Why You Have to Respect Privacy
The sheets of rain that had been drumming lightly on the window picked up in earnest while Yeoncheong and her friends made their way down to the first floor.
The sky had been gloomy since morning, but the downpour was less a spring shower and more a full-blown summer monsoon, and Nayun grumbled about it.
"Ugh... what is with all this rain?"
In her hand was a folding umbrella—barely enough to keep her head and shoulders dry in weather like this.
"You should've checked the forecast before leaving."
"Right, they said it was going to rain a lot today."
Hasol and Suyeon smugly unfurled their long-handled umbrellas.
"You expect me to trust the weather report? I figured it'd only sprinkle a little, so I grabbed a small one."
Setting aside her friend's comment, which gave a fresh appreciation for the reliability of Korean weather forecasts, the group began revising their plans. Where on earth were they supposed to hang out in this?
Yeoncheong stared up at the sky with a sullen expression. She'd been late and hadn't even had time to check the forecast, so naturally she had no umbrella—and now she was stuck agonizing over what to do about it.
She didn't want to snap at her friends, who were already buzzing with excitement about the day ahead, just because she'd forgotten hers.
Seoha held out her open umbrella to her.
"No umbrella? Want to share?"
"...No."
"Huh?"
Just as they were wondering what on earth she meant—when her face plainly said she had no umbrella—
"Guys! I'm going to grab my umbrella!"
Yeoncheong flung herself headlong into the rain, wearing nothing at all.
The three friends, mid-conversation, froze and stared back and forth between Seoha and the girl sprinting away.
"Where's she going?"
"She says she's going to get her umbrella?"
Seoha was just as flustered. And worse—
Yeoncheong's thoughtful little scheme—if only I suffer, everyone else stays comfortable—reminded Seoha of an unpleasant memory Suyeon had involving that exact way of thinking.
"Hey! Ha Yeoncheong! Either share an umbrella or just take mine and go!"
The shout punched through the sheets of rain and reached the fleeing girl's ears.
"Oh."
She stopped right in the middle of the downpour and turned around, wearing the dopiest expression imaginable.
At this point, was she actually starting to enjoy running around in the rain? If not that, had all those birthday forehead flicks genuinely knocked something loose in her head?
It was worth seriously worrying about.
"Um... guys. I'll admit I wasn't thinking straight, but did you really have to go this far...?"
It might have looked like a heartwarming scene from a drama, with Suyeon tending her on one side and Seoha on the other—in reality, she was being escorted along like a prisoner, clamped under their arms on both sides.
"Let's just walk quietly. You scared yourself silly remembering it, after all."
"Yes, ma'am."
Knowing that her sneaking-off stunt back then hadn't exactly been graceful, Yeoncheong had no choice but to keep her head down.
Still, she fidgeted as if she had something more to say, and Seoha, on her other side, asked about it.
"What? Uncomfortable?"
"No... I'm not going to run off, so could you let go of my arms? You're all getting soaked too."
That tiny moment—drenched to the bone yet still worrying about other people—made Suyeon let out a hollow laugh.
"Honestly. The same girl who didn't give a single thought to getting herself wet and just sprinted off through the rain like that?"
"Ugh..."
But her sincerity must have gotten through, because Suyeon released her arm.
"Walk pressed right up against us. You get rained on one more time and I'm stripping you naked right here and making you wash off on the spot."
At a joke that didn't sound like a joke at all, Yeoncheong hurried her pace, sandwiched tightly between her two friends. Fortunately, the house was close, and they arrived in no time.
The moment the front door opened, the girls shoved Yeoncheong straight into the bathroom.
If she didn't wash up quickly, she risked catching a cold—and since she was famously hopeless about ordering delivery food, it was also to prevent a repeat of the last disaster, when she'd insisted on cooking on her own birthday.
Four against one. Helplessly overpowered, she hastily shrugged off her bag and pulled out her phone, then shouted.
"Wait, wait! At least hand me some clothes!"
"We'll bring them. We'll just leave them on the bed for you."
"No, that's not—"
Slam.
The door shut as if there was nothing more to hear. Yeoncheong tried opening it several times, but it didn't budge an inch—someone was clearly holding it shut from the outside.
"We'll open it again when you're all done washing."
Left with no alternative, she peeled off her soaked uniform piece by piece, laying each item in a corner, and got into the shower earlier than usual.
The sound of running water drifted out from inside. Since their friend was washing, the hands gripping the doorknob dropped away one by one, and Nayun, standing guard at the door in her friends' stead, bit her lip.
"One problem handled... so what do we do now?"
Last year, nobody had known Yeoncheong's birthday, so it had slipped by unnoticed. This time they'd been determined to give her a proper celebration, but the weather had wrecked everything. The moment they'd had to retreat to her house, every prepared plan had gone straight out the window.
Marching a freshly showered Yeoncheong back outside felt wrong, too—and with their legs damp and chilly from the driving rain, none of them was eager to go out anyway.
"Yes."
"Yes, understood."
"Thank you so much."
Seoha had apparently been messaging someone; she soon returned to the group.
"The chauffeur is going to bring everything we prepared over for us."
"Really? That's a relief."
"Then... shall we order dinner?"
Hasol glanced at the clock and out the window. Given the weather, they'd need to order now for the food to arrive around dinnertime.
Her heart wanted to cook for Yeoncheong herself, but with nothing prepped at all, that was a nonstarter.
As her friends nodded along and each pulled out their phones to deliberate over menus—
"Um, guys?"
Seizing the moment when the surveillance had loosened, Yeoncheong poked her head out, and Nayun—runner-up to Yeoncheong in the timidity rankings—jumped out of her skin.
"Ah, jeez! You scared me!"
"You're done already?"
At Seoha's question, Yeoncheong shook her dripping head from side to side.
"If we're ordering delivery, order it on my phone."
"It's your birthday. We're treating you."
How much could splitting a meal four ways possibly cost? They'd assumed she was worried about the money—but the reason was something else entirely.
"No, my dad gave me money to eat out with my friends. Let's use that."
"That tr—mmph! Mmph!"
At Nayun's reflexive outburst, four hands clapped over her mouth at once.
Ever since they'd heard the story about her family, that particular word had become the group's favorite label for the man.
"Hm? What was that?"
Fortunately, the daughter in question had the water running and couldn't hear; she just tilted her head in confusion.
"Nothing! It's nothing!"
"Yeah. Why are you standing around with the water on? We're ordering on your phone, so hurry up and finish washing."
"...Okay."
It was obvious to anyone that they were changing the subject, but she simply closed the door and obediently resumed her shower.
Except—
"Oh, right."
"Aagh! What now!"
When the door opened again, the friends flinched and glared at her.
"Towels. Your legs must feel all gross and damp. Here, dry off."
"...Oh. Thanks."
Chastened, the friends nodded, and Yeoncheong tossed out a few towels from inside before finally getting back to her shower.
Hasol, wiping down her chest, fired off a low rebuke at Nayun.
"Hey! You still can't say that stuff in front of her!"
"Sorry. It slipped out, okay?"
Nayun lowered her eyes, apparently acknowledging her slip. Still—the fact that he'd sent money for her birthday meant things might be improving a little, they mused. As they chatted, Suyeon picked up their friend's phone.
"Hmm, the passcode... oh right, she doesn't have one."
Maybe there was nothing to hide—or maybe it was a sign of just how much she trusted them.
Four heads huddled together to inspect the notoriously security-light phone.
They'd been handed a perfectly legal opportunity to snoop (?), and everyone agreed that using it just to place a delivery order would be a waste.
First, they finished the order at record speed.
"Oh, the Chairwoman sent a birthday message too."
"There's a call log with her dad from this morning."
They peeked into her messenger apps, paged through the call history—
"Nothing special, huh."
Seoha's quiet observation summed it up. There was nothing on Yeoncheong's phone that could be called a secret.
Granted, they'd only looked at the most recent messages, and they'd deliberately avoided crossing lines like entering group chats to read every last message—but the biggest reason was simple: Yeoncheong, who had once hit the reset button on her entire social life, simply had no one else to contact besides these four.
Amid the friends' disappointment over an inspection that had set their hearts racing for nothing, Nayun, who never knew when to quit, spoke up.
"One last thing—the gallery. Just one peek at the gallery. There might be something spicy in there."
"You were like this back in the day too, and you still haven't given up?"
"She used to be a hot-blooded teenage boy! You're telling me there isn't a single dirty picture? Come on, just a teeny tiny look. We're only glancing at what kind of photos there are, that's all."
She knew full well the gallery was forbidden territory, which was why she wheedled so very, very gently.
Despite finding Nayun's prodding ridiculous, Suyeon's finger drifted toward the gallery anyway, and Hasol and Seoha watched the screen with faces that were, admittedly, quietly curious.
Nayun might have been the one to say it out loud, but honestly, they all wanted to know.
However, when the gallery opened, the sight that greeted them left the friends speechless.
Daily Life. School Trip. Summer Beach Vacation. Hwaryeong Festival. And so on.
Not a single spicy photo among the ones they'd been secretly hoping for—just meticulously organized folders sorted by period, as tidy as the rest of her home.
And there, one folder stood out, bearing a name almost too embarrassing to look at directly: My Precious Friends.
She tapped it without thinking, and the five group photos that came spilling out one after another left the four snooping friends flustered.
Yeoncheong had said similar things out loud before, and it had often left them floundering. But knowing she'd gone so far as to embed a label like that right there in her gallery felt like something on a different level entirely.
How to put it...
Beyond ticklish? Antsy? Like someone scratching not at her skin but at her heart, deep down inside?
Either way, the friends had no choice but to stop snooping through Yeoncheong's phone.
They fanned their flushed faces, cracked the window for a breath of air, gulped down cold water to cool their insides—
Because while the rain outside fell in a gentle drizzle, things inside had gotten far, far too hot.
How much time had passed?
When the sound of water from the bathroom finally quieted, Nayun, who had been standing guard at the door, went over to the bed and picked up the neatly folded pink pajamas.
A moment later.
Just as expected, the door cracked open, and Yeoncheong, poking only her head out, glanced around.
"Here you go."
"Thanks."
After taking the pajamas, the door closed—then promptly opened again.
"What? Not the right ones?"
Worried the other girls might overhear, Yeoncheong checked her surroundings before asking in a hushed voice.
"My underwear?"
"What, you didn't bring them out?"
"You little—!"
As if that were a fair thing to say to someone they hadn't even given time to grab her clothes.
When Yeoncheong shot her a withering glare, Nayun, giggling, made a calm down gesture and headed for the closet.
But the closet was already open, and Seoha, who had been studying its contents closely, looked up at her approaching friend.
"What?"
"We did just shove her in there, after all. She's asking for underwear."
"Oh, I'll take it to her."
Seoha pulled open the bottom drawer and drew out a pair of panties. It was so natural that for a split second it seemed like it might not be Yeoncheong's closet at all.
Nayun's gaze drifted unconsciously toward it. It was crammed full of nothing but drab, somber clothes—barely any different from the pajama party days.
"Speaking of which, what were you doing going through her closet? There's not much that's changed in here, is there?"
"Mm... we're planning to surprise her with a clothes gift later."
There was something faintly scheming in her expression, but if she said so herself, Nayun could only nod along.
Having cleared up her friend's question, Seoha headed straight for the bathroom.
"Yeoncheong, here."
"Oh, Seoha. Thanks. You really are the only one I can count—on?"
Yeoncheong, who had been poking just her head out the door, tilted it at the item handed to her.
"The top?"
What her friend had brought was bottoms only.
Granted, she didn't wear a top to bed when she had these pajamas on—but there was no way she could do that with her friends over at her house like this.
"Didn't you say you don't wear one with pajamas?"
"That's true, but—no, wait, don't go!"
At the sight of her friend waving breezily and walking away, mission apparently accomplished—
Yeoncheong hastily pushed the door open a little wider and flailed an arm out after her.
Entirely unaware that the full curve of her body was on display for anyone to see.
