I think I lived a pretty good life.
Well, how good could it really have been… but from around the time I entered elementary school, I was good at both studying and sports.
Because of that, I always had plenty of friends, and that didn't change when I went on to middle school and high school.
Once my grades started coming out well, I clenched my teeth and studied even harder, and when it came time for the CSAT, I hit the jackpot and got into one of Seoul's most well-known universities, in an engineering-related major.
College was tougher than I expected because of the brutal assignments and classes, but I think I enjoyed it in my own way.
Going on MT trips, hanging out with people from my department, pulling all-nighters doing assignments with friends… I'll say this with confidence: by any standard, that puts me in the top 1%.
But then why?
I looked into the mirror.
Long black hair, dark eyes, a small face and lips like cherries.
Had my height shrunk by about 10 centimeters? Strangely enough, though, the clothes I was wearing fit my body perfectly.
"Ah."
A pleasant—no, an incredibly pleasant—voice flowed out of my mouth.
"Oh."
It was good enough that I instinctively let out a sound of admiration.
"Hmmm…"
I crossed my arms and deliberately made noises, wanting to keep hearing my voice.
"Is this a dream?"
I woke up and had turned into a woman.
And not just any woman—an incredibly pretty one with a great voice.
Embarrassingly enough, there was a time when I was obsessed with lucid dreaming.
Back in my foolish adolescent days, I tried to use dreams to fulfill my dark, unspeakable fantasies.
Still, because of that experience, I knew a few ways to tell whether I was dreaming or not. I tried every method I knew, but the more I did, the more I came to the conclusion that this was reality.
"This is insane… what the hell is going on?"
And above all, the strangest thing was that this room was definitely my room—but it was subtly different.
The wardrobe was filled not with my men's clothes, but women's clothes. I was even wearing underwear—top and bottom.
The situation was so absurd it felt like someone was messing with my brain. I immediately grabbed my phone, unlocked it, and started checking everything.
"Ha… fuck, is this for real?"
All my old guy friends were gone without a trace, and my chat logs were filled with conversations with women I'd never met, yet somehow felt familiar.
Even worse, the department group chat that should've said "[S University Computer Engineering, Class of '22]" had been replaced with "[G University Design, Class of '22]."
"AAAH! Fuck!"
The moment I saw it, curses spilled out of my mouth.
You're telling me that S University's computer engineering program—the one I got into after studying until my nose bled in senior year—just vanished?
No, this has to be a dream, right?
My KakaoTalk profile picture, which used to be a photo of me with my friends, was now some woman wearing a black cap, pajama pants, holding a can of beer outside a convenience store.
…Looking at it now, she's fucking pretty.
Kind of a cold, tough-noona vibe.
Realizing that this face was mine, the rage that had been boiling up inside me suddenly calmed down.
And then—
"Ugh…"
Along with an intense headache, unfamiliar memories began flooding into my mind.
"Ah—ah… agh!"
The pain was so severe that I staggered over to the bed and collapsed. When I opened my eyes again, an enormous amount of memories had settled into my head.
"Fuck, was I a guy? Or a girl?"
I was utterly confused.
I don't know which one is the original, but I was a man.
Now I'm a woman.
It's impossible to dismiss either side as a delusion—both sets of memories are vivid. If anything, the memories of being a man are clearer, but since my body is female now, I guess it balances out.
My name is the same as before: Kim Suhyun.
I went to the same elementary, middle, and high schools as in my original life.
The difference lies in the path I took.
In this world, the female Kim Suhyun was what you'd call… an otaku? A hardcore nerd? Something like that.
She looks like the type who's smoked a few cigarettes and might have a tattoo somewhere, but her school life was relatively normal. More precisely, she was a kind of social butterfly who bridged the gap between regular girls and the otaku crowd.
After all, don't girls like the "tough older sister" type?
It's embarrassing to say about myself, but to the boys, she was an untouchable presence—someone they wouldn't even dare confess to. To the girls, she wasn't a rival, just a pretty girl they wanted to be friends with.
Because of that, she has no dating experience. Is that a good thing?
If she'd dated a guy, the male part of me might've thrown up.
…Does that mean I'll never date, then?
Anyway, setting that aside, aside from my body being female, I have two major problems right now.
First, I can't do design, which is now my major.
The memories are there, but fundamentally, design was never my thing.
How should I put it… If my original self was black paint, then adding white paint turned it gray. I tried designing something as a test, but compared to the skill level in female Suhyun's memories, what I produced was mediocre at best.
I could probably improve with practice, but… I don't know. I don't feel any passion for design, so I don't really want to keep doing it.
The second problem is that my friends have changed.
Thankfully, my parents are the same, but instead of my old friends, my KakaoTalk is filled with completely different women.
I didn't have zero female friends before, but this is different… these are girls I barely knew in school—maybe knew their names or exchanged a few words with—who are now my close friends.
[Hyejeong: What are you doing!]
See? I just got a message.
Hyejeong… In my memories as a guy, she was just another girl in the class.
But in the memories of female Kim Suhyun, she's a fun, loyal, all-around good friend.
I'll reply later. Right now, I needed to sort out the mess in my head, so I looked for a cigarette.
"Huh? What the—"
But there were no cigarettes in my coat or on the desk. Then it hit me: female Kim Suhyun didn't smoke.
Male Kim Suhyun picked up smoking as a freshman, but female Kim Suhyun never did.
"Sorry, but it's my body now, so it's fine, right?"
Guess I've got no choice—I'll have to go buy some.
Someone once said addiction is a problem of the brain.
Turns out that's bullshit.
Addiction is a problem of the heart.
I threw on a coat, pulled a black cap down low, and headed outside.
Thankfully, my studio apartment was in the same location as before, so the neighborhood was familiar. Still, with my height reduced to around 170 cm, the scenery looked different from this new perspective. Soon enough, the convenience store came into view.
'Isn't this a cliché?'
A scene from female Suhyun's memories came to mind.
The protagonist turns into a woman, goes to a convenience store, and the clerk is shocked by her looks…
More importantly, why was she reading stuff like that?
TS stories? I clicked my tongue at the memory of female Suhyun searching for gender-swap novels.
'This is more intense than I thought.'
Not just that—she was deep into every corner of nerd culture: manga, anime, Japanese VTubers. Completely hopeless.
She even got into design because she started drawing after watching anime in middle school.
It's like Kim Suhyun's dark evolution.
Is "dark evolution" even the right term?
Objectively comparing the lives of male Kim Suhyun and female Kim Suhyun, I'd choose the male one without hesitation…
But from elementary school anime, to light novels in middle school, to VTubers in high school, female Kim Suhyun honestly seemed to enjoy life more.
Well, with looks like this, it'd be hard not to.
Lost in thought, I arrived at the convenience store and opened the door, secretly anticipating the clerk's reaction.
Who was the clerk again? According to my memories, it should've been just some ordinary guy—
'Oh.'
"Welcome!"
Instead of a guy, the clerk was a woman.
A very pretty, young woman.
"Ah, yes, hello. One Mild Seven, please."
She seemed shorter than me, and compared to my slightly cold, sharp, cat-like look, she had a more puppy-like beauty.
Warm, maybe?
"Sure~ Could I see your ID, please?"
"Here you go. Oh, and I'll take a lighter too."
She was the kind of beauty who smiled brightly—so pretty that if I were still male Kim Suhyun, my heart would've been pounding, and I'd probably keep thinking about her even after going home.
But well… I'm a woman now, aren't I?
I exchanged a casual goodbye, took the cigarettes, and walked out.
"Hoo… khrrk! Cough!"
The moment I stepped outside the convenience store, I lit up and took a big drag, but since this body was basically smoking for the first time, my throat instantly seized up and tears welled in my eyes.
"Khk! Cough! Damn it…"
All at once, the cigarette lost its appeal. I tossed the butt on the ground and shoved the pack roughly into my pocket.
"Shit… cough! Hack! Damn…"
'Guess I'll have to smoke slowly.'
Or maybe I should just quit while I'm at it, I grumbled to myself as I headed back home.
Maybe because the air outside was pretty chilly, the warmth inside wrapped around my body the moment I stepped in.
[Hyejeong]
Just as I lay down on the bed, my phone vibrated with an incoming call.
"…"
Lee Hyejeong.
A friend of female Kim Suhyun—a well-dressed female college student.
She goes to the same G University as Suhyun, and true to her socialite nature, she's a dance major.
I dug through my memories for how I usually treated Hyejeong, got a rough sense of it, then answered the call.
"Hello?"
[Suhyeonie~]
A high-energy voice greeted me the instant I picked up.
Strangely enough, it didn't feel awkward.
"Yeah, what's up?"
[Wow, what? Do I need a reason to call you?]
"Well, no, I guess not."
Don't you usually call when something's up?
That logic made no sense from male Kim Suhyun's perspective, but according to female Kim Suhyun's memories, she was right.
[Anyway, why didn't you check your KakaoTalk yesterday?]
Yesterday?
I checked the time on my phone—and noticed the date was off by a whole day.
"Oh, I think I was exhausted and slept all day."
Judging by it, I must've been out cold for quite a while after absorbing female Kim Suhyun's memories. Realizing that, I suddenly started feeling hungry.
[Slept all day?? What did you do yesterday?]
"Yesterday? Uh… well, I couldn't sleep, so I was messing around with stuff and ended up going to bed late."
[You were watching anime or reading novels again, weren't you? Seriously, is that stuff even fun?]
…What kind of life did female Kim Suhyun even live?
Though honestly, the accumulated evidence in her memories was already overwhelming.
To be blunt, I couldn't understand how she still had friends at all—she was a hardcore homebody.
[Have you eaten?]
"No, not yet."
[Then wanna come out? Let's eat.]
"Sure. What do you want to eat?"
I said that partly to get closer to her—but on the other end of the line, I heard a startled reaction.
[What? Really? You swear you won't cancel?]
"Huh? Where are we going?"
That kind of reaction just for eating… well, I guess it makes sense.
Female Kim Suhyun always made excuses to avoid even casual neighborhood meals.
[I'm at home. Get ready and come out—be there in 30 minutes!]
Her home? Ah, then she lives nearby. If we're this close, why didn't we eat together more often?
Anyway, she said 30 minutes—what should I do until then?
After a moment of thought, I unlocked my phone and recalled what female Kim Suhyun usually did in her spare time.
Anime… novels… hmm…
One oddly notable thing was that she watched and read everything—both male-oriented and female-oriented stuff.
She browsed online communities too. Thankfully, she didn't seem stuck in any extreme ideology—more of a lurker.
She also used social media.
Not Instagram so much, but mostly that "blue bird" people say is harmful.
Since she was always at home, she seemed to try everything just to kill time.
'…Then wouldn't it be easier to just go outside?'
According to her memories, she didn't have any particular trauma. Once she did go out, she had fun. She just didn't go out often.
Looks like she was simply a homebody by nature.
Honestly, I could understand that.
'I read comics too, you know.'
Back in middle school, how many manga volumes did I read at the rental shop with an older friend? Even as an adult, I'd still visit manga cafés now and then.
There's plenty to enjoy at home.
If male Kim Suhyun mostly read old black-and-white manga from the '90s and 2000s, female Kim Suhyun leaned toward newer anime—same age, but a different generation somehow.
'Even though we're the same age.'
Anyway, lost in those thoughts, I opened the blue bird app on female Kim Suhyun's phone.
Most of the posts were drawings—and objectively speaking, her drawing skills were impressive. Maybe that's why she got a lot of likes, comments, and shares.
From her memories, it seemed she genuinely enjoyed that kind of attention.
And then…
"…Hmm."
There was also evidence of a flame war with some user using a Sailor Moon profile picture.
Aren't you objectifying women who are way too young?
ㄴ Your mom lol
ㄴ Were you not educated? Why are you using mom insults;
ㄴ Your mom lol
ㄴ Sigh, this is why men get hate
ㄴ I'm a woman though? Like your mom lol
ㄴ Fuck off
…Calling that a flame war feels generous. It's more like pure mom insults.
Seems female Kim Suhyun had a lot of pride in her art. The only time she ever posted text instead of drawings was when someone trashed her work—and then she'd immediately go for the mom insults.
To the point that…
[An artist who uses mom insults when you insult her art.jpg]
A meme like that had circulated on the blue bird app. And female Kim Suhyun had proudly saved a screenshot of it.
I spent a moment pondering this incomprehensible woman named Kim Suhyun, then realized it was almost time to meet up. I put on some light makeup and headed out.
…I meant to just head out, but female Kim Suhyun's memories grabbed my ankles.
I threw on a gray hoodie and black slacks and walked for a bit, when I saw Hyejeong approaching from a distance.
She was dressed simply—white T-shirt, jeans, and a beige cardigan—and she started waving enthusiastically the moment she spotted me.
"Suhyun!"
If I'd heard that nickname from a male friend back when I was a guy, I'd have thrown a punch. But now, it didn't really bother me.
"Hyejeong, hey."
I gave a casual wave back, and Hyejeong scrunched up her face.
Ah—too stiff? Guess gender really does make a difference…
"There you go again! Using stuff you learned on the internet, right?"
Ah, so female Kim Suhyun was more easygoing than I thought.
Thinking back, she liked staying home, but she wasn't introverted.
More like a no-BS, say-what-she-thinks type—kind of like cola with extra fizz.
On top of that, she was beautiful, knew how to dress, had a great voice.
No wonder she kept friends even without going out much.
Walking side by side with Hyejeong, I glanced at my reflection in a nearby window.
Even in just a hoodie and pants, I somehow looked like a celebrity airport photo.
Stats and personality really don't line up, huh?
If she'd liked being out more than staying home, she might've been living the ultimate social butterfly life by now.
"So, what should we eat?"
"How about that?"
At Hyejeong's question, I absentmindedly raised my hand and pointed at a sundae-gukbap place I used to frequent back when I was a guy.
The moment I did, I realized my mistake—but Hyejeong simply nodded.
"Sure. It's been a while since I had gukbap. Sounds good."
Looks like she liked it too.
Jingle—
Hearing the familiar chime, we entered the restaurant. It was clean, with noticeable wooden interior decor.
"Welcome! How many?"
"Two."
After sitting down and glancing at the menu, I ordered what I always used to get.
"One large sundae-gukbap, please."
"Yes, sir—"
"Can you really finish that?"
At Hyejeong's comment, I frowned slightly—then it clicked. Of course, men and women eat different amounts.
Especially since I'd gone from a solid adult man to what you'd reasonably call a slender woman, my appetite would naturally be much smaller.
"I'm just really hungry."
I mean, I'd basically skipped an entire night of eating—surely I could finish it, right?
"I'll just get the regular size."
After placing our orders, we chatted while waiting for the food. Female Kim Suhyun was a homebody to begin with and didn't have much to talk about, and I couldn't exactly share stories from when I was a guy, so I mostly just listened to Hyejeong talk.
"And then you know what Yoonjae said to me? He seriously told me—"
Yoonjae was Hyejeong's boyfriend. They'd met at a cram school back in high school and had been dating ever since—so what, about five years now? As I listened with interest to her stories—about school, assignments, nightmare teammates in group projects, and nightmare customers at her part-time job—
My phone vibrated.
Bzz—bzz—
The number showed up as "Unknown." I hesitated for a moment, then answered. A young man's voice came through the phone.
[Is this Kim Suhyun's phone?]
"Who is this?"
[Ah—yeah, it's Kim Chaehun, the department rep. Why didn't you come today?]
Kim Chaehun? Since G University was a completely different school from the one male Kim Suhyun attended, I had to rely entirely on female Kim Suhyun's memories for this.
Digging through her fairly uneventful college memories, he came up as… just some loud guy with bleached hair.
"Oh, I was tired, so I couldn't make it."
[Tired? What were you doing yesterday?]
I tried to brush it off and figured I'd think about school stuff after sleeping it off, but the guy just wouldn't let go.
Were we even close like this? In my memories, we were barely acquaintances. Judging by the way he asked if this was really Kim Suhyun, it even felt like this was the first time he'd ever called.
"Who was that?"
Hyejeong, who'd been watching my call closely, asked.
"Department rep."
"Your department?"
"Yeah."
I answered her and hung up the call. Hyejeong stared at me with a shocked expression.
"What?"
"No, I was just surprised you were on the phone with a guy—and you can just hang up like that?"
"Ah, I'm thinking of dropping out."
"What??"
That thought had hit me the moment I saw the design department.
The school itself was worse than the one I used to attend, and the major was something I wasn't good at and had no interest in.
Strangely enough, I felt a strong certainty that I'd be living in this body for the rest of my life.
If that was the case, shouldn't I quickly redraw my life plan?
I was only 21. And I wouldn't even have to go to the army.
Honestly… it felt like there was nothing I couldn't do.
"Then what are you going to do?"
"I don't know… maybe retake the CSAT?"
"You?? You say studying is hell!"
Is that so? Come to think of it, just imagining studying for the CSAT again made me feel like throwing up.
"Yeah, retaking it does sound awful."
"Right? You, retaking exams? Why drop out of a perfectly fine school?"
"Hmm…"
"Wait—weren't you doing internet streaming? What about that?"
"What?"
Internet streaming?
The idea was completely new to me—until a memory snapped into place.
I remembered watching VTubers as usual in my room, then seeing their donation income and getting tempted.
She liked staying home, but she wasn't introverted.
And she actually had a decent amount of initiative.
Enough to buy a microphone, a facial tracking camera, and even an avatar…
Wait.
She bought them?
I immediately opened my phone and checked Coupang. The items were already shipping—and scheduled to arrive tonight.
Because I'd been busy digging through older memories, I'd been slow to notice the most recent updates.
"What do you mean? You said you were auditioning—you even applied."
"I did??"
"What, did you do it while drunk?"
"No… the audition… right, I did apply…"
…How far does this go?
I resisted the urge to grab my throbbing head at the sheer incomprehensibility of female Kim Suhyun—and then, unexpectedly, the idea didn't seem that bad.
After all… female Kim Suhyun's voice was genuinely excellent. Even now, it wasn't familiar to my ears yet, but I found myself admiring it every time I spoke.
On top of that, I used to be a guy—and female Kim Suhyun was a full-fledged expert immersed in otaku culture.
Which meant the perfect conditions for absolutely demolishing hardcore male otaku fans.
The insanity of my own realization made my hands tremble as I slowly set my spoon down on the table.
Come to think of it, in every gender-swap story female Kim Suhyun had read, the protagonist always ended up doing internet streaming.
"Ha… Hyejeong."
"What? What's wrong?"
"I think I've figured out my career path."
"What?? What is it?"
"An idol."
An idol from the two-dimensional world.