Daily Life, Slightly Changed
She wished the next day had fallen on a weekend, but as luck would have it, it was a weekday.
She could tell from the students grumbling for similar reasons and the scattered traces of the festival still lingering here and there.
Now that the festival that had set the whole school abuzz was over, it was only natural for everyday life to return just as before...
And yet a single day of festivities had brought about changes — many, depending on how you looked at it, or few.
The reactions of her classmates greeting Yeoncheong, who arrived at the classroom a little earlier than her homeroom teacher Jisu as always, were different to begin with.
"Daengcheongi's here."
"The star of the Hwaryeong Festival!"
The nickname had changed from "Class President," which they'd been using all this time.
Inwardly, Yeoncheong rather liked the new title — which made it all the more galling that the person responsible had buried her carefully maintained image in a single day.
Naturally, she shot a glare at Suyeon, who kept her head ducked and her eyes averted.
During the festival, Suyeon had marched her out in front of everyone while calling her "Daengcheongi" loud and clear, and now the nickname she'd worked so hard to keep hidden had spread through the entire classroom.
Fanning her burning face with her hand, Yeoncheong made her way to her seat.
"Hey, Daengcheong. Tough break. Still, better than Hasol-nyang, right?"
Nayun, in the seat beside her, snickered as she offered what was consolation in name only.
Yeoncheong was tempted to plant a knuckle on her skull right then and there, but she couldn't exactly say it was wrong.
Unlike Yeoncheong, whose nicknames had seeped gradually through her circle of friends, Hasol had gone and picked up "Hasol-nyang" overnight thanks to a single festival.
"Kim Nayun... you're dead?"
Even for Hasol, that nickname was mortifying. Uncharacteristically, she fired off a murderous warning at her giggling friend before letting out a sigh.
"Haa... what am I supposed to do if this nickname sticks? I think it's spreading to the other classes too..."
"Hasol. Heh... heee... KCHOO! I still think you got the better deal."
Yeoncheong offered her consolation, pointing out that it beat a nickname with "dummy" baked into it.
"Are you sure you don't have a cold? Maybe throw on another layer or something."
"I'm fine."
Nayun tilted her head and couldn't resist adding her two cents.
"Looks about the same to me."
"Stay out of it!"
Two voices fired off in perfect unison, as if they'd rehearsed it. Stung by the sharp rebuke from both friends, Nayun flinched.
She grumbled, asking why she was the only one getting ganged up on when she teased the others all the same.
"Aww~ do you already miss cute little Daengcheong and Hasol-nyang that much?"
"She's actually serious."
Hasol bristled at Nayun's shameless teasing, but the homeroom teacher's arrival brought the whole thing to a close for the time being.
Scanning the classroom lightly and checking the empty spots, Teacher Jisu pointed at the partition stacked in the corner.
"When are you planning to take that down?"
One of the students turned to look at the partition and answered.
"We were going to clear it out during lunch."
"Have it all cleared by the end of today."
"Okay~"
Hearing the students answer like a single organism, Teacher Jisu continued.
"And I've got some news you're all going to like."
"Did we get first place?"
"The festival results, right?"
"Hey, quit making such a fuss."
The classroom erupted into an instant uproar. Jisu rapped on her desk until the kids quieted down.
She had debated playing it coy, drawing out the suspense — but after experiencing the chaos of a noisy classroom firsthand, she thought better of it and decided to give them the results right away.
"Alright, yes. You all did take first place."
"Whooaa!"
She'd meant to hush the commotion, but it only escalated. With results like these, there was no helping it.
Teacher Jisu, who had been trying to settle her students, soon gave up and moved on with the rest of her announcement.
"From what I've seen, you swept up the third-years' votes."
Her gaze drifted, quite naturally, toward the two girls seated by the window in the corner.
"Hasol and Yeoncheong worked hard for that."
Part of it was thanks to the two of them having offered up third-year voting stickers for the Special Menu, but what spread the word most of all was the service Yeoncheong and Hasol had delivered, handling orders at a hundred and twenty percent.
Amid the classmates rejoicing around them, Nayun eyed the two unbothered leading ladies and smacked her lips.
"You two aren't even happy about it?"
"Well..."
"Not really."
Hasol and Yeoncheong weren't exactly overjoyed at the news of first place.
Honestly... they'd gained the nicknames Hasol-nyang and Daengcheongi, and they'd thrown their whole bodies into the thing.
People should have been raging asking why it *wasn't* first place — and yet now that first place was confirmed, all Yeoncheong felt was that they'd gotten a fitting outcome.
Still, the sports festival, and then the festival on top of it... wrapping up both in first place was satisfying in its own right.
"So, Teacher, what's the prize?"
Instead of answering, Jisu chuckled warmly and pulled out a card.
"Just name whatever you want to eat. It's not my money, so I can treat you to anything."
As far as first-place prizes went, no further explanation was needed.
"Whoaa!"
"Now, first let's figure out a date that works for everyone..."
Since they hadn't even settled on a day yet, the excited students were already drooling over what they wanted to eat.
"Teacher, malatang!"
"Hey, it's not our money anyway. Let's just go to an actual restaurant!"
"Something expensive. Beef! Hanwoo beef!"
Then one classmate's remark kicked off an arms race of increasingly pricey menu items, and Teacher Jisu broke into a cold sweat.
"Whoa, whoa — guys. Hold on a second. This isn't a card with no limit, it's... guys? Could you quiet down and maybe listen to your teacher for once?"
It was nowhere near that.
The flustered homeroom teacher tried to rein them in, but holding back students whose imaginations had already taken flight was a losing battle.
Because of this, even after the bell rang to signal the break, Teacher Jisu had to stay behind in the classroom to calm everyone down.
***
Lunchtime. Once again, Yeoncheong was the first to return to the classroom alone.
Nayun, freshly done brushing her teeth, came over to her friend sitting at her desk.
"You've been coming back early a lot lately. Is walking together not working out anymore?"
November was less than a week away and a chill had started creeping into the air, and Suyeon's sudden ambush had been just yesterday — barely twenty-four hours ago.
From Nayun's perspective, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to think Yeoncheong was deliberately avoiding the lunchtime walks around the field.
However.
"No, that's not it... ah-choo!"
At Yeoncheong's sudden sneeze, Nayun — who had come back with her toothbrush in hand — dropped her playful expression and grew serious.
"You sneeze way too often for it to be nothing. Are you sure you're not coming down with something?"
"I'm telling you I'm not. Nobody knows my body better than I do."
Yeoncheong waved her hands, brushing off her friend's worry and blaming it on spending all day yesterday out and about in thin clothes.
"Still, take some medicine just in case. Better safe than sorry."
"Fine, fine. You're all making such a fuss."
Seoha and Suyeon had also more or less forced her inside for the day, what with all her sneezing.
Admittedly... with the sneezes gradually tapering off, she did think she should sleep nice and warm tonight.
"Whew... I'm exhausted."
Maybe it was having classes right after the school festival. Unusually worn out, Yeoncheong slumped over her desk and let out a long breath.
Nayun stared at her for a moment before delivering her comeback several beats too late.
"Of course you are. If you catch a cold, I'm the one in danger sitting next to you."
"It's always that one line with you. That one line."
Eyes narrowed, Yeoncheong swung an arm at her infuriating friend.
Nayun leaned back out of reach. Sitting down, she addressed the fiercely glaring Yeoncheong.
"Silver lining, though? Apparently these seats are staying put for another month or so."
This had come up that morning.
One of their classmates had asked to switch seats since a couple of months had passed, but the busy Teacher Jisu had compromised: they could rearrange freely come December.
Nayun was thinking especially of Suyeon and Seoha, the two friends who'd seemed so wistful about it — but Yeoncheong, still sprawled across her desk, merely turned her head to look at her.
A silver lining... is it?
They showed up at her desk every spare minute of every break, so putting physical distance between them had long since stopped doing any good. Besides, her head was still a tangled mess over the surprise peck on the cheek Suyeon had given her yesterday.
Nayun followed the endpoint of her friend's unblinking stare.
"Where are you even looking?"
"Huh?"
"What are you thinking about while staring at my chest?"
Yoncheong, yanked out of her reverie, was baffled.
"What are you talking about? Like there's anything to see on your chest..."
She'd meant that she hadn't been looking at her chest, only lost in thought for a moment — but to Nayun, who was quietly self-conscious about being flat, it didn't land that way at all.
"Did you just flex on me? With your chest...!"
"What? Why? What's gotten into you!?"
Yeoncheong dodged as Nayun suddenly lunged at her.
"Oh, for crying out loud — that's an inferiority complex, that is!"
"Well what am I supposed to do about it!"
They carried on a full-blown chase across the classroom until lunch ended.
***
After final period, Yeoncheong and Suyeon gathered in the club room for the first time in a while.
Yeoncheong, rolling her neck around for no particular reason, raised her voice.
"Ahh... Kim Nayun, that lunatic. I told her to listen to me, didn't I? My neck's still sore..."
She'd shouted that it was all a misunderstanding, sure — but that was only after her friend had put her in a headlock for a good long while.
"...Is that so?"
The reply came a beat too late — and even then, it was a flat, mechanical monotone without a hint of inflection.
When Yeoncheong fell silent, unable to find anything to say, quiet settled once more over the wide classroom that held only the two of them.
Ha... damn it. This is its own special kind of torture, isn't it...
Around the whole group, Suyeon behaved perfectly normally — but left alone together, her words dwindled to almost nothing.
And with her in this state, Yeoncheong, who desperately wanted to believe Suyeon's kiss on the cheek had been nothing but a joke, couldn't help feeling self-conscious about it anyway.
As she wandered through her head searching for a way to break this awkward atmosphere, a lightbulb went off.
"Oh, that reminds me — the orphanage volunteer work you said was in October. That's this weekend, right?"
"...Yeah, that's right."
The answer took its time coming, but maybe it was because the topic was genuinely necessary.
A flicker of life returned to her voice.
Having barely cracked the awkward air, Yeoncheong managed to while away what felt like an eternity of club time by walking Suyeon through the detailed schedule for the volunteer work.
Closing time mercifully arrived.
As they left the club room together, Suyeon, uncharacteristically capricious, spoke up.
"Yeoncheong. Go on ahead today."
Yeoncheong wasn't blind to the strange current running between them, so after a brief hesitation, she said she'd see her tomorrow and drifted away.
Only after the sound of footsteps fading into the distance had gone completely silent.
"Haa..."
Suyeon, her back against the wall, sighed and slid down to the floor.
Knees pulled tight to her chest, she thought.
I'm losing my mind. What on earth am I supposed to do about this heart?
The problem was a heart pounding away like crazy, with no regard for its owner's feelings.
The moment the two of them were left alone, it all came rushing back, and she'd been frantically scrambling to hide a heartbeat she couldn't control.
From what I've heard, Seoha went as far as a real kiss... how is she walking around completely fine?
It dawned on Suyeon, anew, that Seoha truly was as thick-skinned as she appeared.
I've got to pull myself together before the weekend...
There was no way she could be like this during the orphanage volunteer trip, with just the two of them going.
Her only hope was that this stubborn, willful heart would adapt at least a little by then.
And so... her racing heart finally calmed, Suyeon slowly rose to her feet and headed out of the school.
