A Precarious Stakeout
Outside Yeoncheong's apartment, four familiar silhouettes huddled together in a squirming cluster.
"Hey, is this really okay?"
"This feels a little dangerous..."
"You're only saying that now, after coming all the way here? You were all curious too, that's why you came."
It was a few days after they'd wrapped up the pajama party with a round of goodbyes.
Today was supposed to be the day they went off to play at Seoha's mountain villa—if only Yeoncheong had said yes. It was also the day the plan had fizzled out entirely, thanks to Yeoncheong refusing for reasons she wouldn't reveal, teeth gritted, without a word of explanation.
What on earth could it be, to hide it this desperately?
The four of them had gathered because they couldn't contain their curiosity. It helped that everyone happened to be free that day, so it hadn't been much of a hassle to arrange.
Nayun crouched behind the building, sneaking glances at Yeoncheong's studio apartment.
"It had better be something. I'm going to make her pay properly for wasting my time."
"I hope it's something. I'd rather she just laughed it off and we moved on. Compared to back then, even that would be... oof."
Over Nayun's scheming head, Hasol poked hers out and heaved a sigh.
It was Ha Yeoncheong, after all. The girl who, no matter how much they teased her for being a dummy, kept the things that mattered most locked up inside and agonized over them all alone.
She'd insisted herself that those days were over—but if she started hiding things with that same old desperation, then as friends who'd lived through it with her, worrying was only natural.
Nobody called it overprotective. She'd seemed to adapt so well, that was all. Yeoncheong had been through something no one else could truly understand.
If anything, they could worry more, not less. There was no reason to worry any less.
Great minds think alike, it seemed—Suyeon, harboring similar thoughts, was pacing back and forth behind the building.
"Aww... did we get here too late? What if she already left?"
"Ha... okay, wait here. I'll go do a little snooping first."
They couldn't crouch outside in the cold forever, stealing peeks at an apartment. Nayun, still low to the ground, crept toward the building without rising an inch.
Slowly, silently. Just as Nayun drew close to the shared entrance—
Seoha, standing on tiptoes and keeping watch over the apartment from her vantage point, bit her lip.
"Ah, Yeoncheong's coming down."
"What? Where?"
"There, the stairs."
Suyeon and Hasol called to Nayun, but she was already too far in to make it back in time. Thinking fast, Nayun wedged herself into a narrow gap. No offense to her friends, but it was only possible because she was flatter than any of them.
Suyeon and Hasol let out sighs of relief, and just as Seoha had said, Yeoncheong soon appeared at the shared entrance.
"What the heck is she wearing?"
The usual men's-sized puffer jacket. But the stockings visible below it made Suyeon's voice go cold.
Because Yeoncheong was wearing a skirt—the very thing she'd sworn she'd rather die than put on.
"When we asked her to wear that, she... mmph—"
"Suyeon, hold it in."
Had her voice carried that far? Or did something just feel off? Yeoncheong stopped in place and looked around carefully.
Seoha and Hasol clamped their hands over the overheated Suyeon's mouth from above and below, while Nayun, closest of all, held her breath. The other three didn't know it, but for the girl stuck in that cramped space, it was pure torture.
Just walk away already...
But a cat that had appeared from somewhere snagged Yeoncheong's attention, and Nayun's wish went ungranted.
Cat and Yeoncheong stared at each other, deadlocked. It was a human action that finally broke the breath-holding standoff.
"Meow."
Like anyone might be passing by. Having checked twice to be sure, Yeoncheong raised a hand buried in her puffer jacket and meowed at the cat. At this utterly unexpected display of cuteness, the hiding friends all clamped their hands over their own mouths in unison.
The cat, having received the greeting, seemed displeased about something and bolted in a startle, while Yeoncheong—looking vaguely disappointed—gazed after the spot where it had vanished.
When the cat didn't return even after a short wait, Yeoncheong set her regret aside and moved on.
Nayun, whining as she wriggled out of the narrow gap, hurried toward her friends to give chase, but—
"Ha... we should've gotten that on video."
"A skirt... she's wearing a skirt... Is she meeting someone? Who is it?"
"So this is what she's like when she's on her own?"
Seoha belatedly clutched her smartphone, lamenting what could have been. Suyeon was still reeling from the shock of Yeoncheong's skirt. And even Hasol didn't look entirely sane.
"What's wrong with you guys? What did you even see?"
Only Nayun, who'd hidden in a cramped gap and seen and heard nothing properly, tilted her head in confusion.
***
Tailing someone was the stuff of TV dramas and movies. Doing it in person was, of course, a first.
You'd think they'd be agonizing over what excuse to offer if they got caught—but the friends were brimming with confidence.
After all, the target was Ha Yeoncheong.
Half joke, half truth: the girl they called a dummy. They were certain that as long as they were careful, she would never, ever catch on.
But...
"Hey, spread out a little! She's gonna notice, I'm telling you."
"Come on, let us see what you're doing too."
Normally, a tail works alone. The more people involved, the greater the risk of getting made—even two could be considered a crowd depending on the situation.
Yet the friends chasing after Yeoncheong were Suyeon, Hasol, Nayun, and Seoha. A full four. Tailing experience: obviously zero. They weren't even spreading out and communicating over earpieces like in a spy thriller.
No—they huddled in one clump because they all wanted to see what Yeoncheong would do, and so they got shoved and jostled this way and that. And even for a certified dummy like her...
"Hey. Yeoncheong! Yeoncheong!"
At Nayun's hissed warning from her crouched peeking spot, the bickering friends all ducked for cover at once. And by a hair's breadth, Yeoncheong twisted around to scan her surroundings.
She seemed to sense something was off herself. She kept looking around even as she tilted her head in puzzlement, but short of walking over to check, spotting friends who'd covered their mouths and hidden their bodies was impossible.
Eyes narrowed, still visibly puzzled, Yeoncheong eventually turned back around and quickened her pace along her route.
What if she suddenly looked back again? They watched the situation for a moment.
"Haaah..."
A long, collective sigh escaped the friends who'd just survived a close call.
But one crisis was never the end of it.
On the verge of noticing, or maybe not—Yeoncheong kept glancing back at intervals, and every single time, her friends scrambled to duck out of sight, hushing themselves in a frantic rush.
The only reason they never got caught was a matter of split-second timing. Pure, dumb luck.
"What is going on? Where on earth is she going?"
Watching them now, they looked hopelessly amateurish, but the friends weren't merely following blindly, either.
Hasol and Suyeon quietly reached out to classmates and Seobin, casually asking whether Yeoncheong had any plans today. Nayun and Seoha put their heads together, trying to predict what lay along her route.
But no one had any plans with Yeoncheong, and she was simply headed somewhere her friends knew nothing about. Having never seen her head out alone like this, predicting her movements was next to impossible.
"Eating alone, too. She's not meeting anyone... What is this?"
"Seriously... what is she hiding? I'm finding out if it kills me."
With nothing turning up, it would've been reasonable to give up around now. But these were friends who'd skipped a proper lunch and sunk an entire day into this already.
Sunk costs had piled up, and if anything, their stubbornness only burned hotter—their determination to uncover what Yeoncheong was hiding grew stronger by the minute.
That said, the weather was cold, and it was their first stakeout, with every nerve strung tight—they were exhausted. Moreover, Yeoncheong's vigilance had dropped considerably after lunch, and the friends tailing her had relaxed along with her.
Yeoncheong, the one being tailed, might get a pass—but the ones doing the tailing should have maintained at least a minimum of vigilance.
"Hey, is that... Hasol?"
As if their carelessness was more than even luck could paper over, the stray Hasol was spotted by Yeoncheong's eye, dead to rights.
The fact that she'd called only Hasol's name meant the other three friends were presumably out of her line of sight. What now? As Nayun froze in panic beside her, Suyeon's judgment came swift and cold.
Thump.
"Huh?"
Before Hasol could even look their way, Suyeon shot her arm out and shoved. If all four of them got caught, the tailing would be exposed beyond a doubt. So this was the best possible response.
"Suyeon...?"
"Hasol, I believe in you."
Suyeon raised a fist in a wordless fighting gesture.
***
Shoved out of the group, Hasol did the only sensible thing: she greeted Yeoncheong warmly, as if it were the most natural meeting in the world.
It wasn't that she'd divined the depths of Suyeon's reasoning. She'd simply been pushed out to spare the rest of the friends the risk of being caught as Yeoncheong approached.
But.
"Y-Yeoncheong! Fancy seeing you here!"
Her voice trembled. Her words stumbled. She was so nervous she twisted her hair around her fingers—it was practically a walking advertisement reading, I am hiding something!
But Yeoncheong, apparently delighted to run into a friend in a place like this, noticed absolutely nothing. It was a moment when the nickname "dummy" had never fit so perfectly.
"Right? I had some errands nearby, so I came out. What brings you all the way here, though?"
"Uh, um?"
"You said at the pajama party, remember? You told me you didn't have anything going on today."
"Oh, oh right~ I did. Hmm..."
So that was how Hasol knew her schedule—she had mentioned it in passing near the end of the pajama party. And now Yeoncheong was pressing her again: so what was up, then? Quietly cursing her friend for having such a good memory in precisely the wrong areas, Hasol scrambled for an excuse.
"It's... it's because of you! You said you had plans today, remember? So I made plans with a different friend too!"
"Hey... when you put it like that, it makes me sound like the bad guy."
Yeoncheong laughed and carried on the conversation as if nothing were amiss.
The one merciful silver lining: despite the wildly out-of-nowhere encounter, she didn't suspect Hasol in the slightest.
If it had been Suyeon or Seoha who'd been shoved out, the tailing would have been confirmed on the spot. Even Nayun with her mischievous streak would have drawn at least some suspicion.
Which only proved how deep her trust in Hasol ran.
Where are you going? Are you meeting someone? Can I come along? And so on.
Hasol kept the conversation flowing naturally, hoping to pick up some scrap of information—but this time too, Yeoncheong deflected with a breezy I'll tell you later.
Pressing any further risked raising suspicion, so Hasol claimed she'd just gotten a text from a friend and hurriedly parted ways.
As Yeoncheong's figure dwindled into the distance, applause and cheers rained down on Hasol, survivor of her mission.
"That's our Hasol. I knew you'd glide right through it."
"Hnngh... haaahh..."
The moment the tension drained out of her, Hasol went limp, and Suyeon caught her from the side. Seoha, meanwhile, asked the girl who'd managed such a lengthy conversation whether she'd picked up any additional intel.
"Nothing. She kept dodging, saying she'd tell me later. But I did find out her errand is somewhere around here."
"Thanks, Hasol. Seriously, great work."
"Seoha, next time, could you at least warn me before you shove me out there? I was genuinely terrified for a second."
Just as the two of them were tending to Hasol's battered nerves, a message arrived from Nayun, who wasn't with them.
"Guys, I saw where Yeoncheong just went in. I think her destination might be right there."
"Oh yeah? Where is it? We'll head over right away."
Just as Hasol had said, Yeoncheong's destination was, in fact, practically in front of their noses.
Hours of tailing had finally borne fruit, and the three friends' spirits were bright—but Nayun's voice carried a strangely sour note.
"Hmm... you'll see what it is when you get here. I'll send you the pinned location."
A moment later, the message landed. The instant the three of them checked the spot marked on the map, their mood darkened fast.
The building Nayun had pinned—the building Yeoncheong had entered—
was the columbarium.