Romance and Reality
Come to think of it, it hadn't really been such a serious proposal.
"Then should we go see the stars sometime?"
A remark tossed out in passing — something Suyeon had thrown out purely from guessing what Seoha wanted, and something Seoha had offered with a hint of uncertainty of her own.
But Suyeon and Seoha, bound by their common ground of Yeoncheong, had already spent over a year together. They understood each other's hearts better than either realized, and what amounted to a wild guess had already become a fairly reliable prediction.
"That's it!"
When Suyeon kicked back her chair and shouted, it was Seoha — the one who had made the suggestion — who was more startled.
"...Really?"
"Of course. That's exactly the kind of thing I wanted!"
She marched straight to the bookshelf and pulled out a file — her organized record of their club activities, compiled on Seoha's advice. The club president, digging through it for a blank proposal form, belatedly turned to ask another member's opinion.
"Ah, Yeoncheong, you're okay with this too, right?"
Unlike before, when she would push things through on her own, she now made a point of asking for Yeoncheong's input.
Wrong guess. Her mind's already made up.
Those sparkling eyes she hadn't seen in a while. Yeoncheong had never once managed to resist that look, which was why she always ended up dragged along into whatever they wanted.
Then again, this time it wasn't like they were investigating some horror rumor or other. Who could say no to one last night of stargazing together?
Yeoncheong gave a light nod.
"Yes! Unanimous!"
As an ecstatic Suyeon beamed and hunted for a blank proposal form—
"...What about me?"
Seoha, whose initial suggestion had naturally been counted as a vote in favor, blinked in bewilderment.
"You were the one who suggested it. Suyeon's always like this."
Yeoncheong, a club senior of sorts in her own way, patted her friend's shoulder as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world.
With the general direction settled, the rest was simple.
When. Where. What. And for what purpose.
While Yeoncheong asked her friends for their thoughts in the group chat, Suyeon — working with Seoha — whipped up a surprisingly plausible proposal in no time at all. And as if a single wasted second was more than she could bear, she declared she was submitting it right away and bolted out of the club room.
The storm named Suyeon passed. Seoha, drained by her friend's sheer energy, murmured:
"I knew she was like this... but experiencing it firsthand is another thing entirely."
"Haa~ Seoha, isn't that a bit weak of you? I've been putting up with that all by myself this whole time, you know."
Yeoncheong said it with a deliberately exaggerated nasal whine, hoping to sound insufferable, but all she got back was pitying sympathy.
"You've suffered so much."
Honestly. When someone said it that earnestly while patting your back, you almost teared up.
She could laugh about it now because it was all in the past.
Back then, she'd had no idea how to deal with that monstrous drive of Suyeon's. She'd gotten down on her knees, clung to the hem of her skirt in desperation, thrown herself on the floor and thrown tantrums — she'd tried every desperate measure in the book.
If Teacher Jisu hadn't stepped in, they would have ended up exploring an abandoned house. There was also the time Suyeon dug in her heels out of nowhere and insisted on attempting a half marathon. And so on.
Just as Yeoncheong, heartened by the sympathy, was passing the time recounting last year's episodes—
"She said no..."
The door burst open, and a dejected, deflated voice drifted in.
The reaction was so transparent that there was no need to ask how it went. All that remained was to ask why the proposal had been rejected.
"She said to do it somewhere close by."
Having to stay out late at night for observation purposes was a problem, sure — but she hadn't been worried about that in the least.
Teacher Jisu usually indulged them in whatever they wanted, so Yeoncheong couldn't help wondering what reason she'd had to say that.
Come to think of it, she hadn't seen the proposal even once.
"What did you even write? Let me see it too."
Yeoncheong took the paper Suyeon held out and read through it slowly.
Seoha had helped write it, so surely they hadn't put down anything absurd...?
"What is this... you're telling me to go up a mountain?"
Not absurd, exactly, but a rather demanding demand appeared right from the start.
Yeoncheong looked up, silently demanding an explanation, and Seoha, her expression utterly unchanged, pursed her lips slightly.
"Mm. Somewhere high nearby, with little light pollution. That's how you see the stars properly."
"That's right. Seoha said if we're going to do it, we should do it right."
Trust a friend and get bitten on the foot — as the saying goes.
Reining in Suyeon when she ran wild was already a full-time job, and now Seoha had gone and fanned the flames.
The two of them had only tried to argue the part that got rejected, but really, it had been two against one from the start. Yeoncheong facing down both of them alone was a hopeless mismatch.
She hated to admit it, but she was uniquely weak to those two, which made it all the worse.
"...Let's. Let's talk about this again tomorrow. With the others."
And so Yeoncheong chose a strategic retreat.
If the enemy had two, she needed to persuade her other two friends and seize a numerical advantage.
The next day, at lunch.
The rainy season seemed to be winding down — rain falling every other day, on and off. Thanks to that, Yeoncheong, having finished her lap around the playground, picked up the conversation in the classroom where she'd left off.
"...So, what do you two think?"
Having laid out the situation, Yeoncheong looked at Hasol and Nayun.
Option one: see the stars from a mountain, as Suyeon and Seoha planned. Option two: follow the teacher's advice and do a simple observation of the moon and nearby planets.
Romance versus reality.
Presented with two choices, Yeoncheong remained perfectly at ease even as she watched her friends agonize—
Nice weather.
Because, in truth, the matter had already been settled last night over text.
So as not to rouse Suyeon's and Seoha's suspicions, Hasol let an appropriate pause hang in the air before opening her mouth.
"If we want to see stars, the weather has to cooperate... I think it'd be better to do what the teacher said. Borrow a telescope or something from the science lab."
"Same. My mom already gave me an earful just because I said I was going out over break. If I tell her I'm going somewhere else again, she might not let me go at all."
And then Nayun chimed in saying that one was a no-go for her too.
Everyone had come equipped with a plausible excuse, manufactured overnight.
Their opinions naturally carried less weight, being non-club-members, but Yeoncheong had said that since this was her last one, she wanted everyone to watch together.
Suyeon and Seoha, wanting to honor the wishes of a friend they loved, found themselves unable to push the matter and were left flustered.
But Yeoncheong knew her friends well, and she knew full well that Suyeon wouldn't back down so easily.
"How about saving the stargazing for later? When the weather's clear and they say there's going to be a meteor shower."
So she offered an alternative.
It wasn't some vague promise with no date attached, like "let's grab a meal sometime."
The deal was: for now, they'd all eat the soft, fluffy cake called the moon together first, and the strawberry on top called the meteor shower would be saved, savored, and saved for the very end.
"...Really? You mean it?"
"Of course. I'll even pinky promise."
Yeoncheong held out her pinky to a half-doubtful Suyeong — in the friend's own style, no less.
A concrete 'next time' on the table. And a situation where, since she wasn't the only one involved, Suyeon couldn't just bulldoze her way through.
Weighing it all, Suyeon steeled herself and hooked her pinky.
"If you break it, I'm collecting double."
Yeoncheong, who had bent a friend's stubbornness for the very first time, grinned.
"Penalties, promises — have you ever once seen me break my word?"
With the dramatic agreement settled, talk turned briskly to the next step: so what now?
If they were borrowing a telescope, the school rooftop seemed like a good option. Considering the weather forecast, this week was the right time for it. And so on.
With all five gathered in one place, the quickly rebuilt plan sailed through Teacher Jisu's approval in one go.
A few days later.
Supplementary lessons, which had only just started yesterday, were in full swing.
Summer nights were still a long way off, so Yeoncheong and her friends had parted ways for the afternoon, planning to regroup later—
"You guys... you don't even ask anymore, do you?"
Her friends had followed her home as a matter of course.
Making the round trip from her apartment back to school was a hassle, and her place happened to be the closest to school besides.
"Yeoncheong, got any snacks?"
"Ah, battery's dying. I'm gonna borrow your charger~"
She no longer gaped at friends who treated her place like their own. It would have been exhausting to be surprised every single time, and besides, she'd more or less resigned herself to it by now.
Tossing a bag of snacks to Nayun with a "dinner's soon, so just a little," she waved an indulgent hand at Suyeon, who was asking permission, as if to say do whatever.
And then the landlady let out a long, final sigh.
"Whew... honestly, I don't even know anymore~"
Giving up does make life easier — someone wise had probably said that.
Yeoncheong flopped comfortably face-down on her bed and fiddled with her phone.
Just then, Suyeon, who had plugged her charger into the outlet by the nightstand, asked:
"Yeoncheong. Can we use the bed too?"
They were already using her place like their own, so was the bed — private space, at least — the one line they still observed? Yeoncheong shrugged at the world's most belated question.
"Knock yourselves out."
The moment the already-resigned landlady gave her blessing—
Suyeon claimed the head of the bed, Seoha settled beside where Yeoncheong lay sprawled, and Nayun and Hasol sat on the floor with their backs against the side of the bed.
They each found their own comfortable spot and whiled away the time until Nayun, long since finished with the snacks, glanced at the clock.
"By the way, what are you making us for dinner?"
"Huh? You barge in uninvited and now you're demanding meals too?"
"You're not making us anything?"
It was past the point where delivery should have been ordered already. Yet the landlady showed no sign of movement whatsoever.
Nayun had asked with all of that in mind, and Yeoncheong knew it — which was exactly why her friend's shamelessness was so absurd to her.
In fact, the landlady, still deliberating over dinner options, muttered under her breath:
"One of these days I really do need to starve them..."
"Oh c'mon~ you can talk tough all you want, but good-hearted Yeoncheong would never actually do it."
Nayun, still on the floor by the bed, declared she'd give a massage in exchange and gave the hips of the prone girl a hearty knead.
Her own home, her own bed, and a crowd of half-resigned friends to boot.
Utterly defenseless, Yeoncheong jolted as if she'd been electrocuted, her whole body shuddering.
"Hyeek! You lunatic!"
"Dinner payment, dinner payment. Don't skimp — take it all."
Apparently it had all been a joke, because Nayun snickered and then gave her thighs and calves a genuinely thorough working-over.
"Fine... I'll let this one slide."
Her friend did love her exercise, and there was no denying she had a real talent for finding the knots and working them loose.
But she really did have far too much mischief in her.
Unable to even wait for the massage to finish, Nayun announced she was done and gave Yeoncheong's rear a smack loud enough to echo.
"Ugh... you're seriously not getting fed."
"Oh no you don't! You got a full massage out of me. I worked hard for you!"
"My call."
Leaving her grumbling friend behind, the landlady sat Hasol — who had volunteered to help — down on the bed and headed for the kitchen, promising it would be ready in no time.
"I'm just making simple fried rice. That okay?"
"If Yeoncheong's making it, anything's great!"
As if she genuinely believed she might get nothing, Nayun blew an exaggerated heart in her direction.
She'd apparently figured that would soften Yeoncheong's heart into feeding her — and she was exactly, perfectly right.
"Don't do that again."
No friend had ever turned down a free meal, and Yeoncheong soon had dinner made and served.
Nayun's eyes went wide before the food had even left her mouth.
"I knew it! Yours is the best!"
"Ha!"
She couldn't possibly have tasted it yet, and the sheer audacity of the flattery coming out of her mouth made Yeoncheong laugh despite herself.
Still...
"Eat slowly. You'll choke."
Her friend always ate her cooking with such relish that she doubted she'd ever have the heart to starve her.
Once darkness had fallen outside, Yeoncheong and her friends left the apartment.
Suyeon was the first out onto the street, tilting her head back to study the sky.
"Weather's perfect. Not a single cloud. Way better than the forecast said?"
One by one, the others followed her lead and lifted their heads, taking in the moon spilling its soft light down on them.
"Yeah. I was worried it might be a little overcast."
"It's been a while since I looked at the moon like this."
Even the friends who'd shown no particular feeling found expectations blooming beneath a sky clearer than any of them had hoped.
At the sight of a full round moon they hadn't seen in so long, everyone stopped where they stood and gazed up, dazed.
"You want to watch it from here? Come on, let's go."
Yeoncheong clapped her hands to rouse them, urging everyone to pick up the pace toward school — a better spot, and better things to see, were waiting.