Picky Eating Is Bad
Having been diagnosed with two full weeks of unconditional rest, Yeoncheong was crestfallen at having lost one of the small joys of school life.
She was genuinely glad to have found a friend with shared interests in Nayun. But sitting on the sidelines for the mere two gym classes a week was pure agony for someone like Yeoncheong.
Of course, it wasn't just gym class. It started with the simple walk to and from school, and stretched through lunch break, all the way to the subjects that required moving between classrooms.
People assumed she just sat in the classroom all day, but there was surprisingly a lot of moving around to do.
"Ughhh..."
One day, as March drew to a close, Yeoncheong finished her morning classes and slumped over her desk. She'd been concentrating harder than usual in class, and now her head was aching as if to ask what had gotten into her.
Among the classmates dashing out for lunch, Seoha looked up from organizing her textbooks.
"You've been working hard lately."
"Maybe I just have energy to spare?"
Yeoncheong brushed off the conversation with an awkward laugh. It was true she had energy to spare. Not a lie, exactly—but the recent mock exam results had played their part too.
Scrambling to find a place to live, preparing for the transfer, adjusting to a new school. Yeoncheong hadn't been able to spare a single brain cell for her studies. The results had shown up right there in her mock exam score.
Studying wasn't her strong suit, but a student's duty was to study. Her resolve not to let things continue like this was showing in how she threw herself into every class.
"Are you trying to beat me on the next exam or something?"
"Seoha, come on. You know full well by now how good you are at studying..."
School exams, mock exams, it didn't matter. The genius who had never once lost the top spot in her first year.
That was Yeon Seoha, sitting right in front of her—Yeoncheong's deskmate.
Seoha lamented that she now had one less thing to tease Yeoncheong about. Soon after, Suyeon—the face she saw every day—and Nayun with her signature ponytail came wandering over.
Ever since Yeoncheong's injury, Nayun had been spending noticeably more time with her. Her motives were transparent.
No matter how many times Yeoncheong insisted she was fine, Nayun refused to back off, and eventually Yeoncheong was the one who surrendered.
Suyeon leaned her knee against the desk frame and propped her chin on it, gazing slightly up at the seated Yeoncheong.
"Yeoncheong, let's go eat."
"Yeah."
Yeoncheong pushed herself up from her chair, one hand braced on the desk. To speed up her recovery, she was following the school nurse's orders to the letter.
Just as the four of them stepped out of the classroom, someone called for Seoha.
"Hey guys, hold on a sec."
Seoha broke away from the group for a moment.
The hallway was quiet, most students already off at lunch. Even without trying to eavesdrop, fragments of the conversation drifted over. It seemed to be about the upcoming student council president election.
Yeoncheong, Suyeon, and Nayun, left with time on their hands, used the brief pause to chat among themselves.
"Yeoncheong, did you know? I never expected to get this close with Seoha."
Yeoncheong, who knew how Seoha behaved in class, tilted her head.
"What do you mean?"
Seoha granted requests readily, and her conversations with classmates were always full of laughter. As far as Yeoncheong could tell, Seoha was on good terms with the entire class, on par with Hasol and Suyeon.
"There's just this subtle... hard-to-describe thing. Right, Nayun?"
Suyeon, struggling to articulate it, called for backup. Nayun thought for a moment before filling in the gap.
"You know—friendly classmates, but never anything more than that?"
"Yes! Exactly that!"
A perfect analogy. Suyeon's voice, which had been kept low, suddenly shot up.
Seoha and the student she'd been talking to turned to look at the three of them. Suyeon pressed her palms together in an apologetic gesture.
Lowering her voice again, Suyeon carried on.
"That's exactly the feeling."
"I don't really get it, though..."
As Yeoncheong tilted her head in confusion, Nayun addressed her.
"No surprise you don't. You and Seoha hit it off from day one, Yeoncheong."
Suyeon nodded slowly, then looked at Yeoncheong's face and broke into a sly grin.
"Could it be that you're just Seoha's type?"
At Suyeon's words, Yeoncheong found herself recalling the conversation from before her basketball assessment. Just as a certain suspicious thought flickered through her mind—
"Hey, guys."
Seoha's voice came suddenly from behind them. The three, pricked with guilt, clutched their chests in fright.
"Uh, yeah. Seoha, all done talking?"
"Sorry. It looks like it's going to run long. Go eat without me."
"We can wait, you know."
When Suyeon said this, Seoha gave a light shake of her head.
"Yeoncheong should eat quickly and get back to resting."
The existence of an injured person. Seoha had brought up an argument no one could refute. And so Yeoncheong and her two friends headed off to lunch without her.
To students in the prime of their growing appetites, lunch was serious business. Their school understood this well, and the cafeteria meals were overall quite satisfying.
Which was why lunch hour was always a battleground.
"It's so crowded..."
"There's an open table over there."
Where Suyeon pointed, three seats happened to be free. Yeoncheong took a careful step forward on her right foot and protested.
"Um... I can walk by myself, you know."
With Suyeon on her right and Nayun on her left, Yeoncheong walked along with both her arms seized in theirs. It wasn't even a proper arm-in-arm link.
If anything, it felt more like being escorted to the gallows.
"Better than hobbling along on your own, isn't it?"
"I mean, fair, but..."
The two of them deposited Yeoncheong at the empty table and went off to get the food. Yeoncheong drummed her fingers on the table and watched them go.
Even after days of this treatment, she still hadn't gotten used to it. To be precise, it was a little uncomfortable. When they linked arms to "support" her, certain parts of her inevitably ended up pressed against them—and that was the problem.
The right side was a particularly big problem.
Isn't she being way too careless?
Yeoncheong stared at Suyeon as she approached with her tray. The moment their eyes met, Suyeon's pace quickened. Yeoncheong hurriedly lifted her gaze from where it had drifted a little too low.
"Wait long?"
"Nope."
"Hold on just a bit more. I'll go help Nayun with her tray."
Suyeon dashed over toward Nayun, who was staggering under trays in both hands. Tray handed off and hands freed, the two of them sat down beside Yeoncheong.
"Nayun, why did you get so much?"
"You gotta eat well to heal fast."
Suyeon's tray held the exact standard portion, while Nayun's and Yeoncheong's looked to be a solid one-and-a-half times that. The expression on Yeoncheong's face at the sight was far from bright.
Suyeon crammed a mouthful of food in and beamed with contentment. Nayun shot a puzzled look at Yeoncheong, who was pecking at her food even more listlessly than usual.
"Lost your appetite?"
"It's not that."
Suyeon swallowed her food and studied Yeoncheong's tray. Then she found the culprit.
"Yeoncheong, are you being a picky eater?"
The pile of beans huddled in the corner of the tray was all the evidence needed. Yeoncheong's chopsticks, mid-sorting, froze.
"It's not picky eating. I eat everything else."
"That's literally what picky eating is."
Faced with Suyeon's ironclad logic, Yeoncheong had no comeback.
"Could be something she just can't eat. I've got foods I can't handle either."
"Yeah, exactly. Everyone's got at least one thing."
Yeoncheong nodded along with Nayun's words in passionate agreement. Suyeon picked up one of the beans Yeoncheong had sorted out and popped it into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
"But beans are delicious..."
"Then you eat them, Suyeon."
"I took exactly as much as I can eat. Just leave them."
"That's such a waste, though."
Suyeon's eyes went round.
"Funny how frugal you are about that part."
Suyeon gazed at her for a long moment, then picked up another bean. But this time, its destination was Yeoncheong's mouth.
"Eat just one. Then I'll finish the rest for you."
"I said I'll just leave them."
"After saying it'd be a waste?"
Her own words had come back to trip her up. Suyeon snickered, clearly amused by Yeoncheong's agonized deliberation. Nayun, silently eating her own lunch, spectated the whole exchange with relish.
Having finished her internal debate, Yeoncheong looked into Suyeon's mismatched eyes.
"One bean?"
"Yep. Exactly one."
Suyeon emphasized it again—exactly one, really. Yeoncheong let out a long "nnnngh" and finally made up her mind. Squeezing her eyes shut, she opened her mouth.
At Yeoncheong's move, it was Suyeon who panicked. She'd only held the bean up as a joke, fully intending to eat it herself.
Watching this unfold, Nayun let out a quiet snort. Suyeon's face flushed scarlet. Flustered in sympathy, she hastily popped the bean into Yeoncheong's mouth.
Yeoncheong, sensing the bean had arrived, closed her mouth. Suyeon stared blankly at her own chopsticks as they withdrew from Yeoncheong's lips. Letting out a small "uuugh," Yeoncheong chewed, swallowed, and at last opened her eyes.
"Nayun, why are you laughing?"
Chopsticks utterly forgotten, Nayun was snickering into her hand, fighting to keep it in.
"Y-Yeoncheong... you have a pretty... unique sense of distance, huh?"
"What's that supposed to mean? Suyeon, do you get what she's talking about?"
"Nope."
Suyeon, face turned away, finished off the food left on her tray. Chopsticks set down—deliberately switching to her spoon.
On the way back from a lunch that had ended on an awkward note, the three of them reunited with Seoha.
"Oh, there you are. I was on the other side."
Her talk had wrapped up earlier than expected and she'd come looking for them, but apparently the packed cafeteria had made them impossible to spot.
"By the way, Seoha. Want to know what happened back in the cafeteria?"
"Hey, Kim Nayun. Don't you dare."
Utterly ignoring Suyeon's threats, Nayun launched into the full story of the cafeteria incident. Coming from the mouth of a self-declared mere spectator, the tale had gained a few embellishments along the way.
"Oh my?"
The tail end of Seoha's words curved up ever so sweetly.
Yeoncheong and Suyeon, who had been walking pressed to Seoha's sides, had somehow drifted a good distance away. Both were staring in opposite directions, but their faces were stained the exact same shade of red.
No, wait—I didn't know! I swear!
Yeoncheong regretted her earlier reflex of opening her mouth when chopsticks came at her face.
Somehow, Seoha's gaze felt scorching on her skin, and Nayun was still snickering as the memory replayed in her head.
Yeoncheong chose flight.
"I'm gonna go use the restroom."
She bolted for the bathroom as if escaping a crime scene. But making a clean getaway on a sprained ankle was asking a bit much. Seoha followed without a sound and hooked her arm through Yeoncheong's.
"S-Seoha?"
Confronted with a chest presence locked in an epic duel with Suyeon's, Yeoncheong's blue eyes wavered wildly.
"You should have an escort for at least part of the way."
There was no shaking off Seoha's arm. Her face, which had barely started to cool, flared hot all over again, and Seoha watched the whole transformation with unmistakable satisfaction.
The two of them walked in pressed together and entered the bathroom as one. Only then did Seoha release her arm.
"I'll wait right here. Come back soon."
Even after finishing her business, Yeoncheong couldn't bring herself to leave the bathroom for quite a while.
Replaying both the cafeteria fiasco and Seoha's behavior just now, she did her best to soothe her wildly racing heart.
God, this is driving me insane. I need to get better fast and start keeping my distance.
And so Yeoncheong waited in the bathroom—until her heart found its normal rhythm again, and until the heat finally drained from her cheeks.