JIMIN
I don't want to pick up the phone. I'd rather run back into Professor Min's bedroom or his shower, oddly enough. Though, now that I think of it, it's ridiculous now to refer to him as "Professor Min." But the thought of calling him by his first name seems weird, too. The phone rings for what's got to be the twelfth time, and as much as I want to avoid everyone outside of this apartment, I answer anyway.
"Yah, what took you so long to answer?" Eomma says on the other line, clearly annoyed by her son's punctuality even if there's no specific time to answer a phone call. "Where are you? I came by the dorm to surprise you for your birthday, but you weren't there."
I give a quick glance to Yoongi, my heart speeding up as he leans in close, peering at me, trying to make out the conversation. "I, um, was with a friend," I say faster than a normal person would. "Hoseok. Remember him?"
A car starts up on her end, and I hear the sound of a seatbelt clicking into place. "Oh. Well, are you far from the campus because I can come pick you up and take you to a Korean barbeque restaurant, or maybe we could take the food out for a picnic. How does that sound?"
"Yeah. Sounds good."
"Okay, Chim Chim. Text me when you get back to the dorms. Saranghae!"
And just like that, my hope is obliterated.
Luckily, I don't have to explain everything out loud to Yoongi, who walks to his room to get changed. A black T-shirt and jeans that are cuffed at the ankles, probably to blend in with the outside world. He grabs his keys from the kitchen counter and looks at me expectingly. I appreciate how he doesn't say anything, but my panic gains momentum and I struggle not to cry.
It's only after I take a pair of skinny jeans from under the dress pants he has multiple duplicates of and steal an old band T-shirt, do I turn away from him when he tries to hold my hand while taking the elevator to the lobby.
"As much as I wish I could, I can't read your mind," he says.
I shake my head. He seems completely content with dropping me after everything that happened, a complete 180 from where we stood twenty minutes ago after he offered for me to stay there until I wanted to leave.
His fingertips touch my knuckles and wait to see if I'll jerk away. I don't, and his hand creeps up and around, linking our fingers as we did in his classroom. I sigh, lean into him, his body like a mountain.
"It's just. . . we're not going to be able to do this again for so long," I say. "We can't sneak out every weekend, or else someone will catch on."
"I'm not going anywhere," he says, kissing my forehead. "There will be another time. Just wait for me, okay?"
I turn my face deeper into him. I want him to say more, that he'll always be there for me and won't let anything hurt me, but he continues stroking my hair and giving me quick kisses until the doors open, and we're faced by the rest of the ignorant world.
Maybe he doesn't need to say it. I think of last night, how he promised he'd be gentle with me and, for the most part, was true to his word. I still haven't admitted to him that until then, I was a virgin, and I'm not sure I ever will.
On the drive back to campus, he tells me he will park in the back of the dorms and for me to enter through the front entrance. It feels like we're planning a heist, one that will most definitely land one of us in jail and the other in serious therapy if we're caught. Our heist breaks the biggest rule of all crimes: don't go in the daylight. I wonder if he knows this, too.
"Are you okay?" He glances through the corner of his eye at me, hands steady on the wheel.
I don't answer, can't answer. Not without crying. And I'm sick of crying in front of him. Instead, I look out the window, taking in every smell in the air, every ray of sunshine that warms my skin, every sign that flies past. Soon, this will all be gone and only the important moments will be remembered. The moments of him and I alone, together as one, with nothing more than forbidden desire between us.
After a while, we reach the dorms and I leave with a small goodbye, racing around and upstairs to change, but think twice and keep the shirt. It takes me fifteen minutes to be out the door and text Eomma that I'm outside waiting. She pulls up right on time and we drive down the road I just came from.
"Nice morning," I manage.
She nods. "One of the prettiest. It's supposed to get colder after this week."
We sit in silence for a few moments, and I stare ahead. An image flashes in my head of me hurling myself out of the car and into the ditch, and I'm scared by my nerves being completely calm with that. Does being with my own mother make me that anxious to avoid her?
"What did you do on your birthday? Did you celebrate it with some of your new friends?" She asks.
I open my mouth, but suddenly stop myself. Temptation seeps deep inside me and I don't hold back. "I spent it with Yoonji."
She gasps like I told her I won the lottery. "Daebak! Are you two officially together? Do you have classes together? Are you treating her right?" She inhales, and I think it's the end before she lowers her voice. "Are you having sex?"
"Eomma!"
"If you are, you need to use precaution." She stops, says quietly, more to herself than to me, "No, you're only nineteen. That's too young." She looks over, her brows squeezing. "You're supervised there. You won't be able to."
I can't reassure her. Yes, we're supervised, but my secret revolves around a teacher that has supervised me closely. Too closely for any sane person's taste.
As we drive across the intersection that leads us to the city, I ask in my most casual voice, "When you and Appa were first dating, how did you know it was real?"
She looks over at me, surprised. "Well, it was a long time ago. I suppose it was a feeling that I had when I was with him. Somehow I knew he wasn't going to let me go." Her voice trails off as she remembers. "But that was before everything happened."
She asks why I wanted to know about my father, her tone soft, like she thinks it's sweet. Maybe she thinks I'm asking because of Yoonji, and I am, but not for her, whoever she is.
We stop at a red light. On the radio, a voice reads the latest hour news.
"Is that why you couldn't get to the phone this morning?" She says. "Because you were with Yoonji?"
"I can't ask a question simply because I want to?"
"Of course you can, but you never mentioned your Appa before this."
I'm being stealthy, deceptive, but I can't turn back now. Not after everything I've seen and done while she sits innocently on the side. "Is it real when they say I'm beautiful?"
Her eyes jump and we nearly miss our turn. "Did she really say that? Oh! That Yoonji is so cute!"
I give her a long look. She still believes I'm referring to the made-up person I've claimed to be my girlfriend. I've given her no reason to doubt that there's anyone else in my life, but as I watch her obsess over my achievement of attaining a girlfriend, as if that was a challenge, I become bitter.
"What if it wasn't her who said that?"
Eomma narrows her eyes. "Who else would?"
I take a breath. "A teacher said it to me. That I was beautiful." There's a giddy relief as I say the words; I nearly let out a laugh.
"A teacher?" she asks.
"Yah, slow down."
"Was it a woman?"
"What does it matter?"
"A teacher shouldn't say that. Who was it?"
"Eomma."
"I want to know."
"Please don't overreact now."
She presses her lips together, eyebrows furrowed. "It's a strange thing to tell a nineteen-year-old boy, that's all I'm saying."
We drive through the city, blocks of ramen shops newly open and apartments beyond, the wide roads connect into heavy traffic and we're stuck for a minute or two before cars start to honk.
"Do you really think it's weird?" I say.
"Yes, I really do," she replies. "Do you want me to talk to someone? I'll make sure they leave you alone."
I picture her storming into the administration building, demanding to talk to the person in charge. I shake my head. I don't want that. And I'm certain Yoongi doesn't want that either. "It was a random thing he said," I say. "It really wasn't a big deal."
"He?" She asks. "It was a man who said that to you? Who was it?"
"My geometry teacher." I don't even hesitate in the lie. "Professor Kim Namjoon."
She gives me a worried look, then focuses back on the road. "You should be wary when you're around him. I've heard too many stories to know that it all starts with flattery before your corpse is found behind a dumpster."
I turn my attention away and watch the world pass by. We make exactly three more turns before we're in the parking lot of a Korean barbeque that Eomma has been raving about ever since some of her friends at the local bookstore reviewed it on their blog.
"I'm not trying to give you a hard time," she says. After a moment, she adds, "I'm sorry. I just worry about you. You're the only adeul I have, Chim Chim, and I don't want to think about losing you to a creep."
I look in her eyes and take her hand, my silent way of saying that I'm okay, that she doesn't have to worry.
What's one more lie going to hurt?