The Penalty That Wasn't a Penalty
The night she won the right to assign her penalty.
Yeoncheong lay sprawled across her bed, scrolling through sample photos.
Hmm... none of these are really clicking.
Hair black as if it had melted the night itself, and red eyes that stole your gaze the moment you met them. Skin so clean it looked almost pale, and flawless features that permitted not a single imperfection.
No matter what style she imagined, that face could carry it off, which only made the decision harder.
She even toyed with the idea of ordering something outright ridiculous, but that felt too much like an actual penalty, and she didn't want that. It would defeat the entire purpose of the extra condition—hiding the fact that this was a penalty at all.
In other words, what she wanted was a style that didn't scream "punishment," yet was still something the person herself would die of embarrassment over. Something unlike her usual self.
Why do I keep landing on anime characters?
Perhaps outrageous hairstyles simply belonged more to fictional worlds than to reality. As she swiped briskly past the character illustrations that kept interrupting the real-life photos, one figure caught her eye—a character with blue hair. Teal, to be more precise.
Not absurd by any means, yet unmistakably a transformation. A hairstyle that fit her conditions perfectly. Yeoncheong captured the image on the spot and opened her messenger app.
Keeping her promise to let her know by the end of the day.
Her mouth fell open in a yawn, and her head slowly sank into the pillow.
Perhaps that headlong sprint against the clock had taken more out of her than she realized. Even though it was far earlier than her usual bedtime, sleep claimed her in an instant.
And a little while later...
Her phone rang and rang with those desperate calls, but Yeoncheong pulled her blanket up over her head and showed no intention whatsoever of leaving the land of dreams.
The next day.
Perhaps thanks to her early bedtime, Yeoncheong woke up feeling refreshed even before her alarm went off.
After a light stretch, wriggling this way and that, she picked up her phone to silence the alarm that had yet to ring.
"Hm?"
And there it was—Seoha's messages filling the entire screen.
With each message she read, the corners of her mouth crept a little higher, and by the time she'd gone through them all, she couldn't wipe the goofy grin off her face.
"Sorry, I saw these late. So no, I won't be finding you a different penalty. Too bad."
She opened the messenger app right away, her thumbs transcribing her words as fast as she could speak them.
Having fired off a reply ten hours overdue, Yeoncheong bounced out of bed on the rebound. Leaving her naturally humming tune behind, she pulled her uniform out of the closet.
Somehow, today she felt like getting to school early.
Unlike yesterday, Yeoncheong had luxuriated in her morning—and still arrived with plenty of time to spare.
"Is that clock on the wall broken or something?"
Hasol, double-checking the time on her phone, asked with wide, astonished eyes, "You're early?"
Yeoncheong slid into her chair with barely a sound, casting a brief glance at Nayun's pristine desk, her lips twitching. "Is Seoha not here yet?"
"Probably not? Why, what's— oh, it's the penalty, isn't it?"
She'd been right there when the bet was made, so she caught on fast.
"Quiet, the others will hear," Nayun hissed, and Yeoncheong gave a slight nod.
"Yep. That's why I came early."
It was late enough that Seoha should have arrived long ago; Yeoncheong had wondered if she'd stopped by the bathroom or something. But the thought that she might be delayed by the very penalty she herself had proposed drew a smile to her face without any effort at all.
Hasol, meanwhile, who didn't know the details of the penalty, leaned forward slightly. "What did you make Seoha do?"
"Secret~ You'll see the moment she shows up. Just wait a little."
Yeoncheong held her silence to the very end, insisting that seeing it in person would be the most fun.
And apparently Seoha had dreaded that moment immensely.
She didn't set foot in school until the very cusp of tardiness—and at the same instant, the classroom next door erupted into chatter.
Attendance was taken in a rush, and the students filed out toward the athletic field.
As Yeoncheong's group descended the stairs, they spotted the two girls from the neighboring class almost immediately in the crowd. Part of it was because Suyeon, who was scanning her surroundings for the three of them in turn, happened to meet their eyes—but the biggest reason was Seoha's presence, which hijacked every gaze around her.
Twin tails, of all things.
The girl who always wore her long, straight hair down had transformed in a way that was impossible to miss.
In the press of the crowd, though, it was hard to get a proper look at their friend, and only after they emerged from the building could they finally take in the full picture.
And what a picture it was.
An expression so flustered she didn't know where to hide, paired with twin tails that sat right at the absolute edge of what a girl their age could pull off. The gap from her usual self drew out a cuteness that had been lurking within her and cranked it to the absolute maximum.
Even Hasol and Nayun, standing beside her, looked visibly thrown.
"Hey, that's supposed to be a penalty?"
"Yeoncheong, is this really a punishment?"
Anywhere you looked, it was nothing but deliberately adorable.
But to Seoha, it was unquestionably a penalty. Every passing student and teacher stole a glance at her, and each time, she averted her eyes in mortification or buried her face in shame.
That said—all of those reactions included, she was just too cute.
When Yeoncheong simply stared at her without a word, Seoha rolled her eyes and her lips began to fidget. "S-say something, why don't you?"
It wasn't love-clouded bias; it was an objective assessment. Even the way she hid her face behind her twin tails out of embarrassment was adorable.
Just as Yeoncheong fired off unconscious seduction at her friends every day, Seoha too—under the firm conviction that there was no possible way she could look cute—was naturally putting on an adorably petulant show.
"You look SO cute!"
"She's right. You could honestly wear it like that every day."
Hasol and Nayun showered her with honest, heartfelt praise, but Yeoncheong couldn't afford to. If the very person who'd assigned the penalty came out and called her cute, the whole thing would lose its meaning.
The penalty would stop being a penalty.
So, grabbing one pigtail in each hand, Yeoncheong said in a voice dripping with mischief, "Wow, you've got two more handles now. Guess there's no chance of us getting split up when all five of us go out."
"That's really all you have to say?"
Seoha shot back, unconsciously puffing out her cheeks—and Yeoncheong had to swallow the word cute more than ten times to keep it from escaping.
"Mmm...... no. It looks really bad on you."
Even as she said it, she apparently couldn't accept her own words, because her face scrunched up violently. Seoha, who had put genuine effort into styling her hair despite the circumstances, pouted slightly in return.
"Really? You mean that?"
Perhaps it was the shock of seeing a friend look cute for the very first time. Yeoncheong's malicious slander drew sharp glares from all three of the other girls.
"Boooo~ Yeoncheong, you trash."
"How does that NOT suit her?"
"Go get your eyes checked."
But Yeoncheong had to preserve the integrity of the penalty at all costs.
So instead of answering, she could only dodge the question and fall back on the terms she'd prepared in advance. "Remember, the deal is you wear this hair all day and never once call it a penalty."
"......Obviously."
After dragging things out for ages, Seoha finally nodded.
Maybe hair has feelings too, because somehow even the twin tails seemed to droop in dejection. Quick-witted Hasol immediately moved to comfort her deflated friend.
"Anyone with eyes can see you look adorable. Seoha, you are seriously cute today. Don't listen to a word from someone whose aesthetic sense just exploded."
"Right. We'll take pictures and show you."
"Uh...? W-well, photos are a bit..."
"Nope! Today's look absolutely has to be preserved for posterity!"
Cute or not, the truth was that her current appearance embarrassed her, so while Seoha was politely trying to refuse, Suyeon led the charge and the other two girls piled on, insisting they had to take pictures. Her look today was more than worth preserving, after all.
But Yeoncheong, the one who'd spouted words she didn't mean, could do nothing but watch from a distance.
After Yeoncheong's class suffered a heartbreaking loss in the tug-of-war semifinals—and after Seoha's class, as if the hairstyle posed no problem whatsoever, clinched their spot in the volleyball finals—lunchtime arrived.
Yeoncheong and her friends ducked the bustling classroom and gathered in the club room, just like yesterday.
"This is making memories too," Suyeon had finally argued her way into it, and she was busy sharing all the photos of Seoha she'd taken that morning to the group chat when Yeoncheong, face inexplicably sour, abruptly shot to her feet.
She marched straight over behind Seoha, hemmed and hawed for a moment, and then—untied the penalty twin tails.
"Huh?"
"What's this?"
Suyeon and Seoha blinked at the sudden move. Had she been sulking over Class 2 creeping closer and closer to first place, when her real goal was just to sabotage their championship run?
Meanwhile, Yeoncheong belatedly came to her senses upon seeing the hair tie in her own hand, and creaked out her excuse with lips aquiver.
"N-no, it's just... you've had your fun, so it's fine to stop now."
Anyone watching would have sworn she had some personal vendetta against those twin tails.
Everyone had seen how she'd teased Seoha at every available opportunity; the idea that she would voluntarily give up precious teasing time was simply impossible.
Yeoncheong knew it too. She knew this didn't even qualify as a flimsy excuse. And she knew that even if she racked her brain, no proper excuse would come.
"I'm gonna go use the bathroom."
So she threw out the excuse and bolted from the club room.
"We literally went to the bathroom less than ten minutes ago..."
"Does anyone know what her deal is?"
With their friend pulling one bizarre stunt after another, Suyeon and Seoha were still staring at each other in complete bafflement when—
"That looked like jealousy, no?"
"Yeah, about a hundred percent."
Hasol and Nayun, her classmates, wore the look of people in the know. When Suyeon asked what on earth they meant, the story they told went like this:
Right after the tug-of-war semifinal loss, the two of them had headed to the gymnasium where Yeoncheong and Class 2's volleyball semifinal was underway. And there, they'd happened to overhear this exchange from some juniors:
"Isn't Senior Seoha crazy cute like that?"
"She looked so cool as student council president, but that hairstyle really suits her too."
"I wish she'd just wear her hair like that all the time."
"Agreed. Completely agreed."
And the moment Yeoncheong caught wind of that conversation, her expression, by all accounts, went stone-cold.
The teasing voices still rang fresh in their ears—and Yeoncheong's face had hardened?
Seoha couldn't quite believe it. "Is that actually true?"
"Totally. She went back to normal pretty quick, but her face definitely froze up."
"Frozen solid, like a rock."
Hasol and Nayun nodded in unison.
This was tremendous intel. They'd always assumed it was only Seoha and Suyeon agonizing over her—but this was a sign that Yeoncheong, too, had been quietly keeping tabs on the two of them.
Having obtained such wonderful information—Yeoncheong gets jealous—how could Seoha possibly sit still?
True, Yeoncheong had confiscated the hair tie. But this was an all-girls school, and hair ties lay around everywhere in abundance.
When she borrowed a spare from Nayun, tied her hair up in twin tails, and made her entrance, Yeoncheong's blue eyes wavered.
"I told you, the penalty's over."
"I refuse to accept that. So I'm wearing it like this until the end of the day. Besides, if the penalty's over, then from now on it's my hair and I can style it however I want, can't I?"
Every single word of it was technically correct.
The girl who'd been so mortified an hour ago now radiated shameless confidence, and Yeoncheong found herself completely speechless. Seoha, watching her reaction up close, smirked inwardly and pressed on.
"Also, this style is surprisingly convenient. So I'm thinking of keeping it for a while. You're sure it really doesn't suit me?"
That final question was pure greed on Seoha's part.
Greed for the girl who'd been that jealous, yet couldn't bring herself to say a single word of praise.
But Yeoncheong was, after all, the same fiend who had tormented her relentlessly all day, stringing together words she didn't mean for the sake of the penalty's integrity.
"......It doesn't suit you."
Having judged that honesty here was a matter of pride, she refused to give Seoha the answer she wanted, right up to the very end.