Her First Favor Pass — How Far Will You Go?
"Let me crash at your place for just one day."
"Huh?"
Yeoncheong tilted her head, wondering if she'd heard right, and the other friends' eyes went round as saucers. For a moment, everyone froze solid at a request no one had seen coming. It was Suyeon who melted the ice first, blazing to life with a shout.
"No way!"
The decisiveness of the rejection was admirable—except the homeowner wasn't Suyeon. It was Yeoncheong. After easing her friend back down into her seat, she pressed for details.
"Your reason? Let's hear that part first, at least."
"No! Absolutely not! No way, no how!"
Jealousy, maybe? Anxiety about a rival moving in? The two of them carried on about how this was unacceptable even though they'd both been on the receiving end of favors on rainy days themselves, so Yeoncheong left the growling Suyeon in Hasol's hands.
"Suyeon, want to step out for some fresh air with me?"
"No, wait! I object to this! I completely object!"
Once she'd been dragged off, clinging to the doorframe in a doomed last stand, her voice fading down the hallway, the club room finally grew quiet. Seoha briefly wondered if she should excuse herself too, but Nayun waved her off, insisting the reason wasn't anything worth making a fuss over.
"Ha... thanks to Baek Suyeon, the mood's all weird now."
Clicking her tongue, Nayun explained—and the reason turned out to be almost absurdly ordinary. Her parents had a trip booked ages ago and were leaving for two days and one night. Her older brother ("and don't you dare call him 'oppa'—he was oddly insistent about that) was back enrolled at university, meaning the house would be completely empty. Finals were upon them, and she planned to study through the night. In short, she wanted to make use of Yeoncheong's place, which happened to be close by.
"Do you really need to?"
"What if I oversleep? I need someone to wake me up in the morning."
"I'm late all the time, though?"
"Fashionably late. I've never been seriously late."
Even so, the words do you really need to kept circling her mouth, but it didn't seem like any more probing would unearth some deeper motive.
"You could've just said so from the start."
When Yeoncheong muttered this, picturing the two friends outside, Nayun fired back instead.
"Did you get a chance? She said no before I could even explain."
"...Fair point."
"I'll tell her to come back in."
While Seoha texted the two outside, Yeoncheong readily granted her friend's request to use the Favor Pass. The friend had already slept over more times than she could count; one more night was hardly a problem.
It was just that...
"Isn't it a waste, using a Favor Pass on something like this?"
"Confess to Suyeon and Seoha at the same time and you'll get yourself a Wish Coupon or something like it. Easy."
"Heh."
She didn't appreciate that smug confidence—as if more of them would simply materialize for her.
Night had fallen. Standing before the school gate after leaving the club room, Suyeon's eyes dripped with lingering regret.
"I wanna sleep over at Yeoncheong's too..."
"Then spend one of your Wish Coupons."
"No way, too precious..."
She couldn't bring herself to burn her one and only Wish Coupon on something a mere Favor Pass could accomplish. Hasol nudged the pouting girl along and bundled her into Seoha's car.
Meanwhile, curious about the other one harboring feelings for Yeoncheong, Yeoncheong stole a glance her way. Their eyes met, and Seoha flashed a grin.
"I've already decided where mine's going."
"...Really? Care to share a hint?"
"Secret."
With a smile that gave nothing away, Seoha pressed a finger to her lips and climbed into the car. Perhaps because Yeoncheong wasn't walking home alone tonight, the worry weighed less than usual. Amid a chorus of noisy see-you-tomorrows, the car pulled away first.
"Hey, you think you'll ever find out what Seoha's planning to use her Wish Coupon for?"
"Like that'll ever happen. Come on, let's hurry home."
Shaking her head to shake off a vague unease, Yeoncheong set off for home alongside Nayun.
They'd eaten dinner together while studying, so there was little left for the homeowner to provide for a guest arriving late at night beyond a set of comfortable clothes to change into. Nayun snapped a selfie to send her parents—she had to check in with them, after all—then emerged from her shower to find the homeowner sprawled on the bed, and fixed her with a narrow-eyed look.
"Not wearing the pink pajamas anymore?"
"It's April. That season's over."
Yeoncheong lay on her stomach, kicking her legs idly as she fiddled with her phone. Was it because they were both girls? Because she lived alone? At the utterly defenseless display, Nayun smirked.
"Then it's dolphin shorts season now, huh?"
Hopping from the desk onto the bed in one bound, she smacked Yeoncheong on the rear. Maybe she hadn't dried off thoroughly after her shower—the smack landed with a crisp—
Smack!
—accompanied by a girlish shriek of "Hyagh!" The sound was louder than expected, and the satisfying sting in her palm left Nayun badly flustered.
"Ooh... that had to hurt."
"Of course it hurt!"
Yeoncheong sprang up and glared daggers at her friend. But she had used her Favor Pass, after all—surely she wouldn't get thrown out for this? Nayun behaved with total shamelessness.
"You were sticking your butt out all perky. Figured you were asking for it."
"You seriously... never say a single thing you shouldn't."
Rolling herself up in the blanket like a burrito for protection, Yeoncheong pressed her lips together nervously.
"Weren't you studying? Go study."
"Yes ma'am~ Yes ma'am~"
Back at the desk, Nayun glanced around, then realized something was missing.
"Hey, where's your desk lamp?"
"Oh, it's in the spare room. I'll go get it."
It did exist—she just hadn't had a single use for it, living alone. Thanks to the time she'd turned the place upside down hunting for things to bring to the club room, Yeoncheong found a dust-caked lamp in the spare room without much trouble. Its operational status looked deeply dubious, and Nayun eyed her friend skeptically.
"Does that thing even work?"
"...Hasn't been touched in over a year. It'll turn on. Probably."
Even the owner sounded anxious as she plugged in the cord with trembling hands. When a bright light bloomed to life, a sigh of relief escaped Yeoncheong's lips.
"Phew..."
"Thank goodness."
Smack!
Had she developed a taste for it? The hand landed naturally on her rear again, and Yeoncheong flinched.
"Are you insane?!"
"Sorry, I got happy and couldn't help myself. Your butt is just so satisfying to slap."
Deciding against another lecture, Yeoncheong flopped onto the bed with a let's-just-get-to-sleep attitude.
"Ha... whatever. Don't stay up too late. Sleep when you're sleepy."
"Will do. Thanks."
With the scratch-scratch of pen on paper as her lullaby, Yeoncheong drifted off in no time, and Nayun stretched luxuriously before sipping at the coffee she'd bought on the way over.
Perhaps because she'd drunk so much water in the evening, Yeoncheong's eyes fluttered open in the dead of night. Scratching at her bedhead, she shuffled off to the bathroom. Business handled, the homeowner was still half-lost in a haze of sleep as she headed back toward her bed when—
"Ssssh... ssssh..."
Soft breathing drifted from the desk. Nayun had downed coffee too, but fatigue seemed to have beaten the caffeine into submission. The original plan was to wake her up, but... what was she supposed to do about this? Her hand fumbled along the nightstand until it found her phone. One glance at the time, and Yeoncheong's deliberation didn't last long.
Let her sleep.
If it were a matter of pulling an all-nighter by sheer willpower, that would be one thing—but Yeoncheong, who saw no virtue in studying through sheer gritted-teeth exhaustion, reached out to switch off the lamp.
Click.
The light vanished, and Nayun jolted, mumbling in a sleep-thick voice.
"Wh... what?"
"You fell asleep. You've done plenty. Come to bed."
But the conviction that she had to make up for all the studying she'd missed so far apparently ran strong. Muttering that she had to keep going, Nayun flailed her hand blindly toward the direction of the lamp. So Yeoncheong slipped around behind her, threaded her arms through the gaps under her armpits, and scooped her up.
"You're not putting that back on, are you?"
Nayun squirmed belatedly, but she was already well and truly caught. Dragging her friend out of the chair, Yeoncheong pressed her lips together earnestly.
"Just sleep. Studying in that state won't do you any good anyway."
"Mmm... How are you moving around so well when you can't see a thing?"
It was pitch black, true—but this was her house. Countless trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning on a single light, countless times fishing water from the fridge when thirst struck. The homeowner knew exactly where everything was. She carried her wriggling friend over and leaned her body backward.
"Hey—hey, hey, hey!"
As her body dropped against her will, a terrified Nayun screwed her eyes shut. But the sound that greeted her imagined future of crashing to the floor was instead a soft whump of a body settling onto a mattress. The bed felt considerably more cramped than before, thanks to the giant penguin plushie Suyeon had gifted her. Which meant that through the thin fabric of her t-shirt, Nayun could feel her friend's soft chest pressing against her—and she hurriedly pressed her lips together.
"H-hey! Hey! At least let me sleep on the floor!"
"Too tired... just gonna sleep riiight here..."
Yeoncheong, sleep crashing over her the instant her head touched the pillow, rejected the proposal outright.
"N-no! It's because I haven't showered!"
The plan had been to stay up all night in the first place. She'd only borrowed a change of clothes and hadn't even done a simple face wash. Including Yeoncheong, everyone in their group hated people barging into their beds uninvited—so Nayun figured she'd offered the best possible excuse.
"Yeah?"
It was useless. Yeoncheong showed not the slightest intention of getting back up. If anything—
Sniff, sniff.
—she buried her face near Nayun's neck to check, and sniffed.
"Hngh!"
The puff of breath tickled her neck. The shrinking distance pressed a generous chest against her, squashing it in a way that pinned her down, and a sweet body scent—body wash and sweat mingled in just the right proportions—knocked at the tip of her nose.
"You only smell good, though?"
And on top of that, a compliment with not a shred of deceit in it. This sleep-drunk behavior was exactly the scenario Suyeon and Seoha dreamed of, but for Nayun—equally buried under drowsiness—it was far, far too stimulating.
Crazy girl! Crazy girl! CRAZY GIRL!
At first she'd wondered if this was revenge for the butt-slapping, but watching her sleep away so peacefully, it was clearly the usual unconscious seduction at work. Sleep had long since fled in the face of her spiking heart rate. She forced herself calm with deep breaths, heart still pounding, all the while unleashing a torrent of inner complaints—shouldn't this kind of thing be reserved for the two people who actually liked her like that?
She even caught herself entertaining an absurd thought: was she doing this to win their bet—to grow her count of admirers from two to three?
"Mmm..."
Yeoncheong had apparently shoved her toward the wall side of the bed to keep her from escaping. As a result, the homeowner now lay at the very edge of the mattress, nuzzling and clinging to Nayun over and over. The plan had been to slip away once she was deep asleep, but with their arms trapped beneath each other's bodies, that was easier said than done.
Ha Yeoncheong... I swear I'll make you pay for this...
In the end, despite (or because of) Yeoncheong's considerateness, it took Nayun a very long time to fall asleep.
Even then, of course, she was still firmly in her arms.
