Chapter 0: Prologue

So, sometime, once in a while.
I had chatted with an acquaintance I met on the internet.
We happened to be the same age, and our tastes matched, so we grew fairly close.
That was the kind of acquaintance they were.

And that day we ended up starting a particularly deep conversation.
It was the kind of talk that began from the usual stream of consciousness.

The preface was nothing special.

“These days it seems like novels that focus on obsession do well on the platforms, what do you think?”
At that time I answered that it sounded pretty interesting.
Even if a novel used niche material, adding an obsession tag could buy it some breathing room.
Then that friend said this.
“Then if you add a TS tag to an obsession novel wouldn’t that be a cheat code?”
So the TS talk began.
Then the friend asked.

“What would you do if you became TS?”

I remember firing back with this question in return.

“If you were TS,
and you couldn’t prove your identity to acquaintances because you had no means of identification,
and then you ended up able to entrust your body to one last person, what would you do?”

It was just a joking hypothetical: what would you do, basically.
And at the end we exchanged the addresses of the places we stayed.
A meaningless joke meaning if one of us knocked on the other’s door or contacted them later, we’d at least help a bit.
If nobody had typed the password to my apartment and come in, I would’ve just thought I had one more story idea for a novel.

So, to put it bluntly.

I was screwed.

Whether that person was a friend or not.
Either way, it was bound to be a headache.

“…………………”
“……………….”

She couldn’t have been taller than about 160 cm, maybe just barely over.
A woman in a soaking wet hoodie and shorts stood in the doorway.
She looked like she’d run straight out of her home.
Also, she seemed to have no shoes on.

“…………………”

Silently, the woman wrung the water from her clothes.
For a moment I thought watching water drip onto my entryway was a bad idea.

“So… um… were you… that time… Kareppang…?”
It sounded ridiculous to say it out loud, but I had to use that friend’s nickname.
The woman in front of me had typed my apartment password and come in.
If she wasn’t someone I knew, this was a dangerous situation.
Honestly, whether acquaintance or not, there wasn’t really a good way to handle it.

“Yes.”
“Ah, thank goodness. I was worried you might be a criminal…”

The woman kept wringing the water from her clothes without speaking.
After she squeezed the moisture out as best she could and glanced around, I scrambled to speak because I figured I could guess what she planned to do.

“Throw your wet clothes in the bathroom.”
“Okay.”
“Also, you were a woman? I thought you were a guy. I mean… the way you spoke and stuff.”
“Right, I used to be a woman.”
“What? Used to be a woman?”

My breath nearly stopped.
Because of that conversation we’d had before, an unreal scenario flashed through my head.

A person’s sex changing overnight.

But of course that’s ridiculous.
The woman in front of me said she had been a woman.
So it wasn’t that someone had turned from male to female.
What, then, did she mean by that?
I couldn’t help asking because I was curious.

“Used to be a woman?”
“I mean it literally. I was a woman.”

She walked in dripping and then crouched down near the doorway.
Seeing water running from her soaked clothes, I handed her some towels I’d left out to dry.
After a little fuss she spread a towel and sat down, staring at me.

“So, can you explain in more detail…? I thought this was just a runaway or something.”
“It’s not running away. I was kicked out.”
“…What? But being a woman… I don’t know if what you say is true.”

I closed my mouth and picked my words slowly.
Then I began speaking in a way that wouldn’t hurt her feelings.

“Usually everyone has at least one way to prove their identity, right? Like some secret only the two of you would know from childhood.”
“…………………..”
“Anyway, I’ll help you, so why don’t you contact your family and think of something to prove who you are?”

I managed a cautious smile.
The fact that she hadn’t contacted other acquaintances and had come to an internet acquaintance like me showed how serious it was.
Why would she come find the person she met online instead of reaching out to people she knew?
In other words, I could assume she had no one else to rely on.

But she slowly shook her head.

Before I could ask what that meant, she took off her hoodie.

And her ears were exposed.

“……….Huh?”

My mind went blank.
It felt like I had been struck by something.

The woman had ears.
Animal ears that drooped like a lop-eared rabbit.
Their color matched her hair — black.

Now I could understand.

“You were driven out because of your ears, huh.”
“Yeah. They wouldn’t even call me a woman. I’m more like an animal that looks human.”
“That’s…”

She lifted her ears playfully.
Where human ears should have been there was nothing.
It was clearly jarring.
An empty spot where ears belonged, and ears where they shouldn’t be.

My heart thudded.
But I didn’t show it and kept a bright expression.

“So… what exactly happened?”
“You know how it goes. They treated me like I was crazy. I had rabbit ears on my head and no human ears.”
“But all your acquaintances…?”
“I didn’t really have many friends to begin with. At most three acquaintances, and none of them recognized me.”

She smiled in a flat, emotionless way.
It looked like she was bemused even at her own words.
Honestly, even I was stunned.

“…….So you came to me?”
“Luckily, when I begged around some people threw me a few ten-thousand won notes.”
“A few… ten-thousand won…?”
“I spent it all on transportation.”

I was at a loss for words.
She was unidentified and had rabbit ears.
Her body had turned into something that only resembled a human.
You couldn’t even consider whether she had human rights.
If it had been, jokingly, a case of changing from male to female, things would’ve been better.
At least then there’d be civic office procedures to try.
But like this…

…For now it seemed best to exchange names.
No — I felt like I had to get her talking about anything.
An inexplicable sense of unease crawled down my spine.
So I was about to ask her name when she spoke first.

“You know.”
“Yes? Say it.”
“What’s your name?”
“Uh… name? Park Siwoo. You?”
“Kyunghee. Choi Kyunghee.”
“Ah, so should I call you Kyunghee then?”

I forced a smile at Kyunghee.
But she shook her head and let out a short, choked laugh.
I stood there bewildered, not sure what to say, when Kyunghee spoke.

“Just… call me whatever, like ‘ya’ or something casual.”
“Something casual…?”

I nodded, saying I understood for now.

“Aren’t you cold?”
“I’m fine.”
“Oh… really?”

Kyunghee wrapped her knees with her arms and buried her face there.
I felt I couldn’t push further, so I hurriedly stood up and thought.
I had to do something, but I didn’t know what.
In the end I decided warming her up was the priority and slowly opened my mouth.

“Do you like coffee or cocoa?”
“Coffee.”
“Then what should I make?”
“Anything.”
“Okay.”

With trembling hands I filled the electric kettle and switched it on.
She’d said anything, so I planned to make coffee — instant coffee seemed easy to drink and would warm her up.

I waited anxiously until the water boiled, then mixed the coffee in a cup and stirred it with a metal spoon before handing it to Kyunghee.
She received the cup and gave a faint smile.
I wondered if the smile meant she was okay, but I doubted it.

Her lifeless eyes trembled nervously.
Her smiling mouth was slowly twisting.
It seemed she was forcing a smile to cover a swelling anxiety.

I thought about speaking to her, but decided to watch the situation for the time being.
It felt like I could stop any sudden move if necessary.
While I watched, Kyunghee slowly sipped the coffee.

She blew on it before drinking even though it seemed hot, so I thought she might be all right, but she wasn’t.
Her face improved, but her eyes still trembled.
And come to think of it, she had come in without shoes, so…

“Your feet… aren’t injured, right?”
“No.”
“That’s a relief. You came walking without shoes…?”

Kyunghee slowly shook her head.
Before I could ask what she meant, Kyunghee spoke.

“I took them off on the roof of this building on the way here.”
“…Why?”
“Why do you think?”

Kyunghee wore a smile that looked like it might break.

Ah.

Damn it.

It was my fault for asking something I shouldn’t have.
Kyunghee drained the coffee with trembling hands and smiled silently.
I decided not to ask more and tried to change the subject.

Talking about how we’d come to meet like this seemed best.
If I could warm her up and get her to sleep, everything would be fine.
My apartment wasn’t that small; there was room for two people to stay.

“Hey, Kyunghee…?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad we talked like that before. Right?”
“…………………”
“I didn’t know I’d be the last acquaintance, though.”
“Yeah. That’s right…”

Kyunghee unzipped her hoodie and said,

“Do you want me to write up a contract?”
“…What?”
“The last question in that story was whether, knowing someone might take advantage of a TS person, you would still entrust your body to that acquaintance.”
“…Oh.”
“Of course I used to be a woman, but now I’m more of a monster than a human.”

Yeah. That was the content.
Even if that friend might have taken advantage of her, would she entrust her body to them.
It had been a long-ago joking conversation that I’d completely forgotten because of the current situation.
Just then Kyunghee pressed her hand to her chest, let out a hollow laugh, and added,

“If you want. I don’t know if you’d be satisfied, but if you want, you can use me anytime.”

No doubt about it.

Seriously.

I was screwed.