Things to Do When It Snows
“Ugh... this is so annoying.”
All that momentum from chasing down her fleeing friend had vanished into thin air. Yeoncheong trudged back alongside Seoha.
She'd finally managed to grab Seoha, but the silky-smooth hair slipped right through her fingers the moment she let go, falling straight back down.
Having completed her half-hearted revenge and returned to her seat, she suddenly found herself staring closely at her friends' hair.
“Does it work better on wavy hair than on straight hair?”
Certainly, compared to her friends, Yeoncheong's hair had far more natural wave to it, giving it a fluffy, tousled look.
“Or maybe it's just that their hair's too long and heavy. If it were shorter...”
At those words, Hasol and Nayun, sitting in front of her, flinched. The two of them subtly slid their desks forward and pulled their chairs back, sitting down as far away as possible.
Yeoncheong's gaze landed on the little ponytail swaying left and right with each exaggerated movement.
“Nayun.”
“Hasol has more waves than I do, and her hair's about the same length as yours.”
“Hey, Kim Nayun.”
Hasol glared at Nayun, unable to hide her bewilderment at the betrayal that came faster than light. It was quick thinking, apparently—someone else had to be sacrificed for her own survival.
Yeoncheong tilted her head at the exchange between the two.
“What are you two talking about?”
“Yeoncheong. Considering you just laughed at us, I think Nayun is the perfect choice, guilty by association and all.”
“Kang Hasol. Didn't you laugh too? So that's how you want to play it?”
Yeoncheong couldn't keep up with the sudden turn of her two friends recommending each other.
She stretched out her arms to break them up, but they'd pushed their desks forward, putting them just out of reach. In the end, she leaned her belly against her desk and stretched her arms out as far as they would go to separate the two bickering friends.
“What on earth are you two going on about?”
“Isn't one of us going to be the next sacrifice?”
“Sacrifice? What are you talking about?”
It wasn't entirely satisfying, but she'd already blown off her steam with that earlier act of revenge. She had zero intention of taking it out on people who weren't even involved in the first place.
If she got angry over every little thing like this, they'd have drifted apart ages ago.
In the quiet classroom, drained of energy just from coming to school, the two had only panicked at overhearing Yeoncheong's muttering.
Hasol was the first to notice the situation defusing, and she leaned back in her chair with a sigh.
“Ha... I was already tired, and I wasted energy for nothing.”
“Then why did you call for me?”
“I didn't call just for you. I was going to call Hasol too, but you cut me off.”
“Me too?”
Yeoncheong nodded, her lips twitching.
“Yeah. I was wondering if you'd be free at lunchtime.”
It was such a trivial question.
Nayun, her anger spent, slumped over her desk to rest, while Yeoncheong—who had asked her question without getting an answer—stretched her arm to its absolute limit to shake her friend.
Hasol pulled her desk back again and asked Yeoncheong.
“So, why lunchtime?”
“It snowed outside, remember?”
“Yeah.”
An awkward silence.
Yeoncheong seemed to think that answer spoke for itself, while Hasol gave a light nod and waited for her to continue.
Only then did Yeoncheong realize her explanation had fallen short, and her lips twitched.
“There are things you have to do when it snows, you know.”
As she said it, Yeoncheong's eyes sparkled like a little kid's.
At lunch, Yeoncheong—squeezed in between Suyeon and Seoha as she filled her stomach—headed back to the classroom.
She'd kidnapped two friends who were bundled up with blankets over their knees and hot packs tucked under their heads like pillows, and together they headed out to the playground as they always did.
Even the midday sun didn't have time to warm the frozen air. Every breath came out as white mist, and the snow lay deep enough to swallow a shoe whole.
“...It's cold.”
Nayun, who'd come from the warm classroom, felt it all the more keenly. She hunched her shoulders and looked at Yeoncheong.
“Hey, there's nobody out here. Why'd we even come out?”
“I told you already. There are things you have to do when it snows.”
Barely any brave girls were out walking through the snow blanketing the track and the field. Monopolizing the pristine white world all to themselves, Yeoncheong carefully scooped up a handful of snow from the ground and began packing it tightly in both hands.
At that, Hasol finally understood what this 'thing you have to do' actually was.
“Don't tell me you dragged us out here for a snowball fight?”
“Yep. Got a problem with that?”
Yeoncheong's expression, holding her tightly-packed snowball, was pure sunshine.
She'd half expected it, but she hadn't thought it would really come to this.
Hasol—who hadn't worn stockings and had tied her blanket around her waist before coming out—hesitated.
“Seriously?”
Not that there was any rule against it. But. For most people, elementary or middle school was probably the last time. They weren't little boys, after all. They might have built snowmen, sure, but an actual snowball fight? Not really.
Yeoncheong laughed as she hurled the packed snowball with all her might.
“Even if it's winter, there's no other time to do it, right?”
Maybe it was the difference in life experience and upbringing, but every now and then, there were moments that didn't match her appearance at all.
She had so many cute moments that everyone forgot, but the friend before them had, until just last year, been the kind of boy who ran outside to play the moment it snowed.
Much as they wanted to join in with her...
A snowball fight seemed like a bridge too far. Suyeon, Hasol, and Seoha decided to build a snowman since they were outside anyway, and naturally, Nayun ended up starting a snowball fight with Yeoncheong.
Proving her friends' prediction right—that they'd have been just as close with Yeoncheong even if she'd still been a boy—Nayun threw herself into the fight one hundred percent, all her earlier grumbling forgotten as if it had been a lie.
Ducking her head to leisurely dodge Nayun's attacks, Yeoncheong called out.
“Guess only basketball's your thing. You're hopeless at this?”
“Oh, and how good are you... Oof!”
Flaring up, Nayun took a snowball square in the face mid-sentence. She brushed the snow off her face and glared at Yeoncheong.
“Who throws while someone's still talking?!”
“Haha! You gotta learn to dodge on your own!”
Yeoncheong clutched her belly, laughing, and fled from Nayun.
Nearly every foot-based sport ended in utter disaster for her—but perhaps as some cosmic compensation, she was generally quite good at anything involving her hands, just as she'd claimed.
Just as the snowball fight between Yeoncheong and Nayun was really heating up...
The other three friends were huddled together, rolling snow.
Suyeon, watching the snowball in the middle slowly grow bigger, spoke up.
“Wow... how long has it been?”
Same as Nayun, really—once they actually started, old memories came flooding back, and it felt pretty nice.
“I think mine was back in middle school. What about you, Seoha?”
“Not really. I've never done it myself.”
At that expected-yet-unexpected answer, Suyeon's and Hasol's eyes turned to Seoha.
“Really? Never even once?”
“You never did it with your parents either?”
Seoha froze, then pressed her lips firmly together. For her, who had few memories to speak of with her parents, it was the kind of question that was always difficult to answer.
Suyeon raised her voice to change the subject.
“Then let's build a proper one today.”
“Yeah! We've got plenty of snow. Let's just make a two-meter-tall one.”
Birds of a feather flock together, and friends grow to resemble each other.
The two kind and perceptive friends had no intention of prodding at a sore spot in the freezing cold.
Seoha, well aware of their consideration, covered her mouth and chuckled.
“Even so, two meters might be a bit much?”
“We've got two super energetic kids over there, don't we? If we need them, we can just borrow them.”
With one pair blazing hot on one side of the playground and another pair merrily laughing on the other, the kids watching from the classroom started trickling out onto the field one by one.
Seeing this, one thing became clear: when it came to who stepped out first, the difference between boys and girls mattered less than whether someone was bold enough to go first.
As the students who'd wandered out in twos and threes gradually filled the playground with noise...
Suyeon and her friends, rolling snowballs this way and that, finally completed the snowman's body.
“Whew... I wanted to make it bigger. Doing this after so long really takes it out of you.”
Suyeon wiped the light sheen of sweat from her forehead, looking proud of herself. Hasol, together with Seoha, smoothed the snowball until it was round and sleek.
“Still, this turned out pretty well.”
“Yeah, it's super round.”
“Heheh. This, my friend, is a skill honed since childhood, building snowmen with Siyeon.”
Suyeon rubbed her runny nose.
Having wiped away the tears of snot that had escaped without her permission, she made a suggestion to Seoha.
“Seoha, why don't you make the head?”
“Me?”
Her friends nodded. Seoha seemed to hesitate for a moment, then crouched down and began packing snow together.
Hasol stood guard over the snowman's body in case anything went wrong, while Seoha carefully rolled out her snowball, following the advice of Suyeon, who had appointed herself the resident expert.
Quite a few kids had come outside by now, but the playground and track were so vast, and the snow so abundant, that there was more than enough to go around.
Strolling through snowfields still untouched by footprints, they finished a snowman's head, big enough to carry in their arms. Suyeon smoothed out the lumpy parts and heaped on the praise.
“You're good at this. Is there some secret where people who study well are good at everything?”
“Stop... please.”
Uncharacteristically bashful, the two of them carefully carried the snowman's head over.
What should they use for the eyes and nose? Someone suggested fetching a bucket from somewhere to use as a hat, and the corners of Seoha's mouth lifted.
Hasol spotted the two approaching friends and came running over.
Nobody knew yet. Nobody knew what consequences that moment of carelessness—the head was all that remained, just set it on and done—would bring...
“Kim Nayun! Lie down right there!”
“Like YOU'D lie down just because I told you to!”
Whether she'd rolled around in the snow during the fight or what, Yeoncheong—her hair absolutely caked with snow—was chasing Nayun like a maniac.
“Let's be fair! You lie down just once too!”
“Get lost!”
Nayun fled to somewhere naturally deserted, where her feet wouldn't sink deep into the snow.
Specifically, the very place where Suyeon, Hasol, and Seoha had already claimed territory—deserted, with a huge snowball rolled around so that no one's feet could sink in anymore.
With Yeoncheong hot on her heels down to her very chin, Nayun kept glancing backward and ended up neglecting what lay ahead.
Hasol and Suyeon, reacting to the familiar sound of their two friends bickering, shouted out in alarm.
“Hey! No! Get out of the way!”
“Kim Nayun! If you break it, you're DEAD!”
The vicious warning sent chills down her spine. Those two were scarier than the Yeoncheong chasing her from behind.
Nayun somehow managed to swerve and narrowly dodged the snowman's body.
“Gwaaah.”
She was buried in the snowbank, but at least she'd saved her life. Yeoncheong, on the other hand, sprinting at full speed with eyes fixed only ahead, had no chance to dodge at all.
“Uh-oh.”
Leaving behind those two syllables as her final words...
Yeoncheong collided head-on with the snowman's body.
“Hey, Ha Yeoncheong!”
“Yeoncheong!”
Nayun, sprawled in the snow, and the friends carrying the snowman's head all rushed over in alarm.
The collapsed mound of snow wobbled, and Yeoncheong burst out from inside it.
“Ow... I seriously thought I was gonna die.”
Thankfully she seemed unhurt, and she waved at her friends, who came running with worry written all over their faces.
Behind Nayun, who let out a sigh of relief, Suyeon and Hasol stood speechless at the wreckage before them. Forgetting all concern for their friend, the two of them looked past her. And there was Seoha, running toward them with the snowball meant for the snowman's head cradled in her arms.
“Our snowman...”
The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment. As her upturned smile drooped sorrowfully downward, Suyeon and Hasol turned their gaze on the culprit.
“Yeoncheong.”
“Y-yes?”
Yeoncheong, still sprawled on the ground, looked up at her friends. Her bottom was cold, but the looks in the eyes of the two friends staring down at her were far colder.
“Seoha said this is her first time making a snowman.”
“And lunch ends soon.”
“Ah...”
Intimidated by the two friends closing in from either side, Yeoncheong shrank back.
“We were looking forward to it too, since it's been so long for us...”
“I—I'll make it with you again.”
It was the best answer she could give, but even that fell short.
Suyeon and Hasol shook their heads in unison, looking down at her.
“No, there's an easier way.”
“Yeoncheong, how about YOU become the snowman?”
She wondered if it was a joke, but judging by their expressions, they seemed dead serious. Yeoncheong fidgeted with her fingers, gauging the situation.
“I mean... it's not that I'm bad with the cold or anything, but that's a bit...”
“Yeoncheong.”
“Y-yes?”
“That wasn't a question.”
Suyeon smiled sweetly. But her eyes were utterly frigid.
This is dangerous. Sensing danger on pure instinct, Yeoncheong whirled around the instant the words left Suyeon's mouth. Even slipping on the snow, she somehow tried to put distance between them.
But...
“HYYYAAAGH!”
With Suyeon and Hasol each grabbing one of her legs, Yeoncheong was dragged away just like that.
Resting all afternoon was bad too, apparently. In the middle of resuming class for a short session after so long, Teacher Jisu looked toward the left side of the room.
“Yeoncheong, are you cold?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Yeoncheong—wrapped not only in her own padding jacket but also dragging several of her friends' on top of it—sniffled.
“I almost became a snowman out there, you know.”