Worries, and an Answer Simpler Than Expected
The friends who came out of the Chairwoman's office could only look at one another's faces, unable to find their words.
Everyone wore the same bewildered expression.
Among them, Hasol murmured, as if something had just clicked.
"So that's why she was so shy about changing clothes..."
She'd belatedly understood why Yeoncheong had always kept a subtle distance, but that wasn't the kind of knowledge that helped anyone right now.
Once one of them started, the others followed — beginning with Nayun, who was still tilting her head in confusion.
"Honestly, I still can't believe it. I looked it up, and it's so rare that you barely find anything about it."
"The Chairwoman would never lie about something like that."
"She seemed completely sincere to me, too."
Suyeon and Seoha ruled out the possibility that it was all an elaborate, tasteless prank.
Silence settled over them once more.
All they'd set out to do was track down a friend who'd gone missing — and somehow the whole thing had ballooned far beyond that.
After all, no one had imagined they'd be hearing that a friend they'd shared every high and low with for the better part of a year had once been a boy.
Seoha spoke up amid the awkward atmosphere.
"That boy who came to our school. Do you remember his name?"
"Kim... something, I think. Why do you ask?"
That was all Nayun — the loudest one at the front of the group — had managed to dredge up: the surname from his name tag.
"There's something I need to say to him in person."
"What? What could you possibly have to say to that guy?"
Seoha's red eyes turned toward the window.
They darted about restlessly, as if searching for the one person absent from this room.
"We can't just let him keep running his mouth. She wanted it hidden so badly — and if this goes on, Yeoncheong's only going to suffer more for it."
"That's true... given how things stand, she's the one who'll have the hardest time of it."
The boy who'd acted as if there were no consequences coming was a bomb waiting to go off. Even though Yeoncheong was the one who'd actually been hurt, he'd somehow been the one playing the victim.
Hasol nodded along to Seoha's reasoning, then looked to Nayun. But Nayun only shook her head — the name was simply gone from her memory.
"I was too worked up that day to remember properly. Anyone know his name?"
Hasol and Suyeon, who'd been standing a little farther back, had no interest in the name — and neither did Seoha, who'd been busy fetching the security guard at the time.
Seoha crossed her arms and murmured.
"Then he was wearing a school uniform... I suppose I'll have to start by finding his school."
Just then, Suyeon's head shot up with a small "Oh!"
"I think I know his name."
It was the day the torrential rain had come pouring down.
The name had been there, on Yeoncheong's smartphone — the one Suyeon had secretly gone snooping through. An account belonging to a nameless boy, neither Seobin nor Siyeon.
It had caught her eye back then, so she'd committed it firmly to memory.
Seoha repeated the name to herself a couple of times, then hurried off, saying she'd go on ahead.
"Should we head home too?"
"Yeah. We've just had a lot dropped on us all at once. Some time to sort out our thoughts would do us good."
The remaining three parted ways with stiff, awkward goodbyes.
A pair of legs stretched down from the top bunk drummed against the floor of the bunk bed.
"Hey. Was the movie any good?"
"Huh? Uh... yeah, it was."
Normally, Suyeon was the type who'd rattle off a breathless recap of the film and everything she'd gotten up to with her friends whether you wanted to hear it or not — pure bragging, start to finish.
Troubled by her twin's uncharacteristically lukewarm response, Siyeon poked her head up from the bottom bunk.
"What's with the half-dead reaction?"
"I don't know... I watched it, but I can't really remember."
Gripping the top bunk's railing, Siyeon studied her twin carefully.
She jabbed a finger at Suyeon, who was lying with her back turned.
"You said you found out why Yeoncheong hasn't been coming to school. So why are you like this?"
"There's... a thing."
"Moping around by yourself without even telling me what happened. So unlike you."
"Ah! I told you it's a secret!"
Suyeon whirled around with a shout, and the startled Siyeon ducked her head below the railing.
Perhaps her pride was stung at being startled so badly, because Siyeon's voice rose.
"Ugh, seriously! You scared me! Why are you suddenly screaming?"
"You're the one screaming!"
Suyeon raised her voice right back, refusing to lose.
As if whoever spoke more quietly lost, the two twins climbed ever louder.
Normally, the fight would escalate from here and end with their parents scolding them. But—
"There we go. That's more like it."
Having confirmed that Suyeon was back to huffing and grumbling, Siyeon slipped into her own bed.
The spark of the fight settled as time passed. Yet the anger that never got its release refused to let Suyeon stay gloomy in peace.
Realizing this was her sister's own roundabout way of looking out for her, Suyeon poked her head down over the edge.
"Hey. Baek Siyeon."
"What?"
A muffled reply drifted up from under the blanket.
"If someone found out the secret you'd do anything to keep hidden — what's the one thing I could do for you?"
"Be honest with them."
"But they keep avoiding me?"
"Hey."
This time the answer came back clear and unobstructed, landing squarely in Suyeon's ears. Siyeon poked her head out of the blanket and spoke.
"Since when do you overthink things like this? When you recruited Ha Yeoncheong into the club, you just barreled straight in, didn't you? Do the same thing this time."
"This isn't about Yeoncheong."
"Yeah, yeah~"
A snide little retort.
A voice that made her want to climb down right that second and pummel her.
And yet, hearing Siyeon's words, her head felt a whole lot clearer.
Suyeon turned a fond smile toward her capable little sister and—
"Hey. Baek Suyeon. Don't come down here."
"Siyeon-ah. When it comes to looking out for your older sister, nothing beats a younger sibling."
"We were born minutes apart — stop calling yourself the older one! Ugh, get lost! I said don't come down!"
And so the close(-ish?) twins were once again destined to get an earful from their parents.
Suyeon had her twins to help shoulder some of the weight on her heart. Seoha had gone home after digging up the boy's name. Hasol and Nayun had parted ways, saying they needed time to think.
Worries that deepened along with the night.
But the merciless sun that rose with the morning waited for no answer to anyone's troubles.
One familiar empty seat in the classroom. The slack, half-hearted classes after finals dragged by, all motivation long drained from them.
Then, at lunch, Suyeon summoned the other three friends.
This wasn't a conversation for a noisy classroom — and in that respect, having the annex club room freely available was a genuine blessing.
"I'm going to her house. In person."
Once again, Suyeon cut straight to the point.
Hasol's eyes went wide with surprise.
"You're done deliberating already?"
"Yep. You know I'm not the type to agonize over this kind of thing for long."
"What if she won't open the door?"
"Then I'll wait in front of it until she does."
The answer came out without a moment's hesitation. Headstrong. Obstinate.
This clearly wasn't the conclusion of some long, careful deliberation.
Nayun, who'd been listening quietly, cut in.
"Since when?"
"Starting today. What about you three?"
That was the question Suyeon had genuinely wanted to ask her friends.
But Hasol and Nayun, it seemed, hadn't finished wrestling with their own thoughts — they both looked away.
And Seoha—
"Sorry. I have my own business to take care of."
"You're looking for that boy who came to the school, aren't you?"
Seoha, with uncharacteristic dark circles under her eyes, nodded.
"I've already found his school and his family connections."
Just as the boy had combed through social media to track down Yeoncheong's whereabouts, Seoha was now using it to dig through his personal information.
Faced with a side of her friend she'd never seen before, Nayun stammered.
"D-do you really need to go that far?"
"Yes. Better to be thorough."
Somehow, Seoha's red eyes sent a chill down their spines.
Having confirmed that her friend meant to handle her own business, Suyeon spoke up.
"Understood. I can't force any of you. Let's head back."
She took the silence of Hasol and Nayun as their answer.
And so the brief meeting of the four friends who knew the secret came to an end.
Several more days passed after that.
Suyeon was keeping her word to the letter. The moment the final bell rang, she'd grab her bag and head straight for Yeoncheong's apartment.
Of course, judging by the shadow creeping over her face with each passing day, it didn't seem to be doing much good.
Seoha was investigating the boy's background in earnest, and reported that she'd be paying him a visit in person soon.
Unlike the two who had already made up their minds, Hasol and Nayun alone remained mired in indecision.
Today, too, as Suyeon made to leave for Yeoncheong's place, someone grabbed her arm.
"Hasol? Nayun, you too?"
"Suyeon-ah. Give us a little of your time."
Possibly because no one had stopped by in ages, a thin layer of dust had settled over the long-closed annex club room.
Suyeon, entering first, looked around the room and grimaced.
"Wow... we really need to clean in here."
Hasol closed the door behind them and asked.
"Suyeon-ah. Why do you want to see Yeoncheong again?"
On the surface, an innocuous question — but now that they knew Yeoncheong had once been a boy, nothing about it sounded ordinary anymore.
Suyeon understood the real intent buried in the question.
What should she say to persuade the two of them?
Just as it seemed the silence might stretch on, the answer that left Suyeon's mouth was—
"We're friends, aren't we? I want to keep being her friend."
Far simpler and clearer than any of them expected.
Things like: what matters isn't the past but the present and the future, or: it's a heartbreaking situation, so I want to help her, and so on.
The two friends, who'd braced themselves for some grand declaration, were caught off guard.
For the sake of their stunned faces, Suyeon elaborated a little more.
"At first, I did a lot of agonizing too, you know? About her having been a boy and all that. But thinking that way, it just never ends. So I decided to change how I think — keep it simple."
Suyeon caught her breath for a moment, then smiled.
"I've had so much fun being around Yeoncheong, and I want it to stay that way from now on. So no matter what, I'm going to get close to her again."
As if recalling everything she'd been through with Yeoncheong, it was a bright smile none of them had seen from her lately.
As if she'd just been smacked upside the head, Hasol, who'd been sitting quietly, let out a small laugh.
"Starting today, I'm coming with you."
Hearing her friend say it out loud, all her own weeks of back-and-forth deliberating suddenly felt foolish.
And Hasol wasn't the only one moved by the simple words that cut straight to the heart of things.
"Me too. Listening to you, I feel stupid for agonizing this long."
"Well, you are the designated idiot among us."
Suyeon blinked, wondering what that was about.
When Nayun doubled down on that objective fact, she raised her hand in mock threat.
"You wanna fight? In this nice moment?"
The three of them, gathered in one place for the first time in a while, burst out laughing.
In case Yeoncheong slipped outside while they weren't watching, the two of them hurried after Suyeon — who knew the way — straight to her apartment.
"This the place?"
"Yep. Second floor, that unit."
Suyeon pointed up at the second floor.
Nayun searched for a window with a view, rising uselessly onto her tiptoes.
"She's definitely home?"
"If she hasn't gone out, she should still be there. I saw her lights come on last night."
Nayun lowered her heels and turned to look at Suyeon beside her.
"You were out there that late?"
"She might slip out the moment I let my guard down."
"And you still never ran into her even once? Then where exactly have you been watching from...?"
Hasol, glancing around at the inside of the shared building entrance, chimed in.
"Right... if she doesn't know the door code, waiting out here is all she can do."
"Huh? I know her apartment's door code."
"What?"
At an answer no one saw coming, Hasol and Nayun made identical dim-witted noises.