This Time Is Different (For Real)
Leaving aside the fact that Yeoncheong's apartment was well on its way to becoming the group's unofficial hangout, exams were bearing down on them.
Time had slipped by in the blink of an eye, and they found themselves at the border between November and December. The students were bundled up in thicker clothes, and warm air hummed through the heated classroom. The first snow hadn't fallen yet, but the chill in the outside air announced that winter had arrived in earnest.
"Ugh... it's cold."
Yeoncheong, having been dragged off to the bathroom by two friends, shut the door quickly and hurried back to her seat. Watching her rub her arms as she sat down, Nayun tossed out a comment.
"If you're cold, layer up. Finals start tomorrow, you know. Don't go catching a cold."
"Want one of my heat packs?"
Hasol, in the seat in front, turned around and held out the one she was clutching, but Yeoncheong shook her head.
"I'm fine. Suyeon and Seoha already gave me one each earlier."
She pulled two heat packs out of either pocket. Nayun gave hers a good shake before pressing it to her body, and behind her, Hasol tilted her head.
Still cold? Yeoncheong, are you sensitive to the cold or something?"
"...No."
After a moment's thought, Yeoncheong shook her head again. This was, after all, the girl who'd been lounging around at home in sweats and dolphin pants clear up until the school anniversary in late November. Sure, maybe her constitution had changed when she became a girl—but for now, at least, she wasn't particularly affected by the seasons.
That only deepened the mystery. With a giant question mark plastered across her face, Hasol asked again.
"Then is it just a habit? Like, you just say it out of habit?"
"No, it really is cold."
Yeoncheong lowered her head and pointed beneath her desk at the pale legs hiding there.
She insisted she was cold—while stubbornly keeping her legs bare. Nayun placed her thoroughly shaken heat pack on her friend's legs and said,
"Oh, that's warm."
"If you're cold, just wear stockings. Like me."
Even as Nayun stretched out one of her own legs, clad in black stockings, Yeoncheong only pulled a sour face. Having made the same suggestion plenty of times before, Nayun brushed it off and gestured at Hasol's knees.
"Or drape a blanket over yourself like Hasol."
"You can borrow mine, if you don't mind."
Hasol handed over the blanket from her lap without a second thought. Yeoncheong's eyes flicked back and forth between her friend's bare legs and the pink blanket before she shook her head.
"I guess I should... The classroom's warm, so after a while it's fine, it's just..."
"Then stockings—"
"Those are a little..."
The conversation kept circling the same loop, and eventually it was Nayun who lost her temper first.
"Ugh—what is wrong with you?!"
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. Don't be mad."
Even to herself, Yeoncheong decided she was being too much, and her tail promptly went between her legs. Nayun couldn't keep fuming at a friend who was apologizing, so she took a deep breath and let her anger cool, and in that pause Hasol asked,
"Have you ever actually tried stockings?"
"No."
"Is there some special reason you don't wear them?"
"..."
Yeoncheong hesitated, apparently too embarrassed to say it, and then mumbled something barely audible.
"It's just... they feel... a certain kind of way."
Hasol, who'd been leaning in to listen, could only tilt her head yet again.
"Huh?"
It went beyond like and dislike—this was something from an entirely different category altogether, and Hasol found herself at a loss for words. One thing was certain: 'a certain kind of way' was clearly not the kind of thing easily said out loud.
Nayun slid her outstretched leg back under her desk and shot Yeoncheong a sidelong glance.
"You absolute pervert..."
"N-no I'm nooot!"
The moment a flustered Yeoncheong shrieked and flailed her hands—
Creeeeak.
"Hm? No to what? It's not math period right now?"
Teacher Jisu, walking in through the front door, looked toward Yeoncheong at the far end of the classroom. Their homeroom teacher deliberately double-checked the class name posted above the door, then closed it and turned around.
"Wow. That's strange..."
"Ms. Jisu! It is math! You know it is—stop pretending!"
Yeoncheong shot Nayun a withering glare, then threaded her way past her giggling friends and caught Teacher Jisu before she could retreat to the staff room.
After school. On top of the biting weather, tomorrow was the first day of finals.
With practically every student skipping club activities to hit the books, Yeoncheong too was doing her final review in the club room—which had long since become their usual meeting spot. The only thing missing was the familiar yellow ponytail.
Her bag was sitting on the desk she always occupied, so she was clearly still at school, and yet...
Yeoncheong glanced once toward the door, her lips twitching.
"Where'd Nayun go?"
"Dunno. Bathroom, maybe?"
Suyeon lifted her head and shrugged. Seoha shook her head side to side, signaling she had no idea either.
It was Hasol who seemed to know something.
"She said she was running to the convenience store real quick."
"The convenience store? Is she hungry?"
She'd eaten fine at lunch, though. Had she not had enough? Just as everyone was puzzling over this sudden convenience store run, speak of the tiger and she appears—Nayun came back through the door.
Four heads snapped around in unison. Baring the full weight of their stares, she flinched.
"Wh-what?"
"If you were going to the store, you should've taken us."
"I didn't go to eat. I went to buy this."
Nayun, reading Suyeon's thoughts before she could voice them, walked back to her seat and dropped something carelessly onto Yeoncheong's desk.
The product name was printed right there in bold, so there was only one question to ask.
"Why are you giving this to me?"
"So you can try them on."
What other reason could there be for buying something? Nayun continued, matter-of-fact.
"See if they're any good, whether they're weird or not. At the very least, try them once before you decide."
"Where did these stockings even come from?"
Suyeon and Seoha, who hadn't been there for the earlier scene, couldn't follow the conversation at all. When the two of them asked for an explanation—any explanation—Hasol spoke up.
"Yeoncheong kept saying she was cold every day, so we asked about it, and she said her legs were cold. So we told her to use a blanket or try wearing stockings."
"But then she said a blanket was fine, and for stockings—this pervert goes 'they feel a certain kind of way' and turns out she's never worn them once in her life."
"I am NOT a pervert!"
Yeoncheong's protest was casually ignored. This was, after all, the girl who'd shown Nayun her underwear back in the library—not exactly a resume that lent her credibility.
"I got sick of the whining, so I personally went and bought them. Wear them and then judge."
Now clued in to the situation, Suyeon and Seoha turned to look at their friend. A look they'd never seen her in before—they were quietly, not-so-quietly looking forward to it.
Yeoncheong turned Nayun's purchased stockings over in her hands this way and that, then handed them back to their owner.
"I said I'm not wearing them."
"Come on... it's not like anything bad's gonna happen. Just once. Please."
Bicker, bicker. Lest the sparks between the two flare up into a proper blaze, and with the atmosphere growing uneasy, Hasol stepped in as mediator.
"Yeoncheong, do you know why Nayun bought those?"
"...Obviously not."
"Hey, hey! Say another word and you're dead—mmph! Mmmpht...!"
Quick-witted Suyeon had already called Seoha over, and together they had Nayun completely subdued. Even her furious struggling couldn't overcome a two-to-one deficit.
"She bought them so you'd do well on your exams. So you don't come back whining that you blew the test because you were cold."
"Ugh... I told you not to say it..."
Nayun, released at some point along the way, scratched her cheek and looked away.
Yeoncheong rolled her eyes awkwardly, then picked the stockings back up.
"I guess I could try them on. Just try them..."
She couldn't turn down the thoughtfulness of a friend who'd walked all the way to the convenience store for her sake. Nayun grumbled and growled constantly, but there was a reason no one could stay mad at her.
She peeled off her socks and thrust her foot straight out—and her friends lunged to stop her.
"No, Yeoncheong! Those have a front and a back!"
"...They have a front and a back?"
Thankfully, the friends nearby kindly showed her the right orientation.
She scooted her chair back a little for comfort and propped her foot up on the seat—a habit carried straight over from putting on socks while sitting on her bed or a chair at home.
The only difference was that this wasn't her home; it was the school club room. Her skirt slid down along her soft bare skin. And what shouldn't be seen, was seen.
A flustered Hasol whipped her head away, and Nayun pressed down with all her might on the heads of Suyeon and Seoha, who couldn't tear their eyes away.
Same as at the library, and she distinctly remembered a safety shorts conversation from before, too—but for whatever reason, this girl would sooner die than wear them.
In the silence, the friction of bare skin against black stockings filled the room, interrupted now and then by pauses and fidgeting.
"Nnngh..."
The strange noises Yeoncheong made at the unfamiliar sensation had her friends inexplicably embarrassed on her behalf.
The oddly breath-hushing atmosphere finally broke when Yeoncheong stood up from her seat and pulled the pantyhose all the way up.
"Phew..."
"Ha..."
"Ah..."
Amid the crossing currents of relieved sighs and short groans in the classroom, Yeoncheong was at a complete loss over the peculiar sensation gripping her legs.
This feels so strange...
Rough yet soft. A faint, rasping texture.
Even back when she was a man, she'd always preferred comfy athletic wear. In her entire life, she had never once experienced the feeling of something wrapped snugly around her legs like this.
Just the added layer of stockings over bare skin made her attention drift there against her will, and even the brush of her skirt felt different from usual.
Standing there, unable to sit back down, half-frozen in place, she heard Nayun ask,
"So? Warmer than bare legs, right?"
"Yeah. I... think so?"
Honestly, she couldn't feel much of a difference yet—but for the sake of the friend who'd gone out of her way to buy them, Yeoncheong nodded anyway.
Her choice was the right one.
"Thank goodness."
Nayun, who'd been quietly holding her breath the whole time, finally broke into a smile.
"They suit you, honestly."
"Mm, they look good."
Meanwhile, Suyeon and Seoha—apparently deciding there was nothing left to hide between friends—crouched down to admire Yeoncheong's legs up close.
"Bare legs are nice, sure, but—"
"Stockings have their own charm."
Under this impromptu quality review, the color crept steadily up Yeoncheong's face.
And when the two finally lost all restraint and reached out their hands toward her legs—
"You crazy perverts!"
She hurled Nayun's own words right back at them and lashed out with a kick. Whether they'd been braced for it or not, the two split apart in opposite directions and bolted.
Not even the strange new sensation of the stockings that had left her standing awkwardly in place, nor her burning embarrassment, could stand up to her fury.
The next day, the first day of finals finally dawned.
Yesterday's whole fiasco notwithstanding, Yeoncheong's legs were bare.
She appreciated Nayun's sentiment, but the texture of stockings still felt alien to her. The last thing she needed was her concentration wavering over it mid-exam. Yeoncheong decided to go in exactly as she'd always studied—no changes.
Teacher Jisu finished writing the exam schedule, total number of students, and absences on the board, dusted off her hands, and turned around.
"Well... you all know the drill, but this is the last exam of the year, so let's give it everything we've got right to the end. Got it?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
She grinned at the energetic response. But as her gaze swept the room taking attendance, it snagged on the corner seat by the window. Yeoncheong, seated both in her actual spot and her assigned number spot, noticed the look and raised her head.
"Yeoncheong, feeling confident about these finals?"
"Of course."
She'd studied more this year than ever before. Taking her failed condition management during the midterm as a cautionary tale, she'd spent the past week carefully realigning her body clock in advance. And she'd packed chocolate as insurance against a blood sugar crash, for good measure.
"I'm also confident there'll be no marking mistakes this time around?"
"Nobody makes the same mistake twice."
Even to Teacher Jisu, the confidence practically radiated off her face, and she smiled warmly.
"Then this time, for sure?"
"Yes. This time is going to be different."
With Yeoncheong's confident nodding—her personal victory anthem—the bell rang, and the last final exams of the year began.