A Senior's SOS
It was one of those days when Yeoncheong, having bought Seoha's birthday present downtown with Suyeon, suddenly realized that more than half of vacation had already slipped away.
She had been sprawled starfish-style on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, when she abruptly sat up and looked around the room.
Maybe I should tidy up a bit?
It had been nearly half a year since she'd moved in, and dust had quietly accumulated in every corner of the house. As it happened, there was no laundry or other chores waiting for her either.
Yeoncheong rolled up her sleeves and launched into a long-overdue deep clean. The bathroom and kitchen went without saying — she even hauled the movable furniture out of the way and scrubbed underneath every last piece.
By the time she was done, she didn't have the energy to make a proper lunch, so she settled for a quick bowl of ramyun and gazed around the house with a satisfied smile.
"Even by my standards, that's clean."
Sunlight streamed through the window, making the house and furniture sparkle. Marveling at how her cleaning skills improved by the day, she was just about to settle in for an afternoon nap when—
The unmistakable chime of a messenger roused her.
Suyeon?
The first face that came to mind was the friend she texted most often. Still lying down, Yeoncheong groped blindly for her smartphone and checked the message.
But the name at the top of the screen was Senior Seoyun.
Given how stubbornly she clung to being called "Unnie," Yeoncheong didn't need to look twice.
Startled by the out-of-nowhere plea for rescue, her fingers flew across the screen.
The messages arrived in staccato bursts. Whatever was happening, it clearly couldn't wait.
Alarmed, Yeoncheong scrambled out of bed and began typing a reply saying she'd head over right away — then paused.
Hold on a second...
Looking back over the situation with a cooler head, something didn't add up.
Why would she need to text me about this?
If it were a real emergency, she could call the security guard on campus, or the police, or emergency services.
Yeoncheong, suspicion duly aroused, sent her reply.
The message Yeoncheong had been reading vanished before her eyes. A moment later, the senior sent a corrected version.
Only now did the message get a little more honest.
Yeoncheong considered it briefly, then moved her finger across the screen and sent her answer.
She climbed out of bed and changed into comfortable clothes. The senior liked her pranks a little too much, sure, but she wasn't a bad person at heart.
And besides, Yeoncheong had been planning to repay her for the remedial tutoring anyway. This could double as a thank-you.
Walking the route she tramped every day during the school term — except now, in the middle of vacation, under the midday sun — gave her a strange, floating feeling.
"Yeoncheong! Over here!"
The moment she passed through the school gate, Senior Seoyun spotted her and waved from far away. Beside her stood another figure, one whose silhouette was recognizable even at a distance.
Seobin?
Senior Seoyun, Yeoncheong herself, and now Seobin too. Puzzling over what kind of combination that was supposed to be, she made her way over to the two of them.
The senior seized both of her hands and shook them vigorously, as if to say thank you for coming.
"Yeoncheong, your Unnie is genuinely touched."
"Don't be. I only came because it's close by."
Yeoncheong put up her guard. Glancing at the tennis courts, quiet and empty in a way they hadn't been during remedial sessions, she cut straight to the point.
"So what did you need me for?"
"Ah, right — we're cleaning out the clubroom, and I was hoping you could help."
"You could've just said that in the text from the start."
"Then you wouldn't have come."
Yeoncheong faltered. She had no comeback.
Fine, she could understand why the senior had dressed things up as an emergency. Her gaze drifted, all on its own, toward the girl standing nearby.
"So you tricked Seobin into coming too?"
"Tricked? No way! She was in the school library, so I just asked if she could help me out."
Seobin nodded along, apparently confirming it was true.
Senior Seoyun drew the hands she was holding up toward her chest and pleaded.
"Please. Just this once. I'll make it up to you properly, I promise."
At the faintly soft sensation against her palms, Yeoncheong yanked her hands free.
"Fine, fine. I came to repay you for the tutoring anyway."
She had no intention of refusing — she was the one who'd shown up to say thanks. The deep cleaning that morning had worn her out, sure, but with three people on the job it wasn't worth worrying about.
"Yeoncheong... there's no junior quite like you. Ah — of course, Seobin, that goes for you too."
Senior Seoyun looked between her and Seobin with eyes brimming over with gratitude. Yeoncheong, for her part, narrowed her eyes and gave the senior a sidelong glance.
"Then maybe treat me this well on a regular basis?"
"I already treat you plenty well, don't I? Don't tell me you want better than this?"
"...Never mind. I take back what I just said."
Having things escalate beyond the current level of affection was something Yeoncheong also firmly declined.
"Oh, and what was the message you deleted? I didn't get to read all of it..."
"I sent that one by mistake! Forget it. Ha, hahaha."
Cutting her off, Senior Seoyun hurriedly changed the subject and circled around behind her, pushing her forward by the shoulders.
"It wasn't anything important. Let's get this cleaning done and over with."
"Really?"
"Y-yeah. That's right."
Seobin, who had been reading every single one of those texts over her shoulder, nodded with an awkward expression.
The building beside the gym storage shed, reserved for the tennis club — a place Yeoncheong had been inside once before, when she'd toured the clubs.
Rifling through that brief memory, Yeoncheong licked her lips.
"The way I remember it, this place was pretty clean... is there really that much to pick up?"
"Ah, right, you visited once back at the start of the semester. What it was then and what it is now are two completely different animals."
With a warning not to be shocked, Senior Seoyun opened the door. Yeoncheong and Seobin, taking in the state of the interior, found themselves speechless.
"Is... is this right?"
"You don't get in trouble for leaving it like this?"
To their questions that weren't really questions, the senior scratched her cheek.
"It's normally not this bad. The girls were packing for their training camp and just left everything strewn about."
"Still, this is a bit..."
Chip bags that had been eaten from and never properly thrown away. Cleaning tools and assorted spare equipment collapsed in a heap. And on top of it all, layers of dust piled up everywhere else.
Having just finished deep-cleaning her own house, it all looked especially filthy to her.
She'd assumed three people would make quick work of it — a miscalculation, as it turned out. If a senior had summoned two extra bodies, it meant this was a job that genuinely needed the manpower.
Seobin and Yeoncheong took the floors, while Senior Seoyun was assigned to sorting through the tennis equipment.
Cleaning in silence, Yeoncheong suddenly straightened up at a question that had floated back into her mind — one she'd completely forgotten amid all the chatter when they first met.
"By the way, Unnie — why are we the ones cleaning this up?"
"Ah... good point."
Seobin evidently hadn't thought that far either; she just lifted her head and waited for the answer.
Senior Seoyun carried an armload of gear toward a corner as she spoke.
"I told you — the girls are off at their training camp. And..."
Having put the equipment back in its place, the senior wore a wistful look on her face.
"While I was sorting through my own stuff, I wanted to give this place one last cleaning."
As she looked around the clubroom, gradually returning to order, Senior Seoyun's eyes traced backward through time.
She was the senior who had doubled up on student council duties and still thrown herself into club activities right up to the very end. Anyone could tell her feelings for this club ran deeper than most.
Then she returned from her memories and flashed the two of them a mischievous grin.
"And while I'm at it, I figured I'd lecture my precious juniors about keeping the place spotless from now on."
Back to her usual self in an instant, Senior Seoyun resumed cleaning, and the two second-years — not yet able to fully share in that sentiment — quietly kept at it as well.
Thankfully, this wasn't anyone's living space, so the work went more smoothly than expected.
Before long—
"Whew... I think this is about enough."
"Yeah, it's definitely clean now."
Yeoncheong and Seobin took pride in the transformed clubroom.
"Alright, girls — let's move just this last thing and call it done."
At the senior's call, the two of them turned to face... tennis nets. Judging by their condition, they were brand new.
"Just carry these out to the storage shed, and we're finished."
"Got it."
Yeoncheong and Seobin each took a net. Following Senior Seoyun, who led the way with the keys, they filed out one after the other.
The shed doors creaked open, and dust motes drifting in the sunlight greeted the three of them.
"Ahem, ahem. Wow, there's so much dust in here."
The senior, waving a hand as she scanned for somewhere to set the nets down, suddenly froze mid-step.
"Huh?"
A baton was rolling across the floor. Its container had toppled over, spilling its contents everywhere.
"Girls — careful not to step on the batons!"
"Sorry, what?"
But the warning came a beat too late.
Yeoncheong, following right at the senior's heels, planted her foot squarely on one of the round batons and went down in spectacular fashion. A startled Seobin, letting out a textbook scream, toppled right along with her.
With a tremendous clatter, the dust on the floor billowed up in a cloud.
"Ahem. Girls, are you hurr—"
Senior Seoyun, mid-cough, looked at the two of them and lost her words entirely.
They had fallen in exactly the same way, yet one of them was thrashing helplessly, tangled up in the tennis net, while the other had slipped out without a scratch.
"Same fall, so why are the results different?"
The senior stroked her chin, pondering the mystery.
Yeoncheong, wrapped up in the net like a spring roll, kicked and squirmed. It was almost impressive enough to make one wonder exactly what kind of fall produced that result.
It was Seobin, now free of the net, who dragged the wayward senior back to reality.
"Unnie... shouldn't we get Yeoncheong out first?"
"Ah. Right. Yes."
Jolted by Seobin's reminder, Senior Seoyun leaned in for a closer look at Yeoncheong's situation.
"Doesn't look too badly tangled. Let's get her out first."
Setting rescue as their top priority, the two reached out their hands. And then—
"Wh-where do you think you're touching!"
Yeoncheong shrieked in a panic.
"Ah! Hold still! If you keep squirming it'll only get worse!"
Paying her cry no mind, Senior Seoyun kept reaching.
"Not there — that's my butt!"
"You think I'm doing this because I want to?! Hold STILL!"
One crisp, resounding smack, and Yeoncheong's whining stopped dead.
A face scarlet to the roots of her hair twisted around, searching for the senior.
"Wh-where did you—"
"There we go, that's more like it. Nice and quiet. Just bear with it a little longer."
She had slapped her in the heat of the moment, sure, but she'd accomplished her stated goal of shutting her up with flying colors.
Senior Seoyun examined the net wound around her from every angle, then called Seobin over.
"Seobin, hold this part for me."
"Oh — okay."
Seobin, cheeks flushing pink at the whole spectacle, carefully added her hands to the effort.
And every time her fingers unavoidably brushed a thigh, or the sliver of stomach revealed where Yeoncheong's T-shirt had ridden up, a strange sound escaped from Yeoncheong's lips.
"Hk, hyiihk..."
Startled by the noise, Seobin froze. Her friend stared back at her with wide, saucer-round eyes, and Yeoncheong forced out her words in a strangled voice.
"N-no, hah — sorry. It tickles... I'll hold it in."
She clamped her mouth shut and did her best to smother the sounds leaking out.
But once a voice has been noticed just once, there was no unhearing it.
With the two of them helping, Yeoncheong finally wrestled free of the net.
Senior Seoyun, returning from putting the nets away, regarded her with an awkward expression — understandable enough, given that she'd smacked her rear in the heat of the moment and, boy or girl notwithstanding, had been pawing at parts nobody granted easy access to.
"Yeoncheong, about those sounds, it's nothing to be embarrassed abou—"
"Stop. Say one more word and I might actually bite off my own tongue and die."
"...Right."
In a silence thick enough to suffocate on, Yeoncheong bowed her head deeply.
"I'm going to head home for today."
"Y-yeah. Of course. I'll pay you back properly later, I promise."
"Thank you. Goodbye."
With one last formal bow, Yeoncheong made a beeline off school grounds.
Seobin quietly watched her friend's receding back, lips pursed in thought.
"Unnie... why did you smack Yeoncheong's butt so many times?"
"Beats me. Her reactions were so good that halfway through I was just doing it for fun."
Even Seobin — who was forever complaining that she'd never understood what these people found fun about their constant pranks — nodded in understanding.
There was something about Yeoncheong. Something beyond the ordinary reactions girls produced in the course of everyday teasing. Something with a distinctly more satisfying impact.
Meanwhile, the moment Yeoncheong passed back through the school gate, she broke into a dead sprint toward home — and let out a scream she could no longer contain.
"AAAGH! Ha Yeoncheong, you crazy idiot! Just drop dead!"