

“Nurse Park Jiyeon! Come here quickly! We have an emergency patient!”

“Yes!”

An emergency patient? The emergency room should still be fairly quiet... But if they were calling for me for an emergency patient, could it be Jia?!

“Dr. Seo Hansu, Ms. Jia suddenly collapsed...”

Mr. Minsu was talking with a doctor.

”She must already have been physically unstable... It seems she encountered someone who kept talking over her and only talked about themselves.“

"The person was so aggressive and pushy that Ms. Jia seems to have tried to respond in my place but couldn't get a word in.”

The patient who came into view was, no matter how I looked at her... Jia.

“W-Why is Jia here...? Doctor, is Jia all right??”

“We won't know for certain until we run some tests, but there doesn't appear to be anything visibly wrong. Given the patient's particular condition, let's send her to gynecology first.”

“Yes, understood.”

I stayed beside Jia and looked after her until the gynecologist arrived. Minsu said he would quickly take the groceries he and Jia had bought to the house and put them away.

‘And... he also said he would finish things with that unpleasant ex-girlfriend who had made Jia endure her pain in silence...’

A little later, the gynecologist arrived, examined Jia's body, and told me the results.

”The patient was Jihoon, the one with the rare disease, correct?“

”Yes, that's right.“

“It seems that their brain is still adapting to their new organs, and they are currently experiencing pain just before ovulation. Jihoon apparently didn't know whether that was normal or whether something was wrong with their body, so they kept enduring it without saying anything.”

”H-How could that be...? If someone was in enough pain during ovulation—not even menstruation—to faint...“

”This is such an unusual case that we'll need to conduct a thorough examination tomorrow, but it seems they fainted because their physical condition was poor and the psychological stress compounded it. There are no other abnormalities, so they should be fine after applying a warm compress.“

”Then...“

”Just in case, take her home and look after her. She'll be more comfortable there.“

*

I was furious because of an ex-girlfriend who was still acting like a child at her age. Kang Sua had been pathetic even when we broke up, so how was I supposed to get rid of her this time? I first took the groceries to Jiyeon's house, then came to a café with this woman to settle things once and for all.

"I'll be direct, Kang Sua. Get out of my sight right now. You said you were leaving anyway, didn't you? Go. Now."

"You're really not involved with that woman?"

"No."

"Then how did you meet her?

"That's confidential."

I said that without hiding my stern expression. Kang Sua kept demanding that I explain my relationship with Ms. Jia, but I repeatedly made it clear that we had cut ties years ago and that it was none of her business, and then she said,

"Then give me some time to have a serious conversation with that woman later. I'm curious how she ended up with a face like that."

"What? Do you think looks like that can be achieved through effort?"

"Of course not. Genetics determine everything about a person's appearance, and that woman clearly hasn't had anything done to her body."

"If you leave it at that, I'll give you that chance. But remember, Ms. Jia—not me—will decide whether she meets you."

"The way you call her makes you sound like her boyfriend..."

"Let's stop now. I have a lot to do."

"Sure, sure~ Of course you do. You're off to look after your girlfriend who collapsed..."

I glared at Kang Sua one more time, and she gave up, stood, and left. As she went, she handed me a note with her phone number and calmly, clearly, almost as if she were someone else, said, 'Please make sure I get to meet her! I'm so jealous!' before leaving.

*

My stomach felt warm. The softness of this blanket and bed... Had I returned home? 'Huh...? Why am I lying down? I went out to cook for Mr. Minsu...' Oh... Jiyeon unnie was here too. But why did she look so troubled?

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

"U-Unnie?"

"Ah, you're awake! Are you all right? I heard from the gynecologist that you must have been in tremendous pain. I'm sorry I didn't realize."

"No, it's all right. It wasn't that painful until I lost consciousness today, and I didn't say anything, so how could you have known?"

When I said that, unnie still emphasized that it was fortunate my condition had improved so quickly and asked, 'Don't take the warm compress off your stomach until you're feeling better, okay?' Then she called Mr. Minsu.

[Hello.]

"Mr. Minsu, Jia is awake now."

[I'll be there soon. I just finished work too.]

"Jia asked me to cook for you, so I'll keep the warm compress on her a little longer, and if she's feeling all right, we'll cook for you together."

A little later, Mr. Minsu came in and said, 'I'm fine, so you can rest as much as you need,' but how could I not cook for him after I had promised? Besides, he probably hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, so I had to make the promised meal for him. For now, I would keep the warm compress on a little longer... Honestly, my stomach had hurt terribly right before I collapsed.