A Woman's Shopping Is Exhausting
Now that the remedial classes — the ones that had made it impossible to think of vacation as an actual vacation — were finally over, Yeoncheong was breathing the vacation air for the very first time.
She needed to recover from all the studying, and from the mental exhaustion that came with getting tangled up with Seoyun-unnie. So she'd planned to sleep in a little, roll around in bed, and just relax...
Then, right in the middle of a video she was genuinely enjoying, a message from Suyeon covered the screen.
Yeoncheong tossed her smartphone lightly over her shoulder. It bounced twice before landing safely on the bed.
After burrowing under the covers and denying reality for a good long while, she poked her head out.
"I have to go. If I'm late, who knows what she'll say this time."
As she folded the blanket and got up, regret still lingered in her eyes. Afraid that if she kept looking back, her feet would never leave, she snapped her head forward and marched to the bathroom.
The sigh of worry over the long day ahead went without saying.
Arriving at the downtown shopping district, Yeoncheong looked around for her friend. A vacation weekend meant packed crowds, and finding one person in that sea of humanity was no easy task.
Just then, her phone rang. She answered it and started walking.
"Where are you?"
[You here yet?]
The sound of cars, snippets of conversation from passersby. When a man brushed past right in front of her, she froze for a second before pressing on. The ambient noise forced her to raise her voice a little.
"Yeah, just tell me the name of a store near you and I'll head that way."
[If I tell you, will you even know where it is? I'll come find you.]
"It's crowded and confusing over here, so just..."
Yeoncheong never finished the sentence. A breath of air slipped into her ear, sending a chill down her spine.
Her cheeks flushed red. She clapped her hands over her ears on pure reflex and put distance between them.
"Baek Suyeon..."
Her friend appeared with the triumphant smile of someone who had just pulled off a perfect prank.
"So? I scared you, didn't I?"
"How long were you watching me?"
"Since you got off the bus?"
In other words — from the very moment Yeoncheong had arrived at the shopping district. She'd been watching from the start.
When Yeoncheong glared at her, face twisted into a full sulk, Suyeon thought, yeah, I'm about to get an earful. So the quick-witted friend swiftly looped her arm through Yeoncheong's and set off walking.
Yeoncheong, conscious of all the eyes around them, panicked. What is she doing? she thought, trying to wriggle free, but Suyeon only wound her arm tighter, holding on firm.
Dodging pedestrians and trying to pry her arm loose at the same time, Yeoncheong found her lips trembling with effort.
"I'm not running away, so let go already."
"Nope. Other schools are on break too, which means the place is crawling with boys."
So she'd been watching from the beginning — and apparently she'd also caught a scene she never needed to see. Suyeon gave a casual shrug at the suddenly quiet Yeoncheong.
"No need to thank me."
"Got it."
And Yeoncheong obediently did exactly as she was told.
Suyeon stared, mouth hanging open in disbelief, then shot back, "Hey! Isn't this the part where you say something like thanks anyway or thank you regardless?"
"My bad. Who told you to mess with me first?"
Only then did Yeoncheong crack a small laugh and give her friend the words she was fishing for.
"...Thanks."
Yeoncheong pressed herself in closer of her own accord, and the unexpected warmth against her arm made Suyeon flinch.
"So where to first?"
Too busy dodging the men passing close by, all of Yeoncheong's attention was aimed elsewhere — she hadn't noticed a thing.
Realizing that she was the only one blushing over this, Suyeon cleared her throat loudly and straightened up.
"J-just follow me for now!"
Yeoncheong, humming to herself, called out to Suyeon, who was busy browsing the displays.
"Suyeon?"
"Yeah? What is it?"
Suyeon didn't even turn around, still absorbed in the merchandise. No need to look over just to have a conversation, so Yeoncheong kept going.
"If I remember right, our plan was to go clothes shopping, wasn't it?"
"Don't worry. Obviously we're hitting the clothing stores too."
Suyeon turned around and held out a cosmetic product to Yeoncheong. What do you think of this one?
It turned out the first stop Suyeon had dragged her to was a cosmetics store. At first Yeoncheong assumed she had something she actually needed to buy, but from the vibe of things, that clearly wasn't it.
Yeoncheong accepted the product with a sour face and turned it over in her hands, examining it this way and that. Or rather, pretending to examine it. How much could a girl who had stuck with all-in-one products until recently — too lazy to even bother with separate shampoo — really know about skincare? Half the stuff she used at home was still sitting there barely touched.
"Hmm... well. I've still got some left at home, so..."
Just as Yeoncheong looked up from her half-hearted inspection, two mismatched eyes were staring straight at her — one red, one blue.
"Left over?"
The word tailed off upward. It was phrased as a question, but Yeoncheong fell silent.
I know every single cosmetic in your apartment, and you're telling me you've still got some left? That was exactly the expression on her friend's face.
Only then did the memory surface — that night she'd spent at Yeoncheong's place, when she'd asked to borrow something to put on her face and Yeoncheong had handed over whatever was within arm's reach without a second thought.
Yeoncheong's brain whirred into survival mode at breakneck speed. It was spinning so hard she wondered if it had ever worked this intensely even during remedial classes.
"I've still got some left, so I wasn't going to buy any! But they're pretty old, so I think it's time for a replacement. Guess I should get a new one, huh?"
"Exactly! See, you get it. Glad I brought you along."
Suyeon beamed and nodded enthusiastically. Relieved to have dodged the bullet, Yeoncheong ventured a careful question.
"So... what am I supposed to be using, exactly?"
Suyeon's eyes lit up.
"You don't know? Then let me recommend some things for you."
Yeoncheong regretted it instantly.
She could get away with saying a lot of things — but that was not one of them.
"S-Suyeon..."
Having trailed her friend from store to store, Yeoncheong finally collapsed right where she stood. Only then did Suyeon turn around and come back over.
"Yeoncheong, you tired?"
"I already bought all the basics. How is there still more to get?"
This was already the third cosmetics store she'd been dragged through. The shopping bags from the previous two stores were already hanging off her arm, logos stamped proudly on the sides.
"Just in case. We're here, so we might as well look."
Suyeon swept a glance over the surrounding products, then lifted both clenched fists toward Yeoncheong in a little cheer.
"Hang in there just a bit longer. Once we're done here, cosmetics are officially over."
She held out her hand to her exhausted friend. From Suyeon's perspective, it was an encouraging word meant with the best intentions for her struggling friend.
"Wait... we're not done with cosmetics?"
It was not the response she'd been hoping for.
Round blue eyes looked up at her, and Suyeon tilted her head as if to say, obviously, why?
"We haven't even had lunch yet. And we haven't touched the clothes — you know, the actual point of today."
"Ah..."
That short sigh from Yeoncheong explained everything.
When she said 'let's meet in the morning so we can get through it fast,' she didn't mean 'let's finish by noon and split up'...
Apparently thinking her friend could barely lift her arms, Suyeon bent her knees and grabbed Yeoncheong's hand, hauling her up with all her strength. Then she looped their arms together — can't have you collapsing again — and they resumed the shopping tour.
Yeoncheong was dragged along like a zombie, swaying with every step.
Honestly speaking, she couldn't remember a single thing she'd looked at or bought after that.
Still, Suyeon kept her promise.
They finished the third cosmetics store and had a slightly early lunch. She'd been about to head straight for the clothing store, but she changed course and took Yeoncheong to a café first — partly to escape the crowds, which had only thickened since morning, and partly to let her half-conscious friend recover.
While Yeoncheong sat in her chair massaging her legs over and over, Suyeon went and picked up their order for her.
"Here — your strawberry one."
When Suyeon tore open the packaging and popped in the straw, Yeoncheong, who had barely lifted her head, clamped her lips around it. The pale pink smoothie sank steadily down the paper straw, flooding her mouth with strawberry, and Yeoncheong broke into a blissful smile.
"Ahhh. This is living."
"We've only been through a few stores. You can't be this wiped out already."
Suyeon chuckled at the sight of her. Yeoncheong lifted her head again for another sip, and just as her expression had softened, so had her voice gone slack and melty.
"I know this isn't the time for it, but... you really shouldn't judge people by appearances alone."
Meaning: I used to be a guy, so of course this kind of shopping exhausts me.
But.
That is not a face that gets to say that while drinking a strawberry smoothie.
With that utterly adorable look on her face, Yeoncheong had no right to say such things. It was the defenseless haplessness of someone with zero self-awareness about her own looks.
Suyeon considered teasing her for a moment — but decided that would only mean she'd get to see that face even less, so she kept the thought strictly to herself.
Of course, since this was a café, Suyeon wasn't the only one getting an eyeful of that face of Yeoncheong's.
Furtive glances from the people seated around them.
Suyeon quietly got up and nudged Yeoncheong over to the side. Wearing a puzzled look, Yeoncheong shuffled over, and Suyeon took the seat beside her.
"Why'd you move over here?"
She couldn't exactly say because everyone's staring at you, so Suyeon stalled — and her eyes landed on the shopping bags. She reached inside, pulled out a cosmetic, and said:
"You think buying it is the end of it? You don't even know what order to apply things in. Someone has to teach you."
"Now? While I'm resting?"
Yeoncheong made her displeasure glaringly obvious, but that hardly mattered. The moment Suyeon began her explanation, Yeoncheong grumbled and lifted her head anyway.
Having packed every last cosmetic back into the shopping bags, Suyeon looked over her sole student in Skincare Fundamentals.
"So? Making sense now?"
Yeoncheong's face was somewhere between understanding and utter fog, but she nodded. Apparently she'd decided that listening alone wouldn't cut it past a certain point — her phone was out, a memo app open on the screen.
Reading over her notes, Yeoncheong clicked her tongue.
"I'm supposed to do this annoying stuff every day?"
"It's barely a few steps. Don't exaggerate."
To Suyeon these were the absolute bare basics, but to Yeoncheong they were anything but. When her head had already begun to throb, Suyeon gave her cheek a gentle pinch.
"Skincare is something you do while your skin's still good. That's how you keep it good."
Yeoncheong stared hard at the girl who'd pinched her cheek and said,
"Like you?"
"Wh-what?"
A compliment, delivered as an ambush. Suyeon stammered, caught completely off guard.
Yeoncheong tilted her head, baffled.
"What? Isn't your skin nice because you do all that too?"
She needed to answer — but her face was burning up, and she just buried it instead.
Suyeon gulped down the rest of her drink and shot up from her seat.
"Y-you're finished eating, right? We've still got a ton of places to go. Come on, up!"
"Hey, Suyeon! Wait for me!"
Yeoncheong downed what was left of her drink in one gulp and hurried after her friend out of the café.
Careful not to bump into anyone, she only barely caught up. Pressed in tight at Suyeon's side, she leaned her head forward a little to look up at her friend's face.
"You've, uh... got something on your face."
"Hm?"
"Where?"
Suyeon rubbed the corner of her mouth once, then looked at Yeoncheong. "Still there. Hold on."
Yeoncheong suddenly reached out, wiped the chocolate smudge from Suyeon's lips —
and brought it to her own mouth.
Startled, Suyeon demanded to know what on earth she was doing.
"Hm? There was nowhere to wipe it, was there? Can't exactly smear it on your clothes."
When Yeoncheong beamed at her, bright and guileless, Suyeon jerked her head away.
She's normally SO shy — why is she like this today?!
What Suyeon didn't know was this: just as Suyeon and the others had come to Yeoncheong first, secrets and all, Yeoncheong was finally starting to open her heart completely to her friends. That all the teasing words and touches she'd traded with them had been taken at face value — Yeoncheong had innocently come to believe that this was just the kind of skinship girls had with each other.
Yeoncheong stared intently at Suyeon's face, then tilted her head.
"Suyeon. Isn't there still some chocolate on you...?"
"I'll — I'll wipe it myself!"
Both of Suyeon's hands, which had been rubbing at a face Yeoncheong had already cleaned spotless, flew up to clutch her own head.
Suyeon had planned this whole outing as part of her campaign to make Yeoncheong into a proper girl — the cosmetics shopping was step one.
Instead, she'd walked straight into a counterattack no one saw coming, and her face was bright scarlet.
