Chapter 20
The handwriting was a hurried scrawl, as if written in haste.
Even the final sentence trailed off before it could be completed.
It was a deeply unsettling note.
My body and mind, heated by my first kiss and caresses with Chaerin only moments ago, went cold.
The thin sheet of paper in my hand felt heavy.
It was too significant to be just a scrap of paper that had happened to slip between the pages.
‘It isn’t amnesia or anything.’
‘I have to remember.’
If so, the original owner of this body had expected to lose his memories.
But a traffic accident wasn't something anyone could predict.
It felt as though I'd gotten caught up in some strange conspiracy.
An ominous feeling ran down my spine: this might not simply be possession in a world where men's and women's roles were reversed.
When the sound of Chaerin washing her hands in the bathroom stopped, I hurriedly shoved the paper into my pocket.
Then, until dinner, I searched every corner of the house while avoiding Chaerin's eyes.
But I couldn't find a single suspicious object, let alone another note with the same content.
Even while sitting across from Chaerin at the dinner table, I could barely swallow my food.
When Chaerin asked if something was wrong, I simply brushed it off by saying I was tired.
My mind became tangled in all sorts of hypotheses.
First, intentional personality replacement.
There was a possibility that the original owner of this body had wanted a new life because of extreme stress or trauma and had tried to replace his personality with mine.
But the contents of the note directly contradicted that hypothesis.
The words ‘I have to remember’ meant that he hadn't wanted to lose his memories. It probably wasn't something he'd chosen for himself.
Second, being the subject of some secret experiment.
There was a possibility that, without my knowledge, the government or some powerful organization had made me a test subject and deliberately implanted a different set of memories—the memories of ‘me’.
But I had no idea why anyone would do that. The owner of this body seemed to have merely engaged in male prostitution….
Third, a supernatural phenomenon.
In other words, possession. And there was a possibility that the original owner of this body had noticed it and left the note behind.
That was possible, too. But I couldn't understand how the original owner had recognized the phenomenon of possession or even prepared to deal with it.
Fourth, virtual reality.
It was possible that all of this was part of an intricately designed simulation.
But the warmth of Chaerin's body beneath my hand, the taste of food, and even sexual pleasure.
Everything was so vivid. The sense of reality was too overwhelming for me to believe that all of this was fake.
Finally, multiple personalities. There was a possibility that extreme trauma had caused my brain to suppress my past memories and identity and create a new self—the ‘possessed’ me.
The note could have been a trace left by my suppressed original self. But this was strange, too.
The memories of my previous life were far too extensive and elaborate.
The inverted social structure of men's and women's roles, a completely different history and culture, even relations with other countries.
My previous life was far too consistent and systematic to be a delusion created by one person's trauma.
‘Damn it, I don't understand any of this.’
My head felt as though it were about to explode. None of the hypotheses fit properly.
Still, I couldn't help leaning toward the ‘possession’ hypothesis.
The memories of my previous life were incredibly detailed and vivid.
My name, where I grew up, my trauma, the foods I usually ate, and so on.
I couldn't believe memories like these had simply been fabricated.
“Haa….”
A deep sigh escaped me.
I wanted to believe that my life was real and that this body was mine now.
More than anything, I didn't want to think of myself as fake.
“Hey, something really is wrong, isn't it?”
Chaerin had finished the dishes and was standing in front of me, asking with a worried expression.
I shook my head and answered that it was nothing.
At that moment, I realized that perhaps I even needed to be wary of Chaerin standing in front of me—and Subin, my childhood friend who lived next door.
I couldn't rule out the possibility that the two people closest to me were involved in all of this.
Since I had no idea who had done this or why, I needed to be cautious for the time being.
I might even need to stay away from sex and women for a while.
I resolved to do so.
But that resolve collapsed the moment I saw Chaerin from behind; my cock sprang erect.
Chaerin had just finished the housework and was wearing loose gray slacks and a white short-sleeved T-shirt.
They were comfortable clothes for Chaerin, but seeing her dressed like that stirred up my lust.
The slacks were loose, but whenever Chaerin bent over to organize the cabinet beneath the sink, they clung tightly to her buttocks and revealed their shape in full.
On top of that, the outline of her white panties showed clearly through the thin slacks.
I swallowed involuntarily. My cock grew even harder.
Whenever women with big asses walked past dressed like that, I'd sometimes stare at them. I never expected Chaerin to dress that way at home, too.
‘This is driving me crazy, seriously….’
To be honest, I wanted to put my cock between those plump buttocks.
When Chaerin squatted down and stuck her butt out slightly, I became fully erect.
With her narrow waist and broad hips, I couldn't stop thinking about pounding into her from behind.
That soft, plump flesh would cushion the impact, so pounding into her would surely feel good.
She was so arousing that it was almost as if she were tempting me to fuck her.
Having learned how good sex felt, my already vigorous sex drive only kept growing.
The thought of normally prickly, tsundere Chaerin moaning around my cock made it impossible for my erection to subside.
While reason and instinct fought fiercely in my head, time passed heedlessly.
In the end, without resolving anything, I sat in the chair at the dining table and opened the diary I'd brought earlier.
The only thing I could do was find even a few more clues about this body's past.
The diary began when he was around five years old.
Most of what was written in crooked, uneven handwriting concerned mundane daily life.
One story appeared particularly often.
[I went to the village gathering today. The adults talked about boring things, while I played hide-and-seek with Jjokkom and Chaerin. I was it, but they both hid so well that it took me forever to find them.]
‘Jjokkom?’
It was a nickname I'd never seen before. In context, it seemed to refer to a childhood friend. If so, I guessed that ‘Jjokkom’ must have been Subin's childhood nickname.
The diary was filled mostly with stories about playing with Jjokkom and Chaerin at that village gathering.
Then, after about a year, the diary abruptly stopped.
As I turned the diary's pages one by one, Chaerin finished the housework and came over to me.
“Why are you reading that?”
“I thought I'd see if I could remember anything.”
At my answer, Chaerin's brow subtly furrowed. She clearly disliked it.
Until recently, I would have thought it was just the cute jealousy of a tsundere desperate to fuck her amnesiac twin brother.
But now, every one of her expressions seemed suspicious.
Could it be that Chaerin didn't want me to recover my memories?
Could Chaerin be behind all of this?
The suspicions kept piling up, and I barely came to my senses.
Before I knew it, my gaze was fixed on the cleavage of Chaerin, who had bent over to look into the diary.
The neckline of her pink apron and white T-shirt drooped downward under gravity, making her cleavage clearly visible.
I let out a deep sigh at my uncontrollable sex drive.
“What's this village gathering?”
I deliberately looked away as I asked. Chaerin frowned again.
“It's something like a cult.”
“A cult?”
“Yeah. It was supposedly a strange religious group that tried to make men into women's slaves somehow, whether through brainwashing or magic.”
Chaerin's explanation was shocking.
A cult that had tried to turn men into women's slaves.
Could they have done something to me…?
“We thought it was an ordinary village gathering. We moved here with Subin's family before they revealed their true intentions. Thank goodness.”
“What happened to that cult? Where are they now?”
“Last year, I think? There was a news report saying that the cult leader and his wife had been executed after they were caught trying to kidnap a man.”
Chaerin sighed in relief, as though she truly felt fortunate.
“If we hadn't moved then, you might have been in danger, too.”
I sensed genuine concern for me in Chaerin's words.
So my suspicions about Chaerin eased, if only slightly.
I organized the information in my head.
A cult that tried to turn men into slaves. And the cult leader and his wife had been executed the previous year.
Then was I their final test subject? Could that cult have possessed me?
Just as my thoughts began to tangle again, Chaerin's gaze fell to my lower body.
….”
When I looked down, my cock was erect enough to seem ready to tear through my pants.
It seemed to have stayed hard throughout the conversation after starting to swell the moment I saw Chaerin's buttocks.
Chaerin's face flushed bright red. To conceal her embarrassment, she spoke in her usual prickly manner.
“Ahem, ahem. My mattress got wet because of you earlier… I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight.”
The mattress had indeed gotten wet with her juices when I fondled her earlier.
“Oh, so?”
“…Can I sleep on the same mattress as you?”
No sooner had Chaerin finished speaking than a battle between reason and instinct broke out in my head.
Reason warned me. ‘It's dangerous. Nothing is certain yet. I need to keep my distance.’
Instinct whispered. ‘Yeah. Of course.’
“Yeah. Of course.”
Before I could even consider it, my mouth answered on its own.
This wasn't a battle between reason and instinct. It was simply instinct crushing reason.
Only after saying it did I realize that I'd once again lost to lust.
“Yeah!”
Chaerin smiled brightly and turned around.
I had a bad feeling—a feeling that I might not be able to control my lust.