If You Say "Whatever," You Die
Having met Suyeon, Yeoncheong had been dragged through three cosmetics stores, fed lunch, and given a brief rest at a cafe. None of that mattered, though. What mattered was that despite meeting Suyeon first thing in the morning, they still hadn't so much as started browsing the clothing stores — the actual point of the outing.
Suyeon, who had been walking a good distance ahead, finally adjusted her pace to match Yeoncheong's. Using her friend as a human shield against the foot traffic, Yeoncheong asked, "We're going to look at clothes now, right?"
"Yeah, that's right. Once we've looked at clothes, we're done."
"So we'll finish before dinner?"
"Probably."
Color bloomed in Yeoncheong's cheeks at those words. Meanwhile, Suyeon — who had thrown Yeoncheong's peace of mind completely into disarray — looked perfectly at ease, and that did not sit well with her at all. It felt like she was the only one being put through the wringer, and mischief got the better of her. Linking arms with Yeoncheong, Suyeon flashed a meaningful smile.
"Yeoncheong-ah, you remember, don't you?"
"R-remember what?"
Yeoncheong flinched at the sudden shift in Suyeon's demeanor. That very morning, the linked arm had felt full of protection; now it felt far more like being held so she couldn't run away.
"You promised you'd try on whatever clothes I recommend, no complaints. Remember?"
"...I did."
The arm linked through hers tightened. "Because there are so, so many stores I want to look at today. If you collapse first, I'm counting today as a broken promise."
"Wh-where's the fairness in that?! I was the one tagging along with you all morning!"
Remembering that Suyeon was weak to people pushing back — no wait, that she herself was weak to being pushed — Suyeon took a light breath and came back shameless. "What are you talking about? I recommended all your cosmetics, I hauled you from store to store. I worked way harder than you did today."
As Suyeon puffed out her chest, Yeoncheong only shrank further. Nothing the girl had said was technically wrong. Pressed by the sheer momentum, Yeoncheong's voice shrank another notch. "B-but you were the one who asked to meet up first..."
"Oh? So if that wasn't a promise, does it mean you didn't want to see me?"
"No, that's not what I—"
Mid-excuse, Yeoncheong belatedly realized she'd been swept into her friend's current. She had clearly done something to sour Suyeon's mood, but with no way of figuring out what, she couldn't even apologize. And she had no confidence in winning another war of words, so Yeoncheong folded completely. "I won't whine like I did this morning, so please go easy on me."
Completely misunderstanding the reason for the mischief, Yeoncheong was. Suppressing a laugh, Suyeon led her into the first clothing store.
Suyeon pulled out a few pieces that could be paired together and handed them over. "This and this. Size... looks fine. Go try them on."
"This one's... a skirt?"
When Yeoncheong questioned the item in her hands, Suyeon shrugged. "Your uniform has a skirt too. Try it once."
"That's different — a uniform skirt is something you have to wear..."
Yeoncheong, inspecting the length of the skirt she'd been handed, abruptly stopped talking. Suyeon was staring at her with her eyes scrunched into a glare.
"You haven't forgotten the promise, have you?"
"F-fine! I'll try it on, okay?"
Try it on without complaint. No matter how she turned it over in her head, the terms of that promise were a losing deal. Muttering under her breath at a volume just below audible, Yeoncheong disappeared into the fitting room.
A short while later, the door cracked open and a head poked out, shooting a resentful glare at the friend responsible for the outfit. Suyeon, who had been browsing other racks, wandered over.
"All done?"
"I put it on, yeah."
"Then come out."
The door shut. A single deep breath sounded from inside, and then Yeoncheong shuffled out, dragging her feet.
A short-sleeved blouse in a color that looked like it had been squeezed straight from her hair and eyes. An A-line miniskirt just a touch shorter than her uniform skirt. Unlike her prim school uniform, the whole look radiated an almost overwhelming sweetness and charm — and Yeoncheong clutching the hem of her skirt with a flushed face was the perfect finishing touch. Suyeon had thought it would suit her, but she hadn't expected this. Her eyes went round.
"What's with you? It looks great on you. Why are you so embarrassed?"
"Th-the skirt is short."
Come to think of it, her steps had turned extremely careful. By Suyeon's standards the length was perfectly wearable, but for Yeoncheong — whose entire skirt repertoire consisted of one school uniform — it was another matter entirely.
"Hey, everyone wears that much. You saw the people walking around outside earlier, didn't you?"
"Other people wearing it and me wearing it are two different things."
Her embarrassment seemed to have hit its limit; red to the tips of her ears, Yeoncheong was trembling. Judging that her friend might just short-circuit if she pushed any further, Suyeon waved her back into the fitting room.
When Yeoncheong emerged and handed the clothes back, Suyeon passed her a new stack. "Again?"
"Obviously. Did you think one outfit was the whole show?"
"I figured as much," Yeoncheong grumbled — and yet went back inside obediently, clothes in hand.
Yeoncheong remembered something Suyeon had said in passing at the cafe — that this was nothing to be struggling with yet. Compared to clothes shopping, the cosmetics had been a drop in the ocean. In what felt like an instant, they swept through more than ten clothing stores. They bought several pieces that satisfied both Suyeon and Yeoncheong, and Suyeon — who had gleefully savored every one of her friend's flustered reactions — no longer looked anywhere near as irritable as she had that morning.
By this point, parting ways would have been entirely reasonable. If only Suyeon hadn't been enjoying herself so much while picking out Yeoncheong's clothes.
"Suyeon... I- I'm so tired..."
Yeoncheong finally broke. Only then did Suyeon look up from the clothes she'd been examining. Her arms were full of shopping bags stuffed with cosmetics and clothing, and when she checked the clock on the store wall, she gave a slight nod.
She lasted a lot longer than I expected.
For someone on her first shopping trip like this, the girl had followed along without a single complaint for ages. I should be satisfied with today. Her fit of mischief had mostly burned itself out anyway, and thinking of the future, it was better that shopping not be remembered as pure misery.
Suyeon held up two pieces of clothing, declaring them the last. "Then, for the finale — tell me which one looks better on me. I should buy at least one thing for myself."
Yeoncheong's eyes darted between the two outfits, and her lips parted. "Whatever's fine."
"—And if you say that, you die."
The sentence connected as naturally as breathing. A prickle crawled up the back of Yeoncheong's neck. Sensing murder in the air, she studied the friend holding the clothes. Nothing readable in her expression at all — only the corners of her mouth curving upward.
Desperate to survive, Yeoncheong began deliberating in earnest, but what did she know about women's fashion? And if she just tossed out a random recommendation, she'd be interrogated for her reasoning — which was terrifying. After staring back and forth between the clothes and Suyeon's face for a small eternity, an answer that might break the stalemate occurred to her.
"Both of them look great on you."
"I told you to give me a straight ans—"
This time it was Yeoncheong who cut her friend off. "Your face is pretty. You'd look good in anything, so how am I supposed to choose?"
A beat. Suyeon, who had looked ready to erupt a second ago, went quiet. Just in case she'd misheard, Yeoncheong said it again — slowly, clearly, in a slightly louder voice.
"You're pretty. I think they'd both look great on you."
The store clerk turned to watch with unabashed interest. Face burning, Suyeon's voice climbed an octave. "Y-you! How can you throw around the word 'pretty' like it's nothing?"
"Why? You guys call me cute all the time."
So that's just how girls are with each other, thought Yeoncheong, saying it without a second thought. Objectively, she did think both outfits suited her. She couldn't have imagined, not even in her wildest dreams, that her friends only ever said those things to savor her flustered reactions.
Is this really just the natural, artless naivety of someone who's never once dated? Or is she saying it on purpose to mess with me, after dragging me around all day?
Narrowing her eyes, Suyeon pressed her. "You... have seriously never dated anyone?"
"Stop reminding me. Seriously, nothing hurts more than that."
The gloomy voice carried a grief so raw and heartfelt that Suyeon — who knew Yeoncheong's usual self inside and out — judged there was no way it was acting.
"Fine. I'll buy these and check out, so go wait outside."
Once Yeoncheong had been shooed out, Suyeon glanced around once, then headed for the register with both outfits in hand. "Excuse me — I'll take both of these, please."
The clerk, whose ears had been standing at full attention through every word of the conversation, wore a blissful grin that plainly said this is adorable, I might die as she rang them up.
Shopping in the downtown district complete, Yeoncheong and Suyeon stood waiting for the bus. Yeoncheong kept glancing at her friend, lips twitching. "I kept my end of the promise, right?"
"Yes, yes, you did. Thanks for walking around with me all day."
Suyeon's half-hearted reply came without her eyes leaving her smartphone. Wondering what could possibly be so fascinating, Yeoncheong sneaked a peek at the screen. "What are you looking at so hard?"
"Swimsuits. I was planning to do some browsing today, but you looked like you were about to keel over."
Grateful for her friend's mercy, Yeoncheong remembered: the day trip to the beach with the others wasn't far off. "Do you have to buy one too?"
"Yeah. The ones I wore before don't really fit anymore — I guess from wearing them so long."
She swallowed back the extremely rude question of what part doesn't fit? and was about to sink into her own private worries about how on earth she was supposed to handle swimsuit shopping when Suyeon spoke up.
"Since you haven't bought one yet, want to take a look?"
Suyeon held out her phone. One look at the bikini on the screen and Yeoncheong jerked back in shock, slapping a hand over the display. "You're planning to wear something like that?"
"What's the big deal? It's the beach. And if you really can't stand it, you can just throw something over the top."
Suyeon shoved her shopping bags aside and scooted closer. As she swiped through the screen, swimsuits in every design imaginable dazzled the eye. "If you see one you like, pick it out. We can order yours too."
Yeoncheong gave the screen a quick scan and shook her head. To her eyes, honestly, they all looked no different from lingerie. "I'll buy mine myself."
A polite, dignified refusal of the generosity. But the hand pushing the phone away was caught mid-shove.
Suyeon leaned in and smiled with her eyes. "Should we go look at swimsuits right now instead?"
"Sure, let's see if there's anything good."
A flawless pivot. As Yeoncheong took the phone and started swiping, one swimsuit caught her eye — a black one-piece. There were small cutouts along the sides, apparently, but compared to everything else on the screen it was practically adorable. Exhaustion made short work of the deliberation. Having checked only the front view, Yeoncheong raised her index finger and pointed at the product. "This one's nice."
"Huh? This one's way too plain..."
"It's not. For me, that one's just right."
Before her friend could recommend anything else, Yeoncheong fired off the payment. And just then — her bus pulled up, leaving Suyeon no way to stop her. "That's me! See you then!"
Boarding the bus with a smile soaked in liberation — finally, I'm free — Yeoncheong waved. Suyeon, waving back at the departing bus in a daze, let out a sigh. She went into the app to add Yeoncheong's chosen item to the cart, then recoiled in shock. She looked once more at the bus shrinking into the distance.
She... definitely didn't check that properly before buying it, did she...
She briefly considered texting her the truth over KakaoTalk, but decided that this, in its own way, would be too entertaining to spoil — and kept her mouth shut.
Suyeon punched in the passcode and stepped inside. Her mother's voice carried from deeper in the house. "Suyeon, is that you?"
"Yes. Dad's not home?"
"He said he was meeting a friend and still hasn't come back. Dinner's nearly ready, so bring Siyeon out."
"Okay."
Only after getting home did the day's fatigue crash down on her all at once, and Suyeon dragged her heavy feet into her room. Siyeon, lounging on the bed waiting for dinner, lifted her head. "Hey, Baek Suyeon. What'd you even do all day to get back this late?"
"I told you. I was out meeting Yeoncheong."
Suyeon set her shopping bags on her desk and lowered her school bag beside them. Stretching the weariness away, she looked down at her sister. "Get up. Mom says dinner."
Siyeon rose from the bed — and instead of heading for the door, went straight for the shopping bags. "Oh? This one's cute. Can I wear it sometime?"
The one and only thing Siyeon liked about her twin was that Suyeon never made a fuss when her clothes got stolen. Naturally assuming it would be the same this time, Siyeon had spoken without thinking — but in a flash, Suyeon snatched the clothes away and hugged them to her chest, shaking her head. "No! These are... not yet... I'm trying them on first."
Embarrassed by her own outburst, Suyeon's voice shrank with every word.
"Baek Suyeon! Baek Siyeon! Dinner!"
Long after they'd been called, with neither daughter having emerged, their mother's roar came crashing down.