KILL THIS LOVE | JENLISA

Chapter 98

Jennie

"Hi, am I speaking to Park Da-eun?" My voice flowed, laced with the most honeyed tone possible, my fingers anxiously twirling themselves around the plastic cord of the payphone.

"Yes this is she."

"Yeah hi, I was calling to ask about one of the people you had rented your apartment out to, his name was Yoo Hae-jin."

"Who am I speaking to again?" The lady's voice came out chary, making me bite down on my lower lip, before exhaling sharply to speak my lie, "I'm his niece, Miss Park. I was wondering if I could swing by the place to pick up some stuff."

"Oh? I didn't know Hae-jin had any family."

"Yeah, he was.. kind of a.. a private person." I blurted, "So is it okay if I come by this evening? I'm not in town for too long."

"Sure sweetie, drop by at 6pm and we'll see."

Muttering a small thanks, I hung up the phone quickly, my gaze lingering over the speaker for a second. Between lying to the police, to my friends, to So-yeon and now this; I was pretty sure I was on my way to becoming a pathological liar.

But then, my quest for the truth was proving to be way too consuming to be held back by small things like that, especially considering how I hadn't had a wink of sleep in the last however many months as I could remember. I was lagging behind in my studies, and my health was probably at an all-time low. Finding out the truth was the only thing that could quite possibly be my only saving grace in ruinous times like this. And it so happens to be that the path to the truth is paved with lies.

Finally exiting the booth, I made my way back into the bookstore adjacent to the payphone swiftly, hoping not to run into Jin-goo, the clerk. But there he stood, arms crossed, behind the counter in my place. "You know, I'm not paying you to take extended bathroom breaks." He said sardonically. "The new shipment is not just going to arrange itself on the shelf."

I nodded my head promptly, "I.. I'll be right on that."

"Yeah you better. Listen, something's come up, I'm leaving. Don't forget to lock up after your shift." He said begrudgingly.

I could only let out a small sigh of exasperation. With that, I briskly walked over to the cardboard boxes kept neatly aligned under a pair of empty shelves. As soon as my hand brushed over the sealed box, I couldn't help but flinch inadvertently. Memories of me opening a similar cardboard box only to be met by the sight of a mangled animal, creeped up my shoulders, twining it's lecherous limbs around my lungs as if.

Breathe in, breathe out.