Riiing.
Riiiiiiiiing.
Without even bothering to open my eyes, I reached under my pillow.
I was going to find my phone, kill the alarm, and probably do what I did every morning: sleep for another five minutes, somehow stretch those five minutes into forty, then drag myself out of bed while cursing my own existence.
Except my fingers didn’t brush against the familiar case of my phone.
All they found were the soft folds of the sheets.
Riiiiiiiiing.
I cracked my eyes open with a frown.
The first thing I saw was a blue ceiling.
A pale blue ceiling decorated with pink stars.
For several seconds, I just lay there and stared at it.
My brain clearly hadn’t woken up yet, because the ceiling in my room was white. It didn’t have pink stars or a cute little moon decoration dangling from one corner.
And this wasn’t my alarm.
Mine was much more obnoxious. Harsher, deeper, the kind that practically screamed, Wake the fuck up already, you useless human being.
This one was high-pitched, bright, and way too cheerful.
Riiing!
I jolted upright. The alarm echoed inside my skull, making my already pounding headache even worse.
Turning toward the sound, I spotted a phone resting on the small nightstand beside the bed. I lunged for it, blindly tapped the screen, and finally silenced the damn thing.
As silence settled over the room, I let out a relieved breath and looked down at the phone in my hand.
This wasn’t my phone.
It wasn’t exactly hard to tell. The case was different. Even the brand was different. Honestly, I had no idea what brand it was.
The lock screen showed someone in cosplay—a cute, blue-haired character striking a pose. The cosplayer held up two fingers in a peace sign and winked at the camera.
For a moment, I stared at the screen before turning the phone over to inspect its case.
"Whose phone is this?"
I tried to remember what had happened last night.
I’d gone to a party. I’d had a few drinks, but nowhere near enough to black out. I clearly remembered leaving the party, going home, and crawling into my own bed.
At least... I thought I remembered it.
Or had that been a dream?
Maybe I’d drunk more than I realized. I could have gotten wasted, followed someone home, and passed out here.
"God..." I muttered. "I didn’t even drink that much."
I tossed the phone onto the bed and looked around.
The room was small but crammed with stuff. A massive blue floor cushion shaped like a rabbit sat in one corner. A fluffy rug with an anime girl printed on it covered almost half the floor, while wall-mounted shelves were lined with colorful anime figures.
Plushies of every size crowded the area around the bed. In another corner stood a small vanity covered with cosmetic products I’d never seen before in my life. Above it hung an ornate mirror bordered by heart-shaped lights.
My eyes slowly widened.
A girl’s room.
I’m in a girl’s room.
My heart suddenly kicked into overdrive.
"Wait, wait, wait..."
Was there something about last night I didn’t remember?
Had I...
Somehow managed to lose my virginity without even knowing it?
My hand shot toward the blanket on instinct. Holding my breath, I ripped it off in one swift motion.
I wasn’t naked.
I was wearing a long-sleeved pajama top covered in pink patterns. A matching pair of pajama pants covered my legs.
My shoulders relaxed as I let out a deep breath and pulled the blanket back over myself.
"Thank God..."
A few seconds later, my frown returned.
Wait a minute.
I slowly lowered my head and looked at the pajamas I was wearing.
Smiling white rabbits covered the pink fabric. Some of them clutched carrots, while others hugged heart-shaped balloons.
"Pink pajamas?"
I flung the blanket away in a panic.
"What the fuck is this?! Why am I wearing this?"
I scrambled out of bed. The moment my feet sank into the fluffy rug, I lost my balance and nearly face-planted onto the floor.
I barely managed to catch myself on the edge of the bed.
For a second, everything in the room seemed larger than it should have been. The wardrobe looked taller, and the door handle seemed much higher than normal.
No...
The furniture hadn’t gotten bigger.
I’d gotten smaller.
The legs beneath my pajama pants were much thinner than I remembered. There wasn’t a trace of the muscle I’d spent months trying to build at the gym. My wrists looked delicate, and my hands were disturbingly small.
My fingers were long and slender. My nails had been neatly trimmed and coated with some kind of clear polish.
I brought my hands closer to my face and turned them back and forth several times.
"Am I still drunk?"
The moment I heard the voice that came out of my mouth, I froze.
That wasn’t my voice.
It was soft and high-pitched, almost delicate enough to belong to a girl.
I cleared my throat and tried again.
"Voice check... One, two..."
The same damn voice.
I brought a hand to my throat.
"What the fuck is happening?"
The mismatch between the shit I was saying and the sweet voice delivering it was so bizarre that I probably would have laughed if I’d heard it any other time.
Right now, though, it wasn’t funny at all.
"Whose apartment is this?"
No one answered.
I turned toward the door and raised my voice.
"Is anyone here?"
Silence.
"Oiiii!"
The only response was the faint echo of my own voice bouncing off the walls.
My headache was getting worse by the second. The throbbing began at my temples and gradually spread across my entire skull. Pressing one hand to my forehead, I stumbled out of the room.
"First, I need to wash my face."
The apartment was even smaller than I’d expected. It consisted of a narrow hallway, a tiny living room barely large enough for one person, and an open kitchen. There wasn’t a single sign that anyone else lived there.
It didn’t take me long to find the bathroom.
I pushed open the door and stepped inside. When I flicked on the light, I found a small sink surrounded by white tiles. Without looking at the mirror, I turned on the faucet and filled my cupped hands with cold water.
I splashed it over my face.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
As the cold seeped into my skin, some of the fog inside my head finally began to clear.
"Ahh, that’s bet-"
The words died in my throat.
When I raised my head, someone was staring back at me from the mirror.
Soaked light-blue hair clung to the reflection’s forehead and cheeks. Huge blue eyes were wide with shock, and tiny droplets of water hung from the tips of long eyelashes. Pale, flawless skin and delicate features made the reflection look almost like a doll.
A drop of water rolled from its chin and landed on the collar of the pink pajamas.
The person in the mirror looked terrified and confused.
But there was a much bigger problem.
The person in the mirror was a girl.
Or at least looked far too much like an incredibly beautiful one.
"Who the hell are you?" I whispered.
The reflection’s lips moved at exactly the same time as mine.
I stumbled back in panic.
The reflection did the same.
Hesitantly, I raised my right hand.
So did the reflection.
I tilted my head to the left.
The reflection followed.
I pursed my lips, closed one eye, and made the stupidest face I possibly could.
Every movement was copied perfectly.
"No..."
I pressed both hands against my cheeks.
The reflection copied that too.
Beneath my fingertips, I felt soft skin, a smaller chin than I was used to, and delicate facial features. I grabbed a strand of my wet hair and pulled.
"Ow!"
It actually hurt.
This wasn’t a wig.
The person in the mirror wasn’t someone else.
It was me.
"No, no, no... You’ve got to be fucking kidding me."
The bizarre clothes...
The unfamiliar room...
My slender arms and legs...
My voice...
And now this face.
"Why the hell does my reflection look like a girl?!"
My heart hammered against my ribs as if it were trying to break out of my chest. My breathing quickened, and my entire body broke out in a cold sweat.
I tried to grip the edge of the sink, but my hands were shaking so violently that I could barely control my fingers.
"Calm down..."
I took a deep breath.
"Calm down. There has to be a logical explanation for this."
I could be dreaming.
Maybe someone was playing an elaborate prank on me.
Maybe I was still drunk.
Or maybe...
"Maybe I’ve finally lost my fucking mind."
Honestly, that sounded much more reasonable than the other possibilities.
I closed my eyes and tried to take another deep breath.
At that exact moment, pain exploded through my head as if someone had driven a red-hot iron straight into my skull.
"Ah!"
My knees buckled. If I hadn’t been clinging to the sink, I would have collapsed onto the floor.
The pain swallowed my entire skull at once. It felt as if someone were tearing my brain apart and stuffing it with images that didn’t belong there.
Then the memories came.
Memories that weren’t mine.
A colossal mansion built from black stone...
Old family portraits covering the walls of a grand hall...
A silver crescent embroidered on a field of black...
The Evernight family.
One of the wealthiest and most influential families in this world.
The Evernight name commanded more respect than those of politicians and inspired open fear in some people. Their fortune had grown over countless generations, while their Nexus abilities had made them nearly untouchable.
Nexus...
Supernatural powers that awakened deep within the human soul and defied the laws of nature.
People who conjured fire, moved through shadows, bent metal, or influenced minds...
Every generation of the Evernight family had produced powerful Nexus users.
Almost every generation.
The images changed.
I saw a blue-haired boy standing alone in the middle of a vast hall. The adults surrounding him watched with undisguised disappointment.
The light inside a crystal sphere had gone dark, and a heavy silence had fallen over the room.
The boy had no Nexus.
No ability his family could take pride in.
Nothing worthy of Evernight blood.
The boy’s name echoed through my mind.
Noctis Evernight.
The family’s castoff son.
The owner of the face I had just seen in the mirror.
More memories continued piling on top of one another.
Noctis had possessed a feminine appearance from the day he was born. His slender body, delicate face, and soft voice caused almost everyone meeting him for the first time to assume he was a girl.
But Noctis wasn’t a girl.
He was a boy.
Learning that reduced my panic by only the tiniest amount.
At least I was still a guy...
Noctis’s family already hated the way he looked. Discovering that he had no Nexus had been the final straw.
They threw him out of the family and didn’t even allow him to use the Evernight surname anymore.
After everything he’d been through, Noctis had become a VTuber.
He streamed while hiding behind a cheerful, cute, blue-haired girl avatar. The character was the same one I’d seen on the phone’s lock screen.
More accurately, the "girl" cosplaying as that character was Noctis himself.
He had hated his feminine appearance for his entire life. Then he’d taken the same face people used to mock him and used it to build himself a new life online.
Noctis, whom barely anyone spared a glance in real life, had become someone dozens of people loved from behind a screen.
Cheerful laughter...
Gaming streams...
Messages racing across the screen...
Donations from viewers...
Dozens of strangers supporting him...
And the suffocating silence that descended upon his tiny room after each stream ended.
Noctis’s emotions washed over me along with his memories.
His loneliness, his anger toward his family, his hatred of himself, and the constant feeling that he would never be good enough.
The hope he’d carried for years that his Nexus would one day awaken—a hope he had eventually lost completely.
My chest tightened.
These emotions weren’t mine.
Yet they felt so real that the line separating us was becoming increasingly blurred.
The final images came much faster.
A rain-soaked night...
A dark apartment...
Unanswered calls lighting up a phone screen...
A throbbing headache...
Trembling hands...
Noctis lying down on his bed...
And then nothing.
That was where the memories ended.
When I opened my eyes, I was gasping for breath.
My lungs burned as if I’d just run for miles. My heart was still racing, my throat had gone dry, and my head throbbed as though it were about to split apart.
I was gripping the edge of the sink so tightly that my knuckles had turned white.
Slowly, I raised my head.
The blue eyes in the mirror stared back at me.
I knew that face now.
Noctis Evernight.
The son a wealthy and powerful family considered a disgrace.
An outcast with no Nexus.
A lonely young man who hid from the world behind a VTuber persona.
And somehow, I was him now.
"No..."
I shook my head.
"This isn’t possible."
But the memories inside my head were real.
I knew this apartment. I knew which cabinet held the glasses, the password to the phone, where the snacks were hidden beneath the bed, and that there was a spare bank card inside the bottom drawer of the vanity.
I knew hundreds of things about a home I had never set foot in before.
The reflection in the mirror continued watching me in terror.
I remembered returning to my own home.
At the same time, I remembered Noctis falling asleep in this bed.
Two different lives.
Two different people.
One body.
My fist slammed into the mirror before I even realized I was moving.
CRACK!
The glass fractured like a spiderweb. My broken reflection split into dozens of different versions of Noctis.
Some looked afraid.
Some looked furious.
Others seemed to be mocking me.
A thin line of blood seeped between my fingers and dripped into the sink.
It hurt.
So this definitely wasn’t a dream.
As dozens of blue eyes stared back at me from the cracked mirror, a strangled laugh slipped from my lips.
"Ha... haha..."
My laughter grew increasingly desperate.
"What the fuck is going on?"