The TS Memoir of a Misogynistic Novelist

What is love?

I’ve never received such a thing. So I’ve never had it, and I don’t remember giving it to anyone else.

That’s why I’m scared of this love.

I’m afraid because I’ve fallen for you on my own terms.

What should I do about this love?

There’s a saying that when you fall in love, the world changes, but nothing in my world has changed. The only thing that has changed is the frantic pounding of my heart as if it’s caught in an arrhythmia.

The sky hasn’t turned pink, and this whole world doesn’t look beautiful.

The sky is still black, the ground is still solid, and I am still in pain.

I’ve heard that if you experience love, you’ll find happiness, but that’s all a lie.

I am not happy at all right now.

Right now, I am the most unhappy person in the world.

Because just because I love Hwa-won doesn’t mean Hwa-won loves me back.

Because if I say I love Hwa-won, Hwa-won will start to hate me.

Because just loving Hwa-won doesn’t mean I can confess it.

Because I’m not a complete woman.

Because I’m not Hwa-won’s type.

Hwa-won was a friend. A precious friend. Hwa-won thinks of me that way too, I’m sure of it. But that doesn’t mean Hwa-won likes me as a woman.

But I’ve ended up liking Hwa-won as a man. I like Hwa-won. It feels like I’m drowning in love, and it’s horrible. Because this feeling is something I’m experiencing alone.

This feeling is one-sided. Hwa-won likes me, but only as a friend.

I have come to like Hwa-won, or maybe I’ve liked Hwa-won for a long time already. Am I now in love? Or have I loved Hwa-won long ago without realizing it? Or did I know but deliberately chose to ignore it?

It doesn’t matter.

The moment I fell in love, it was as if I’ve loved you since I was born. The moment I fell in love, it means I will love you until the end of my life.

But we’re on different paths. Although we share the same ‘like’ emotion, the meaning is entirely different. What Hwa-won feels for me is merely friendship. What I feel is definitely love.

I can’t confess this feeling. That moment would be our destruction. It would end everything. Nothing will remain after that.

How will Hwa-won see me? I don’t want to see Hwa-won look at me with disgust. I’m scared. Hwa-won would never do that, but still, I’m frightened. If by chance, one in a thousand or ten thousand, if Hwa-won looked at me that way, I might not endure it. I might even want to die.

Han Su-young said that if we were together, we would be unhappy.

There’s no denying that. We can’t even be together. That’s the nature of our relationship. No matter how much I’ve changed, who could ever accept a woman that was originally a man? It would surely be impossible, even for Hwa-won. Hwa-won is kind, so he wouldn’t pretend to hate me. But he would say let’s keep some distance. He would apologize. But he would also say no. He would apologize again. I would cry. But Hwa-won wouldn’t wipe away my tears.

I want to die.

I hated being small.

I didn’t like being small. But I don’t think I ever disliked it as much as I do now. In all the time I’ve lived since I was born, I’ve never hated being smaller than I am now. I want to grow up. I want to become big. But I’m still small.

Why did I have to change into this form? Why did I change into this small, cute, child-like appearance?

Shouldn’t I have grown taller, with a bigger chest, into a more mature appearance according to Hwa-won’s taste? I was already unhappy enough. Shouldn’t that much have been granted to me?

Of course, even if I changed like that, I was originally a man, so it would still be disgusting. It would make him uncomfortable. But wouldn’t Hwa-won have felt at least some desire if I had been different?

How great would it have been if I didn’t have this tiny body that wouldn’t excite Hwa-won at all? Maybe I could still grow. If I keep growing, maybe Hwa-won would start noticing me.

My chest has grown a little, just a tiny bit. But even so, it only shows a slight bump. I’ve grown a bit taller, but I’m still less than 150 cm. In fact, it’s been a while since I have grown at all. At the beginning of the year, I was definitely 149 cm, and even now, four months later, I’m still 149 cm. They say children grow up quickly, right? Am I so fake that even that’s not happening for me?

What if my growth stops like this? If I remain a child forever, Hwa-won won’t look at me.

In fact, all of this is a meaningless assumption.

Hwa-won already has a fiancée.

From the start, Hwa-won was never someone who could be with me. Even if I were to grow according to Hwa-won’s taste, by then, Hwa-won would have already married his fiancée.

I hate Hwa-won’s fiancée. I despise a woman I’ve never even met. And even though I know this jealousy is so ugly, I can’t show it. If I reveal this ugly side, Hwa-won would hate me. He would surely dislike that I hate his fiancée.

Why is it only you? Why can you only have a normal relationship with Hwa-won? Why can you date him normally and marry him normally? You already have plenty. You have parents, you have money, you’re pretty, you’re young; you have it all.

I have nothing.

I have nothing.

Nothing at all.

Except for Hwa-won.

So why is everyone taking things away from me?

Everyone takes something from me.

Even the smallest thing I have is taken away.

If I had been born a girl from the beginning, I wouldn’t have to worry about this sort of thing.

I’ve never hated the fact that I was a man as much as I do now.

I used to always think I wanted to go back to being a man, but now I have no such thoughts left.

I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to go back. What will happen to this feeling if I go back?

I love you, but I look like this.

I am…

So small.

~

I want to hear Hwa-won’s voice.

But I shouldn’t call again now. If I do, maybe Hwa-won will really take a plane to come here. I don’t want to be a burden to Hwa-won. I want to see him, but I don’t want to be hated.

I wandered aimlessly in the park. Then I found an old swing.

I never particularly liked swings. I still don’t know how to use one. Since childhood, I’ve never been able to swing properly even once. I was someone who couldn’t swing unless someone pushed me.

But I didn’t have anyone to push me on the swing.

When I was in the house of love, sometimes, very rarely, I went outside to play. I couldn’t endure the teachers’ urging to go out and play. At that time, the only one who would hang out with me was Chaerin, who followed me around like a shadow, but she was smaller than me and couldn’t possibly push the swing.

So I couldn’t swing.

Just in case, I sat on the swing and moved my legs, but it only shook for a moment. Now, I’m too weak for it to swing properly.

At this rate, it’s just a rocking chair.

I sat on the shaking chair. I looked at the seesaw, the slide, and the jungle gym.

No matter where I looked, only Hwa-won came to mind.

Only Hwa-won came to mind.

I thought it would have been better to worry about names or my mother like earlier. I shouldn’t have called Hwa-won. I shouldn’t have made myself aware of this love. I shouldn’t have been curious about it.

I should have lived my whole life without ever knowing. I should have pretended not to know for my entire life.

I have failed.

But even if I could turn back time, I would still call Hwa-won. No matter how many times I rewound it, nothing changes. I have already called Hwa-won thousands of times and fallen in love thousands of times.

I will keep failing. I will continue to repeat failure forever. Now that I know, there’s no going back. The moment I felt it, I could no longer turn away. The moment I realized it, I’ve liked you in every time and every world.

This feeling has such power.

I put force into the swing that no one pushed. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing. I swung the swing again and again and again.

How many times did I do it? How many minutes passed? At some point, I was flying in the sky. The swing swung back and forth wildly, and I was sitting on it.

It was the first swing I rode in my life.

The cool wind caressed my face.

I couldn’t go back now.

Someone might say that all these feelings are just a result of hormones. In fact, I know that.

I know that all these feelings, all this happiness and sadness, are all due to hormones and various chemicals released in my brain.

This crazy pain and this crazy love of mine must all be because of that. It’s just hormones making me overly excited and overly emotional, like a teenage girl experiencing a crush.

But I’m a fool, so I don’t know such things well.

I don’t even want to know. It’s obvious that such things are all lies.

To think that all of this — so big, so small, so beautiful, so dirty, so intense, so subtle, so happy, so painful — is all an illusion.

It’s all a lie. Even a child wouldn’t be fooled by it.

For the second time since I was born, something I want has appeared.

I want Hwa-won.

Or I want Hwa-won to have me.

I don’t care which.

I don’t care at all.

But I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know how.

No one has taught me.

Are you there?

Anyone will do.

Anyone is fine.

Please teach me,

About love.

---