The Grave Keeps Getting Deeper
They say time heals all wounds.
As ordinary days piled up, one after another, atop the memories of the long weekend, Yeoncheong gradually returned to her usual self.
She had braced herself for retribution from Seoha, who kept smirking at the corners of her mouth, and from Suyeon, who seemed inexplicably cross — but all that came of it was more grumbling than usual, and a lot more clinging. With nothing else happening, her guard naturally began to relax.
In the meantime, the props team prepared simple decorations and menu boards for decorating the classroom, while the costume team gathered after school whenever they could, devoting themselves to polishing up their work. The menu team, split between drinks and snacks, kicked their preparations into high gear to match the festival schedule.
Beneath an unusually high autumn sky, among the leaves losing their color one by one and drifting down, the students' anticipation for the coming festival was beginning to show.
A drowsy afternoon classroom.
Forgetting she was even in class, Yeoncheong had her eyes closed tight.
Ah, this is the life~
The cool breeze tickled the tip of her nose and gently tousled her hair. She was savoring that distinctly autumnal atmosphere the season-laden wind carried with it when—
"Yeoncheong, if you don't want me to close the window and pull the curtain, pay attention to the lesson."
The teacher warned her, lost as she was in her own little world.
Unable to give up the pleasant breeze and the blue sky that cleared her eyes, Yeoncheong quietly turned her gaze back to the blackboard.
Was it because late October had settled fully into autumn? Because the festival was drawing nearer by the day? Or, failing that, some fundamental difference in sensibility between men and women?
Somehow, this autumn felt different to Yeoncheong than it had before.
Ha... I can't focus.
Finals were still far off, and until just a few weeks ago she'd been tortured by midterms instead.
Her blue eyes couldn't wait and snuck back toward the scenery outside.
Just then, something yellow came flying in and loitered near the window.
The thing, whether looking for a place to rest, spun round and round in the air — and the moment it landed on the hair of the classmate sitting in the front row, who reminded Yeoncheong of a sunflower—
"Ha Yeoncheong. I told you to stop looking outside."
The teacher, who had already called her out once and had thus been keeping a close eye on her, said her name again.
But Yeoncheong had something to say this time, too. There was a culprit up front, after all, distracting everyone.
"It's not that... a bee flew in."
At the word bee, the students murmured, glancing around. Hasol too turned her head left and right, but the bee, apparently fond of the yellow hair, showed no intention of leaving.
Nayun, sitting beside her, spotted the bee and slid her chair back, stealthily putting distance between them.
The teacher tapped the lectern, gathering the scattered gazes of her distracted students into one place.
"All this fuss over one bee? Just leave it alone. It'll find its way out."
"But... it's stuck in Hasol's hair?"
The moment Yeoncheong pointed at the friend in front of her with her index finger—
"KYAAAAAH!"
A scream so loud it startled everyone.
Hasol leapt up, shaking her head furiously, and bolted from her seat.
"Hasol, it's a honeybee! You're fine!"
"A honeybee is still a bee! What does that matter?!"
Startled in turn, the bee seemed about to exit through the wide-open window — but then it banked and chased after her instead.
"KYAAAAH! Are you crazy?! Why are you coming after ME?!"
As if there were honey smeared all over Hasol's hair, the bee pursued her relentlessly.
She shoved aside desks and chairs as she fled, but shaking off a bee that flew after her was easier said than done.
Hasol dragging a bee around, the rest of the class scrambling out of her way — total pandemonium. The teacher's assurances that staying still would keep her safe rang hollowly across the room.
"Stay still, I said! Keep this up and you'll get stung!"
Right on cue, the bell rang.
The teacher, who hadn't lifted a finger and had only offered commentary from the sidelines, brightened considerably.
"...Ahem. I have to be going, so shoo it out and take your break."
"Teacher! Teacher!"
With a few coughs, the teacher turned a deaf ear to Hasol's desperate cries and swept out of the classroom.
"Ugh... all talk, then he runs!"
A few brave students tried to shoo it out the window with textbooks and notebooks, but the bee had eyes only for Hasol, doggedly so.
With the chase dragging on, the one being chased began to investigate the cause.
"Is it because of my hair color? Nayun! You're okay, right?"
Hasol called out to her friend, whose hair was a similar yellow —
"What? Can't hear you!"
— but Nayun had already retreated far off to a corner of the classroom.
Whatever her fluffy, approachable exterior, Nayun was just as afraid of bees.
"You rotten girl, running off by yourself!"
As Hasol kept fleeing, tears brimming in her eyes—
Whoosh!
Yeoncheong's hand, which had been lying in wait, moved in a flash — and the yellow bee chasing Hasol vanished without a trace.
Yeoncheong fidgeted for a moment, then raised her hand high.
"Got it!"
In her hand was an empty plastic bottle, from wherever she'd gotten it — and inside it was trapped the very culprit that had thrown the classroom into chaos moments before.
"Oh! That's our Class President for you!"
"Yeoncheong, that was kind of impressive?"
"How did you catch something that was flying around?"
The voices of her classmates rose around her, full of admiration for how cleanly she'd resolved the situation. Since there was no reason not to enjoy the praise, Yeoncheong scratched her head and grinned bashfully.
"I'm... pretty good, huh."
Only then did Hasol stop and express her gratitude to Yeoncheong.
"Haaaah... Yeoncheong. You saved my life. You're the only one."
Wheezing from the impromptu cardio, she had half-collapsed, clinging to her friend around the waist.
She must have been more frightened than she'd let on, because she approached without a shred of hesitation — and her positioning was, well, less than appropriate.
"Hk... um... not there... Hasol, could you maybe stand up now?"
Both arms were wrapped around her waist and bare legs, and her face was... in a position Yeoncheong could hardly bring herself to describe.
But her friend, hearing nothing, seemed fully prepared to stay that way until her nerves had settled.
While all of Yeoncheong's attention was consumed with peeling the clinging Hasol off of her—
Suyeon and Seoha, who had likewise stepped a careful pace back at the mention of a bee, watched the scene with expressions that made it clear how little they approved.
But perhaps because of the bee trapped in the plastic bottle, neither of them could easily approach.
Thankfully, the afternoon classes ended without any further bee attacks.
Yeoncheong's capture had settled the commotion for the moment, but the bee was still in her hand.
Hasol kept glancing back at it, apparently bothered by the way it crawled along the walls of the bottle or bumped against them in its attempts to escape.
"Yeoncheong, are you really keeping that thing?"
"I can't exactly kill it... I'll deal with it after homeroom."
If this hadn't been an all-girls school, the moment she'd caught it alive and unharmed, it would surely have been condemned to sacrifice for every experiment imaginable.
But while she was good at catching things, she had no such hobbies — she'd resolved to release it somewhere appropriate.
If it had been a hornet, she'd have shown it mercy and let it go anyway. Which it wasn't, but still.
Understanding her friend's thinking, Hasol nodded. The furtive glances, however, continued just the same.
"In that case, can't you put it somewhere farther away? Like in your locker? It's distracting me for no reason."
"Ah... that's a bit..."
Yeoncheong trailed off, letting her gaze drift somewhere else.
Her friend had been driven to tears by this very bee, so she wanted to grant the request as much as possible, but...
"I don't know if it's because of the bee, exactly. But it feels like Suyeon and Seoha haven't been coming over..."
There was a reason she couldn't put it anywhere else.
Ever since the two of them had seen Yeoncheong with Chaerin, they'd been stamping their attendance mark every single break. Thanks to that, her alone time had been completely wiped out. And yet — whether by coincidence or not — ever since she'd started keeping the bee at her side, they hadn't come.
For Yeoncheong, it was a case of nothing ventured, nothing lost.
She'd already been feeling suffocated lately by how little time she had to herself, and this had been a breath of fresh air.
"I don't think it's because of the bee, though? It's trapped in a bottle."
"Hasol, you're the one trapped in there and finding it distracting."
"Oh. Right."
Hasol laughed awkwardly, her own words handed straight back to her.
"Fine. There's not much of today left, so I'll endure it."
"What's there to be scared of? It's actually kind of cute when you look at it."
The answer came instead from Nayun, who had dragged her chair over and draped herself across Yeoncheong's desk.
Having recovered her courage upon seeing the bee safely confined, she observed the honeybee, tapping the bottle here and there.
Hasol stuck her lips out at her, clearly unimpressed.
"Says the one who bolted first. Talk is cheap."
"Th-that... would you call that good reflexes? I recognized the danger and evacuated my seat promptly. Danger, a dangerous situation."
Nayun stammered, apparently not entirely free of guilt either.
"And that's why I asked if you wanted to trade seats with me..."
"Too late now."
Yeoncheong, watching the exchange, added a remark of her own.
"Nayun, I'm better than you. Isn't that right, Hasol?"
Nayun flared up, as if she could tolerate being teased but not that.
"Ugh, seriously. You're in a whole different category."
It was an argument along the lines of: you used to be a guy, so wouldn't you be more used to bugs? But Yeoncheong had the perfect comeback ready.
"Hmm~ during midterms, someone distinctly called me a real, live high school girl, didn't they...? Now who was that again?"
"You lost the bet to me, and you remember that stuff with a perfect memory. Incredible."
Clicking her tongue sharply, Nayun glared at her infuriating friend.
Among her friends, Yeoncheong was the designated punching bag — sturdy, with satisfying feedback. Perhaps because of that, she'd had comparatively few chances to hit her friends herself, so sensing her moment, she gave Nayun a light pummeling.
The most important thing in moments like these was skating the line — just close enough that no retaliation would come.
However...
And just how much experience did Punching-Bag Yeoncheong have with that line?
Skating perilously close to it, she slipped almost the instant she overstepped — Nayun grabbed the plastic bottle within reach and started whacking Yeoncheong with it, lightly.
The bottle shook without warning and the honeybee inside went into a frenzy, while Yeoncheong wrestled with her, protesting.
"Hey, seriously! Cut it out!"
Then Yeoncheong smacked the bottle away for good.
The plastic bottle traced a perfect parabola and landed squarely on Suyeon's desk. The desk's owner tilted her head — then, a beat later, let out a scream and toppled backward.
Was Suyeon afraid of bees? The answer was: yes.
Yeoncheong had satisfied her curiosity entirely by accident, but the problem started now.
Suyeon righted her chair and rose, watching the bottle roll slowly across her desk. Then, tracing the trajectory of the throw, her fierce glare swung around to Yeoncheong and Nayun.
"Who... threw this?"
The two fingers visible in her field of view moved at exactly the same time.
Yeoncheong pointing at Nayun, Nayun pointing at Yeoncheong.
In a standoff where each insisted the other was absolutely, definitely the one — Suyeon, deep in thought, murmured.
"Right, who cares who threw it. The problem is the person who kept this thing around all this time. Isn't that right, Yeoncheong?"
"Exactly! She smacked it away and that's why it flew over there! She started the whole thing in the first place!"
"No! Wait! She's the one who hit ME with it! It was an accident, I swear, an accident!"
It was a dead ringer for two parties arguing fault at the scene of a traffic accident.
The difference was, there was someone here to arbitrate between them.
And Suyeon had already made up her mind.
Arms outstretched, lifting the bottle gingerly by its opening with her thumb and forefinger like a pair of tweezers, she walked slowly toward Yeoncheong's desk.
The honeybee, dazed from the chaos, wandered groggily inside. Suyeon set the bottle down on the desk and smiled sweetly.
"Yeoncheong. You do remember our festival costume is almost finished, right?"
The upward lilt at the end of her sentence should have made it a question, but Suyeon didn't wait for an answer.
"You also remember that we need to try it on before the festival to make sure it fits — and that I'm on the costume team?"
With a pat on Yeoncheong's shoulder, Suyeon's parting words carried the chill of midwinter already arriving.
"Penalty costume. Look forward to it."
And so Yeoncheong's grave, entirely without her intending it, kept getting deeper.