A Pajama Party You Couldn't Pay Me to Repeat
With such a mountain of ingredients to get through, Yeoncheong had wisely prepared the dinner supplies in advance — and Suyeon, freshly showered and immaculate, promptly claimed Yeoncheong's bed as her own.
Rolling around on someone else's bed, even a friend's. Unbelievable.
Ordinarily the homeowner would have launched into a lecture, but Suyeon had washed up properly, and honestly, watching her sprawl there was easier on the nerves than having her chatter at Yeoncheong's side.
However.
This was Suyeon, after all — the same girl who'd apologized and tagged along to the grocery store. The moment Yeoncheong started clattering around in the kitchen, Suyeon couldn't help but notice.
"Is there anything I can help with?"
"You can help by lying right there."
At those words, Suyeon propped herself up from the mattress.
Granted, Yeoncheong's cooking skills deserved recognition, but... Suyeon was a girl too. It wasn't as if she couldn't cook at all, and this whole 'your hands will ruin it' attitude stung her pride.
"Hey, I can do simple stuff, you know."
Thorns bristled in the voice she tossed out.
When Suyeon puffed out her cheeks and let her feelings show without a filter, Yeoncheong felt flustered herself. The real reason she'd turned Suyeon away wasn't her cooking — it was the pranks that came flying in from her side of the counter.
"Suyeon."
"Hmph."
Suyeon yanked the blanket over her head — a very clear declaration of wounded feelings.
She wasn't genuinely angry. If she had been, there'd have been a full-blown tantrum about getting dressed and going home. Still, leaving her in this state too long would come back to bite Yeoncheong later.
Yeoncheong let out a small sigh and wet her lips.
"Ahh... I'm short-handed in here. If only someone would help me."
A sidelong glance at the bed. Suyeon, with just her eyes peeking out, flinched in surprise and ducked back under the covers.
If she'd gotten her attention, that was step one complete.
"We're running short on time... isn't there some sweet, good-at-cooking friend around anywhere?"
Another glance at the bed. This time Suyeon's face had emerged entirely. The moment their eyes met, she averted her gaze and feigned indifference.
Convinced she just needed a little more, Yeoncheong wet her lips again.
"Oh, where oh where could a Suyeon be — sweet and pretty and adorable, and a wonderful cook on top of it all..."
"Stop! Not thaaat!"
An offensive launched by the girl who was always on the receiving end.
And wasn't Yeoncheong her crush, at that? Bathed in praise so rare it was practically extinct, Suyeon had no hope of holding out.
"Ha Yeoncheong, you've changed..."
"And whose doing is all that? I'll take it as a compliment that I've adapted well."
Yeoncheong snorted a laugh and turned back to her work, and Suyeon — now fully out from under the covers in her pajamas — came slinking over, wringing her head in her hands.
"So? What do you want?"
"I never once thought you couldn't cook. So help me out a little."
Face scarlet, Suyeon sidled up beside her and muttered under her breath.
"...Could've just asked from the start."
And so Yeoncheong succeeded in soothing her friend without a scratch.
But... it was one mountain after another.
The two of them were deep into dinner prep, saving time wherever they could, when—
"Yeoncheong, we're here!"
Hasol's voice drifted in from outside the door. The fact that she said we meant Nayun was probably with her. Yeoncheong, the homeowner, headed for the entrance.
She undid the lock and pulled the door open to find, exactly as predicted, two friends with bright hair waiting outside.
"Hey, Yeoncheong. Hi."
"You're early?"
"Yeah, figured there might be something we could help with."
Hasol greeted her warmly — their first meeting since Christmas.
"Ooh, what is that smell? What are you making us tonight?"
Nayun rose on tiptoes, craning to peer past Yeoncheong into the kitchen.
And then she saw it.
The sight of Suyeon, in her pajamas, helping with the cooking.
Had it been just the two of them, no problem whatsoever. But Hasol's and Nayun's gazes slowly slid toward the back of the apartment, and Yeoncheong, following their line of sight instinctively—
Met eyes with Seoha.
"Heh."
At that short exhale packed with a thousand meanings, sweat began beading on Yeoncheong's forehead faster than it ever had over the stove.
"S-Seoha came along too, huh?"
"Y-yeah. We ran into her on the way."
Hasol spoke for Seoha, whose lips were pressed into a thin line.
Still, she couldn't very well leave her friends standing out in the cold, so Yeoncheong shuffled backward and ushered everyone inside — all while worrying over Seoha, who was staring at her in absolute silence.
"Yeoncheong, you've outdone yourself tonight."
"Seriously. I almost want to take lessons."
"Guys, I helped too! It wasn't just Yeoncheong doing everything!"
There was Nayun sprawled on the floor in blissful satisfaction, Hasol declaring she wanted to learn to cook, and Suyeon — who had helped, thank you very much — fishing for compliments of her own.
Judging by her friends' reactions and the plates scraped spotless, tonight's dinner had been another triumph. Getting to show off while thanking them for the get-well visit had been worth every bit of effort.
Except that Yeoncheong was still, painstakingly, reading one particular friend's mood...
"Seoha, was everything okay?"
"Yeah. It was delicious."
The corners of Seoha's mouth curved into a soft, gentle line.
Suyeon had stepped up and cleared up the misunderstanding, and when asked directly, Seoha answered without hesitation. It seemed like things were back to normal — but Yeoncheong, having now witnessed the full spectrum of this friend's emotional expressions firsthand, knew better.
Seoha was still sulking.
Suyeon was Suyeon when she sulked, but a sulking Seoha was just as dangerous. There was something faintly chilling about the red eyes fixed on her.
"Yeoncheong, let's do dishes. I'll help."
Seoha came closer, saying that since Suyeon and Hasol had handled it last time, it was her turn — but Yeoncheong, well aware the girl's mood hadn't fully thawed, needed time to devise a strategy.
She slipped out of Seoha's reaching grasp and shook awake the still-prone Nayun instead.
"Nayun, you're on dishes with Seoha."
"Huh? Me?"
"Yeah, it's a pajama party, remember? I need to shower and change."
And true to her word, Yeoncheong was still in the outfit she'd worn out with Suyeon — all that fuss about dinner prep had left no time for anything else.
Nayun curled up for a moment longer, then hauled herself upright with a resigned sigh.
"Hurry up and wash. Me and Seoha've got this."
"Thank you, seriously!"
Yeoncheong flashed a radiant smile, snatched up her pajamas, and bolted for the bathroom.
"What the—? Was the bathroom an emergency?"
Scratching her head at her friend's faster-than-light exit, Nayun made her way to the sink — and found Seoha there, laughing in sheer disbelief.
The table that had been the dinner spread just moments ago was now buried under playing cards, drinks, and snacks.
Seated around it, Seoha's red eyes swept over Yeoncheong in her pink pajamas.
Truthfully... when she'd first laid eyes on pajama-clad Suyeon, she had been angry. Anyone would assume the girl had arrived well before the agreed time and done something. Hasty or not, her anger had been justified.
But once she learned why Suyeon had been there early, it had cooled considerably.
All that remained was a light little pang of jealousy — why didn't you text me? — the kind that could be worked out over a shared dish-washing session.
And then Yeoncheong had dumped the dishes on Nayun and fled to the bathroom. Even from Seoha's side of things, that stung.
Wasn't that a textbook overreaction? It wasn't as if Seoha was going to eat her.
Just as Seoha was grumbling to herself, Suyeon fanned her cards out and said with a grin:
"Let's start easy with Old Maid. Everyone knows the rules, right?"
"We should set a penalty too. It's no fun otherwise."
At Nayun's motion to define punishments, a whole lineup of candidates got thrown out — none of them quite landing.
Shaken free of her brooding, Seoha seized her moment and wet her lips.
"The penalty... how about the winner gets to make the loser do whatever they want, every round. What do you think?"
"Oh, that's good."
"Works for me."
"Seoha, nice one."
As everyone nodded along, Yeoncheong's eyes met Seoha's, and a single thought crossed her mind.
'I'm screwed. She looks even angrier than before...'
Her assessment was, as it happened, dead-on.
The winner dictates the loser's penalty.
With an angry girl sitting right in front of her — what kind of fool wouldn't see the future unfolding before her very eyes?
Even Yeoncheong, collector of "Daengcheongi" jabs, wasn't that far gone. She had to dodge last place like her life depended on it.
"Nice!"
Yeoncheong punched the air and leapt from her seat, having just survived her final one-on-one showdown with Hasol. She took a long swig of her drink to celebrate.
When was the last time she'd fought for her life over a game? She couldn't recall the exact occasion, but she was certain of one thing: she'd never wanted it this badly.
Ten rounds of Old Maid already. Never mind first place — surviving the last-place zone was already her eighth miracle of the night.
Just as she began wondering if luck simply hated her, the goddess of fortune finally turned her smile Yeoncheong's way.
Hasol, forced to carry out a penalty on first-place Nayun's orders, dropped back into her seat with a huff.
"That little... Again! One more round!"
"Wow, Ha Yeoncheong. You are petty. Genuinely petty."
"She's right. How are you not getting caught even once?"
With everyone taking their turn under the penalty rule while only Yeoncheong walked away untouched, she had long since become the group's collective target.
Seoha stopped Suyeon mid-shuffle.
"Guys, should we switch to something else?"
The mood had climbed as high as it could go; Old Maid had done its duty.
The others seemed to have developed a stubborn obsession with dragging Yeoncheong into last place, but Seoha had made the wise call that pure luck wasn't easily bent against her tonight.
When the others asked, half-admitting the same thing to themselves, what she had in mind, Seoha pointed at another game Suyeon had brought along.
"Jenga?"
"Yeah."
"But that only decides last place."
"Four of you can confer on a penalty, or the person right before the loser picks it."
This was no time to be crowning a champion. Yeoncheong was fighting tooth and nail to dodge last place, and Seoha couldn't just watch that effort go to waste.
Perhaps everyone's thinking aligned, because the next game was set up in a flash.
"Whoever knocks it down loses. The player right before them picks the penalty."
"Deal."
Yeoncheong shrugged as if to say anything would do.
Rock-paper-scissors settled the order: Seoha, Hasol, Nayun, Suyeon, then Yeoncheong. If she lost, Suyeon would set the penalty — but Yeoncheong could just form a united front with Seoha. There was no way life would cut her a break like that.
In other words, once again, she had to give it everything.
Jenga.
On the surface it looked like a skill game of surgical block extraction, but in truth, the luck of drawing the blocks that slid out smoothly mattered just as much.
Which meant that no matter how hard her friends schemed to bury her in last place, it wouldn't come easy.
However.
"Alright, Yeoncheong. You're up."
From the very first round, the game had unfolded nothing like Yeoncheong expected.
"...What did you people do?"
The tower wobbled precariously before a single circuit had even been completed. The culprit lay in the base — the section bearing every ounce of the load.
Four friends, dead set on killing off Yeoncheong from the get-go, had done nothing but pull from the bottom layers, leaving a single block shouldering the entire weight above it.
Under normal conditions the tower might have survived a few more rounds, but this Jenga was already leaning.
That the turn had reached Yeoncheong at all was a miracle. Which is to say, they were dead serious about making her lose.
Nayun, sensing the end was near, snickered.
"Yeoncheong, hurry it up."
"Shut it. Everybody hands off the table."
But she wasn't about to roll over and die just because they told her to.
Her friends withdrew from the table with theatrical smirks — go on, then, show us — and Yeoncheong rose halfway out of her seat to bore holes into the tower with her eyes.
"Daengcheong-ah. Staring won't make the block come out. You have to pull it with your hands."
Letting Suyeon's psychological warfare slide in one ear and out the other, Yeoncheong brought her trembling hand toward the tower.
"Whatever your hand touches, you have to pull. Got it?"
Even Hasol chimed in helpfully to re-explain the rules, which only sharpened Yeoncheong's sense that she stood utterly alone on this battlefield.
Tap.
Her fingertip brushed the surface and the tower shuddered — but the block under Yeoncheong's touch slid out sideways, butter-smooth.
It was one of the loose blocks she'd spotted earlier.
"Huh?"
"Oh."
Fingers that had caught a whiff of hope began to move again, slowly.
Tap, tap.
Once more, even more carefully. The tower tilted another ten degrees or so, but the block slid more than halfway free.
"No way. Is this even real?"
"Holy..."
"Yeoncheong, just give up gracefully... Do you hate penalties that much?"
"Yeah. I do."
She pinched thumb and forefinger together into a pincer and eased toward the protruding block. Catching it with the faintest of movements, she twisted her waist and drew it out in one perfectly level motion.
What if she made a sound and the whole thing came crashing down? Block clutched in hand, Yeoncheong raised a silent fist in victory.
Her friends stared at her with expressions of pure vindictiveness, but Yeoncheong couldn't hide the smile blooming across her face.
After that, the Jenga tower collapsed the instant Seoha's hand — the very next turn — so much as grazed it.
Yeoncheong grinned wickedly at Seoha, who was gazing down at the wreckage in hollow defeat.
"So the penalty's mine to choose, right?"
For the girl who had suffered through round after round just to avoid last place, the goddess of victory was smiling on her for the first time — stacked right on top of the goddess of fortune.
"Um... Yeoncheong...?"
With the tables turned in a single stroke, those red eyes wavered with anxiety.
Seoha had dodged her penalties almost as skillfully as Yeoncheong, so this was only her third of the night. But the previous two had been ordinary forehead flicks. Yeoncheong wanted to see a real penalty.
"Seoha, I want to see your aegyo."
"......Huh?"
Look, she was always the one on the receiving end — wasn't she entitled to a day like this at least once?
Seoha froze solid, clearly never having dreamed she'd be ordered to do aegyo, and Yeoncheong pressed her.
"Aren't we playing on? Everyone else had to write their names with their butts, do aegyo, all of it. You're the only one left."
There was no worming out of it when the others had already served their sentences — and frankly, they were all watching with naked anticipation. Which made sense. This was the penalty aegyo of Seoha, a girl who'd never shown so much as the first letter of the word.
"I've... never done it before."
"Just copy something close to what the kids on TV do."
Still Seoha hesitated, so Yeoncheong wet her lips one more time.
"If you really don't want to, you don't have to."
"...Really?"
"Yeah. We can just stop the penalty games here."
At that, Seoha locked up completely.
Weighing her own aegyo against the possibility of Yeoncheong's penalty, Seoha finally lifted her head.
She curled her hands into little paws and pressed them beside her face, then puffed her cheeks full of air until they were perfectly round. That alone was enough to drive Yeoncheong and the others half-mad — and what came next was the icing on the cake.
"S-Seoha waaants... to pway mo-w games... wih yoo, y'knowuw?"
