Chapter 3 – Borrowed Skins, Borrowed Time
Rae's POV
I never imagined what it would be like to look myself in the eyes from the outside.
But there I was, standing in Lucas Park’s tall, too-confident body, staring at my own wide-eyed face like it belonged to someone else. And I don’t care how many cheesy teen dramas I’ve watched in my life—nothing prepares you for the moment your crush is literally wearing your face.
Lucas—well, me—shut the door behind us and leaned back against it, like if he didn’t hold it closed the universe might explode.
I sat down on the edge of the living room couch, mostly because my knees were about five seconds away from giving out. Everything about this body felt wrong. Too tall, too tense, too… strong? Which was weird, because I never thought about strength as a feeling until now.
Lucas looked at me warily, arms crossed over my—his?—chest. Ugh. This was going to get confusing fast.
“I take it this wasn’t just my weird dream,” I said.
“Nope.” He looked down at himself and frowned. “Still you.”
I laughed, a little too loud. “Okay. So just to recap: I go to sleep crying because you rejected me like a cold-hearted rom-com villain, I wish you could live my life, and then boom—I wake up in you. And now you’re me. Because of a wish.”
“You make that sound like I planned this.”
“I know you didn’t! It just… happened.” I gestured at him. “You think I wanted to wake up with biceps?”
He blinked, caught off guard, and then—he laughed. A short, surprised kind of laugh, like he didn’t expect me to say something funny. I guess most people don’t. Rae Min: quiet, artsy, weird.
But hearing Lucas laugh while wearing my voice? That was just straight-up trippy.
“This is so messed up,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “I don’t even know how to walk in your body properly. Your center of gravity is completely unfair.”
“Try skating with it,” he muttered.
We sat in silence for a moment. The air between us felt heavy, like a balloon ready to pop. I couldn’t stop staring at him. At me. At how weird it was to watch my own mouth move from the outside.
“You seriously don’t remember anything?” I asked. “Like… a reason this happened?”
He shook his—my—head. “All I remember is going to bed and waking up as you. And panicking. And then accidentally posting something on my story that’s now probably circulating the school.”
“Oh god,” I groaned. “How bad was it?”
“Just vague and dramatic. You’ll survive.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who got publicly rejected in front of half the student body last night.”
He flinched. I noticed.
“Look,” he said. “About that…”
“No. Don’t,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to explain. You were honest. Brutally, but… yeah. It’s fine.”
“It wasn’t personal.”
That made me pause.
“You sure? Because it felt pretty personal when you said you didn’t even need to read my letter.”
Lucas didn’t answer right away. He walked over and sank into the armchair across from me—my favorite spot when I was, well, me.
“I didn’t mean to be cruel,” he said after a beat. “I just… I don’t handle stuff like that well.”
I squinted at him. “Compliments? Emotions? Basic human interaction?”
He snorted. “Pretty much.”
Silence again. But this time, it wasn’t angry. Just… unsure.
I looked around the living room. Everything here was so neat, so sharp, like the person who lived here didn’t have time to make a mess. I’d always imagined Lucas’s house being full of trophies and minimalist vibes, but being here, in it—him—felt suffocating. Too much expectation in the air.
I glanced down at his hands—my hands now. Long fingers, short nails. Strong. Scar on the knuckle. I flexed them once, just to remind myself it was real.
“This doesn’t feel like a dream,” I whispered.
“I know.”
We both looked up at the same time.
“So what do we do?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. “We figure it out. We don’t tell anyone. We survive until it… goes away.”
“And what if it doesn’t?”
I tried to smile. “Then we fake it better than we faked normal life.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “You think I can survive as you?”
“Please. You’ll love it. No pressure. No coaches yelling. No constant need to be perfect.”
He tilted his head. “You say that like being you is easy.”
I blinked. “Isn’t it?”
He didn’t say anything. Just gave me a look that said more than words could.
I leaned back into the couch, suddenly exhausted. “We need ground rules.”
“Like what?”
“Like—don’t destroy my social life.”
“Do you have one?”
“Hey!”
Lucas grinned, and I felt the weirdest flicker of amusement. From him. In me. Ugh.
“Fine. Don’t ruin mine either,” he said.
“Deal.”
“Don’t skip practice.”
“Don’t miss art club.”
“Don’t get into fights.”
“Don’t get me bullied.”
“Don’t touch anything weird.”
“Same to you.”
We both laughed, a little looser this time.
It was oddly comforting, how fast the awkward faded once we accepted the weirdness of it all. Like some part of us had already known we were about to collide.
Lucas stood and stretched—my body looked way too tall doing that—and said, “So… how do you want to do this?”
“I think we start small,” I said. “One day at a time.”
“Starting tomorrow?”
I nodded. “Starting tomorrow.”
He looked relieved. “Okay.”
I stood, too, and suddenly found myself face to face with him. With me. My eyes. My awkward height. My too-big hoodie. And for the first time, I realized how tired I looked from the outside. Not just physically. Tired-tired. The kind that goes bone-deep.
Lucas must’ve noticed it too, because he hesitated.
“I never really looked at you before,” he said softly. “Like really looked.”
I smiled. “Guess now you’ve got no choice.”
His mouth twitched. “Yeah. I guess not.”
And just like that, something shifted. Not huge. Not dramatic. Just a small click. Like the beginning of a different kind of story.
I turned toward the hallway.
“Wait,” he said suddenly. “Did you see it?”
I paused. “See what?”
He frowned. “Never mind. Thought I saw something earlier. In the mirror.”
I felt a weird chill crawl up my spine. “Like…?”
He shook his head. “Probably nothing. Just—don’t look too long.”
Okay. That wasn’t ominous or anything.
I walked toward the front door. “We’ll meet here again tomorrow?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Same time.”
As I opened the door and stepped into the sunlight, a thought hit me so hard it stopped me on the porch.
“Wait,” I said, turning back. “What about your injury?”
Lucas tilted his head. “What about it?”
“Your shoulder. The one you’ve been hiding.”
He went completely still.
I stared. “I felt it this morning. When I tried to reach up. Something’s wrong with it, isn’t it?”
He didn’t answer.
I narrowed my eyes. “Lucas?”
Then, without another word, he shut the door in my face.