After the Sports Festival
The school had returned to its usual rhythm within days of the sports festival ending — though not entirely the same as before.
The report cards handed out the very day after the festival had made the students turn pale, and with the first breath of summer creeping closer, they'd started coming to school one by one in nothing but white shirts.
Club activities, half-idled through midterms and the sports festival, kicked back into full swing.
And then.
"Hey, guys."
At Yeoncheong's voice, Hasol and Suyeon turned their heads.
"What?"
"Lately there are way too many people staring at me."
Someone had made a lasting impression on the entire student body, and it showed.
Suyeon, sitting on Hasol's lap and soaking up the air conditioning, answered first.
"Obviously. You caused that whole mess at the sports festival."
"I wasn't the only one! Sure, I gave the order, but you're the one who started it."
It was Hasol who answered Yeoncheong's rebuttal.
"Some of the kids from the other classes in our stands have been spreading it around already. They're saying it was you who started it, Yeoncheong."
In other words, most of the school knew that Yeoncheong was the one behind the chaos in the obstacle race.
Yeoncheong craned her neck back over her chair and let out a long, long sigh.
"Haah..."
Suyeon tilted her head, puzzled.
"You were having so much fun back then. What's wrong with you now?"
"I didn't know the fallout would last this long."
Even now, whenever Yeoncheong passed by, it wasn't just her classmates who whispered — upperclassmen and underclassmen alike tittered behind their hands.
That's the girl from the sports festival.
Words alone would have been a blessing. The students from the class Yeoncheong had actively sabotaged made their hostility perfectly plain.
Which was only natural. Their class had been clinging to first place in the overall standings, only to slip all the way down to third.
At the lengthening sigh, Hasol offered a word of comfort.
"It's fine. Once the school trip's over and finals are done, it'll all blow over."
"You think so?"
Hasol and Suyeon nodded at the same time.
The fuss would die down by finals, they said — which meant right now was prime time for picking a fight.
Yeoncheong had slipped away to the bathroom alone, dodging the friends who tried to tag along. Coming out of the stall, she ran straight into a crowd of girls walking in.
Worried the cramped bathroom would get crowded, she was washing her hands to hurry out when the girls blocked her path.
"You're her, aren't you?"
"Hm?"
"Ha Yeoncheong. Class 1."
Yeoncheong narrowed her eyes, studying their faces — and only then realized who these girls were: the students from the class she'd sabotaged.
First place at the sports festival. Trivial, if you thought about it.
But for students who spent most of every day at school, something like that was a huge event. And they'd watched it slip away right before their eyes, so the girls had decided this was their chance to pick a fight with her.
Whatever she said, they'd find fault with it — that much was obvious. So Yeoncheong chose silence. Except...
"What, are you looking down on us?"
The girl at the front cocked her head with a sneer.
Turned out even silence could be twisted into an insult.
Having confirmed no other friends were nearby, the herd of girls herded Yeoncheong into a corner. She backed away slowly until her spine met the wall.
Behind her back, she quietly balled her fists. Seriously weighing whether a fight was necessary, Yeoncheong tried to keep things peaceful for now.
But the conversation just ran in circles.
Tired of the endless runaround, she asked point-blank.
"What do you actually want from me?"
"What?"
"You keep dragging this out, so clearly you want something."
One of the girls looked her up and down and snorted.
"Apologize, if you're told to."
"That's all it takes?"
With her fists still clenched behind her back, Yeoncheong brightened at what had to be the most peaceful resolution imaginable. But her opponent did not appreciate that sunny expression.
She'd expected Yeoncheong to lift her chin and dig in her heels out of pride — instead, the girl had folded like a kite with its string cut. That somehow stung worse.
"Smiling? Are you smiling at me?"
The girl jabbed a finger against Yeoncheong's forehead, punctuating each word. Yeoncheong's eyebrow twitched.
In the world of boys, that was a move that would've earned a punch long before now. Just as Yeoncheong raised her fist — having held back an admirable amount, she felt —
"What are you people doing over one sports festival?"
Out of the stall came Suyeon — no, a girl who looked exactly like Suyeon — eyes narrowed into slits.
"If you're going to nitpick, do it on the day itself. How long ago was the festival? And honestly, all you had to do was outrun their class in the relay in the first place."
The pack of girls staggered under a fact that landed without mercy. The twin who looked just like Suyeon — Siyeon — pointed at Yeoncheong one last time.
"And don't go messing with her for no reason. It won't end with words."
Following Siyeon's pointing finger, the girls' heads turned toward Yeoncheong. And they spotted the fist she'd just barely stopped herself from swinging.
Seeing that Yeoncheong had prepared a rather more concrete form of communication than words, the group retreated. Siyeon walked up to the sink and gave a hollow laugh.
"All bark, huh. Backing off the second they see a fist — then why even pick the fight...?"
Yeoncheong lowered her fist, scratched her head, and thanked her.
"Thanks for the help."
Siyeon washed her hands thoroughly, and on her way out of the bathroom, tossed one last remark over her shoulder.
"Hey — Ha Yeoncheong, was it? Why on earth do you just stand there and listen to that garbage? They're saying it specifically to get under your skin."
"Oh... so that's what that was?"
Yeoncheong smiled awkwardly, as if this kind of experience were entirely new to her. Watching that smile, Siyeon's brow furrowed.
"They say friends grow to look alike..."
"Hm? What was that?"
Hearing the murmur, Yeoncheong took a step closer.
"Nothing. And—"
Siyeon turned toward her and raised a hand still dripping wet.
"Didn't you hear from Baek Suyeon? I'm one of the people who suffered because of you two at the sports festival. Could you not act so chummy with me?"
Revenge for that day, apparently. Siyeon spread her fingers at Yeoncheong and flicked water at her.
For all her prickly tone, it was a truly adorable act of vengeance.
"Yeoncheong, where did you keep going?"
"Oh. The bathroom."
That was all Yeoncheong said in answer to Hasol's question at the desk beside her. Since no further confrontations followed, the whole thing was able to end as a simple incident.
Before anyone knew it, the end-of-day homeroom arrived and their homeroom teacher, Ms. Jisu, walked in. The classroom naturally quieted down.
"Everyone here?"
Ms. Jisu looked around, confirmed no seats were empty, and began.
"First... the school trip briefing. Your parents all received the forms, right?"
The students nodded here and there, scattered and halfhearted. The teacher's face crumpled slightly.
"Answer."
"We got them, ma'am."
Suyeon called out loudly, and the rest of the class answered a beat later.
"Honestly, I'd love to send you all abroad for it, but... there was that accident, and the higher-ups are watching us, so I'm sure you understand that's not possible yet."
"Aaaagh..."
Waiting for the chorus of groans to die down, the teacher continued.
"But the school did its best to arrange things nicely. You'll be in rooms of five, so decide your groups in advance. I'll hand out the forms to the class president later."
"Do we really get to pick ourselves?"
When a classmate asked, the teacher explained.
"If we let you arrange it freely, you'd all be sneaking around to each other's rooms every night, wouldn't you? Better to lock it in from the start than deal with that."
Having finished the assorted explanations about the trip, Ms. Jisu tapped the podium.
"And, and..."
She glanced over her students. The tapping stopped dead.
"Oh. The uniforms. I need to talk about the summer uniforms. Right."
What the teacher brought up next was the very news Suyeon had been waiting so desperately for.
"It's gotten pretty warm, so starting next week you may wear the summer uniform."
Making eye contact with a few students, Ms. Jisu stressed it once more.
"Let me say this again — not tomorrow. Next week. Don't be an idiot and show up in it tomorrow just because I told you today."
She repeated herself several times, as if this were far from the first such incident, and homeroom came to an end.
After homeroom, Suyeon and Seoha came over. They exchanged a few words with Hasol first, then called Yeoncheong's name.
"Yeoncheong, you heard, right?"
Yeoncheong, packing her bag without a thought in the world, looked up.
"Hm? Heard what?"
"So you weren't listening."
"Weren't you two talking with Hasol?"
"We finished that ages ago, and Hasol already left for cooking club."
Yeoncheong glanced around — sure enough, Hasol was nowhere in the classroom. Suyeon let out a small sigh and started over from the beginning.
"About the school trip. Who's sharing a room with who."
That much was enough for Yeoncheong to guess where this was going.
"Don't tell me — you want to room with me?"
"Hm? Do we have any other friends to room with?"
A strangely familiar line. A wound that had only just begun to heal split open again.
Seoha, standing nearby, elbowed Suyeon.
"Suyeon. Your wording."
"Ah, sorry — I swear I didn't mean it that way this time either."
"R-, right. I'm sure you didn't."
Yeoncheong nodded with a look that said she wasn't entirely convinced, and Suyeon hurried the conversation along.
"A-, anyway — so you're fine rooming with us, right?"
"I've got no problem with it. But who else is in the group...?"
"All people you're close with."
Suyeon counted them off on her fingers.
"Me, Seoha, Hasol, Nayun, and finally you. Exactly five."
Yeoncheong thought about it.
Her first thought was how lucky she was to have such good friends looking after her.
Her second was how astonishingly narrow her circle of acquaintances really was.
No wait — she's a third-year, but there's Senior Seoyun too. And Seobin, who did remedials with me. And Si...yeon — well, she's Suyeon's twin, should I count her...?
Seven, at most.
Yeoncheong consoled herself with the idea that she simply preferred her relationships few and deep.
It was only a little while later that she found herself stomping her feet in dismay at the realization that she'd have to share a room with girls her own age.
The Annex. As usual, the clubroom held only Suyeon and Yeoncheong — but today, the quietest room in the building saw a small commotion.
Shoving desks aside as she went, Yeoncheong chased Suyeon around the room.
"Hey, Baek Suyeon! What kind of club plan are you hiding from me?"
"Why are you suddenly so interested today! I told you, go mess around with one of the other clubs."
Yeoncheong vaulted off a chair in a single lunge, but Suyeon darted sideways and escaped.
"I'm not some pet you can just send off to play! I'm a club member too — I'd like to know what we actually do!"
"Yeoncheong, calm down. You'll find out when the time comes anyway — is there really any need for us to work up a sweat over it?"
With a single desk between them, Suyeon tried to talk her down.
"Could be solved right now if you just showed me."
From across the desk, Yeoncheong feinted, then threw herself onto her knees over the furniture. Catching Suyeon off guard, she snatched the plan sheet and skimmed its contents at speed.
Then she whipped her head around toward Suyeon.
"You promised me no overnight explorations. Didn't you?"
That had definitely been a promise made back when they were doing research in the library.
Suyeon reclaimed the paper from her hand and protested.
"Look properly. It's not overnight. It's during club hours."
She pointed at the top of the page. And indeed, it was an activity scheduled for club time.
Suyeon sat back down in her seat and resumed filling out the plan. Yeoncheong dragged a chair over, sat beside her, and lodged her complaint.
"Hey... this is fraud, you know."
"I've never broken a promise, either way."
Still staring at the plan sheet, Suyeon went on.
"Might as well use this time to mentally prepare yourself. If you scream your head off like last time, the whole school will hear about it."