Friends
Friends.
Honestly, I never saw it coming. I would never have imagined Kim Hyewon of all people offering comfort like that. Because I'd always taken her for blunt and a little odd, the warmth hit me that much harder.
Of course, I had no idea how exactly she planned to make Kim Chaeeun regret anything, or why I supposedly counted as a good person — but I let it slide. It was just a kind of lip service she was doing for my sake anyway.
What actually occupied my mind was something else entirely.
...I mean, do friends normally pull your head against their chest and stroke your hair like that? Flash that sort of eye-smile at you, out of nowhere?
'Wait. Does she like me?'
The thought flickered through my head for a split second — and just as quickly, I shook it off inside.
'There's no reason.'
There was no reason for her to have fallen for me now. They say love doesn't need a reason, but I believe most love has one. And by that measure, there wasn't a single reason for Kim Hyewon to like me.
Granted, there had been things — protecting her little brother, yanking her out of the path of a car, her suddenly climbing onto my lap. But honestly, all of it felt ambiguous to me. Any one of them could be a catalyst, sure, but whether it stretched all the way into love made me tilt my head. Especially the last one. That was nothing but an accident.
...Though it was also a bizarrely inexplicable accident for the word simple to cover.
'...Come to think of it, why did I do that back then?'
What was it she claimed to have "confirmed" that day, anyway? I still hadn't gotten an answer. And as long as that answer stayed out of reach, I couldn't rule out misreading her — convincing myself she had at least some interest in me, if not outright feelings. Let that misunderstanding swell, and the whole relationship would careen toward disaster, so part of me considered just asking her right now—
'...Forget it.'
I didn't want to shatter the mood. It had been a long time since I'd realized how warm someone else's embrace could be.
Setting skinship aside, even in terms of personality I'd always been the one doing the holding in my relationship with Chaeeun, never the one being held. That made this moment feel all the more precious.
Sorry to her as a friend — but Kim Hyewon's goodwill, offered purely to comfort me, was close enough for me to take in a slightly different spirit.
And that was when it happened.
Rustle—
An unnatural rustling drifted from the underbrush behind the bench. Kim Hyewon and I turned our heads almost in unison.
"......?"
Someone was there. Wariness sharpened her voice.
"...Who's there."
"......"
"No use pretending you're not there. Come out quietly, before I say it again."
At her ultimatum, the brush rustled once more. And then—
"M-meow?"
"......"
"......"
"S-Sohyun, you idiot...!"
Out stepped people I knew all too well. Nice cat impression you've got there.
Kim Hyewon fixed the two of them with a frost-chilled stare. "...Ahahahaha..." Han Sohyeon and Han Areum scratched their heads, sheepish.
"We're... sorry. It wasn't on purpose, but we sort of saw and heard everything...?"
"......"
"......"
Han Sohyeon and Han Areum shared a classroom, just as Baek Seojun and Kim Hyewon did. And as surely as clockwork, break time arrived.
"Areum! Let's hit the school store!" Han Sohyeon hung off Han Areum's arm.
"The store? We just went a little while ago...?"
"Let's go again!"
"...Won't you gain weight at this rate?"
Han Sohyeon was an aspiring model. In truth, she'd already done fitting-model work a few times, so calling her a model outright wouldn't have been a stretch. It was only because she dreamed of a bigger stage that she kept the "aspiring" attached. Either way, Han Areum had never once heard that models eat a lot.
But at her concern, Han Sohyeon just thrust her chest out proudly. "It's fine! Whatever I eat all goes to my chest!"
"R-right...?"
"Yep! Isn't that how it works for you too, Areum?"
Bonk—
At the stare fixed squarely on Han Sohyeon's chest, Han Areum's cheeks flushed faintly. "M-maybe we shouldn't talk about that out in the open, Sohyun? I feel like people around us are whispering..."
"Oh, please. You're imagining it."
"I really don't think I am..."
In the end, Han Areum gave in and accompanied her to the school store.
It was always like this. Han Sohyeon would push some scheme with aggressive energy, Han Areum would seem to rein her in from behind — and then get swept along herself. Something like a mother and daughter, positionally speaking. The two of them would deny it if they heard, but that's how it looked to everyone around them.
Which was probably why—
"Oh! Areum, isn't that Hyewon and Seojun over there?"
"Where?"
"There!"
"Hmm... I think you're right?"
"Where are the two of them going?"
It was the same story when Han Sohyeon spotted Baek Seojun and Kim Hyewon.
"Wanna sneak after them?"
"What? No, Sohyun, you can't just go tailing people like that."
"Aw, come on. It's just for a second — we sneak up, then jump out and scare them. That's all!"
"S-still no."
"Really?"
"......"
"Even when I'm asking you with these eyes...?"
Sparkle sparkle—
"...Okay, but just a little? We follow for just a tiny bit, and then we jump out right away?"
"Obviously!"
And so, when Han Sohyeon proposed tailing the two to give them a good scare, Han Areum failed to put up any real resistance and got dragged along.
She shouldn't have. She should have said a firm, absolute no — and that was her mistake. Because by the time they'd crept close, the two had already started talking about something dead serious, and the window to reveal themselves slipped clean away.
And the bigger problem was—
'W-what do we do, Areum...? I think this is something we weren't supposed to hear...'
'...I don't know either.'
They'd heard the entire conversation between the two.
Baek Seojun and Kim Chaeeun. Everything that had happened between the boy and girl the whole school knew as the sweet childhood-friend couple. Once they'd heard the truth behind it, cold sweat broke out. Even a prankster as incorrigible as Han Sohyeon knew the difference between stories she could hear and stories she couldn't — and this one sat squarely in the do-not-touch category.
'I can't believe she and Seojun were... ughhh, what do we do?'
'......'
Thanks to that, Han Areum was in a full-blown panic. Eavesdropping on someone else's private life was flat-out wrong. The guilt of having failed to stop Han Sohyeon. The regret that they should have shown themselves before the two ever started talking.
'M-maybe we should go out there right now and apologize for overhearing?'
'Y-yeah, let's do that, Sohyun?'
'Yeah, okay...'
The two moved to reveal themselves before their regret could grow any deeper. But then—
Whoosh—
"?!"
"!!"
At the sight of Kim Hyewon pulling Baek Seojun into her arms, they froze solid mid-step.
That Kim Hyewon, of all people. The Kim Hyewon who flinched away from any man who came near was hugging Baek Seojun, stroking his hair — even wearing a smile of a kind neither of them had ever seen on her before!
'Ughhh... n-no, we can't, right? We saw that, and now we're supposed to walk up and announce we heard everything...?'
'But we still have to say something, don't we...?'
'C-can't we talk about it later, Areum? I think we just saw something way too big...'
Paralyzed between options, the two of them could do nothing at all. And that was the problem. Because while they dithered — a sound escaped.
Rustle—
"...Who's there."
Kim Hyewon had noticed. "No use pretending you're not there. Come out quietly, before I say it again."
Han Areum and Han Sohyeon squeezed their eyes shut.
"M-meow?"
"......"
"......"
"S-Sohyun, you idiot...!"
...They were dead.
"W-we're sorry!"
"We're so sorry..."
The two of them apologized over and over. They swore it wasn't deliberate — they'd only followed to pull a prank, and then ended up hearing everything.
"Hah..."
"......"
"Hiiiiing..."
"We're sorry..."
I could see how it had happened. Mischievous Han Sohyeon tried to pull a little stunt and it snowballed into this — that much was obvious. But still.
"You're really upset, aren't you, Seojun...?"
"No."
"Huh? You're not mad?"
Truthfully, I had been angry at first. But watching Areum and Sohyeon apologize so earnestly, faces crumpled with remorse — no. It wasn't anger so much as a growing headache. Nobody can spit at a face that sorry, and my irritation gave way to a single weary thought: what on earth was I going to do with these troublemakers?
Kim Hyewon seemed to be thinking the same thing, regarding them with the same frost-bitten stare.
'What are we going to do with them?'
'No idea.'
'If they're too much for you, I'll chew them out for you. They're my friends, after all.'
'No, it's fine.'
Kim Hyewon even offered to discipline them on my behalf, but I declined.
"...Let me just ask one thing first. You're not going around telling people about this, right?"
"O-of course not!"
"Yep. We won't say a word, Seojun."
Right... I figured as much. However short our acquaintance with Han Sohyeon and Han Areum had been, they were pranksters, yes — but not the type to run their mouths all over school. And even if Sohyeon tried, Areum would stop her.
...Actually, wait. Would Areum manage to stop her? Judging by how contrite they both looked right now, maybe the "Han Areum is Han Sohyeon's restraint" theory deserved a rethink.
"If you promise not to go spreading this around, I'll let it go."
"You're... forgiving us?"
"Yep."
I'll forgive you. "On one condition." The moment conditions entered the picture, both girls snapped to attention. "Give me your numbers."
"Our numbers?"
"Huh?"
"......?"
The girls, who'd been braced for some ominous demand, deflated with an audible sigh. Even Kim Hyewon, who'd been glaring daggers at her friends beside me, did a double take.
"We're friends who share a secret now, aren't we?"
"W-well, I suppose...?"
At my pointed remark, Han Areum gave an awkward smile. "Now that I think about it, we never exchanged numbers yesterday."
"Ah..."
I'd decided to make more friends and live differently from here on out. Even if, at the moment, all those friends seemed to be girls... eh, what of it?
"Real friends can at least trade phone numbers, right?"
"Obviously!"
"Mm-hmm."