Can't We Just Share an Umbrella?
What happens if you leave a soaked body unwashed and just let it be?
The answer could be found in Yeoncheong, who showed up at school wearing a mask.
Her homeroom teacher, who came by for morning assembly, took one look at her and said a single word.
"Yeoncheong, did you catch a cold?"
"Yes."
Teacher Jisu nodded as if she already knew everything.
"It's the air conditioning, isn't it?"
"Sorry, what?"
She couldn't exactly say she'd spent the whole day spiraling over her own mental breakdown, so she gave a stiff nod.
Taking her eyes off Yeoncheong, the teacher swept her gaze across the classroom.
"Don't sit under the AC all day just because it's summer. You'll catch a cold right before finals. Everyone understands, right?"
The students answered as one, like a single body.
Running on a low battery thanks to the lingering cold, Yeoncheong sat out PE as well, and even the teachers' impassioned lectures barely registered in her ears.
Lunchtime finally arrived. She ate with Suyeon and Seoha, then returned to the classroom—and there she stayed, to the visible confusion of everyone who had fully expected her to head straight for the library.
Hasol, at the neighboring desk, asked.
"Not going to study today?"
"My condition's not great. I'm going to rest."
From a distance, Suyeon had been watching carefully, and now she crept over.
"Yeoncheong, is it because you got caught in the rain yesterday?"
Only then did the walk home come back to her—the way Suyeon had said her piece one-sidedly and fled like she was running for her life.
She had rejected the offer to share an umbrella and sprinted off into the rain, so it was only natural for Suyeon to worry.
"No, it's just that I had the AC on too much."
She tried a smile to signal she was fine. The soft curve of her lips was hidden behind the mask, but her gently arched eyes did the work, announcing that she was smiling.
"Besides, I was the one who said I wouldn't share in the first place. You don't need to worry about it."
Suyeon's lips poked out in a pout. It was because of what Yeoncheong had said on the last day of the school trip.
"How am I supposed not worry, though..."
What Suyeon muttered under her breath wasn't limited to just this moment.
Meanwhile, in the library, where a peaceful atmosphere always reigned.
Siyeon kept glancing at the library door while pretending to study. Seobin, returning books to their shelves, caught the sight and snickered to herself.
Unable to focus, Siyeon set her pen down.
Why isn't she here today, when she comes every single day?
She'd figured she could apologize if they crossed paths in the library, and now her leg bounced with impatience. That impatience went on for days.
Because Yeoncheong, sick with a cold, spent lunch hour resting in her classroom.
Three times a day, without fail, she took her medicine—whether it was thanks to that, or simply the resilient recovery of youth.
A lingering cough remained, but after a few days, Yeoncheong came to school without her mask.
At morning assembly, her homeroom teacher asked if her cold was all better already and marveled at the resilience of the young.
As finals crept closer, the classroom began shifting the way it had before. A few classmates quietly self-studying here and there after lunch was all the evidence anyone needed.
Her cold had improved enough, and with her classmates studying around her as motivation, Yeoncheong packed up her books to head to the library.
Then Suyeon, back from a quick trip to the bathroom, called out to her.
"Yeoncheong. Siyeon's looking for you?"
What could it be about? Yeoncheong gathered her writing tools and books and stepped out into the hallway.
The moment the blue-haired girl spotted her, Siyeon whisked her off into a corner.
After one quick check of the students passing through the hallway, Siyeon looked at Yeoncheong. She let out a long breath, and even then it took her a good while before she opened her mouth.
"...I'm sorry."
"Huh?"
Yeoncheong tilted her head. Apparently she didn't understand, so Siyeon added more, making her apology plain.
"Your mom... I'm sorry for talking about her the way I did."
"Ah."
Siyeon's attitude back then had stung somewhere deep—like she was daring Yeoncheong to do something about it. But Yeoncheong herself had only said it in the heat of the moment.
And with everything that happened after, she'd forgotten the words entirely.
Siyeon's guilt must have been heavy, because she even bowed her head.
And being so conspicuous about it only made the students walking the hallway whisper to each other about what on earth was going on.
"Hey—no, I mean, Siyeon. I'm fine, so knock it off. Everyone's staring."
Siyeon hurriedly straightened up, blinking eyes so delicate they looked ready to spill tears at the slightest poke. "Really?"
"Of course. I said some harsh things because I was upset too. I'm sorry for that."
"Then why didn't you come to the library?"
That was the question that had kept Siyeon on pins and needles all this time. With Yeoncheong not showing her face at all, she'd convinced herself she'd dealt a terrible wound.
Yeoncheong covered her mouth with a small cough before answering.
"Um... I had a cold. Didn't Suyeon tell you?"
"No... I never heard anything."
Her eyes went round. Her pupils trembled, and her head creaked around toward Class 1 of the second year, where Suyeon was.
Yeoncheong grabbed Siyeon desperately.
If she didn't, Siyeon looked ready to storm in and seize Suyeon that very second.
"Yeoncheong, let go for a second. There's something me and my sister need to talk about. Seriously."
Where was that strength coming from? Even with Yeoncheong clinging to her, Siyeon kept walking slowly toward Class 1.
It didn't look like anything ordinary would stop her.
In the struggle, some of the books and pens tucked under her arm clattered to the floor.
"Studying! You have to teach me to study! Let's just go to the library!"
At Yeoncheong's desperate cry, Siyeon stopped.
Thinking this was her chance, Yeoncheong pressed on with her persuasion.
"If you're sorry, then finish teaching me. Honestly, I like learning from you better than from Suyeon. What do you say?"
"Better than Baek Suyeon?"
It seemed an odd question to bounce back, but Yeoncheong repeated herself word for word.
"Yeah? Yeah. You were better than Suyeon."
It was an honest fact. Suyeon taught by pure intellect, and the lessons had been hard for Yeoncheong to keep up with.
Siyeon suddenly cleared her throat. She turned around, scooped up the fallen books and pens in Yeoncheong's place, and said,
"Then we're making up for everything you missed, and it's going to be brutal. Hurry up and follow me."
She marched straight past Class 1 toward the library, and Yeoncheong, a beat behind, hurried after her briskly retreating back.
The annex club room.
Suyeon was engaged in a relatively normal career-exploration activity, while Yeoncheong fiddled with her smartphone for a moment.
Tap. Rat-a-tat.
The sound came against the window, and soon the rain was hammering the glass.
Suyeon lifted her head and murmured weakly.
"Ah... it's raining."
According to the forecast, the chance of precipitation today was thirty percent.
A while back, when the forecast said sixty percent, the sun had blazed without a cloud in sight. Today, at thirty, the sky had grayed over since lunch and finally begun to pour.
Suyeon kept grumbling that she'd completely forgotten her umbrella today.
"Damn weather service. It never rains when it's supposed to."
Global warming. Extreme weather. She understood, intellectually, that forecasting had only gotten harder than it already was—but watching the rain come sheeting down, there was no way those words didn't slip out.
Yeoncheong, gazing at the same sky, tried to console her friend.
"It wasn't in the forecast, so let's hope it passes quickly."
But...
The smartphone wouldn't stop buzzing. Alert after alert for the surrounding area kept arriving, and the rain lashing the window only grew fiercer.
Just as the anxious thought that it might never stop began to swell—
Someone opened the door and poked their head in. It was the first-year student council member who had come looking for Seoha a while back.
"Hi there."
"Oh? What's up?"
"The school says to head home early because of the heavy rain. I'm delivering the notice."
Since the annex couldn't hear the school broadcast, the student council was carrying the message around personally.
"Got it. We'll head out."
"Okay. Then..."
With a polite bow, the first-year went straight to the neighboring club room to deliver the same news.
Yeoncheong and Suyeon locked up and stepped out of the annex—and the moment they saw the conditions outside, both of them let out a low groan.
The rain showed no sign of letting up, only growing harder.
The hydrangeas blooming in the flowerbeds, as if they'd been waiting all their lives for this very day, drank their fill of the moisture they'd been denied.
Perhaps an unusual number of students had trusted the weather service today, because a crowd remained stuck in the main building, calling their parents or hailing taxis.
Suyeon tried calling Siyeon so they could share a cab, but—
"What?! She already left? She could've waited for me..."
"You didn't bring an umbrella today, did you? Well, neither did you, so she took the taxi."
"Fine. I'll figure out my own way home."
Hanging up, Suyeon let out a small sigh.
"Why would she leave already?"
"Says she just left with her club friends."
Scratching her head, Suyeon fiddled with her smartphone.
"Ugh... I wonder if anyone who lives nearby is still around."
Siyeon, it seemed, had already pooled money with her club friends and grabbed a taxi.
Yeoncheong looked down at the full-length umbrella in her hand.
She'd kept it stored in the classroom precisely to prevent a repeat of last time.
Suyeon scanned the students still at school, searching for anyone headed the same direction. But word had reached them late via the student council first-year, apparently, because not many remained.
"Feels wasteful to take a cab alone."
Hearing that, Yeoncheong deliberated for a moment—then held out the umbrella.
Suyeon stared at it, baffled, as if to ask why on earth she was being handed an umbrella. Yeoncheong forcibly pressed it into her hand and said,
"Return it later."
It was her way of repaying the kindness of that earlier offer to share. Her reasoning: if she had to catch a cold anyway, better it be her—the one who, cold or not, still had some fight left in her.
"Wait, no, we can just share it all the way to your—"
Before the downpour could strengthen any further, Yeoncheong leapt into the rain.
Her retreating figure was already drenched through. That was how hard it was coming down.
"Yeoncheong! Ha Yeoncheong!"
The sight was painfully familiar, and Suyeon's temper snapped.
"Oh, for—again?!"
She flinched when the students watching nearby flinched and cried out at her outburst.
Suyeon checked the umbrella in her hand. Not a compact folding one this time—a proper full-length umbrella. So why, why, would she never think to share it?
Determined not to let her slip away again, Suyeon popped the umbrella open and gave chase.
"Hey! Ha Yeoncheong!"
But her voice was swallowed by the strengthening rain.
How is she so fast?!
Worse, the gap kept widening between Yeoncheong, both arms free, and Suyeon, holding the umbrella in one hand.
Stubbornness took over, and Suyeon chased after her, the umbrella held in a state that was neither properly open nor properly closed.
"Yeoncheong! Stop right there!"
By the time Yeoncheong finally heard Suyeon's desperate voice—
"Suyeon..."
"Yeoncheong... *hah*... *heh*... you little jerk. Now you turn around. *hah*."
—she was already soaked to the bone, standing under the shared entrance of her apartment building.