Each Their Own Taste in Decoration
They told her not to treat them like club presidents when there were only two members (three, now)...
That night, after being boldly ordered to bring things to decorate with in the name of "the president's command," Yeoncheong stood at her door surveying her apartment from a wide angle and thought.
Is there anything here that would even work...?
She had never been the type to buy much to begin with. There was the memory of being dragged around by Chairwoman Yurim, demanding to know what kind of wardrobe a girl was supposed to have. Then Suyeon had insisted skin care was essential and recommended this cream and that serum. Ever since she'd started living on her own, her personal spending had only shrunk further.
The same went for the fact that she hadn't thrown out the dog-ear headband and collar she had no use for.
Apparently, receiving a living allowance had made her unconsciously meticulous about every little purchase, and she'd grown thriftier than she realized.
In other words—
I literally can't find a single thing to take.
People always said their belongings piled up over the years until it became a problem, but Yeoncheong's apartment looked barely any different from the day she'd moved in.
For someone who had to bring something, it was a genuinely vexing situation.
Maybe there's a bit of something in the other room...?
Since her main living space had nothing to offer, her only hope was the small room she used as a storage closet.
Meanwhile—
"Hey! What are you rustling around with, making all that noise!"
"Sorry~ I'll be done in a sec."
Unlike Suyeon, who was kicking up a fuss and getting an earful from Siyeon about what on earth she thought she was doing—
An 'hideout' vibe, huh... What should I bring?
Seoha, too, seemed to be deep in thought over the president's orders.
Except her worry ran in a slightly different direction.
I have way too much.
Her problem was the exact opposite—she had far more than she could possibly carry.
Where Yeoncheong called a single room a storage closet, Seoha's family had an actual warehouse next to the garage, and the mountain of odds and ends inside defied imagination.
Gifts from her parents designed to earn her goodwill (more accurately, bribes wearing the label of "gifts"), souvenirs bought abroad on a whim—there was no end to it.
Strictly speaking, none of it technically belonged to her.
There was also a decent chance nobody even remembered what was in there, and since those things were condemned to warehouse duty anyway, it wouldn't matter what she took.
I'll skip anything too big. Let's focus on smaller stuff.
Having settled on a rough list of candidates in her head while picturing the size of the club room, Seoha stepped into the warehouse.
"Yeoncheong. You're not timing your arrival to match exactly when I walk in, are you?"
"Aw, come on~ Of course not."
The next day, having scraped by without being marked late, Yeoncheong took her seat with a large shopping bag planted beside her.
Her arrival time had been creeping later by the day, so Teacher Jisu's gaze burned with suspicion.
"What's that? Something to eat?"
During the break, Nayun came over and went straight for the mystery shopping bag.
"Do you skip breakfast every day? Why does everything anyone brings turn into food for you?"
"Sleep or breakfast? If I'm giving one up, it'd be breakfast, right?"
Nayun declared her empty stomach with total shamelessness.
"Then at least grab a pastry like I do," Yeoncheong shot back, and the two of them roughhoused for a good while.
Hasol, who had been peeking inside the bag, asked again.
"Why'd you bring this kind of stuff? For self-study at school?"
"Suyeon said we should decorate the club room. I grabbed a few things that seemed like they'd suit a two—er, a small space."
Hasol nodded as if that explained everything.
"Ah~"
"Hey, then you should've told us too."
"If there's room left, I'll bring some tomorrow."
Neither of them were technically club members, but they came by so often that—
With the space about to get so much more lively, Suyeon would have welcomed them with open arms.
Hasol snuck another glance into the shopping bag and wet her lips.
"...So the other two are bringing stuff too, just like you?"
"That's right."
At least three items each, she'd said.
She'd even sent them a message about it—so Hasol broke into a grin.
"That sounds like fun, actually."
"Does it? Just thinking about the cleanup is making me tired already..."
"No, I mean—it feels like we'll get to see everyone's real personalities."
Yeoncheong had been too busy scraping together items to think that far, but now she was burning to know what the other two had brought.
After school.
She parted ways with Hasol and Nayun, who claimed they'd rather wait to see the club room's makeover with their own eyes, and the three members gathered to set their hauls on the desks.
Yeoncheong's big shopping bag, Suyeon's duffel so stuffed it looked ready to burst, and the box Seoha had brought in a far-from-modest size. Even the containers told a story.
"Alright! Whoever's least confident goes first!"
"...?"
Yeoncheong tilted her head at Suyeon, who had suddenly turned this into some kind of show-and-tell contest.
"Is this a 'bring the most expensive thing' thing? Was that the idea?"
"Just pulling things out is boring. I'm trying to set a mood here."
Yeoncheong eyed her suspiciously—she's up to something—but dug into her shopping bag first anyway.
She'd brought ordinary, everyday things, so she wanted to avoid being the dramatic grand finale with everyone's expectations riding on her.
"You promise, right? You're not going to give me grief for bringing something boring?"
Hand in the bag, she double-checked. And again. And again.
Which, of course, only made her friends more curious.
"Anything's fine, so hurry up and take it out," Suyeon soothed the hesitant girl. "Come on~ I said I wouldn't. What, did you bring a clock or a calendar or something? Why are you so worried about this?"
It was Suyeon's idea of a joke—that's all that would be bad. And in that exact instant, Yeoncheong lurched.
She might have gotten away with it if she'd just pulled the thing out shamelessly, but her reaction had been transparent as glass.
There was no mistaking what she'd brought.
"It's... it's a clock, but..."
Yeoncheong, flushing scarlet, produced a desk clock and started firing off excuses like a machine gun.
"No, wait, it's just—look. Decorative stuff, like, knickknacks and things. I really, genuinely tried to find something like that at home, but when I moved out I threw away anything that wasn't practical, and I get my allowance from my dad, you know? Unless I got a part-time job or something. Once you take out food and all the basic stuff, money goes to way more places than you'd think, so I've been cutting my personal spending to the bone, which means my apartment is basically exactly the same as the day I moved in. So what I'm saying is, there's hardly anything in my house at all......"
Suyeon hastily clamped a hand over the excuse-spewing mouth.
"I-it was just a joke! You don't have to explain it that thoroughly!"
Suyeon had rattled off clocks and calendars as throwaway examples, and Yeoncheong had gone and brought exactly that. Two people whose hearts had connected at a moment that really didn't need any connecting at all.
What came out next was the cat calendar—a birthday gift from Hasol—and a floor cushion from her lounging-at-home days. She'd received two calendars, apparently, so she'd brought one, and the cushion was one of a five-pack she'd bought on sale long ago that had been lying forgotten ever since.
Practical choices, every one—the sort of picks you'd expect from someone who kept her home so tidy.
"Next is me! Me! Me!"
Trying to reclaim the momentum she'd somehow lost, Suyeon flung open her bag second—
And her turn, too, stunned Yeoncheong and Seoha in its own way.
"This one's a penguin, this is also a penguin. Capybara. Panda... another penguin. And let's see, what else..."
The desk lay colonized by plush animals, enough to stuff a duffel to bursting.
Come to think of it—her constant stream of animal-character stickers in their group chat, the giant penguin plush she'd mailed over claiming it was "a little much" as a birthday gift so Yeoncheong should just sleep hugging it instead. Now it dawned on her anew just how much Suyeon loved animals and plushies.
"Done!"
Watching her friend set the bag down, Yeoncheong and Seoha both wet their lips at the rows of plush animals packed shoulder to shoulder across the desk.
"This is..."
"A kingdom of beasts."
Perhaps penguins were her favorite, because their share did run a bit high—but scatter this collection across a grassland and you could be forgiven for mistaking it for the savanna of Africa or the pampas of South America.
"What do you think? The stuffed animals that were sleeping at my place! Aren't they just the cutest?"
Cute, yes.
But there were so many, and their practical value was as close to zero as it could get.
Completely missing that subtle reaction, Suyeon beamed with pride as she awaited their verdict.
"They're adorable. Really, really cute..."
"Where on earth did all of these come from?"
Seoha asked the question Yeoncheong had been holding in.
"Oh, I collected them one by one, but there was nowhere to put them in my room, so they were all crammed in a corner. I figured this was their chance to see the light, so I brought every single one."
I bought this one here. That one was a gift from so-and-so. And so on. She was spinning the stories behind each plush, and she looked like she was having the time of her life.
Yeoncheong had been about to suggest maybe a few should go back home, they were just too many—but the pure, sunny smile and the energy that lifted anyone who looked at her were too endearing. She shot Seoha a sidelong glance instead.
Her friend nodded, apparently sharing the same thought, and both their eyes turned to the same spot at once.
That bookshelf stuffed with books awaiting disposal... it seemed the time to actually clean had truly come.
First, they squeezed the plushies that had conquered the desks neatly into the emptied bookshelf.
Then, at last, it was Seoha's turn.
"Nothing special from me."
That's what she said, but Suyeon and Yeoncheong thought nothing of the kind.
Inside the box, unopened boxes sat stacked in tidy rows—not a single one showing a tear in the wrapping—and every last one of them radiated luxury from a mile away.
"This is a table lamp. Can't say we'll need it, but it seemed nice to have."
The first thing she pulled out was a round, globe-shaped light.
"It's so sleek. Pretty."
"Mm. Looks like it's the portable kind, too."
Suyeon caught the brand name printed on the box and immediately started searching, while Yeoncheong picked up the lamp herself, marveling at it. She gave it a twirl by the cord, round and round, like a hammer thrower.
And then—
"Wha—? Yeoncheong, put that down, right now!"
"Why?"
Suyeon's voice pitched up in genuine horror. What came back at Yeoncheong, mid-spin, was enough to raise the hair on her arms.
"I'm pretty sure that thing runs like eighty to ninety?"
"Huh?"
Yeoncheong had figured a portable lamp like that couldn't cost more than pocket change.
Then she remembered how, in this world, numbers like that quietly had ten-thousand won implied after them...
"That's... insane..."
Confronted with the vicious price tag hiding inside that harmlessly round little light, Yeoncheong froze as if she'd looked straight at Medusa.
Suyeon carefully cradled the lamp—still swaying dangerously with the momentum of its final spin—carried it to the desk like a rescue worker, and let out a long breath as she gazed at her peaceful, oblivious friend.
"S-Seoha, c-could you... is it really okay? Bringing things like this?"
"Mm. They were just sitting unused in the warehouse anyway."
If something this expensive was in the warehouse, what on earth did the actual house have in it? The two ordinary citizens could not begin to picture it.
"Anyway. Should I keep going?"
"Huh?! What is it this time?"
"A Bluetooth speaker."
Seoha's lips parted lightly, casually.
But for all the breeziness of that answer, her two friends' faces drained white.
They'd known lamps could climb in price without end. But they also knew that alongside cameras, speakers were reliably counted among the most expensive gear money could buy.
They couldn't just stand by and watch another brand-new box get torn open.
"Seoha! Wait! Time out! Don't open it!"
But even as they shouted, her hands never stopped.
And out of the box emerged a speaker the size of a pastry, gleaming with a clean, elegant finish.
Suyeon's fingers flew across her phone, and she recoiled in shock.
"Aaaagh! Yeoncheong! That thing—that thing's at least twice the price of the lamp!"
"No way—that's criminal! Seoha, please stop opening boxes!"
"You said at least three each, didn't you? Then I've got one more coming. I'll just open the next cheapest one after this."
The amounts involved were already more than a student should shoulder, and the two of them were dying of secondhand anxiety right now—
And she was opening them in price order?
At those words, Suyeon dropped to her knees and shook her head with desperate passion.
"Lady Seoha! This is more than enough for the club room! I'm begging you!"
Seoha looked down at her friend, who was practically pleading, don't give us any more.
Friends like these were exactly why she'd opened her heart in the first place.
They were miles better than the leeches back home who clung to her sticky and relentless, hoping even a crumb might fall their way.
Still, she'd genuinely put thought into what she'd packed, and she couldn't help feeling a pang of regret. But she couldn't force them to accept things they hated—and as she stood there wondering what to do, a good idea seemed to strike her, and she broke into a grin.
"...Fine. Since you both feel that strongly about it. In exchange—"
Her red eyes swept back and forth between her two relieved friends.
"They'd be heavy to carry all the way back, so each of you pick one and take it home. As a gift. That much is fair, right? We are friends, after all."
"Wh-what? Me? This? You're giving—?"
"Whaaat?"
It was a loaded question—you wouldn't dare say no to this too, would you?
Honorifics spilled out of Yeoncheong's mouth. Suyeon forgot how to speak entirely.