Fan Duty?
Was a fan really such an essential item?
It was one of those days when the excitement of the first- and second-years, fresh off their field trips and school excursion, still hadn't settled.
The calendar pointed toward mid-June, and the teachers, insisting that finals were just around the corner, were busy rounding up students who'd let everything slack.
"It's hot... I don't want to move... but I want to move... but it's hot..."
sprawled across the club room desk like she owned the place, Yeoncheong repeated the same words in an endless loop.
There were two major reasons she'd gone half out of her mind.
One was the PE ban that the deeply annoyed school nurse had imposed on her after a word with the PE teacher.
The other was this very place — the club room, where she now spent her afternoons.
It was tucked into a corner, easy to miss. It was cozy, with the feel of a perfect hideout. Teacher Jisu had even entrusted her with the key, so they could use it whenever they liked. And so on. It had plenty of advantages, but since it had once been used as a storage room, it lacked not just an air conditioner but even a single fan.
Worse, this year had turned hotter than average the moment the shoulder-season arrived, everyone switching straight into their summer uniforms — and the news kept reporting record-breaking temperatures, promising it would only get hotter...
"Aaargh... this is definitely a sign the world is ending."
Her bizarre behavior, wriggling around on top of the desk, made perfect sense now.
But accepting it was another matter entirely. Seoha, similarly slumped over her chair, parted her lips.
"...Yeoncheong. Could you just be quiet? You're making it feel even hotter."
"I'm suffering so much. There's no joy left in school life."
The teachers were in an uproar about finals being a month away, she couldn't even do PE, and the club room — her one place to relax — was sweltering on top of it all.
Hoping a mischievous question might quiet her grumbling friend, Seoha threw one out.
"Then what about us? Aren't we the joy of your school life?"
"You guys are the joy of my life."
The answer landed without so much as a turn signal, and Seoha's eyes went round.
They were dating now, sure, but this wasn't the kind of friend who could toss out lines like that so casually.
"Did you get heatstroke? Something's definitely wrong with you..."
This wasn't like her at all, Seoha thought — and just as she started to genuinely worry about Yeoncheong's condition, Suyeon, who'd seemed to have fainted from the heat, shot bolt upright and shouted.
"Aaaah! I can't take this anymore! Let's all chip in and buy a fan!"
"A fan...?"
Seoha repeated, startled, while Yeoncheong flinched, curled up, and blinked.
Had she been asleep face-down on the desk? The phone Suyeon held up showed page after page of recent fan searches.
"I looked it up. They're not that expensive. Let's pool our money and get one for the club room. It's too hot to live like this."
Facing weather that only grew hotter as mid-June approached, the club president's desperate act of national salvation — passed with Seoha and Yeoncheong's unanimous approval.
The punishing midday sun led to an official notice from the education office urging students to limit outdoor activity, and Class 3-1 — which had PE that period — got free time in the school gymnasium.
"Ohh~ so that's why you looked so happy today?"
Hasol, sitting side by side with Yeoncheong in her uniform, nodded along.
Club activities for third-years would end with the first semester, so spending her own money on a fan they'd only use for a couple of months might have felt like a waste — but apparently, it had been unbearably hot enough to change her mind.
This was the friend who grumbled every single PE class about when the ban would finally be lifted, so why was she all smiles today? Turns out there was a perfectly good reason.
"Yeah. Jisu said a package arrived at school for me today, so I should pick it up after class."
She was in such a good mood that she cheerfully volunteered information Yeoncheong hadn't even asked for. And Nayun, fidgeting with a basketball nearby and eavesdropping on the conversation, chimed in.
"Thank goodness. We're supposed to study for finals in there — we were about to be studying in a sauna."
"Hmm, now I'm suddenly tempted to charge a usage fee..."
Saying it out loud made her feel like she was somehow getting the short end of the stick, so Yeoncheong glared at Nayun through narrowed eyes.
"Sorry, sorry~ It was a joke. I'll make it up to you with a little tip."
Maybe it was because Yeoncheong looked ready to actually collect money. Her friend wedged the basketball under her arm, leaned in, and whispered.
She told her not to have fun gossiping all by themselves. Hasol leaned in close too, and once Yeoncheong learned the identity of this so-called "tip," her brow furrowed.
"Hey. You said it was a good tip."
Dog dummy. What nonsense. There were limits to how stupid you could think someone was. You want me to do something that obscene to a fan?
She was clearly being teased.
But Nayun insisted she wasn't joking, and looked to the friend beside her.
"No! I'm serious. Honestly, there isn't a girl who hasn't tried it. Right, Hasol?"
"..."
An awkward silence drifted between the three of them. If it weren't true, Hasol would have denied it flat out — which meant this was an affirmation.
With such a high trust rating, and Hasol confirming it too, Yeoncheong asked, half in disbelief.
"...You've done it too?"
"Honestly... if you have a fan at home, there's not a girl alive who hasn't."
"See! Told you!"
Leaving behind a triumphant Nayun, who insisted she wasn't teasing this time.
Cultural shock. No — gender shock. Yeoncheong found herself murmuring the so-called "tip" she'd just received.
After school, Yeoncheong parted ways with Hasol and Nayun, who were headed to their club activities. Then she waited for the neighboring class's dismissal and headed to the teachers' office first with Suyeon and Seoha.
Her homeroom teacher, who also advised their club — Teacher Jisu — had told her to come pick up the fan.
The moment the three of them spotted the enormous box sitting on the teacher's desk, they knew instinctively it was the fan they'd been waiting for.
"Miss. This is it, right?"
Busy at work, Teacher Jisu hadn't even noticed them approach until Suyeon's voice made her look up.
"Oh, you're here!"
The teacher rolled her chair back to face them, then grinned at the students whose eyes sparkled at the sight of the box.
"It must really be hot in there. Buying a fan out of your own pockets when there's less than two months left in the semester."
"Don't even joke. Days with no breeze are pure hell."
Suyeon lamented, as if to say you had to experience it to understand.
When every door and window was open and the air simply refused to move, it honestly felt like it might be cooler outside — so she wasn't exactly wrong.
And the heat was apparently an equal-opportunity tormentor. Even Seoha, stroking the box with tender devotion as if greeting a savior, had honey dripping from her eyes.
"Can we just take it?"
"Ah, hold on. Fill this out first."
With that, the teacher handed over a sheet of paper resting on the edge of her desk. A quick skim told them it was a budget expenditure application form.
According to Teacher Jisu, these were normally only approved for club-related activities, but since their club room didn't even have an air conditioner, the school had made a special exception.
"You girls already bought it yourselves, but as long as you submit the purchase records properly, you'll get reimbursed."
"Whoa! Really?"
While Suyeon pulled out her phone and filled out the form using the shopping app's order history, the teacher and Seoha struck up a different conversation...
Yeoncheong, who was dying to go try out the fan, felt her lips twitch.
"Um... can I take this and go ahead?"
"Isn't it heavy? Can you manage on your own?"
"It's just a big box. It's not that heavy."
Yeoncheong reassured Seoha's worried voice by hoisting the box up to show her. Then, promising to go ahead and get the place cooled down, she left the teachers' office alone.
The moment she opened the door, hot air billowed out to greet her.
'Hgek... so hot.'
She went straight for the windows first, then began setting up the fan.
It wasn't exactly an air conditioner, after all. How involved could "installation" even be?
Lift the fan out of the box, unwind the cord, plug it in, press the button. Done.
In under five minutes, Yeoncheong had finished setup and cleanup alike, then stood in the corner of the club room checking that the breeze reached every spot.
"Waaah ahh~"
She even let out her signature weird noises in front of the fan, completing the performance test.
Maybe it was because it was brand new, but the breeze felt extra refreshing. Yeoncheong nodded with a satisfied expression.
She settled into a chair to wait for Suyeon and Seoha.
Her friends didn't come, no matter how long she waited. When she checked the hallway and came back, her gaze landed on the fan dutifully whipping up its breeze.
Nayun's "tip" floated up out of nowhere.
Could it really be that cool?
As she wrestled down the curiosity poking her head forward, Yeoncheong realized she was somehow already standing right in front of the fan.
'Just once. Let's say I get fooled — I'll try it just once.'
It was a bit crude, sure...
But Hasol had done it, and apparently every girl tried it at least once.
Besides, Suyeon and Seoha were going to be late anyway. She was a girl now too — nothing she couldn't do, right? It was absolutely not that she wanted to; purely for the experience.
With that framing, the deliberation didn't last long. Yeoncheong glanced pointlessly around the room, then flipped up the front of her skirt in one swift motion.
"Ooooh~"
The skirt billowed up like a balloon, and the trapped air, with nowhere to escape, swirled around her lower half.
Yeoncheong tilted her head down slightly to gaze at the puffed-up skirt and murmured.
"This feels better than I expected."
She'd known skirts breathed better than pants, which made them cooler — but she hadn't known they had this unexpected bonus perk.
A sensation that tickled her skin and cooled it at the same time.
She savored a feeling she never could have experienced wearing pants.
'I should buy Nayun a drink tomorrow.'
She'd pranked her so often that Yeoncheong had suspected her again this time, but maybe she deserved the benefit of the doubt once in a while — she quietly raised her internal trust rating a few points.
And holding the skirt down the whole time was getting annoying anyway.
The distance between Yeoncheong and the fan crept closer and closer, until she was pressed right up against it, draping the skirt over top and monopolizing the breeze entirely.
"Fuaa~ this is heaven~"
Her voice melted into a blissful wobble of satisfaction.
If the front got all the breeze, that felt a little unfair.
So she turned herself around to cool the back side too, and since standing still was boring, she fluttered the skirt around and played with it, and so on.
Fashionably late to the trend, Yeoncheong put her friend's tip(?) to work at one hundred and twenty percent.
Just then, as she fiddled with the skirt in the fan's breeze with the innocent delight of a child handed a brand-new toy—
"Yeoncheong, sorry. The talk with the teacher ran long."
"Anyway, how's the fan? Is it good...?"
Suyeon and Seoha walked in on the whole scene.
"Looks like you're having fun."
"N-no! This is—!"
Flustered, Yeoncheong yanked her skirt down, and the air packed inside rushed out the other side, flipping the fabric up in a flash.
A modest, clean color.
Having been treated to an unexpected eyeful, Seoha's lips twitched in a quiet murmur.
"Bold, aren't we, Yeoncheong. So underwear is okay now, is it?"
"Nooooo!!!"
Yeoncheong, for whom that could obviously never be the case, screamed loud enough to shake the club room off its foundations, face scarlet.
"Did you have fun?"
"Seoha, you saw me fluttering the skirt, right? There are better questions to ask."
"Mrrph... mumble..."
However meekly Yeoncheong tried to respond, the two of them showed absolutely no intention of letting it go.
"Fanning yourself like that in front of a fan does look nice and cool."
"Yeoncheong, if you're hot, feel free to do it again. It's just us girls — nothing to be embarrassed about."
She'd only tried it because Nayun told her to! And after being teased like that, did they really think she'd do it again?
She poured out excuse after excuse, but her persuasiveness was zero.
If she'd shown even a trace of reluctance, maybe things would've been different. But she'd clearly been enjoying herself.
It was obvious that at this rate she'd be teased until the day ended, so Yeoncheong took matters into her own hands and forcibly dammed the conversation.
"Forget it. Why are you two so late?"
Fortunately, the beautiful view she'd treated them to seemed to have been enough for today. Suyeon and Seoha obediently moved past the loaded question.
"Ah, the teacher recommended a few things for our club activities in June."
"Art gallery exhibitions, museum displays. Places like that."
Exhibitions...?
The fresh, unfamiliar suggestion caught Yeoncheong's attention, her ears perking up.
"Where'd this suddenly come from?"
"She said we've done enough physical stuff for a while, so we should try something like this too."
Between the animal shelter visits and the stream cleanup activities, their club life lately had skewed heavily toward breaking a sweat rather than using their heads.
But true to the name Free Inquiry Club, Teacher Jisu seemed to want them to experience a wider variety of activities.
It was, in a sense, a proposal aimed at padding out their student records.
Yeoncheong, gunning for regular admissions, didn't care much about her student record — but the two friends in front of her weren't in the same boat.
"Sure. I'm in."
With a light nod, she welcomed the exhibition talk with open arms.