The Culprit Doesn't Remember
After the first festival planning meeting she'd attended alongside the vice class president came to an end.
One by one, the gathered students began filtering out, and the vice class president's friend waved goodbye and rose from her seat as well.
Gathering up the notebook and pens she'd brought, Yeoncheong thought to herself.
Hmm... this is... way more work than I expected?
To be fair, it had barely qualified as a meeting — nothing had actually been decided yet.
All that had happened was Seoha, the student council president, laying out the overall schedule for festival preparations and explaining what documents each class would need to submit.
Yeoncheong and the class presidents and vice presidents from each class had jotted the information down on their phones or notebooks: choosing a booth through a class meeting was the bare minimum, and depending on the plan they'd need approval from the school besides. All told, they had roughly a month.
Factor in the midterms and the holiday break on top of that, and things were going to get busy fast.
In other words, it was far more serious business than she'd anticipated, with all sorts of tasks piling up on every side.
So that's why she told me to stop whining and just study?
Only now did Yeoncheong finally understand what Nayun had once meant.
If it were at all possible, she'd have loved to resign from the class president position on the spot.
Of course, that wasn't actually an option, and it wasn't in her nature anyway — so the fantasy ended right where it began.
"Yeoncheong."
With a light sigh, Yeoncheong rose from her seat and turned her head.
Seoha, a faint smile on her lips, was approaching her with something left unsaid dancing on her own.
"You've got a lot on your plate, don't you?"
"Was it that obvious?"
Seoha snorted a laugh and glanced at the students filing out of the student council room.
"A little? Your face looks exactly like the first-years who are prepping for their first festival ever."
Yeoncheong followed her friend's gaze and spotted the first-years trudging away with hollow, shell-shocked expressions.
"Our school takes festivals seriously, so anyone who came here planning to just goof off ends up looking like that the moment they hear what prep actually involves."
"And... when you say 'seriously,' do you happen to mean...?"
"Yup. The chairwoman herself."
Whenever something about this school struck her as odd, pointing the finger at Chairwoman Yurim was half the time the right answer.
A light sigh escaped Yeoncheong's lips, followed by a genuinely curious question.
"What kind of school is she even trying to build?"
"She always says it at the entrance ceremony. If she's going to make students study hard, then she'll take equally good care of everything else. Moments like this — everyone gathered together at the same age — become something truly precious later on."
"That does sound like her..."
Yeoncheong burst into a helpless laugh.
On that front, at least, the woman wasn't so different from the version she knew.
Seoha covered her mouth lightly and smiled back.
"Anyway, if you have any questions, feel free to ask me anytime."
"Aren't you busy? You're the student council president."
"The most powerful student in school happens to be my friend. This much is just basic courtesy."
When Seoha tossed Yeoncheong's own words right back at her, Yeoncheong shrugged her shoulders as if she'd been had.
Just then, she felt it again — a prickling stare she hadn't noticed during the meeting landing squarely on her.
What now? Why is she doing that again?
The girl sitting beside Seoha was glaring at Yeoncheong with distinctly catlike eyes.
Yeoncheong called out to Seoha in a small voice.
"Hey, Seoha."
"Yeah?"
Sensing her friend's lowered voice, Seoha leaned in close.
The girl's eyes, in turn, grew even sharper.
Yeoncheong stealthily pointed at the girl and asked.
"Who's she?"
"Who?"
When Seoha turned her head toward the girl, the girl beamed a sunny smile as if nothing had happened at all.
Having witnessed this seamless pivot in real time, Yeoncheong was at a loss for words.
"Oh, that's Chaerin. First-year vice president. A really sweet junior."
Apparently having heard the compliment, the girl called Chaerin melted into a gooey, blissful smile — though the moment her eyes met Yeoncheong's, the expression snapped back to normal.
"Have I... met her before, by any chance?"
"I don't think so, unless you count brushing past each other in the cafeteria."
Yeoncheong nodded slowly.
Between her classroom floor and the other first- and second-year floors, the only places she could think of were the cafeteria and the playground.
"Why do you ask?"
"Oh, nothing. It just feels like I've seen her somewhere..."
Yeoncheong bolted from the student council room in a hurry, saying that Suyeon was waiting for her.
The ones left behind — Seoha and Chaerin — looked at each other.
"Is she a friend of yours, sunbae?"
"Yeah. A classmate."
Having answered Chaerin's question, Seoha posed one of her own.
"Do you two know each other or something?"
"I don't know her at all."
At Chaerin's bewildered look, Seoha tilted her head.
"She said you looked familiar... Did something happen between you two?"
"...No, nothing. It was nothing important. I guess that's why she doesn't remember."
As she said it, Chaerin was staring quietly at the spot where Yeoncheong had been standing.
On the way home, Chaerin walked alongside her childhood friend Soyul.
"It's seriously unbelievable! How do you not even remember the face of someone you splashed water on? Honestly."
"Did you find the person who lent you your gym uniform?"
"I did. Found her — but she seems to have no idea it was me."
Chaerin kicked a random pebble lying by the roadside, wholly without reason.
Soyul tilted her head at her friend's venting.
"Didn't you say you apologized super politely last time?"
"What's the point of that? She didn't even remember my face afterward."
Soyul lowered her head slightly and studied Chaerin's face intently.
"The way I see it, you're not actually angry about that... Could it be because of Seoha-sunbae?"
The sharp observation of a childhood friend who'd known her for years.
Chaerin flinched, dead center of the bullseye.
And Soyul didn't miss that tiny reaction.
"It is because of Seoha-sunbae."
"N-no, I told you it's not!"
"I bet you were just jealous watching some nameless sunbae chat and laugh with Seoha-sunbae, the one you adore."
Her inner feelings read like an open book, and Chaerin flailed her arms in protest at her childhood friend.
"Do. Not. Come. Into. My. Head!"
"You're way too transparent with me — I can't not see it even if I want to."
Watching Soyul stick out her tongue playfully, the trembling Chaerin's lips flapped as she scrambled for an excuse.
"A-anyway! I'm mad at that nameless sunbae, okay? She apologized one single time and then completely forgot about me! It is absolutely, one hundred percent NOT because I'm jealous of her being close with Seoha-sunbae, whom I admire!"
"Sure, sure~ got it loud and clear."
"You don't believe me! You totally don't!"
Being childhood friends cut both ways.
Chaerin instantly registered the complete absence of soul in Soyul's reply and smacked her friend's bag with a thud-thud.
And so, while the victim of the incident was busy hurling envy and jealousy at its perpetrator—
Yeoncheong and Suyeon were in their empty club room, working on the activity report they'd need to submit to their homeroom teacher, who also served as their club advisor.
"Come on. It's all literally facts..."
"Then at least take out the part that says Idiot Yeoncheong!"
"It rhymes, though. Way too good to cut."
Dismissal was running late because Yeoncheong, returning from her meeting, had thrown a fit demanding revisions to all the embarrassing behavior of hers recorded in the report.
After a long campaign of pestering, Yeoncheong finally succeeded in striking the utterly absurd nickname "Idiot Yeoncheong" from the document.
"Tch."
Leaving behind a genuinely disappointed Suyeon, Yeoncheong tucked the report away and looked up.
"Oh, now that I think of it — I met someone named Chaerin. She's a first-year."
"Chaerin...? Where have I heard that before. What's her family name?"
"I didn't catch her family name either."
Suyeon closed her eyes and tilted her head in thought.
When Yeoncheong added the detail that Chaerin was the first-year vice president, her eyes flew open as if something had clicked.
"Ah. I remember now."
"Who is she?"
"The girl whose uniform you splashed water on."
"Huh?"
A beat of silence.
Yeoncheong thought she must have misheard and asked her to repeat it, but—
"The girl whose uniform you splashed water on. You heard me right the first time."
The same answer came back, word for word.
"So that's who I ran into earlier."
"...Ah."
Only then did Yeoncheong understand why that girl had bristled at her so fiercely.
The two of them stopped by the teachers' office to hand their activity report to Teacher Jisu before heading out.
Having grabbed their bags from the club room so they could leave straight for home, they made their way out of the building.
Walking along in silence, Yeoncheong rolled only her eyes sideways to shoot Suyeon a glare.
"Could you stop laughing already?"
Having heard the whole story from the student council room, Suyeon had been doubled over in howling laughter for the past several minutes.
She'd clutched her belly and cackled even in the teachers' office — enough that their homeroom teacher had eyed her with genuine concern.
"I can't help it, it's hilarious. From Chaerin's perspective, the sunbae who splashed water on her uniform doesn't even remember her face. Of course that stings. She's probably wondering if that apology back then was even real."
It was, admittedly, the kind of thing that would have ticked Yeoncheong off too, if it had been done to her.
"You. Untie this."
When Yeoncheong tried to undo the arm lock she'd been caught in ever since leaving the teachers' office, Suyeon seized her arm with both hands and resisted fiercely.
"F-fine, fine. I'll stop laughing."
Having apparently finally laughed herself out, Suyeon wiped the corners of her eyes and kept talking.
"By the way, is 'the victim remembers, but the culprit forgets' really the saying that applies here?"
"No! It's definitely not!"
As Yeoncheong shook her head violently, her blue hair swayed along with the motion.
"I didn't forget on purpose, okay? I honestly never got a good look at her face."
"Huh? What do you mean, you never looked at her face?"
Yeoncheong stopped in her tracks and scratched at her reddening cheeks.
"I-I couldn't just go staring at some girl I didn't even know while she was in her underwear, could I?"
"...Then how did you change into your gym clothes in the classroom?"
At Suyeon's incredulous question—
"That was... well, I'd gotten closer with the girls in my class by then, and I was used to it by then..."
"You're a girl attending an all-girls school now. You're a girl. You do get that, right?"
Convinced she was being teased, Yeoncheong's voice rose.
"I know that too! Who are you calling an idiot all the time?"
"I'm not teasing. I was just curious why you were embarrassed."
"Ah... sorry."
Realizing she'd gotten worked up over nothing, Yeoncheong hung her head in embarrassment.
Suyeon patted her shoulder by way of comfort.
"It's fine. You did lend her a gym uniform, after all. You can just go find her later and clear up the misunderstanding. And if that doesn't work, you could always ask Seoha to—"
Suyeon cut herself off mid-sentence.
Festival prep was already eating into the already-scant time the two of them had for club activities, just the two of them.
She'd insisted on a fair and square contest — but no one's heart was generous enough to hand over a free opportunity.
Meanwhile, Yeoncheong, who'd already heard Seoha's name, was practically sparkling at the idea.
"If I ask Seoha for help, that misunderstanding should clear right up."
Yeoncheong was picturing Chaerin — the girl who'd shown her nothing but hostility yet smiled so sweetly at Seoha.
"No! Don't!"
At her friend's urgent cry, question marks bloomed across Yeoncheong's face.
"S-Seoha's busy too, so wouldn't it be better to try solving it on your own first?"
"...True. It would be kind of pathetic to borrow help from the very start over something this small."
Suyeon nodded her head vigorously in agreement.
When she suggested that Yeoncheong try talking things out with Chaerin — maybe even treat her to something to eat — Yeoncheong's ears perked right up.
"Would that be enough to make up for it?"
"That'd be more than enough."
Suyeon wracked her brains, spinning out every method she could think of — anything so that Yeoncheong wouldn't go looking for Seoha.
And so, having successfully dimmed that first-mentioned name of Seoha with their rapid-fire exchange, the two of them arrived at the school gate.
"See you tomorrow."
"Yeah, get home safe."
Only then did Yeoncheong unlock her arms.
Telling Suyeon she'd think it over, she parted ways with her at the gate.
Watching her friend's retreating figure, Suyeon murmured under her breath.
"Did I... just get jealous?"
