Lie Again! Chapter 68

Chapter 68. I Know, But (3)

 

“…Let go.”

 

“….”

 

Jin, who had been staggering along, dragged by the sudden, firm grip twisting around her wrist, struggled to stop and spoke through clenched teeth.

 

Even though her steps faltered from the resistance she put her whole body into, the brown head in front of her offered no response.

 

“Can’t you hear me? Let go of this!”

 

Jin fought to pry his hand off her tightly held wrist. Her sharp nails raked harshly across the back of his hand, where blue veins stood out, leaving angry red scratches—but Evan ignored it all and kept walking in silence.

 

“I said, let go!”

 

At her scream-like shout, his brisk strides halted abruptly. He released her wrist, left Jin standing there, and strode back the way he had come.

 

Thud!

 

Immediately followed by the wet sound of a heavy impact, Cameron—struck in the face by Evan’s fist—fell backward. Gasps and startled screams erupted from all around.

 

With blazing eyes fixed on Cameron, Evan turned back again, grabbed Jin’s wrist where she stood frozen in shock, and resumed walking. Excited stares and phone cameras trailed behind them like tails.

 

Evan finally let go only after dragging her all the way outside the house.

 

“You—!”

 

He flared up at once, then, unable to contain himself, turned his head sharply and spat out a stifled, “F*ck!”

 

With one hand on his hip, he repeatedly ran the other through his hair, trying desperately to cool his temper. The problem lay with those damn b*stards; it wasn’t something to get angry at this girl about.

 

But that was easier said than done. 

 

“How could you be so reckless as to accept a drink when you don’t know what that prick might have put in it!”

 

In the end, unable to suppress the surge of fury, Evan shouted. His eyes boiled as they fixed on the black head bowed low. If he hadn’t come.

 

If he’d been too late, if they’d moved somewhere else and he hadn’t found her. If that had happened.

 

Those “what-ifs” kept his agitation from subsiding. It felt as if someone had poured a literal blaze over his head. Ever since finding Jean here, his world had felt upside down.

 

He tried again and again, but reason simply would not obey. The punch he’d thrown at Johnson was a shard of emotion that had burst out after being restrained too long. He had to clench his teeth to keep from climbing on top of him and beating him half to death.

 

“….”

 

But no matter what he ranted, Jean remained silent, her face bowed. The girl kept her mouth shut, offering neither her voice, her face, nor even a glance.

 

“Do you not have a mouth? Say something!”

 

Frustrated beyond measure, Evan took a step toward her.

 

“…What does it matter?”

 

“What?”

 

At the faint voice, Evan frowned. He reached out and grabbed her shoulders to force her to look at him, and Jin snapped her head up.

 

In the black eyes that finally met his lurked a red-hot fury equal to his own. Evan forgot even his anger, momentarily transfixed by that gaze.

 

“What I drink, what he does to me!”

 

For a brief instant only. Jin shook off the hand gripping her shoulder, and the force of it made Evan step back.

 

“….”

 

“Mind your own business. It doesn’t concern you.”

 

“How can you even say that…!”

 

Evan was about to explode again when—

 

In an instant, the burning red pupils went hollow. Her eyes glazed over as if filled with smoke, and a bone-chillingly cold sneer formed on Jin’s face. 

 

The sharp, cutting chill he had never seen in her before made Evan freeze. While he stood immobilized, the lips curved in scorn.

 

Ah.

 

“Is it because you couldn’t win the bet?”

 

“….”

 

“Is that what Hanson said? That it’s void because you haven’t heard me say I like you yet.” 

 

“…Jin.”

 

Evan’s eyes wavered at the unexpected revelation. 

 

Jin knows.

 

Evan reached out to grab her. A thousand excuses clawed up his throat, ready to burst out at any second.

 

He had to say it wasn’t true. That it wasn’t like that. He had to say that while he did use those words to make a bet on her, it was just a stupid, stubborn whim. That he had just been looking for a pretext to get close to her because he didn’t want to admit his feelings. 

 

“Jin, I—”

 

But his outstretched hand never reached her. Jin had already taken a step back. The clever girl quickly read the truth in his wavering green eyes, in the stiff line of his mouth. A hollow smile bloomed across her pale face.

 

“Haha, this is so funny, Evan.”

 

“….”

 

“Hahaha…”

 

The laughter, spilling out as if she truly couldn’t hold it in, soon turned into a choked sob. Evan stood frozen to the spot, watching her.

 

She was crying. She wasn’t someone who showed tears—she might sulk quietly when things were hard, but she never cried.

 

Jin was crying. For the first time. Because of him.

 

Hadn’t he sworn that if tears ever fell from those eyes, no matter who caused them, he wouldn’t let it slide?

 

The incredulous laughter escaping Jin’s mouth pierced his ears sharply.

 

After laughing and crying for a long while, tears streaming down unchecked, Jin struggled to steady her breathing and buried her face in her hand.

 

With the pounding music from the house leaking faintly behind them, the two were wrapped in silence. Even then, Evan could not move so much as a fingertip.

 

After some time, Jin finally wiped away her tears and looked straight at the boy in front of her.

 

“I like you.”

 

“….”

 

“That’s what you wanted to hear most, right?”

 

It was the first confession from Jin’s lips. The words he had long wanted to hear—as she said—perhaps even since the day he first met her on the sun-drenched campus.

 

…And yet, strangely, he felt no joy at all.

 

“Congratulations. You won.”

 

A tear pooled at the corner of her eye fell onto her pale cheek as she laughed hollowly.

 

At the same time, Evan’s heart dropped heavily to the ground.

 

* * *

 

Early morning, when a thick, hazy darkness had settled. The sound of sorrowful sobbing echoed through the residential streets that would usually be silent. 

 

A stray cat rummaging through a trash can jolted in alarm and looked around warily. Soon, spotting a figure trudging around the corner, it darted away into the darkness.

 

The culprit who broke the dawn’s peace, Jean, kept her mouth shut tight as tears fell, letting out another sob whenever she could no longer hold it in.

 

After repeating that for a while, Jin sank down carelessly onto the deserted street.

 

Under the yellow glow of a streetlamp illuminating the empty road, and the occasional flicker of television light spilling from dark living rooms, her tear-streaked cheeks glistened.

 

“Is there nothing you want to say?”

 

“You jerk.”

 

Now that she understood those words from some time ago, a hollow laugh slipped out. He must’ve just wanted to hear her say she liked him. All for the sake of winning some stupid bet.

 

The fact that the bet’s stakes had been nothing more than Hanson’s sneakers made her feel even more miserable.

 

“I wasn’t even going to drink it in the first place.”

 

She had planned to refuse on her own. She wasn’t so foolish as to guzzle something handed to her by someone she wasn’t even close to.

 

…Though she hesitated for a moment.

 

Jin wiped her cheeks roughly. But not even ten seconds passed before tears streamed down again.

 

She’d cried the entire walk here, yet it amazed her there were still tears left. Like a broken faucet, her tear ducts alternated between slowing and overflowing. The skin around her eyes, rubbed raw, stung painfully.

 

Just as things at school seemed to calm down, Amanda came to mind; when the issue with Amanda became bearable, Evan would make her chest tighten all over again.

 

“…Why is this really happening to me?”

 

Why did all the hard things have to come at once? It felt as if the world wasn’t on her side. Jin wiped away a tear trailing down one eye and pulled out her phone.

 

1 a.m.

 

It must be past noon in Korea. If asked why she wasn’t asleep at this hour, what would she say? Did she even have the right to whine over just a friend problem, just a boy problem? Her mom was probably still working.

 

Yet after hesitating, Jin brought her finger to the call button. Today, more than ever, she desperately needed the one person in the world who was wholly on her side. After only a few rings, noisy background sounds filtered through.

 

“Mom.”

 

-Daughter. Is something wrong? Isn’t it the middle of the night there?

 

At the familiar voice, unchanged from the last time she’d heard it, Jin quickly wiped away the tears threatening to surge again and steadied her voice. She didn’t want her unstable emotions to show.

 

“I miss you.”

 

-Mom misses you a lot too. How is it there? Is the host mom treating you well?

 

Fortunately, it seemed her effort worked; her mother didn’t notice.

 

“Yeah. Riley’s really good to me. So is Evie.”

 

-How’s school? Are you getting along with your friends? Hang on a second, Jin-ah. Yes! What can I get for you?

 

Through the receiver, she could hear her mother conversing with a customer. Judging by the detailed small talk, it must’ve been a regular. Her mother laughed at the customer’s joke.

 

Jin could picture the scene easily. She often sat in the back of the shop to study after school.

 

Her parents’ fruit store did well in the neighborhood. People even joked with a hint of envy that all the fruit around here must pass through their shop.

 

A thriving business, a loving couple who ran it, a daughter studying abroad in America with good grades.

 

But Jin knew what lay behind the envy. The grueling workload without a single proper day off in a week, the hoarse voice at night after talking to customers all day, the swollen legs from standing nonstop.

 

She knew how her mother lay awake at night from the tingling pain climbing up her legs before finally falling asleep, and how she forced a smile and swallowed sighs when dealing with difficult customers.

 

After a short while, she heard her mother seeing the customer off.

 

-Daughter. You’re doing well, right?

 

No. The teacher hates me, and the counselor ignores me. I fought with my friend and everyone is awkward because of me. The first boy I ever liked used me as a betting stake.

 

And all of it—so trivial and yet so overwhelming—it’s too much, Mom.

 

I miss you and Dad. I want to go home. I want to hide somewhere and disappear.

 

“…Mhm. I’m doing well.”

 

But Jin swallowed it all. She had not forgotten that being here was because of her own selfish desire, and that it had added weight to her parents’ burdens.

 

-Go to sleep soon. You’ll be late for school tomorrow. I love you, daughter.

 

“Mhm. I love you too.”

 

It was not long after she hung up that her vision brightened from sudden headlights. Jean squinted and turned her head toward the source of the light. 

 

A person stepped out of a yellow Beetle that had stopped nearby.