Translator: Elisia
Editor/Proofreader: Wojo
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Sara didn’t wake easily once she fell asleep.
All three people present knew this fact well, as they had experienced it firsthand.
Even if they climbed on top of the sleeping Sara, she would only groan slightly in discomfort but not wake up.
Even if there was a bit of rustling next to her or something stuck closely to her, she wouldn’t wake up.
Therefore, the three of them were able to leave the room quietly, leaving the sleeping Sara on the floor.
“What should we do now?”
The first to speak was Yoo Ha-neul.
“No matter what, don’t you think it’s a problem to let Sara sleep on the floor?”
With a seriously concerned expression, she said this.
“Yeah, in the end, we’re the ones at fault, so Sara shouldn’t be left on the floor like that.”
Shin So-hee also nodded seriously with a grave expression.
“…Should we put Sara back on the bed?”
“But if Sara wakes up, she’ll definitely get angry again…”
At Shin So-hee’s words, Lee Soo-ah muttered anxiously.
Silence.
The three of them fell into a deep silence.
In truth, they always wanted to sleep by Sara’s side.
They liked clinging to her arm, or tightly hugging her waist…
They thought they weren’t crossing any lines, but in reality, the line they hadn’t crossed was only one they had drawn themselves.
If Sara ever caught them, she might be really disappointed.
…The fact that they worried about this was proof that the ‘line’ was meaningless, but they hadn’t realized that yet.
“There’s only one option now, right?”
Finally, after a long silence, it was Ha-neul who spoke.
“…We’ll have to put Sara on So-hee’s bed, and the rest of us will sleep on Sara’s bed.”
“…”
“…”
Honestly, it wasn’t like the three of them hadn’t thought of that.
Given the situation, the only way to let Sara sleep on a bed was to do that.
If they put Sara back on her bed and slept as usual, Sara would surely wake up in the morning and be extremely disappointed in them.
And the three of them hated that.
“Are you sure about this?”
After another long silence, Shin So-hee asked.
“…”
Yes.
This was a completely different matter.
Even before their feelings were exposed to ‘Sara,’ the three hadn’t bothered hiding the fact that they all liked Sara from each other.
They just didn’t want Sara herself to find out.
Still, they were friends after all.
They didn’t want to destroy their friendship.
More than anything, they knew too well that Sara didn’t want that, so they had kept it a secret all along.
That’s also why they didn’t force Sara to answer when they confessed this time.
They couldn’t hold back their feelings, but they didn’t want to break their friendship.
And this was the result.
The trust they had built with Sara up until now… maybe not all of it, but a significant part of it had collapsed.
…Sure, they had lied and acted a bit to build that trust, but they weren’t in a situation where they could think that far ahead.
Anyway, the most important thing now was to restore the broken trust with Sara.
No one wanted their confession to result in a worse relationship than before.
The reason they slept in the same bed until now was because of Sara.
If Sara hadn’t been in that big bed, they wouldn’t have bothered sleeping there together.
Yoo Ha-neul and Lee Soo-ah were bisexual.
They had never liked another girl before.
Until then, they thought they liked men, and whenever they saw handsome male celebrities on TV, they felt attracted to them.
It wasn’t that they liked Sara because she was a girl.
They just happened to like Sara, and it just so happened that Sara’s gender was female.
Because of that, doing something like sleeping in the same bed with another girl or engaging in unnecessary displays of affection felt incredibly uncomfortable.
Of course, even though this wasn’t really “affectionate” behavior in this situation, it still felt a bit awkward.
Aside from the fact that they happened to like someone of the same gender, they were still just regular girls their age.
Shin So-hee was a lesbian.
She felt good when there were pretty girls around her.
However, even so, she didn’t want to do anything special with any other girl besides Sara.
If Sara rejected her, she would step back, but otherwise, she only wanted to do all kinds of things with Sara.
So-hee was truly a pure-hearted romantic.
Though she wasn’t officially dating Sara yet, the thought of sleeping in the same bed with another girl felt strangely wrong.
Anyway, even though it was an “it’s too late now” situation, all three of them felt an odd sense of discomfort about sleeping in the same bed together.
Though they were friends who didn’t want to break apart, they were also rivals.
“…What else can we do?”
Nevertheless, Yoo Ha-neul answered Shin So-hee’s question.
“No matter what, we can’t let Sara sleep on the floor. That goes against my principles. When I marry Sara, I’m not going to let her lift a finger.”
“I don’t like the idea of you assuming you’re the one marrying Sara, but I agree. I don’t want Sara to suffer any more.”
“…Regardless of who Sara marries, isn’t it obvious that she shouldn’t have to lift a finger? There’s no reason for her to be doing dishes in the first place…”
Even though Lee Soo-ah pointed out the ridiculousness of Yoo Ha-neul and Shin So-hee’s remarks, in the end, the three of them came to the same conclusion.
They decided to move Sara, still in her sleeping bag, to Shin So-hee’s bed, and the remaining three would sleep in Sara’s bed.
…They could only hope that Sara would understand their decision.
*
Ugh.
Was my back aching because I hadn’t slept on a hard floor in so long?
…No, it wasn’t just my back.
My legs weren’t in pain, but they felt tightly bound as if they were tied up—oh, right.
I fell asleep in a sleeping bag.
Last night, I was so tired and didn’t want to think, so I didn’t even ask Yang Hye-in to prepare extra bedding.
I just crawled into So-hee’s sleeping bag and fell asleep.
I hadn’t even laid out a blanket on the floor, so I was curled up inside the sleeping bag like a caterpillar.
So, of course, I couldn’t move my legs properly until I unzipped the bag.
I think I had more room yesterday, but maybe that was just my imagination.
I hadn’t used a sleeping bag since my military days, so who knows.
However, for some reason, my arms couldn’t move at all either.
Sleeping bags weren’t designed by idiots, so they wouldn’t be made in a way that prevented you from moving your arms and legs at all.
They were designed to allow you enough freedom to unzip them yourself.
Come to think of it, everything in front of me was pitch black.
It wasn’t just dark; something soft was tightly covering my face.
It wasn’t hard to breathe, but the warmth against my face was slightly uncomfortable.
More importantly, although I was supposed to be sleeping on a hard floor, my body seemed to be slightly sinking into something soft and warm.
“…”
I had a rough idea of what was going on.
I wriggled my body.
Whatever was wrapped around my legs loosened slightly.
But the things surrounding the rest of my body didn’t budge.
“Mmmph!”
When I opened my mouth to speak, something soft blocked my voice from coming out properly.
In the end, I was only able to escape from the situation when my friends, who had been hugging me on all sides, woke up from their sleep.
*
“…”
“…”
On the bed.
The three of them were kneeling before me.
Of course, it was Ha-neul, Soo-ah, and So-hee.
They hadn’t even had time to change out of their usual sleepwear.
…To explain the situation when I woke up,
I had been sleeping on So-hee’s bed.
It seemed my friends had moved me, unable to bear the sight of me sleeping on the floor.
Well, that part was fine.
I was also impressed that they had decided to sleep in the other bed together.
The problem was, as they slept, one by one, they climbed into So-hee’s bed, and eventually, the four of us ended up stuck together like cocoons.
So-hee had been blocking me from the front, lying sideways.
The soft and squishy thing covering my face had been So-hee’s chest.
Ha-neul had been tightly hugging me from behind.
And Soo-ah, who was the last to come up, had curled up and clung to my legs.
“…Did you do something wrong or not?”
“We’re sorry…”
The three of them answered in unison.
“…The rules have been broken from day one.”
“…”
Well, they’re my friends, after all.
I couldn’t really punish them harshly.
…I had been suffering at Sara’s hands in my dream anyway.
But that’s a secret.
‘I’ll take it to my grave.’
…No need to be so serious about it.