The Fabric Wealth Gap
Late October, when the leaves shed their green and drifted down one by one, and crimson maples and bright golden ginkgo leaves set the blue sky ablaze.
It had been a few days since Suyeon told Yeoncheong to look forward to the penalty costume.
With the festival right around the corner, the classes kicked their preparations into high gear, and the day arrived when the Class 2-1 costume team would unveil the finished frill decorations and the penalty outfits.
Yeoncheong had gone to Suyeon and the rest of the costume team every single day to beg for mercy, but...
For one thing, there was barely enough time to source entirely new outfits at this point.
For another — the way Suyeon had just walked off when she came over to visit, the cozy little scene she'd put on with Chaerin the first-year underclassman, and that whole honeybee fiasco not long ago.
Suyeon's resolve, piled up and finally bursting at the seams, was absolutely ironclad.
"Hmm... anything else I'm forgetting?"
Oblivious to all of Yeoncheong's scheming, the homeroom teacher tapped the podium with her attendance book, wondering if there was anything left to say.
"I already told them not to wear the summer uniform now that the changeover period is over... and told them to take care of themselves since the mornings and evenings are getting chilly..."
She planned to do a final check of the costumes after class ended, so the longer her muttering dragged on, the more the students groaned and slumped face-first onto their desks.
Perhaps she caught a student up front muttering something about the festival and the costumes, because Teacher Jisu went ah and bit her lip.
"Oh, right. How's the festival prep coming along, everyone?"
"Isn't it a little late to ask now that the festival is days away? The other classes even had their teachers helping them prepare..."
One student voiced the complaint with a hint of resentment.
Teacher Jisu scratched her cheek and laughed awkwardly.
"Ah, haha... I've just been a bit busy..."
There was the school math competition coming up in early November. The students knew she'd been saddled with writing the first-year exam questions, but that didn't make the grumbling any easier to swallow.
Once one student broke the ice, the resentful complaints merged into a single chorus of grumbling about how they'd been left out too.
The homeroom teacher planned to smooth things over with an easy laugh.
But the mood in the classroom didn't seem like it would be defused by anything that mild. What's more, as the youngest member of the faculty, she lacked the seasoned touch the other teachers had for shutting things down decisively.
"Th-then, is there anything I can help with, even now?"
"Nope."
The costumes were all but finished as of today, the props and drinks were ready to go, and the snacks just needed to be made together before the festival.
While the young homeroom teacher racked her brain over how to placate her students, the vice class president's lips twitched.
"Teacher, you have track jackets at home, right? Like the school PE uniform kind."
"Of course I do— no, wait. I don't. No. I know exactly what you're thinking, and the answer is no."
Teacher Jisu, who had answered the question on autopilot, rejected the idea with violent force.
What came next went without saying. She'd only been too busy to help — it wasn't as if she didn't know what her own class was putting on.
Unfortunately, that violent rejection only provoked the deeply sulking students further.
"Aww, why not~ Can't you do this one little thing for us?"
"You'd only have to join us for one day — really, just a few hours."
Even with the students already united as one, Teacher Jisu agonized.
"I mean... wearing one of those to tag along with you young folks playing around would be a little..."
"You're one of the youngest teachers in the whole school!"
"Exactly. It'd be a memory! Just once. Come on, just this once~"
The classroom dissolved into a racket worthy of a marketplace.
No telling which argument finally swayed her, but a long sigh escaped Teacher Jisu's lips. And when she gave a small, reluctant nod, the class erupted in cheers.
"Fine... if you all want it that badly, I suppose I have to play along."
"Yay! Teacher, you're the best!"
Watching her students celebrate, Teacher Jisu gave a helpless smile.
"I wasted my breath for nothing. That settles it, right? Okay, I'm off."
"Oh, wait just a second—"
They'd fully intended to rope her into running the booth while they were at it, but the quick-witted teacher fled without so much as a backward glance.
***
She'd hoped the teacher-student back-and-forth would go on forever, but class ended with Teacher Jisu's hasty retreat, and the promised hour arrived.
The vice class president headed for the podium the homeroom teacher had vacated, with Suyeon following close behind, toting an armful of shopping bags. Seeing her wearing a track jacket over her uniform, it seemed Suyeon was here as the model.
"Alright! Time to unveil the finished products we all worked so hard on. The frill decorations that go over the jacket, and... the headbands."
The costume team clapped along in support.
Cueing off the vice class president, Suyeon pulled the frill decorations and headbands out of the shopping bags and held them up.
However, the students' reaction to the sight was lukewarm at best.
Standing alone, the frill decoration was nothing but a scrap of white cloth, and the headbands looked like they'd been hacked from somebody's pleated skirt or a set of curtains — so the skepticism was fair enough.
Judging by their faces, the costume team had every reason to panic, yet the vice class president and the rest looked entirely unbothered, as if they'd anticipated the cold reception.
"I know it doesn't look like much on its own, but put it together with the track jacket and it's adorable. Don't worry."
While Suyeon deftly layered the frill decoration over her track jacket, the vice class president continued the explanation.
"You wear it like an apron. There's a wide strap attached — you fold it over behind you and tie it, and it looks even better if you shape the tie into a bow."
Suyeon, who had just been making a lazy knot and calling it a day, now put on the headband too and flashed a V with her fingers.
"Ooh~"
"That's actually cute?"
"Nicely done."
Only then did the students murmur their admiration. It wasn't quite the cosplay they'd seen before, but it was plenty cute and distinctive all the same.
The costume team beamed at getting the reaction they'd hoped for, and the vice class president and Suyeon exchanged a high five to seal the moment.
"Since we made one for everyone, we'll hand them out now. Try yours on in advance, and if anything's uncomfortable, let us know. We'll fix it and give it back."
When the vice class president finished, Suyeon and a few costume team members made the rounds of the classroom with their shopping bags, distributing the headbands and frill decorations.
The students who received them turned them over and over with curious eyes.
Yeoncheong sneaked a look at the finished product Nayun had gotten at the next desk over — the quality was so good you'd believe it was store-bought.
With the distribution done, Suyeon returned to the podium, and the vice class president, her tasks complete, took her seat again.
Then she pulled out yet another shopping bag stashed under the podium and grinned.
"And now, the main event! Presenting Yeoncheong and Hasol's penalty costumes!"
Amid the laughing applause of the entire class...
the expressions of the two parties in question — Yeoncheong and Hasol — darkened in an instant. Especially Yeoncheong, who had been the one told to look forward to it, to the point you'd wonder if she'd fallen ill.
***
"Come on out, I'm handing them to you now," Suyeon said.
Nothing like the excited voice chanting their names back and forth, the two of them shuffled forward on leaden feet.
Suyeon, radiating an energy that contrasted sharply with theirs, asked the two friends who'd come up to the podium.
"We only said the penalty costumes would be animal-themed. So we just decided on a dog and a cat. That's fine, right?"
Yeoncheong and Hasol nodded listlessly. Suyeon pulled the outfits from her shopping bag and handed them over.
"Hasol gets the cat, Yeoncheong gets the dog."
"Even that was already decided?"
Yeoncheong's voice tipped upward at the end — she'd assumed she'd at least get to choose between the dog and the cat.
"Hasol actually has a cat, so I figured she'd do a good impression. Having both of you as the same animal would be boring, so you got assigned the dog."
Yeoncheong glared at Suyeon for a moment, as if to say, is that really all there is to it?
The nickname that had started as Idiot Yeoncheong — Meongcheong Yeoncheong — had been shortened over time into Daengcheong, puppy-dog and dummy rolled into one, and it was steadily taking root. Which was why she suspected Suyeon had made this choice with that exact nickname in mind.
"Hmm? What?"
"...Nothing."
It was impossible to read what was going on behind Suyeon's smile, as guileless as if she knew nothing at all.
Then she urged the two winners to hurry up and check their costumes instead of sitting around.
"The whole costume team poured their hearts into these, so... just to be safe, try yours on first."
She wasn't thrilled about doing what her grinning friend said, but for now, Yeoncheong and Hasol complied without protest.
The bottoms were just a matter of changing into the skirts beneath, and while swapping out their track jackets as normal, the tops caused no issues either.
Hasol, who finished changing in a flash, tilted her head at the pen that came bundled with her costume.
"What's this for?"
"Isn't that so you can draw whiskers?"
Following her classmate's suggestion, Hasol drew whiskers on both cheeks, and gasps of admiration erupted all around.
"Holy crap, that's adorable!"
"Wait, this doesn't feel like a penalty at all?"
"Right? It's way too cute."
Blushing at the praise, Hasol scratched her head with her fluffy, paw-padded gloves.
"R-really? You honestly think it looks good?"
"Hasol, you're the best. Do a pose for us!"
And when she struck a pose, bashful as she was—
"L-like this?"
"Whoa! Insane!"
"Hold on, I'm taking a picture. Stay exactly like that!"
Her friends shrieked, and the room descended into delightful chaos.
Unlike Hasol, whose penalty had somehow turned into a photo shoot...
"You— you absolute maniac!"
Yeoncheong, gaping at the contents of her own bag, grabbed Suyeon and shook her.
The animal-ear headband, the tail, even the plush paw-shaped gloves weren't so different from Hasol's, but...
"Why is my outfit like this!"
Hasol's was a hoodie with a perfectly ordinary pair of shorts that came down to just above the knee — whereas Yeoncheong's consisted of a scrap of white cloth so tiny it begged the question of whether a human being was meant to wear it, and a pair of shorts so short they seemed to have forgotten what season it was.
They were supposed to be equally penalty-bound winners, yet the wealth gap between the two outfits hit her so hard that Yeoncheong trembled with rage.
But Suyeon, rocked back and forth by the shaking, remained perfectly calm. No — more precisely, a faint smile even crept onto her face as she watched Yeoncheong seethe.
"The thing is... after we picked out Hasol's outfit, it felt way too mild for a penalty."
"So — so I'm the only one who has to wear this at the festival?"
When Yeoncheong jabbed a finger at the shopping bag, Suyeon dropped her gaze and gave a hesitant nod.
"Sorry. Hasol's was bought, so that's out of my hands, but... yours has to actually feel like a penalty, you know?"
At her friend's shameless answer, Yeoncheong found herself speechless.
And to the dumbstruck girl, Suyeon whispered softly.
"Besides... you're the one who said you'd show everyone how a penalty is really done. Were you planning to weasel out?"
"H-how do you know about that?"
She'd definitely said that to Hasol — but Suyeon hadn't been there.
"Hasol...?"
It came from a while back, when Hasol had spilled to their friends everything that happened over the holiday, and they'd talked it all through together. Hasol, who never in her wildest dreams imagined that conversation would lead to this, averted her eyes.
Suyeon, proud of having spent more time glued to Yeoncheong's side than anyone else at school, knew her inside and out.
"If it was just talk, you should've said you couldn't do it. You're not a man anymore, so there's nothing stopping you from taking it back with one mouth. Right?"
A perfectly natural provocation aimed straight at Yeoncheong.
She should have slipped out of it slyly, the way she'd done with Nayun once before. But when the other side brought it up first, her pride stuck out its chin all on its own.
"Fine. I'll do it. If it has to be done, then it gets done. In exchange, this settles everything — you've hurt my feelings for the last time. Understood?"
"But of course."
And so Yeoncheong went and did the thing she would regret. Again.
Oblivious to the quiet bargain struck between the two, the rest of the class worried they might actually be fighting.
"Um. Hey, guys. It's just a penalty, don't fight."
"Yeah. The festival's almost here, let's keep things nice and friendly."
Yeoncheong heaved a deep sigh and shook her head side to side.
"It's fine. It's a penalty, isn't it? If I refuse just because I don't like the outfit, there'd be no point in having one at all. I'm going to see this through properly, so don't worry."
In the end, having confirmed only that there was nothing to be done about the outfit, she crammed the shopping bag into her locker and headed home.
***
The frill decorations that would transform ordinary track jackets into maid outfits were unveiled, along with the two penalty winners' costumes.
A day spent hauling the partitions borrowed from school into a corner of the classroom.
A day spent storing all the prepared props carefully in one place so nothing would go missing.
A day spent gathering on a set date to make the festival snacks.
A day spent decorating the classroom until it felt like a proper café.
And a final day spent putting up the partitions, rearranging the desks, and running a last check over every last detail.
At the end of their steady, diligent preparations, Hwaryeong High School's festival was just one day away.