The warm water from the shower made me feel as if I'd been reborn, completely refreshed.
I'm not like my brother, who takes forever in the shower. I'm done in, like, 10 or 15 minutes tops.
Now that I think about it, I remember fighting with my brother because he'd spend 40 or 50 minutes in there. Like, what the hell? Unless you're doing something else in there, how do you take almost an hour to shower?
I keep saying this, but our family wasn't exactly well-off, so we only had one bathroom at home.
So, when the toilet clogged or someone—like my brother—hogged the bathroom, and you suddenly had to go? That was a nightmare. Like, three-alarm-fire-level chaos. Ugh, just thinking about it is awful.
Anyway, we fought all the time over the bathroom. I'd beg him to hurry up, but he'd go off, saying, "You gotta wash thoroughly, man. Who the hell finishes a shower in 10 or 15 minutes like you? A proper bath means scrubbing every inch with soap, not just splashing water and calling it a day."
Okay, fine, he said stuff like that, but honestly? I'm pissed because I've never half-assed a shower like he claimed. I just clean faster than most people.
Not once have I washed as sloppily as he made it sound, but thanks to his crap talk, I somehow got labeled as the "filthy kid." Thinking about it now, it's so damn unfair.
…Ugh, it's pissing me off just remembering it. But the important thing is, now I can use another bathroom if someone's in one, and my brother's not here. That's what matters.
Still, he's my flesh-and-blood brother, so I do wonder if he's doing okay or, you know, still alive. Maybe when I have some time, I'll head back to check on him.
I should probably see Mom and Dad at some point too.
With those thoughts, I dried my hair with a towel. The soft, fluffy texture felt amazing.
After drying off, I changed into pajamas and tossed my dirty clothes into the laundry basket.
Wait a sec—now that I think about it, this is my first time wearing pajamas straight out of an American TV show.
Aren't men's pajamas supposed to be, like, shorts and a ratty T-shirt? Or just underwear? That's what I thought.
But wearing these silky, smooth pajamas? It's like I'm living the life of some celebrity.
Carrying the laundry basket, I left the bathroom. You're supposed to do laundry at least once a day. I don't know exactly why, but that's what Mom always said, so that's how I did it when I lived alone.
With the basket in hand, I walked through the living room toward the side door where the washing machine was.
"Eeeeek!"
Startled, I dropped the laundry basket on the floor.
Right in front of me was Yejin, drinking bottled water from the fridge.
Okay, sure, people drink water. No big deal. But her outfit—or lack thereof—was the problem.
Yejin was standing there in nothing but her underwear. Her skin was so pale you could faintly see the blue veins underneath, and her long black hair cascaded down to her waist.
Her hair flowed over her shoulders, barely covering her perfectly toned chest, leaving just enough to the imagination.
At my scream, Yejin, mid-sip, turned to look at me. A single stream of water spilled from her lips, trickling down her neck and slipping into the soft valley of her chest. It was, frankly, ridiculously suggestive.
"What? What's the problem?" she asked.
"Put some clothes on, please!"
Look, I'm old enough to know what's what, but seeing a woman's body out of nowhere like this? Of course I'm gonna freak out.
How do I explain this? It's like accidentally clicking on a post tagged with explicit content while browsing on the subway and everyone around you noticing. Sure, as a guy, I could look at that stuff, but in public? Not cool, right?
I mean, if you're married, maybe it's fine to walk around naked at home. But springing it on me like this? I can't help but be shocked.
Plus, it's not like we're in the bedroom or something. Seeing her half-naked while she's casually drinking water? Of course I'm gonna lose it.
"…Huh?" Yejin looked down at herself, confused, as if she didn't get what the big deal was. She scratched her head, then put the water bottle back in the fridge.
As she did, her figure was, honestly, a work of art. Her perfectly balanced body, with not a single flaw, moved with grace, her chest bouncing slightly.
"It's not like you haven't seen this before. Why're you freaking out all of a sudden?"
I swear, my face was so red it probably looked like a beet. Yejin seemed thrown off by my reaction.
She started walking toward me, and with every step, my face got hotter. I'm not exaggerating—if someone pricked my face with a needle, I might've bled out and died right there.
I was like a tomato so ripe it'd collapse at the slightest touch. I didn't have a mirror, but I bet I looked like a glowing red ingot.
I rubbed my face with my hands to cool it down, but through my fingers, I could still see Yejin's nearly bare body.
On closer inspection, there was no body hair.
Thankfully, this gender-reversed world doesn't mean women skip shaving their armpits or sprout chest hair from excess hormones. Not that it's super important right now, but…
As I was thinking this, Yejin brushed past me, her freshly showered scent wafting by.
"You okay? You're acting kinda weird today," she said.
Turning around, I saw her buttoning up her pajamas, starting from the bottom. The fabric strained slightly over her chest as she fastened the buttons.
"I'm fine. Really," I said, shaking my head vigorously.
Yejin gave me a skeptical look, clearly unconvinced, but then shook her head as if deciding it wasn't worth worrying about.
"If you say you're fine, then you're fine. Let's just sleep."
+
With that, she climbed into bed and went to sleep.
Click. The house's lights went out all at once. The pitch-black darkness was disorienting at first, but my eyes soon adjusted.
Carefully, I made my way to the master bedroom. Yejin was already lying on her side, seemingly asleep.
Snore.
It hadn't even been three seconds since she hit the pillow, and she was out cold, not moving an inch.
…Do I just sleep next to her? I mean, come on, I literally just met this woman today, and now I'm supposed to share a bed with her?
What do I do? I paced around the bed for a bit before gingerly slipping into the corner of it.
Look, what else am I supposed to do? I have to sleep. And this is the only bed in the house—I can't crash on the sofa, right?
I pulled the blanket up to my chin and stared at the ceiling. Back home, we had green glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on the ceiling light, but here, there was nothing. Kind of a shame.
…Thinking about it, this is just insane. A gender-reversed world? How the hell did I end up here?
Everything has a cause and effect. Cause and effect—that's what it's all about. I think it's a Buddhist term or something, but that's not the point. The point is, cause and effect matter.
Like, if a fire breaks out somewhere, it doesn't just happen for no reason. Someone tossed a cigarette butt, lightning struck, an electrical pole short-circuited, or maybe branches rubbed together in the wind and sparked. Something causes it. That's my point.
There's always a reason for a result. And the opposite—no result without a cause? That doesn't happen either.
If I studied hard but still got bad grades, it's because others studied harder, or maybe I didn't study as hard as I thought. There's always a reason for the outcome.
It's obvious, right? Sure, sometimes the world throws out absurd, unfair crap that makes no sense, but even those things have their own causes and effects.
At least, that's what I believed until now.
If it weren't for what's happening to me right now, I'd still believe it. Out of the 7 billion people on Earth, why the hell did I end up in this gender-reversed world?
What did I do—without even realizing it—that caused me to end up here?
I don't know. If I could explain it, I wouldn't be here. I'd already be back home.
Can I even get back to my original world? Probably not…
Don't lose hope. Keep going.
Even if I'm stuck in this gender-reversed world, I'll keep living.
I'll keep going.
Come on, Kang Areum—no, Han Areum! You got this! Let's do it!
Ugh…
Yejin stirred in her sleep, rolling over to face me.
The blue light of the moonlight mixed with the city skyline illuminated her like a spotlight.
I looked at her, stiff as a statue in an art room, like Agrippa's bust. But asleep, she seemed less rigid than usual.
When she's awake, she feels so unapproachable, like a needle would bend if you tried to poke her. But asleep? She's softer.
She's pretty, though.
Objectively and subjectively, her looks are an 11 out of 10.
Her skin was as pale and smooth as flour sifted through a fine mesh. No makeup, but her long, dark eyebrows stretched like willow leaves, catching my eye first.
And, yeah, it's cliché, but her sharp nose and lips the color of autumn leaves? Stunning. Sure, her expression is usually blank, but she's more than beautiful enough to turn heads.
What does she even do for a living?
An actress? A model? A news anchor? She'd probably excel at anything.
Living in a fancy house like this in Seoul means she's gotta be high-income, right?
But… why would someone like her be with me?
That's what I don't get.
She's got this amazing house, a gorgeous face, and a killer body. Why the hell would she be with a guy like me?
Even in a gender-reversed world, it doesn't add up.
In my world, even if women have the upper hand in dating or marriage, a high school-educated woman from a poor family in the countryside has limits on who she can end up with.
And right now, I'm somehow with a woman who's way out of my league.
…Well, I'll figure out how to live with it, I guess.