Nathan asked Charlotte with a completely clueless face.
“That Alice and Sophia fought because of Liam. Of course I’m at fault for bringing it up first, but I don’t know if that’s the complete truth either. It’s just that Leda said that once, so I only know it as such.”
“What did Leda say?”
“So, Leda probably didn’t completely grasp the truth of the incident either. She must have just deduced it. Alice is… the type who makes a fuss when something happens but doesn’t tell you for sure, you know? Should I say she just gently throws bait and draws people’s attention as much as she wants, but doesn’t tell you the important stuff?”
At Charlotte’s explanation, Nathan even clapped, saying she was right. Excited by this, Charlotte started chattering about the story she had heard from Leda.
“You know the rumor going around lately. That Liam likes Olivia and is hitting on her.”
“Hasn’t that guy always liked Olivia?”
Looking at Nathan, who insisted that Liam liking Olivia was true, Charlotte jeered at him to stop talking nonsense. Virgil also seemed to consider Nathan’s claim absurd, but I alone couldn’t think that way.
“Anyway, Alice apparently heard that story somehow. So she confronted the kids spreading the rumor, but Liam got serious and told Alice not to interfere, apparently. That’s what happened.”
“…Can I go out and make a phone call?”
Watching the conversation going back and forth among the kids, I thought about Liam who wasn’t coming up no matter how much time passed, made a poor excuse, and went out of Charlotte’s room. Then I encountered Liam, who had a stiff expression while standing in one corner of the landing. As soon as he saw me, he smiled brightly as if he had never had a stiff expression.
“If it’s okay, can we talk separately?”
I hesitated for a moment before asking Liam, and he willingly agreed and went down to the first floor with me.
“Didn’t Charlotte ask you to bring more popcorn? But what were you doing on the landing?”
I asked Liam while scooping popcorn into a large bowl in the kitchen. He answered that his friends seemed to want to talk without him, so he had just stepped aside for a moment.
“If they’ve talked enough, Charlotte will come looking first. In the meantime, you can just stay appropriately crumpled.”
“…Then shall we play by ourselves until Charlotte comes looking?”
Liam laughed ominously, saying my suggestion sounded quite dangerous, and I explained that I hadn’t suggested it with that intention, then sat on the sofa in the middle of the empty living room—Charlotte said her parents wouldn’t be coming home tonight. When I settled into one corner of the sofa, Liam sat next to me and tried to kiss my cheek as usual. Unlike usual, I raised my hand to block his mouth.
“Let’s think of this as an extension of the TORD we were playing earlier. Can I ask first?”
At my suggestion, Liam nodded with his mouth blocked by my palm, and I stalled for a while before asking.
“I think it’s funny that I’m asking this question too. But you and Olivia—what exactly is your relationship?”
As soon as the question came out of me, a deflating sound echoed from Liam’s lips blocked by my palm. I wanted to hide somewhere out of embarrassment, but I had a feeling that if I didn’t get an answer to the question as quickly as possible, it would continue to be bothersome.
“Mm… Can I think that you’re jealous of Olivia and my relationship right now?”
“Probably.”
After giving a sloppy answer to Liam who was asking questions when it wasn’t even his turn, I just waited for whatever words would come from him. Liam didn’t open his mouth easily and just stalled for time, then suddenly pulled me into an embrace and kissed me. Then he looked not at the direction where I was sitting, but at the place where there had been a presence from earlier, and said:
“Olivia and I… we’re just nothing to each other. If I’m thinking about anyone, it would naturally be thoughts about you. So don’t worry, Cheicky.”
Is this entirely meant for me? No. As soon as I made that judgment, both Liam and I raised our heads toward the place where a third presence—neither mine nor Liam’s—had been felt. There stood Nathan with a considerably indifferent face, holding a bowl of popcorn.
“Really, thank you, Nathan. I heard Juliet, who’s crazy about you, also went to Leda’s party, so why aren’t you going there and instead making people uncomfortable here?”
When Liam questioned him, Nathan made an irrelevant reply that Charlotte had sent him on an errand because we hadn’t been coming back, and started eating popcorn randomly.
“Because you said weird things, Cheicky misunderstood the relationship between me and Olivia.”
“Why? I still don’t think I’m wrong. Even if you don’t like Olivia ‘that’ way, liking is still liking.”
Nathan insisted he had always felt a strange bond between Liam and Olivia. Liam asked him to be careful about running his mouth.
“My boyfriend is right here listening to everything you’re saying, you bastard.”
“…Precisely because he’s your boyfriend, shouldn’t he hear about that even more?”
I expressed the opinion that while Nathan’s claim was correct, the right to claim the right to hear such things seemed to belong only to me.
“I don’t think I can refute that opinion.”
“…Olivia and I, well, think of us as old frenemies.”
Liam answered that way and gave Nathan a look, and Nathan shrugged his shoulders toward him, then went upstairs holding the bowl of popcorn and the juice container.
When Nathan had completely disappeared and even his presence could no longer be felt, I said to Liam:
“It’s your choice how much to tell me and what not to tell me. But before that, there’s something I really want to say.”
“What?”
“When we hadn’t been together long, you told me everything, even facts that I felt were quite sensitive. I thought you were a strange guy because of that, but looking back, I think I was attracted to that side of you. And…”
As if ready to listen to the rest of the story forever, Liam looked at me with a serious face. I lightly held one of his hands and continued speaking.
“You said it first. That whoever you are, wherever you came from, whatever you did… you were glad I probably wouldn’t care. Of course, it would be impossible to completely not care about those conditions, but even so, I want to prove that your premonition wasn’t wrong. Because, this is obvious, but I’m your boyfriend.”
At my words, Liam responded with a bright smile, then as if unable to bear it, buried his forehead in my shoulder and muttered affectionately. Then he whispered very quietly.
“…From now on, what I’m about to say must absolutely never be leaked to anyone. It’s not that I don’t trust you. I’m just warning you because it’s such a top-secret. If Olivia finds out I told you this, she might try to kill me.”
Episode 4+
Childhood memories aren’t placed in a straight line but are cut into fragments. My first memory is Mom and me. Just the two of us living ordinarily in a house neither big nor small like everyone else, and my second memory is about the day Mom first introduced Ted to me, and the third is about settling in the trailer park after staying briefly in a house where warmth could no longer be felt, left with Ted after she passed away.
Now I know that everyone has their good sides, but when I first arrived at the trailer park, everyone I met looked like monsters. Being drunk or high on drugs was routine, their speech was rough like beggars, and their faces were fierce.
Among those fierce people, the only one who seemed harmless was Olivia, who was the same age.
Having met as playmates in the dilapidated trailer park, we got along quite well until just before entering middle school. Having a bit of vanity, liking to exercise… We had many similarities.
However, in the year we finished elementary school, Olivia came to me and requested:
‘Seeing you keeps reminding me of this place and it’s unpleasant. So from now on, let’s not even acknowledge each other if possible. Especially not outside.’
The strange thing about hearing those words was that I wasn’t offended by what Olivia said. Rather, I agreed with her opinion. Had I felt similar emotions as I hit puberty? At some point, whenever I saw Olivia, I felt unpleasant because it reminded me of the trailer park I wanted to leave immediately and my impoverished life.
Anyway, that’s how my friendship with Olivia broke. Neither of us regretted it.
We desperately want to escape poverty. We can’t even stand having elements that remind us of poverty—like each other—around us. So we each moved to find our own way to solve this situation.
I play football, and Olivia does cheerleading.
However, Olivia wasn’t a standout cheerleader. She was just a member of the squad, the kind where it wouldn’t matter if another girl came and did the same moves. So she either tried hard to become friends with rich kids like Leda, or dated boyfriends like Aiden who were useful to exploit here and there… That’s how she chose to survive.
I don’t want to defend Olivia. She’s really mean. Most of the school kids, even the friends who hang out with her, don’t truly like her.
However, I alone can’t completely hate her.
…I told Cheick up to that point and waited for his answer. I was anxious. But I tried not to show it.
Cheick didn’t say anything for a while. So I couldn’t overcome my anxiety and spoke first.
“If I tell you this, it means I’ve blabbed Olivia’s secret. Even though it’s you, I hesitated…”
“Right. You would have. And if Olivia finds out, it really seems like content that would make her try to kill you.”
“But really, I swear. She and I are nothing to each other. My feelings for her are friends at best. I’m even a bit angry at her these days. Why complicate things by making moves on someone else’s boyfriend!”
When I complained, Cheick said that I was more to blame for complicating things than Olivia.
“You’re the one who moved to make rumors spread and everyone misunderstand. Whatever your intention… might have been.”
“…That’s true.”
I apologized to Cheick again, and Cheick, who had been thinking about something for a moment, asked if I could give him one more chance to ask questions if I was sorry.
“Of course. Even if it’s not this game, you can ask me anything.”
That’s how my heart is, at least for you.
“Then… Can we tell the kids upstairs?”
“Which?”
At my question, Cheick hesitated for a moment, trembling his lips nervously, then pulled my shirt collar and kissed me. Then he kept adjusting his sitting position this way and that way, unable to settle down.
“So, you know, us doing this.”
Cheick muttered while looking at the armrest of the sofa. I said ah, and answered that if it was just limited to the kids upstairs, I could tell them anytime. Nathan already caught us—if it’s this guy, it doesn’t matter anyway—and Charlotte and Virgil don’t have the habit of blabbing things to other kids beyond themselves, so it would be fine.
Cheick nodded and stood up with a determined movement, holding my hand. I smiled at him and moved to Charlotte’s room on the second floor, and as soon as those kids saw us appear, they all shut their chattering mouths and looked up at us.
“What. Why’s the atmosphere like this? Did you badmouth us while we were gone?”
“If we had anything to badmouth, we would’ve just done it in front of you.”
Charlotte answered my question refreshingly and said it was my turn to ask again. Rather than the timing being very appropriate, she was doing this because she felt sorry for driving me out and secretly gossiping.
“Then I’ll ask Cheick again. Cheick, T, or D?”
“…D.”
D? According to plan, I was going to have Cheick, who would choose T, confess the truth, but I received an unexpected answer. But there’s no particular problem.
“D, huh. Then will you give your secret lover a really deep kiss?”
“Ah.”
Cheick let out a short groan as if troubled. But that was only for a moment—he grabbed my shirt collar harder than before, bit my lips, and kissed me. I responded to his intense movements and was kissing mindlessly when I slyly opened my eyes, and Nathan was just laughing, Charlotte was covering her mouth with both hands and then started clapping like crazy, and Virgil had his mouth open with a dumbfounded expression, not knowing how to close it…
It was the most entertaining sight I’d seen recently.
(To be continued in the next volume)
***
Footnotes
1) NCHSAA: Abbreviation for North Carolina High School Athletic Association
2) DM: Abbreviation for Data Mail, a chat system
3) Jamaican Patty: Jamaican-style dumpling
4) AP: Advanced Placement, college-level courses for high school students
5) PTJ: Abbreviation for Part Time Job, referring to part-time work
6) Busboy: A dining assistant who helps waiters by clearing tables
7) GPA: Abbreviation for Grade Point Average
8) Peckerwood: Originally means woodpecker but also used to mock low-income white people
9) DUFF: Slang made from the initials of Dumb Ugly Fat Friend
10) Kevin Richardson: Leader of the Backstreet Boys
11) Spelling Bee: Spelling competition
12) USAMO: United States of America Mathematical Olympiad, a math olympiad held with only 500 students selected from across the United States
13) Javier Sotomayor: High jump gold medalist at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and world record holder
14) International Competition: Refers to the World Athletics U20 Championships hosted by IAAF
15) End Zone: In American football, the 10-yard area at both ends of the field between the end line and goal line. Bringing the ball here scores points
16) Cadence: Words shouted by the quarterback when preparing for offense. Used to confuse the opposing team or give signals to teammates about which attempt to make
17) Pitapat, pat, pat: Equivalent to “pit-a-pat, pat, pat” in Korean
18) In America, the school year ends before summer vacation
19) TORD: Abbreviation for Truth or Dare. If you choose Truth, you answer the question truthfully, and if you choose Dare, you accept a penalty instead of answering
20) Hunk: Informal word referring to a good-looking man with a good body
