Jaemin the Icy Prince on Campus - Na Jaemin NCT

42. Liar

I'm no longer stuck to the bathroom wall. 

Now I'm stuck to my chair, seated at the dinner table across from Jaemin. Jaemin, whom I haven't spoken to since he kissed me in the kitchen and said, "Don't let me do that again."

I think of Jaemin kissing me, and my heart starts to beat like a mad thing again. I grab my glass and down half of my water in three huge gulps. 

"So you're all high school friends." Dahee is saying. She looks at ease, happy. 

"Oh, we are." Junnie is smiling, her face is relaxed, maybe because I haven't looked at Jaemin, or flirted with Jaemin, ever since I emerged from the washroom ten minutes ago. "Mina and I were best friends. Still are." She grins at me, I smile at her. Jerry laughs. Jaemin stares at his mashed potatoes. 

Dahee sighs wistfully. "I'm from Busan, and I've kind of lost touch with my high school friends, ever since I moved to Seoul. It must be nice to keep in touch with people you grew up with. I envy you guys."

I wonder what she'd say if she knew that Jaemin and I just kept in touch - literally - twenty minutes ago right under her nose.

"Jaemin was the hottest guy in school," Junnie is giggling; she seems to be in an awfully good mood. "All the girls were crazy about him."

Dahee laughs; she is pleased, she's thinking, I got the hot guy, he chose me over all those bimbos. She's so confident she says, "Every girl in school liked him? Including you and Mina?" She reaches over, and squeezes his hand.

There is an awkward silence. 

Jerry coughs, and Junnie says, after a pause, "Totally!" Her eyes are desperate again. I almost want to laugh. "I had a crush on him, until Jerry came along. Right, Jerry?" She is looking at him with appealing eyes. Help me, she's saying. Oh shit. I blundered big-time. 

Jerry rises to the occasion. 

"She forgot Jaemin the moment she set eyes on me," he says grandly. "I was the real deal, the love of her life. Jaemin was just a teenage crush." Dahee claps in delight, Junnie beams, and Jaemin smiles crookedly.

The awkward moment passes. Or so I hope.

But then, the next instant, for some reason, Dahee turns to me.

"You, too, Mina? Did you crush on Jaemin as well?" Dahee looks at me, and her eyes are laced with that self-assuredness, and I wonder fleetingly for a brief second, did my eyes look like that too, once upon a time? Did Young Mina look out at the world, her eyes brimming with smugness and trust and an unshakeable belief that things would never change, that the boy she loved would be with her forever?

It annoys me suddenly, that she wants to test me. Why can't she just let it go? My eyes meet hers and I see it again, that tiny flicker of fear in her eyes. She isn't as self-assured as I think. I feel pity for her dislodging my annoyance. She is crazy about him, but she's unsure about his feelings for her.

"I can't remember." My voice is flat. "It was a long time ago. A lot of things have happened in my life, and they've kind of clouded my memories of high school." She looks confused. Whatever. Let her figure out what I mean. I don't really care.

"Oh." She looks uneasy, and then flashes a smile at Jaemin playfully. "What was it like having all those girls after you? Did you enjoy the attention?"

What is wrong with this woman? Is she a sucker for punishment?

"No." Jaemin's face is closed. He doesn't want to talk about his past. He doesn't want to talk about himself.

He shovels a bite of potatoes into his mouth. 

Her face is clouding. She's upset.

"I'm sorry. That's what I get for being nosy." 

"Jaemin was an asshole." Everybody stares at me in shock. I wipe my mouth with my napkin. "He was a jerk who thought he was the greatest thing to walk the earth." I lean back, and smile. "That's one memory that's fresh in my mind."

Everybody laughs. Dahee is relaxing, she was on the verge of tears just a minute ago. She's floundering, she's out of her depth with him. He's going to break her heart, if he hasn't broken it already.

And Jaemin is laughing. 

Oh, my God, Jaemin. Laugh. Laugh, laugh, laugh. I've missed hearing you laugh.

"That's because you had the biggest crush on me back in school, Kim Mina." His eyes are dark on mine. He's grinning. "Admit it."

Our eyes meet.

I have the strangest impression of a gramophone record that has skipped, retracing over the echoes of our former selves, and I feel the ghosts of the past crowd in. I am sixteen, and he is eighteen, and we stand just inches apart, in a dark, quiet alley. I can see a vein in his throat pulsing as quickly as my own heart, pounding so hard in my chest that it is almost a physical pain.

You've always liked me, he says quietly, the cool of his fingertips against my trembling lips, a tall, slender stranger with sun-kissed limbs and light hair fluttering in the wind. You watch me all  time, I've seen you watching me all the time. And then he kissed me.

He was so hard to read then, so impassive – but I know now, things I didn't know back then, that it was just a surface, a protective armour that he chose to cloak himself in, that beneath all that, he was as affected, as shaken as me, that sunny, balmy afternoon.

I am back in the present, and he is waiting for me to answer. Everyone is waiting with baited breath for my answer.

"I can't remember," I say lightly, my eyes challenging as I stare into his. "I can't admit to something I can't remember."

His lips curl in derision; Liar, his eyes say mockingly. You're a liar and a coward, Kim Mina.

Suddenly I can't bear to meet his eyes any more, and I have to drop my own gaze, afraid of what he might find there. 

"It is getting late," I say brightly. I turn to Junnie. "Shall we serve dessert?"