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Time flowed on until the very day before the Chuseok holiday.
Thankfully, that one day was the entirety of Seoha's vacation, but Yeoncheong, studying alone in the club room, had held her breath for a while whenever footsteps echoed in the hallway. She'd chalked up what happened that day to nothing more than one of Seoha's mischievous pranks.
"Come to think of it, Yeoncheong. Maybe it's because midterms are over, but your leg's not bouncing today."
It was lunchtime, and the group was huddled together, chattering away.
That was, until Hasol brought it up.
"Huh?"
Yeoncheong, who had instinctively tucked her legs neatly together, froze in embarrassment — and Hasol, the one who'd brought it up, tilted her head in confusion instead.
"Wait, don't tell me you didn't know?"
"Do I usually bounce my leg? When?"
Yeoncheong had assumed Seoha was simply grasping at straws to tease her, but apparently that hadn't quite been the case. Her flustered blue eyes, darting every which way, finally landed on Seoha.
See? What did I tell you.
The girl, who had been stammering word by word, broke into a grin.
"Not usually... but every now and then?"
"When you're nervous, I think? You start bouncing your leg whenever we study together, and then pretty much every time, you ask me if you can't figure out a problem."
Suyeon piled her own testimony on top of Hasol's answer.
And with Nayun nodding along beside them, it seemed the only person who hadn't known was Yeoncheong herself.
Yeoncheong, utterly blindsided, grumbled under her breath.
"Seriously... you could've just told me..."
It had only ever happened when she was alone in quiet places, so how much it must have bothered her. Her friends waved their hands at the apologetic Yeoncheong, telling her it was no big deal.
"It's fine. Once you solved whatever you didn't know, you went right back to being still."
"It wasn't like you were constantly noisy."
"Right. If anything, it was more on the cute side."
After the perfectly reasonable comfort from Hasol and Nayun came Suyeon's voice, veering off in an entirely different direction.
"Cu...te...?"
Yeoncheong asked her to repeat it, hoping she'd misheard, but Suyeon gave a firm nod.
"When your leg bounces, I know, 'Ah, she's working on a hard problem.' You know? It's like... even with your mouth clamped shut, your body tells me everything, honestly. So then I just naturally wait for you to ask. It's fun, and honestly? Kind of adorable."
What an excruciatingly detailed review from her friend.
Nayun and Hasol agreed that it was roughly the same feeling for them, and Yeoncheong buried her head the moment Suyeon finished talking.
She couldn't relate to Suyeon's description, but one thing was unmistakably clear: she had been broadcasting her study progress in full transparency.
She would have preferred never knowing at all, and now, trembling under the weight of the belated shame, Yeoncheong's lips quivered.
"I'm going to fix that."
"Aww, why? It's cute."
Suyeon grabbed Yeoncheong and shook her, insisting she was fine just the way she was.
"No. I'm fixing it. Absolutely."
And as Yeoncheong watched Seoha laughing behind her hand at her, she made that vow with ironclad resolve.
Seeing as that had been the original topic of conversation, the discussion that followed was also about Yeoncheong.
"Oh, right. You have your makeup test today, don't you? You ready for it?"
"Oh wow, right. You're the only one taking it, so it totally slipped my mind. Hey."
Suyeon clapped her hands as if she'd genuinely forgotten, and Nayun snickered along in agreement.
"I've been handling it fine, thank you. And."
Yeoncheong smiled as she waved off Suyeon's question, assuring her she'd pass in no time —
"Kim Nayun. You're taking a makeup class for the first time this year, so stop acting like you never took them before."
— but for Nayun, instead of curling up the corner of her mouth, she raised an eyebrow.
"But... it's a fact that you're the only one taking it, isn't it?"
"You... you just wait. I'll get you back for this someday."
"Ah, if I'd known this was coming, I would've made the penalty way harsher."
Nayun teased her to her heart's content, seizing her moment, while Yeoncheong burned with visions of revenge. But all her friends knew that for all her big talk, Yeoncheong had never once pulled off a proper act of payback.
The winner of the bet, hands laced behind her head and leaning back in her chair with every ounce of smugness she could muster, took up the thread.
"Yeoncheong, let's pick the penalty costume already. That way you'll be the one wearing it at the festival instead of me."
"...I was planning on doing that today anyway."
Setting aside the settlement of their bet —
Midterms were over, so before the Chuseok holiday, they needed to draw lots for who'd be imitating an animal as their penalty.
"I already cleared it with Teacher Jisu. She said all we have to do is spin it on the laptop at the end of class."
It was their homeroom teacher, who had readily given her blessing once told it wouldn't take long.
"How many people are we drawing?"
"We decided on two."
It was Suyeon who answered Hasol's question.
"Things like headbands or tail accessories aren't expensive, but proper cosplay costumes cost quite a bit to buy, so we decided to alter and make them ourselves."
"Isn't that being too stingy with it? Just spend a little more."
Yeoncheong, who knew the class budget, also said they could afford more, but the costume team — Suyeon included — flatly refused. They insisted on handling whatever they could make themselves.
Suyeon said there were plenty of crafty hands on the team, told her not to worry, and turned her gaze on Yeoncheong and Hasol.
"Don't worry about us. Just focus on the menu prep. That's exactly what we're saving for — so you can spend freely on it."
"Isn't that putting too much pressure on us?"
"Doesn't matter how good everything else is — if the menu tastes bad, it's a bust. We're a cafe in name, after all."
"No, it's the costumes that draw the crowd, not the menu."
As Yeoncheong, Hasol, and Suyeon laughed and bickered over whose job mattered more, Nayun of the props team and Seoha, who belonged to no team at all, were naturally left out in the cold.
Judging that this particular conversation was impossible to jump into, Seoha turned to Nayun.
"Nayun, how are things with the props team?"
"Us? We just need to round up whatever props, so it's whatever."
Nayun answered with a shrug, then stole a glance at Seoha.
Even looking back now, she couldn't figure out how the two of them had become friends. If it hadn't been for Yeoncheong, they almost certainly wouldn't have stayed on even these terms until the end of the school year.
Seoha was watching Yeoncheong laugh and chatter away, wearing an expression impossible to read.
Still, as their time together accumulated, Nayun had grown able to catch even the subtlest shifts in that friend's expression.
"Guess you're disappointed."
"Hmm?"
"Once festival prep picks up, you're bound to be spending way more time with Suyeon than with Yeoncheong."
"...Did Suyeon tell you something?"
At that tone — one that knew all about the rivalry between the two — Seoha's eyes widened a little, having heard that the others had been told nothing.
"How could anyone miss it when her whole attitude around you changed? We're not as dense as that idiot over there."
Nayun's gaze swept over the three of them.
And when Seoha realized that gaze had landed, of all people, on Yeoncheong, she covered her mouth and burst out laughing.
"They say friends start to resemble each other. I just hope Yeoncheong picks up on reading the room from you all soon."
Nayun let out a similar snort, then pursed her lips.
"Aren't things better exactly as they are?"
"Yeoncheong the sharp one who's no fun... or Yeoncheong the airhead who's pure-hearted... yeah, the latter definitely wins."
"I like Daengcheongi better too."
At the shortened nickname, Seoha's laughter grew a touch louder.
"Did Yeoncheong approve that?"
"Who asks permission for a nickname? If it sticks, you use it."
Hearing the laughter, Yeoncheong looked up — to find Seoha and Nayun grinning at her.
"You two... were talking about me, weren't you?"
The two of them shook their heads in perfect unison, playing innocent.
"Don't lie to me! I saw you both laughing at me!"
Despite Yeoncheong's interrogation, the two kept their mouths firmly shut until the end of lunch.
A lazy afternoon class on the eve of the holiday.
Having pushed the lesson as far as she'd planned, Teacher Jisu called up Yeoncheong and the vice class president.
"This is about drawing for the penalty costumes, right? Come on up and spin it."
The classmates who'd been dozing off with a nod at the mention of penalty costumes began to rise one by one.
Yeoncheong connected the laptop and pulled up a dice-roll page.
"Whoever's number comes up gets caught. No take-backs."
"Oh, and just so you know — the penalty costumes are something to look forward to. For that one day, you'll stand out no matter where you go."
At the vice class president's wicked grin, a wave of tension rippled through the classroom.
There wasn't much time left, and their homeroom teacher had already warned them to keep it down. So Yeoncheong didn't dawdle — she checked the result.
Click.
The moment the click sounded, cheers and groans erupted across the room.
"Okay, so our two winners are..."
Just as she was finishing up the costume selection by finding the two names, someone raised a hand and spoke.
"That's me."
A familiar voice.
Where the blue eyes turned, there stood Seoha with her hand raised.
Anyone else would have had no excuse, however they spun it — but somehow, impossibly, Seoha, the student council president, had beaten those minuscule odds and been caught.
Among the classmates, a consensus formed that this wouldn't do. The other penalty recipient raised hell demanding a redo, and so they agreed to draw from scratch.
"No mulligans this time, okay? If Seoha comes up again, we're only redrawing one."
Having delivered that stern warning, Yeoncheong threw the final, fateful dice with a click.
"Kyaaaaah!"
Hasol, spotting the number one, buried her head in her desk and screamed.
Yeoncheong scanned the classroom, looking for Hasol and the other unlucky penalty winner.
"So who's the other one?"
"BWAAAHAHAHA!"
In that instant, an unhinged burst of laughter exploded through the room.
Tracing the sound to its source, Yeoncheong couldn't keep the stiffness from her face.
"...Hey. No way. It can't be."
"Wow. Good thing the bet wasn't riding on anything else. That one's my number."
Feeling like she'd been hit over the head with a hammer, Yeoncheong pulled out the attendance roster from under the lectern and checked.
"Ha Yeoncheong. You remember the bet, right? I'm looking forward to that penalty costume."
No matter how many times she checked, the number written in the roster refused to change.
Clutching her head, Yeoncheong stared with a hollow, blank face at Nayun, who was hugging her sides and cackling. The classmates who knew nothing of the bet between the two could only follow along in bewildered confusion.
"Have a good Chuseok, everyone."
"You too, Ms. Jisu!"
Even after the warm closing homeroom wrapped up ahead of the holiday, Yeoncheong was still lost in shock.
Suyeon came over, bag slung over her shoulder, and shook her head as if to say she'd seen it coming.
"No wonder... you planted a flag last time. I had a feeling you'd be the one caught."
"What did Yeoncheong say back then?"
When Hasol turned around to ask, Suyeon recounted the story from when they'd first dreamed up the penalty.
"Guys, 'As long as it's not me' is the same as saying you WILL get caught."
Hearing that, Nayun snickered all over again, while Hasol — who had been the one to design the penalty — couldn't hide her guilt.
"No... no way... this is really not how it was supposed to go..."
"C-Cheer up, Yeoncheong. At least I'm glad you'll be caught together with me."
Having barely managed to stop laughing, Nayun pursed her lips.
"Hey, actually, it's a penalty between friends, so at least you won't be lonely."
"YOU be quiet!"
Hasol's and Yeoncheong's shouts overlapped in perfect unison.
Startled, Nayun slipped deftly out of the classroom with a quick "Happy Chuseok" tossed over her shoulder.
"Yeoncheong, have a good Chuseok. You'd better pass that test. I'll text you if I get bored."
The costume team girls came to collect Suyeon.
She said she was heading to the shopping district again today, waved, and walked out of the classroom.
"...Yeoncheong, I'm sorry. Do well on your test."
Hasol, her own feelings just as complicated, offered a quick 'see you later' and left —
— and Seoha had been waiting for the moment they'd be alone together.
Yeoncheong, pulling out her test papers to prepare for the makeup exam, looked up at her friend.
"What? Are you here to make fun of me too?"
"No. Just reminding you not to forget our promise."
"I remember the movie date. Don't worry."
When she answered so curtly, Seoha gave a soft laugh and leaned in close to her ear.
"Not that one. Make sure you pass the test. Because if you fail, I'm coming all the way to your house to help you study."
A jolt of alarm shot through Yeoncheong and she called out Seoha's name — but the girl left the classroom without so much as a glance back.
Staring at the door left hanging open, Yeoncheong made a solemn vow.
The test. I WILL pass it!
Whether it was that she'd have passed anyway, or whether it was thanks to Seoha's enthusiastic encouragement...
Yeoncheong passed her makeup test without a hitch — and secured her safety for the duration of the Chuseok holiday.