The Scent of the Sports Festival
In May, the fallen cherry blossoms gave way to flowers of a dozen nameless varieties, each drifting its own distinctive fragrance from far away. The sports festival, only days off now, had begun scattering its own vitality through Hwaryeong High School.
The class t-shirts everyone had ordered arrived, and preliminaries were held during lunch breaks and after school, class by class. The athletic field, where until recently the only sight had been girls strolling the track in twos and threes after meals, was now busier than usual with students drilling for the festival.
Yeoncheong got dragged around by her friends to watch the events several times—and so the moment of the basketball prelims arrived.
Lunchtime. The school gymnasium.
Without even eating lunch, Nayun, Yeoncheong, and the rest of Class 1 gathered with the students of the opposing class.
Having gathered Yeoncheong and her friends in one place, Nayun pointed out the opposing players one by one with her finger.
"Her, and the one with the glasses. Those two are the ones to watch out for."
"They're on the volleyball team?"
Yeoncheong tilted her head slightly to study the pair more closely. They seemed rather short, for volleyball players, if that was what Nayun claimed.
Her ponytail swayed left and right as Nayun shook her head.
"Nope. One of them's in the same basketball club as me, and the other's in a sports club too."
Sports clubs whose practice spaces overlapped knew each other's faces. Nayun stole a glance at the opposing players huddled together whispering, then went on.
"This isn't a weak class, so we've got to seize control from the very start."
Maybe because it was her main event, but Nayun was especially passionate about laying out exactly how the game should be played.
A student officiating the match called both teams, huddled in their circles, to the middle. A round of rock-paper-scissors decided who would go first. Nayun walked back as their representative, glancing over her shoulder repeatedly, a stack of fluorescent vests in her hands.
"They get first possession. Everyone put one of these on."
Yeoncheong stripped off her track jacket and pulled her head through a fluorescent vest. It was slightly too big, hanging down far enough to just barely cover the hem of her shorts.
"Ugh... this thing's way too big. It's uncomfortable."
"There weren't any colors left. Just deal with it."
Yeoncheong took her place on the court and was quietly studying the opposing team across from her when—
"Go, Class 1!"
The sudden shout made Yeoncheong flinch. Her head turned of its own accord toward the cheering from behind her.
On the second floor of the gymnasium, Suyeon was waving. Yeoncheong turned her body around and raised her voice.
"I told you to just go eat! Why are you here?"
"Why do you think? I came to cheer you on, obviously. Seoha and Hasol had the kickball prelims and dodgeball refereeing, so they went to eat."
Yeoncheong nodded her head and turned her focus back to the court. Her body itched with anticipation—it had been a while since her last five-on-five game.
The opposing team, having just finished their preparations, began working the ball around from the far end, advancing slowly. After passing through a few awkward dribbling hands, the ball found its way to the opposing club's basketball player.
The opposing ace, dribbling the ball with an easy lightness, suddenly drove forward. It felt like a video playing back at half speed abruptly snapping to one and a half times.
Nayun cut in front of her, ponytail whipping through the air. With nothing but the subtle shift of her hips, she blocked off the ace's path before she even got there.
Her eyes sharpened in an instant. It was fascinating, every time, how the whole atmosphere around Nayun changed the moment basketball or any sport came up.
They knew each other's games inside and out, so the ace seemed to have no real hope of breaking through Nayun on raw individual skill.
Yeoncheong kept a slight distance from her mark, the girl from the other sports club, and quietly sized her up.
Pass it. Come on, pass it.
The other girls from Class 1 were doing exactly as Nayun had told them, sticking to one assigned player each like glue.
The opposing ace lost the ball on a dribbling mistake. Keeping one foot planted on the floor, she scanned her surroundings—then passed to the girl Yeoncheong was guarding.
Hers was the only lane that looked easy to throw into—a defense that, at a glance, seemed full of holes. It was the trap Yeoncheong had laid at Nayun's instruction to seize the initiative.
The instant the ball left the passer's hand, Yeoncheong lunged into the passing lane. As if the pass had been meant for her all along. The ball stuck to her hands like glue.
Riding the momentum of the ball's bounce, Yeoncheong fired it ahead down the court.
An abrupt change of possession. Yeoncheong sprinted into the empty opposing half, right foot, left foot—a light two-step—and laid the ball gently off the glass.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Nayun gave her a thumbs up. With that look, you'd mistake her for a boy if you only saw her from the front. The moments Yeoncheong spent playing basketball with Nayun always brought back so many old memories.
The opposing team, meanwhile, looked a little spooked.
The transfer student. The Free Inquiry Club. An unexpected variable appearing out of a place that seemed to have nothing to do with athletics.
Firm control of the game from the start, plus the appearance of a wildcard named Yeoncheong.
Despite Nayun's warning that this was no weak class, the game wrapped up as a comfortable victory. The moment it ended, Suyeon came bounding down from the stands.
"Yeoncheong!"
Yeoncheong, returning from turning in the vests, ducked reflexively—but Suyeon naturally wrapped her up in a hug from behind anyway, like carrying her piggyback.
"Don't cling. I'm exhausted right now."
"Then should I give you a massage?"
Yeoncheong took a drink of the water she'd brought. Suyeon took silence for a yes and set her hands in motion.
Knead. Knead.
Yeoncheong's blue eyes went wide as saucers, and she spat out the water mid-swallow, coughing violently.
"You crazy—where are you pressing?! I'm telling you, that's sexual harassment!"
"Sexual harassment? You'd call a loving gesture toward a friend sexual harassment?"
Suyeon stuck her tongue out over Yeoncheong's shoulder.
"Wait. You don't do this to other girls too, do you?"
"Sometimes? Only to the ones who don't mind."
Ever since witnessing Yeoncheong and Seoha's remedial lessons, Suyeon's teasing had grown noticeably bolder.
Yeoncheong tried to squirm away, but Suyeon held her in a firm hug and kept chatting with Nayun beside them.
"You said it'd be tough, but that was an easy win."
"Yeoncheong played well. Their ace probably thought she only had to worry about me."
Sure enough, Nayun had been the target of constant double-teaming all game. With Nayun and the opposing ace locked together in a grapple, the skill of the remaining four on each side mattered most.
And on that front, Yeoncheong had outplayed her mark—the girl from the sports club—at least when it came to basketball.
Yeoncheong, ears perked up in front of them, smirked to herself. Hearing the stifled laugh, Suyeon poked her head around.
"Ugh. Yeoncheong, that's mean..."
Caught mid-giggle, Yeoncheong flinched.
"N-no! You said I did well! So maybe I'm allowed to be a little pleased!"
"Sure, but... you don't have to grin like a villain about it."
"If I'm happy about it, you'll say even nicer things, won't you? I know how this works by now."
Babbling to cover herself, she'd let her true thoughts slip—and immediately regretted it. Suyeon's mismatched eyes went perfectly round, as if she'd never imagined such a thing.
Suyeon slid down off Yeoncheong's back and stood in front of her, a sly smile spreading across her face.
"W-what? What is it?"
What was she plotting now? Yeoncheong braced herself, thoroughly on guard.
"When you stole the ball at the start and took off, that was so cool."
"Huh?"
"The way you directed the defense while calling out to your teammates. Also cool."
"Hold on—"
"Oh, and when you shook your defender with that dribble—"
They say it's human nature to resist doing what you're told. Instead of stopping, Suyeon redoubled the flood of praise.
Ignoring Yeoncheong's protests to knock it off, Suyeon simply shared her impressions, exactly as she'd seen them.
Hasol, who had rushed through lunch to come back for her dodgeball refereeing duties, walked in on quite the peculiar scene.
"What are they doing?"
"Hmm... no idea. I was just watching because Yeoncheong's reactions are funny."
Deciding it was faster to see for herself, Nayun shut her mouth.
"The way she keeps chasing to block even after she gets beaten."
"The way she throws her whole body at the ball just to grab it..."
Every time Suyeon landed one compliment, Yeoncheong's face reddened a shade deeper, and her protests to stop grew quieter.
Each compliment came with a slight delay—a pause in which she clearly meant it. In other words, these weren't empty words thrown out carelessly, but praise with real feeling behind them.
By the time the count passed ten, Yeoncheong clamped a hand over Suyeon's mouth.
"Please. Please, stop."
Looking one breath away from combusting, her face red from hairline to chin, Yeoncheong pleaded with a single hand covering it.
"Why? If I dig, I can probably find ten more."
Yeoncheong shook her head, and her blue hair swayed with the motion.
"M-my heart can't take this..."
Her heart pounded like some enormous drum, boom, boom, booming away—loud enough to make her wonder if something had gone wrong with her.
But Suyeon, sensing an opening, showed no sign of retreating.
"Your heart can't take it? I don't hear anything."
Suyeon took hold of the hand over her mouth, pressed her ear close to Yeoncheong's chest—directly against it.
Suyeon's head settled squarely on Yeoncheong's chest, eyes closed, focused entirely on the sound of her heart. Confirming just how mercilessly it was hammering, Suyeon flashed a mischievous smile.
Just as Hasol had come for dodgeball duty, basketball had another preliminary round coming up. An irritated voice flew at the group hogging the court.
"Hey, we need to warm up here. How long are you going to stay?"
Nayun, closest by and the one enjoying the show of Yeoncheong the most, asked for their understanding.
"Sorry, we'll be going soon..."
But the sentence, punctuated nowhere, stretched out long. Her face, which had darkened without her noticing, was now glaring at someone.
"Oh. It's you, huh?"
"And here I wondered who it was... Kim Nayun. So you're in this class."
The brusque tone laid their relationship bare. Yeoncheong, cooling her cheek with the back of her hand, turned around to see who it was.
And she had to tilt her head back slightly just to see the girl's face.
Shorter than the Yeoncheong of the past, but a full head taller than the Yeoncheong of the present.
The volleyball club.
Yeoncheong recognized her the moment she saw her. Beside her stood another girl of similar height.
"Where'd your class's two beanpoles go?"
"She said she's not playing basketball. Something about wanting to do dodgeball instead."
"Why don't you all just stick to dodgeball too? Volleyball, dodgeball—they sound alike, so you'd probably be great at both."
If not outright insults, the exchange was bristling with thorns on both sides. At Nayun's needling remark, the volleyball girl let out a scornful laugh.
"We're aiming for the championship, so we can't do that. Split into pairs and we can win both basketball and dodgeball, can't we?"
Suyeon flared up at the sports festival trash talk, and Yeoncheong barely managed to hold her back.
"Hey, why are you stopping me?"
"Don't get mixed up in this for no reason. A fight wouldn't do us any good."
Having reined Suyeon in, Yeoncheong changed the subject.
"Anyway, Suyeon—do you know why Nayun and the volleyball club get along so badly?"
"I honestly don't know... They'd argue over gym time now and then, but that usually got mediated by the teachers."
As if the two of them had been listening in on the conversation, the reason revealed itself right in front of their eyes.
At the tone that already took victory for granted, Nayun's words grew even rougher.
"So annoying, thinking being tall is all it takes."
"Excuse me? All it takes is being tall?"
The volleyball girl looked down at Nayun as she spoke—and pointedly rested a hand on her own chest.
"Well... I suppose it's not like you're only short. I'm broad-minded enough to understand."
This was a sore spot even Suyeon and Hasol knew better than to touch. From Nayun, hostility deepened into something quietly murderous.
"Hey, beanpole. Get over here."
Nayun advanced slowly. Quick-witted Hasol grabbed her by the waist and called out to the other two.
"Suyeon, Yeoncheong—grab Nayun. Now!"
Yeoncheong and Suyeon pooled their strength and hauled Nayun away.
While Nayun fumed and smoldered, Yeoncheong and Suyeon had a late lunch together.
With the still-grumbling Nayun in tow, the three of them went to watch the kickball game in its final stages. Seoha's kicks remained devastating—as if last time had been no fluke at all.
Chairwoman's office. Even as dismissal time drew near, Chairwoman Yurim was still at school. Looking over the stack of school trip documents piled to one side, she let out yet another sigh—one of who knew how many by now.
"Haa... I went through all that trouble just to make sure our destination didn't clash with anyone else's. And then this has to happen out of nowhere."
Changing the already finalized schedule on their end would be difficult.
Yurim turned her gaze out the window and sank into thought. Her fingers tapped a steady rhythm on the desk, keeping time with the ticking second hand.
Should I tell her...? No, if I do, she'll say she's not going.
The deeper her worry grew, the faster her fingers tapped against the desk.
Tap.
Her fingers went still, and Yurim made her decision.
The school trip comes once in a lifetime. No way am I letting that bastard cost Yeoncheong what's hers. Absolutely not.
Her mind made up, Yurim picked up her smartphone. She cleanly deleted the long message she'd typed out—needed only a single tap on send—and passed the instructions along to Teacher Jisu, Yeoncheong's homeroom teacher.
"Please, please let nothing else come of this..."
Even with everything already handled, anxiety kept her picking up her smartphone and setting it down again, over and over.
The day before the sports festival. Passing through the school gate, Suyeon gave a familiar wave.
"Yeoncheong, you can't be late for the sports festival."
"Don't worry. I won't be late."
"See you tomorrow."
Yeoncheong waved back, then headed straight home and went to bed early.