Chapter 1: Motivation(1)

Part 1

It seemed I had been in a coma for about two weeks.
Through the commotion, I could vaguely hear the story of how my parents found me groaning and collapsed in my room and rushed me to the hospital.
Looking at the back of my hand, which was much thinner than I remembered, and seeing my mother burying her face in it and crying, I felt an inexplicable surge of emotion even through my dazed, just-woken mind.

“Ah-…”

The moment I tried to say something, a sharp pain shot through my throat, and I reflexively shut my mouth.
‘Come to think of it, they said I had been unconscious for fifteen days.’
A belated, burning thirst, beyond just being dry, washed over me.
Seeing me unable to speak, only making a raspy sound, my mother’s cries grew even more sorrowful.

“What are you doing, making such an unsightly scene in front of the kid who just woke up. Get up. Can’t you see you’re flustering them?”

“It’s because you’re always out drinking that you lack so much family affection! How can you not shed a single tear when our child just woke up!”

‘No, Mom, I wish you’d notice that for someone you’re accusing, Dad’s eyes are also quite red and bloodshot.’
My father, slowly blinking as if he couldn’t stand the thought of crying unsightly, moved his lips for a moment before shutting them again.
‘Is it that he wants to say something, but his voice won’t come out either?’

“Still, what a relief… What a relief… Thank you for waking up… Thank you so much…”

‘I should answer her, but I just can’t make a sound.’
‘I want to ask for some water.’

It took about five minutes for my parents’ emotions to calm down, thanks to the skilled intervention of the nurses who grasped the situation.
The lukewarm water I finally drank after enduring that burning thirst for five minutes tasted strangely refreshing, even though I knew it was lukewarm.

Part 2

“…So, you’re saying this isn’t a hallucination or anything like that, but my actual appearance?”

“It’s a rare disease with fewer than 40 reported cases worldwide, so it’s not a large enough sample size to be considered a valuable specimen, but I’ve heard most patients showed a similar reaction to you. First, denial. Second, suspicion. I’m aware that this process of suspicion sometimes leads to extreme expressions of anger, such as destructive self-negation or denial of reality, but in your case, it seems to be a relatively mild one.”

“Ah… yes.”

‘A mild case, he says.’
The mirror my parents showed me after they barely managed to calm down since I first woke up, telling me something like ‘don’t be surprised,’ and my reflection in that mirror.
And the feeling I got when I saw that reflection, asked what kind of hidden camera prank this was, told them to stop with such unfunny jokes, and then saw my parents’ stiff, frozen expressions for the first time.
A sense of alienation and loss.
A feeling like my entire life up to this point was being denied.

‘There’s no way this doctor doesn’t know that I asked even my parents to leave because I was too shocked to talk, and then didn’t open my mouth for three days.’
‘Yet, for him to call it a mild case… what kind of reactions did the others, the people who went through the same thing as me, have?’

“Anyway, it was incredibly fortunate that your family found you quickly and brought you to the hospital. A change this extreme has never been reported before. In your case, during the process of your body’s transformation, some of your hormonal and immune systems, as well as some cells including pigment cells, had a rather extreme reaction during their reconstruction—”

“Ah. No need to think about it too hard.”

The smooth surface of the mirror, gently pulled across the desk, reflected the face of a girl that was still unfamiliar, yet had now become mine.
Dark honey-colored hair that fell slightly past my shoulders.
Smoothened skin.
The large eyes were a bright gold, a color hard to believe for an East Asian.
The frown that formed on my face without me realizing it seemed more cute than fierce.

‘My shoulders were narrow to begin with, but even so, they weren’t this dainty.’
As I thought this and looked in the mirror, my cheeks, which looked a bit thin likely due to the fifteen-day forced fast, combined with the small frame, made me look a little pathetic.
‘No matter how I look at it, it still doesn’t feel like my face.’

“I understand you’re not a half or a quarter, is that correct?”

“Yes…? Ah, yes.”

‘I’ve never heard of any foreign blood in my family, even going back to my great-great-grandfather.’
Despite showing a hesitant expression at the sudden question, I gave a short nod.
‘As if my thought of ‘Why do you ask?’ was transmitted to him, the doctor continued without hesitation.’

“Your hair color and eye color. They’re not shades that would typically appear, are they?”

“…Now that you mention it, that’s true.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m referring to. This symptom, which involves chromosomal mutation, doesn’t even have a name yet due to the lack of cases, but even considering that, there has never been a case with such an extreme transformation as yours… or so I’ve heard. The skeleton disassembling and reassembling. The alteration of pigment cells. I don’t know how the immune system was affected in the process, but when you first arrived at our hospital, your immune system’s activity had completely ceased.”

“Ah…”

I felt like I roughly understood what he was trying to say.
It was only then that I noticed the relief in the doctor’s gaze as he looked down at the chart filled with incomprehensible terms with an indifferent expression.

“Fortunately, you didn’t show any severe symptoms of infection, but there will be some aftereffects. Things like mild asthma symptoms. You’ll also likely suffer from frequent minor illnesses due to a weakened immune system. …I apologize. I probably shouldn’t have said that right now.”

“Ah, no. It’s alright. It’s better to know in advance so I can be careful, yes.”

Rustle.
For a moment, only the sound of paper turning filled the air, until finally, with a deep sigh, thud.
The doctor tossed the chart he was looking at onto a corner of his desk.
‘He wasn’t showing it, but it was a movement that conveyed just how much trouble he had gone through because of me.’

“Anyway, you are cleared for discharge. You’ve been told that most of the issues that could cause problems in your daily life, like your ID card and so on, have been taken care of, right?”

“Yes. I heard you went through a lot of trouble, Doctor…”

“I was simply the only person in the country who could be said to have some knowledge of these symptoms. It was just a person who could do the job doing it, so if you feel grateful, please don’t harbor any destructive thoughts and just focus on your recovery.”

“Yes. … The next check-up is…?”

“You can come in anytime next weekend. It might be a bother, but it would be safer for you to have a check-up once a week for about a month.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

‘I figured he probably wasn’t just talking about my physical health.’
‘After all, I had a glimpse of what a destructive, self-negating attitude could be.’

Taking the business card he offered me, I left the doctor’s office.
It seemed my parents had already handled the discharge procedures, so there was nothing for me to do other than change into the clothes they gave me in my private room.
The white shirt, the beige jacket to wear over it, and even the navy blue jeans—somehow, they all fit my changed body size perfectly.
As I was thinking something like, ‘What a waste of money for these clothes,’ the scene of the rather luxurious private room suddenly caught my eye, and the thought of ‘I wonder how much the hospital bill was’ made me feel gloomy without realizing it.

“Son!”

“Somehow, I feel like you shouldn’t call me that anymore?”

“So what! No matter what anyone says, you’re my son!”

‘My mother wasn’t usually the type to say such cheesy things.’
‘Is she conscious of the things she was told to death, about needing psychological stability and whatnot?’

“Is there anything you want to eat.”

“The fried rice you make, Dad.”

“…That’s a bit of a hassle.”

My father’s parked car started to rumble with the low sound of its engine.
My mother’s nagging directed at my father, and the sound of a faint laugh.
In the midst of this unreal reality, it still felt like I was dreaming, but…

“Pfft…”

I felt there was no need to hold back the laughter that was spilling out.

For now, I thought that this was probably okay.