Early Summer, Summer Uniforms, and a Walk Around the Field
May. Families headed out for trips during the holiday break around Children's Day, and most schools held their sports festivals. It was, without question, the most comfortable time of year for outdoor activities... or it used to be.
Whether it was the effect of global warming or not, summers that grew longer and hotter with each passing year had finally begun trespassing on the tail end of spring. That was why the school had authorized summer uniforms even though it was only just past the middle of May.
In Yeoncheong's studio apartment, she woke up inside a blanket that had grown noticeably thinner, dressed much the same as any other day. Morning prep she could now do with her eyes closed; after finishing a quick wash, she toweled off her hair and stepped out of the bathroom. Having eaten a standing breakfast, she made her way to the closet.
She shoved her uniform deep into the back of the closet—blazer and all, after all the trouble it had given her—and pulled out the new one. Not much had changed visually, but the fabric was different, and the skirt was far cooler. She stepped into it and pulled it up over her hips, buttoned on a breathable short-sleeved shirt, and swapped the necktie whose very existence she had always questioned for a thin ribbon tie. Then, for the first time in a while, she stood in front of the full-length mirror.
Do I look weird...? Then again, maybe it's fine?
Twisting back and forth to inspect herself from every angle, Yeoncheong checked the time and hurried out the door. Perhaps it was the magic of the lightweight summer uniform—on any ordinary day she would have been late, but she managed to slip through the door at the exact same moment as her homeroom teacher, Ms. Jisu.
It felt as though a cool breeze was sweeping through a classroom that had seemed stuffy somehow. Since everyone wore the same uniform, the simple switch to summer clothes was enough to change the whole atmosphere of the room.
During the break between classes, Suyeon came over with Seoha in tow. In the beginning, Suyeon had insisted that her side had more people, so Yeoncheong was the one who had to come over—but since there was never actually a reason to go anywhere, Yeoncheong just stayed put, which meant Suyeon was the one who usually came looking for her first.
Yeoncheong was slumped over her desk, apparently asleep. Suyeon asked Hasol at the next desk over.
"Hasol, is Yeoncheong asleep?"
"Nope. She watched you two get up, then flopped onto her desk."
"Iiis that so?"
When did she even see that? Yeoncheong cursed Hasol inwardly. Suyeon crept quietly up to her head and whispered.
"Yeoncheong, if you get up right now, nothing will happen to you. If you're faking it... I won't go easy on you."
Yeoncheong kept up the act to the very end. As long as she stayed perfectly still, there was no way to tell whether she was truly asleep.
Suyeon twisted a lock of blue hair that had slipped down between her fingers, and lightly tugged at the hem of the uniform, watching for any reaction. But Yeoncheong, having made up her mind, endured it all.
Seoha, standing beside her, leaned in slightly and gave Yeoncheong a thorough inspection from head to toe.
"Suyeon, she really does seem asleep?"
"Hasol, Yeoncheong really did flop down when she saw us, right?"
Hasol, who had just retrieved her textbooks from her locker, nodded.
"Yeah, she could've conked out right after... but she definitely flopped down after watching you two get up."
Perhaps out of sheer stubbornness now, Suyeon raised her index finger toward Seoha.
"Just once more. One more check."
Suyeon tilted her head this way and that, trying to peer up inside the sleeve. Finding the right angle, she remarked absently—
"I can see her armpit."
Yeoncheong trembled, ever so faintly. Suyeon grinned wickedly and added a word.
"Kinky."
This time the flinch was big enough that even Seoha beside her noticed. Yet Yeoncheong stubbornly kept faking sleep, so Suyeon widened the sleeve opening slightly.
"...If I'm careful, I might even see her underwear."
No one could keep pretending to sleep after hearing that. Yeoncheong bolted upright and yanked her sleeve back down.
"Are you insane... why are you so desperate to see my underwear?"
"It's not that I want to see it... your reactions are just fun, Yeoncheong."
Suyeon finished her reply with total composure, then twisted the corner of her mouth at Yeoncheong. Combined with her slightly tilted head, it made for a rather chilling expression.
"Anyway—Yeoncheong. You weren't asleep, were you?"
"Ah."
Yeoncheong slowly raised her head. Suyeon's voice was smiling, but the atmosphere absolutely was not.
"I told you, didn't I. I won't go easy on you."
"Suyeon, I can explain."
With her desk jammed up against the hallway wall, Yeoncheong had nowhere to run.
"How well... do you handle being tickled?"
"Wait. Time out. Ta—"
Yeoncheong pulled her legs up onto the chair and curled herself into the smallest ball she could manage. The skirt slid down along her thighs, creating a heart-stopping moment where her underwear was nearly on display—but that was hardly the important thing right now.
"Seoha, hold her down."
Not that it mattered. She was a rat in a cage either way.
When the bell rang for first period, Ms. Jisu entered carrying her textbook and class materials. Standing at the lectern, she swept her gaze across the classroom—and it stopped at the corner.
"Yeoncheong, are you feeling sick?"
Yeoncheong, clutching her stomach and breathing in shallow gasps, lifted her head.
"No... ma'am. I'm fine."
Her words said one thing, but her eyes were shimmering with tears.
Lunchtime. Unlike the morning, when spring could still be felt in faint traces, the sky now hung with summer sun. It was the kind of weather that already had you worrying about midsummer. Still, it was perfectly fine weather for students to eat lunch and take a stroll around the athletic field.
Once upon a time, Yeoncheong had heard a story about how girls would walk laps around the schoolyard after lunch. Having gone through an all-boys middle school and all-boys high school, she'd never once seen such a sight, and had assumed it was a joke...
"Girls, let's go for a walk around the field."
After transferring to Hwaryeong High School, she'd learned with her whole body that it was true. And so today, as always, Suyeon led the two of them out to the field. Unlike Seoha, who walked alongside without a word of protest, Yeoncheong was being dragged along by the collar, so to speak.
"Suyeon, isn't it hot today?"
"It's not even summer yet. This much is fine."
Suyeon glanced briefly at the sky and delivered her verdict with a firm nod.
"The fact that we're wearing summer uniforms means the school has already decided it's summer, don't you think?"
When Yeoncheong kept grumbling, Suyeon stopped walking.
"People are supposed to get some sunlight now and then. You know, the what's-it-called..."
Seoha chimed in from beside her with the word Suyeon was searching for.
"Vitamin D?"
"Yes, that, vitamin D."
Suyeon gave Seoha a thumbs up, as if to say that was exactly what she'd wanted to say.
"We're stuck at school all day, so this is exactly when we need to soak up some sun."
"Sunlight isn't all good, though. Right, Seoha?"
Suyeon cut off the timing Seoha needed to answer.
"Why are you suddenly so smart? And you can just wear sunscreen for that."
Seizing her chance, Yeoncheong spoke up.
"Then I'll head back inside. I didn't put on sunscreen."
"What? You didn't put any on, on a day like this?"
Suyeon's eyes went wide. When Yeoncheong turned to Seoha, Seoha shook her head as if to say she had worn hers.
"Even when it's not summer, you should wear sunscreen on days when the UV is strong."
"I'll just get a little tan. Why are you making such a fuss?"
"A fuss? A fooo-us?"
Suyeon brought her hand down hard on Yeoncheong's back two or three times. Smacked without a clue as to why, Yeoncheong just stared at her blankly.
"Do you not care about your skin at all?"
To Yeoncheong, it had always been normal to see two or three classmates come back from summer vacation burnt dark. The thought of taking care of her skin had never once crossed her mind.
"Don't tell me... you didn't put on sunscreen?"
Silence. And Yeoncheong averting her eyes. Suyeon's face was beyond exasperated—it was overflowing with it.
"Seoha, what are we going to do with her?"
"What do you mean, do... well, since she's got no sunscreen on..."
"Yeoncheong, you stay quiet."
"Okay..."
Suyeon sighed and furrowed her brow.
"Let's go to the classroom."
"Really?"
"I'll lend you mine."
In Suyeon's dictionary, there was no such option as skipping the walk.
Suyeon really did go back to the classroom and fetch her sunscreen, squeezing it onto Yeoncheong's hand while grumbling the whole time.
"You're supposed to put it on at least thirty minutes before, minimum... well, it's better than nothing."
"That's exactly why I said we should go back inside."
Apparently the tone didn't sit well with her, because Suyeon shot Yeoncheong a glare.
"If you want to keep getting an earful about sunscreen in the classroom, be my guest."
"Let's just hurry up and take our walk."
Suyeon's nagging continued beside them, insisting it be applied thoroughly. Yeoncheong grumbled, but did as she was told.
Seoha, who had been waiting quietly, asked Suyeon for the sunscreen.
"Seoha, you said you already put some on? Don't tell me you didn't either?"
"No... there are spots I missed."
Seoha squeezed some onto her hand and rubbed it onto an arm.
It just so happened that the arm in question was not Seoha's own, but Yeoncheong's.
The moment the sunscreen—cool against her skin temperature—touched her arm, the fine hairs on it stood on end. There was no time to even ask what was going on, because the feel of Seoha's hand gently working the lotion up her arm raised goosebumps.
Apparently finding it entertaining, Suyeon soon grabbed the other arm and began applying sunscreen to it as well.
"I only worried about my face and forgot my arms."
Seoha was following Suyeon's instructions about thoroughness to the letter. Starting at the back of Yeoncheong's hand, Seoha's fingers traveled past her wrist to her forearm, carefully caressing her elbow and the tender inside of it, then worked their way up past the elbow.
From where the sleeve couldn't reach to the border of it. Slipping in through the gap of her sleeve, Seoha's hands explored every inch of Yeoncheong's arm.
"Hngh..."
On one side, Seoha boldly working the upper part of her forearm; on the other, Suyeon tending to it with a somewhat mischievous touch and meticulous care. It was a ticklishness completely different from the morning's—Yeoncheong didn't even notice the strange sound that had escaped her.
The two of them, faces satisfied and full of pride, finished covering her arms in sunscreen. Naturally, their gazes drifted downward. Of course, Yeoncheong's eyes followed Seoha's and Suyeon's downward too, and she immediately realized what they were thinking.
Pale, bare legs gleamed beneath her skirt. Without a word, Suyeon pulled out the sunscreen and began unscrewing the cap, while Seoha quietly held out one hand beside her.
Yeoncheong's survival instincts blared like an alarm. Dashing at full speed toward the athletic field, she screamed.
"You... you... you lunatics!"
The two of them chased after her with a single shared thought.
"Yeoncheong! It'd be weird if only your legs tanned!"
"Just give them to me, then!"
The three girls, who always spent their walks strolling along the track outside the field, spent today running for their lives instead.
After school, at Yeoncheong's apartment. The moment she arrived, she flung her bag onto the bed and bustled around the place. Still in her uniform, she threw open drawer after drawer and box after box.
"Found it."
In the corner of a box, she unearthed an unopened tube of sunscreen. She immediately grabbed her smartphone and looked up its shelf life.
"Unopened, two to three years from the manufacturing date. Six months to a year of use after opening..."
Checking the manufacturing date, Yeoncheong breathed a sigh of relief. It was still perfectly usable.
From that day on, one new permanent resident took up quarters in Yeoncheong's bag—a bag that until then had held nothing but books and writing utensils.