Lie Again! Chapter 101

<Chapter 101. A Season for Something to Ripen (6)>

 

Knock, knock.

 

“Jin, Jin. Jiiin.”

 

Evan, standing alone outside, knocked on the door with his forehead resting against it. The rhythmic sound was playful, almost as if he were singing.

 

“Can I come in now?”

 

“Just wait patiently.”

 

Jin shouted, her voice out of breath. He didn’t know what she was doing, but from inside the room, an endless stream of busy noises—thuds, clangs, and shuffles—had been echoing for a while.

 

“How about now?” 

 

“….”

 

“I’m coming in?”

 

“No!”

 

When she didn’t answer, he grabbed the doorknob as if he were about to fling it open, only to be met with a sharp outcry.

 

Following the sound of frantic footsteps, there was the click of a lock turning. She had locked it completely so Evan couldn’t interfere anymore.

 

“Stop teasing me!”

 

She shouted breathlessly before her footsteps scurried away again. Evan chuckled against the firmly shut door.

 

He could have waited if he had to, but he enjoyed her reaction so much that he deliberately acted like a restless child who couldn’t stay still for even thirty seconds. He was also curious about what she had prepared to be acting this way.

 

The locked door finally opened after Evan had teased Jin a couple more times. Her face was pouting as she let him in, likely worn out from his persistence.

 

“Close your eyes and come in. You’re not allowed to open them until I tell you to.”

 

Evan let out a smirk. He obediently closed his eyes as told, but his mouth kept retorting like a troublesome seven-year-old. He was playing along with this house-play game that he had never even experienced when he actually was seven.

 

“What if it gets too stuffy and I want to open them?”

 

“Just endure it.”

 

“What if I feel like I’m going to trip?”

 

“Then trip with your eyes closed.”

 

“Ah, how heartless.”

 

Evan kept babbling nonsense the whole way as Jin led him by the hand, and Jin didn’t even pretend to listen. Evan wore a constant smile, seemingly delighted even by being ignored.

 

“Happy Birthday.”

 

The moment he opened his eyes, he saw Jin smiling, wearing a tacky party hat. In her hands, she held a cake that looked handmade, with candles lit.

 

It was a cake made of three layers of thin chocolate genoise, filled with whipped cream and studded with chopped fruit. Judging by the cherries piled high on top of the cream-covered surface, the dark red fruit inside was clearly cherry as well.

 

Evan slowly scanned the cake with his eyes.

 

There were traces of her efforts to “stitch up” the burst sides of the genoise; whipped cream that was starting to melt slightly from the edges where it met the air; and the message written in a circle along the edge, avoiding the pile of cherries in the middle, as if she had realized too late that there was no room for text.

 

‘Happy Birthday Evan!’

 

Perhaps writing on it hadn’t been easy; unlike her usual neat and straight handwriting, the strokes were shaky and crooked. Evan stared quietly at the candle wax slowly dripping onto the letters.

 

“…I blew them up yesterday, so they shriveled a bit. They were originally pretty heart shapes.”

 

Sensing Evan’s silence, Jin muttered awkwardly while looking at the balloons stuck to the wall.

 

Only then did Evan take his eyes off the cake and glance around the kitchen. There were balloons taped to the ceiling instead of being filled with helium, and a garland that read ‘HBD.’

 

Evan realized what she had been working so hard on inside. He understood why she had been exceptionally enthusiastic about their date today, and why she had been so upset earlier.

 

Evan gazed silently at the girl, whose confidence was visibly draining from her face, until she urged him to blow out the candles before they melted further. He leaned down and blew. By that time, the candles had already melted halfway, and colorful wax was stuck smoothly to the cherries.

 

“Happy Birthday. I wanted the two of us to celebrate first before Riley and Ivy got home.”

 

“…How did you know it was my birthday?”

 

“Hansen told me. But even without him, it would have been impossible not to know. I thought your phone was going to explode.”

 

Because so many birthday messages were coming in.

 

Jin thought of the messenger notifications that had been ringing all day whenever there was a lull. Even though it wasn’t midnight, the phone had kept chiming incessantly, regardless of the time.

 

Instead of Evan, who cleared the notifications with a single swipe without even checking them properly, Jin had counted them with a slightly overwhelmed feeling. She had stopped after passing twenty, though.

 

“…I really wanted today to be a perfect day.”

 

Jin recalled the words like ‘party’ and ‘gift’ she had caught glimpses of in the flashing notifications. Then she thought of their day: the tasteless meal, the boring play, and the pouring rain.

 

If she hadn’t been there, would the boy have been having a more enjoyable birthday?

 

It seemed more fitting for him to spend his birthday surrounded by cheerful, affectionate people, rather than having a dull date and an amateurish cake. She felt a belated regret for not accepting the surprise party Joey had suggested.

 

She didn’t want to feel this way, but gloominess kept trying to sink in. Just as Jin was struggling to hide it, her wrist was suddenly pulled.

 

Evan pulled her into his arms and buried his face in the crook of her neck.

 

Thank you.

 

Because his face was buried, his mouth was blocked and his words were mumbled. The arms wrapped around her slender waist squeezed tightly. She felt as though she had become a young child’s comfort doll. As the boy dug deeper into her embrace like a coddled child, Jin awkwardly patted his head. 

 

Receiving her gentle touch, Evan closed his eyes. Her white neck smelled faintly of musk layered over the scent of rain.

 

To Evan, a birthday was just a day. If there were days in the world worth naming and celebrating, like Christmas or Independence Day, most of the others were not. Just a day that flows by without a memorable event, without needing a name. To Evan, his birthday was like that.

 

A day that was one among many, nothing more and nothing nothing less.

 

He felt like he might have looked forward to today when he was very young, but at some point, getting excited about a birthday started to feel foolish. It just did.

 

When did it start? Was it that one birthday party, when he stood alone in the backyard and heard his mother’s voice on the phone, trembling with excitement behind the crowd of guests?

 

‘Father, are you really going to be like this? Do you have to do this even on your only grandson’s birthday? How can you not come once, not even a single time?’

 

Or was it when he saw the backs of his grandparents as they finally exhausted their patience, weary of the blatant disregard and cold treatment, and walked away?

 

‘What are you lacking that you have to be treated like this? Was it worth giving up everything, even the sports that were your dream? I’m not so sure.’

 

Evan remembered his grandfather’s eyes, looking at him and his mother with disapproval. He remembered his grandmother’s eyes, avoiding his gaze with discomfort when they met.

 

Evan had Warren blood, but he wasn’t a Warren; he had the Butterfield name, but he wasn’t a proper Butterfield either.

 

Or was it because he grew up and learned more? What it was that caused two people, who could have just been a passing breeze to each other, to end up trapped in a hell called ‘each other.’

 

No. None of that mattered. Those series of events only existed in his memory; they hadn’t been able to affect him.

 

It just turned out that way. One could just call it the mindset of an adolescent boy who felt like thorns would grow in his mouth if he called something special ‘special.’

 

Regardless, his birthday never pulled out anything more from him than the sentiment that it was the day he’d get a call from his parents, who were living their separate lives in New York and France. It was always like that, no matter who congratulated him or what he received.

 

“…Why a cherry cake, of all things?”

 

“You don’t know, do you? Cherries are in season right now. Maybe it’s because it’s hot, but they’re incredibly sweet and delicious.”

 

“Is that so?”

 

“…Actually, I thought that if the tree the same age as you were still alive, I would have made a cake with the fruit from it.”

 

It was always like that, but why was it that when it came to what this girl did for him…

 

Evan adjusted his hold on the girl in his arms without a word. He felt it was a waste that her voice whispering ‘Happy Birthday’ scattered into the air before he could catch it. Not a single thing about this moment wasn’t precious.

 

The two of them ate a dinner they had made themselves with clumsy skills—overcooked, limp cream pasta and steaks that were charred on the outside and mushy on the inside—and talked about many things they had put off.

 

Jin opened up about her timeline for returning to Korea and the transfer exam for a private high school she had prepared for last month. She shared her plan to prepare for the SAT with the help of a school that runs an international class, earn a natural sciences scholarship, and return to the US.

 

Listening to her detailed college entrance plan, which she poured out at a near-expert level after a month of research, Evan simply nodded. In his mind, he realized he couldn’t stay idle like he was now if he wanted to go to the same university as her.

 

And the two of them wrote a contract, just like they had in the old music room.

 

First, do not hide anything, no matter what happens. Second, tell each other first. Third, do not change your heart. Absolutely!

 

Under the capitalized ‘NEVER!’, their two signatures were etched side by side.

 

On the last Monday of May, Memorial Day, Jin received her transfer acceptance email. It was in the middle of a barbecue party celebrating the unofficial start of summer.

 

Ivy, who had been happy to hear the news, soon wore an ambiguous expression, wondering if this was actually something to be happy about. Riley hugged Jin, and Evan smiled with a face that looked as though he knew it would happen all along.