127) Chapter 19. M-Me Too……! (5)

Soi and Chae-yi knew how to do makeup.

In fact, it wasn’t just that they knew how—they were extremely good at it.

Thinking back to my school days in my previous life, girls would often wear makeup so unnaturally pale that it was hard to understand, but now that I think about it, it was probably because they hadn’t been doing makeup for very long and didn’t have the technique yet.

Or maybe they just put it on heavily to cover acne and things like that.

But whether it was a characteristic of this world, or because the cosmetics were different, or because Soi and Chae-yi simply had talent for it, the makeup they did was already at a professional level.

That said, neither Soi nor Chae-yi—and even when they did my makeup—ever made it so dramatic that you couldn’t recognize the person afterward, so our faces normally didn’t look drastically different before and after makeup.

Apparently they didn’t want to deliberately hide my face.

But Jinwoo’s case was a little different.

The kids at school would be familiar with Jinwoo’s face. Ah, of course, Jinwoo always sat in a corner with her head lowered like she didn’t want to stand out in class, so there probably weren’t that many people who had looked closely at her face.

Still, because she’d spent quite a long time hanging around me, someone who attracted attention in class at the start of the semester both in good ways and bad, if we only put girls’ clothes on her, people might think, ‘Is that guy crossdressing?’

The reason I brought Jinwoo here today wasn’t to start rumors that she was a crossdressing guy.

Though crossdressing was the goal.

……No, wait, can you even call it crossdressing? Girls can’t crossdress as girls. No matter what a girl wears, she’s still a girl to begin with. If anything, crossdressing would be dressing as a guy.

Still, at school Jinwoo was technically registered as male, and we were planning to treat her as male at school too, so maybe it was crossdressing after all…… Mm, I don’t know.

I stopped thinking about it and continued putting makeup on Jinwoo’s face.

That’s right. I happen to be pretty skilled with makeup too.

Well, I am friends with Soi and Chae-yi.

Soi and Chae-yi liked doing my makeup. Sitting extremely close while looking at my face—close enough that I could faintly feel their breathing—and grooming my eyebrows, putting makeup on my lips and cheeks, to the point it was practically a hobby for them.

And then they asked me to do the same for them.

So I worked hard and learned in my own way too. Learning from Soi and Chae-yi, watching videos online, things like that.

Because I liked Soi and Chae-yi. I didn’t want to ruin their faces with my own hands.

“Hey, could you stop moving so much?”

When I said that to Jinwoo, who kept flinching, she flinched once more.

“Y-,y-y-,yeah.”

She can’t even answer properly in one go.

Well, I stutter sometimes too, but not nearly as badly as Jinwoo was right now.

Maybe if I’d asked Soi and Chae-yi, this would’ve been finished faster.

But bringing Nam Jinwoo here and dressing her in girls’ clothes was entirely my idea. I didn’t want to make Soi and Chae-yi go through unnecessary trouble because of it.

“If your skin creases, it’s harder to do the makeup, okay? Crease marks will stay. So just relax.”

“Uh, y-, u-uh, y-yeah.”

Jinwoo followed my words even while trembling all over.

Ah, this is kind of fun.

I finally understand why Soi and Chae-yi always wanted to put makeup on me.

Because I used to tremble like this in front of them too.

The breath brushing against my face, the touch of fingers against my lips and cheeks.

All of it felt ticklish, not just on my face but deep inside my chest too.

I was definitely doing this for Jinwoo’s sake in my own way, but the reaction made it feel more like lightly teasing her instead.

It made me kind of want to tease her a little more—

“Alright, done.”

Well, even so, going too far would be bad. It’d be a problem if she actually got scared and ran away.

“I-it’s d-d-d-done?”

“Yeah. It suits you.”

Only after I said that did Jinwoo cautiously open her eyes.

To put it simply, traces of the face she had as a guy still remained. Someone who knew Jinwoo’s face really well might stare closely and realize it was her.

But it wouldn’t be easy. Common sense said there was no reason a boy would deliberately walk around crossdressing.

Besides, generally when men crossdress, it shows somehow. ……Actually, the reverse was true too, but once people firmly recognized someone as ‘just naturally like that,’ it became surprisingly difficult to shake that perception.

And Jinwoo already had a naturally androgynous appearance in a good way to begin with.

“……Hmph, not bad.”

Huh?

I thought Soi would compliment my makeup.

No matter what, there wasn’t any reason to feel rivalry over something like this. Maybe she was talking about Jinwoo instead?

“Well, I doubt anyone will suspect anything.”

Chae-yi also spoke in a strangely uninterested tone.

When I suggested bringing Jinwoo here earlier, they seemed pretty happy about it, so why were they suddenly acting like this?

Could they be jealous? But why? Sure, Jinwoo’s makeup had turned out prettier than expected, but it wasn’t like we were competing over anyone.

“……It suits you.”

Lastly, Hyeonji spoke with an extremely complicated expression.

Jinwoo had entered wearing a male school uniform, but now she looked completely like a girl, so Hyeonji apparently had very mixed feelings about it.

Of course, traces of Jinwoo’s original face still remained, and since she was wearing my clothes they hung loosely and looked a little awkward.

Well, whatever. She didn’t seem openly hostile or anything, so I decided not to think too deeply about it.

I picked up the mirror on the desk and held it up for Jinwoo.

“U-uh, huh? O-oh, wow.”

Jinwoo, whose language center had apparently broken down completely since earlier, blushed while looking at her reflection in the mirror. Could this be narcissism?

……No, that was a joke. If you dressed up someone who’d lived as a guy for ages as a girl, this was obviously the normal reaction.

“At this level, nobody’ll recognize you. Though there might be people who think you look kinda similar.”

“Then you can just brush it off somehow. If you insist enough, they’ll probably just accept it.”

Soi nodded at my words.

Jinwoo, who had been staring blankly at the mirror, suddenly jumped again.

“T-then, really……?”

“Yeah.”

Jinwoo sounded almost pleading, but I answered firmly.

“I already told you earlier. If you go shopping for girls’ clothes while wearing guys’ clothes, it’s awkward in a lot of ways. Go take the bandages off too. We’re picking underwear as well.”

“U-underwear too!?”

I tilted my head while looking at Jinwoo, who practically screamed the words.

“Why?”

“H-h-h-but, u-u-underwear is a b-bit, t-too e-eeeeeeearly or something.”

“……What’s too early?”

Girls changed clothes together all the time, didn’t they?

Though for me, I usually rushed into the corner of the changing room, changed quickly, and slipped out before anyone could see me.

And Soi and Chae-yi often bought underwear for me as gifts normally too.

They’d even check whether I was wearing the underwear they bought for me sometimes. They’d pressure me into trying it on, then evaluate what suited me and what didn’t.

Up until elementary school, we changed clothes separately in our own rooms, but after I quit middle school and Soi became excessively overprotective of me, she sometimes acted like that. Maybe she wanted to make sure I was dressing “like a proper person.”

……Naturally, I had never given them underwear as a gift in return. The psychological barrier for that was way too high.

“T-th-th-th-that…….”

Nam Jinwoo tried to explain something. But after her face turned completely red, she simply shut her mouth and nodded.

If this were a manga, there probably would’ve been a little puff of steam rising above her head with a “poof!”

With her impression now completely transformed into that of a girl unlike usual, she actually looked kind of cute.

……Somehow, while I was thinking that, I could feel Soi and Chae-yi’s gazes from both sides of me, but I forced myself to ignore it, telling myself it was probably nothing important.

*

Then we dragged Nam Jinwoo back outside and headed to the clothing store we visited often.

It wasn’t one of those intimidating places where employees constantly followed you around. Just a reasonably sized brand store inside a nearby shopping mall.

A place that sold clothes at reasonable enough prices for students to afford.

Since Jinwoo hadn’t come here of her own will, I’d be buying everything with my own money instead of hers, so naturally it’d be awkward if the clothes were too expensive.

More than anything, I thought Jinwoo would feel burdened by that too.

Soi and Chae-yi followed behind me with somewhat sulky expressions. Hyeonji carefully observed me and Jinwoo.

Walking around the store while holding the wrist of the bright-red-faced Jinwoo turned out to be surprisingly fun.

Whenever I deliberately picked clothes that clung tightly to the body, or handed her skirts that were ambiguously short, her face became even redder, and her already broken language center twisted itself even further until she started making noises that barely sounded human.

Ah, so that’s why.

So that’s why Soi and Chae-yi always recommended slightly revealing clothes to me. And immediately shortened my uniform skirts too?

Honestly, this is fun.

And despite definitely being a girl, because she used to walk around in men’s clothes before, there was this strange sense of immorality, like I was crossing some kind of line.

It felt weird—like there was that taboo thrill, but at the same time it wasn’t actually crossing any real line.

I was about to ride the momentum all the way to the underwear section when—

“Wait.”

“Stop.”

Thunk.

Soi and Chae-yi grabbed my arms from both sides.

“Let’s let her pick the underwear herself.”

“Huh?”

“Jinwoo needs to breathe too.”

“Ah, oh.”

Only after hearing Soi and Chae-yi speaking one after another from both sides did I realize Jinwoo had reached the point where she couldn’t even speak properly anymore.

Her face bright red, clutching a basket full of clothes, fidgeting anxiously.

Shuffling awkwardly like she didn’t even know how to walk properly in a skirt.

And even though we’d tightened it a little with a belt, the clothes were still loose on her, so she was probably being even more careful.

“And do you even know Jinwoo’s size?”

At Soi’s question, I shook my head.

Not only because I genuinely didn’t know.

But how should I put this.

Umm, your tone sounds a little scary?

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Pub: 17 May 2026 08:17 UTC

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