Play as Hard as You Study (3)
From the instant photo booth to the karaoke room. That was more than enough new experiences for one day.
Even when escape seemed impossible, the right thing to do was at least make the attempt.
"Guys, something urgent just came up."
Yeoncheong tried to slip sideways, away from Hasol and Suyeon. But the two quick-witted girls narrowed the space and boxed her in.
"Urgent, huh? When I asked after the exams, you said you had no plans."
"You remember that..."
Yeoncheong looked away, cursing the memory of her smart friends.
At some point Hasol and Suyeon had circled around behind her, and together they shoved Yeoncheong through the door. Seoha, who had already gone inside, asked, "What's going on?"
Suyeon waved her hand as if it were nothing. "She was trying to run away after coming all the way here."
"Hey, Baek Suyeon. Run away? I could genuinely have something urgent come up."
The two had blocked her only route of retreat. At the shameless lie, Suyeon thrust out her hand. Assuming she was about to be dragged along again, Yeoncheong flinched.
"Wh-what? What's with the hand?"
"If you're so confident, show me your phone."
Yeoncheong covered the pocket holding her smartphone with both hands. "That's private information!"
"You only have to show me the screen with the incoming message."
Suyeon crossed her arms, dismantling Yeoncheong's argument with ease. "I know perfectly well you barely have anyone who'd text you, so where does this obvious lie come from?"
"H-how do you know that?"
"I saw it when you shared your contacts. Ah—wait, I didn't look, it just... happened to be visible?"
Suyeon corrected her poorly-worded remark and kept pressing Yeoncheong. "Besides, what's this about privacy from a girl who doesn't even lock her phone?"
Startled by this, Hasol turned her head. "Wait, Yeoncheong, you really don't lock your phone?"
"Never got around to it."
The conversation was veering off track. Suyeon seized the flow and steered it back. "So. Are you going to show me or not?"
She looked ready to lunge and snatch the phone at any moment, so Yeoncheong tucked her tail.
"Guys, we just walked into the store—we shouldn't be making a scene. Let's just look at clothes."
"Should've done that from the start."
Only then did Suyeon nod, looking satisfied.
When she'd heard the plan back at the café, Yeoncheong had wondered if there was anything the two of them actually wanted to see. But it turned out Suyeon had another reason for dragging her here so persistently.
The target was Yeoncheong herself.
Apparently the sight of her in that tracksuit the other night had been a shock to the system. Hasol and Suyeon set about choosing Yeoncheong's clothes with deadly seriousness.
Plain tees, pants, even skirts. Whenever something caught their eye, they'd hold it up against Yeoncheong and whisper among themselves.
Seoha spared only a passing glance for the racks, her real occupation being the spectator sport of watching the other three.
Finally unable to bear it, Yeoncheong glared at the giggling pair. "Why are you picking out my clothes instead of your own?"
"We came together—what's wrong with finding things that suit a friend? Right, Seoha?"
Caught by the sudden question, Seoha tilted her head. "Is that... what this is?"
"If you want, you can look too. We'll have everyone try things on one by one."
At Hasol's suggestion, Seoha—the only person who might have taken Yeoncheong's side—drifted off toward the rack of other clothes.
This time it was Yeoncheong who crossed her arms, staring down Hasol and Suyeon. "How did 'we'll recommend things' suddenly turn into 'you're trying things on'?"
"To check if something suits you, obviously you have to try it on. Isn't that just common sense?"
Hasol stood her ground with flawless logic, and Yeoncheong's voice shrank a little. "I never once said I'd try anything on?"
Suyeon picked out a single tee and rose, pressing it against Yeoncheong's body. "We're going to all this trouble picking things out for you, and you won't even try them on?"
"No... that's not what I meant..."
With Suyeon joining the offensive, Yeoncheong's voice was practically crawling on the floor.
Hasol and Suyeon each handed over the tee and pants they'd chosen and herded Yeoncheong into the fitting room.
"We'll be judging how they look, so change and come on out."
Suyeon snatched away Yeoncheong's bag while Hasol held the door open and pushed her inside.
In Yeoncheong's hands were the tee and pants, forced into her grip. She looked around, then muttered in a very small voice.
"Ha... is there really no back door?"
Hasol, who had only joined in on shoving Yeoncheong in because it seemed fun, glanced at Suyeon. "So... was Yeoncheong's wardrobe really that bad?"
Having only heard the story secondhand, she couldn't quite picture it.
Yeoncheong wasn't particularly short, her figure filled out in all the right places, and her face was one that would never lose a beauty contest anywhere she went.
It seemed like anything would look decent on her just thrown on—so what about her clothes had driven Suyeon to this extent?
"It's not that the tracksuit itself didn't suit her. To put it simply..."
Suyeon regretted, bitterly, that in the excitement of that late-night school visit she hadn't preserved photographic evidence of the look. After a moment's thought, she began her analogy.
"Imagine someone walking around in a baggy old tracksuit that's gone all stretched out. Yeoncheong said she'd only bought it recently, but still."
"Ah..."
Hasol nodded as if that was enough to get the picture.
She wasn't talking about a quick trip to the convenience store near the house. Showing up to meet friends dressed like that—of course it would be a shock.
Seoha returned empty-handed, apparently unable to find anything she liked. "Hm? Where's Yeoncheong?"
"Fitting room. We pushed her in to try something on."
Suyeon pointed at the fitting room up ahead, and Hasol tilted her head. "But why is it taking her so long just to change into one outfit?"
"Did she run?"
In many stores, a storage room sat behind the fitting rooms, and storage rooms often had back doors leading outside.
The instant the thought formed, Suyeon's body moved on pure reflex.
Before anyone could stop her, she flung the door open—and came face to face with Yeoncheong, mid-way through pulling off her shirt.
"Not running, huh? What a relief."
Suyeon let out a sigh of relief, told her to take her time, and calmly closed the door again.
Only belatedly grasping what had just happened, Yeoncheong's face flushed scarlet. She hurriedly finished changing and stormed out.
Her cheeks were still burning with embarrassment, but the look she leveled at Suyeon was murderous.
"Hey! Baek Suyeon!"
Yeoncheong's shout rang through the store—thankfully, the only people inside were the clerk and the four of them.
The four of them fled the clothing store. By then the sun was hanging low past the ridgeline, painting the sky in vermilion streaks of dusk.
Suyeon had her hands full placating a thoroughly furious Yeoncheong.
"Yeoncheong, I said I'm sorry."
Dozens of apologies in, and Yeoncheong hadn't budged an inch.
"I even bought you clothes as an apology. Come on, let it go."
"I have my own money, you know."
When apologies failed, Suyeon switched to a head-on strategy. She planted herself in front of Yeoncheong and fired back. "Hey, Ha Yeoncheong. I'm apologizing this hard and you're saying it's too much? It's not like you don't see underwear every single PE class anyway."
"...It's a different setting, though."
"The setting's the problem? Fine. Got it. Then I'll show you mine too."
Out of nowhere, Suyeon began shrugging off her blazer, and Yeoncheong jolted, scanning their surroundings in a panic.
"Are you insane!?"
She lunged to stop Suyeon from pulling her blouse open with the hand clutching a shopping bag.
"So you'll accept the apology?"
Faced with what amounted to blackmail, Yeoncheong had exactly one option. "F-fine. I yelled at you too, so that was my fault. I'm sorry—let's just drop it now."
"Funny, when I apologized you wouldn't take it, so why should I accept yours?"
Yet the moment her apology was accepted, Suyeon's attitude flipped entirely. In the span of a heartbeat, Yeoncheong understood exactly how it felt to be on the receiving end of her own behavior.
"Then wh-what do I have to do for you to let this go?"
"Come shopping for clothes with me again sometime. And this time, no complaining."
Yeoncheong considered it briefly, then nodded. "...Fine. If I have time."
"Pinky promise? I'll remember this, you know."
Suyeon held out her little finger. When Yeoncheong asked why she had to go this far,
"Promises like this need to be carved into the body. That's how you never forget."
utterly unreasonable, Suyeon hooked Yeoncheong's pinky with her own, sealing the promise into her very flesh.
"Suyeon, you weren't actually going to strip, right?"
"Who knows? If you hadn't stopped me, maybe I would've."
Picking her blazer back up off the ground, Suyeon wore a meaningful smile.
Hasol clapped her hands, freshening up the atmosphere that had somehow been restored. "Aaaah, this is nice. If it were up to me, I'd want to hit one or two more places..."
"Can't be helped. Seoha said she has to head home soon anyway."
With Seoha's announcement that it was time to return home, the after-party that had seemed like it might never end finally found its close.
"Ah... how am I getting home again? The bus schedule..."
Just as everyone was puzzling out their routes home, the luxury black sedan that had carried Seoha here appeared around the corner.
The three waved her off. But Seoha, about to get in, hesitated and turned back. "Want a ride?"
Yeoncheong, Hasol, and Suyeon did not refuse the kindness.
The car dropped Hasol and Suyeon off first. What remained were the driver, Seoha, and Yeoncheong.
The smooth ride and the hushed interior, sealed off from the outside world, spoke wordlessly of just how wealthy Seoha's family was.
Reaching Yeoncheong's apartment took hardly any time at all.
Yeoncheong stepped out with a word of thanks—and Seoha, who had been sitting in the front seat, got out as well.
"I'm moving to the back seat."
Having said that, Seoha didn't return to the car right away. She simply stood there, staring at Yeoncheong. Assuming there was something she wanted to say, Yeoncheong turned to face her. "Seoha, did you need something?"
As if she'd been waiting for exactly that opening, Seoha spoke. "The midterms. Why didn't you ever ask me to teach you?"
Caught off guard by the unexpected question, Yeoncheong nevertheless quickly gave her reasons. "I didn't want to eat up the top student's time for nothing. If your grades dropped even a little, you'd start wondering if it was because of me. Besides, Hasol helped me a lot, so I was fine."
Seoha nodded as if she understood. And yet, her brows were drawn faintly together. She still looked put out.
Seoha smoothed away the feeling that had slipped out and relaxed her expression. "Any subjects you think you'll be getting remedial classes for?"
"There are. Literature's a given... but for the rest I'll have to wait for my grades to know."
"I'll help you."
"Huh?"
As Yeoncheong echoed the words, Seoha took a step closer.
Her black hair, melting into the deepening night, caught the light of the streetlamps flickering on one by one and shimmered. And those red eyes—fixated on their prey, just as they had been in the photo booth—seized Yeoncheong and held her fast.
"The exams are over. There's nothing to worry about anymore, right?"
Yeoncheong backed away instinctively, but with her own front door right there, there was nowhere to run. Her back met the building wall, and Seoha, closing the distance step by step, gazed straight at her.
Yeoncheong dodged the look demanding one specific answer, and murmured. "...If you're offering, I'd be grateful."
"Then that's a promise between us?"
As if no answer were needed, Seoha raised her hand. Having found her own right hand, her little finger hooked Yeoncheong's like a predator claiming its catch.
She stayed like that for a long moment, then finally withdrew, looking satisfied.
Until the black sedan carrying Seoha disappeared from view, Yeoncheong kept turning over just what, exactly, had just happened.
"Uuuaaah."
Everyone goes limp the moment they return to the space called home.
Midterms, the photo booth, karaoke, the clothing store. Having endured an unusually grueling day, Yeoncheong was more limp than most.
She dove face-first onto her bed, school uniform and all. Then, as if suddenly remembering, she fished the instant photo out of her pocket and set it on the nightstand.
Rolling onto her back to stare at the ceiling, Yeoncheong spoke to herself. "Well... not as bad as I expected, honestly."
Despite her words, a faint smile was blooming at the corner of her mouth.
From tomorrow, ordinary school life would resume. And depending on her exam results, remedial classes might be waiting too.
Just thinking about it was enough to make her head ache—but Yeoncheong shook her head and shook the worry loose.
Tomorrow's problems belong to tomorrow.
Yeoncheong decided to savor the fun of today just a little while longer.