Yejin Lee
I don't know her. In all my life, I've never met anyone with that name.
Still, since her number was saved in my phone, I figured she probably wasn't dangerous. So, I decided to answer the call.
"Where are you?" a young woman's voice asked.
"Uh… near Yusik Station?" I replied.
"Alright, then. Wait for me at a café nearby."
"Oh, there's a place called Whirlwind Café nearby. I'll wait there. The exact location is—"
"I know where it is. Stay put, I'll be there soon."
Beep. Beep. Beep.
What the heck? She just said her piece and hung up. Should I wait, or should I catch a bus home?
I checked the time on my phone. It was just past 7 p.m.
I looked up the bus schedule from Seoul to Daegu. The next one was at 10:30 p.m. The closest bus terminal from Yusik Station was about 30 minutes away. Doing some rough math, I had about two or three hours to spare if I played it safe.
That was plenty of time to meet someone and have a conversation.
I turned and pushed open the door to the café marked "Whirlwind."
Following a call from a stranger and waiting at a café as she instructed felt… odd. But in my current situation, I didn't exactly have better options.
Too many incomprehensible things were happening to me.
In the midst of all this, the woman who called me—Yejin—seemed like someone who might help unravel the mysteries I was facing.
"What would you like to order?" the barista asked.
"Iced Americano, please."
"Dine in?"
"Yeah, I'll have it here. I'll pay in cash."
I opened my wallet, handed over a 10,000-won bill, and took the change. The bill had the face of some historical figure I didn't recognize. Handing it to the barista didn't cause any issues, though.
The familiar faces on money—like King Sejong, Yi Hwang, or Yi I—were no longer used in this world. Instead, the currency featured someone or something else entirely, maybe tied to the mysterious TS Group. In this world, where all my common sense had been turned upside down, I was painfully aware of how little I knew.
Soon, the barista brought an iced Americano on a plastic tray. I took it and moved to a window seat on the second floor.
The city's nightscape outside the café was dazzling with neon signs and lights. The streets were bustling with people, like ants swarming around.
Looking at the scene, I realized that, despite being a gender-reversed world, it didn't feel that different from the world I knew.
Enough sightseeing. Before this Yejin woman arrived, I decided to mentally organize everything that had happened so far.
Fact One:
I'm in a gender-reversed world where traditional gender roles are completely flipped.
Fact Two:
As expected in a gender-reversed world, there's no Samsung, Hyundai, or figures like Jae-yong Lee or Ju-yeong Chung. The names of places are different too—like Hongdae Entrance is now Cheongdae Entrance.
Fact Three:
Thankfully, my parents still exist. My friends… well, they've become a bit more feminine, but that's okay. What matters is that they're still here. The problem, though, is this unknown woman, Yejin, whose number is saved in my phone. I don't know her, but she called me as if we've known each other forever, casually asking where I was and saying she'd come to me. That's… something to think about.
I stared out the window, piecing together these facts in my head. It was overwhelming.
They say prolonged stress makes your head spin and your body overheat, and that's exactly how I felt.
Maybe drinking something cold will calm me down? With that thought, I chugged the iced Americano like I was pouring coolant into an overheating engine. The bitter coffee and ice cubes swirled in my mouth. My head was throbbing.
"Found you," a voice said.
"Huh… uh…"
I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see a woman staring at me.
She was young, with black hair reaching her shoulder blades. Her dark, unfocused eyes—cold and lifeless, like a fish's—sent a chill down my spine.
Found you.
Her presence was icy, unyielding. She exuded an aura so sharp it felt like a needle wouldn't draw blood from her.
"Let's go home," she said.
Before I could respond, she grabbed my wrist and effortlessly pulled me up from my chair.
Is this Yejin, the woman who called me? Honestly, I had no idea what was going on. But that wasn't the point.
How is a woman this strong?
Her grip on my wrist felt like a factory press crushing me. It was almost inhuman, like she was handling a doll, not a person.
I resisted as much as I could against her forceful tug. "I can walk on my own!" I said, instinctively using polite speech.
She looked older than me, so politeness felt natural. But more than that, her fierce glare scared me. Yejin was taller than me—easily 177 or 178 cm, taller than most women I'd seen on the street.
From my time browsing the internet in the sauna, I'd learned that women in this world had physical strength comparable to men in my old world. And, naturally, taller people tend to be stronger.
It was a bit embarrassing, but I had a sinking feeling that if I said anything more, I'd get a smack.
To put it in perspective, it was like facing a tough neighborhood bully. You either avoid them or keep your head down to stay out of trouble. I didn't want pain or conflict, so I clamped my mouth shut and let her drag me along.
Yejin didn't let go of my wrist, no matter what I said or didn't say.
My plan was to meet her briefly, have a quick chat, and head back to my hometown. If someone wants to meet, you meet them, right? No big deal.
But that naive assumption was my mistake. I didn't even get to finish my coffee before she dragged me out like a calf on a leash—something I never could've imagined.
We reached a parking lot behind the café, filled with cars. Among them, the most expensive-looking SUV's lights flashed, and its side mirrors unfolded.
Yejin, still gripping my wrist, opened the passenger door and shoved me inside. The car's interior was unlike any Tucson or Santa Fe I'd ever seen—it was luxurious, like the first-class cabin of an airplane I'd only glimpsed in magazines.
Yejin slid into the driver's seat, started the engine, and smoothly pulled out of the parking lot.
Mom always told me not to follow strangers.
One of the things she drilled into me as a kid was to never follow someone I didn't know if they told me to come with them.
Now, as an adult, here I was, being dragged off to who-knows-where by a stranger. What would Mom think?
But honestly, I didn't have a choice. She grabbed my wrist, told me we were going home, and started pulling me along. I couldn't exactly scream for help, could I?
Mom also said to yell for help if someone tried to drag me away, but screaming in a crowded place as an adult… that wasn't something I could bring myself to do. Yeah, it was embarrassing.
And really, what's the worst that could happen?
Maybe, just like how TS Group appeared out of nowhere and Hongdae became Cheongdae, I had some unknown relationship with this woman. In a world this bizarre, that didn't seem too far-fetched.
So, what was my relationship with Yejin? And was she even Yejin? Her voice sounded similar to the one on the phone, but I wasn't sure.
Hold on, asking "Are you Yejin?" out of the blue would be weird, right? If her number's saved in my phone, we must have some history. Asking her name now would be strange.
It'd be like my brother suddenly asking, "Uh, are you Arumi?" That'd be weird as hell.
So, I decided to test the waters. "Uh… why…?"
"You weren't home, so I called," she replied bluntly.
Her short, straightforward answer gave me a glimpse of her personality. It also confirmed she was the Yejin who called me—no one else had contacted me.
As we drove through a forest of sharp skyscrapers, a massive river came into view. Among the towering buildings, one stood out, piercing the sky.
That's insanely tall. How many floors is that? I tried to count the floors from inside the car.
Then, Yejin turned the car toward that sky-high skyscraper.
She drove straight into the cluster of towering buildings. I looked around, dumbfounded. I'd never had any connection to a place like this—a tower palace.
"Uh, you said back at the café we were going home…" I started.
"?? This is home. Got somewhere else to go? Is there a problem?"
"No, no!" I quickly shut up, sensing that saying more would make me look weird.
I stared at the massive tower palace in front of me. It felt like my neck would snap from looking up at it, like staring at a medieval castle.
"Getting out?" Yejin asked.
"Yeah, I'm getting out."
She stepped out of the car and headed into one of the skyscrapers. I paused, staring at her back, then at the enormous building again.
It was hard to describe. It reminded me of Lotte Tower or maybe Burj Khalifa or something. The crazy part? There were several of these buildings, like an entire complex of ultra-luxury apartments.
I live in a place like this?
My family could never afford a place this nice.
"Hurry up and come home," Yejin called, grabbing my wrist again and dragging me forward.
She opened the apartment's entrance door, shoved me into the elevator, and pressed the button for the top floor. She stood silently, staring at the LED display.
The elevator was quiet, like a morgue. Then she spoke.
"What's with you today?"
"Uh… sorry," I mumbled, staring at the elevator floor.
I hadn't done anything wrong, but if being dropped into a gender-reversed world out of nowhere was a crime, then sure, I was guilty. If not acting like my usual self—whatever that was—was a crime, then yeah, I was guilty of that too.
What the hell am I supposed to do? Being half-kidnapped by Yejin was honestly terrifying.
In a world where everything I knew had changed, having a stranger act so aggressively toward me was overwhelming.
Where am I? Who am I? What's my relationship with Yejin? And why is she gripping my wrist like she's trying to crush it?
"Are you crying? Why are you crying?" she asked.
"I'm not crying because I want to! I just… I don't know anything, why I'm here, or what I'm doing!"
Before I realized it, tears were dripping onto the elevator floor. Oh, I'm crying.
I tried to hold it back, but one drop became two, then a stream. It was like a dam bursting, tears pouring out uncontrollably, flooding like a broken faucet.