Catching Her Breath
If you counted everything from the day winter break began, the list was long.
A hospital visit. Seoha's birthday. Graduation. The pajama party. Her mother's memorial day. Even a club activity that was basically a camping trip.
Yeoncheong felt like she'd spent the entire cold winter running around with her friends — and she'd run around a lot.
It would have been nice if all of it had simply been a matter of hanging out, having fun, and parting ways. But everything, in one way or another, had shaken her heart. That was the problem.
After someone spent days pounding on the door demanding she open it — bang, bang, bang, without mercy — Yeoncheong's heart had already been left hanging by its hinges. A light touch might send it swinging open. Forcing it was out of the question, so it needed time for repairs.
And she had no more plans, anyway. (Suyeon kept whining for her to come out and play, but Yeoncheong was ignoring her with total commitment — so no plans, formally speaking.)
Yeoncheong had fully intended to park herself at home for the foreseeable future.
That is, if this completely unexpected message from Nayun hadn't arrived.
* * *
"Oh, that looks like Nayun looking for you."
Yeoncheong had arrived at the meeting spot and was scanning the area when she spotted the familiar silhouette of her friend. Apparently Nayun had spotted her too, because she pocketed her smartphone and raised a hand.
"Yeoncheong! Over here!"
When Yeoncheong approached with a cheerful wave, Nayun pressed in close to her side — a tight man-mark. Maybe it was because she'd seen this sort of thing before, but it came off as utterly natural.
It seemed Yeoncheong had been hesitating, frozen up around the crowds. Having a friend shield her felt a little strange, but she wasn't about to refuse the goodwill.
"There are a lot more people than I expected."
"It's apparently a team that's doing pretty well, so that'd be why."
Nayun had her ticket checked with practiced ease and walked through. Yeoncheong trailed after her and asked,
"You actually go watch basketball games in person?"
If anything, Yeoncheong was the type to watch American basketball, not Korean. She didn't have a team she rooted for, and if she was going to watch at all, she preferred games with lots of highlight reels.
Even as she led Yeoncheong along, Nayun shook her head, her yellow ponytail swaying side to side.
"Nope. I'd tag along with my dad to baseball games now and then, but this is my first basketball one too. Never had anyone to go with."
It was an answer that came from similar experience. Yeoncheong nodded along as if that made perfect sense.
"These tickets aren't ones I bought, either. Dad got them from somewhere, but since he only ever watches baseball, he handed them to me."
"And when you checked, it turned out today was the date?"
"Bingo."
Nayun smirked and raised her index finger.
So that was why she'd texted out of nowhere this morning. There'd been a reason hiding behind it.
Still, a thought crept up from a corner of Yeoncheong's mind, and her lips wavered.
"What about your club friends? Oh no. Don't tell me they're... excluding you..."
"...They're not."
Mindful of the people around them, Nayun dropped her voice.
"Playing it and watching it — neither one's exactly easy to get into. Our school isn't known for basketball at all, and for most people it's just a hobby thing."
Considering how often the club ended up giving up their space to other clubs, it really didn't seem like many people took basketball as seriously as Nayun did.
Maybe she felt awkward talking only about herself, because Nayun cleared her throat and changed the subject.
"Anyway. I called you out to kill some time. And, you know, as a bonus, to help you clear your head."
"Clear my head? What head-clearing? Is something going on with you lately?"
"Not me. You. You've been getting absolutely run ragged by Suyeon lately, haven't you?"
Yeoncheong's eyes went wide. At that transparent expression, Nayun snickered. Yeah, figured.
As it turned out, there was a reason she'd heard about all this. Because Yeoncheong kept ignoring Suyeon's invitations to hang out, Suyeon had apparently been begging Nayun and Hasol to help lure her out.
Most likely, if Nayun or Hasol had reached out first and Yeoncheong had gone along, Suyeon would have been waiting in the group.
Just how serious is she about this? Yeoncheong shuddered at the depth of Suyeon's schemes.
And then, suddenly —
"Huh? Wait. But telling me that means..."
"Yeah, me and Hasol both turned her down, obviously."
"Why?"
The question shot out of her on pure reflex, a genuine mystery that never even touched her brain.
As if she'd expected exactly that question, Nayun shrugged.
"What good would it do Seoha if we helped? She's our friend too. She's obviously got her reasons for asking — we can't pick a side for either of them."
"Doesn't Suyeon complain about it?"
"Endlessly. But what can she do? Hasol laid out her reasons for refusing point by point, and Suyeon ran out of arguments and backed off."
Nayun giggled, saying that even over text messages, Suyeon's sulky voice had practically come through the screen.
For Yeoncheong, who'd needed time to regroup, it was welcome news to hear. The frequency of Suyeon's come-out-and-play texts had been quietly tapering off — this seemed to be part of why.
"Thanks. Really."
"If you're grateful, buy me something later."
"I should buy one for Hasol~"
"Fine, forget it. I'll go call Suyeon."
"Ah. Not that, anything but that."
And so, feeling considerably lighter, Yeoncheong headed for the stands with Nayun, trading playful jabs the whole way.
Neither of them had a team to root for, so the outcome of the game didn't matter to either Yeoncheong or Nayun.
What mattered was that it be an unrelenting, white-knuckle, edge-of-your-seat thriller.
By that standard, the game the two of them had just watched could only be described not merely as satisfying, but deeply, thoroughly satisfying.
That's why they play the game, as they say — the ball is round.
Whenever the home team, the weaker side on paper, pulled ahead on the strength of their uncanny shooting touch, the away team — the one Nayun had called "pretty good" — refused to get swept away and steadily clawed their way back.
The two were already delighted by how far the game had strayed from any prediction, and then the home team's hot shooting gradually regressed to the mean in the second half, leaving the two sides see-sawing back and forth. The score gap stayed razor-thin to the very end.
Two spectators in a state of anybody win, please — they simply had fun.
And then, on top of everything:
"WHOA! Are you KIDDING me!"
"It went in! It actually went in!"
Games like this often end in heartbreak — a single lapse in concentration, one mistake in the dying moments, and the whole thing slips away.
But the dagger from the underdogs — a shot made with less than a single second left on the clock, a buzzer beater in all but name — sent even Yeoncheong's group, who hadn't been rooting for the home team, into a frenzy.
* * *
The original plan had been to hit a PC bang afterward and play some games. But the afterglow of a once-in-a-lifetime classic still lingered, and both of them had screamed themselves hoarse in the final minutes, leaving the pair thoroughly spent.
Partly as a thank-you for turning Suyeon down, Yeoncheong insisted on paying and steered them toward a nearby café.
As always, she ordered something sweet, and in a voice still buzzing with excitement, she said,
"Our luck is insane. Watching a game like that at my very first one in person..."
"Right? If they played like that all the time — well, not every day, but even regularly — they'd probably get a lot more popular."
The game had clearly left that strong an impression, because for a long while afterward the two of them traded basketball talk nonstop. It was something only possible in a setting with no other friends around — a table occupied by Yeoncheong and Nayun, and no one else.
After emptying a torrent of words and washing it all down with her sweet drink, Yeoncheong broke into a smile of pure, world-class contentment.
"Ahhh~ Nayun, this is so nice."
"...What is?"
Nayun had always been weak to sickly-sweet moments like this, and Yeoncheong rarely said things like that, either. Wait — is this an unconscious seduction thing? Flinching, Nayun asked back.
By then Yeoncheong had sunk back into the plush chair, and her lips quivered as she thought.
"When I'm with you, I can really just relax. It's different from Seoha or Suyeon. And it's subtly different from Hasol too."
"Different from Seoha and Suyeon, obviously. But what exactly is different about it compared to Hasol?"
Relieved that this was just a simple expression of good feelings and nothing more sinister, Nayun lowered her guard a notch and asked again.
Seoha and Suyeon carried feelings for her, so of course Yeoncheong would sense a different atmosphere around them. But what could possibly be different about Hasol? Nayun couldn't wrap her head around it.
"It's hard to explain exactly..."
Yeoncheong squeezed her eyes shut and groaned over it for a while, then suddenly went got it and opened her mouth again.
"If Hasol is like a friend who's just a normal girl, then you're more like... 'the friend I had when I was a guy.'"
"...That. That's not a backhanded insult, right?"
That explanation was also ambiguous in its own way, but Nayun caught the gist of what she meant. And so she narrowed her eyes and tilted her head.
Sure, she liked sports and was on the tomboyish side, but she was still a girl who took an interest in dressing up. Being called boyish by other girls and being told you remind me of when I was a guy by a former guy were, undeniably, two very different feelings.
Yeoncheong's eyes went round with alarm, and she waved both hands frantically.
"No, no! It's not about good or bad — it's a feeling, a difference in the vibe I get. It's like the basketball and game talk, you know? I just mean I'm comfortable around you."
"I'll take your word for it."
Acquitted of all charges, Yeoncheong heaved a deep sigh of relief.
"Haa... You and Hasol have to keep staying on my side, okay?"
"Where's that coming from?"
"You can't side with Seoha or Suyeon. Seriously, what is it about me that has them in such a frenzy..."
"Well..."
She can't possibly be saying that in earnest. At her friend's guilelessly blank face, Nayun clicked her tongue internally.
Nayun didn't harbor romantic feelings for Yeoncheong.
But factually speaking, the girl had a pretty face and a great figure. Every little reaction she let out when teased was delicious and adorable, and as long as a favor wasn't too unreasonable, she genuinely tried to say yes. Maybe it was her family upbringing, but she cooked incredibly well and had a thoughtful, careful streak that made it hard to believe she'd ever been a guy.
Lined up one by one, there was no reason not to like her. Which made it all the more absurd that this same Yeoncheong — or rather, Daengcheongi — proudly proclaimed herself a hopeless dud when it came to matters of the heart.
"What's what?"
"Nothing. I don't really know either."
Yeoncheong tried to press Nayun about the sentence she'd cut off mid-thought, but Nayun decided it wasn't her story to tell and swerved the conversation instead.
"Anyway — I think this every single time, but winter break is way too short."
"Winter break? Ah, well, we get spring break too, so there's nothing to be done about it."
Thanks to Yeoncheong biting that hook so innocently, Nayun managed to redirect the flow of conversation without any effort at all.
"I say we just merge them like other schools do. Why do they even make us come back for those few days?"
"I'm sure there's a reason. Ah — now that you mention it, all I can think about is how little winter break I have left."
"You've got no plans anymore anyway. Just rest up."
She'd brought it up herself, and now, as if it could hardly be helped, Yeoncheong — by this point half-lying flat on the café sofa — shot her friend a resentful glare.
Nayun just grinned and took a sip of the drink Yeoncheong had bought her.
"Besides, you'd better remember. Forget school starts back up and you'll be late on day one."
"Oh, you little..."
After a few more rounds of their familiar back-and-forth — trading stories about games, catching up on each other's lives, chattering away with gusto — the two had dinner together.
"Thanks to you, I had a great day."
"That's my line. Thanks for inviting me."
Walking side by side, they both stopped at the same moment and turned to face each other. Their routes home diverged here, so this was where they parted ways.
"I guess next time we'll see each other at school?"
"Probably. Nothing's come of that villa trip with Seoha — it just fizzled out and no one's mentioned it since."
"Alright then. See you on the first day back. Don't be late."
"That's my line."
With a promise to meet again at school, they said their goodbyes.
With Suyeon and Seoha lying in wait at every turn, it had been a rough stretch for a while there. But at last, Yeoncheong had properly caught her breath.