Back to Daily Life?
Was it back to everyday life?
The weekend that melted away the fatigue accumulated during the school trip had passed.
As if playtime were officially over, the teachers threw themselves into their lessons, hammering home how little time remained before the final exams—less than a month away.
"This part is guaranteed to show up on the test, so anyone who gets it wrong will have to answer to me."
The students grumbled even as they marked down the sections flagged as important. Somewhere among them sat Yeoncheong, wearing an unreadable expression.
Having been put through the wringer with makeup exams after the midterms, she was now pouring far more effort into her studies than before.
It was a situation she couldn't even have imagined a mere year ago. If nothing else, it proved that environment really did matter.
Stars piled up in her notes with every point the teacher emphasized. Just as the teacher tried to keep the momentum going, the chime—unheard for far too long—cut the lecture short.
The teacher checked the clock a beat too late and groaned, while the students stuck one leg out into the aisle and applied a silent pressure of their own.
"You all remember where we stopped, right? Fine, go get your lunch."
"Yes, sir!"
Leaving the teacher to sort through textbooks and lesson materials at the podium, the students spilled out into the corridor, merging with the students from other classes already racing toward the cafeteria into one great wave.
Suyeon, dragging Seoha along, called out to Yeoncheong.
"Yeoncheong, lunch is good today. Let's hurry and get in line too."
Yeoncheong plunged into the crowd alongside her friends. On the surface, it was a day no different from any other.
Rain came pouring from a fickle sky.
Laps around the athletic field were out of the question, so Yeoncheong, Seoha, and Suyeon returned to the classroom right after lunch.
Hasol was perched on Suyeon's desk, chatting idly with Nayun.
Suyeon, who had settled naturally onto Hasol's lap, grumbled.
"A few days off and suddenly class feels impossible to sit through."
Nayun laced both hands behind her head. Her amber eyes drifted up toward the blank ceiling, as though she were rummaging through some corner of her memory.
"Tell me about it. I wish we could just go on the school trip again. That was so much fun..."
The classroom still hummed with the afterglow of the trip. But afterglow, as it happened, wasn't always the pleasant kind.
Catching the sharp glances from the other girls, Nayun winced inwardly and stole a quick look at Yeoncheong.
Anyone could see something had happened on the last day of the trip. But the mood had been nowhere near right to ask, so until now the friends had simply been tiptoeing around it.
Yet Yeoncheong, the very object of their quiet concern, only tilted her head as if she hadn't the faintest idea what the fuss was about.
"What? Is there something on my face?"
The guilty parties averted their eyes with awkward haste. It was Seoha who reached out and brushed her fingers through Yeoncheong's hair.
She flicked her hand away lightly, as if brushing off a stray thread.
"Oh, nothing. There was a loose thread in your hair."
She lied without so much as a flicker of expression.
Thanks to that, the awkwardness dissipated naturally.
Suyeon picked up the opening without a hitch and steered the conversation elsewhere.
"Oh, right. Hasol, doesn't your birthday fall during finals?"
"Ah! U-um, yeah. It does. This year it landed in the middle of them."
Hasol's tired, drooping eyebrows lifted a touch. Yeoncheong perked up at the mention of a birthday.
"Birthday?"
Having successfully seized everyone's attention, Suyeon pressed on.
"Yep. Last year it landed right on the last day of finals, so we all went out to celebrate together."
"..."
Yeoncheong had drifted off somewhere in thought and forgotten to respond. Suyeon raised her voice a little, angling for attention.
"Should we go out again this year? It's the last day of finals again this time too."
"Sounds fine to me."
Hasol clapped her hands in agreement.
Suyeon's eyes swung toward Nayun, as if to say: come on, your turn.
Nayun, who had been listening in a daze, finally chimed in.
"I-I've got time this time too."
Saying she would follow whatever the others decided, Seoha turned her gaze to Yeoncheong.
Lost in her own thoughts, Yeoncheong answered slowly.
"I'm fine with it too. Probably..."
"Really? Great."
"Waaah!"
Suyeon's sudden shout startled everyone.
"Picking a day to hang out gives me the energy to study now!"
But when she added that last part with a sheepish grin, the whole group snickered.
Nayun's and her own birthdays were in August, Seoha's in December.
As Suyeon rattled off everyone else's birthdays, she went ahead on a roll and asked for Yeoncheong's.
Caught by the question, Yeoncheong just shrugged.
"Me? Already passed. March twenty-first."
She said it like it was nothing, but the friends' reactions were anything but.
"Huh? It's already gone by?"
"You could've at least told us back then..."
Even Seoha was uncharacteristically showing her disappointment.
Yeoncheong honestly wondered if it was something worth being that upset over.
"I mean... it was the start of the semester anyway, and birthdays aren't really a thing people make a fuss about, right?"
"Who on earth told you that?"
The truth was, Yeoncheong didn't have many special memories tied to birthdays.
Back at her all-boys middle and high schools, she'd been lucky if she escaped with nothing worse than a birthday beating—gifts were never on the table—and at home, the most she ever got was a cake her father had picked up.
In a household of just two boys, there hadn't even been candles.
The friends, who until that moment had been carefully watching her mood, now unleashed a chorus of scolding all at once.
From Suyeon—we're in the same club, why didn't you tell us?—to Seoha, who sat right beside her and was hurt she hadn't known, to Hasol and Nayun both sighing over how nice it would have been if she'd just said something.
Yeoncheong, who had never realized a birthday was that big an event, got a proper dressing-down without ever quite understanding why.
In the annex club room, the rain that had started around lunchtime showed no sign of letting up.
The advantage of an indoor club was that the weather couldn't touch you. The disadvantage was that you were open to ambush by anyone whose activities took place outdoors.
"Our adorable junior! Did you buy me a souvenir from your school trip?"
—Exactly like Senior Seoyun, who had just flung the door open and barged into the club room.
Yeoncheong simply frowned. What on earth is she on about?
"No, I didn't."
"Aww~ Why noooot?"
"Senior, you never asked me to."
Seoyun pointed at her own head with both index fingers.
"I sent you telepathy. Duh."
Around this time of year, third-years would normally take the national mock exam and feel the pressure of college admissions closing in.
But apparently that logic didn't apply to an iron woman juggling the student council and the tennis club at once.
Suyeon had been carefully minding the mood and keeping as quiet as possible, but Seoyun, oblivious to the situation, had no such reservations.
Having escaped the senior's wandering, teasing hands, Yeoncheong said, "Unfortunately, my body hasn't yet evolved a telepathy-receiving organ."
"Yeoncheong..."
She thought she was acting exactly as usual.
But to Seoyun, who normally delighted in her junior's fresh, honest reactions, something was clearly off.
Seoyun's smile drained away, and she turned to face Yeoncheong squarely.
Yeoncheong flinched, afraid her eyes might lay her feelings bare, and unconsciously looked away.
But the senior caught the expression she'd failed to hide in time, studying it intently.
"Did something happen?"
Silence.
Just before the silence threatened to become an admission in itself, Suyeon jumped into the conversation.
"Senior, you really shouldn't poke at Yeoncheong today."
"Why? What's going on?"
Seoyun looked at Suyeon, trying to decide whether she deserved an answer.
A mind that usually ran razor-sharp seemed strangely out of commission today.
The silence stretched out again, and just as the senior's eyes began to narrow—
"That time of the month!"
"Hm?"
Suyeon glanced quickly at Yeoncheong before answering.
"It's Yeoncheong's time of the month today, so she's a little sensitive."
"Ah..."
Only then did Seoyun shoot Yeoncheong a sidelong glance.
The girl's face did look heavy, and sullen too.
"Well, nothing to be done," the senior said, rising from her seat.
"You're leaving already?"
Suyeon stood up as well and opened the door for her. Watching her junior's attentiveness, Seoyun snorted a quiet laugh.
Then she vigorously ruffled Suyeon's hair on her way out.
"I don't know what's going on, but you owe me one, got it?"
"Thank you, Senior."
And just like that, the senior who had come storming in without warning left the club room just as abruptly, on her own terms.
With the room to themselves again, Suyeon plotted out their next club activities while Yeoncheong quietly watched her, letting the time drift by.
It stayed that way until the downpour, which had arrived without any forecast, softened—and until the two of them, who had come to school without umbrellas, finally made it out the school gates.
The air drifting into the room through the annex was damp.
Yeoncheong, home at last, turned her head toward where the breeze was coming from.
The rain that had beaten down all afternoon. The window she'd cracked open and forgotten about.
Looking at the window frame slick with water, she grimaced and let out a long sigh.
She kicked off her shoes carelessly, tossed her bag aside, and shut the window first. Water had even crept across the floor—her socks were soaked through.
Irritated for no good reason, she was hopping on one foot trying to peel a sock off when it happened.
Her foot slipped on the wet floor. Her tilting body toppled over.
Whump.
Fortunately, the bed broke her fall, and disaster was averted.
Ugh... this is so annoying...
Her mismatched socks half peeled off, Yeoncheong covered her face with both hands.
The rain that had invaded her home, the soaked socks—any of it was enough to sour her mood. But the real problem was something else entirely.
Bad memories don't fade easily. That man's voice—I'll tell your friends about this—still echoed at the edge of her hearing.
Even knowing he had neither her name nor her school, the odds of him actually tracking her down were vanishingly small.
I thought I was getting better over the weekend.
But seeing her friends' faces at school had made it painfully clear that she wasn't.
That was how well Yeoncheong had settled into her life now. Her friends had their slightly mischievous streaks, sure, but she genuinely liked them.
She was terrified that if the truth came out, everything she'd built would come crashing down in an instant.
For a student whose world consisted almost entirely of school and home, a relationship of only a few months carried the weight of everything. And having already lost one set of bonds she'd painstakingly built once before, the emotional tremor ran that much deeper.
By the time her thoughts spiraled that far, Yeoncheong—who could normally keep her face composed at home—had let it all show.
Peering at the ceiling through the gaps between her fingers, she murmured to herself.
I think I have a rough idea of what they think happened.
The moment the school trip came up, Nayun had caught herself, and the others had smoothly steered the topic away.
However oblivious the boy she used to be might have been, Yeoncheong was no fool—she couldn't miss a change like that in friends she spent nearly every day with.
But knowing it didn't make keeping a straight face any easier.
Her worries only deepened.
The hands that had merely been covering her face had somehow clenched into her hair.
How long had she lain there? An arm slid limply down, announcing the end of her deliberation.
I can't do it.
She had no confidence she could face her friends with an ordinary expression, as if nothing had happened.
She couldn't stand by and watch them walk on eggshells because of her.
Having already been burned once by someone she'd called a friend, she couldn't bring herself to be the one to speak up first, either.
Yeoncheong sat up on the bed and looked at the window.
She didn't know how long she'd been lying there, but the water that had dripped onto the floor was drying.
Just as the sorrow her mother's death had left behind had slowly blurred with time.
Just as the betrayal by someone she'd believed was a friend had slowly sunk into the depths of memory.
I just need time.
Yeoncheong believed time would solve this too. She had to believe it.