Chapter 1: The Package Arrives
The box was exactly as described online, and exactly as disappointing: a plain brown cube, scuffed at the corners, sealed with generic packing tape. Jin-Soo let it thud onto his cluttered desk, dislodging a stack of manga that slid like a neon avalanche. He’d spent eighty-seven dollars of his lifeguarding money on a cryptic listing that simply read: “For the curious. Alter focal parameters.” It sounded cool.It sounded like something from one of his games.
His room was a testament to controlled chaos. Neon glow-sticks from a forgotten rave were tangled around the bedpost, casting green tendrils of light across half-unpacked boxes of swim trophies. The single desk lamp fought a losing battle against the deep shadows, illuminating the laptop screen still open to the auction site, a half-empty can of Blue Shock, and now, the box.
He slit the tape with a key.Inside, nestled in gray foam, was the remote.
It wasn’t like any remote he’d ever seen.Sleek, gunmetal gray, unmarked. It fit perfectly in his palm, cool and heavier than it looked. On its face was a single, large button, currently dark. As his fingers closed around it, a thin, vertical line down the center pulsed once with a faint, electric blue light, then went dark again. A low, almost imperceptible hum vibrated through his bones.“Whoa,” he whispered to the empty room.
For a full minute, he just stared at it.His reflection warped in its polished surface.Alter focal parameters. What did that even mean?Change channels?Change… focus?He needed a test subject. The goldfish, Blinky, floating in his bowl by the window, was dismissed immediately.Too simple. This required a wider field of observation. He shoved the remote into the pocket of his hoodie, where it sat against his thigh, humming like a sleeping insect.
The 7:15 pm bus smelled of old rain and cheap disinfectant. Jin-Soo took his usual spot in the very back corner, a torn vinyl seat that gave him a panoramic view of the other passengers. His heart hammered against his ribs.The remote was a warm, magnetic weight in his pocket.
An elderly man in a tartan cap snoozed near the front. A college student with earbuds stared blankly at his phone.A woman in nurse’s scrubs checked her watch. And across the aisle, a guy maybe his own age, with shaggy brown hair, was trying, and failing, to get the attention of a girl in a purple beanie. Jin-Soo watched their silent, awkward dance—his glances, her polite smiles looking anywhere but at him.Alter focal parameters.
He slid the remote from his pocket.The button was now glowing a steady, soft blue. He pointed it at the shaggy-haired guy, thinking Eyes.Just the eyes. He pressed the button.It clicked with a satisfying, mechanical solidity.Nothing happened. No flash of light, no sound.The guy just kept looking at the girl.
Jin-Soo felt a flush of stupid disappointment.Scammed. He was about to stash the stupid thing away when the girl in the purple beanie finally turned her head.Jin-Soo froze.
Her eyes, which had been a dull hazel, were now a vivid, clear green. The exact shade of the shaggy-haired guy’s eyes, who was now blinking, confused, one hand coming up to rub at his own sockets.“Whoa,” Jin-Soo breathed.The swap was minor, seamless. The girl seemed unaware, pulling out a compact and checking her reflection without reaction. But the guy, Maddox according to his bag tag, looked startled.He kept blinking, hard, as if something was in his contacts.
Jin-Soo’s mind raced, a mix of exhilaration and cold fear. It worked.It actually worked.He looked at the remote with new, fearful awe.Focal parameters. Eye color.What else?He saw the sleeping old man. His parameters: the large, age-spotted hands folded in his lap.Jin-Soo aimed, thought Hands, and clicked.
The old man didn’t stir. But the college student down the bus yelped, dropping his phone. He stared at his own hands—now slender, pale, and spotted with brown marks.The old man’s hands. The student’s own smooth, young hands were now resting on the sleeping man’s lap.No one noticed.The bus rumbled on.This was insane. This was the coolest thing that had ever happened. Jin-Soo’s earlier fear was drowned in a surge of giddy power.He was a god on the 7:15.
However, soon, as more and more passengers got off the bus, sleep got the better of him. He dozed off in his corner of the bus, remote in lap. He didn't notice a young, beautiful Asian young woman with massive breasts board the bus.
She was about to take a seat in the middle of the bus when she noticed the handsome figure of Jin-Soo. She made her way to the back of the bus when she noticed the remote lying on his lap. Seeing that he was asleep, her curiosity got the better of her when she picked up the remote. She had seen one of those on the web before, but she thought it was a scam. She tested it out, successfully swapping her hands with Jin-Soo's hands. Delighted, she thought of what else she could do. And then she noticed Jin-Soo's athletic, muscular body, and then looked down at her massive, heavy breasts that had caused an annoyance her whole life. An idea popped up in her mind.
To be safe, she thought, she had to keep him asleep. Using the remote, she forced him into a deeper sleep, set to wake up in one hour. The bus was nearly completely empty, with no one around them. She was going to take every body part, every muscle from that boy and give him her curvy, weak body.
The remote felt warm, almost eager, in her hand. She studied Jin-Soo’s sleeping form—the sharp line of his jaw, the defined curve of his shoulder under the hoodie, the long, muscled legs sprawled in the aisle. A lifetime of swimming. A lifetime of discipline. All of it, wasted on a boy who’d just fallen asleep on a bus. Her own body, with its inconvenient weight, its softness that invited stares and whispers and clumsy grabs in crowded halls, felt like a prison sentence. Not anymore.
She aimed the remote, her thumb hovering over the blue light. Start with the foundation, she thought. The structure.
Click.
It wasn’t a sound you heard so much as felt in your teeth. Jin-Soo’s body jerked slightly, a low groan escaping his lips. His lean, compact frame seemed to… blur. The angles of his hips and shoulders softened, broadened. In her own torso, a shocking, visceral compression took place. It was like being squeezed by a giant, gentle hand. A sharp inhale caught in her throat as her center of gravity dropped, as a new, powerful solidity anchored her to the seat. She looked down. The swell of her chest was gone, replaced by the flat, hard plane of a male chest, faintly visible under his now-loose t-shirt. A giddy laugh bubbled up. It came out in Jin-Soo’s voice—a lower, smoother tone.
Jin-Soo, in the depths of his forced sleep, dreamed of collapsing. Of walls closing in. A heavy, aching pressure filled his chest, dragging him down.
She worked methodically, driven by a cold, focused hunger. Click. The strong, corded muscles of his thighs and calves dissolved from his legs and reappeared on hers. She flexed, feeling the incredible, spring-loaded power there. His legs, now slender and soft, twitched in sleep.
Click. The arms. His swimmer’s shoulders, the defined biceps and triceps, migrated across the aisle. She rolled Jin-Soo’s new, softer shoulders, feeling the unfamiliar strain of the breasts now attached to him. They were a profound, burdensome weight on his slight frame.
The bus hit a pothole. Jin-Soo’s head lolled sideways, his now-longer, dark hair falling across his face—her face. The features were softening, reshaping in real time. The sharp, intelligent eyes, his best feature, she saved for last. She wanted to see them change.
She stood up, unfolding to Jin-Soo’s full height. It was exhilarating. The world looked different from up here. She paced the back of the bus, two steps each way, feeling the easy power in every stride. She did a casual pull-up on the overhead rail, grinning at the effortless strength. This was what it felt like to occupy space without apology.
Kneeling in front of him, she took the remote and pressed it against his forehead. Click. The final transfer. The facial structure, the sharp cheekbones, the set of the jaw, the keen, mischievous eyes. She felt her own face melt and reform, the bones settling into a handsome, unfamiliar configuration. His face settled onto hers, perfect and whole. She felt a wave of excitement. Finally, she could be free from the torture of those massive breasts, the expectations from her parents, and just live a free life with a strong, capable body. She looked at the voluptuous, curvy figure of her former body still sleeping on the bus seat. A giggle bubbled up her throat. How cute, she thought.
Jin-Soo started to wake up just then.
"Oh no you don't," said Chloe with a playful smile, pointing the remote at him."My playtime isn't over yet, so, back to sleep you go."
Chloe’s thumb pressed the button. The blue light flared, bright enough to etch the bones of her new hand in the dark bus cabin.
Jin-Soo’s emerging consciousness—a foggy sense of wrongness, of weight and ache—was wiped clean. His body, now her body, went utterly still again, slumped against the grimy window.
She used the time and the remaining 30 minutes until the bus closed for the night to use