Event Preparations
Event preparations. Yeoncheong with Hasol and Nayun, and Suyeon with Seoha.
It was the day after the subtle awkwardness born from their daycare volunteering had been confessed and laid bare. The weather was changing by the day. Most students had already taken to layering blazers or cardigans against the creeping chill, which made Yeoncheong, still wearing nothing but her white uniform shirt, impossible not to notice.
She'd been telling herself that with the temperature swinging between morning and evening, she'd have to dress warmer starting tomorrow — but just then, as if all the drama of recent days had been nothing but a dream, Suyeon came looking for her with Seoha in tow every single break.
"Yeoncheong, aren't you cold?"
"It's about time you started wearing warmer clothes, you know."
"You don't have a cardigan or anything? They're comfy and cute. Want to borrow mine?"
It hadn't been a confession that demanded an answer... and Yeoncheong had expected Suyeon to return to normal eventually, just like Seoha had — she just hadn't expected it to happen this fast. Suyeon latched onto her with the momentum of someone determined to make up for lost time.
The two friends sitting beside and in front of them muttered among themselves at the sight.
"What on earth happened to Suyeon that she's back to normal this fast?"
"Right? Something must have happened with Seoha yesterday."
Four amber eyes turned toward the most likely culprit. Except Seoha herself looked visibly flustered by her friend's sudden one-day transformation, which made that theory hard to buy.
Oblivious or not, Suyeon took full advantage of her rivals' stunned stupor to claim Yeoncheong all to herself.
Oh well. The water's already spilled.
Yeoncheong was probably hyper-aware of it now, but there was no way to un-spill it. So Suyeon figured she might as well grab a mop and help clean up the floor instead. Besides, she'd poured everything out to Seoha and been met with understanding — and having confessed that she actually liked Yeoncheong, she felt lighter for it.
"What should we do for club activities today? Teacher Jisu said a zoo field trip won't work this year, so that's getting pushed to next year. Let's think of something else."
The moment Suyeon was unleashed, Seoha snapped back to her senses — a beat too late — and wedged herself between the two of them.
From the outside it looked like a perfectly happy scene, but the person at the center of it, Yeoncheong, rolled her eyes wildly and appealed to Hasol and Nayun for help. Unlike Suyeon, who had bounced back in a single day riding a wave of relentless positivity, Yeoncheong simply needed more time.
Setting aside Yeoncheong's distress over her two friends, the sight of three such stunningly beautiful girls jostling around each other was, to put it kindly, lovely to watch.
And to put it less kindly...
"Ugh, I really don't want to look at that... Hasol, do we actually have to help her?"
"Honestly, I feel the same."
Hasol, who had spoken her heart just yesterday, wasn't feeling particularly cheerful either. So this is what it looked like when girls got all cuddly with each other — not a guy and a girl, but girls together, huh? It wasn't quite jealousy, but somehow her sides ached.
"Still, what can we do? They're our friends."
"Yeah, fair."
But Hasol wasn't the kind of friend to eat her words from a day ago, and Nayun wasn't the type to pretend not to see a friend's distress call.
"Hey Seoha, now that I think of it, the first-year vice president was looking for you about student council stuff. Did you meet her yet?"
"Chaerin was?"
"Yeah, that's right. Pretty sure it was her."
Hasol pried Seoha away, recalling the underclassman she'd seen at the festival. With a light sigh, Nayun then squeezed herself between the remaining two and climbed onto Yeoncheong's back.
"Tough luck, Suyeon, but looks like you're on your own. Yeoncheong has a prior engagement."
"What?"
Wrapping her arms around Yeoncheong's neck, half riding on her back, Nayun spun out a lie without missing a beat.
"We agreed to help Seobin prep for the library event. Together."
"This is the first I'm hearing of it."
Suyeon shot Yeoncheong a look sharp enough to flay skin, and the instant those blue eyes tried to swing toward Nayun—
"You said you'd help me, didn't you? Then meet me halfway here. You're amazing at this sort of thing, dork."
Nayun's whisper tickled her ear. Yeoncheong had plenty she wanted to say, but getting out of the immediate crisis came first.
"Th-that's right. I totally forgot to mention it. Sorry."
"Will it take long?"
"Two days, tops? It's simple stuff, just after school."
Nayun answered quickly on her behalf, stuffing a sock in the mouth of the friend who knew nothing. Suyeon kept her suspicious gaze fixed on them for a long while before finally nodding.
"Okay... I guess Yeoncheong would forget something like that."
"Right. Must've been it."
As Suyeon walked off with a parting "good luck with that," Yeoncheong bristled.
"Hey, hold on. I don't like the part where you just *accept* that. Wait a second."
She squirmed, trying to call Suyeon back, and Nayun — still clinging to her back — strained with all her might to stop her.
Nayun glared at her hopeless friend.
"So this is what I get for helping — you try to walk right back into it?"
"Ah, sorry... I mean, I could've, right?"
"Should've just thrown you back between Seoha and Suyeon and left."
Yeoncheong was following Nayun to the library. She'd only put a lid on things to dodge the situation, but it was true that Nayun had agreed to help with the library event preparations. And as a bonus, Yeoncheong — with nowhere else to be — had agreed to pitch in too.
"Hey, is it okay if I come along?"
"More hands are always better."
By the time that exchange wound down, they'd arrived at the library. Probably because of the event prep, a paper sign reading Staff Only — No Entry was taped to the door. Nayun knocked, declaring that they themselves obviously didn't count, and before long Seobin appeared from inside.
"The library's closed for the next day or... Nayun! And Yeoncheong, too...?"
"Yup. She's got time to spare, so I brought her. That okay?"
Behind Seobin's awkward nodding, a library transformed from its usual self came into view.
"What's that giant thing? And why are there chocolate stick snacks... what on earth are you all doing this year?"
According to Seobin, they'd received a large donation of books, so while disposing of the older ones they'd decided to put them to use for the event. The chocolate sticks — Pepero-style snack wafers — happened to coincide with the event date, so they'd been slipped in to draw student interest as well.
Students were stacking books one by one as if building something, with rows of chocolate sticks lined up off to one side. As a result, this year demanded far more hands than last year's event, which was apparently why Nayun had been asked to lend hers.
At that story, a thought suddenly struck Yeoncheong.
"Oh, right. Seobin, why didn't you ask *me* for help?"
She'd called Nayun, but not her... And they had a friendship built up from remedial classes, no less. She was a little — just the tiniest bit — hurt about it.
"Come on, don't sweat it. She just forgot."
Nayun brushed it off casually, but Seobin flinched as if something had stung her.
"Huh?"
"Wha—?"
Both of them were puzzled by Seobin's strange reaction. Unable to hold up under their stares, Seobin began to confess meekly.
"The truth is... when we were cleaning the tennis club room, I noticed... Yeoncheong, there was something a little... unsettling about you..."
Tennis club... cleaning... Just as Yeoncheong wondered what on earth Seobin was talking about, an embarrassing memory she'd tried her best to bury came rushing back.
Nayun, who hadn't been there, pressed the hesitant Seobin further.
"Unsettling? What happened?"
Seobin glanced around once, then whispered into Nayun's ear.
"She tripped while carrying a box... and landed in a position that looked like something out of a, um... a racy magazine..."
But the library was far too quiet for whispering. Having caught every word of the huddle, Yeoncheong flailed her arms and physically drove the two of them apart.
"Hey! No! Noooo! You fell over right there with me too! It was an accident to begin with! How did your brain even get there!"
Only after clearing up Nayun's misunderstanding — that she belonged on the same tier as a pervert — and giving Seobin a proper dressing-down was Yeoncheong finally able to get to work on the event preparations.
Meanwhile...
"I'm sorry? I wasn't looking for her, though?"
"Right. I figured as much."
Chaerin, who had gone out of her way to relay the message to Seoha herself, thought there was no way it could be true. But watching Nayun peel Suyeon away shortly after, she'd read the room and tactfully made herself scarce.
Seoha arrived at the student council room earlier than usual and took her seat as if nothing were amiss. What business could have brought up her name? Chaerin kept glancing her way again and again.
"Chaerin."
"Yes!"
The student council room held only the two of them so far. There wasn't much work to do, and Seoha decided she might as well try seeking some advice of her own.
Having just come off a thoroughly satisfying movie date, she couldn't have found a better person to ask than Chaerin sitting right in front of her.
"What should you do if a rival appears?"
"...Excuse me?"
A question missing far too many pieces — but the perceptive underclassman caught on quickly enough to what kind of story this was.
"You could try sabotaging them, of course... but really, I think it comes down to pushing forward on your own merits?"
Chaerin already knew that the "rival" her senior was talking about was a friend in her own class — at that point, a negative strategy was simply off the table.
Seoha gave a light nod. After all, pulling something sneaky might just earn her Yeoncheong's active dislike, and on that point, the two of them saw eye to eye.
"For example?"
"Hmm... November 11th is coming up soon. Why not take advantage of that?"
Pepero Day.
Seoha knew of it, of course, but perhaps because of her perpetually busy family, she wasn't one to keep anniversaries and had never paid it much mind.
Chaerin took Seoha's silence as a request to elaborate.
"Sure, it's corporate marketing at the end of the day, but there's no better way to convey your feelings than this. It's an anniversary, after all — so it doesn't feel like too much pressure either."
Conveying your feelings. No pressure.
Those two phrases lodged themselves in Seoha's ear. Her deliberation didn't take long.
"Chaerin, thank you. That helped a lot."
"Not at all. I should be thanking you."
Gifted with Seoha's satisfied smile, Chaerin grinned back brightly as if that alone were reward enough.
And then...
"Siyeon~ come by the supermarket with me on the way home~"
"No. Are you a child or what? Go by yourself."
Bored out of her mind, Suyeon was busy clinging to her twin sister Siyeon.
"Going alone is boring. Keep me company."
"Why would you even need to go to the supermarket in the first place?"
To shake off her tenacious twin completely, Siyeon stepped outside the science room.
"Chocolate sticks and chocolate. Plus this and that."
"...I'm not going."
Siyeon caught on to the purpose instantly. She tried to peel Suyeon off and return to the science room — and was promptly seized again.
"If I make them, I'll share with you. Hmm? Come with me."
After a prolonged tug-of-war at the door, Siyeon surrendered first.
"Ugh... keep your promise, then."
"Obviously! What would I do without my little sister!"
"...Get lost. Not going."
"Sorry, sorry! I won't call you my little sister anymore. I said I was sorry...!"
Just as Seoha had gained a brilliant hint from her junior, Suyeon too was hatching a plan much like Seoha's — using the time she'd secured for herself.
Nayun and Seobin steadied the ladder while Yeoncheong, perched at the top, went after the books sitting on top of the tallest shelf. Who would leave books up there, you might ask — but quite a few had been tossed up in jest, or stashed away with a "I'll read this someday."
"Wow. If I put these back, no one would ever reach them again. How does anyone have this many books?"
To dispel the misunderstanding, Yeoncheong worked harder than anyone. Stretching her body to its limit, she gathered up the dust-caked books one by one.
"See? Could anyone with ill intentions toward me do this?"
Passing each collected book down to Seobin below, Yeoncheong puffed out her chest with pride. Compared to sorting and shelving the donated books, her job meant inhaling far more dust and was far harder work — and with Yeoncheong leading the charge, the extra help was genuinely appreciated.
And yet...
"..."
Nayun and Seobin said nothing.
"I suppose they're too sorry to say anything?"
Interpreting the silence in an entirely different sense, Yeoncheong climbed another rung and surveyed the top of the shelves. As she moved, peering carefully here and there, her skirt fluttered and swayed with every motion. Following the gentle sway of her hips, beneath that skirt that threatened to show everything and showed nothing—
The two holding the ladder, Nayun and Seobin, squeezed their eyes shut and quietly bowed their heads.
Sights like this really do confirm it... she was definitely a guy...
White...
The slander(?) showed no sign of ending.