Several students climbed on chairs making a commotion, but in the end they couldn’t find the cockroach. Naturally. The scene of everyone from the homeroom teacher to the kids opening their eyes wide looking for a cockroach that didn’t even exist was somewhat bizarre.
Of course, I took the lead saying ‘I saw it clearly with my own two eyes, you know? It was this big, I’m telling you!’ selling the act. Everyone fell for it so much that I suspected I might have talent as an actor. In the end, we went back to class without finding it, but everyone was busy pouring all their attention on the non-existent cockroach. That way, my strange behavior was erased from everyone’s memory.
The class was science. Something about genes, something about hormones… It was one of the subjects that didn’t enter my head after math, so the class was unbearably boring. Come to think of it, I had to take the college entrance exam again. I once imagined that if I returned to the past with my memories, wouldn’t my grades be a bit better?
Fucking no. Unless you were an honor student, there was no way your grades would improve. Just because you hear again what you didn’t understand at the time and just passed by, would you know it? And that was me. I, whose grades were neither here nor there, went to a university that was neither here nor there, got a job at a company that was neither here nor there, and lived neither here nor there. Still, in my mind it was a life that was neither here nor there, but it was ordinary itself, neither bad nor good, so I had no complaints. If I said it as a joke, I’d say I was a god-tier average person.
Perhaps it was because I had no debt and no one to be responsible for. My parents divorced as soon as I got a job. Our family wasn’t close to begin with. They were a couple who got married somehow and lived somehow. Even if it wasn’t a home overflowing with love, it was a home that fulfilled its duties.
However, even in such a home, it wasn’t that I didn’t feel affection itself. I thought that the fact that my parents didn’t divorce until I could be responsible for myself was their own way of expressing affection. Of course, after I got a job and could be responsible for myself, contact was cut off as if they’d been waiting for it.
In this world too, I of course had parents. Very common parents who were affectionate and naturally gave affection. For the first time, I had a very common and ordinary family. I was fine living as ‘Kim Hyeonmin’ rather than ‘Seo Jiwoo.’ Moreover, unlike the school that moved centered around the main characters, the extra ‘Kim Hyeonmin’s’ family seemed to be ‘Kim Hyeonmin’s’ space, so they focused on ‘Kim Hyeonmin’ like people with their own will. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel guilt toward the original existence called ‘Kim Hyeonmin,’ but…
Ah. Perhaps that’s why. The reason I don’t have much attachment to the original world. The reason I don’t want to get involved with ‘Lee Hyeonseok.’
I let out a fresh sigh. What if Lee Hyeonseok was looking for a way to go back? But he said that since it turned out this way anyway, he would live a new life.
And there were other concerns. Things like this world recognizing the existence called ‘Seo Jiwoo,’ or worries about what if my parents didn’t recognize me when I went home.
“Who knows, a new gender might appear.”
After thinking about other things for a while, I snapped to attention at the word ‘gender’ that came from the homeroom teacher’s mouth. I didn’t know what flow led to that content, but I was also concerned about the ‘new gender’ Lee Hyeonseok mentioned. It was content that came out at too perfect timing. Since one thing concerned me, everything else concerned me too. It seemed it wouldn’t be bad to hear, so I tried to focus on class, when the teacher suddenly slammed the desk with his palm.
“Are you kids sleeping?”
For a moment I doubted my mental state, but when I looked around at the homeroom teacher’s words, everyone except me was lying down asleep. No, yeah. I know it’s boring content, and it’s after lunch, but isn’t this too much? I felt sorry for the homeroom teacher. It was even contrived.
“You guys, you’ll regret this and pound the ground during the college entrance exam.”
“The teacher is cursing us out.”
“Sir, you’re crossing the line.”
The topic quickly moved to meaningless words. The kids woke up and we redid the class from the parts they couldn’t hear, so the class ended without me hearing any of the parts I was curious about.
Should I just close my eyes and go ask Lee Hyeonseok again? But for that, I was too worried about my life and death. Whether physically or socially.
* * *
Unlike my worry that he might call me during break time, Lee Hyeonseok didn’t look for me. I wondered if he’d call me after school to beat me up, but I arrived home without incident. Even though nothing happened, my worries didn’t disappear and there were no resolved concerns either. No countermeasures or anything.
When I trembled wondering what if I, recognized as ‘Seo Jiwoo,’ got kicked out of ‘Kim Hyeonmin’s’ house, and entered the house, Mom who was at home welcomed me.
“Our Jiwoo, you’re here?”
Mom called me ‘our Jiwoo’ not ‘our Hyeonmin.’ I couldn’t say anything for a moment. Even though she recognized me as ‘Seo Jiwoo,’ I wasn’t happy at all. No matter how natural people were, the fact that they were ultimately just characters in a book, just set values, struck me painfully. I had a lot of guilt toward ‘Kim Hyeonmin’ and ‘Kim Hyeonmin’s’ parents, but in fact, I didn’t need to have any at all. Suddenly I felt like crying.
“Jiwoo, what’s wrong! Did something happen at school?”
At my unusual appearance, Mom approached in confusion. Then she pulled me into her arms and started comforting me. Warm warmth wrapped around me. I wasn’t happy at all, but I couldn’t let go of this warmth. So I just hugged Mom and acted spoiled.
“A bad guy bullied me.”
“Who! Who bullied our Jiwoo! Mom will scold them, tell me.”
If not for that son of a bitch, I would have lived without knowing anything. Lee Hyeonseok, that son of a bitch. A bastard with character problems. Someday I’ll definitely make him eat shit.
That day I was gloomy all day long, and my parents worried about me and asked the reason, but ultimately I brushed it off saying I fought with a friend. Both of them didn’t quite believe it, but I was so stubborn that eventually they just said to tell them if something happened and let it go.
They were truly good parents who seemed like they’d come out of a painting.
* * *
Chewing, tearing, burying, and drowning Lee Hyeonseok in my imagination was only until right before falling asleep. After having a dream where Lee Hyeonseok brought some big guys and didn’t leave me alone asking if I spent my last day well, I woke up trembling with anxiety.
But it was strange. Just like yesterday, after going to school, when class time started, and even after school, Lee Hyeonseok neither called me nor came looking for me. I was scared. Fucking scared.
For three days straight, I agonized over whether I should hope he’d forget me like this, or whether I should go find him first and beg forgiveness. But they say humans are animals of oblivion. As time passed, the anxiety and fear of that time faded, and when the conclusion I reached after much deliberation was almost tilting toward ‘don’t go find him,’ an incident occurred that forced me to go find Lee Hyeonseok first.
In Korea, which has the lowest birth rate in the entire world, a man got pregnant.
It started with a man with a swollen belly going to an obstetrician. Naturally, no one took it seriously. Interest was entirely approached as simple humor or curiosity. For a few days it was the center of attention, but no one believed that the man had actually gotten pregnant.
At first, there were various opinions in the medical community like it was a diagnostic error, or the pregnancy reaction appeared from some other foreign substance. After discovering a gestational sac in the man’s body with ultrasound and discovering a fetus, they completely flipped out. When they officially announced that the man was indeed pregnant, breaking news appeared and the whole world paid attention. Medical staff and scientists famous overseas entered the country.
A man who had relations with a man got pregnant.
The religious world was negative, and some of the general public joked that before the population collapsed from decreased birth rate, men were getting pregnant too. Some mocked asking if they were transgender. Other parts seriously worried about that pregnant man, but about 50% just felt disgusted.
I was just anxious for now. I ignored Lee Hyeonseok who kept coming to mind. Then breaking news appeared about a woman getting pregnant, something natural if you had a normal body. The reason was simple and clear.
A woman who had relations with a woman got pregnant.
In the end, I had to acknowledge that this was the appearance of the new gender Lee Hyeonseok spoke of, and his ominous words kept coming to mind.
A promiscuous society.
Blaming others.
Moreover, articles consistently appeared in the headlines about the other party rushing at them asking to have sex as if they’d gone crazy, then when they came to their senses, consistently claiming they never had consensual relations. Even if I was scared and didn’t want to see it, when I came to school everyone talked about it, so I couldn’t not know even if I tried.
So I spent days having nightmares of running away or someone coming to catch me whenever I dreamed, and losing about 3kg from stress. After ultimately hearing Lee Hyeonseok say in my dream “If you manifest as an omega, you don’t seem like you’ll be okay either,” the next day I voluntarily went to find Lee Hyeonseok. Like someone about to die, I ate heartily, washed my body cleanly, and was able to meet him at the place where I first met Lee Hyeonseok.
Lee Hyeonseok, whom I faced after about a month, was holding a phone in his hand. From the way his fingers moved here and there, I wondered if he was exchanging texts with someone. I couldn’t tell what the content was, but from how quite serious Lee Hyeonseok’s expression was, I thought it might be important content.
Even seeing him after a month, it was an admirably handsome appearance, and with a serious expression on top of that, it was quite worth seeing. Such a Lee Hyeonseok smiled as soon as he discovered me. But from that smile I could glimpse his determination to definitely humiliate me.
Lee Hyeonseok looked at me and said in a cold voice.
“First, kneel.”
Ah. I fucking feel like murdering someone.
