Friend Discrimination
After two days of cleaning, the storage room had been reborn as a pristine club room.
Just like every other class, they elected a class president and vice class president — the usual start-of-semester rituals were passing through Yeoncheong's class as they did every term.
Within that peaceful flow, Yeoncheong was busy getting to know the faces of her classmates.
No matter how important studying was for third-years, they would have to spend a whole year together in the tiny society of their classroom.
If she wanted the final year to remain a good memory, she needed to manage her reputation at least a little — not to the degree Hasol or Suyeon did, but still.
Except...
"Hey, Bluey. Give it up."
Nayun beckoned to Yeoncheong with a snicker.
A jolt — caught glaring at her friend, Yeoncheong awkwardly wrapped up her conversation with a classmate and trudged back to her seat.
"Haah... it's over. My image is way too deeply embedded."
Compared to a year ago, she was unrecognizably different — she even spoke to people first now. But she could sense them quietly dodging her, and apparently the impact of that fight on the first day of school had been bigger than she'd imagined.
If they'd been in her class last year, or knew her even by hearsay, it would've been fine. But for the ones meeting her for the first time in third year, it looked like time was what they needed.
Hasol grinned and popped a piece of jelly into Yeoncheong's mouth.
"Yeoncheong, your vibe back then really was kind of intense."
"It was?"
Yeoncheong protested while chewing the jelly.
At the time, blood had rushed to her head and she'd acted on impulse, so she had no idea how it had looked from the outside.
"Yep. If we hadn't stopped you, you looked ready to take somebody down."
Nayun slid naturally into the conversation, settling herself on top of Yeoncheong. At her friend's words, Yeoncheong thought it over.
Normally, what angers a person most — after insults directed at themselves — is an insult to family, parents or children included. Honestly, someone exploding over an insult to a friend might look strange.
But calling Suyeon a 'mere' friend had never really been possible in the first place.
Someone who'd realized Yeoncheong had feelings for her (quite a bit late, but still), who had reached out first to a girl struggling to adapt, who had learned her secret and held it close anyway...
More than a friend, yet teetering on the edge of not-quite-lovers-yet?
Either way, it was precisely because of that relationship that she'd blown up. She didn't think it had been excessive at all.
Eyes fixed on the jelly, Yeoncheong extended her hand and her lips wavered.
"That's true. But even if I went back to that moment, I'd do it all over again."
Both friends stared at her, dumbfounded, as she tossed out something like that without a hint of hesitation.
They knew the feeling well, having heard similar things themselves — Yeoncheong's remarks often walked the line between friendship and affection.
If Suyeon had been here, how much of a fuss would she have kicked up? It was truly a blessing she wasn't.
Nayun pointed at her friend — the one hopelessly blind to her own charms — with a piece of jelly.
"No matter how I think about it, this is all on Seoha and Suyeon."
"Honestly... I agree."
"What? What's that supposed to mean?"
Whether she was pretending not to know all the way to the end, or genuinely didn't — Yeoncheong swiveled her head back and forth, demanding an explanation from the two of them.
She'd seen enough by now to know it couldn't be an act, but that didn't make it any less absurd.
"You don't get to know."
Hasol placed the last remaining jelly on top of Yeoncheong's hand, and Nayun fed it to her, forcibly ending the conversation.
...They keep just talking between themselves.
Her mouth was busy chewing the jelly, so all she could do was think it, not say it.
Lunchtime.
As always, the moment the bell rang, Yeoncheong was whisked off by Suyeon and Seoha, and after the three of them finished their walk around the playground, they returned to the classroom together.
Coming to Class 1 instead of heading straight to her own — that, too, was part of the routine.
But today there was one thing different from usual.
"Huh? Are you two always this close?"
With Nayun off chatting at her own seat, Yeoncheong had simply switched directions and planted herself right on top of Hasol's lap.
Granted, back in the tail end of second year, she had once offered her knee to Nayun and the others — but that was always her own knee.
Even then, she had never once sat on anyone else.
And now here she was, settled comfortably on Hasol's lap, so Suyeon and Seoha couldn't help but be startled.
Yeoncheong looked at the two of them as if to ask what the big deal was.
"What? You two sit on each other, and make each other sit, all the time."
"That's... true, but..."
Nodding along since she had a point, Suyeon continued.
"Yeoncheong, you've never done that with us, though?"
Hasol agreed with Suyeon's observation.
"Oh, now that I think about it, yeah."
Living apart, Suyeon and Seoha had never had the chance to notice.
But thinking about it, it was true.
When Hasol or Nayun offered her a snack, Yeoncheong showed no reluctance to be fed by hand — if anything, she happily accepted every bite, and sat on or was seated on their laps like it was nothing.
And yet, even if it was only during lunch, she had never once done any of that with the two of them. When they dragged her off, all she did was send out a rescue plea, begging someone to save her.
In other words, even after realizing she had feelings for them, Yeoncheong's treatment of Suyeon and Seoha hadn't changed much from before.
When Hasol pointed this out, every gaze in the group turned to Yeoncheong.
The atmosphere said: if you have a mouth, then let's hear it.
She glanced around for no particular reason, then spoke in a small voice.
"Hmm... it's kind of... embarrassing."
The awaited answer didn't resolve the mystery — it only deepened it.
"Huh?"
"Wait, what?"
What kind of contradiction was this?
She did it all the time with Hasol and Nayun, but with Suyeon and Seoha it was embarrassing?
Sensing her friends' bewilderment, Yeoncheong hurried to explain.
"It's just... with you two, Suyeon, Seoha... it's kind of... embarrassing."
The follow-up explanation was just as vague, but they could roughly grasp what she meant.
It was true that she'd learned all this by watching what friends naturally did with each other, and that a year's time had worn away much of her shyness.
So with friends like Hasol and Nayun — no problem.
But with Suyeon and Seoha, hovering ambiguously between friend and lover, it made her self-conscious.
Laid out like that, it fit Yeoncheong's pattern perfectly — unconsciously seducing at every turn, yet blushing the moment the mood actually turned romantic...
"That's discrimination!"
Suyeon burst out yelling.
It had been Suyeon and Seoha who taught Yeoncheong that this kind of thing wasn't embarrassing between friends — but as time passed, the two of them had drifted into a state too ambiguous to call ordinary friends anymore.
Meanwhile, the ones who'd stayed comfortably neutral — Hasol and Nayun — were reaping all the benefits.
Watching her do everything Suyeon wanted to do with her, right in front of her eyes, with a different friend — no wonder the words came out.
"Yeah. This is friend discrimination."
Seoha, arms crossed, declared she couldn't accept it either.
"Friend discrimination?"
Friend and discrimination.
Yeoncheong tilted her head at the mismatched pairing of words, but there was no better way to describe the situation.
"If Hasol and Nayun are fine, then we should obviously be fine too."
"Right. Or was it all a lie, you having feelings for us?"
Yeoncheong shook her head firmly.
It had taken a barrage of pointed questions for her to realize it belatedly, but sincere was sincere — she no longer turned away or dodged it.
She expressed her feelings so forcefully that her blue hair whipped against her face, and the two of them had nothing more to say.
Because they understood.
It had taken her a whole year to realize her own heart, but in that same year she'd grown to allow a great deal of skinship.
She'd even set her own time limit, asking them to wait just a little longer — so it wasn't as if things would stay the way they had been.
Seoha, meanwhile, studied Hasol, who was holding Yeoncheong in her arms.
It'll be a problem if she gets any further ahead...
Strictly speaking, Hasol was better than a complete stranger.
But that only meant Hasol was preferable to other people.
She hoped Hasol would hold up against Yeoncheong's unconscious seduction this year as well.
Perhaps she'd been staring too long, because Yeoncheong caught her gaze.
"Hm? Is there something on my face?"
"...No. I'm just jealous."
There was no need to voice her thoughts verbatim, so Seoha deflected smoothly.
But Nayun, sitting beside her, smirked and cut in.
"Seoha, it's not all sunshine, you know. Our Bluey here is heavier than she looks."
"Bluey?"
Had a new nickname sprung up without her knowing? Just as Seoha was wondering if it came from the name Yeoncheong and her blue hair — sky blue, and all that —
the person in question flinched and swung an arm at Nayun.
"Not that again... Are you insane? You wanna die?"
Amid the scuffle, Seoha tilted her head curiously.
Everyone except her seemed to know the reason, too busy holding back laughter to explain.
Compared to Daengcheongi, it seemed like a far more harmless nickname. Why such an oversensitive reaction?
She found out the reason soon enough, though...
"Ahh, why? Your panties were cute. Have some confidence."
"AAAGH! Keep your voice down! You absolute maniac!"
...Seoha couldn't help feeling she'd missed out on something tremendous.
Since Yeoncheong's class had P.E. next, the students began changing one by one, and Suyeon and Seoha returned to their own class.
Yeoncheong bickered her way out to the playground with Nayun, who kept teasing her about what color she was wearing today.
Just as the class had elected a president and vice president, P.E. came with its own start-of-semester ritual: fitness measurements. Today was the day for measuring height, weight, and BMI at the infirmary.
The moment they reached the playground, they filed back inside and lined up in front of the infirmary to wait their turn.
Yeoncheong, naturally assigned the very last number again this year, stood at the back of the line, secretly prodding at her stomach.
Did I actually gain weight?
All the panty teasing earlier had pulled her attention that way, but the word heavy had burrowed into her head too, and showed no sign of leaving.
Of course, even as thick-skinned as Nayun was, she was fundamentally a girl — she knew weight talk was a dangerous topic, so it had obviously been a joke.
But when it came to remarks like that, the listener's feelings were what mattered.
The old her would have brushed it off without a second thought, but these days she couldn't just laugh it away. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, her feelings about it were hard to pin down.
Just then, Siyeon and Seobin — far ahead of her in line — were coming out.
Judging by the exchange, it seemed Siyeon had waited for her friend so they could leave together, but Seobin's face was distinctly dark.
"Seobin, you're fine. I'm telling you, it doesn't look like that at all."
"...Really?"
Siyeon kept insisting she was fine and offering comfort, so something must have happened inside.
With Seobin slumped like that, Siyeon glanced around for any way to help — and her eyes met Yeoncheong's.
"Hey, Yeoncheong."
"Yeah?"
"What do you think of Seobin? Honestly."
Yeoncheong tilted her head at the out-of-nowhere question, while Seobin panicked beside her, not knowing what to do.
"What do you mean, think of her?"
"Don't overthink it. How does she look?"
Asked to say anything at all, Yeoncheong gave the slumped girl a quick once-over, up and down.
Braided hair and a demure, refined air. Her glasses might be a love-it-or-hate-it detail, but she possessed a tremendous weapon that could brush such trifles aside with ease.
The points she earned from that were substantial. It didn't take a second of deliberation.
"...She's pretty."
"No, wait... that's not what I was asking..."
Perhaps that hadn't been the answer she wanted.
Seobin's face flushed scarlet and she bolted, leaving Siyeon standing there, shaking her head.
"She said she felt like she'd gotten fat and just wanted to hear she was fine... Well, that answer wasn't bad either."
To Yeoncheong, that sounded even stranger.
Seobin was carrying something quite remarkable that made it awkward to say outright — so her weight probably felt like an unavoidable problem.
"Next. Anyone left?"
"Yes! One more — the last one."
By the time the exchange was over, everyone ahead of her had finished, and Yeoncheong went inside.
No one had ever landed in the infirmary from injuries as often as she had, so the school nurse recognized her instantly.
"Ah, it's you. Let's get this done quickly."
"Yes, ma'am."
And then...
"Uh... wha—!?"
At the number that appeared on the screen, Yeoncheong promptly ended up in much the same state as Seobin.