The Impact of That Day

The fact that my period started on the day of my graduation ceremony was unfortunate, but on the first day, I was more flustered than I was in pain, so the day passed before I even had time to feel it. Women often describe indulging in their favorite foods as getting an “OO transfusion,” and I understood the expression a little now. The closest equivalent was saying your blood sugar was dropping, but for your blood sugar to really be low, you would have to be working outside unloading goods in midsummer or being worked to the bone in a parking lot without air conditioning.

I once did unloading work in the middle of summer. I only intended to drink cold water, but in addition to the water they had kept in an icebox with ice, they gave me glucose tablets too. I had planned to take only one or two, but they insisted it was genuinely dangerous and made me take four. News also came out that several workers who had been working in poor conditions that season... had died. After that incident, I thought, 'Wow... If I hadn't taken those glucose tablets, I might have ended up the same way.'

In any case, people who work while sweating heavily in the middle of summer really need to eat and rest well. I got a little sidetracked, but having a period doesn't kill you, although I'd heard the pain could be so severe that people actually fainted. I'd even seen it in a GIF, though I didn't know if it was real. In any case, that showed how high the peak of menstrual pain could be.

'But the problem is that you get your period every month...'

Since I hadn't become pregnant, an unused egg scraped against the uterine lining and came out as menstrual blood—or so I roughly understood it. Pregnancy stopped menstruation, but I'd heard that carrying a life was much harder than expected. It must be frightening, and the increasing weight must make things difficult... You couldn't just think about yourself, since you couldn't go hungry either... That's why people made plans before having children, but since it wasn't easy, they often decided not to... Ah, this wasn't what I meant to talk about, but I keep getting sidetracked.

'These menstrual cramps are pretty painful... In my case, I don't think I can simply ignore them.'

Should I ask when Unnie usually got her period? No... Would that be rude? Just because we were both women didn't mean she had to tell me, and besides, I hadn't originally been a woman... As I sighed over that, Unnie, who had left work early because it was Friday, came home.

"Our Jia seems to be sighing and worrying about something~?"

"Huh, how did you know...?"

"Everything shows on Jia's face~"

Ah, my poker face... I must have been physically incapable of keeping one. Whether I was worried, happy, or in a bad mood, everything showed on my face. Put nicely, I was honest; put less nicely... was I ill-mannered?

"Since it's your first period, it's only natural that you have lots of questions."

"Th-That's true... Since I'd even served in the military, I thought magical things like this had nothing to do with me..."

Before enlisting, I'd wondered whether something magical like turning into a woman might happen and let me avoid going, but in the end I completed my service, returned to university, and even turned into a woman. And at this age, I was having my first period too... When I was a man, I hadn't even had nocturnal emissions, so life had been really easy... Talk about a twist of fate. Maybe it was fortunate that humans had evolved to hide these things, unlike other animals. Animals had mating seasons, while humans didn't seem to have one if you only looked at them from the outside.

"Then may I ask Unnie anything I'm curious about...?"

"Of course. There's nothing I can't tell Jia."

"But just last month, I..."

I could not continue speaking because Unnie covered my mouth with a slightly sad expression. Well... I had thought the wounds from being sexually harassed were finally healing, but then something like that happened again at a party I'd gone to enjoy myself. The language had been even more vicious than what the previous people had used, and Minsu, who was usually so good at controlling his emotions and maintaining a neutral expression, had completely snapped and beaten someone as if he intended to kill them...

'I'm calm and composed now, but I might tremble with a similar fear anywhere, at any time...'

My body had become that much weaker, and because of the hormones, my emotions felt much softer somehow. Things I would previously have simply cursed at and ignored now frightened me, and I sometimes wondered whether someone might do something to me. It would be accurate to say that my emotions had become very easy to bend.

"If you don't know something about a woman's body or become curious about anything, you have to tell Unnie, okay?"

"Yes, Unnie."

I could only answer with as bright a smile as I could manage, and after hearing me, Unnie simply stroked my head gently. Having my head stroked felt much nicer and warmer than I had expected.

"M-Maybe... It seems like my period starts the day after yours ends...?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Really? That's fascinating."

"I know, hehe."

A shared trait? After finding something we had in common, we looked at each other and laughed. One person's period ended and the other's began... It wasn't as though we were running a relay or anything, hahaha...

"It's too early to relax just because it's ended completely. It might also be a good idea to use panty liners."

"What's that?"

"They're smaller than sanitary pads, but they're something like a pad that you attach to your panties in case a little remains."

"Ahh..."

It wasn't as though I could empty everything completely just because I wanted to. Unlike men's bodies, these organs were entirely inside the body, so there must have been many more troublesome situations.

"And one more thing."

"One more?"

"The day after your period ends, wash the outside carefully with feminine wash."

"Do I just put it on my hand and wash with it like body wash?"

"Yes. Wash your hands well first, then use only your hands."

There were so many surprising things. Even if a man wanted to learn this for the sake of a future girlfriend, a man showing interest in learning about it would seem strange. He might even be treated as a potential criminal, beyond merely being called a pervert.

"And you can use it even if you think there's a little odor.

"I shouldn't use it too often, right?"

"Right. I think it's best to use it around your period, and otherwise leave about two weeks between uses."

There was so much to keep track of. If I didn't bother because it was a hassle, I'd quickly have to deal with direct discomfort and unpleasantness, and it could even cause an odor, which would hurt my social reputation and inconvenience the people around me... Managing my hair took time, I had to wear some makeup, and since there were so many types of clothes, I had to spend time deciding what to wear... There were certainly inconvenient aspects. Makeup and clothing could at least compensate for my appearance, but a man's genitals protruded, even though they were mostly covered, and if he didn't get circumcised—which people had recently begun saying was unnecessary—the inner flesh wasn't exposed at all.

Besides, you could wash the penis with soap, so aside from the skin there being delicate enough to get hurt, there was nothing to worry about. Getting kicked in a sensitive spot hurt men and women alike. But for women... since theirs was exposed on the outside, in so many ways... that thing... I was too embarrassed to say more, but anyway...

"Jia, shall we go somewhere and have some fun once your period ends?"

"Wow, should we?"

"It hurts more than you expected, doesn't it?"

"Yes... It might be because it's my first period, but before I started using heat, it really..."

My eyes grew a little teary. It had suddenly worsened an hour before I started applying heat, to the point that I collapsed while clutching my lower abdomen in an OTL position... Come to think of it, perhaps out of consideration for me, Minsu hadn't come by at all. Or was the organization sweep not finished yet? I was worried... but I shouldn't contact him for no reason and risk getting in his way, so I decided to refrain from contacting him for the time being.

*

Today was day three, and it was the weekend. I'd applied heat diligently yesterday, and it seemed to have calmed down a little. The weather was also terribly cold... Going outside would be too much. If I had come up with one idea since my period suddenly started at the graduation ceremony on Thursday, it was that I should wear any old panties during my period. Buying a bulk pack of panties and wearing them during my period seemed like it would be perfect. Even if they leaked, they wouldn't be my favorite panties, so I could simply throw them away! Well, if they were only slightly stained, I could wash and wear them again, but if they got really... if they flowed heavily... I figured I could rinse them roughly with water and throw them out with the waste.

"I'm bored because Unnie isn't here..."

Unnie left around ten after breakfast, saying she had plans to meet a friend. Would she be all right in this cold weather...? Thinking about it, I realized that periods made your emotions swing back and forth too. For humans, the damp discomfort inside their panties was extreme, and not many people could smile brightly while dealing with that kind of unpleasantness. From a man's perspective, you might think, 'It's every month anyway, so why get so annoyed?' That was understandable, but after experiencing it myself, I knew it wasn't like that.

Was it only the dampness, discomfort, and unpleasantness? No, that wasn't all. As if that weren't enough, there were menstrual cramps, and they hurt quite a bit. And then there were the clumps of menstrual blood, oozing out of the body in a sticky, squelching mess... Thinking about it made me feel bad again, so I wanted to lie down on the bed... Oh, but I'd heard smoking or wearing short clothes could worsen the pain. Come to think of it, wasn't it physically true that women shouldn't smoke? The proportion of female smokers was apparently rising quickly, so I supposed they did it because of stress. They said that frequently wearing crop tops that exposed the abdomen because they made you look prettier, or wearing skirts or pants that were too short, lowered the temperature of that area and naturally led to worse menstrual cramps. I really did have to take responsibility for my actions every month...

"I'm bored, so I'm thinking about all sorts of things. Damn it..."

I miss Minsu... He's dependable and tall, and after what I saw last time, he would protect me from any kind of evil, heeheehee... I miss him...

'Why am I wet?'

Damn it, now that I'd had my first period, was my mind being eaten by my body too? Had thinking about Minsu really made my panties wet? Haa... I'd changed my pad earlier... In my defense, Minsu really was the kind of man women could easily fall for. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and so muscular and solid that he felt incredibly dependable... His face was pretty good too. He wasn't exactly drop-dead handsome, but he was at least handsome enough to make you think, Oh, he's good-looking. Even so, if I dated anyone, I would date someone as busty and beautiful as Jiyeon Unnie. I realized by touching my breasts that it wasn't just looking at them in the mirror; touching their soft, pliable flesh also lifted my mood and put me at ease.

'Maybe it's because the sexual sensitivity in my breasts has developed, but touching them makes me aroused and causes me to get wet down there...'

Ugh... I feel like doing it... I shouldn't while I'm on my period... No, I'm not doing it. I absolutely refuse to lose to the temptation of the flesh! I haven't even built up enough sensations to become corrupted yet. In comics and anime, the characters who say they won't do it are always the first to fall, betray everyone, and become corrupted, but I'm absolutely not like them!

"What should I eat for lunch?"

Gulp. Should I have webfoot octopus? It might be a bad idea to eat something spicy... but my recent hospital examination had shown that my body was much more stable, and they'd said I didn't need to be as cautious as before... What exactly had he said?

'Ms. Jia's body is stable enough that she has even begun menstruating. However, her body, including her organs, is still more delicate than before, so you must not eat anything as spicy as Buldak, or anything excessively greasy or rich.'

He had also told me to drink water whenever I ate something that seemed especially salty. It was only one mug, but... if I were eating ramen, would 300 milliliters be enough? Come to think of it, there was another part that had become difficult as I got used to a woman's body: I had begun feeling embarrassed in front of Dr. Seo Hansu, my primary physician... but for a different reason than before.

'Before, I was embarrassed because I had contracted that illness, my body had changed, and I had to undergo examinations of my insides...'

Now, I felt even more embarrassed because I was a woman... Haa, considering how much I was agonizing over what to eat for lunch, my appetite must have been acting up. I decided to order one serving of webfoot octopus... 'Please make it less spicy.' Great! Now that I'd ordered it, the rice was... in the rice cooker, so let's play a game!

"I shouldn't have played that game... Now I'm in an even worse mood..."

Ugh... Oh, the delivery would be here soon. Should I kill time by reading a web novel? I hadn't originally read novels—or even text at all—and it had been a long time since I'd watched anime because I'd grown tired of it. I hadn't read webtoons in nearly ten years either... Somehow, I got hooked on web novels, and during my first month, I stayed up all night reading them... Ah, this novel was so good at describing food and its flavors... I'm hungry...

"Oh, it's here."

Another thing that had changed with this body was how I received deliveries. Before, I hadn't paid much attention and simply opened the door, but now I always waited until the delivery person had left my field of vision before opening it and quickly taking the package inside. Taking the package was the same as before, but emotionally, I had changed a great deal. It felt a little conceited to say it, but if I went around alone in this body, I would probably get asked for my number and scouted all the time. Because of that, I found it irritating when a delivery person simply rang the bell and stood outside the door even though the order had already been paid for.

'Before, it was merely annoying, but now it's a little frightening...'

I put the less-spicy webfoot octopus on the table, scooped some rice into a large bowl, added the octopus, and began mixing it together to eat.

"Mmm~ This is the flavor~"

The chewy texture and spicy flavor went well with the rice. The problem was that my stomach had shrunk, so I couldn't eat much and had to take small spoonfuls while gauging my condition. Before, I had been able to eat a lot, and since I didn't exercise while stuffing myself, I had gained quite a bit of weight... But if I gained weight with this body, there was a chance my breasts would get bigger too. Then I'd have to spend more money on underwear...!

'Thinking about it that way is horrifying... Even apart from that, my breasts had become a little fuller during ovulation, which made them feel slightly tight...'

That was a natural physical change, but gaining weight? Ugh... Absolutely not. My emotions really did seem to be bouncing all over the place in this body. I was thinking about all sorts of things. It was different from men's post-nut clarity, but similar in a way, wasn't it?

I spent that uneventful Saturday, then dried my hair together with Unnie at night and fell asleep in her arms. On Sunday, fortunately, Minsu came over safe and sound, and we ate lunch together.

“You must have been really hungry, Minsu.”

“Yes, I'm really hungry. Work was difficult.”

“It must have been incredibly tough if you were doing the finishing work.”

Unnie said that while making Minsu a lettuce wrap. Since it was Sunday, I had thought only Unnie and I would be eating, so I had been a little confused when she bought so many ingredients. As it turned out, Minsu was coming over to eat with us too.

“Thank you for helping with the documents, Minsu.”

“It was my job, after all. You don't need to thank me.”

We sat around the table harmoniously and ate lunch. When Minsu said that he had free time because it was his day off, Unnie suggested going to a café. After we came back, we had coffee and rested peacefully at home.

”I hope you were able to relax comfortably before you left, Minsu.“

At those words, Unnie stroked my head, while Minsu smiled brightly, clearly pleased. Unlike the lonely Friday afternoon I'd spent by myself, being with familiar people made me incredibly happy.