Just the Two of Us? Camping
The notification chime had been going off nonstop, so Yeoncheong sat there fiddling with her hair, smartphone abandoned at her side. It had only been a few days since the tailing incident — her friends worrying over her and playing pranks in equal measure — but apparently the messages weren't done yet.
Whether it snowed or not, the weather was bitterly cold, and a stroll down any street brought a fish-shaped bun stand into view. Right in the middle of winter break, mid-January, the world outside was deep winter in every sense of the word.
Camping in weather like this — and it wasn't even summer. Worse, two complete novices with zero experience between them.
No matter how much was left over from the club budget, and no matter that there was supposedly a place that rented out gear, the question marks floating around her head showed no sign of vanishing, not even on the very day of the trip. She was still mulling it over when no reply came, and Yeoncheong found herself glancing at the window for no real reason. Just as she was starting to worry that her friend might actually be out in this weather—
Should have known. Of course she'd left early — she'd been going on about how excited she was to go camping with just the two of them.
Yeoncheong let out a sigh and picked up her phone.
Even through the stiff little text characters, Yeoncheong could picture Suyeon dragging out the end of her sentence with her eyebrows arched. Not deigning to reply, Yeoncheong switched her phone to silent and tossed it onto the bed.
Since she refused to give the answer Suyeon wanted, the thing just kept buzzing away mournfully at her. Watching it, Yeoncheong decided it would be smarter to finish getting ready and head out, rather than waste more time trading jokes.
Camping, just the two of them...
"Ha..."
Even just imagining it, she could see a treacherous day ahead.
For starters — nothing she'd dreaded had actually happened. No clingy, exhausting situations where the moment she did anything, someone glued themselves to her side.
"Ahh~ girls, isn't the winter air just so crisp and refreshing?"
That was thanks to Teacher Jisu, who sat perched on a tiny folding chair and beamed at her and Suyeon.
"Just the two of us... my dream of one tent for two..."
The person slumped beside her, grumbling into the cold air, was apparently Suyeon, who hadn't known either.
With Teacher Jisu commanding the operation, the tent was already standing complete. Yeoncheong opened her mouth to figure out exactly how things had come to this.
"Were you planning on coming all along, sensei?"
"Of course. I'm sleeping here tonight, aren't I? That counts as an overnight trip."
"...I suppose it does."
"You didn't seriously think students would go on an overnight school activity without a supervising teacher, did you?"
"...Oh."
Once she heard it out loud, it was an entirely obvious fact.
This wasn't like summer break, when friends just headed off somewhere to play. Suyeon had only slapped the word "camping" on it to set the mood. In truth it was a perfectly legitimate piece of club activity — visiting a nearby memorial hall and writing a report on it.
It was understandable that Yeoncheong — the one who got teased as Daengcheongi — wouldn't have known. But Suyeon, who had been in constant contact with the teacher coordinating the schedule, really should have. So said the look Yeoncheong turned on her.
Under that gaze, Suyeon's lips fluttered as if to protest her innocence.
"Sensei... didn't you say you had work today?"
"Right. Work."
Holding both palms up to the sky, the teacher glanced around at their surroundings.
"This is work. Keeping an eye on you two so nothing happens. That's a job."
"......"
Ordinarily Suyeon would have parried the joke right back with a quip of her own, but she'd genuinely been looking forward to this trip, and now she seemed struck dumb — all she could do was thump her own chest in frustration.
But what could she do? Not a single word of it was wrong. And after all that back-and-forth messaging, she was the one who hadn't known. So go on, say something, Suyeon's eyes seemed to demand, staring straight at Yeoncheong.
Left with no choice, Yeoncheong hardened her gaze and parted her lips.
"Why didn't you tell us properly, then? Do you enjoy messing with us?"
The classic: 'Is that any way for an adult to behave?'
But between a homeroom teacher and her students — between mentor and club advisor and club members — none of those formalities posed the slightest problem for Teacher Jisu, who had grown very comfortable with her two students indeed.
"Hmm... yeah, kind of fun?"
"Ngh... aargh!"
At that shamelessly slick attitude, Suyeon's fists rained down on Yeoncheong in sympathy. She was holding back truly filthy language out of some last shred of respect for a teacher's presence... or so it seemed, the way Yeoncheong pointed at her friend beside her.
"Can't you see this?"
Bursting out laughing at the sight of Suyeon growling, Teacher Jisu's lips fluttered in amusement.
"Sorry you got played, Suyeon. But you know I didn't have a choice, right? If I hadn't had time, you wouldn't have gotten to do an activity like this at all. Calling this a substitute would be a stretch, but — I did buy meat for dinner. Can't you let it slide for that?"
"...If it's not enough, I won't let it go."
Teacher Jisu's compromise seemed to have landed somewhere close to an agreement, because Suyeon hauled Yeoncheong to her feet and dragged her off by force.
She'd said she came to make sure nothing went wrong, but she showed no particular inclination to shadow them. Her real plan was clearly to finish what needed doing fast and get to relaxing.
"Take care out there, girls. If anything at all happens, call your teacher."
Anyone watching would have taken her for a friend on vacation hanging out with her favorite younger acquaintances, not a teacher supervising her students.
Yeoncheong wondered if it was really okay for a teacher to be this chummy with her students — but then, this kind of buddy-like relationship was a privilege only a young teacher could pull off, and Teacher Jisu was an adult who surely knew what she was doing.
Since the whole point was burning through the club activity budget, Suyeon hustled Yeoncheong quickly through every stop on the list.
With the two of them finally alone, one might have expected her to indulge some private agenda — but she apparently refused to slack on the activity itself, snapping photos here and there and jotting down notes, doing everything the report required.
When the two returned in what felt like no time at all, Teacher Jisu — who'd been lounging in maximum comfort — eyed them with open suspicion, but after checking their output, she had no choice but to grant them a break.
"Sensei, we're going for a walk."
"Where to?"
"There's that walking trail around here, remember?"
"Oh, that one. Stay safe out there~"
Another casual wave of the hand. Was she actually here to supervise, or had she genuinely just come to relax? Behind them, Teacher Jisu sat in her chair humming a tuneless little song as Suyeon dragged Yeoncheong away — and naturally, utterly, without her consent.
Matching her friend's stride as the girl charged headlong down the trail winding into the woods, Yeoncheong parted her lips.
"Suyeon, aren't you tired?"
"Of course I am. But how often do I get you all to myself like this? It's now or never."
As if she'd been holding it in just for this moment, Suyeon beamed a grin.
It wasn't as if she was doing anything for her — but when someone beamed that brightly, that delightedly, over so little, it made Yeoncheong oddly flustered, and she turned her head away.
"And we've got to earn our dinner — we have to eat every bit of that meat sensei bought. So let's walk hard."
"Haha! Right, exactly. That's the spirit."
Yeoncheong had assumed her friend was thinking only of having fun with her, but Suyeon had also been plotting revenge against Teacher Jisu for sabotaging their two-person camping trip.
Bursting into laughter, Yeoncheong strolled down the trail alongside her.
It was the season for it, so the trail was deserted. On top of that, the weather around here had apparently been seesawing — bare trees hung with clumps of snow that had melted and refrozen over and over, dangling like transparent fruit. It made for quite a view.
"It's kind of pretty, actually. And here I thought it'd be all bleak and bare."
With hardly another soul around, it felt as if they'd rented out the entire trail for themselves. Despite the cold, leaving the house had been worth it.
"...Yeah. We got lucky."
Suyeon's distracted half-replies, meanwhile, were aimed not at the transparent fruit hanging overhead but at her friend's hand.
There were no friends around to notice, no passersby to see them now. A kiss outdoors might be pushing it, but surely holding hands, walking the trail hand in hand, cuddling up close — that much should be allowed?
This was exactly the time to raise her favorability, little by little, to boost the odds of a successful confession someday.
Which meant, first of all — Yeoncheong would never offer her hand first, so Suyeon would have to make the move...
"Whew... if it were just a little less cold, this would be perfect."
Maybe it was the weather. Yeoncheong's hands were jammed in her pockets with no intention of coming out. And Suyeon couldn't exactly bury her own hands in there — they weren't even dating, and that felt a touch too bold.
It was, truly, a moment to envy Seoha's daring.
But there was no such thing as giving up — and a heaven-sent opportunity came along.
"Aahk!"
It stung a little.
The snow that had melted and refrozen hadn't only crowned the branches with beautiful transparent fruit. It had also laid traps here and there along the neatly maintained walking trail — patches of hidden ice.
Stepping on one of those ice patches lurking invisible beneath the snow, Suyeon went sliding with an unceremonious flourish. Scrambling up in embarrassment, she'd resumed the walk, but—
"Uwahk!"
"Kyaaah!"
"Again — oof!"
Slip. Slip. And slip again.
They were walking side by side, yet somehow it was always her who went down. If it had only happened once or twice, Yeoncheong could have laughed and teased her about it.
"Hngyaaahk!"
Accompanied by an increasingly colorful array of screams—
Slip once more. Then a full-blown tumble.
"Nngh..."
This fall had hurt badly enough that tears welled up in Suyeon's eyes. Her whole body trembling with pain, even Yeoncheong couldn't tease her anymore — she winced as if she were the one who'd fallen.
Suyeon had bounced up each time insisting she was fine, which was why Yeoncheong had held her tongue, but after it happened over and over, there was only one thing to say.
"Should we head back now?"
"Already?"
The hands that had been brushing the dirt off her clothes as she pushed herself up went still. Suyeon shook her head vigorously, eyes gone round, but Yeoncheong didn't back down.
"You're the only one falling — your shoes must be slippery. One bad fall and you'll really hurt yourself. We've seen plenty, so let's go back."
"...No."
Sitting flat on the ground, wiping the tears from her eyes, Suyeon threw a full tantrum. After coming all this way... she hadn't even managed to hold her hand, not even once — something they did all the time at school.
Who knew when a chance like this, time like this, would come again? She wanted to walk away with something. She'd seen this stubborn streak during club activities before, but right now it was even worse than usual. Which meant: persuasion was impossible.
"Ha..."
A long sigh escaped Yeoncheong's lips in a puff of pure white breath, and then the hand that had been buried in her pocket came out.
The hand fidgeted in the empty air for a moment before, exactly as its resolute owner commanded, it stretched out a palm toward her friend, who had just gotten back up.
"Here. Hand."
"Uh... huh?"
Apparently too embarrassed to say it outright, the hand that had emerged from the pocket couldn't keep still, scratching at hair instead.
"You wanted to keep walking, didn't you? You'll just fall again. So — let's hold hands."
All those tumbles, and not once had Yeoncheong offered her hand, and Suyeon had been quietly hurt about it.
But the sight of her friend, blushing furiously and yet reaching out her hand anyway, and those gruff words — the hurt melted away like snow.
In case she changed her mind, Suyeon snatched Yeoncheong's hand with both of hers, quick as a flash.
"Hehe. So warm."
Since she'd been lying in wait for her friend's hand this whole time, the warmth of it — heated in Yeoncheong's pocket — felt even cozier than it should have.
It must have been colder than expected, because Yeoncheong flinched and eyed Suyeon through narrowed lids.
Then, holding Suyeon's hand, she slid it straight into her own pocket. Two hands, sharing one pocket. The very scenario Suyeon had only ever dared to imagine before giving up had unfolded on its own. Yeoncheong's lips fluttered at her friend, who was so stunned she'd forgotten how to speak.
"...Why are your hands this cold? Hold on tight. And walk carefully, watch your step."
"Yes! Don't you worry!"
Finally coming back to her senses, Suyeon nodded hard.
The sulky expression that had descended with every fall was nowhere to be found. Wearing the blissful smile of someone who owned the entire world, she skipped ahead, leading the way in high spirits.
"Now I definitely won't fa—aaahk!"
"Hey! It's your fault for falling — aaack!"
But this was a dreamlike situation — the thing she'd only ever imagined unfolding in glorious reality.
Say what they might, their bodies seemingly couldn't contain the excitement. This time, the two of them landed on their backsides in perfect harmony.
Shuffle, shuffle.
The kids wouldn't come back no matter how long she waited, so Teacher Jisu had started on dinner prep. At the faint sound of footsteps drawing steadily closer, she looked up.
"Honestly, girls — you said you were going for a walk. What took you so lo—"
The scolding she'd been priming to unleash died on her lips the moment she got a look at her returning students.
"...You two. Did you roll around on the ground together somewhere?"
Their pants were ruined in identical fashion — this was not the moment for a lecture.
Yeoncheong glared at Suyeon in silence, while Suyeon stared intently at nothing in particular with half-lidded eyes.
"There were... circumstances. Ha. Haha..."