This Friend | Yeonbin

51

Soobin P.O.V

“So let me get this straight,” I say. “You’re the son of a cop?”

“I am.”

“And this whole time, you’ve just been trying to get to know me so you can tell your mum about my family.”

“More or less, yes.”

That all sinks in.

“damn,” I say.

“But, Soobin, listen to me. I couldn’t do it.”

“Couldn’t do what?”

“The scheme. I couldn’t finish it. It’s why I told you, before you told me anything they could use.”

“If you think I’m going to believe anything you say now”

“What else could I be hiding? What else could there possibly be?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I do recall thinking something similar the last time you did a big reveal about who you are. I thought: He wouldn’t have another secret. There’s no way. And yet, here we are.”

“I know. And you never fully trusted me, did you? You always picked up that something was off.”

I feel tears prickle. “Actually, I did. In the end, I did.”

“Oh.”

“So you know, good job. You’re very good. Have you ever thought about going into acting?”

Tears fill his eyes, too.

“Why are you crying?” I ask.

“Because I don’t want to be this person.”

I do hate seeing him so put out.

Then I remember he deserves it.

“I wouldn’t want to be you, either. You might be the worst person I’ve ever met. You slept with me.”

He just nods.

“You made me think I’d made a friend. Do you even know how big of a deal that was for me?”

“No, I know. You told me, remember. At the hospital.”

I’m sort of surprised he remembered that.

It was all fake.

Yet he remembered.

I take him in. I sort of can’t believe I didn’t see it before, but he looks like a rookie cop. With his crew cut and fit body, he fits in a lot more with that side of the law.

I guess that’s part of the reason I was so drawn to him. He’s never belonged to my side of the world.

I get why that was appealing to me.

“This trip … was it just to get me away from my family?” I ask.

“Yeah. It was pretty obvious you wouldn’t tell me anything. I was getting nervous, because I thought the longer I was with you, the more in danger I was in. So I needed to push you. Coming to LA was Mum’s idea. The whole scheme was, actually.”

“What about your friends? Couldn’t they have given it away?”

He shakes his head. “They were in on it. You never went to my real school or met my real baseball team. The dance was another school’s that we joined. We hired a few actors to pretend to be close to me, so that you’d trust me more. This was a huge project, man, led by my mum. She was constantly thinking of ways to get you to like me.”