Chapter Eight #2
“Do you not like bubble tea, or are you just mad that I bought it?” he said, pulling the cup toward himself anyway.
“I’m already eating cheesecake,” I said, nodding to the half-eaten slice.
“Too much dairy.” I’d inherited a few useful Asian genes from my mother, like the not-sweating-very-much gene and the mostly-straight-hair gene, but also a few unfortunate ones like the violent-diarrhea-when-consuming-too-much-dairy gene.
I’d taken Lactaid this morning, but I wasn’t about to push my luck in front of Kim Yejun, of all people.
“Oh,” he said, drinking my tea. “Do you want a dairy-free one?”
I shook my head. “I want to finish this worksheet.” And I don’t want you to keep buying me things, I thought.
“Are you sure?” Yejun said.
“I’m sure.”
“Do you want anything else to drink?”
“No.”
“To eat?”
“No.”
“Is dating Kim Jihoon your infiltration mission?”
I dropped my pencil, blinking up at Yejun. My face suddenly burned. “Did you think bombarding me with questions would trick me into answering that?” I managed.
“Are you trying the same tactic now?” he said, smirking.
I snatched my pencil off the floor. “No more questions. Only calculus.”
“It’s just that you pay a lot of attention to him, but you seem different when you do,” Yejun said. “Sort of like you’re lying.”
I clenched my teeth, embarrassed that he’d figured it out so easily.
But I didn’t think of it as lying—Jihoon was sweet, and talking to him made me forget the catastrophes in every other area of my life.
It wasn’t like I pretended to enjoy his company.
“You don’t know me,” I said. “How would you know how I act?”
“I think I’m getting to know you,” Yejun said, shrugging and slurping boba up his straw. “We already have a secret together. Strangers don’t share secrets. I bet you don’t have any secrets with Jihoon.”
“And where did you get that idea?” I said. “On another napkin in a shoe rack?” He was right, but he didn’t need to know that.
Yejun grimaced. “That’s a very reliable form of communication,” he said, crossing his arms.
“Anyone can stuff some garbage in a shoe rack,” I said. “It’s hardly proof of anything.”
Instead of answering, Yejun set down his drink and stared at it as if deeply contemplating the boba. My gaze fell to the tattoo on his arm, and I realized too late that he was probably thinking about his mother and her note. I hadn’t been talking about her, but he probably thought I had been.
“Yejun—”
“It’s not just a napkin,” he said at last. “I have a shoe.”
I blinked. “A shoe?”
He nodded earnestly. “A green velvet shoe with a short heel and a bow on the front,” he said. “I found it in my dad’s closet. And before you ask—it’s not his size.”
“I wasn’t going to ask that,” I said.
“The shoe tells me a lot,” Yejun said, looking out at the view of Seoul from the cafeteria—it wasn’t quite as impressive as from the top level, but from here it looked like we were floating in a gray cloud.
“Someone with a shoe that color was probably artsy. Maybe she painted in her spare time. She also must have walked around a lot, since the heel is so small. Either that or she was close to my father’s height and didn’t want to look too tall.
I looked up the brand, and it’s not very expensive, so she was probably practical and liked to save money for things that really mattered.
I bet she was the kind of person who liked to mend clothes and re-sole shoes and make old things bright and pretty again. ”
He smiled softly to himself, then shook his head and turned back to me with a sigh. “Anyway,” he said. “That’s what I like to think. When you don’t have all the facts, sometimes you just have to make your own story, since it’s all you’re ever going to get.”
I looked down at my worksheet, wishing we could talk about calculus again. If Yejun’s mother had really been erased like he thought, then she must have betrayed the descendants and tried to warn Yejun with the napkin. She’d found a fate worse than death because she believed in the truth.
My parents would never do something like that. If their boss told them to roll over and die, they would do it without question.
“I should go home soon,” I said.
Yejun frowned. “But you haven’t finished your cheesecake.”
I sighed and shoveled the last few bites into my mouth, then bundled up the trash.
Yejun wisely stayed quiet as we packed our bags and headed outside to catch the shuttle bus.
I’d learned some calculus today, at least. Probably not enough to make me a straight-A student, but I just needed to pass, not perform a miracle.
We’d hardly taken three steps out the door when I saw him.
“Oh no,” I said, drawing to a stop.
“What?” Yejun said, whirling around as if the danger would pop out of the bushes.
The bushes.
“Shut up for a minute,” I said, before shoving Yejun into the nearest bush just as Jihoon rounded the corner with his little sisters.
Jihoon froze at the sight of me, then a smile broke across his face and he started walking faster, tugging his sisters along. I glanced at the slightly misshapen bush, which thankfully stayed silent.
“Mina!” Jihoon said, jogging up to me. His little sisters stumbled after him, all but dragged up the hill, then peered at me with wide eyes. “Are you leaving?” he said.
I screamed internally—I could have said no and stayed here with him, but Yejun would probably find a way to join us, and that was the last thing I wanted.
“Yeah, sorry,” I said.
“No no, it’s fine!” Jihoon said quickly. “If you’re busy now, how about we hang out later? Like this Friday?”
I was scheduled for a 3:00 to 5:00 shift with Hyebin on Friday, plus studying for calculus, but I could probably fit in a date with Jihoon. It was technically work, after all, so maybe Hyebin would even let me go early.
“Sure,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face. “We could get dinner?”
The bush rustled beside me. I pretended I hadn’t noticed, but Jihoon and both his sisters turned toward it.
“Must be a raccoon!” I said quickly. “You should keep your distance. It might bite.”
Jihoon’s sisters ducked behind his legs. “Oppa, I want to go inside,” the older one said.
“We will, Jiwoo,” Jihoon said, patting her hair before turning back to me. “Yes, let’s get dinner! I love dinner!” he said. “I’ll text you?”
“Sure,” I said again. Yejun’s annoying observation kept playing in my head, making me hyperaware of my body language.
It’s just that you pay a lot of attention to him, but you seem different when you do. Sort of like you’re lying.
But I wasn’t really lying, was I? I actually wanted to get dinner with Jihoon. It was better than squishing bugs with Hyebin.
“Is she your girlfriend?” Jihoon’s younger sister asked.
“Okay let’s talk later!” Jihoon said, his face bright red. “Bye, Mina!” he called over his shoulder, dragging his sisters toward the main entrance.
I waved, making sure to keep the smile on my face until the door closed behind him.
Yejun popped his head out of the bushes, his hair tangled with leaves. “You’re lucky that my curiosity is stronger than my desire for chaos,” he said. “I could have made that very awkward.”
“And I could have punched you in the face, but it’s a good thing we’re both feeling merciful today,” I said.
“Ooh, did I hit a nerve?” Yejun said, standing up and brushing himself off. “Nervous about your pretend date?”
“It’s not pretend,” I said, heading for the shuttle as Yejun shook leaves off his backpack.
“What, I can’t even joke after you crammed me into a bush?” he said. Something in his tone had shifted—his words had a sharper edge to them now.
I paused, looking over my shoulder. “I’m sorry about the bush, but I didn’t see many other options,” I said.
He scoffed. “The option to be seen with me was too intolerable?”
For the purposes of my infiltration mission, yes, I thought, but of course I didn’t want to tell Yejun that, because then I would have to admit he was right about my mission.
If I hadn’t hidden Yejun, it would have looked like we were on a date, and I couldn’t exactly tell Jihoon we were just trying to destroy the timeline platonically.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Yejun said when I didn’t answer. He wouldn’t meet my gaze as the shuttle pulled up, and we rode in silence back down the hill.