Face Trading Market | [Tanuki's Short Story]
Life is determined by the numbers displayed on a screen.
Human value is determined by the face one has acquired.
Evaluation points, commonly known as RP.
|Face Trading Market (FSE) is used in,
the only currency in this world.
Every morning, too.
I sigh at the ordinary face reflected in the mirror.
"Mass-Produced Face Set Model 7K"
With a plastic-like skin texture,
and mediocre features that leave no memory in anyone.
"Face Loan" repayment notices
come flooding in like news.
Even this face is a crazy specification based on debt.
Let's try walking through the city.
Look, works of art are smiling at you.
"Evaluation Aristocrats"
Cowards who inherited high RP from birth.
In the face of that overwhelming facial disparity,
everyone can only hold their breath and watch.
I wanted to change.
That's why I pour everything into earning evaluations.
I capture soulless good deeds on video,
and weave words that stir people's emotions.
Methodology for earning evaluations is spread, and I earn evaluations.
I cut back on sleep, wore down my heart,
and just stared at the numbers.
As a result, RP skyrockets.
The world is truly simple.
***
First, I bought the highest-grade prosthetic eyes with shimmering irises.
Next, a deep-set nose bridge for an intellectual impression.
With a monthly emotion subscription,
I introduced "Enchanting Smile Premium."
I feel like the world has bowed down to me.
Those who once looked down on me
are now casting envious gazes.
Finally, I have joined the ranks of |Chosen Ones (Face Holders).
Face Holders are always
invited to ceremonies hosted by FSE.
The one who tapped me on the shoulder as I attended was an FSE director.
"Your new face is wonderful.
What do you think of our system?
Isn't it an excellent mechanism that
liberated humanity from the curse of 'natural misfortune'?"
His smooth face is without a single blemish.
His words are pure goodwill.
However, behind it lies
"cancel culture phobia", a state of invisible bondage.
Afraid of a crash in RP,
I can only say things that are inoffensive.
While pasting a perfect smile onto my face,
my heart is always wandering through a midwinter wilderness.
I was too late.
***
Ruin arrives at the peak.
It happened in the middle of the lecture.
Someone jealous of my success must have spiked my drink.
"Emotional expression will be executed"
The moment that warning appeared.
My face lost control.
"Everyone's support is..."
The lips that tried to express gratitude twisted uglily,
and wore a vulgar sneer.
Looking down on the audience, despising them.
By the time I realized it was an "emotional bug",
it was already too late.
The footage capturing that moment
was spread as a digital tattoo.
My RP plummeted as if rolling down a cliff.
"With your current RP balance,
this part cannot be maintained"
Along with an inorganic voice,
one by one, the parts of my face peeled off.
There is no pain. But it gouges the soul.
A sense of loss assaulted my entire body.
My lover left, my friends vanished.
Within a few days, I had sunk to the bottom of the city.
***
A "base face" composed of minimal line art.
A "evaluation refugee" that anyone can recognize.
In despair, I wandered into a district spreading underground.
It was a place where the rule of RP did not reach.
It was a den of "
anonymi", those who rejected the FSE system.
Faces with junk pasted onto them,
faces roughly drawn with paint.
Even faces wearing old, worn-out masks.
They call me an "FSE pig".
Among them, she was there.
She pastes shards of mirrors picked up from rubble,
and draws a different picture on them every day.
She was a "
junk artist" who makes faces out of waste.
"Isn't a face just for being evaluated, suffocating?"
She says that and tries to hand me a brush.
A face that exists only for expression,
not to be evaluated by anyone.
It looked more desperately brilliant than any high-class face I had ever seen.
I made up my mind.
I scraped together my meager RP and bought the cheapest,
most worthless product.
A "canvas face"
It has no function, no form, nothing.
Just a blank, faceless mask.
I sit in front of a cracked mirror.
What is reflected there is a blank me.
No features to be evaluated,
no flaws to hide, an infinite nothingness.
I take the brush with trembling hands.
The plain, ordinary brush she gave me.
I dip it in ink,
and slowly bring it toward my face.
Trembling, staggering, but never stopping.
The moment a certain line was drawn in the white world,
I felt like the "someone" in the mirror
had become me for the first time.
I don't know if this face will be evaluated.
But I won't be afraid of numbers anymore.
I draw my own value.
Because this face, incomplete and full of contradictions,
is my dignity.
The night was about to break.
The world has not changed at all.
And neither have I.
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