Lie Again! Chapter 100

<Chapter 100. A Season for Something to Ripen (5)> 

 

Meeting the gaze that glared at her with searing intensity, Jin opened and closed her mouth repeatedly.

 

It wasn’t that she hadn’t told him on purpose; she had just been looking for the right timing… Various excuses rose to the tip of her tongue, but they ultimately scattered without turning into language. 

 

Her mind went blank. This boy knew. The one person she wanted to keep in the dark until the very end, even if everyone else knew she was leaving America; the one person she wanted to deceive and gloss over until the last moment. 

 

Evan, watching Jin as she stood frozen like a frog before a snake, swallowed a rising sigh and turned his eyes away. His thick Adam’s apple bobbed once, as if he were forcing something down.

 

Her heart dropped. Just from the single fact that Evan had turned his eyes away from her. 

 

Jin instinctively grabbed the sleeve of the boy who was white-knuckling the steering wheel. She felt as though he might disappear somewhere at any second.

 

“Evan, look, I…”

 

“….”

 

“I…”

 

“Were you planning to leave without saying a single word?”

 

“…There’s no way I would do that. It’s just that I, I… I was going to tell you. Once my situation became a little more certain, once I figured out a solution.” 

 

If she could at least find the nerve to ask him to wait. 

 

She didn’t utter those last words. Even at this moment, she still lacked any right to hold him back.

 

Facing his expressionless green eyes, Jin turned her gaze away, her face drained of confidence. The strength in the hand clutching his sleeve slowly ebbed away.

 

And that—the girl’s hand falling away so easily—acted as a trigger, sparking his temper once more.

 

A corner of his mouth twisted into a sudden, biting sneer.

 

Evan had been enduring this for a long time. From the moment the girl began to space out frequently; from when she desperately tried to hide her cluttered thoughts in front of him; from when he couldn’t ignore the foul suspicion that she would leave; and for a long while even after he finally obtained confirmation from Riley.

 

Right, she must have a reason for hiding it from me. She’s a smart and thoughtful girl; surely there’s a proper reason. He hadn’t wanted to clumsily interfere in her business and ruin things.

 

So, Evan had closed his eyes and pretended not to know, following her lead. He waited for the girl to tell him with her own mouth.

 

But while his eyes were closed, the inside he couldn’t see parched up like a dry winter forest.

 

When would she leave? When this semester ended? Or during the break? Would they be able to face August together, what about tomorrow, and the day after… 

 

Every time he thought of the remaining time that he did not know, every time he couldn’t even verify how far the invisible end had approached, a tiny ember like a cigarette spark fell onto the dry grass with a soft thud, thud. 

 

A trivial spark that could have been extinguished with a single stomp instead crept through the surroundings under Evan’s neglect.

 

It devoured weeds, devoured flower stalks, and grew until it became a towering blaze, ravaging everything in sight. Every time the house-sized fire demon passed through, thick-trunked trees collapsed one by one, turning into charred ruins.

 

Evan’s insides had been a mess for a long time.

 

“…When, exactly? After Riley? After your friends? Or is it after that goddamn Wood b*stard? Is my turn only coming after every damn lowlife who has nothing to do with you finds out?”

 

“Evan.”

 

“Just when!”

 

A shout suddenly filled the car. Jin’s eyes went wide at the high volume, something she was hearing from the boy for the first time.

 

In the unfamiliar silence, he averted his gaze, his face showing regret for the momentary outburst. His hands on the steering wheel gripped and released aimlessly a few times, as if unsure of what to do, before settling into a firm hold.

 

His knuckles turned white as he gripped the thin wooden steering wheel, only to lose their strength helplessly a moment later.

 

“…Who am I to you, exactly?”

 

“Evan, Ev. You’re right, I’m going to Korea. You’re right, it’s true, but…” 

 

“Then you should have said so sooner. If I am actually someone important to you, if you weren’t just planning to play around and dump me, if you weren’t planning to end things just like this!”

 

The words that started calmly ultimately turned back into anger at the end. 

 

Even though he had already known she was leaving, hearing the confirmation from the girl’s own mouth felt different. It was like pouring oil onto a burning fire.

 

Blood kept rushing to his head. His ears felt muffled by the sensation of it crowding into the narrow vessels, forcibly pushing and expanding them.

 

“Sigh…”

 

Frustrated by his inability to control his emotions, Evan brushed his hand roughly down his face.

 

This wasn’t the side of himself he wanted to show the girl. Every time he opened his mouth, the acrid smell of smoke seemed to surge up.

 

The setting sun descended as quietly as the silence between the two of them.

 

As was usually the case, the sky after the rain cleared was redder and more beautiful than usual. Feathery clouds spread widely over the western sky, and atop them, red paint mixed with two drops of gold was gradually covering the blue. The reflection of the pink hue in the rain puddles on the road was vivid. 

 

Separated by the thin steel plate of the old car, this place—where things were entangled in a mess, weighing heavily even on the air—and that place outside felt like different worlds. 

 

Only then did the thought hit him that he had ruined one of their few remaining days. Because her wanting to end her time with him quickly was so different from how he felt. Because he felt so slighted and resentful. Over something so trivial. Idiot.

 

“…I’m sorry for yelling. The rain has stopped, so let’s call it a day…”

 

“How can I do that?”

 

It was just as Evan, having closed and opened his eyes, was trying to swallow his emotions. Jin, who had been silent all along, cut him off.

 

When Evan turned his head, there were eyes looking straight back at him. Her previous anxiousness was gone; instead, her eyes held something like frustration, grievance, indignation, and anger, sharp as a whetted blade.

 

“How am I supposed to tell you? What am I supposed to say to you? You don’t know, do you, why I came here. I just ran away. I got bullied by my best friend, and because it looked like she would follow me all the way to high school, I just got scared and came all the way here.” 

 

“Jin.”

 

“I couldn’t even handle the simple task of seeing her face, so when they asked if I wanted to study abroad, I just nodded immediately. But I knew. I knew exactly how much of a burden it would be on my mom and dad to send me here. I knew their business was already hard and that their backs would break because of me, but I just pretended not to know.”

 

He tried to take her hand to calm the agitated girl, but Jin didn’t care. She slapped Evan’s hand away with a sharp sound, and the speed of her words began to accelerate.

 

“But look at the result. They say my mom worked without even time to rest and finally collapsed. I couldn’t pretend not to know that. Even if I try to act shameless, I can’t do it anymore. Studying comfortably here, chatting with the kids, and laughing with you! Every time I do that, the image of my mom massaging her swollen legs just flickers right before my eyes.” 

 

“….”

 

“But do you know what I find even more unbearable than that? It’s me, racking my brains to see how I can squeeze more out of people who don’t even have time to rest as it is. They say it’s not a major illness, and she won’t be constantly sick, so wouldn’t it be okay if I just stayed here? As long as she doesn’t overdo it, as long as she takes proper rests, until graduation, or until 11th grade. Then, when I realize what I was calculating, I want to drive a nail into my own head. I hate myself, the selfish me who is like this until the very end, so, so much…” 

 

Unable to keep up with the steeply rising tide of emotion, her words broke off. She felt frustrated that her body wouldn’t cooperate as she tried to pour out everything inside.

 

The unresolved emotions flowed out through her eyes instead of her mouth. Jin wiped her eyes roughly with the back of her hand, but new droplets filled the cleared space in an instant, rendering her efforts futile.

 

“Even if my mom and dad say it’s okay, I can’t do it anymore. I hate myself so much that I don’t want to do it. So am I supposed to tell you, ‘I have to go to Korea, so you just wait a bit’? Without knowing when I’ll come back, and maybe I won’t even come back, but since we like each other right now, just be understanding. Is that what I’m supposed to say?” 

 

“….”

 

“It’s only been……! It’s only been a year. And that’s just the time we’ve known of each other; the time you and I have actually been seeing each other is less than half a year! But how can I to you……!” 

 

Water traced paths down her white cheeks as she gave up on chasing away the tears that crowded her vision no matter how many times she wiped them. The two streams of tears met under her chin and fell. Even so, she kept her eyes wide open with stubbornness.

 

“I have nothing I can promise you right now! Nothing but the stupid words that I’ll return somehow, so how could I…”

 

Watching Jin as she stood there huffing and crying, Evan silently opened the driver’s side door and stepped out. Her blurred vision followed his moving footsteps.

 

He walked around the car, opened the passenger door, and crouched down in front of it to meet Jin’s eyes.

 

“….”

 

“….”

 

The boy, staring with sorrow—or perhaps a trace of faint joy—at the tears falling because of him, took both of Jin’s hands into his.

 

He bowed his head over her cold hands, resting his feverish forehead against them, and whispered quietly.

 

“That’s enough, Jin. That one sentence is all I need.”

 

“…I will come back somehow.” 

 

At the words filled with stubbornness, Evan smiled brightly. Large hands that were unsuited for delicate tasks carefully wiped her wet eyes, and only then could she see the world properly. 

 

Behind the boy’s head, the red and blue sky spread out like a sheet of silk. The sunset pooled even over the dimples Jin loved so much.

 

Jin, staring blankly at the sight while sniffing, leaned forward and pressed her lips against them. A short, soft sound echoed.

 

“Because I’ll come back somehow… so.” 

 

“Yeah. I’ll be right here, waiting patiently.”

 

Whispering happily, his large hands took hold of the face that had come forward of its own accord and was now trying to shy away.

 

Jin obediently surrendered her cheeks into his warm palms and closed her eyes. A single tear that had been dangling from her wet eyelashes fell.

 

That was the end of it.