“So, you’re absolutely sure you want to do this?” Ryo asked one last time.
Nao, standing across from him, nodded with a slightly nervous expression.
They had discovered a strange machine in one of their university’s research facilities. According to the manual, it was a “Body Exchange Device.”
Naturally curious, Ryo had immediately suggested trying it out. Nao had reluctantly agreed.
“What exactly are you planning to do once we switch?” Nao asked uneasily.
“Nothing in particular. It’s just an experiment. Besides, the manual says we can switch right back.”
Nao sighed at Ryo’s casual response.
“All right, here we go.”
Ryo pressed the switch.
The machine began to vibrate with a low mechanical hum.
Nao closed her eyes, waiting with equal parts anxiety and curiosity to see what would happen.
When she opened them again, something felt wrong.
Ryo was standing in front of her.
And yet—
Something was different.
“…Huh?”
The moment Nao spoke, Ryo’s eyes widened in shock.
“Whoa, wait! Something went wrong!”
Hearing that, Nao looked down at herself.
And froze.
Her head was still her own.
But everything below her neck belonged to Ryo.
“What is this?! Weren’t we supposed to switch completely?!”
Nao shouted, while Ryo scratched his head helplessly.
“Don’t ask me! I don’t know either! But that means your body must be—”
Nao immediately looked at him.
Ryo’s head was still unmistakably Ryo’s.
But from the neck down, he had Nao’s female body.
“How did this even happen…?”
Nao lowered her head, her face turning bright red.
“Okay, seriously… what are we supposed to do now?”
She glared at Ryo irritably, although embarrassment was written all over her face.
“Well, since we’re already like this…” Ryo said, looking curiously at the body he now possessed below the neck. A mischievous smile appeared on his face. “Maybe we should figure out exactly what changed.”
“D-Don’t!”
Nao instinctively stepped backward, folding her arms defensively across her chest—or rather, across Ryo’s chest, since that was what she currently had.
Ryo, meanwhile, seemed far more amused by the situation.
“Come on. Technically, it’s your body, right? What’s wrong with checking how everything works?”
“Everything! And anyway, that’s my—!”
Nao’s protest only made Ryo laugh.
He experimentally adjusted the unfamiliar skirt, examining how differently the borrowed body moved.
“Ryo! Stop messing around!”
Nao hurried forward to stop him, only to stumble slightly.
Ryo’s body was heavier and broader than hers, and its balance felt completely unfamiliar.
Even something as simple as moving quickly required more effort than she expected.
That realization only made the situation more frustrating.
“All right! I get it!” Nao cried, nearly in tears from embarrassment. “Let’s just change back already!”
Ryo finally stopped fooling around.
“Okay, okay. Although this is actually kind of—”
“No!”
But just then, Nao noticed another problem.
“Wait a second… what is this?”
She stared down at herself, suddenly overwhelmed by another unfamiliar sensation.
Her head was still unchanged, but everything below the neck was undeniably Ryo’s male body.
“What’s wrong?” Ryo asked, that mischievous grin returning. “Something feel weird?”
“I… I don’t know. It just feels strange.”
Nao looked away awkwardly.
The physical sensations were completely different from what she was accustomed to.
Her shoulders felt broader.
Her arms felt heavier.
Her center of gravity had shifted.
Even the way the clothes rested against her body felt unfamiliar.
Then she noticed something else.
“Wait…”
Ryo followed her gaze and immediately seemed to understand.
“Oh. Right.”
“What?! Why are you looking at me like that?”
Nao hurriedly tried to hide herself with her hands, increasingly aware that Ryo’s body was reacting in a way she had no experience controlling.
Ryo burst out laughing.
“Relax. That’s just one of those automatic things a guy’s body sometimes does. You’ve never experienced it before, so of course it feels weird.”
“This is not funny!”
Nao’s face turned scarlet.
“Why is this happening?! Hurry up and change us back!”
“Hey, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, isn’t it? You might as well learn something from it.”
“I don’t want to learn anything about this! It’s embarrassing!”
Nao glared furiously at him.
Ryo merely shrugged.
“Well, that’s part of having a male body. Sometimes it reacts whether you want it to or not. Especially in the morning.”
Nao stared at him in disbelief.
“You’re joking… You have to deal with things like this all the time?”
“Pretty much.”
“That sounds awful…”
Nao let out a long sigh.
She tried taking several deep breaths to calm herself, but concentrating on the unfamiliar sensations of Ryo’s body only made her more self-conscious.
“This experiment was a terrible idea.”
“Hey, you agreed to it.”
“Because you said it was safe!”
“The machine technically worked.”
“It attached our heads to the wrong bodies!”
“Okay, when you put it like that, maybe there’s room for improvement.”
“Maybe?!”
Nao’s shout echoed through the laboratory.
The two hurried back to the control panel and began studying the machine again, desperately searching for a way to reverse the incomplete exchange.
Nao carefully read through the manual while Ryo inspected the settings.
“Here! There’s something about synchronization.”
“What does it say?”
“‘If neural synchronization is interrupted during transfer, partial physical exchange may occur.’”
Ryo blinked.
“So… we interrupted it?”
“You pressed the button before I said I was ready!”
“Oh.”
Nao slowly turned toward him.
“Ryo.”
“Yeah?”
“If we get back to normal, I’m going to kill you.”
“Fair enough.”
After several adjustments, the machine began humming once more.
Nao nervously stepped into position.
“This time, we wait until synchronization reaches one hundred percent.”
“Got it.”
“And you don’t touch anything until I say so.”
“Got it.”
“I mean it.”
“I said I got it!”
The display climbed steadily.
72%.
84%.
93%.
Nao swallowed nervously.
99%.
Then—
100%.
“Now!”
Ryo activated the device.
A brilliant flash filled the laboratory.
For several seconds, neither of them moved.
Then Nao slowly opened her eyes.
She looked down.
Her familiar clothes.
Her familiar hands.
Her familiar body.
“I’m back…!”
Across from her, Ryo immediately checked himself as well.
“Me too!”
Nao nearly collapsed with relief.
“Thank goodness…”
Then she looked up.
Ryo was staring thoughtfully at the machine.
Nao immediately narrowed her eyes.
“Don’t.”
“I haven’t even said anything.”
“You’re thinking about trying it again.”
“Well, now that we know what went wrong—”
“Absolutely not!”
Nao grabbed her bag and headed for the door.
“I am never participating in one of your experiments again!”
“Come on, Nao! Think of the scientific possibilities!”
“I’ve experienced enough scientific possibilities for one lifetime!”
The laboratory door slammed behind her.
Ryo stood alone beside the machine for a moment.
Then he looked at the control panel.
A new message had appeared on the display.
PARTIAL EXCHANGE MODE UNLOCKED
Ryo stared at it.
Then slowly smiled.
“Well… that sounds interesting.”
Meanwhile, halfway down the corridor, Nao suddenly stopped.
A terrible feeling ran down her spine.
“Why do I have the feeling he learned absolutely nothing from this…?”
Her instincts were entirely correct.
For Nao, the incident had left her with one firm resolution:
Never again.
For Ryo, however—
it had only given him ideas for the next experiment.
Read the rest here 👇
More volumes will follow, but this concludes the sample posts.
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