Chapter 2: Returned as a High School Girl (1)

A loud profanity could be heard from a high school girl. Two men from the living room hurried to where Park Geon-Woo was with surprised faces.

“Wh-What the hell?!”

“What’s wrong, Ra-Eun?!” n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Ra-Eun. Naturally, it was the first time he’d heard that name.

‘Who are these people?’

He took a closer look.

‘They must be this girl’s older brother and father.’

He could more or less infer from their age.

The man whom Geon-Woo believed to be the brother asked while looking at him, “Did you have a nightmare or something? Why did you swear out of the blue like that?”

Geon-Woo answered with an apathetic expression, “It’s nothing, so get out.”

He could not get used to this high school girl’s voice, no matter how many times he heard it.

“What? Your brother is worrying about you, and you tell him to get out?"

“Get out while I’m still being nice.”

Geon-Woo wasn’t in the best mood right now. The girl’s father touched the brother’s shoulder, as if to say ‘Let’s just leave.’

Tch.

The girl’s brother clicked his tongue and reluctantly exited. The moment the two left...

Click!

He locked the door. There was one thing that Geon-Woo had to do starting now.

‘I have to find out who this girl is!’

***

It was great that he had been able to return to the summer of 2010, but...

‘I can’t believe something like this happened just because I didn’t check off the last category.’

Sigh.

After combing through the room, Geon-Woo found out the identity of the original owner of the body that he was occupying. She was Kang Ra-Eun, a student enrolled in her second year at In-Cha High School. The two men who had just come to her room were, like he had expected, Ra-Eun’s brother, Kang Ra-Hyuk, and her father, Kang Ji-Hun. After looking at the shabby home and the pictures saved in her phone, he thought...

‘They don’t seem that well-off.’

Kang Ji-Hun worked as a delivery man, while Kang Ra-Hyuk went to university and worked part-time simultaneously.

‘The mother must have passed away in this girl’s elementary school days.’

Geon-Woo’s gaze headed toward the desk. There was an open bottle of sleeping pills. He didn’t know exactly why, but...

‘She must have tried to commit suicide.’

Geon-Woo picked up the bottle and slammed it into the trash can. The sheer mention of the word ‘suicide’ was enough to make him sick.

‘Those fucking bastards were trying to frame everything on me and report that I committed suicide.’

Just the thought of it was enough to make him grind his teeth. He was happy that he earned a chance to get his revenge, but...

‘What should I do about this?’

Geon-Woo had ended up returning as a high school girl that he’d never seen before. He searched for some pants to wear since he found the skirt he was wearing so uncomfortable, but the only thing that he could wear at home were dolphin shorts.

‘The rest are winter wear.’

He reluctantly wore the gray leggings that were hanging on the clothes hanger.

‘Just think of them as thermal underwear.’

Geon-Woo immersed himself in deep thought while sitting with both his arms and legs crossed.

‘There probably... isn’t a way for me to return to my own body.’

It would’ve been great if he had returned as the Park Geon-Woo of 15 years ago, but it couldn’t be helped now that it had come to this.

‘Yeah, it’s not like I absolutely need to take revenge in my own body.’

Kim Han-Gyo, Kim Chi-Yeol. As long as he could make them pay...

‘I don’t care even if I’ve become a woman!’

Fulfilling his revenge was more important. Geon-Woo checked the girl’s appearance again.

‘Her name is Kang Ra-Eun.’

She was very attractive even without make-up. He still couldn’t believe that this was his face. He didn’t care about wearing female clothes or underwear, but there was just one thing that he couldn’t stand.

‘Can’t I do something about this hair?’

The hair went down to his chest level. He really wanted to do something about this first.

‘Where are the scissors?’

He combed through the drawers, but he couldn’t find one. Park Geon-Woo... No, Kang Ra-Eun had no choice but to open the door and come out to the living room.

“Argh, so hot.”

Ra-Hyuk, who was watching TV while laying down and fanning himself, turned his head toward his little sister.

“Dad left for work a while ago. He said to take care of dinner ourselves.”

“...”

Ra-Eun didn’t answer. Instead...

“Hey, where are the scissors?” she asked.

Ra-Hyuk didn’t pay much mind even when she called him ‘hey’ instead of ‘oppa’, and pointed toward the kitchen. He had probably been treated like that by her usually as well.

“On the top shelf. But why scissors?”

“I’m gonna cut my hair short.”

“What?!” Ra-Hyuk shouted in shock. “Cut it short? Why?!”

“It’s itchy.”

It was for a very simple reason. Ra-Hyuk blinked a few times.

“You... You said you were gonna keep your hair at that length, whatever it took.”

That was the past Kang Ra-Eun. It didn’t apply to the current Kang Ra-Eun.

“Is there a reason why I shouldn’t?” she asked just in case.

Ra-Hyuk made a face as if he couldn’t understand what his little sister was saying.

He explained, “You’re the one who said you wouldn’t cut it since it was like Mom’s dying words.”

Ra-Eun frowned slightly when she heard ‘dying words’.

“Dying words? Tell me more.”

“Are you still dreaming?”

“Just tell me.”

Her voice carried strength. Ra-Hyuk momentarily shrunk down in front of his little sister’s vigor and started speaking about the dying words.

“Mom told you a long time ago that ‘My Ra-Eun is the prettiest with long hair’, so... You said you’d grow your hair out from that day onward. You don’t remember?”

“...”

Ra-Eun frowned again.

“Fuck.”

She turned around from her way to the kitchen and went back into her room, slamming the door hard behind her.

Ra-Hyuk tilted his head from his sister’s weird behavior

***

Park Geon-Woo had become Kang Ra-Eun around Saturday afternoon. Until Monday when she would have to go to school, Geon-Woo memorized all her family circumstances and peer relations to act perfectly like her. As a result, he found out one thing.

‘Was she kind of a rebellious kid?’

Ra-Eun sighed, looking at the short uniform skirt in front of her.

‘I really need to get used to wearing a skirt.’

That was why she had tried wearing a skirt for the entire Sunday, but Ra-Hyuk kept complaining to stop flashing him because she kept sitting cross-legged out of habit.

Habits sure were terrifying. However...

‘I have to do it.’

If she couldn’t do it, then she had no choice but to make it work. Ra-Eun put on her backpack and hurried out of the house.

Seeing that, her father, Kang Ji-Hun said with a soft smile on his face, “You’re taking your backpack for once. Have you finally decided to study hard like I suggested you do?”

She thought, ‘This girl didn’t even take a backpack to school?’

Ra-Eun said nonchalantly, “Yes, for the time being.”

To take her revenge against Kim Han-Gyo and Kim Chi-Yeol, she needed to do something about this poverty-stricken home.

Their household was still around 200 million won in debt due to a failed business. To pay it off, Ji-Hun worked as a delivery man from dawn till midnight. Even Ra-Hyuk anxiously worked part-time in a convenience store to pay for his own university tuition. Their efforts were valiant, but...

‘Who knows how long it’ll take for us to escape poverty like this?’

There was one thing that Ra-Eun had to do first, which was to devote herself to her studies. Studying was one of the many ways to raise one’s status. She needed to attend at least a prestigious university in Seoul to eliminate any possibilities of being restricted by her academic background. No money for tuition? That wasn’t a problem either, because she had a Plan B separate from her Plan A. On her way to school, she texted her brother as she got on the bus, asking to talk after school.

‘Looks like I’ll be getting busy.’

A sigh escaped from Ra-Eun’s mouth again.

***

Ra-Eun felt strange, as it has been a very long time since she attended school in a school uniform. She found nothing more awkward than the situation she was in.

‘I feel like shit.’

Year 2 Class 5. After reaching her classroom, she walked through the classroom door and sat in the backmost seat on the window side. After searching through the pictures on her phone, she deduced that...

‘This should be my seat.’

Ra-Eun’s deduction was spot-on. She looked out the window with her arms crossed and one leg over the other. Her classmates were puzzled by her sudden change in behavior. Ra-Eun attended a co-ed school. The ratio of male and female students in the school was 4:6, so there were also more girls than boys in the classroom. And among them, a boy who exuded delinquent energy approached Ra-Eun.

“Ra-Eun~”

The boy approached intimately. As soon as she saw him, Ra-Eun could immediately tell.

“Are you the guy who confessed to this girl and forced her to accept?”

He had created a situation that made it difficult for Ra-Eun to refuse, so she had been forced into a relationship with him. His name was Choi Hwang-Cheol, a so-called school bully.

Choi Hwang-Cheol said with a smug face, “What do you mean by ‘forced’? You’re the one who accepted my confession last week. Did you forget?”

“You said your dad is the owner of the convenience store that this girl’s older brother works at. How is saying you might get him fired if she doesn’t go out with you anything but blackmail?”

Ra-Eun waved her hand to shoo him away.

“I’ll consider it never happened, so fuck off.”

“What? What kind of logic is that?!”

Something shocking occurred the moment that Hwang-Cheol stretched out his hand toward Ra-Eun. She grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm.

“Ow ow ow ow ow!”

“Listen carefully and never forget. If you touch a single hair on my body...”

The glint in Ra-Eun’s eyes changed.

“...Consider yourself dead.”

The sharp gaze tempered in Park Geon-Woo’s days as a congressman’s security team leader was reborn into a teenage girl.

1. “Oppa” is an honorific that Korean women use to address their older brother or older men that they are close to.