The End of Winter Break
Yeoncheong's alarm was basically turned off during breaks.
She only ever used it on rare mornings when she actually needed to wake up early — like the day she'd had to get up for the pajama party, or the day the club had to go camping to burn through its activity budget. That was the extent of it.
And while she'd earned a reputation for being chronically late, she never actually slept past noon, so sleeping in remained a small, harmless rebellion she allowed herself only during vacation.
But right now, at this very moment.
Her alarm was blaring away beside the head of her bed, where she lay deep asleep. And it was going off every few minutes, loud as could be.
"Mmph..."
That was when Yeoncheong truly realized that winter break was over.
Apparently she'd been too lazy to reach all the way to the nightstand, because the moment she fumbled with the smartphone she'd left right beside her pillow, the room finally went quiet.
In the silence, with only the clock ticking, just as it seemed she might drift back off—
"Uuungh...!"
After letting out that strange, rising groan for a moment, Yeoncheong gave a light stretch under the covers and climbed out of bed.
Just as the end of summer break hadn't meant the end of summer, they were still straddling the border between January and February. Even though winter break was officially over, the air still bit cold as Yeoncheong moved through her routine on autopilot.
Only her wake-up time had changed. Even on break, she made her bed and went to wash up — habits she'd kept up well enough that getting ready for school required no fuss at all.
***
Just as Yeoncheong's home had grown busy that morning, Hwaryeong High School — quiet all winter long — was now buzzing with chattering classrooms.
Close friends had seen each other over the break, but not everyone had, so chairs swiveled sideways and students perched on desks, laughing and shouting as classmates reunited after what felt like ages.
Then the front door opened, and Teacher Jisu walked in.
"Good morning, Ms. Jisu!"
At this hour, the only person who came through the front door was the homeroom teacher. The students, bursting with energy recharged over the break, greeted her with gusto, and Teacher Jisu welcomed her students — whom she hadn't seen in nearly a month — with a warm smile.
"Whoa, listen to those voices. Looks like you all got some proper rest, hm?"
She turned to face the front as the students filtered back to their seats one by one. Even amid the bustle, her eyes swept the room for empty desks — and landed on the left side.
The seat against the wall by the corridor. Seeing that desk sitting empty as a matter of course, a sigh escaped her naturally.
"Where's Yeoncheong? She's not here yet?"
"She says she's on her way."
Suyeon reported Yeoncheong's whereabouts with practiced ease, apparently having already texted her. At the news — so very fitting for the most frequently tardy student in Class 2-1 — Teacher Jisu shook her head.
At least she didn't have to call to wake the girl up. That much was a relief.
"Well, that's our class for you."
Her sighing complaint set the whole class off laughing.
Teacher Jisu wondered what scolding to try this time. It wasn't as if this had happened once or twice — it had been a full year now. Say the same thing every time and they'd get numb to it, so she needed to find a new shock tactic, but she was running dangerously low on material.
"...H-hellooo..."
Just then, Yeoncheong cracked the back door open as quietly as humanly possible and poked her head in.
As mentioned, her tardiness was far from a rare occurrence, and she'd long since grown shameless about it — but today, oddly enough, she was hovering and glancing around sheepishly, her voice shrinking down to a crawl.
"I, for one, am not doing well, thank you. Get in here. What is it this time? Oversleeping again?"
"Um... well."
Whatever excuse the girl offered, Teacher Jisu had been fully prepared to rake her over the coals — until she got a proper look at Yeoncheong's awkward entrance, at which point her prepared lecture died in her throat.
"Heheh..."
Yeoncheong scratched her cheek and stared off into the distance. Her knees were bright red. And not from the cold.
"Did you fall?"
"Yes. A little."
A little? Who was she kidding. She was limping slightly with every step she took.
Teacher Jisu actually had a fresh new scolding lined up for this one, but she decided to save it for later. Instead, she called over Seoha, who happened to be at the neighboring desk Yeoncheong was passing.
"Seoha, take her to the nurse's office, quickly."
"Got it."
Yeoncheong set her bag down at her seat and was escorted back out of the classroom, and a long, deep sigh rolled out of Teacher Jisu.
Consistency wasn't a bad thing in itself — but when it came to the tardiness, or the random injuries, she sincerely wished Yeoncheong would change in those departments just a little.
***
Even with winter break over, spring break was only days away, so there was obviously no chance of actual classes. Like after finals, most periods were spent playing movies or Japanese dramas.
The only thing that even vaguely counted as a real class was PE, which had been left as free time.
And Yeoncheong, who had packed a light bag with nothing but her gym clothes on the very first day back precisely because she'd been looking forward to that one period...
"Nothing too serious, but don't even think about running around for a while," the school nurse had warned.
So now, in her school uniform with a large bandage on her knee, she sat glumly watching Nayun play basketball.
"Come on... if you won't even let me do PE, what's the point of coming to school at all?"
"Yeoncheong, anyone listening would think you only come to school to exercise."
"Well, whose fault is it that you got hurt?"
"Exactly. She must have missed us so much she sprinted here and wiped out."
These were the friends sitting cross-legged right beside her, happily spreading misinformation — while Yeoncheong was dying to be out there during PE.
But she swallowed her rising indignation without a word. How could she possibly explain? How could she admit the humiliating truth — that the weather had been colder than she'd expected, and she'd been running to get into a warm classroom when she'd fallen?
Suyeon, who had claimed the spot on her left, kept up her mischief-laden teasing.
"Who were you in such a hurry to see? Hasol? Seoha? Or... don't tell me — were you running because you missed *me*?"
She poked Yeoncheong's cheek, leaned in to bump their shoulders together. Seoha watched Suyeon's conspicuously aggressive display, flustered.
From her perspective, the last time she'd seen Yeoncheong had been on that certain anniversary date, so she couldn't help but wonder what on earth had happened in the weeks since.
But Yeoncheong, already in a foul mood, wasn't about to sit still under all this persistent prodding.
"Teacher! These three are just sitting around!"
The PE teacher glanced her way once, then casually turned his gaze elsewhere. Yeoncheong opened her mouth to ask why he was ignoring her — and then the words died on her lips.
Only then did the true state of the gymnasium come into view. She'd been so busy watching Nayun that she hadn't noticed, but clusters of other students had gathered in corners, chattering away. Being an awkward in-between period, it seemed even the teacher couldn't bring himself to push them.
If you hate the temple, the monk leaves — as the saying goes.
Convinced she couldn't survive this torment much longer, Yeoncheong rose from her seat. Her limp had faded, but her steps were still slightly off as she walked over to Nayun and held out her hand.
Nayun passed the ball over on instinct, and Hasol's lips twitched.
"Hey, don't hand a ball to someone who's injured."
"Whoops."
But the ball had already left her fingertips. Yeoncheong bounced her borrowed basketball on the floor with a grin.
"You said no running. Nobody said anything about walking."
However well she'd adapted to school and to her new body, the recklessness particular to a boy who'd spent years honing his body was apparently beyond cure.
Pivoting on one foot, Yeoncheong launched a casual shot—
"Nope."
Seoha — risen from her seat and somehow materialized at her side — batted the ball away with perfect timing and seized hold of her. Hasol piled on immediately after, and together they dragged Yeoncheong back toward the corner of the gymnasium.
Yeoncheong, who had wanted nothing more than to feel the ball slice through the net just once, thrashed in protest.
"Agh, why! It's PE time! Exercise is the whole point!"
"Doesn't apply to injured people."
But as Yeoncheong was hauled away, unable to argue with Hasol's ironclad logic, an even bigger problem awaited her.
"That's right. You still have to tell us what's going on between you and Suyeon."
"Huh?"
Seoha, alarmed by Suyeon's bold showing, was staring holes through Yeoncheong.
And so it went: Suyeon prodding her from one side, Seoha pecking at her from the other, while her aching leg made escape impossible.
Yeoncheong suffered magnificently that day.
***
After school, the student council was in full swing, using the short window between winter and spring break to sort through the documents that had piled up over the past year. They could have put it off, but with class-readjustment and everything else on their plates soon, there was no sense in not getting ahead of it.
Where does this document go? That file belongs here.
Among the officers bustling about, regretting that they hadn't kept things tidier along the way, only Seoha — the one who had actually gotten it all done in advance — looked relaxed.
In truth, she was anything but.
As she paced the student council room, ostensibly checking that everything was in order, Seoha's heart was burning black.
Piecing together her earlier probing of Yeoncheong during PE with the extra intel she'd extracted from the neutral parties, Hasol and Nayun, she'd managed to sketch the rough shape of the situation.
She'd only been idly asking about the villa's condition when she found out, and the revelation that such an atmosphere had passed between Suyeon and Yeoncheong had hit her like a punch. What if Yeoncheong chose Suyeon over her? The anxiety was inescapable.
Worse, Suyeon and Yeoncheong were supposedly writing a report on their overnight camping trip over the break — which meant that even now, the two of them were surely alone together in the club room.
Just as she was practically pacing circles under the weight of an anxiety she couldn't show—
"Sunbae, is something wrong?"
Chaerin — self-proclaimed first fan of Yeon Seoha, the devoted cupid cheering on the love of the one she admired — approached her.
She wasn't as close to Yeoncheong and the others, but this was the junior who had wormed her way into the student council and hovered around Seoha with a certain cunning persistence. If nobody else in the room could read Seoha, Chaerin could absolutely sense her subtle distress.
Clear, expectant eyes waited for an answer.
Even for Seoha, who grew proficient at everything with enough repetition, winning someone's love was the one exception — so having Chaerin, who'd once assisted with that movie date, come to her first was nothing short of welcome.
"Well... this. It's about a friend of mine, actually."
Even so, admitting it was her own story would be too embarrassing.
Calling it a story about someone she knew, Seoha laid out the current situation — herself, Yeoncheong, and Suyeon — and asked for advice.
Under normal circumstances she would have thought longer and acted more carefully, but the fear of losing had narrowed her vision.
Having heard the whole story, Chaerin spoke with grim determination.
"Confess over spring break and settle it. No matter what."
"No matter what? Isn't that a bit hasty?"
"No, sunbae. No matter what. This is your chance."
For Seoha, who had been waiting for the perfect moment, her junior's advice was a rather... an *extremely* radical proposal.