Don't Do Things You've Never Done Before
The summer break had felt like a sweet dream on a warm night.
What greeted the students waking from that dream were the inevitable rituals of a new semester.
Shuffling the seat assignments yet again to breathe some freshness into the classroom.
Electing new class presidents and vice presidents to reward the pair who had toiled through a whole semester, and to replenish everyone's energy.
Pouring every ounce of strength into the fitness assessments that returned just when you'd managed to forget them.
And so the boundary between August and September arrived before anyone noticed. Day by day, the students of Hwaryeong High School readjusted their bodies to the uniforms they'd stuffed into their closets over break and melted back into the rhythm of school life.
And then.
One item on the checklist of things that simply had to be done at the start of every semester made its appearance: the club transfer period.
Morning assembly came and went.
Yeoncheong followed her homeroom teacher to the staff room.
"Yeoncheong, honey, could you pin these up on the class bulletin board for me?"
"Why are there so many?"
Papers of every shape and description passed from Teacher Jisu's hands.
Class schedules and lunch menus, various notices, announcements about school and outside competitions — everything under the sun.
No wonder the class bulletin board had looked so bare. It turned out everything had been piling up in here.
Teacher Jisu avoided her gaze with an awkward laugh.
"Hahaha... I was told to prepare this year's first-year math competition... no, wait, I have to prepare it myself... and somehow it just slipped my mind."
Her face was smiling all over, but her eyes were on the verge of tears — clearly not by choice.
The problem was that she was the youngest of all the math teachers.
Yeoncheong couldn't exactly sympathize with the tribulations of working adults, but she could sympathize with being overworked, so she shook her head side to side.
"It's fine. The kids barely pay attention to it anyway."
"I'd really appreciate it, either way."
"Of course."
Yeoncheong had just turned to leave with the bundle of papers when the teacher's voice stopped her mid-step.
"Oh, right! You remember what I said before? The club transfer period starts today, so remind everyone that anyone who wants to switch clubs should come talk to me."
"Yes, ma'am."
No sooner had Yeoncheong given a polite bow and stepped out of the staff room than a friend of about the same height popped out of nowhere.
"What are you doing here?"
"Gah!... It's just... you..."
A shadow leaping out from the corner.
Recognizing Suyeon, Yeoncheong clutched her chest and let out a breath of relief.
"What are you doing here?"
"These are for the class bulletin board, right?"
Brushing off the question with a question, Suyeon all but snatched the papers out of Yeoncheong's hands.
In a rush about who-knows-what, she sprinted all the way to the classroom and had every single notice pinned to the board before Yeoncheong even arrived.
If that had been a one-time thing, Yeoncheong would have written it off — figured she was just bored.
But.
"Need any help?"
"Yeoncheong, what did the teacher say?"
"I'll help with that."
"Yeoncheong, give me your bag. I'll carry it."
Her friend popping up at every hour of the day, offering a helping hand — and it didn't stop after a day or two. It kept going.
She doggedly trailed Yeoncheong, who was running errands on behalf of the poor teacher wrestling with her first-ever math competition in her teaching career.
She even started intercepting tasks before the vice class president could hand them over.
When a friend who had never once done such a thing went around doing it with a sweet little smile on her face, Yeoncheong had no choice but to reassess the severity of the situation.
Lunchtime, a few days later.
Yeoncheong had eaten with Suyeon and Seoha as always, then begged out of the after-lunch walk around the field, claiming her stomach hurt.
Having deceived even Seoha, who had no stake in any of this, she hurried back to the classroom and called an emergency meeting with Hasol and Nayun.
"Guys, it's an emergency! An emergency!"
Once the two friends had heard the whole story, their reactions fell far short of her expectations.
"She was vice president before, right? Maybe she's just helping because she feels bad you got stuck with class president when you hate it."
"Yeah. And what's wrong with someone helping you anyway?"
By and large, their response was: isn't help a good thing?
Yeoncheong shook her head furiously, refuting them both.
"No, no. If I so much as step outside the classroom alone, she follows me. She even followed me into the bathroom, I'm telling you!"
At first she'd assumed their timing was simply coinciding — until Suyeon strolled right into the stall area with her, perfectly naturally.
And when she'd said, "Need any help?" — Yeoncheong had genuinely flinched.
That was how little she was willing to let Yeoncheong out of her sight.
"Hmm... okay, that is definitely weird."
"So it wasn't just coincidence?"
"She followed me into the bathroom. And four times in a row is not coincidence anymore."
Only then did her friends reassess the gravity of the situation, just as she had...
"But Yeoncheong, why won't you go to the bathroom with us? Why do you always go alone?"
Apparently, a different issue was the real problem.
Hasol pushed out her lips, letting her hurt show.
"You always slip off without a word and come back alone... If you keep that up, my feelings are gonna get hurt, you know?"
Yeoncheong had more or less adapted to this place, but she still utterly failed to understand why anyone would want to go to the bathroom together.
You went into your own stall, did your business...
Wasn't that just awkward for everyone involved?
"That's because it's still... uncomfortable for me..."
She expressed her refusal as tactfully as she could, but Hasol shook her head, clearly unwilling to accept it.
What had begun as Yeoncheong's request for advice was rapidly turning into an interrogation of Yeoncheong herself.
She hadn't heard a single actually helpful word yet, and she could already tell that if she stayed any longer, she'd leave exhausted.
"Okay, got it. Thanks!"
"Hey! Yeoncheong!"
With those words of thanks, she fled without so much as a backward glance.
Yeoncheong's refuge was the library.
Suyeon and Seoha would still be out at the field, she'd just escaped the classroom, and going to a class she'd never once visited to see Siyeon felt strangely like too high a hurdle.
Meanwhile, there was one friend she had never once seen anywhere else but the library.
The library was quiet — maybe because the semester had only just started, or maybe there had simply never been many students there.
It wasn't her turn on duty today.
Seobin was sitting at a table, reading a book.
Oh.
Next to her sat Siyeon — Suyeon's twin, indistinguishable from her sister at a glance.
Thankful she hadn't gone to Siyeon's class after all, Yeoncheong walked toward the two in a straight line.
Both were so completely absorbed in their own books that they only noticed her presence when she sat down right in front of them.
"Here to read?"
Yeoncheong gave Seobin a deep, sincere bow.
"Hm?"
"Something like that."
The last thing Seobin had seen of her was that disaster in the PE storage room, so being treated this normally was nothing short of a relief.
"Honestly, I came here to kill some time away from my friends, but..."
Yeoncheong trailed off, glancing at Siyeon.
And what do you know — Suyeon's twin was sitting right in front of her.
Siyeon, who had stolen a glance at her earlier, lifted her head and answered bluntly.
"What? Why?"
Yeoncheong told her everything that had been going on lately and asked Siyeon for her take on what might be causing it.
Siyeon's lips twitched without a moment's hesitation.
"What did you do to make her act like that?"
"Huh? That counts as treating you well...?"
That? The following-around-that's-actually-burdensome?
The bathroom-stalking?
Siyeon closed her book and explained in a little more detail.
"It's because she basically doesn't have a middle setting. When we fought as kids, she wouldn't say a single word to me, and then the second she wanted to make up, she'd cling to me out of nowhere. Right now it feels like she's holding you down so you can't run anywhere... You think of anything?"
Yeoncheong slowly combed through her recent memories, then nodded hesitantly.
"Ah... there is one thing."
"Then that's probably it."
Maybe it came from having grown up together, but the way she pinpointed the cause in one shot was almost uncanny.
"Well then, gotta go?"
When Yeoncheong looked like she'd solved her problem, Seobin showed her disappointment.
"No, recommend me a book. I can't go back yet."
Glancing at the clock on the library wall, she could tell it was around the time Suyeon and Seoha would have returned.
Going back now was like walking into a tiger's den — and a den with four tigers in it at that.
"Alright. Give me a second."
Delighted, Seobin bustled between the shelves and handed her a single volume.
A light check of the title and the back cover showed it wasn't too thick, and the content didn't look difficult.
As always, her knack for picking out exactly the right book for the person was superb.
Yeoncheong whiled away the time with the two of them, borrowed the book she'd been reading, and headed back to the classroom.
After school, the club room.
They were second-years now, second semester. More of the club members had chosen self-study over returning here, so as always, only Yeoncheong and Suyeon were present.
Yeoncheong found herself deep in thought as she watched Suyeon — who hadn't taken her usual seat beside her, but had deliberately sat two seats down.
Now that I think about it...
It was when she'd heard that the club transfer period was coming up.
When Suyeon had asked which club she'd want to join if she left, she'd answered that basketball or cooking might be nice.
She'd had no real intention of switching — she'd just figured that if she ever did, those two clubs with friends in them would be the better picks.
That was exactly when it started.
The moment Suyeon began trailing after her like a duckling.
And she bolted the second I said it, too.
The corner of Yeoncheong's mouth curled up naturally as the last puzzle piece clicked into place.
Watching her smile like that while staring at her, Suyeon felt a chill run down her spine.
"Yeoncheong?"
"Ah — ahem. It's nothing."
As Yeoncheong turned her face away, thinking she'd just shown something embarrassing, her eyes met Suyeon's.
Unable to endure her friend's stalking a moment longer, Yeoncheong decided not to beat around the bush.
"Is it about the club?"
A fastball thrown straight down the middle.
The rapidly shaking mismatched eyes said everything the answer needed to.
"It was just talk, to pass the time. You know that, right?"
"...Still..."
"Still what?"
Apparently too embarrassed to speak while meeting her eyes, Suyeon fidgeted with her lips, gazing needlessly out the window.
"Nayun and Hasol are in those clubs... and basketball and cooking are things you're good at, or things you like..."
"I'm not planning on switching?"
At those words, Suyeon's head whipped around.
She turned so fast that her long hair couldn't keep up, swaying a beat behind the motion.
"The mere fact that the thought crossed your mind means you're unconsciously worried about it."
It was a thought she'd kept buried deep down inside.
Suyeon winced, realizing what she'd just let slip.
Ah.
Only then did Yeoncheong understand, fully and finally.
What the emotion was — the one connecting the conversation as cause to the stalking as effect.
"Were you scared I'd leave you behind and switch to another club? That you'd be left all alone?"
Bullseye. Suyeon averted her eyes.
She'd been anxious that her one and only clubmate might go elsewhere, and envious that the destination happened to be the clubs of their other friends.
Remembering that first meeting, when Suyeon had clung to her whining that she was the club's only member, it wasn't such a strange feeling at all.
So how could she put her friend's mind at ease and get the stalking to stop?
When she finished thinking it through, Yeoncheong shot to her feet.
Suyeon, who had been rolling her eyes this way and that, flinched.
Yeoncheong crossed the space between the desks and arrived in front of Suyeon.
Carefully, she reached out and swept aside the soft hair draped over Suyeon's shoulder, claiming the seat. Then she gave a gentle tug, as if to say: look at me.
"Don't do things you've never done before."
"Huh...?"
Suyeon's eyes went wide as she stared blankly up at Yeoncheong.
"I'm not planning to leave you alone until we graduate, so quit worrying about pointless stuff."
"R-really?"
Her earlobes and face were burning.
She dipped her head slightly to hide the flush.
Yeoncheong had no idea which part of what she'd said had triggered that reaction, but either way, it seemed her words hadn't fallen on deaf ears.
"...Then you'll stay by my side? The whole time?"
"Well... as long as we're not in different classes, or we don't fight."
Suyeon gave a small nod and held out her pinky.
"Promise."
"We're not little kids."
Yeoncheong gave a faint laugh and hooked her pinky around Suyeon's.
Suyeon puffed out her cheeks slightly in protest.
"Verbal promises never get kept, that's why..."
"Should I stamp it in blood for you, then?"
"...Never mind."
Only then did Yeoncheong breathe a sigh of relief, stretching her arms overhead as she said,
"So that means the stalking stops now, right?"
"Huh? When did I ever stalk you?"
Suyeon's face was the very picture of wide-eyed innocence.
And so Yeoncheong spent the rest of club time patiently explaining that following someone into the bathroom and perpetually hovering nearby does, in fact, constitute stalking.
Completely unaware of what Suyeon's true feelings were, Yeoncheong sat back, proud of a problem well solved.
With no idea whatsoever of what was still to come...