Chapter 1
1
It was a little past two in the morning.
It was a bit later than usual, but I’d managed to score a decent girl for once, so I ought to be satisfied.
“The girls weren’t much to look at tonight.”
“Mmm? What did you say, oppa?”
I glanced down at the woman with her upper body wrapped around one of my arms.
A face that would make people turn for a second look, and a pretty sizable chest. Her low-cut top showed off her cleavage.
Not bad.
As far as a club pickup on a night like this went, anyway.
“Nothing. Just talking to myself.”
I flashed her a slight smile.
I’m Jeong Ha-won.
With my handsome face and a smile like this, I can win a woman’s favor more often than not.
I knew perfectly well how good-looking I was, and I made sure to use it as a weapon.
There were no rooms at the nearby motels, so in the end, I took a taxi for another ten minutes or so before finding a room.
The woman, who’d drunk so much she could barely keep herself upright, collapsed face-down on the bed as soon as we entered the room.
“I wonder if she’ll even be able to go through with it tonight.”
It’s a nuisance, but not particularly difficult, to set the mood with a woman who’s dead drunk.
Actually going through with it was 100% doable.
The only thing that worried me was what might happen the next day, when she woke up, couldn’t remember anything, and raised all kinds of hell.
It happened now and then, and every time, it gave me a headache.
Of course, smartphone cameras are so good these days that getting video evidence is easy.
I glanced at the woman’s butt as she lay there spouting nonsense to herself, then went into the bathroom.
I took off my clothes and looked at myself in the mirror.
“Damn, I’m one handsome bastard.”
In front of other people, I usually act humble and deny it when they call me handsome.
Every time, some pent-up desire would stir inside me. But after letting it all out when I’m alone like this, I feel a little better.
The moment I reached for the shower lever to wash away the reek of women’s perfume and makeup clinging to me, I felt my head spin.
“W-what?”
It felt like the entire bathroom was moving.
No, was I hallucinating?
I felt my body slowly pitching forward.
If I fell like this, I’d probably crack my head on the edge of the bathtub.
I desperately tried to steady myself, but the maddening dizziness only grew worse.
At that moment, something flashed through my mind.
A scene from the club about an hour ago flashed through my head.
I thought a bug had bitten the back of my neck and quickly turned around. But there was no bug, and no one had tried to hurt me.
There was nothing but people busy dancing to the upbeat music.
‘No way….’
What if someone had injected me with some kind of drug?
Had that sharp sting been a needle?
Who? Why?
Bang!
I couldn’t tell whether the sound came from my head actually hitting the bathtub or whether it had rung out inside my skull.
I couldn’t think anymore, and my vision went black like someone had yanked the power cord from a monitor.
How much time had passed?
I opened my eyes with a splitting headache, like the morning after a night of heavy drinking.
“Ugh... My head’s killing me.”
Worried I’d actually smashed my skull, I hurriedly felt around the spot where I’d hit it.
Fortunately, nothing seemed wrong. I didn’t seem to be bleeding, either.
More than that, though, something felt strange against my fingertips.
‘Was my hair always this long?’
Come to think of it, something was blocking half my vision.
I brushed it aside with my hand.
It was hair.
I blinked a few times.
I thought maybe I was still dreaming.
There was no way my hair had grown at super speed while I was unconscious.
As I thought that, I absentmindedly lowered my gaze.
In an instant, a scream burst out of me before I knew it.
“Kyaaa!”
Another shock slammed into my head.
Why did my voice sound like that?
And what was with that squeal?
I reached out with a trembling hand, grabbed the sink, and pushed myself upright.
“Hup!”
I barely managed to cover my mouth with my hand before another scream could escape.
In the mirror, a naked woman stood there, looking startled.
For a few seconds, I didn’t move at all, as if time had stopped. No, I couldn’t move.
‘Calm down, Jeong Ha-won. This is a dream.’
I slowly raised my hand and slapped myself hard across the cheek.
Smack!
After the sharp smack of impact, a stinging pain spread across one side of my face.
“Hngh...”
Naturally, I’d thought it was a dream and swung without holding back, so the impact was considerable.
I swallowed, took a deep breath, and tried to calm my pounding heart.
Then I picked up my phone from the shelf.
“What... It’s only been five minutes?”
Only five minutes had passed since I’d checked the time before entering the bathroom.
Did that even make sense?
I’d come in, had a little self-admiration session, and collapsed from a sudden dizzy spell. That meant I’d been unconscious for, at most, a minute or two.
“I turned into someone else in that time? And a chick, at that?”
I couldn’t believe it, so I snapped at the woman in the mirror, but she only looked just as incredulous.
“It has to be a dream. Some unbelievably vivid lucid dream or something.”
I picked up the clothes I’d taken off and put them on one by one.
“At least my clothes didn’t change.”
If it was going to transform me, it could have changed my clothes too.
My T-shirt was so loose that one shoulder was completely exposed. The pants obviously didn’t fit either, and even after fastening them, they were about to fall down.
Even with the belt cinched as tight as it would go, they kept slipping.
I had no choice but to hold them up with one hand and awkwardly leave the bathroom.
“Shit...”
On the bed, the woman I’d picked up at the club earlier was sprawled face-down, her butt wiggling as if she were passed out or asleep.
“So only I changed? Ha, this is so ridiculous I don’t even know what to say...”
I started to curse, then stopped.
It was my own voice, but I couldn’t stand listening to it.
My stomach churned, even though I’d never thrown up no matter how much I drank.
I gagged and retched.
Women were nothing more than beings who fulfilled my desires. Nothing more, nothing less.
I was born a man, and I’d never had a feminine bone in my body. Of course, I’d never even wanted one.
I had no idea what sort of sorcery this was, but for now, I had to accept the situation.
I didn’t know when this dream would end, but....
“No, wait. Since it’s a dream, can’t I do whatever I want?”
Smack!
I slapped my own butt once more.
‘I should avoid talking as much as possible. It’s disgusting.’
It felt like I was standing in front of people dressed in women’s clothes.
An inexplicable sense of shame and self-loathing swept over me like a storm.
I walked over to the woman lying face-down on the bed.
My gaze fell on the handbag tossed beside her.
I opened it and found her wallet inside.
I wasn’t trying to steal her money or anything.
I probably had hundreds or thousands of times more money than this airheaded woman.
I took out her ID.
A pretty photo stared back at me.
‘She’s pretty, but she doesn’t look much like me right now.’
I tossed the ID and wallet carelessly onto the floor and stood up.
Then I started taking off the woman’s clothes.
“Ahhh... Oppaaa~ Are you all done washing up?”
She could barely open her eyes, yet she was managing to make such a coquettish sound.
I casually ignored her question and focused on taking off her clothes.
Thinking we were about to do the deed, the woman even wriggled on her own and raised her hips to make it easier for me to undress her.
She took off her top all by herself.
‘Good grief. If you keep throwing yourself around like that, how are you ever going to get married?’
I thought that, then shook my head.
Whether she got married or not, or went around sleeping with people, had nothing to do with me.
Besides, wasn’t I the one who’d brought her all the way here to sleep with her?
In the end, it was the pot calling the kettle black.
I took off my baggy original clothes and changed into the clothes I’d taken off the woman.
I glanced at my reflection in the motel-room mirror.
I still felt like throwing up, but at least I wouldn’t look like a weirdo if I went out like this.
“Agh...”
Every time the fabric brushed against my chest, I felt something like a twinge of pain.
A woman’s chest seemed to have a somewhat different network of nerves from a man’s.
‘Being a woman is inconvenient in every way.’
That’s why I’d always been glad to be born a man.
I couldn’t bring myself to put on the woman’s underwear, so I left the woman—whose name I’d already forgotten—in her underwear and left the motel room.
I had no interest in sex or anything else right now.
‘Let’s just go home for now.’
Come to think of it, I had my phone and wallet and all sorts of things in both hands.
The skirt I’d stolen had no pockets.
‘So that’s why women carry purses around. Damn it.’
I went back into the room and picked up the woman’s handbag.
I turned it upside down, dumped everything onto the floor, and put my phone and wallet inside.
It was a cheap handbag that didn’t suit the luxury long wallet, but I wasn’t in a position to be picky right now.
I was about to leave, but turned to look at the woman sprawled on the bed in her underwear.
I felt a little bad for her for no particular reason.
How shocked would she be when she woke up tomorrow?
‘All right, I’ll think of it as charity.’
I pulled a thick wad of 50,000-won bills from my wallet, set them on the nightstand beside the bed, and left.
I stepped outside the motel.
For some reason, the air felt different.
Maybe it was just because I felt like shit right now.
I went out to the main road and waved my arms around for a while before I managed to flag down a taxi.
“Welcome. Where are you headed?”
The moment I got into the taxi, I immediately caught the driver’s lecherous gaze.
‘So this is what women mean when they say they can always feel men’s eyes on them?’
But since I’d been born a man, I found the driver’s gaze so disgusting I couldn’t stand it.
“Hunam-dong.”
I hated hearing my own voice, so I kept it as short as possible.
“Well, look at you, living in a nice neighborhood. Isn’t that where all the rich people live?”
Please shut up and just drive.
I clenched my teeth.
But the taxi driver kept running his mouth the whole way.
I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep, but I could feel the driver glancing at me through the rearview mirror the whole time, so I couldn’t even do that.
‘Come to think of it, the clothes I stole are way too revealing.’
On top of that, this body I’d inexplicably changed into had a pretty ample figure, and the cleavage was on full display through the low-cut top.
And it was like this even without a bra.
This wasn’t something I’d ever wanted.
Please turn me back to normal.
I somehow endured the taxi driver’s lecherous looks and irritating chatter until the car finally stopped near my house.
The meter showed a little over 10,000 won, but I flung a 50,000-won bill toward the front and hurried out.
“Hey, you... Fuck, did you leave your manners at home or what!”
The taxi driver’s angry shout came from behind me.
My fist clenched tight.
Should I go back and give the driver a piece of my mind?
Should I punch the driver in the jaw?
But then I saw my own tiny, delicate fist and gave up.
With a fist like this, I felt like my bones would shatter even if I punched Styrofoam.
‘Phew... Jeong Ha-won, you’ve really mellowed out.’
I barely managed to pull myself together and got home.
Fortunately, the entry code hadn’t changed.
‘So it really was only me who changed. The world is still the same...’
Why I’d turned into a woman, whether someone had made me this way—those headache-inducing questions could wait until after I got some sleep.
Once I got home, maybe because the tension had eased, an overwhelming exhaustion swept over me.
I staggered into the bedroom and collapsed onto the bed without even taking off my clothes.
‘Maybe I’ll wake up and find I’m back to normal....’