School Trip, You're Terrible at Old Maid
The sunset at Oreum brought the third day of the school trip to a close.
The students, returning later than usual, ate dinner quickly and headed back to their rooms—Yeoncheong and her friends included. Back in the room, they washed away the sweat they'd worked up climbing the volcanic cone.
For some reason, only three of them were there. Nayun, the last one out of the shower, went looking for the two friends who still hadn't shown up.
"Where'd Suyeon and Hasol go? Why aren't they back?"
Yeoncheong sat in front of the sofa, leaning back against it as she watched TV. Even if it wasn't your own home, three days was apparently enough to make yourself comfortable anywhere.
"Hello? I asked where they went."
"Huh? No idea. They didn't tell me."
But as the saying goes, speak of the tiger and it shall appear—a knocking came from outside, someone asking to be let in.
Yeoncheong gave Nayun a look that plainly said you go answer it.
"I still have to dry my hair."
"Oh, come on. Your hair isn't even that long."
"You're not the one who gets a say in that~"
And so Nayun fled to the bigger room under the convenient excuse of blow-drying her hair.
Seoha, who'd been sitting on the sofa, leaned slightly forward. "Want me to go?"
"No, I've got it."
In the end, Yeoncheong dragged herself up with a grumble and opened the door.
The first thing that greeted her wasn't two faces but a white plastic bag, thrust right at her chest. She took the bag as Suyeon and Hasol hurried inside.
Suyeon checked that the bathroom was empty, snatched up her change of clothes, and slipped in.
"What's all this?"
Inside the bag Yeoncheong inspected were all kinds of snacks and drinks—and a deck of playing cards.
Hasol, returning from the small room where she'd gone to change, explained. "Suyeon and I bought the snacks and drinks downstairs, and Suyeon borrowed the cards from Siyeon."
"So that's why you told everyone to eat only a little dinner."
Right after getting off the bus, Suyeon had been going around telling people to go light on dinner. Hasol nodded, as if to say exactly.
Nayun, whose short hair meant she was back in no time with her hair dried, eyed the white bag with interest.
"I want that..."
Her hand, reaching for her favorite snack, was blocked by Hasol's.
"We're eating them together later."
"Not even one?"
"Nope."
Nayun swallowed her disappointment and claimed the spot where Yeoncheong had been sitting.
Yeoncheong, who had secretly been swallowing her own saliva, quietly hid her hands behind her back at Hasol's words as well.
***
After Suyeon came out and while Hasol was in the bathroom, Suyeon—fresh from drying her hair—reached for the bag sitting beside the TV.
"Hasol said we're eating them later," Nayun said, her eyes glued vacantly to the screen.
"I'm just getting things ready ahead of time."
Suyeon laid one bag of chips down in the middle and tore open the other snacks, gathering them into a little spread. Nayun, who'd been leaning against the sofa, began surreptitiously sweeping her hand across the floor before joining in to help.
"Oh, we forgot cups."
Suyeon glanced at the others as she pulled out the drinks, and Nayun waved her off—no big deal.
The sound of water gradually faded. Hasol emerged from the bathroom to find her friends already setting up the table.
"I'll dry my hair real quick," Hasol said, ducking into the big room. The whir of the hair dryer carried out past the door, and Suyeon cracked it open a bit to tell her to take her time.
With the snacks and drinks arranged, Suyeon gave a little chuckle and pulled the cards from the bag.
"Borrowed them from Siyeon's room. She said they played all day for two days straight and weren't touching them again tonight."
Suyeon began to shuffle. The movements were painfully awkward. You could see disaster coming, and sure enough, midway through, the whole deck came crashing down.
Yeoncheong's patience snapped. She plucked the cards out of Suyeon's hands.
Suyeon, well aware of her own clumsiness, handed them over without protest, and Nayun gathered the cards scattered across the floor and passed them to Yeoncheong too.
Yeoncheong split the deck roughly in half, then let the cards ripple down one by one from each hand, interleaving them like the pages of a book. She gathered the thickened stack so only the centers overlapped, bent it into a bridge, and let go.
An arching cascade of falling cards. The bridge came down in a soft riffle, the cards shuffling themselves into a perfect mix, and the onlooking friends burst into awed gasps.
Suyeon's reaction was the biggest of all.
"Yeoncheong, what are you? You can do stuff like this too?"
Nayun crowded in close, egging her on to do it again.
"It's already all mixed now. I'll show you again later."
Yeoncheong shot her smirking lips a warning glance and set the deck down in the middle.
It was a shuffle trick she'd practiced long ago for one reason only—it looked cool. This was the moment all those sacrificed cards finally got their worth recognized.
Before long, Hasol finished drying her hair and took her empty seat, and the little party to celebrate their last night began.
***
The snack bag shoved off to one side, everyone eyed the cards sitting in the center of the floor, reading each other's expressions.
Nayun laid down a Jack, and the turn passed to Suyeon. Yeoncheong, up next, slapped a card down and called "One Card!"—and another hard-fought round came to an end.
Suyeon flung her cards at the pile and flopped face-down onto the floor. The four winners of the round, having avoided last place, gleefully pounded her exposed back.
"Agh!"
Rubbing her back as she sat up, Suyeon glared at all four of them.
"Who hit me at the end? Come out now and it'll go easy on you."
Yeoncheong just grinned and started shuffling again.
"You're gonna be last next round anyway, so figure it out yourself."
"It was you, Yeoncheong."
"Nooo," Yeoncheong said, snickering despite herself, unable to hold back a wheeze of laughter. The fire in Suyeon's eyes began to flicker.
Suyeon turned on Nayun like a betrayed woman. Nayun flinched and looked away.
"H-hey, I didn't do it on purpose, okay? That was literally the only card I could play to survive..."
"Still, though. That was Yeoncheong's first-ever shot at coming in last."
The game in question was One Card.
Yeoncheong was a little good at it; her friends were a little bad.
The mismatched skill levels only widened the gap, and Yeoncheong had made it this far without taking a single penalty.
She smirked and shuffled the cards again.
"Man, Suyeon, you're terrible. Should I give you a handicap or something?"
"Rrrgh... rrraaagh..."
"I guess being smart doesn't automatically mean you're good at games, huh."
With no usual chances to tease anyone, Yeoncheong went on a full rampage, seizing the moment.
Seoha, who'd been watching Suyeon come apart at the seams, made a proposal. "Should we switch games?"
"Yes! Let's switch! Anything, literally anything but this!"
Suyeon nodded so hard her hair bounced, and Hasol and Nayun, who had been getting bored, agreed too.
"Huh?"
Only Yeoncheong, who had never once lost, looked put out.
"Do any of you even know another game? It'll take forever just to explain the rules..."
There was no way Yeoncheong had missed Suyeon staring at her wide-eyed from the side. She argued, in the most roundabout way she could manage, for continuing One Card.
The others deliberated. But then, Seoha moved.
She picked up the freshly shuffled deck and checked the faces. Fishing out the single black Joker, she set it aside.
"Thief Catcher's simple, so that should work, right?"
A game so simple it needed no rule explanation at all.
"W-well, sure..."
Yeoncheong couldn't come up with a single excuse to reject a game that literally everyone knew how to play.
***
Collect matching pairs and discard them; whoever's stuck holding the Joker at the end loses. A simple game.
Right up until it started, that was exactly all Yeoncheong thought it was.
But she had overlooked something.
"Your turn, Yeoncheong."
Seoha fanned her cards out toward her. Normally, the fun of the game lies in reading your opponent's subtle shifts in expression as you weigh which card to draw...
But how often do you end up staring holes into a friend's face like that?
Seoha's gaze stayed fixed on Yeoncheong without so much as a blink. It was Yeoncheong, who'd meant to be the one reading her opponent as she chose, who flinched and snapped her eyes away first.
Checking the card she'd grabbed at random, Yeoncheong frowned. Her unshrunken hand fanned out toward Nayun.
"Hmm... this one."
A hand skimmed across the top and snatched a card away with a smack, and Nayun laid down a matched pair.
Seoha and Nayun, who had leaned face to face over the exchange, felt it. So did Hasol and Suyeon, watching from the side.
The chance to finally whack Yeoncheong—the girl who had never once taken a penalty—seemed like it was coming.
Why did it have to be this order...
Out of everyone at the table, the person Yeoncheong had to draw from was Seoha.
Maybe it was everything, big and small, that had piled up between them.
That expressionless face looked like it might be smiling faintly, or about to say something to her—either way, Yeoncheong found it impossible to look her properly in the face.
While she stalled, Nayun and Hasol emptied their hands and escaped the game, and Seoha was the third to get out.
With Seoha out of the round, Yeoncheong relaxed. Whoever she ended up facing, it had to be better than Seoha—or so she figured.
Naturally, the person she did end up facing—Suyeon—wore the expression of someone determined to beat Yeoncheong at any cost.
Was the goddess of games on Yeoncheong's side?
The imbalance created by Seoha's exit found its footing again quickly. Yeoncheong drew a card, then tossed a matched pair into the center.
Suyeon was down to one. Yeoncheong to two. And the Joker sat in Yeoncheong's hand.
"You little... this is so annoying."
Suyeon's impatience showed as she ground her lips together.
"No, no, you're still fine."
"Yeah, it ends the moment she draws from you."
By now, every one of her friends had defected to Suyeon's side.
Seoha even whispered a strategy over to her. Suyeon's eyes went round. Would that actually work? she asked, and Seoha gave a quiet nod.
Half believing, half doubting, Suyeon called over Yeoncheong, who held only her two remaining cards.
"Hey, Yeoncheong, look at me. Is this the Thief?"
Yeoncheong's eyes darted away. Her blue eyes—carrying a stubborn refusal to give anything away—were relentlessly chased down by Suyeon's mismatched pair. A corner of Suyeon's mouth crept upward into a smile, and the smile pursued the fleeing blue gaze.
But Yeoncheong couldn't tear her eyes away completely—she still needed to see the outcome. Seizing that exact moment, Suyeon spoke using nothing but the shape of her lips.
Yeoncheong, reading the silent mouth as it formed the words, wavered and turned to stare at Suyeon.
Suyeon's slightly flushed face betrayed how embarrassed she was at herself—but the goal of catching her gaze had succeeded.
Not letting the opening slip by, Suyeon drew her hand back and forth over her cards in a perfect tease. For an instant, Yeoncheong's blue eyes flicked toward the Joker in her hand, and her expression wavered, just barely.
And then—
"So that one's the Joker, huh?"
Suyeon flashed a grin and plucked a different card clean away. Confirmed Thief-free, she flung her two remaining cards to the floor, and the others erupted in cheers.
Nayun breathed warm air into her cupped hands and said,
"Yeoncheong, get down. Let's wrap this up."
Yeoncheong, clutching the single Joker left in her hand, trembled—then finally sank down onto the floor.
Bottom raised, she held her upper body off the ground on both arms. Along the slant of her back, the tracksuit she wore slid downward.
And everything she had been straining with all her might to cover up was laid bare before everyone.
"Aren't you hitting me?"
The taut dolphin shorts drew an utterly shameless line. It was the kind of sight that would have brought a blush even to these girls' faces. Only one person's eyes gleamed.
"I might hit a little hard, though?"
"Then hurry up and hit me already."
It was the answer of someone resolved to accept her due—after all, she'd had her fun tormenting them all game. Soon enough, blows loaded with feeling traveled down her back and reverberated through her body.
Just when it seemed to be over, a sound rang out that could hardly be described as a strike to a tracksuited back.
Smack.
"Hyeok!"
A moan burst out of her at the unexpected sting. With the penalty over, Yeoncheong lifted her head, her face scarlet.
"Who did that? Step forward. Come out now and it'll go easy on you."
The flushed faces of her friends all turned toward one person. Yeoncheong, both hands clutched to her backside, glared daggers at Suyeon.
"Baek Suyeon. That was you, wasn't it?"
"Wow, Thief Catcher was so fun. Guys, should we head to bed?"
Wearing the blissful face of someone thoroughly refreshed, Suyeon began tidying up the cards and snack bags.
"Hey, who hits there?"
"Where's 'there'? Weren't you the one holding it out and asking for it?"
Delivered with an exaggerated wide-eyed innocence, in a sly voice that scraped at her nerves.
Yeoncheong grabbed the arm that was gathering up the cards.
"Hey. One more round."
"Hmm..."
Suyeon seemed to consider it—then broke into a brilliant smile aimed straight at Yeoncheong.
"No.pe."
And though she hadn't said it aloud, the rest of the sentence rang clearly in the air.
You're terrible at Old Maid.
Suyeon stacked the cards back into their box and lifted her head, as if there were one thing left unsaid.
"If it gets too red, tell me. I'll smack the other side so it evens out."
"Y-you... you're insane."
Yeoncheong clung on, demanding they play just one more round—but with Suyeon having finally notched her single win, there was no reason whatsoever for her to give in.