Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Lookism, the discriminatory treatment of those considered by society to be unattractive. No matter where in the world one lives there is no way to escape this treatment. I, for one, am affected by this greatly. I was born with a predisposition that made it easy to gain fat but hard to lose it.
I wasn’t bullied in school and I never was sexually harassed. The worst for me was the occasional snide comment from close “friends” who would talk about my wide shoulders and masculine features. To be honest, I took great pride in these features, they pushed away from the fake people in life.
“(Name)! You should read this webtoon! You would totally love it!” My friend turned her cracked phone screen to me showing that single word, “Lookism? Is this going to be like that True Beauty one? Cause if it is, sign me up.” I stated, pulling my own phone out searching the comic. She grinned at me from ear to ear grasping the edges of her desk tightly, “You will not regret this!”
After school I arrived home flinging my backpack into some forgotten corner, “I’m home!” I shouted to my empty house. I flopped over the arms of the couch positioning one leg over the backrest and the other curled towards my butt. I started binge reading the story occasionally sending excited texts to the friend who had recommended the story to me.
In the span of one short evening I had become fully invested with the life of Daniel Park and his two bodied predicament. I loved, I laughed, and I cried for these imaginary characters. By the end of the day using my miraculous fan girl powers I was fully caught up on the story and had committed it to my photographic memory. My mother would have been disgusted knowing that is what I had done with my memory bank.
I yawned looking outside of a window realizing it was already dark. I grumbled walking past my backpack, “I’ll do it before class…” I mumbled to myself as I crawled into my bed not bothering changing out of my day clothes. My mind bounced back and forth random theories of the characters who I had been oblivious to when waking up that same day.
I drifted off into a dreamless sleep, ‘What would I do if I had a second body?’
When I drifted back into consciousness I groggily stood from the floor peeling off covers that were far thinner then I was used to. I swayed slightly as I tried to locate the bathroom. As I stumbled around I finally snapped out of my stupor when I noticed that I was no longer in my own home.
I snapped my eyes open as my heart pounded, the room I was in was small and shabby. The tiny kitchen had no appliances and the fridge looked to be older than me. There was an older computer in the corner that was nothing like my gaming pc. What was most surprising though was that my body was not my own. I located what was a bathroom and glared at the figure in the mirror.
My skin, hair, and eye color were all the same but the bone structure, weight distribution, and hair length were all way different. I ran my fingers over plump lips and long eyelashes. I grabbed my almost unrealistically big breasts for some semblance of comfort, “Hmmm- not fake… So no one did plastic surgery while I was sleeping…” I mumbled to my self as I ran my fingers over my unblemished skin.
I picked up some haircare products and attempted to tame my bed head. It was like I had never gotten a hair cut in my life. I pulled out a pair of scissors from the cupboard and cut my hair mores holder length. I grinned at myself as I fluffed ‘my’ hair.
I walked out of the bathroom after freshening up and started my small investigation. In the small barren apartment, I found a wallet, my phone, and one school uniform. The clothes in my wardrobe were all worn to shit and looked to be much too big for my form.
I opened the wallet finding a school ID card and a folded up letter, “(Name) (Last name), Yep that's me… Jae Won High school… wait, since when can I read Korean?” I mumbled to myself as I pulled out the contents of the letter. It was basically an acceptance letter to the fashion department of the school. I pulled opened my phone searching up the school and the region I was in.
After about 3 hours of searching up things and having about 20 mini freakout sessions I came to the conclusion, “Fuck, I'm in Lookism…”
Unlike what most fanfictions do, I was not some miracle transfer student who had some big lump sum of money. I was transported into the body of a job juggling runaway who started her year at the same time as everyone else. When I searched my name I found I held a minorly successful Paprika streaming account that made me shiver in fear when I thought about what had happened to Zoe. I wouldn’t be able to deal with some freakish stalker finding out where I lived.
I changed into my only decent outfit and opened up my account looking through my previous streams trying to get a clue as to who I was. What I found was video upon video of some pathetic girl who vented her frustrations about life at awful camera angles while smoking what looked like used cigarettes.
From what I gathered she had run away from home when her parents told her she had to study and actually do school work. I grimaced when I found on one particular stream she basically bawled her eyes out on camera begging for the streaming platform’s currency, balloons. Balloons sounded like such a ridiculous name.
I made up my mind as I propped the phone up on my dingy desktop. I started recording and opened up my live stream. I smiled sitting back on a small chair, “Hello to my loyal fans and casual viewers.” I beamed a bit nervously as I noticed comments flooding in either saying they only came to see my pretty face or feel better about their own lives.
I waved my hand in front of me, “I know most of you are here to see me vent about something like how my water heater has broken or how someone grabbed my butt on the bus, but I have decided from now on I will instead invest my time into better activities!” I smiled casually fluffing my short hair.
‘Wow did she get prettier?’ ‘Is (Name) really going to change?’ ‘Show us your tits!’
I chuckled slightly to myself on the comments coming in. I clasped my hands together, “Today’s stream I am going to give you a sneak peek into the day of the life of a reckless runaway! Now, to those out there contemplating running away from home; please watch carefully.” I picked up my phone as I went over a simple daily routine and my limited resources.
By the end of the stream I had gained more watchers and many more balloons, “Now I hope you tune in for my next stream! Tell your friends, I don’t want to go through my journey to a normal life without your support!” I said in a much more comfortable and relaxed tone than I had started out with.
By the end of the stream, I managed to make about 50,000 won. I smiled scrolling through the supportive comments and grimaced at the weird ones. I almost felt my heart stop when I saw that Gangnam Landlord had left balloons and a couple strange comments. The extremely unattractive man who abused his injured father had watched my stream.
His first comment was trying to get me to acknowledge him, a few others after wanted me to make cute noises. Luckily though as I scrolled through more comments he had stopped commenting with only a simple, ‘fucking cunt’ when he realized I wasn’t reading his comments or reacting to his balloon donation. One bullet successfully dodged. I almost returned the money that he donated, but if I wanted to better my predicament I needed every last won I could get. I didn’t want to flaunt my body for money, but I was no saint.
I went to work researching how best to market my stream, downloading their equivalent of YouTube, New Tube. I made myself a brand new account by the name Reckless Runaway. I sent some emails to find people to help make a banner for my channel. I checked the time seeing that it was pretty late so I shut down my computer.
Focusing a little more on the fact I seemed to be in Lookism, I was going to be starting school at the same time as the rest of the students in about a month. I sighed curling up on my makeshift bed refusing to leave the small apartment. I cried myself to sleep that night with the resolve to make a better and happier life for myself.