Lie Again! Chapter 89

<Chapter 89. Neatly, Clumsily (3)>

 

“James hasn’t been coming around much lately, has he?”

 

Joey spoke up as she placed her tray—carrying nothing but a single salad bowl—onto the table, glancing around the cafeteria.

 

At those words, Jin, who had been tearing the corner off a ketchup packet to squeeze onto her fries, tightened her grip. The red sauce that had been pouring out nicely flew in a sudden arc and landed right on Dustin’s apple.

 

“Hey!”

 

After mouthing an apology to a protesting Dustin, Jin set the crumpled plastic packet down on the table and let out a long breath, as if bracing herself.

 

It seemed that right now was the perfect timing she had been looking for all along.

 

“I’m seeing Evan again.”

 

Everyone’s eyes turned toward Jin for a split second before returning to whatever they were doing—everyone except for Ruth, whose mouth hung wide open.

 

“Wait, weren’t things going well with James? How did it end up like this?”

 

“How oblivious can you get?”

 

Joey clicked her tongue and wagged her index finger back and forth. When Ruth complained that Joey had been the one most actively pushing for James, Joey simply shrugged.

 

“I knew it would turn out like this.”

 

“Me too.”

 

“I’m sure Jin made the right decision for herself.”

 

At Dustin and Amanda’s following comments, Ruth muttered in disbelief, “Again, am I really the only one who didn’t notice?” But Jin let out a quiet sigh of relief. This was especially true regarding Amanda’s reaction. Since James was Amanda’s cousin before he was Jin’s friend, she had been a bit worried about how Amanda would take it.

 

Truthfully, she had been anxious that Amanda might think she was disregarding her. However, Amanda’s face showed not a hint of disapproval or awkwardness; there was only a firm trust directed toward Jin. Jin felt both gratitude and apology toward her at the same time.

 

Despite her embarrassment, Jin’s expression remained bright, and the other kids, instead of expressing concern, simply nodded and commented on how it probably wasn’t easy to forget a face like Evan’s anyway.

 

“But Jin, if he acts up again, kick him to the curb immediately. Got it?”

 

“No. He’s really not like that these days. It’s more like…”

 

At Joey’s warning, Jin’s expression clouded over slightly.

 

Lately, Evan had thrown away all his previous ambiguity and was being incredibly proactive in showing his affection for her. While it felt a bit overwhelming and made her stomach flip, if asked if she disliked it, the answer was a definite no.

 

Rather, it only made her feel that the daily life they had shared before really hadn’t been a romance or anything at all. Because she spent each day feeling how sweet affection could be when exchanged in a stable state, without the anxiety that the other person might run away. It felt exactly like rolling around on top of cotton candy. 

 

However, there was one thing. One thing that kept bothering her like a fishbone stuck in her throat.

 

“…The problem is that he tries to cater to my every single whim.”

 

Jin swallowed a sigh, murmuring to herself so the others couldn’t hear.

 

* * *

 

Sniff.

 

— Did you know? When you look at Earth from far away in space, the time we exist is nothing more than a fleeting moment, and this place is already a desolate, empty star.

 

The light from the monitor shimmered across the small, darkened attic room. On the screen, a pair of lovers was in the middle of a heart-wrenching breakup. But Evan, who was lying face down propped up on one elbow, was watching Jin—who was crying buckets—with fascination instead of the movie.

 

— I want to spend every single moment of the fleeting instant I’ve been given loving you.

 

Jin, who had been dabbing her eyes with a tissue Evan had handed her, couldn’t hold back and burst into fresh sobs at the male lead’s dialogue. As she did, she firmly pushed away Evan’s face, as he was poking her cheek while watching her.

 

Evan let his head fall back onto the bed and burst into laughter.

 

“Isn’t this even sad to you?” 

 

With an expression that asked how he could possibly laugh at a time like this, Jin glared at the chuckling Evan.

 

“What’s there to be sad about? They brought it all on themselves.”

 

“You cold-blooded human.”

 

Evan just shrugged at Jin’s nasally accusation.

 

Jin stole a glance at him to gauge his mood. It was a movie she had picked, and throughout the time they spent huddled together on her attic bed watching it on her small laptop, Evan hadn’t seemed particularly moved by it. He seemed more interested in playing with her hand or watching her crying face than the actual film.

 

She worried that maybe she shouldn’t have suggested watching it in the first place.

 

“Be honest. You didn’t find it sad because you weren’t really paying attention, right?”

 

“If I still can’t empathize with it after watching it for a second time, then it’s a problem with the director’s skill.”

 

Evan, turning his head away from the screen entirely, replied as he wound a strand of Jin’s hair around his finger, twirling it. But that only lasted a moment; as a surprised Jin turned her head at his words, the hair slipped smoothly out from between his fingers.  

 

Evan looked down at his empty palm with a hint of regret.

 

“You’ve seen this before? Then you should have said we should watch something else!”

 

“I don’t mind watching it again. I like watching what you want to watch.”

 

“But still…”

 

Evan spoke as if it were no big deal, but Jin couldn’t shake off her uneasy feeling. That was because lately, almost every single one of their dates had been centered entirely around her.

 

No matter what they did, what they watched, or even what they ate—Evan considered only Jin’s preferences from start to finish.

 

And Jin didn’t think that was a good sign.

 

Even looking back at their date this past weekend, it was the same.

 

From the moment she left her house, Jin had been determined that they were absolutely going to do what Evan wanted that day. To his question about what she wanted to eat, she had persistently insisted, “Whatever you want!” She eventually succeeded in making Evan choose the place, but the place he chose was a Korean restaurant.

 

Specifically, it was Dakgalbi, which Jin had once mentioned in passing that she wanted to eat.

 

‘Are you sure you really want to eat this?’

 

To Jin’s suspicious question, Evan had simply nodded nonchalantly and walked into the restaurant. The absurdity she felt watching him barely be able to eat more than a few spoonfuls…

 

‘It’s a, cough… it’s a bit spicy.’

 

That day, for the first time, Jin learned the new information that Evan couldn’t handle spicy food well, but it didn’t make her particularly happy.

 

Thinking back to that day, Jin pushed the laptop toward the head of the bed and lay down on her side facing Evan, letting her head rest on the mattress.

 

“Is there nothing you want to do?”

 

“Being with you.”

 

A deep dimple formed next to his upturned lips. When Jin reached out and pressed down on the dimple, Evan playfully pushed her finger away with his tongue from inside his cheek.

 

When Evan, losing the test of strength, stuck out his tongue and played dead, Jin snickered and then spoke. 

 

“Not something like that, I mean something you really want to do.”

 

“I’m telling you, hanging out with you is what I want to do.”

 

Realizing she wasn’t going to get a straight answer easily, Jin stared at Evan for a moment before changing the subject.

 

“Then, what about a dream or something?”

 

“I don’t know. Is something like that necessary?”

 

Evan rolled over to lie on his back, facing the ceiling. At the signal of him tapping the bed with his palm, Jin rolled over and snuggled into his arms.

 

Using Evan’s arm as a pillow, Jin lay flat and stared at the star-shaped glow-in-the-dark stickers on the wooden ceiling. The fluorescent stars that Ivy had made at school and stuck on Jin’s attic ceiling a few months ago sparkled brightly in the dark room.

 

“I don’t have a dream yet, either. But we both have to choose a major soon after we graduate.”

 

“If they say they’ll take responsibility for it themselves, is there anything more I need to do?”

 

“….”

 

Stealing a glance at Evan, she saw that his eyes were closed. Reading the thinly veiled cynicism beneath his voice that sounded only superficially relaxed, Jin rested her head on Evan’s shoulder as if to comfort him.

 

She understood his crooked sense of rebellion, expressing it to the adults by washing his hands of his own life, but at the same time, she thought it was such a waste. They were in the middle of such an important moment to merely be observers, as if they were looking at someone else’s life.

 

“Still, I’m anxious and curious about what I’ll become. Aren’t you?”

 

“I’m curious, too. About what you’ll be doing.”

 

“…I’m just as curious about your future as I am about my own. Evan, you’re smart and athletic, so it’s even harder to tell what you’ll end up being. I feel like you’d be good at whatever you do.”

 

Instead of answering, Evan gave a wide smile and met Jin’s eyes. His green eyes, shimmering with the orange light from the monitor, were full of mischief.

 

“So, has a certain someone with no athletic ability decided which club to join yet?”

 

Jin gave Evan’s thigh a playful smack. The way he never took her serious words seriously was a bit annoying, but she couldn’t help it. She grumbled inwardly that his eyes were truly an irresistible force.

 

“Thanks to that lack of athletic ability, I’ve pretty much given up on sports. I’m thinking of poking around the orchestra or marching band.”

 

“Maybe I should do that, too.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“You asked about my dream earlier. I thought of one. Being by your side. Whatever it is, I want to do what you want to do with you. Jin, like you said, I’m good at everything, so I’m confident in that, too.”

 

For once, Evan spoke with a lot of excitement and looked at Jin with a smile. However, the expression on the girl he thought would share his sentiment was not what he expected.

 

Jin sat bolt upright, moving out of Evan’s arms before he could catch her.

 

“Don’t do that.”

 

“What?”

 

“Don’t bet your life on me, Evan.”

 

Jin spoke with a hardened expression.