Lie Again! Chapter 56

<Chapter 56. The Stroke of Midnight (3)> 

 

On the wooden post connected to the attic door, there were deep, straight marks and dates carved as if with a knife. They seemed to be markings recording a child’s height. 

 

Jin crouched down on the spot, studying the dates closely, and reached out to smooth over the topmost mark with her hand.

 

Nine years ago… he would have been eight.

 

‘Around 130 centimeters? Maybe about 135 centimeters?’

 

Jin placed the edge of her hand against her chest, gauging Evan’s height at eight years old. The young Evan, hard to imagine compared to his now much taller self, seemed small enough to fit perfectly in her arms.

 

Back then, Evan might have had blond hair too. Foreign kids’ hair often darkens gradually as they grow up.

 

In that case, he would have been an angelic child with hair like spun gold and lake-green eyes that sparkled.

 

Imagining a foreign kid who looked like he belonged in a magazine, Jin traced Evan’s childhood upward along the markings. The sparse notches grew closer together the further down they went. 

 

The very first mark dated back to when he was about two. Jin chuckled softly, imagining a baby who had just begun to walk. From then until he was five, there was a record every year without fail. In some years, there were even two visits, with the dates overlapping precariously beside the faintly spaced notches. 

 

Then, skipping three years, the last mark was made when he was eight.

 

Jin traced her fingertips over the rough, jagged scars carved into the wood, imagining an Evan she had never truly known. 

 

How tall was he at nine, around the time he started middle school? Was he already the lanky boy with long hands and feet like he is now? Until what age did the chubby roundness cling to his cheeks?

 

He must have been that same mischievous boy back then. Jin’s imagination wandered a little further. What if…

 

‘What if I had come earlier?’

 

If we had been part of each other’s pasts, what would have become of us?

 

Jin let out a small chuckle as she thought about it. Perhaps nothing would have changed.

 

Around him, there would have still been people in abundance, and I would have had no intention of approaching. Back then, Lee Jin was an even more timid child than she is now. 

 

If she had talked about Evan, she wouldn’t have gotten caught and gotten into a fight, nor would there have been the science lab cleaning or the errands in the music room after school. 

 

She would have occasionally watched him from afar as he passed by, catching glimpses of that confident smile etched on his cold face, and the mischievous pranks he played with a bored expression.

 

With a slightly more boyish body than now, and a face she didn’t know.

 

“…”

 

Sitting quietly and tracing the notches, she suddenly sprang to her feet. She wanted to see Evan.

 

Seventeen-year-old Evan Butterfield.

 

Jin hurried down the stairs to the second floor. Even though Evan, who should have been sleeping quietly on the first floor, couldn’t have gone anywhere, a restless impatience bubbled up inside her.

 

Strangely, her heart kept swelling, as if it would burst the moment a pin touched it.

 

Stepping on the old wooden stairs that creaked with every footfall, she suddenly recalled the moment she first set foot in Crawford.

 

The Florida sun was hotter than she had expected, and the heat radiating up from the asphalt through her sneakers only made her already flustered mood even more restless.

 

A strange school, an unfamiliar timetable, instructions she couldn’t understand, and textbooks heavy in her arms.

 

She remembered the moment, half-lost in the urge to run away crying, when a hand suddenly appeared and snatched the timetable from her. And when she turned, those summer-like eyes met hers.

 

The moment their eyes met, something still unripe from some distant, deep place within her fell. Fresher than an unripe peach, it landed lighter than a “thud” but heavier than a “tap.” 

 

But she also remembered how, before she could even figure out what it was, her heart had already turned away.

 

She recalled how, looking at his broad shoulders that had never seemed to shrink, his relaxed stride, and even the way his hair swayed in the sunlight, she had, quite unexpectedly, thought of a straight-line equation.

 

Lines stretching infinitely in their own directions never return. The single moment when two lines happen to cross is fleeting. The instant an intersection forms, the lines gradually drift apart—each in its own direction, at its own pace. 

 

The boy with no name seemed like a line with a different slope from her own. After this encounter, all that remained was to drift infinitely apart along their respective directions. 

 

However, the intersection that seemed like it would end there……

 

Jin looked back on the past time that felt short, yet long.

 

Though my head was heating up from their inconsiderate tone and arrogant attitude, I found myself strangely murmuring at that face that always wore an irritating smile just for me.

 

The effort to sever the consciousness that kept turning to him in the quiet chemistry lab,

 

On a night filled with the chirping of insects, in the darkened garden, she revealed her true feelings for the first time.

 

In the cramped closet, she tightly grasped the hem of the one kissing her.

 

Myself, pretending otherwise, lying through all those moments.

 

But the feelings that kept drifting toward him in all those moments.

 

Jin stepped onto the last stair and turned his head.

 

The boy was asleep on the small sofa in the living room, arms crossed. The little sofa couldn’t support his tall frame, so his shins jutted out past the armrests.

 

Jin stood tall, gripping the railing, and quietly watched the boy bathed in sunlight.

 

The back of his hand, where blue veins stood out sharply; skin that looked cold but burned surprisingly warm to the touch; the nape of his neck faintly scented with soap; the faint freckles visible up close; and the dimple that appeared teasingly whenever he smiled.

 

Deep-set eyes framed by golden-brown lashes, resting gently. Jin knew what lay hidden beneath those eyelids.

 

Ah.

 

Jin let out a quiet sigh. The moments of lying, one by one, gathered together, casting a large shadow before her eyes. 

 

A tidal wave was approaching—one she couldn’t close her eyes to, nor run away from.

 

Ah, I love this child.

 

As if time had stopped, yet in the midst of the strangely ongoing sensation, Jin drew back the fingertips resting on the railing.

 

A conflicted urge surged within him—part of him wanted to endlessly watch his closed face, while another part wanted to wake him immediately and see his eyes, full of warmth, catch the light.

 

Unable to decide what he himself truly wanted, Jin cautiously took a step forward.

 

But before he could get close enough to shake him awake, Jin was grabbed around the waist by strong arms and lifted upward.

 

Jin held her breath at the heat pressing through the fabric.

 

“Why are you moving like a squirrel, Jin?”

 

His lips, pressing against the crown of her head, moved slowly. A low, sleepy voice brushed against Jin’s ear.

 

“….”

 

Instead of answering, Jin buried her face in the nape of his neck. If she spoke now, it felt as though her heart would leap out of her throat.

 

I like you.

 

Afraid that words she couldn’t control would suddenly slip out.

 

It was a word she still couldn’t bring herself to say. Jin remembered Taylor, who had willingly entrusted herself to Evan’s hands only to be pushed away in an instant. She thought of Emma, Anna, Tracy, and the many other girls who had lingered around him after Taylor.

 

And then she remembered Emily Gwen at the New Year’s party.

 

Eyes that had glared at her sharply. Though her lips were sealed and not a word was spoken, the resentment in those eyes rippled vividly.

 

She didn’t believe Olivia’s claim that Evan had left Emily to come after her. After all, Evan had been with her since the morning. She had already dismissed in her mind the possibility of any misunderstanding between Gwen and herself.

 

But that didn’t mean she was certain—certain that Evan liked her, that he wasn’t toying with her, that he wouldn’t flit away like a butterfly at any moment.

 

The certainty that she could lay her heart bare in a moment of joy and never regret it.

 

“Can’t sleep?”

 

Evan lazily tapped Jin’s waist as he spoke. Jin silently buried her head a little deeper in his neck.

 

Jin didn’t give an answer easily, but Evan patiently waited for her. What was she thinking with that little head of hers? Yet the time spent waiting in silence wasn’t tedious.

 

After a moment of lazily brushing the black hair slipping through his fingers and feeling the pulse through her chest, the girl who had remained silent finally spoke.

 

“Let me ask you one thing.”

 

“Mhm.” 

 

“Has anyone been here before?”

 

It wasn’t the question he had expected. Judging by Jin’s pounding heartbeat, flushed ears, and unusual behavior, he had thought that perhaps, for the first time, he might hear her confess that she liked him.

 

Evan still tried to guess the intentions of the girl who refused to show her face, but soon gave up on reading her mind altogether.

 

“No. You’re the first.”

 

“Even Emily, Olivia, and Taylor?”

 

“Even Emily, Olivia, and Taylor.”

 

Though he answered Jin’s questions earnestly with his words, Evan’s hands and eyes kept wandering. He twirled her long hair into a makeshift mustache, traced each groove along her straightened back.

 

“Henson hasn’t been here before?”

 

“Why did I even bring him here?”

 

Evan made a disgusted “ugh” sound. Jin quietly chuckled at his expression. Whether it was from the tension easing or from hearing what she wanted to hear, a laugh slipped out effortlessly.

 

Then Evan, who was reluctantly touching up the earlobe that had returned to its original color, laughed along.

 

“Okay, now it’s my turn.”

 

“Mhm?”

 

“Do you like me?”