Chapter 2: I Will Never Date You!

Mutation (2)

Until I had eaten a few pieces of chicken, neither of us said much.

Siwoo was the one who broke the silence first.

"Did something happen at home?"

"Something..."

I was about to say nothing happened, but I stopped myself.

If I had to put it a certain way, I was the 'something.'

I had been in the hospital for six months.

I heard the hospital bills were quite high. The hospital had lent the room almost free of charge for rare disease research, and I heard that thanks to health insurance, I only had to pay about 10 percent. I even heard that I was paid research fees every time they drew my blood.

But that doesn't mean my parents didn't take care of me. Even my younger sister, who is only a year younger than me, helped out.

I thought my relationship with my parents wasn't bad. It wasn't much different from other families. We treated each other like family, fought occasionally, that sort of thing.

My relationship with my sister wasn't exactly great, but it didn't deviate from the commonly heard standards of 'siblings who don't get along.'

But that relationship changed a lot while I was in the hospital.

At first, my sister teased me quite a bit.

There weren't that many patients, but the disease was very well-known because of its characteristics.

"Should I buy underwear in advance?"

My sister would tease me like that.

Then, after seeing the blisters all over my body and my organs becoming mushy on CT and MRI scans, my sister became quiet.

My mom, my dad, my sister. And the atmosphere of the relatives who came to visit me was all solemn. During those six months.

I understand. I would have been the same.

The fact that I wouldn't die didn't simply mean I could take medicine and get over it like a cold. It meant that I needed a medical background to disinfect the blisters and prevent bacterial infection of the exposed dermis, and to directly inject nutrients into my blood vessels instead of my stomach, which could no longer digest food.

And the 'Kim Ihyun' who survived that was a completely different person with no trace of the previous self left.

My parents were happy that I had survived safely, and I thought my sister was too—

The atmosphere of the three of them when they saw me yesterday was different from the atmosphere when they treated me before.

Much more cautious, as if they were meeting someone for the first time and checking if they were someone they already knew.

I wonder if they couldn't easily accept the condition that 'the nerves and brain don't change'? Just like the disease they thought was nothing was actually different from what they thought.

"Just. It's a little awkward."

I just shrugged my shoulders and said.

"Is that so."

Siwoo picked up his wooden chopsticks as he answered.

I don't know if he's being considerate of me or not, but at least the way Siwoo treats me hasn't changed.

Although he seems a little more cautious.

I didn't want to come all the way here and talk about dark things, so I decided to change the subject a little.

"I don't know what to do now."

"What do you mean?"

"Girlfriend."

"...You don't have a girlfriend, do you?"

"I was planning to have one in the future."

Siwoo looked at me with very suspicious eyes at my words.

"You haven't been hanging out with girls all semester, have you?"

"That doesn't matter. Anyway, when I come back from the army, everyone will be in their fourth year. They'll be busy preparing for jobs and stuff. What's really important is the kids who will be taking classes with me."

"Huh..."

"That's why I went to the army after only one semester. When I come back, I'll be taking classes with other freshmen. I'll be able to go to school with them for longer."

"Wouldn't they be even more uncomfortable?"

Siwoo, who had already finished one semester, reacted as if he was very suspicious.

"You took another year off, so there's a three-year age difference, not just two?"

"...Well, age difference isn't the problem anymore."

I took a long breath.

"No, well."

Siwoo picked up a piece of chicken with his chopsticks and said.

"Isn't it not important whether you have one or not?"

"It's easy for you to say. Do you have a girlfriend?"

I was assuming he didn't have one a moment ago, but you never know. Something might have happened during the past semester.

"...Let's eat."

Siwoo replied.

"Has any other girl ever been in this place?"

"Would there be?"

Siwoo said, as if he was dumbfounded.

"If there was, you would have..."

And then he stopped talking.

"What? You wouldn't have let me in? Why? Because you were afraid of being misunderstood?"

"..."

I asked back because it was funny for some reason, but Siwoo fell into deeper thought than I expected.

"No, well, you're a male friend, so? Would it be okay?"

"That's right. If you're worried, you should be worried about your girlfriend."

"What nonsense are you talking about? You couldn't make a girlfriend even when you were a man."

"That's because I was studying? And then I went to the army. I didn't have time."

"Even the kids who had girlfriends in high school went to college just fine."

I ignored Siwoo's words.

"Well, at least you know I've become like this."

"I can't not know when you're right in front of me."

I stared at Siwoo and smiled.

"If I didn't have a girlfriend, I wouldn't have been able to touch them."

Siwoo stares at me at my words.

"Do you want to touch them if you're curious? Like my breasts."

I grabbed the waist of my baggy hoodie tightly with my hand and showed it off.

The figure hidden under the loose fabric was suddenly revealed.

Siwoo stares at me like that, then throws chopsticks at my face.

I burst out laughing.

Yeah, that's right.

Even if my appearance changes, I'm still the same.

I felt a little relieved for some reason.

"No, well. I'd feel a little weird if a man touched my breasts."

After laughing for a while, I picked up my chopsticks again and said.

As the doctor said, my brain and nerves are the same, so my mind and personality are the same.

"..."

Still, it has changed.

I lay down on the floor again.

"Kuaaack!"

"No, why again?"

"I haven't even used it properly!"

"Are you saying that again."

"No, it's unfair! If it was going to come, it should have come two years earlier! Then I would have been exempt from the army!"

"If you were upset, you should have gone to the army two years later."

Siwoo scolded me as I struggled on the floor.

"Are you done eating? Should I clean up?"

"My stomach has gotten smaller too..."

"You didn't eat much to begin with. That's why you didn't grow taller."

"Height is strongly influenced by genetics, so I didn't grow taller."

"You were shorter than your sister?"

I threw chopsticks at Siwoo.

*

Even after having a meal like that, I didn't particularly want to go home.

It's a little different from that feeling of feeling sad when you're about to go home after eating and drinking outside until late...

It's similar in that I feel liberated after being outside for the first time in six months, but the biggest thing I feel is the atmosphere with my family.

But I can't sleep here.

I told them I was at Siwoo's place, but I couldn't sleep outside on my first day out of the hospital.

I rummaged through the bag I had packed my things in when I was discharged and put it back on my back, and stood in front of Siwoo's door.

"Still, it was nice to talk about this and that after a long time. Thanks."

"Was it?"

"No, well, it's a little like that. It's hard to talk about this to my family."

It's hard to talk to my family about whether I can get a girlfriend or not.

It's only possible because I have a comfortable friend.

I feel a little relieved.

At least there's one person around me who sees me the same as before.

I was about to put on my shoes and go outside, but I turned back to Siwoo again.

"Ah, hey, let me ask you one thing."

"What is it."

"Do you think it's better to grow my hair out or cut it?"

I asked, touching the hair that was hanging down to my neck with my hand.

I hadn't touched it at all while I was in the hospital.

"...It wouldn't be bad to grow it out?"

"Really? Then I'll grow it out."

Come to think of it, I've never grown my hair long before.

"See you next time."

"Yeah. Contact me."

I said goodbye and went outside.

I came down to the first floor of the one-room villa and looked up at the sky.

It's not quite evening yet. Maybe I was discharged too early.

"..."

I took a light breath.

Yeah. I have to go back.

My parents must be worried too.

I scratched my head and slowly headed towards the subway station.

*

*

*

"..."

After Ihyun left.

Siwoo sat back at his desk.

He tried to concentrate on the computer, but he couldn't concentrate very well.

"Ha, really."

He scratches his head again.

The more he talked to Ihyun, the more Ihyun was Ihyun. That unique way of speaking, that expression, that easygoing personality. If I had to put it a certain way, her height was similar to before.

But.

Unfortunately, the first thing Siwoo thought when he saw the changed Ihyun was 'pretty.'

He didn't recognize her as a friend at all.

He had heard what the syndrome was like. He had looked it up after hearing that Kim Ihyun was hospitalized.

But knowing it as knowledge and seeing it directly are completely different stories.

The appearance of a woman who doesn't resemble the previous one at all.

He wanted to slap the back of his head hard for having pink fantasies for a moment, wondering if she had come to the wrong room or if she was a Hubae he had met at university.

"Ah, really."

He also remembers the conversation from a while ago.

The sight of a pretty girl rolling around on the floor of her studio apartment and saying things like, 'Do you want to touch my breasts?'

"..."

Should I call this cognitive dissonance? Should I say my brain feels polluted?

I felt subtly dirty. Thinking that it was Kim Ihyun.

At the same time, I also felt a little bitter.

It's the same person, but it's different.

If it were the usual Kim Ihyun, he would have said much more explicit things without any hesitation.

He understands his situation to some extent and is being careful first.

"Poor guy."

I felt like that for some reason.

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