The Perfect Friend's Only Weakness
Her friends came sprinting over, and once they'd heard the whole story of what had happened, they nearly jumped out of their skin.
Hasol brushed the sand off the ruined mat and luggage, while Nayun glared daggers at the retreating crowd.
"Those bastards. They were the ones pestering someone who said no, and now they're throwing a fit?"
By the time Yeoncheong had talked Nayun down from marching off to pick a fight, everyone's eyes had naturally drifted toward her.
Sensing instinctive danger, Yeoncheong took a careful step back.
"Wh-what? Why? What is it?"
Nayun and Hasol made no attempt to hide their amazement.
"Wow~ So even though you used to be a guy, you were trying to step in front and protect her, huh?"
"Honestly, we came running because we were worried about you."
Suyeon quietly closed the distance and patted her head.
The chairwoman Yurim had told them how, after that incident, Yeoncheong had grown wary of boys her own age. So seeing her try to take a beating for Seoha's sake, shielding her from behind, naturally struck them as both admirable and brave.
Faced with praise so embarrassing she didn't know where to look, Yeoncheong peeled Suyeon off of her.
But Suyeon wasn't finished talking, and promptly latched right back on.
"Still, be careful. Nothing good ever comes from a fight. Thank goodness Seoha stopped it when she did."
Was that what Seoha's backhug had looked like to friends arriving from a distance? The words dredged the earlier scene right back up, and Yeoncheong's head drooped.
"...I know."
She had no desire to make a scene by correcting the misunderstanding, so after promising to be more careful going forward, she was finally released from Suyeon's grip.
***
As if to declare that topic closed, Hasol steered the conversation elsewhere.
"I'm gonna take a break. Seoha, trade spots with me?"
Seoha had been guarding the luggage for ages, and it was Hasol's way of looking out for her — a chance to shake off the sour mood from the beach incident.
However.
"You go have fun a little longer. I've still got some of my book left, so I can finish that and swap with you later."
Seoha declined, ever so politely.
In that instant, the friends saw it.
On the face of the ever-composed Seoha, an emotion none of them had ever witnessed before: embarrassment.
At some point Suyeon had circled around behind her, and now gave Seoha a firm shove.
"You can read anytime. You came all the way to the ocean — you've got to get in the water at least once."
"No... I'm, really fine."
Seoha gripped the sand like putty, holding her ground with all her might.
There could be any number of reasons someone would come to the beach without once dipping a toe in the water, but Seoha's reaction pointed to one conclusion.
Seoha... can't swim?
Yeoncheong glanced at Hasol and Nayun — clearly, they were thinking the exact same thing.
And then.
A group of friends who had just discovered a weakness in the perfect Seoha — student council president, brilliant at both academics and athletics — were never going to let that slide quietly.
No words were necessary.
Nayun and Hasol each grabbed a leg, Yeoncheong seized the left arm, and Suyeon — who had been straining uselessly on her own — spotted her friends and quickly clamped onto the right arm.
Stripped of the use of all four limbs, Seoha glimpsed her own future.
"G-guys? How about we resolve this peacefully?"
On the count of one, two, three, Seoha went up into the air.
Uncharacteristically, her voice grew loud.
"Guys! This kind of prank is fine in comics, but in real life it's genuinely dangerous! Let's talk this out!"
But when would another chance like this ever come?
Having seen Seoha flustered for the very first time, the friends showed no signs of stopping.
They turned her around for an easier carry and marched toward the sea.
Under the single banner of pranking their friend, their hearts beat as one — the flawless, wordless coordination proved it.
Hearing her worry, Nayun offered reassurance.
"It's okay, Seoha. We'll walk out deep enough that tossing you is safe before we let go."
"No, Nayun, that is NOT what I meant!"
Four plus one pressed steadily onward toward the sea all the while.
Seoha's head turned to the right — but the one gripping her right arm, Suyeon, was already grinning at the thought of the throw.
Quick surrender.
Seoha swung her head to the other side, looked at Yeoncheong — and froze.
Yeoncheong was grinning right back at her.
Every flustered moment she'd inflicted on Seoha until now was being avenged, and the emotion was written all over her face.
By the time they reached water up past her knees, the friends began swinging her back and forth to build momentum.
Her round red eyes darting wildly, Seoha desperately called upon her last hope.
"Hasol! Say something! Stop them!"
Hasol paused for a moment.
"Seoha, I'm sorry. Honestly... I can't hold it in any longer!"
And looked away.
Yeoncheong nodded silently in agreement.
Frankly, holding back at a moment like this would be a crime.
"Throw her!"
With Nayun's cry — she'd judged enough momentum had built —
Splash.
Seoha flew through the sky.
"Kyaaaah!"
Seoha's scream — one none of them had ever heard from her — rang out briefly,
and then she plummeted into the ocean, kicking up an enormous spray.
Seoha floundered in water that barely reached past her knees.
"Seoha, it's not deep here. Just stand up!"
At Suyeon's words, Seoha's movements slowed.
At last confirming that the bottom was indeed shallow, she stood up, thoroughly mortified.
The deep scarlet of Seoha's face announced the mission a complete success, and Yeoncheong and the friends exchanged triumphant high-fives.
Trembling with rage and humiliation bubbling up from the depths, Seoha splashed water at her friends.
Taking that as the starting signal — utterly forgetting about guarding the luggage — Yeoncheong and the rest joined in, splashing each other with gleeful abandon.
As if answering the laughter of the girls reveling in their youth, the gulls wheeling overhead cried out along the shoreline.
***
By the time their sun-dried hair and bodies had gotten thoroughly soaked all over again, Hasol and Suyeon pleaded exhaustion and headed back to rest by the luggage.
Yeoncheong and Nayun, who'd been playing in the shallower water, took Seoha with them and headed somewhere a bit deeper.
Water up to their chests now.
Clutching both of their hands in a death grip, Seoha inched forward step by step.
"If you let go of my hands, I swear I will not let this go."
Yeoncheong waved her free hand reassuringly.
"Relax. It's not like I planned to teach you everything in one day anyway. Two of us for one person, so—"
Yeoncheong looked down at her suddenly empty right hand.
In the act of waving, she had apparently let go of the hand she'd been holding.
She turned her head to find Seoha latched onto Nayun, glaring at her with fierce eyes.
Even after Nayun assured her the bottom was within reach, Seoha only let herself down after planting her own foot and confirming it was safe.
Desperately ignoring the red eyes still boring into her, Yeoncheong and Nayun launched into their crash course in swimming.
Both had expected the perfect Seoha to flail about comically.
Those expectations were shattered in an instant.
Watching Seoha pick up the feel of it at astonishing speed, Nayun let out a hollow laugh.
"Wow... Seoha, is there literally anything you're bad at?"
"Things I've never done before."
How many people in this world are great at something the first time they've ever tried it?
Seoha rose from her paddling and stated it as plain fact.
"At this pace, even if today's a bust, you'll pick it up in no time."
Coming from someone who, until moments ago, had been floundering at the water's edge, this was an incredibly generous assessment.
And yet, even after Nayun's praise, Seoha remained somehow dissatisfied.
"Can't I be swimming by today?"
"No matter what, that seems like a stretch... Up till now Nayun and I have been holding you up. Doing it on your own is a whole different problem."
"Such a shame..."
Seoha's red eyes slid toward Yeoncheong.
Yeoncheong, who'd been supporting her legs and waist, ducked swiftly behind Nayun.
"I-I said I was sorry. And that's why I'm helping as hard as I can, aren't I?"
The grudge-holding had gone on far longer than expected, and Yeoncheong was starting to get genuinely nervous.
"Hey, guys!"
Just then, from far off, Hasol waved to the three of them. With Suyeon holding up a beach ball beside her, it looked like they meant to resume their unfinished betting game.
Nayun glanced at Seoha.
"Let's head back. We came here to have fun, not for swim practice."
Only then did Yeoncheong and Nayun lead Seoha back with them.
"Remember the rules?"
Shallow water up to their ankles.
The moment the three drew close, Suyeon spiked the beach ball straight at them.
Yeoncheong hastily reached up to pop the ball into the air.
"We don't have to guard the luggage?"
"That's why we didn't come out far! The end's for everyone to play together!"
came Hasol's reply as she waited under the falling ball, ready to send it flying.
In the meantime, Seoha — briefed on the rules by Nayun — hurled the ball at Suyeon.
"So what are we betting?"
No starting signal had been called, but before anyone noticed, the friends had already formed a loose circle and taken their positions.
Suyeon lofted the ball high toward Nayun and shouted.
"First round — drinks!"
"Got it!"
Backing up and smoothly reading the ball's landing point, Nayun smacked it in a flat line.
Yeoncheong threw herself backward and barely managed a block.
"Are you insane?! Why are you hitting it so hard!"
The beach ball, obeying Newton's third law, rocketed off into the distance before drifting gently down toward Seoha.
Yeoncheong's blue eyes tracked the ball — and met the red eyes glaring directly at her.
A chill.
Goosebumps racing up her arms, Yeoncheong scrambled into a receiving stance, but...
With a magnificent swing of the arm, the incoming beach ball slammed into the sand right at Yeoncheong's feet.
No way... it's a beach ball, not a volleyball. How does it stick in the ground like that?
Yeoncheong rubbed her eyes, wondering if she'd seen wrong, but the beach ball bobbing at her feet in the wash of the waves remained exactly where it was.
"So drinks are on Yeoncheong. What do we bet next?"
Seoha was looking this way with a radiant smile.
In that moment, Yeoncheong thought:
Ah... I'm dead. This is it for me.
Yeoncheong did her utmost to avoid hitting Seoha with the ball, but once a target had been chosen, it was nothing more than futile resistance.
***
Having burned out their last energy on the beach ball wagers, Yeoncheong and the friends trudged back to the mat and collapsed.
Yeoncheong glowered at them as she hunted for the clothes she'd arrived in.
"Can you really call yourselves our friends after that?"
Starting with Seoha's relentless barrage, she aired her grievances against the friends who had ganged up on her and her alone.
She'd resisted with everything she had, protesting that in water barely up to the ankles, she couldn't just stand there and take it —
but in the end it settled as: one bag of snacks each for Nayun and Suyeon to share, two bags for Hasol, and for Yeoncheong, two large drinks plus an ice cream for everyone.
Toward the end, they'd all ganged up on Seoha too, insisting she had to buy at least one thing — but she survived to the very last and ended up making Hasol the loser instead.
Following her friends' example of toweling off haphazardly, Yeoncheong threw on her shorts and T-shirt.
"Uuuugh! Let's finally go back and rest."
Suyeon stretched and took the lead, but Nayun overtook her, declaring she was showering first.
Not about to lose, Suyeon bolted after her.
"Guys! The key's over here!"
Hasol shouted, waving the room key, but the two departing friends were already out of earshot.
With two of them sprinting to the lodging keyless, the remaining three — who had been planning a leisurely stroll — belatedly started running too.
"Why are you running AGAIN when you said you were exhausted!"
Hasol's utterly spent cry echoed hollowly across the beach.