The Power of a Legal Bribe
What punishment should she make Yeoncheong do?
While Seoha, victory already assured, hummed a little tune and stretched out her body, Yeoncheong headed out to the athletic field where the futsal match was in full swing.
She scanned the crowd of players chasing the ball and the students cheering them on. Before long, she spotted Chaerin sitting beside a junior she vaguely remembered seeing a few times before.
Chaerin was absorbed in the game, but the junior glued to her side noticed Yeoncheong's approach first.
Seeing her face up close, the memory came flooding back. She was definitely in the library club with Seobin — a junior named Soyul, the one who was always at her side.
"Chaerin, your senior's here?"
"Hm? Which senior?"
"Don't ask. Just look."
Her friend kindly turned Chaerin's head with both hands. Thanks to that, Chaerin spotted Yeoncheong approaching and sprang to her feet at once.
"Senior!"
They'd run into each other a few times since, during three-legged race practice...
She'd only sent the photo once, as an apology, but somehow every time they met, Chaerin's reactions seemed to climb a little higher on the affection scale.
The other second-years kept sneaking glances their way, so Yeoncheong sent out a gesture to calm down. The perceptive junior toned her volume down a notch.
"What brings you here? Um... did you come for the three-legged race practice later?"
"That's the reason, but I didn't come to practice."
The other match sharing half the field was already being cleaned up. Judging by the atmosphere, this game would be wrapping up soon too.
Then the main event — the three-legged race — would begin right after.
So what, exactly, had she come here for?
Yeoncheong laid out the news of her bet with Seoha to the junior whose thoughts were so transparently written on her face. The girl listened quietly, then tilted her head to one side.
"But why are you telling me this...?"
"Of course it matters that the others run well, but you're the one running with me."
Just as Seoha was getting to know Yeoncheong piece by piece, the girl who shared those same moments with her was getting to know her friend in the same way.
The Seoha she knew wasn't the type to take on a fight she had a good chance of losing.
Given the nature of the event — no matter how big a lead one pair built, the others always finished neck and neck in the end — normally she wouldn't accept the bet at all.
And yet she'd taken it?
Even after hearing exactly who was competing?
That meant she'd found some point that guaranteed her the upper hand. And in Yeoncheong's mind, that point was Chaerin — the girl with ties to Seoha.
"The way I see it, Seoha's definitely planning something. So what I'm saying is — I came to do internal security first."
"Oh, come on~ There's no way. Our class ranking is on the line too. I'm not going to just fall for whatever Seoha-sunbae says."
Yeconcheong had seen what Chaerin was like after she'd sent her that photo.
Chaerin waved her hands dismissively, insisting she merely admired Seoha as a normally-cool senior and that she herself would never go that far.
"Can you say that again with your hand on your heart?"
"..."
But when Yeoncheong pressed the question again, looking her dead in the eye, the junior clamped her mouth shut.
"I-I'm not saying I don't believe you. Just think of it as me taking out insurance."
Yeoncheong chuckled at the transparent reaction and beckoned her closer. The word insurance seemed to soften Chaerin's mood a little, and she leaned in to listen...
"Really!? Wha—..."
Her voice shot up, her eyes going round, before she slapped her own hand over her mouth.
This, too, was exactly as predicted.
If an ordinary everyday photo got that much of a reaction, a swimsuit photo was bound to knock her flat.
She might as well show her an example, Yeoncheong figured, and held up her phone — at which Chaerin's head shook back and forth with everything she had.
"No. There's no way you'd lie to me... I'll prove it for certain and take it as my reward."
It seemed her trust level had shot up to absurd heights over a few photos, but hey — good was good.
Yeoncheong told her to see her later and headed back to her classmates.
Then Soyul, her childhood friend, who had been waiting a little ways off for the conversation with the senior to end, asked:
"What on earth did you two talk about that made you suddenly scream like that? She said if you can't run later, she won't let it slide?"
"Oh, please! How dare you say something so disrespectful about the senior who's about to become my lifelong benefactor!"
Lifelong benefactor, from someone she'd met a handful of times.
Soyul scrunched up her face, her lips twitching.
"So that senior matters more to you than me, your childhood friend who's been with you through elementary, middle, and high school? Fine. Got it. Do whatever you want."
"N-no... Soyul, that's not what I..."
In the end, after much squirming, Chaerin spilled the whole truth — telling her she'd better keep it to herself.
A short while later.
The second-year futsal and the first-year group events in the gymnasium had both wrapped up.
Since the three-legged race was about to begin, an announcement rang out across the school, calling all students to the stands by the athletic field.
And then, about five minutes passed.
Judging that every student must have emerged by now, the event headquarters summoned the racers to gather in front of the assembly platform.
Perhaps because it was the final event of the sports festival's first day — the one that would crown the highlight of the day — the students filed out toward the platform with their classmates' cheers at their backs.
"Yeoncheong, where have you been running around so busy without even warming up? You didn't scare the first-years, telling them you'd make them pay if they lost, did you?"
"Huh? Are you talking about yourself, Seoha, because that's what I heard you were doing?"
Just as the two were trading barbs while listening to the event coordinator's instructions—
"Alright, that's the end of the safety notes. Tie your legs here, then move to your positions."
Probably as a safeguard against the strap coming loose mid-race.
Each pair's legs were bound with two straps, and only after the coordinator checked every knot were they allowed to head to their positions.
Among the racers — some sprinting all the way to the starting line, calling it a preemptive strike, others still finding their rhythm with awkward, half-stumbling steps—
The randomly assigned order had the second-and-third-year pair, Yeoncheong's group, running dead last.
Seoha, heading to the same starting position as Yeoncheong, let her lips curve into a smile.
"Chaerin, it's been a while. Since you helped out with the student council back in April, hasn't it?"
"Y-yes! That's right..."
Seoha hadn't even said anything substantial yet, and Chaerin had already melted like putty.
Struggling to hide her delight, Seoha spoke in a voice dripping with concern.
"Winning at the sports festival is really, really important — but not getting hurt comes first. I'd hate for a junior I care about to push herself too hard and get hurt for nothing. You understand how I feel, right?"
"Yes, ma'am! I'll do my best!"
Had she simply failed to catch the subtle instruction to run slowly?
"Hm?"
"Ah — I mean, carefully! So I don't get hurt!"
When Seoha tilted her head, Chaerin hastily tacked on the answer she'd wanted.
Something felt a little off, but she's a smart girl — she'll manage. Satisfied, Seoha turned her attention to the second-year junior she'd be running against.
Behind her, Chaerin let out a sigh of relief — and Yeoncheong pumped her fist in silent approval — all of it unnoticed.
Today's main event began as the racers burst from the starting signal.
Watching from the final leg's position, the color drained from Yeoncheong's face — while Seoha, observing everything from beside her, laughed lightly.
"Yeoncheong, you're not backing out of our bet, are you?"
Three pairs — first-and-second years, first-and-third years, second-and-third years — splitting one full lap of the track between them in the three-legged race.
By the nature of the event, by the final stretch everyone tended to run at roughly the same pace.
First place wasn't even the goal. As long as Yeoncheong and Chaerin, the final runners, performed decently, she was confident she could beat someone like Seoha.
—That is, until she learned that Seobin, running with a first-year, was slow enough to shatter that conventional wisdom.
In truth... a moment's thought would have made it obvious.
A chest so large that even Yeoncheong — who had a figure that bowed to no one — felt her own shoulders ache in sympathy. Behavior patterns that amounted to living in the library. A passive, deferential personality always mindful of others.
And she was going to run a three-legged race, matching her breathing with a partner?
That was where Yeoncheong's attention should have been — and this, from the very start, was the real reason Seoha had accepted the bet.
As the gap widened steadily: and there I go, digging my own grave again.
Just as the worry of what punishment she'd be handed began to swallow her whole, Chaerin glanced sideways at Seoha, who had only just received the baton and set off.
"Hey, sunbae — are you a fast runner, by any chance?"
"Pretty quick, actually. Why do you ask all of a sudden?"
Chaerin, down on one knee retying her shoe, smiled.
"Normally I'd take it easy on you. But I heard you have to win to get that photo. I was wondering if you could keep up if I ran for real."
"Ha! I even ran the relay last year. Nobody's ever called me slow, anywhere."
Still, she supposed she had to ask.
Chaerin leaned in and whispered in her ear — and Yeoncheong's eyes went wide enough to pop out of her skull.
"You did track?!"
"Yep. Quit because of an injury, so I'm not what I used to be — but if I put my mind to it, winning's easy. So. How far do you think you can keep up?"
Up until elementary school, at least, this would have been information Seoha had no way of knowing.
Catching a glimmer of hope from her junior, Yeoncheong spoke with grim determination.
"As fast as I possibly can. I'll somehow match your pace."
"Okay."
"Knew you'd say that," Chaerin replied breezily, and Yeoncheong added one more thing.
"Ah — don't push yourself to the point of actually getting hurt, got it? You said you quit because of an injury."
With a bet on the line, Yeoncheong had expected her to care about nothing but winning.
But here she was, in a situation where one slip meant losing, worrying about her own junior — and Chaerin nodded her head vigorously.
"...Okay!"
Meanwhile—
"Hahh... hhnn... hahh... I-I'm sorry......"
Apparently the ever-widening gap had been burned into her eyes with every passing second.
Half sobbing, half dying, Seobin and her first-year partner handed off the baton in dead last place.
"It's okay. Thank you for running all the way to the end. You were seriously amazing!"
Yeoncheong soothed her friend, who kept apologizing over and over.
"Sunbae, we'll run on 'one, two, three,' okay?"
"Got it."
Yeoncheong stretched her bound leg forward on the count — and promptly stumbled, stunned.
Holy crap... she's genuinely fast.
The instant she wobbled and realized just how slow she was by comparison, she clenched her teeth.
She couldn't afford to slow down. They were falling hopelessly behind.
And then—
"What is that?"
"They are racing as a pair, right?"
"No idea. I'm scared."
A situation so incomprehensible that the spectators couldn't even manage a gasp unfolded before the students' eyes.
The three-legged race that had dyed the student body in terror and disbelief finally came to an end.
While the Class 1 kids threw their arms around each other in joy at the miraculous result — finishing in the top ranks after running dead last — Class 2, overtaken at the very end, stood in a daze of pure devastation.
If the spectators were like this, one could only imagine how the racers who'd actually run it felt.
"Thank you so much!"
"Good. You really didn't overdo it, right? If you come down with something after this, you're in trouble."
"I'm really fine, I promise."
Having secured her promised reward and a bonus besides, Chaerin smirked and headed back to her class's section of the stands. Yeoncheong forced her wobbly legs to carry her toward the loser sitting slumped on the track.
Perhaps the ferocious pursuit from behind had rattled her somewhere around the middle stretch.
Her jacket half-shrugged off her shoulders, Seoha muttered to herself.
"No way... I got overtaken? That gap? No way... this has to be a dream."
Her side of the story was much the same as Class 2's — sheer disbelief.
Watching her friend's soul leave her body, Yeoncheong gritted her teeth, glad she'd pushed herself to match Chaerin's pace.
"Tough luck, but this is reality. The reality where you lost and I won."
Following the sound of her voice, Seoha lifted her head with blank eyes.
Swallowing the laughter that threatened to leak out, Yeoncheong went on.
"Got a punishment in mind? Tell me and I'll consider it."
"You don't have anything already thought up?"
She'd been so busy thinking about winning that she'd never given it serious thought.
Resting her index finger on her chin, Yeoncheong studied her friend intently.
"Hmm~ You've kind of an untouchable, hard-to-approach vibe, Seoha. How about a one-day image makeover tomorrow? It's the sports festival, so nobody will think it's weird."
"An image makeover...?"
Black hair rippled softly across her shoulders, following the small tilt of Seoha's head.
Struck, as always, by those silk-like tresses swaying with every movement, Yeoncheong raised the finger she'd had propped on her chin.
"Yep. And your hair's long enough, too. Just changing the hairstyle should transform your whole look."
So the punishment for clawing out a desperate, hard-won victory was... changing her hairstyle for a day?
Seoha had no reason to refuse.
"Fine. A punishment like that, I could do as many times as you like."
"Hmm... you're agreeing a little too easily... Let's add a condition. The word 'punishment' stays a secret. Deal?"
Seoha nodded, figuring that for such an adorably harmless punishment, she could concede that much.
Then it suddenly struck her that she hadn't heard the most important detail, and she looked at her grinning, delighted friend.
"But what style? You have to tell me in advance."
"Haven't decided yet. I'll let you know by tonight."
Maybe the joy of having beaten Seoha — someone always so close to perfect — was simply enough on its own.
For now, Yeoncheong wanted to savor this victory, right here and now.