The Trash Declaration
Yeoncheong found herself staring out the window, her lips working soundlessly.
"There's... something big I need to take care of."
Seeing the grim resolve on her face, Hasol gave a silent nod. There had been that whole business at the sports festival recently, after all. She must have finally decided the moment had come.
But the other friend, who had been sneaking glances at people's mock exam scores, failed entirely to pick up on that gravity...
"Ugh, gross. You're making taking a dump sound like some grand epic."
"Pfft."
Hasol clapped a hand over her mouth at Nayun's words, having apparently mistaken "something big" for a trip to the bathroom.
It was too embarrassing to say outright, but Yeoncheong figured the two of them deserved to know, so she'd only dropped the hint sideways—and this was what she got in return. Flustered beyond words, she could only stammer.
"Wh-what... did you just say?"
"Yeoncheong. I know we're close, but you really didn't need to tell us *that*."
Nayun said it with the most earnest expression in the world, even grabbing Yeoncheong's shoulders for good measure—and it was no longer a guess. She was fully convinced.
Beside her, Hasol doubled over, clutching her stomach and wheezing. She had apparently no idea why she was laughing so hysterically.
Thanks to Nayun's impassioned lecture on restroom matters, Yeoncheong's face flared scarlet.
"You absolute lunatic...! That is NOT what this is about!"
The naked word choice had even the other friends in the classroom sneaking glances their way, so Yeoncheong could hardly let it go any further.
"Hey. You. Come here."
She looped an arm around Nayun's neck and dragged her to a corner of the classroom. The two whispered back and forth for a good while before returning, and the newly enlightened friend hid her twitching grin as she spoke.
"Sorry for the misunderstanding. So, can I come watch?"
"Does it sound like you can?"
Yeoncheong, cooling her burning cheeks with the back of her hand, shot Nayun a glare.
"If you show up even by accident, you die."
"You really trust me that little? Fine, I won't go. It's cheap, that's what it is. Cheap."
Nayun waved her hands in the air and turned her back with a huff.
But unlike Hasol, that mischief-maker had absolutely intended to sneak over later anyway, once she'd lulled everyone into a false sense of security.
"Don't say one thing with one mouth and another with the same one."
After issuing one more warning, Yeoncheong turned in her mock exam score sheet to the class president and hurried out of the classroom.
And roughly two minutes later.
"Nayun, let's go."
"...Where to?"
Nayun, who had been grumbling about how Yeoncheong only ever singled *her* out even though Hasol was right there, looked up. And there was Hasol—recipient of no warnings whatsoever—her eyes positively sparkling.
"Where do you think? We're going to watch, obviously."
"See? Even when I say we shouldn't go, it ends up like this anyway."
Mutters of *I knew it* trailing behind her, Hasol marched Nayun straight to the club room.
In other words, Yeoncheong had overlooked one simple fact: mischievous or not, no girl alive was ever going to let an event that made her heart flutter just pass her by.
***
The club room sat tucked into the remotest corner of the annex.
Standing before it, Yeoncheong confirmed the hallway was empty before opening the door.
"You're late."
"Did your mock exam go okay?"
Suyeon was halfway through writing the report on her recent outside activity, and Seoha halfway through reviewing the questions she'd missed on the mock exam. But both girls looked up the instant the door opened, as if on cue.
Was it really that nice, just to see her face?
Yeoncheong stared for a moment at the faint smiles hanging on her friends' lips, idly wondering whether her own face wore something similar. Unfortunately, the club room had no mirror.
Maybe she should bring in one of those small unused hand mirrors sometime.
She loosened her nerves with that inane thought, tossed her bag carelessly onto an empty chair, and headed for the wide-open window. She ignored Suyeon's grumbling that it would get stuffy if it were closed. The breeze was gentle today—not much of a breeze at all—and she had no intention of broadcasting what was about to happen to the entire school.
A sealed space where only the three of them existed. Yeoncheong's solemn expression, laced with nerves. And the string of events stretching from the sports festival—more precisely, from that three-person date—all the way up to now.
When the pieces were assembled around Yeoncheong's recent strange behavior, a single picture emerged.
Seoha and Suyeon abandoned their tasks entirely and turned toward their friend.
"Um... y-you don't have to stare at me like that, you know..."
Yeoncheong had set this whole atmosphere up herself, but with her friends taking the moment this seriously in turn, her lips only grew heavier. With both of them looking straight at her, the countless scenarios she'd rehearsed in her head wiped themselves blank in an instant.
Fidgeting with her fingers before the two friends who waited patiently for her to begin, she racked her brain for an opener. For a few moments she rummaged through the blank wreckage of her mind—until, finally, she threw everything over to the feeling burning strongest in her chest at that moment.
Thud.
"I'M A DOG-TIER PIECE OF TRASH!!!"
She dropped to her knees.
"......Huh?"
Suyeon and Seoha, who had been waiting for a heart-stirring line—not necessarily a romantic one, but something with *weight*—could not hide their bewilderment.
***
What was the emotion Yeoncheong felt most strongly, once her resolve was made?
None other than *guilt*.
From last year all the way to February, when the first confession happened—she was sorry for not even recognizing her own feelings and only pushing them away.
She was sorry that, after realizing them and asking for a little time, she'd gone and dragged things out for three whole months.
She was sorry that, over the single excuse of embarrassment, she'd made friends she loved fret over her.
And today, above all—she was sorry to be spitting out that utterly trash-like declaration: that in the end, she couldn't give up either one of them.
Like a penitent, Yeoncheong recited her crimes one by one. Then she clamped her mouth shut, apparently having said everything she needed to say, and now simply waited for their answer.
Having grasped the reason behind the sudden theatrics, Suyeon and Seoha exchanged a glance, then looked down at the friend awaiting her verdict.
"Then, Yeoncheong—can I ask you one thing?"
After confirming her small nod, Suyeon wet her lips.
"Not the apologies. But 'this is why I fell for you'—do you have anything like that? An actual reason?"
It was a question that somehow made her want to prostrate herself and beg forgiveness, yet absolutely had to be asked. Because such an absurd decision—wanting to date both of them at once—could not be allowed to spring from guilt alone. And because neither of them wanted to be dated out of reluctant obligation, either.
Yeoncheong rubbed her neatly folded hands against her knees and opened her mouth with difficulty.
"You're both beautiful and cute, so I love that. Lunch together, all of us chattering away—I love that too. Lazy afternoons doing club activities like this—I love it. Um... it's less that I can point to one thing and more that... every single day with you is just *fun*. And..."
Had her words stalled? Or was she searching her mouth for an even better phrase?
A brief stillness settled over the club room. Her face had gone hot from the blush-inducing words she'd been dying to hear all along, and she wanted nothing more than to fling open a window that very second—but Suyeon only fanned herself with her hand, waiting for what came next.
"And? Is that it?"
"No—no, wait!"
At the echo when the words refused to come, Yeoncheong shook her head violently. Perhaps the physical head-shaking shook her thoughts into order—the sentence that had been circling inside her mouth finally burst out.
"I hate the thought of you two being next to anyone else... No. That's not it. I can't imagine my life going forward without you in it."
The wording had been different every time she'd rehearsed it, but that line was the one constant across all the countless blank-scrolled scenarios. With a sigh of relief at finally remembering it, the blood rushed to her face, and her cheeks flushed as red as a ripened apple.
Suyeon was much the same. At the confession she'd longed for so desperately, the one that had always ended as mere fantasy, her facial muscles simply refused to stay still.
They say that when joy overflows its bounds, it becomes tears. The corners of her mouth kept twitching upward with happiness while her eyes grew damp, and Suyeon's hands were kept busy trying to cover both eyes and mouth at once. The emotion of *yes* radiated from every inch of her—but she held her answer in reserve.
Instead, she looked at Seoha with her glistening eyes. Since there were two people receiving the confession, the answer could hardly come from one alone.
*There's one thing I want to ask, too*—so Seoha crouched down and brought herself to Yeoncheong's eye level. Had she shed tears at some point? Her red eyes studied the sparkling blue ones.
"Can you handle it?"
Both of them at once. Could she give the same measure of love to each?
No one present could fail to understand everything packed into that curt question, offered without a word of elaboration. Yeoncheong, reading the unspoken meaning, gave a single nod. Slowly, but with certainty—meeting her eyes dead-on, as if to say she was done only ever looking away.
Seoha, who likewise hadn't dodged her gaze, rose to her feet and wet her lips.
"Dropping to your knees and yelling 'I'm a dog-tier piece of trash'... that has to be the worst confession in human history."
Suyeon vigorously agreed that it was, and Yeoncheong—aware of it herself—shrunk into her shoulders. Seoha glanced at Suyeon and gave a small nod. Then she took her still-kneeling friend by the chin and forced it up.
"If the person we love were trash, that would mean something's wrong with our eyes. So work at it. You won't stay trash forever, will you?"
Had she actually thought she might be refused?
Yeoncheong's astonished eyes went round, and her parted mouth seemed to have forgotten how to close. This was the best outcome she'd imagined—and yet here she was, dumbfounded, unable to believe that something she'd set in motion herself had actually *worked*. Her body jolted and stuttered as if it had broken down under the impact of a feeling she'd never experienced before.
"Th-thank you. And I'm sorr—hk."
"That's enough apologizing. I've heard it plenty for one day."
Seoha caught the offending lips that kept spitting out *sorry* at every opening. Partly because she wanted to savor only the joy of this moment—and partly because, if you really pressed the point, the two of them had cornered her relentlessly into making this choice, so their hands weren't exactly clean either.
"Whew~ It's hot. Let's open the window now."
Meanwhile, with the weather tipping into early summer and the air gone stuffy from all that confessing, Suyeon—whom hand-fanning had clearly failed to satisfy—threw open both the window and the club room door.
CRASH!
Hasol and Nayun, ears pressed against the door, toppled over in a tangled heap.
"Aha, haha... didn't expect you to open the door too."
Suyeon tried to laugh her way past the awkwardness, but given the situation, that was easier said than done.
"We asked you two not to come, and you—!"
The instant Yeoncheong laid eyes on them, she realized they'd been eavesdropping from the start, and her fury boiled over. Nayun waved both hands frantically and pointed at Hasol.
"It wasn't me! I swear! Hasol dragged me here by force! If you suspect me *again* after this, I'll genuinely be hurt!"
"You're BOTH exactly the same!?"
Kicking off the floor as she scrambled up, Yeoncheong promptly wilted again.
The two friends, who'd been making a hasty escape, came hurrying back at the sound of her fall.
"Agh... my knees... my knees hurt so bad..."
"Aw, there, there! I knew it the moment you slammed down onto them like you were trying to crack the floorboards!"
And so one could witness the sight of a deeply flustered Suyeon scolding Yeoncheong.
"Does it hurt a lot? Since when?"
"Since the moment I knelt..."
Tears had pricked at her eyes the instant she'd dropped down, but with the flow of the moment, there'd been no getting back up to say so.
In the end, Yeoncheong's bizarre confession left behind one concrete trace—a mild knee contusion—and as a bonus, she was carried off by all four friends and treated to yet another round of *You AGAIN?* from the school nurse.
***
A few days after the June mock evaluation and the trash-tier confession.
The school was quiet even at lunchtime, as if everyone had simply vanished.
The weather was heating up fast, but air conditioning wasn't permitted yet, so the windows were flung wide open in hope of any stray breeze. Though it was technically the period for mixing summer and winter uniforms, most students had long since switched to summer wear entirely. Perhaps because of that strange in-between state—it wasn't even properly hot yet—the students, Yeoncheong included, all drooped listlessly at their desks.
"Ugh... how many days of self-study has it been now?"
"Tell me about it. Who actually *wants* to sit through class like this?"
"Can't be helped. There aren't enough teachers at the school."
Yeoncheong and Nayun sprawled across their desks grumbling while Hasol laughed and chatted along—and then:
"Everyone, outside. Put your shoes on and gather at the athletic field."
Watching Teacher Jisu toss off nothing more than that and sweep past, the entire classroom could only blink in confusion.