Liar and Liar - Chapter 39
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 39
Honey~ I’m going out for a bit because of that cousin I mentioned before. Enjoy your lunch XD
Or should I buy you something?
‘Ugh.’
He hovers around when I don’t want to see him, but disappears when I actually want to see him.
But this was exactly how Frederick Bastia always managed to annoy people in such peculiar ways.
A person who unconsciously manipulates others. The second gravity of this earth that inevitably makes you think about him.
No, I don’t need anything. Just don’t be late for afternoon classes.
Why am I even worrying about his attendance?
Are you worried about me? (ㅎㅅㅎ)
No, I’m not. Danielle turned off her phone screen without replying.
‘What’s with that bear-like emoji anyway.’
As Danielle got up from her seat and headed toward the door, someone approached her.
“Danielle, going to the cafeteria?”
Danielle hid her subtle expression after confirming who it was. Chris, who had spoken to her, seemed to have no emotion in his expression.
“Let’s go together.”
“…”
[Spell check screening, Translator, google keep running and using. Busy.]
Honestly, texting at the ocean wasn’t bad. She was grateful for his effort.
But that was only possible when she didn’t know about the bet, and like the principle of action and reaction, all that remained for Danielle now was uneasiness and discomfort.
However, since she couldn’t ask about the bet, avoiding the situation was the best option.
“No, I’m just going to the lib-”
“Chris. I just watched the video from the last game! A buzzer beater!”
A male teacher approached after recognizing Danielle and Chris coming out of the classroom.
‘The basketball team went to some basketball tournament.’
She couldn’t help but know since the male students had been loudly talking about it.
“I was lucky.”
“When’s the next game?”
While the teacher and Chris were talking, Danielle slightly frowned for a moment. Come to think of it, she had heard the boys talking about that tournament…
The day she heard about it was…
After the teacher left, what Danielle said to Chris, who she had originally planned to escape to the library from, was completely different from before.
“The game you just mentioned, when was it? You were absent the entire day, right?”
“Right. It was on the 4th.”
…The 4th?
Danielle blankly retraced the time. The 4th.
‘…That’s the day the table kids made the bet.’
Too shocked, Danielle stared intently at Chris.
“Why?”
“…When you asked if I originally liked Frederick, did you think I was dating Frederick because I liked him?”
The reason Chris Fassbinder’s voice wasn’t in the recording file was really because only he was excluded from the bet?
“Whatever the case, you wouldn’t date someone you dislike. I wondered if you might have liked him.”
Oh my god.
‘It wasn’t him.’
All this time I…
“You don’t seem to know how you appear to others, but among the kids you hang out with, you’re the most fake.”
“No. A boring person like you isn’t really my type.”
Danielle looked at Chris with a pale face.
“You… even when I spoke really rudely to you… it didn’t bother you?”
“Rude? You? To me? That never happened.”
“I did! Saying you were boring and all…”
“It’s not entirely wrong, and what could I say about your evaluation. I can only reflect on it.”
It was an answer that made the person who misspoke feel ashamed without raising his voice even one tone.
Danielle bit her lower lip tightly and closed and opened her eyes.
“…I’m sorry. I was mistaken about you.”
“Mistaken? What mistake?”
“I thought you were a really bad person. Someone two-faced, that kind of person.”
Chris slightly frowned while closing his mouth, like someone who couldn’t even guess what Danielle was talking about.
“That’s why I kept treating you badly. I was wrong to think that way…”
“So now you don’t think that?”
“Before I misunderstood… I thought you were sincere. It was also cool how seriously you approached basketball.”
Wait, I probably shouldn’t have said the word “cool.”
“…Thank you for saying that. You’re apologizing to me, but I was never really upset with you. Rather the opposite.”
It was a subtle expression. “The opposite.”
“Now that you’ve cleared up your misunderstanding about me, could you honestly answer just one thing?”
“…What is it?”
“What are your feelings when dating Frederick? I’m confused.”
“…Huh?”
“Do you like Frederick?”
Due to her guilty conscience, Danielle couldn’t avoid answering. She felt like she had to be honest.
“It’s strange somehow. I know it’s a burdensome question, but I’d like you to answer if possible.”
Danielle, who had been hesitating with her head down, answered a beat slower.
“…I don’t like him. I’m not dating him because I like him.”
She hadn’t intended to encourage Chris. In fact, considering her purpose of using Frederick, it might have been better to give a vague answer. But Danielle simply couldn’t do that.
‘I like Frederick Bastia’?
Danielle could no longer say these words even as a joke. Apart from it becoming something she absolutely shouldn’t say due to the bet, those words had already become Danielle’s reverse scale.
She felt like something would explode if she said it. Something like a box in her heart.
“You must have your circumstances. I won’t ask unnecessarily.”
Drawn by the gentle voice, Danielle finally raised her head.
Students were passing behind them. They glanced over curiously, wondering what conversation Chris and Danielle were having.
It would probably be better to leave this place for now. She thought so, but it wasn’t necessary.
[Then can we really be friends from now on?]
Danielle was startled by the fluent Korean. There was no sense of foreignness, just like talking with a Korean friend.
A Korean friend. Chris was grinning as he said that.
[If you’re… okay with it…]
Friend. A Korean friend at that. It was a very unfamiliar feeling for Danielle. But she didn’t dislike it.
Danielle headed to the locker hallway with Chris. It was to put away her books. Since Frederick wouldn’t be there anyway, she planned to go to the library instead of the cafeteria after that.
That was the plan. Until she smelled the strange odor coming from her locker.
‘…Could that smell be coming from my locker?’
Also, Frederick’s name that he had written without permission was now rubbed away beyond recognition.
Danielle hurriedly opened her locker’s combination lock. An unidentified purple liquid was splattered on her neatly folded gym clothes and binders. When she opened the locker door wider, the sticky liquid on the ventilation holes dripped down to the floor.
‘I thought they had stopped this kind of thing…’
This was something Danielle had already experienced in middle school. Even without opening the locker, if you threw a drink from bottom to top, you could spill the drink inside the locker through the ventilation holes.
Back then, Danielle had filmed the crime scene through surveillance and got the perpetrator expelled. It had been quiet since then, but apparently these types of people hadn’t been completely eradicated.
“Hah…”
Buzz.
Her pocket vibrated, and Danielle took out her phone to check.
Babe, did you eat lunch well?
What timing…
“You reply to texts, make phone calls, and call me first when something happens?”
Danielle sighed. When she turned her head, Chris was taking something out of his locker.
so he hadn’t yet noticed what had happened to Danielle.
“….”
Danielle lowered her gaze and hesitated for a moment. The instant Chris closed his locker, Danielle called out to him as if bursting.
“Ch, ris….”
“Yeah?”
At first, she thought she’d have to wipe down her gym clothes and wear them whether the stains came out or not. But thinking that making such a ridiculous spectacle of herself was exactly what the perpetrator of this act wanted made her not want to do that.
“Sorry for suddenly asking this favor, but could you possibly get me spare gym clothes? Since you’re the basketball team captain, I thought it might be possible. I have PE next period… so, well….”
Even if it was Chris who had extended his hand first to become friends, exposing her shameful situation was always embarrassing.
‘…Should I just handle this alone somehow? Rather than showing him something like this….’
“Gym clothes?”
However, before Danielle could make up her mind, Chris approached closer first. And as if it were the natural course of events, he ended up discovering the mess inside Danielle’s locker.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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