FLOWER | Winrina

Chapter 29

"You know it's true," Ning insisted, smirking.

"Speaking of, where were you two this morning?" Aeri asked.

"I went and got coffee for her," Jimin answered, "because she woke up late and she's nervous about tonight. Apparently, Handong is going, too."

"Her crazy sister?" Ning asked, shaking her head. "Drama." Jimin just shrugged in response, and then Mr. Sanchez interrupted them by beginning to teach as the bell rang out over the intercom.

Jimin had no reason to believe that her day would suddenly go bad because even by lunch, it was just as smooth as ever. Jaemin seemed to be a bit off during lunch - Aeri guessed it was because he had started talking to a girl and felt bad about it, though that was not at all confirmed - but everyone else seemed pretty normal.

Minjeong didn't mention her recital much, but the whole group was planning on going, excluding Seulgi and Joy, who weren't sitting with them that day anyway. Lincoln was also coming, and Aeri told the group that he might start to sit with them during lunch, everyone except for Yuuto seemed pretty excited about it. Yuuto was still convinced that Aeri and Lincoln had had sex the previous weekend, but no one had yet told him that yes, that suspicion was completely true.

Jimin was sure he'd find out at some point, and he would just have to deal with it.

Everything seemed to be going swimmingly up until when Jimin got home from going to get another coffee with Minjeong after school. She had an hour before she needed to be at the place where the recital was going to be, so she wanted to change and get ready pretty quickly.

At five thirty, half an hour before she would have to leave, her mother came up to her room. "Jimin? Can I come in?"

"I'll come out," Jimin offered, slipping out of her closet and abandoning her search for nice clothes so that her mom didn't have to come in. She left the room and saw her mom heading downstairs. "What's up?" she asked, following her mom.

"I'd rather you didn't go out tonight."

"Why not?" Jimin asked, furrowing her eyebrows and immediately feeling defensive.

"Where is it you're going again?"

Jimin adjusted her weight a bit, crossed her arms, and said, "Minjeong has a recital. You remember Minjeong, right? Everyone is going. It's not more than a few hours long."

"Yeah, I don't want you to go."

"You're not even going to explain why you don't want me to go?" Jimin demanded, narrowing her eyes.

Tiffany Hwang let out a long breath, taking Jimin's keys out of her pocket to let Jimin know that she had them. "You're not going. End of story."

"Alright, why the fuck not?" Jimin demanded, aware that she probably shouldn't use profanity in talking to her mom.

"Are you dating Minjeong?"

Jimin was frozen. "What?"

"Tell me that you aren't dating Minjeong, and then you can go."

She could've lied, but it wouldn't have been believable, and she knew that somehow, her mom knew already. "Did Jeno tell you?" It was her first thought, anyway. "What? Jeno knew?" Tiffany demanded.

"No, he didn't. I went through your texts on your phone last week. With that girl Aeri, she said something about it. And you know that it is completely unacceptable Jimin."

Jimin had no idea what to say or how to feel. "Are you serious? If you've known for two weeks, why the fuck did you wait until right now to bring it up?"