Lie Again! Chapter 57

<Chapter 57. The Stroke of Midnight (4)>

 

“….”

 

Jin froze, still smiling. After dropping a bombshell of a remark, Evan was leisurely fidgeting with her hair as if nothing had happened. 

 

Do you like me?

 

It was an everyday tone, as if asking something like, “Have you eaten? Did you sleep well?” Whether she admitted it or denied it, he would likely just take it lightly and move on. 

 

Even if she shook her head silently, this boy would probably just smile and shrug his shoulders. 

 

Perhaps answering “no” here was the way to avoid getting hurt and to spend more time with Evan. 

 

“…Mhm.”

 

But hesitating, Jin chose to speak her honest feelings instead of lying.

 

Mhm. After her long hesitation, she heard the same answer once more—small, yet unmistakable. 

 

Jin decided to believe his words—that she was the first to come here, and even Hansen had never been. Behind his seemingly random question, instead of saying he liked her, was Evan’s intent to gauge the feelings she held for him. 

 

No—if she were to confess a bit more honestly, it was that she could no longer hide her feelings. Regardless of what this boy was thinking, the heart she had realized once had been overflowing ever since.

 

The hard shell Jin had built around herself to protect her slowly shifted, eventually creating a crack. Through the broken pieces, the feelings she hadn’t managed to contain spilled out—streaming freely. 

 

Evan, who knew him well, grinned widely. His mouth opened broadly, and his dimples deepened noticeably.

 

“It’s not a perfect answer, but I like it.”

 

Evan grasped the cheeks of the girl stubbornly hiding her face in his shoulder and lifted her up.

 

Under the curtain of falling black hair, her lips were pressed tight, and her pale face was flushed with heat. Evan stared at her as if possessed. 

 

Light kisses rained down on her cheeks, her eyelids, the corners of her lips, and the tip of her chin, each one accompanied by a smile. 

 

Butterflies fluttered softly in her stomach—flutter, flutter. Unable to endure the ticklish feeling, Jin burst into laughter again.

 

* * *

 

The two returned to the homestay at a precarious time—just a little before midnight.

 

It was because they had fallen asleep on the sofa while talking together.

 

By the time they woke up, evening had long passed. The firewood in the fireplace had long since turned to ash, and in the forest where night arrived early, darkness had already fallen. 

 

They had rushed to clean up and come all the way back without even having time for dinner. As the clock announced five minutes to midnight, Jin checked one last time to make sure nothing had been forgotten, then took hold of the car door handle.

 

“Thanks for driving me. See you at school. And have a good trip, too.”

 

Jin waved at Evan.

 

When she first heard about the fishing trip back at the cottage, it was true that worry was the first thing that came to mind.

 

From Christmas to the start of the new year, the time he spent with his mother—who had briefly returned from France—always made Evan a little more cynical and a little more irritable. His sensitive mood was obvious even in the text messages they exchanged.

 

But when Evan seemed to be looking forward to meeting his father, Jin soon felt relieved. Listening to his relaxed voice as he talked about the fireflies he had seen at the fishing spot with his own father, and the way he had taught her to draw them in with a flashlight, Jin fell asleep against Evan’s chest.

 

“I’ll call you. And don’t fool around with Evan Ruth too much.”

 

“Mhm. Have a good time with your Father.” 

 

They finished saying their goodbyes, yet neither of them moved. Thinking that this might be their last meeting of the break made the passing time feel even more precious.

 

“Uhm…” 

 

“You know…” 

 

After a brief moment of silence, the two spoke at the same time. Evan let out a small laugh and yielded the turn to Jin. 

 

“You go first.”

 

“Just… a simple goodbye. What about you?”

 

“Me too.”

 

Jin chuckled softly at the boy’s reply.

 

“Okay, then…bye.”

 

“Bye.”

 

Jin got out of the car and watched him go, seeing the green Mustang start up slowly and disappear into the distance at an unhurried crawl. By the time she finally opened the homestay’s front door, it was already a little past midnight. 

 

Seeing Cinderella come home only after the promised magical hour had passed, Riley put her hands on her hips—then quickly asked if she’d had fun and pulled Jin into a hug.

 

Lying in bed, Jin thought back on the day.

 

Skipping stones on the lake, the small cottage, young Evan’s journal, a peaceful nap. Aside from staying out past curfew, it had been a perfect day.

 

No, that wasn’t true. Even breaking her promise with Riley—every single bit of it—had been wonderful.

 

With that correction, Jin closed her drowsy eyes.

 

* * * 

 

But perhaps it was the price for ignoring the fairy’s warning. The magical day vanished like a mirage the very next morning.

 

“…Looks like you were the Cinderella, not me.”

 

Jin buried her face in the pillow as she stared at the black phone screen.

 

The new semester was approaching—without the promised texts, without any contact at all.

 

* * *

 

“…Yes?”

 

At the start of the new semester, Jin was called to the counselor’s office as soon as she arrived at school. She couldn’t understand what she was being told, so she blankly asked them to repeat it.

 

“So what I’m saying is, during the third period you’ll take World Geography instead of Macroeconomics.”

 

Miss Smith, Jin’s counselor, blew lightly on her blue-painted nails as she spoke, as if it were nothing important.

 

“I don’t understand. Wasn’t I already assigned to Mr. Rasch’s class?” 

 

Holding her breath against the strong chemical smell that filled the tiny office—barely a square meter in size—Jin asked the question, a faint crease forming between her brows.

 

“Lee, this is your first year at our school. And the list of 9th-grade classes you brought from Korea didn’t include a geography course.”

 

“Is that a problem?”

 

“Of course. And that’s a very big problem. You need that class in order to graduate. And except for a few who are held back, almost everyone takes it in 9th grade.”

 

Shouldn’t they have told us something this important before we made our schedules for the second semester? They didn’t care at all during the scheduled consultation, and only now they bring it up… 

 

Jin looked at her counselor with a bewildered expression. 

 

“But still, this is way too sudden…” 

 

“What can you do? You won’t be able to graduate otherwise. And it’s better to get it over with now than to take it with a bunch of little freshmen when you’re a senior. You did pretty well in Mr. Wayne’s class too, didn’t you?”

 

Miss Smith, cutting Jin off, held her fingertips upright to avoid smudging her manicure and tapped a spot somewhere on last semester’s report card as she flipped through the papers.

 

Beneath her blue-painted nail sat the letter “A.”

 

Seeing Jin’s report card filled with A’s not just in World History but in every subject, Miss Smith muttered to herself in disbelief, “Do you even have time to have fun?”

 

But Jin’s mood only grew more depressed after seeing that report card.

 

Shortly after winter break began, Jin’s homestay received the final report card for the first semester. More than anything, Jin was nervous about her World History grade and immediately opened the envelope to check.

 

As Jin scanned her grades, a relieved smile spread across her face. Contrary to her worries, Mr. Wayne had given her a higher grade than she had expected.

 

But the faint smile quickly vanished. It was because of the item listed beneath the final score. 

 

O1), O, O, O…… and S 2).

 

Amid a list filled with “Excellent,” one lone “Good” stood out. It was the evaluation of Jin’s classroom behavior. Unsurprisingly, the only subject where she received a “Good” was Mr. Wayne’s World History class.

 

It wasn’t even a U3. It wasn’t something that would affect college admissions. Jin knew very well that, for some, it was a satisfactory result to move on from, and for others, it was a record with no meaning at all.

 

But Jin felt that letter was extremely unfair. She had never been late, never half-heartedly done an assignment, and couldn’t even recall speaking out of turn in class.

 

“Good” for classroom behavior. The letter S carried that meaning, along with a condensed memory of a moment long past.

 

The weary gaze that reminded her to stick to the required length, to let go of her arrogance.

 

“So, then, Miss Smith, if I take Mrs. Thompson’s Geography class during fifth period, could you adjust the other classes accordingly…?”

 

Jin quickly glanced at the second-semester schedule posted on the counselor’s office wall. She really didn’t want to take Mr. Wayne’s class. 

 

Move Spanish to the second period, Math to the first period… damn, there’s no Calculus II. No, wait—she could take the higher level with AP instead…

 

But Jin’s mind, which had been spinning furiously, lost its momentum and came to a halt at the counselor’s sigh, as if exhausted.

 

“There’s no need to make it complicated, Lee. You only need to change the third period. Besides, it’s already been entered into the school system.”