Summer Vacation.
Plink. Plink.
Sssssssshhhhhhh...
The thin raindrops gradually thickened and at last turned into a downpour.
The sound of rain hammering the pavilion filled the interior.
We had already blocked off every gap where mosquitoes could get in, but.
These assassin-like mosquitoes always hide somewhere inside and wait for the moment we let our guard down to take our blood, so we brought four electric flyswatters.
After tangling with mosquitoes like we were playing some kind of sport, we searched everywhere and found nothing, and only then settled into our seats.
I thought leaving Yeon-woo behind at the lodging with Tae-oh instead of just Tae-oh had been a good call—an icebox full of snacks and drinks for the night was sitting in one corner.
If I'd left only Tae-oh there, a high probability it would've been nothing but blankets laid out.
Then Su-ho came in first, and last of all Park Ji-hoon came in late, and looking at his face he'd clearly gotten his ass beat back at the lodging.
Park Ji-hoon wasn't the type to go places and get beaten up.
But ever since Su-ho showed up, it seemed like he'd been taking my share of the beatings too.
A few were gambling with the ten-won coins they'd brought while drinking.
The rest lazed around and chatted, peacefully enjoying the sound of the rain.
Sssssssshhhhhhh...
With the wind blowing lightly too, the weather turned chilly, and I crawled under the blanket with Da-yeon.
When I kept fidgeting, Da-yeon opened her eyes drowsily.
I slipped my hand inside Da-yeon's clothes.
"Hngh!?"
While I was touching Da-yeon's warm waist, she flinched like it tickled.
For a second, I looked no different from Cho-a.
I gave up on tormenting Da-yeon, and the two of us played Debtor's Forest together. Min-ji squeezed in between us and watched.
"Is this fun?"
"Yeah, it's fun if you play without thinking?"
"Oh... should I buy it too?"
I tossed Min-ji the car keys and told her to go get the game console.
Min-ji brought back the spare console and played beside us.
"Keep that one."
"Really?"
"Yeah, but there aren't any other games besides Debtor's Forest, so you'll have to buy your own."
"Yes, ma'am!"
As time passed and people had had a fair amount to drink, even Yeon-woo, who supposedly held her liquor better than Tae-oh, had drunk a ton with Park Ji-hoon, and her head was bobbing little by little.
No matter how much she pretended to be an adult, Yeon-woo was only twenty-two.
And Park Ji-hoon, perfectly fine, called us over.
"What?"
"Let's do the joker draw. Loser gets flicked on the forehead."
Park Ji-hoon had gotten hit so badly by me last time and still hadn't learned his lesson.
We joined the game, and Da-yeon started drinking beer too.
The first loser was Jun-su.
"Bro! I don't wanna die, please!!!"
"You don't die from getting flicked, dumbass."
"I'll die!!! You crack watermelons with that thing!"
Park Ji-hoon blew breath onto his middle finger.
If he'd gone at him with a finger hammer for real, then yeah, maybe he'd die, but no one dies from a forehead flick.
And there's no way Park Ji-hoon would seriously nail him.
Thwack!
Listening to the sound, Park Ji-hoon had gone really easy on him, but the results didn't show it.
"Kyaaaaah!"
"Ahahahaha!"
Jun-su thrashing around in horror, and Park Ji-hoon pointing at him and laughing.
The fact that Tae-oh was up next left Jun-su unable to even finish screaming, his pupils shaking, but Tae-oh's finger showed no mercy.
Thwaack!
"Gyarrghglghh!!!"
Jun-su fell backward, rolled around, and couldn't bring himself to get up.
"I'm not playing!!"
It must've hurt that badly—he's even dropping the formal speech now.
Seeing the lump on his forehead, Min-ji, who'd been laughing at him, realized it wasn't faking and started worrying.
And Su-ho...
I figured this psychopath would hit him with full fuckin' power, but he just flicked his index finger off his middle finger and hit him lightly.
Thwip!
Still, he hit him exactly on the lump, so the fact that it hurt like hell didn't change.
"Sis... ma'am?"
"What?"
Jun-su, who'd been watching me flick Park Ji-hoon, had his pupils faintly trembling.
"Be grateful it's not a hammer."
In the end, Jun-su resigned himself, squeezed his eyes shut, and stuck out his hideously lumped forehead. I pretended to hit him hard and flicked him softly.
"That's no fun, what is that?"
"Yeah, when I flick you, you little shit, I'll make it real fuckin' fun."
"Hoo? If you get caught today, I'll drop your brain down to the average person's level."
As for the results, next round Park Ji-hoon drew Tae-oh's joker and came in dead last.
Park Ji-hoon's complexion turned dark and murky...
Seeing Su-ho's faintly nasty smile, he must've realized something had gone wrong.
Kim Tae-oh hit Park Ji-hoon with the momentum of someone aiming to shatter his skull, making the hit he'd given Jun-su seem like pure joking around.
Thwaaack!
The impact rang out crisply.
"K-khhnggh!!!"
But Park Ji-hoon's eyes went wide and he endured the pain.
Next he weathered weak flicks from Min-ji, Yeon-woo, and Da-yeon, and then it was Su-ho's turn, who was loosening up his hand.
"Cut me some slack just once... Kim Si-yoon's fuckin' strong."
When Su-ho started practicing his hammer stance, Park Ji-hoon said, horrified.
"Hey! A man doesn't use the hammer!!!"
In the end, Su-ho delivered the flick to Park Ji-hoon, and it wasn't as strong as expected.
Slightly weaker than Kim Tae-oh's?
Thwaaack!
"Keuheuheuh."
The girls covered their mouths at the excessive impact sound, unable to look at Park Ji-hoon's face.
Not caring whether Park Ji-hoon was in pain or not, I prepared to drive my hammer in.
"Don't fuck around!"
"Hey, you said women can use it."
"Bullshit, what woman are you!"
"Just calmly accept it. A guy being petty like that, drop the act and take it."
In the end, Park Ji-hoon offered me his forehead.
This bastard had been doing a whole act like he was in pain, and on his forehead, not even a lump, just a red mark.
How much of a rock head do you have to be to take flicks like that and not even get a lump, I wonder.
I pulled my middle finger back to the absolute limit with genuine intent to kill, channeling stacked-up force through every muscle in my body, flowing like water to the tip of my middle finger.
Thwaaack!!!
Park Ji-hoon went straight backward.
I looked at my bright-red middle finger.
""Oh my god...""
After witnessing Park Ji-hoon's forehead, we played games without forehead flicks.
The loser sang or drank, that sort of thing.
Park Ji-hoon probably wanted to say let's go one more round for revenge.
But he must not have had the confidence to take my hammer again.
The rain was getting heavier and we were gradually getting tired, so we lay down and kept talking.
While we were giggling and carrying on the conversation.
Suddenly, the smell of a fart spread.
I blocked my nose at the serious stench and sat up.
"Ah..."
Park Ji-hoon reacted to my sigh like something hit home.
"It's not me."
"'It's not me' my ass, you fuckin' shithead."
"It's seriously not me!"
"The fuck you on about, the smell is you."
"Fuck, I'm seriously so fucking unfairly accused, it's really not me!!!"
"Besides you, you little shit, who else here would let out a sewer stench like this?"
"You fucking bitch! I said it's not me!"
I got up with the mindset of wrecking this bastard, who was showing the height of playing the victim after starting it.
Just then, the look on Tae-oh's face—he flinched like he knew who the culprit was.
I locked eyes with Tae-oh and jerked my chin like, do you know who it is?
Tae-oh, reading the room.
Sure enough, at the end of Tae-oh's gaze—the guy who couldn't tell a lie to save his life—was Su-ho, looking embarrassed.
I checked Su-ho's face and quietly lay back down.
"I told you it wasn't me, you fuckin' bitch!!!"
"..... My bad."
Su-ho wasn't the type of friend to fart in front of people, but all that booze he'd had must've been the problem.
There was a brief misunderstanding, but we went back to giggling and talking while staring at the ceiling.
Time passed, and gradually people started talking less, and one by one they began going quiet.
Sssssssshhhhhhh...
In the still darkness, with the heavy rain, I was about to just go to sleep.
But Yeon-woo and Tae-oh's whispers didn't get buried in the thick rain—they came through way too vividly.
"Wanna go to the room...?"
"...Right now...?"
"What's the big deal~"
Yeon-woo's voice, laced with aegyo...
If there was something Tae-oh and Yeon-woo didn't know, it was that all six of us had our eyes wide open.
What was hair-raising was that Da-yeon, who'd been lying beside me with her eyes closed and definitely seemed tired, had suddenly gone bright-eyed.
Same with Min-ji.
Yeon-woo quietly got up first.
Incredibly quietly, she muttered as if to herself.
"Ah... why does my stomach hurt so much...?"
And when even Tae-oh left, we shot up.
Then we talked in voices so small only we could hear.
"They're suddenly gonna bang?"
"This bastard's mouth is filthy as hell."
"Then what do you call it?"
"Going off to make love, I guess..."
"Bullshit?"
We whispered for an operational briefing, then started stealthily moving.
We couldn't bring ourselves to look inside and put our ears to the door. They'd already started, it seemed—Yeon-woo's moans came through way too vividly.
"We're fucked..."
Even without looking at their faces, I could tell Da-yeon, Min-ji, and Jun-su had gone absolutely red.
"How do you... make moaning sounds like that..."
Yeon-woo was making sounds almost like she was about to pass out...
"Whoa, she's killing a man, straight-up killing him."
Just then, Yeon-woo's voice rang out.
"Hahh... hahh... check my bag, there's more..."
I knew all too well what there was more of.
"I'll put it on you..."
I also knew full well what he meant to put on. If I listened any further, I wasn't going to be able to look them in the face the next day, so I backed off for a moment.
Just then, something unpleasant touched my butt.
Park Ji-hoon, who'd been right behind me, flinched and moved away.
That thing, considerably enlarged...
At the thought of that filthy thing having touched me, my expression rapidly rotted.
"Ah... you fuckin' shithead..."
"Hey, you're the one who suddenly came at me, don't fuck around."
Before my freakout could fully kick in, the four who'd been listening fled in a hurry.
When I turned around, the door opened as if they'd been waiting.
Creeeeeak...
"".....""
Honestly, it's not my fault. Not ours either.
Who just suddenly goes off to do something like that? Making people curious.
But because the two of them weren't embarrassed at having been caught, the situation started getting pinned back on us.
Yeon-woo, washed up and out, staring at me like an interrogation...
"W-we were just curious..."
"Sigh... it was just getting good..."
When it turned out like this, we were nothing but the people who'd invaded their privacy.
The four of them except me and Park Ji-hoon were desperately pretending to be asleep.
And that Su-ho is among them, that's really something...
Still, maybe she didn't want to ruin a mood that had been nice—Yeon-woo sat on the bench and enjoyed the rain.
Tae-oh was over yonder chatting with Park Ji-hoon.
"I never dreamed you guys were awake..."
"Nobody was actually asleep..."
"...All four of those people lying over there?"
"Yes."
"....."
Only now did Yeon-woo seem to get embarrassed and went abruptly quiet.
"It was... the mood was so nice, that's why, you could say...?"
"What's wrong with doing it with your boyfriend."
"R...right?"
I answered Yeon-woo like I understood, so she wouldn't feel awkward.
We blankly enjoyed the sound of the rain for a long while, then went into the mosquito net together.
That night.
Everyone except Yeon-woo and Tae-oh couldn't easily fall asleep, tossing and turning through the night.