이름없는 기억

I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW(SAY THE TRUTH)

“My stomach hurts,” Kevin complained.

“It’s your fault,” Lexi shot back. “Nobody told you to snarf down everything on the table.”

Kevin pouted.

“Pathetic,” she muttered and turned away. “How did I manage to put up with this?” They were sitting in the car, having just said goodbye to Kevin’s mom.

He’d declined –uh, no. actually he forced the driving on to her, having just consumed more than half the dinner his mom made. At the moment, he was leaning back, eyes closed –whether from pain or something else, his face didn’t show. Lexi stared at him, unwavering now that he wasn’t looking back.

After a few minutes, Kevin opened his eyes to return her gaze. “Uhm,” he muttered, his thoughts suddenly scattering. “Aren’t we leaving yet?”

She snapped off and wordlessly started the car.

“So?” Kevin persisted when she didn’t speak, ten minutes later.

“So what?” She was careful to keep her eyes on the road.

“How was tonight?”

“Seriously, Kevin?”

He smiled and started doing the aegyo act she found both irritating and oddly heart-racing.

“Ugh!” She stepped on the breaks so fast they would have been thrown out the window if they weren’t wearing seatbelts. “Yamero!”

“Ooh, Japanese,” he muttered.

“Psh.” She blew a strand of hair away from her face. “Fine. Evening? Great. Now would you lay off of me while I’m driving?”

“Ah, that’s more like it,” he said.

Lexi felt like they were slipping in a twilight zone where she was seventeen again. “If you value your teeth…” She let the threat hang unfinished.

Kevin held up his hands in mock defeat.

They hit traffic half an hour later. Lexi was about to ask why when she saw a sign that practically made her scream in protest: ROADWORKS AHEAD FOLLOW DIVERSION FOR SEOUL.

“This is all I need right now,” she grumbled.

“Why?” Kevin asked. “It’s road reconstruction or something.”

“No,” she shot back. “It’s a big stonking hole in the ground that’s going to make us get home late.” Frustrated, she drummed on the steering wheel, feeling the ever-present knot in her stomach everytime she thought of the prospect of being alone with Kevin in an excessive amount of time. It tightened further when she thought about the kiss, her row with Xander and Ye Jeun’s desperate attempt at threatening her.

“You know, you should probably wind down,” Kevin continued, apparently unaffected. “Before you get indigestion.”

“Shut up!” She laughed despite herself, following the cars as they merged into one lane and began crawling through the bright orange traffic cones. “Oh, god. Can this get any slower?”

Kevin tugged at her hair. “Hey, calm down superstar.”

“Seriously?” She gestured at the speedometer. “We’re going less than five miles an hour!”

Painstakingly slowly, they took a left and started weaving through various sidestreets until she finally sighted what looked like a main road. She edged forward, bumper to bumper. It went on for an hour until Kevin spotted a side road they always took to avoid further traffic. By then, Lexi was red in the face, both from the traffic and her own tangled nerves.