I. Who am I?
Since the dawn of day, I have been seriously contemplating life, or rather, about ‘me’.
It might sound random, but I am serious right now.
It’s not an odd thing, so please listen to me.
I wasn’t a philosopher who usually pondered about the human ‘me’, nor was I someone still striving to find my identity long past my teenage years.
I will exclude the option of being mentally unstable as well. I possess a very healthy mind.
This is not a career exploration session, and what would I do by finding my identity?
Why am I, an ordinary male in my twenties in South Korea—remarkably plain and, to put it mildly, unremarkable—having these thoughts?
The reason was standing right in front of me.
“….”
It’s a mirror.
It’s troublesome to imagine a large mirror typically found in a clothing store.
After all, aren’t there those tall full-length mirrors at home, where people wear clothes and make satisfied faces at their elongated reflections?
Those who take pictures of their beautiful selves, sharing them with others and exchanging compliments—a master of grooming.
I didn’t possess such social skills.
Nor was I a narcissist who would get lost in admiration of my own image every single day.
For me, a full-length mirror simply doesn’t fit.
What I was looking at was a common bathroom sink mirror, one that simply reflected my upper body.
In the mirror was a woman.
I locked eyes with her.
A silent greeting akin to “Hello.”
Her black pupils blinked at me.
Her double eyelids and lifted profile gave her an inexplicably cold impression.
Her cold and haughty demeanor made her seem hard to talk to.
She had the pale skin of a person who appears to lack vitality, contrasting sharply with her bright red lips.
Long, straight black hair flowed down her neck.
The deep black of her hair complemented her slender white neck beautifully.
She was attractive enough to awaken a protective instinct in a man.
And beneath that, there were her curvaceous breasts.
They weren’t so enormous as to be grotesque, but they made their presence known quite sturdily.
A woman with such an appearance stood in front of the mirror, capable of making passersby turn their heads.
There shouldn’t be any issue.
There certainly wouldn’t be an issue…
Though there are few, beautiful women exist everywhere.
No, rather, it could be considered lucky. Opportunities to encounter women this beautiful are rare.
Courageous individuals get the beautiful women.
If I were with my friends, we might have jokingly tossed rock-paper-scissors to see who would confess their feelings.
However, I couldn’t help but sigh. Having come this far, I couldn’t deny it.
As I sighed, the woman in the mirror exhaled softly.
When I blinked, she blinked too.
Our timing matched perfectly, as if we had rehearsed it.
Indeed, there was one problem.
…I had become a woman.
A very beautiful one, at that.
*
“Who are you?”
I recited a line that might come out of a movie for no particular reason.
At that same moment, the expressionless woman in the mirror moved her lips.
Not that I expected a reply.
It was as if I were playing rock-paper-scissors with my own reflection.
I had no intention of inflicting such cruelty upon myself.
But surprisingly, I calmed down quickly.
To be precise, I might be trying hard to think that way. Just as someone who isn’t alright reassures themselves that they are.
People who initially aren’t okay become alright after hearing repeated affirmations.
Scientifically, this is a proven fact.
After all, there are those plant experiments with kind words and negative words.
In childhood, often during science class, there’s a famous experiment done with other kids.
If you speak kind words to one plant and negative words to another,
only the plant that hears kind words flourishes, while the one that hears negative words withers—this illustrates the importance of suggestion.
Was the conclusion that we should speak gently?
It might have been an early lesson against gaslighting.
I hadn’t understood it in childhood, but looking back, it’s a rather useful education.
Perhaps it’s due to my perspective changing.
Maybe I had too many thoughts and my mind wandered elsewhere.
This was not the time for such pointless fantasies.
Let’s think positively; perhaps the fact that I’m lost in thought means my mind is recovering.
Thus, whether it was some kind of defensive mechanism awakening within me, the feeling of panic faded more quickly than I anticipated.
What occupied my mind now was what to do next.
Who is this woman?
At least in my memory, there was no woman as beautiful as her.
Thinking about it, it might be that I had never had any connection to the female existence at all.
No, maybe there were a few.
But can those even be considered connections?
Usually, I only have memories of women crying in front of me…
Those painful memories, let’s bury them for now.
I was now the owner of this beautiful woman’s body, yet I didn’t even know her name.
Judging that finding information about this woman was a priority, I took a look around.
The house this woman was inhabiting was a small studio apartment.
Despite its smallness, it was decorated charmingly, giving a cozy feel rather than a bleak one.
A tiny studio where the living room and kitchen were connected.
I examined the fridge occupying a corner of the kitchen.
It had colorful Post-it notes stuck to it.
-1. Chop the green onion finely.
2. Stir-fry as if burning soy sauce.
3. Add the rice.
A Post-it noted as “Recipe from Teacher Baek.”
The colorful notes had meticulously written instructions listed.
Naturally, I inferred that this woman enjoyed cooking, but surprisingly, there were no ingredients in the fridge worth cooking with. It seemed she hadn’t cooked at all recently.
Proving that fact were the scattered takeout menus visible.
Were there still people ordering takeout through physical menus?
Perhaps she might not be adept at using electronic devices.
This could be quite a significant clue… maybe?
I’ll mark that down for now.
I rummaged through the room as if I were a detective in a novel, and given the small size of the room, I found a second clue.
– Ji-eun 00xxxx – 4xxxxxx
It was an ID. A photo of her awkwardly smiling faced me.
Born in 00, she’s 23 years old.
The ID was issued this year, suggesting it had been recently obtained.
I discovered it in a worn-out wallet containing a few crumpled bills.
On the desk was also an old-model cellphone.
It seemed she wasn’t in a financially abundant situation.
I tried calling a few phone numbers I didn’t remember.
They were my phone number and a few of my friends’ numbers.
“Excuse me, is this Park Jeong-tae?”
“You have the wrong number.”
I even tried the number of an old workplace colleague that immediately came to mind, but the outcome was the same.
Tears didn’t escape me. It felt like I was reaffirming something I’d prepared myself for. Apart from that, all I could realize was that I had truly entered another world.
Though I had only a few acquaintances, it was unlikely that all of them would suddenly change their numbers simultaneously.
It seems I could safely say they were gone.
Or rather, in this case, had I disappeared?
That was an unexpectedly overwhelming realization, yet I remained intact.
Was this calmness from the original ‘me’ or from the owner of this body, the ‘Ji-eun’ lady?
It was unknowable.
The original me and those narrow human connections had all become untraceable remnants.
Ji-eun’s relationships weren’t markedly different from mine.
Stored contacts (3):
Mother
Father
Younger sibling
It was a scant list, consisting only of her parents and sibling.
She appears to be living alone, separated from her family.
Looking through the messages, it seemed there had been occasional contact. However, that was only records from months ago.
It seemed she hadn’t communicated with either family or friends recently. The only remains were unread messages from her younger sibling.
It seemed there were issues.
Conflicts with family are quite common.
Perhaps there had been a complete severance.
Whatever the circumstances were, it appeared Ji-eun’s life had been as turbulent as mine.
As I contemplated these questions about Ji-eun, I continued searching for clues.
Suddenly, I felt an odd sensation in my body.
It was an uncomfortable feeling mainly radiating from my stomach.
As I puzzled over this unfamiliar sensation, I soon realized what it was.
It was hunger.
Hunger felt quite strange in this changed body. It felt like my already weak form was getting even weaker. It was as if my starving body had declared a strike.
…Should I eat something first?
