A Successful Finish?
"Kyaa! Yeoncheong, where do you think you're touching?"
"You're reading a Korean textbook? If you're going to act like it, at least do it properly."
Watching the two of them chortle and roughhouse in their own little world, Suyeon felt an inexplicable wave of being left out, and her lips jutted into a pout.
Seoha had been the first one in, so she could understand the pair settling into the coziest spot together. It wasn't like it was fair compensation or anything, but Suyeon had made do by sprawling out with that belly as her cushion.
Still, how far apart could they really be? The fact that, measured from the waist down, they might as well have been on a different planet did not sit well with her.
'Fine. Let's see if you ignore me even after this...'
They'd said this wasn't a two-person thing. They'd told her not to leave her out.
Carrying exactly that sentiment, Suyeon lifted her head slightly and brought it back down—thump, thump—drumming her knuckles against Yeoncheong's stomach.
Whether by accident or by design, she chose the very spot where Seoha had been fiddling with the massage vibrator.
"Hngh—!"
An unexpected shock wrung a mortifying sound out of her, and Yeoncheong, who'd been completely absorbed in Seoha, finally noticed the pouty friend hidden behind her.
She'd thought the girl was lying there quietly reading manga.
For even the docile one to start causing trouble—it made the situation twice as awkward.
"You again... what now?"
"You were having fun with Seoha? Am I just a decoration to you?"
"Hnngh! First of all, stop with the headbutting."
There was no time to explain that they weren't playing around, they were fighting—because even mid-sentence, Suyeon kept ramming her head into her like a battering ram, and Yeoncheong realized that while her cup sat on the floor, her bladder was at critical levels.
She'd been lying in the same position for hours since arriving at the comic cafe, so she hadn't noticed.
But thanks to a considerate little knocking from outside, the signal had arrived.
"Hey... hey! Seriously, stop. I have to go to the bathroom."
"I'm a decoration, so I can't move."
Watching the two of them nuzzle up right in front of her face, Suyeon sulked with a vengeance.
Now she was putting real force into her head, pressing down firmly on Yeoncheong's lower belly, and Yeoncheong bit her lip, her trembling mouth corners fighting an uphill battle.
"Baek Suyeon—no, Suyeon. I genuinely have to go. Your friend doesn't deserve to wet herself at this age, you know? Especially not a friend you like?"
"Nope. I'd actually enjoy it. If word got out that you're a bedwetter, fewer people would fall for you."
Then Suyeon nudged at the shopping bag tucked in the corner, her lips curling mischievously.
"You've still got the pants you came in. Give up and get comfortable."
Yeoncheong had no idea whether it was a joke or the truth. She didn't have the mental bandwidth to figure it out, either.
But one thing was certain: Suyeon had no intention of moving anytime soon.
Which meant Yeoncheong could no longer afford to pursue only peaceful solutions.
CRASH! CLATTER!
Having peeled the two friends off herself, Yeoncheong crawled out on wobbly limbs and made her escape from the tiny room.
"Hnnk! Baek Suyeon, you crazy... Ah! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry...!"
Apologizing profusely for causing a commotion, she bowed at the waist again and again before scurrying off in quick little steps straight to the restroom outside.
Meanwhile, Suyeon—who'd left a handprint on the wiggling rear that had made its exit—turned toward Seoha with a wag of her lips.
"Seoha, you're being too much too, you know. When Yeoncheong comes back, switch spots with me."
"O-oh. Okay. Sure."
Overwhelmed by the momentum of her rampaging friend, Seoha nodded for the sake of peace.
***
They switched places this time around.
Yecheon, her urgent fire extinguished, returned only to be reclaimed as a cushion, and close to an hour of manga reading passed.
When their bodies had just begun to feel stiff, the three of them left the comic cafe.
It had been a fresh experience for the two friends who didn't usually read manga, and Suyeon stretched luxuriously, promising a next time.
"Let's hit the noraebang one last time on the way... then grab an early dinner and head home. Yeoncheong needs to study, remember. You've got your makeup test coming up."
"If you're worried about the test, wouldn't there be a better way to do this?"
If they ate dinner too, the time she'd get home would be later than expected.
Wouldn't it make sense to wrap up after the noraebang and call it a day?
Yeoncheong's eminently sensible proposal was shot down by Suyeon, who wrapped her up in an armlock from behind.
"It'll be about the same time anyway once we eat dinner wherever we end up. Eat with us. It'll be easier on your stomach that way. You're okay with it too, right, Seoha?"
"Mm. Eating with company is better than eating alone."
It wasn't wrong, and on top of that...
Yeoncheong knew the loneliness of eating by herself.
Standing before Seoha, who would be having yet another solo dinner when she got home, her resolve softened.
In the end she waved her hands in surrender—fine, let's hurry to wherever we're going—and Suyeon, thrilled, dragged the pair straight toward the noraebang.
***
Barely five minutes out of the cramped comic cafe, the three of them slipped into a nearby coin noraebang.
Naturally, Yeoncheong was seated in the middle, flanked by Suyeon and Seoha on either side.
How many times had it been today alone? The arrangement had gone past mere adaptation into something so familiar it was almost comforting.
This would normally have been the moment for a singing-score showdown over dinner, but the memory of their dismal past attempt kept her from repeating the mistake.
"How was my song?"
"Ow... thought my eardrums were going to burst."
"Ha! Then let's see how well you sing."
The first batter, Suyeon, who had taken "let it rip" to 120% capacity, shoved the microphone straight at her, insisting that energy levels must never dip.
What to sing, though.
After a moment's thought, Yeoncheong picked the song she'd belted out at last year's midterm afterparty around this very time.
"Oho~ getting your revenge?"
"No."
Just how good was that girl's memory? Yeoncheong gave a casual shrug at Suyeon, who had apparently made the same connection.
It wasn't about restoring her honor or anything like that at this point.
She simply had very few songs she could sing with confidence.
Anyway.
When Yeoncheong finished and passed the microphone to Seoha, Suyeon—who had belted out the chorus right along with her—pursed her lips slyly.
"Did you secretly practice? You're way better than you were back then."
Is she messing with me?
Because of what had happened at the comic cafe, Yeoncheong was suspicious for a moment.
After all, the singer herself still found her own voice through the microphone disorienting.
But catching the adoring sparkle in her friend's eyes, she realized it was a genuine compliment and scratched her head sheepishly.
"...Practice, nothing. Unless I come here with you two, I never have a reason to sing at all."
"Really? You don't practice in the shower?"
"I live in a studio apartment, not a detached house. If I sang in the bathroom, the neighbors would hear every note."
Suyeon refused to believe it, and pointed at the noraebang score as evidence.
Still not exactly satisfying, but the machine's verdict was that she now sounded, at the very least, human.
Suyeon pressed on—singing in the shower isn't embarrassing, come on, tell me your secret, what's the secret of your growth—but the one who actually answered was Seoha, who had been picking out her song.
"Isn't it just that you've gotten used to your voice?"
"Gotten used to my voice...? What's that supposed to mean?"
The explanation was far too compressed for Suyeon to grasp, so Seoha pursed her lips and added her own caveat that it was only a guess.
"Back then, you were still in the stage where your own voice felt strange to you. But by now, you've tried making all kinds of sounds, haven't you?"
"Ohh~ you've screamed, cried, even let out random shrieks and stuff?"
Suyeon was a sharp one too, and she caught Seoha's meaning right away.
It meant that even though the sound of her own voice still sounded foreign to her ears, Yeoncheong had now internalized, instinctively, which movements produced which sounds.
Feeling awkward for no reason, Yeoncheong seized on the topic Suyeon had been circling and changed the subject.
"Did you come here to analyze my voice? Your energy's not supposed to drop, remember. Sing already."
"Oh, right! Seoha, go go!"
Seoha's song choice was a breakup ballad.
It felt aimed at some hypothetical person who'd rejected a confession and then tried to take it back, and Yeoncheong broke out in a sweat listening to the whole thing.
So, taking the chance to catch her breath, she checked her class group chat—and found some good news waiting.
Phew... one hurdle cleared.
They'd finally placed the order for the class T-shirts.
Apparently spending serious money on something they'd wear once had felt like too much of a burden, because the design they settled on was far more understated than expected.
***
After that, against Seoha's unrelenting barrage of ballads and buoyed by Suyeon's tireless belting that kept the energy climbing, Yeoncheong—a girl who went wild the moment a stage was laid out before her—raised her voice right back and had a great time at the noraebang, her earlier hesitation forgotten.
The constant praise from her two friends, showing off her improved singing at every turn, played its part too.
They left the noraebang with throats worn raw, and with the sun not yet down, the three of them shared a hastily added early dinner at a nearby restaurant.
While they killed time there after accepting Seoha's offer to drive everyone home, Yeoncheong found herself gazing quietly at the two friends sitting across from her.
"How about this place next time?"
"Mm, sounds good."
They were apparently looking something up on one of their phones, chattering away about future plans, and the corners of Yeoncheong's mouth lifted on their own.
This is nice.
The miniskirt she'd worn for the first time in her life, the massage chair, and the like—the memorable events of the day had been burned into her brain, that was all.
Dressed as daringly as she'd been today, she might never wear it again, but still. She'd been given pretty clothes, eaten delicious food, spent hours at a comic cafe, and even sweated out the stress that studying had piled up—at the noraebang, no less.
Suddenly, it had been such a wonderfully enjoyable day that she almost regretted seeing it end.
They would obviously see each other again at school once the holiday was over.
And yet—the fact that today, that this very moment right now, kept flowing past without stopping, made her inexplicably wistful.
Since when have I been like this?
Who knew she was even capable of thoughts like these.
Faced with an emotion that felt foreign even to herself, Yeoncheong wandered through the palace her memories had built and revisited a few moments.
The two of them and their brave confessions. The time Seoha had come to rejoin the club and pour her heart out. The recent Suyeon, spooked and crying as she finally spoke her true feelings.
Countless other memories surfaced, but not a single one stood out enough to hold on to.
On the back of every memory stacked under the name of "everyday life," a little memo had been stuck, reading "keepsake."
Those keepsakes, thicker than all the rest, had quietly filled her palace to the point of blocking her view.
Without realizing it, Yeoncheong crossed her legs and bit her thumbnail.
Something itched deep in her chest, and words hovered on the tip of her tongue, almost spilling out—almost.
"...Cheong-ah. Yeoncheong!"
"Huh, wha...?"
And then.
Yeoncheong, who had been hovering on the edge of speaking with a single stroke left to go, snapped back to reality.
Suyeon, who had been calling her anxiously, sighed and shook her head.
"Good grief... what were you thinking about that had you so spaced out?"
"The chauffeur just texted. He's here. Let's go."
"Ah. Yeah."
As Yeoncheong, still half in a daze, put her cardigan back on, a mischievous glint lit Suyeon's eyes and she asked with a grin.
"Be honest. You were staring at us like you were hypnotized. What were you thinking?"
Maybe it was because of everything that had been filling her head just moments ago.
Normally she would have tossed back something equally teasing and laughed it off, but this time she paused.
Looking the two of them over from head to toe with fresh eyes, she could feel it—the effort they'd put into their outfits, the sheer care radiating from every detail. They had been looking forward to today.
Only now noticing it, Yeoncheong's lips moved as if she really had been hypnotized.
"You look really pretty today."
"Uh...?"
Clearly not part of any predicted scenario—her friend blinked back at her, face frozen in a daze.
Uncrossing her legs and rising from her seat, Yeoncheong kindly said it again.
"You two. I said you look really pretty today. I don't think I managed to say it when we met, you were both so dazzling."
While Yeoncheong, having received pretty clothes as a gift, declared she'd cover dinner and stood up first, Suyeon and Seoha stared at each other with bewildered faces.
"What's gotten into her? Did she eat something bad?"
"Beats me... Either way, it feels nice."
"Yeah... that part's true."
Truthfully, it was something they'd both wanted to hear the moment they met—but as time passed, they'd long since buried those expectations.
Which was why, coming at that unexpected moment right before they parted, those words were more than enough to turn Suyeon's and Seoha's faces crimson.
Having finished paying, Yeoncheong came back wondering why her friends weren't moving.
"Guys, aren't we going? You said the chauffeur's here."
"O-oh, yeah. We should go. Coming."
"Go on ahead. We'll be right out."
Did they need the restroom, maybe?
Yeoncheong stepped out of the restaurant, saying she'd wait out front—and for a while after that, Suyeon and Seoha had a very hard time cooling the flush from their cheeks.