Chapter Thirteen

The Investigation

Luhan raised an eyebrow as soon as Sungmi sat down in front of him Thursday after class. They were meeting in the library again for the fourth time this week, but today, the normally cheery boy seemed a little angry. 

"Mind explaining to me what happened yesterday?" he inquired briskly, folding his arms together. He fixed her with a hard look. 

Sungmi bit her lip and avoided his intense gaze. She had been hoping that he would forget about what happened the previous day, but it seemed like that wasn't going to happen. But she supposed being cursed at and door-slammed-in-the-face wasn't exactly a forgettable or forgivable experience. "What...do you want to know?" she asked slowly. 

A moment of awkward silence passed before Luhan piped up. "Who was that yesterday?" 

There was nothing dangerous about this question, so Sungmi answered it with ease. "His name is Kai. He's staying at my house for a few weeks for a reason that only my father knows." 

"Oh, so he isn't your boyfriend?" 

Sungmi almost fell off her chair. She struggled to compose herself as she sputtered, "N-no! Where did you get that idea from?!" 

"You don't like him either?" Luhan asked. 

Sungmi's eyes grew wider and her face paled considerably at the question. Her heartbeats suddenly tripled in speed. Why on earth was she having this conversation with Luhan again? How the hell had it gone from merely explaining who Kai was to discussing her private emotions? If she didn't resolve this matter somehow, Sungmi was going to end up treading in some dangerous territory.

But putting on her usual placid mask was harder than ever right now. For some reason, this certain question struck her nerves like no other, as if her heart and mind were screaming, "Yes! You like him! Don't try to deny it!" This inner battle between her logical intuition and her emotional side made the words that came out of sound totally unconvincing. "No, of course not. We're just friends, that's it." 

You can't even see it, can you, Sungmi? Luhan pondered to himself. He tapped his fingers on the table between them and shrugged in a nonchalant manner as he prepared to launch into his bait. There was no doubt that she would fall for it.

"Well, then why was he shirtless in front of a girl who claims to have no attachments to him whatsoever?" 

"Th--" Sungmi couldn't seem to find the right words to explain this Luhan. Her cheeks began to flame a scarlet color as she flashed back to the scene of Kai, topless, standing behind her door. "Be-because I don't have a problem with it," she said. 

Luhan easily caught on to her lie. "Really? Then why are you turning so red?" She was obviously extremely flustered. Her cheeks were rivaling the color of tomatoes. 

Luhan leaned closer to her face dauntingly. Her eyes seemed to land everywhere in the room but on him. Up this close, he could see that Sungmi's lips were slightly quivering. 

Then, in a low voice, he mumbled, "You can tell me the truth, you know. I won't tell anyone." And he was serious about it, too. Luhan had no ulterior motive; he just wanted to know exactly what was going on and for Sungmi to trust him with the details.

Sungmi, on the other hand, was extremely reluctant to do so. Even though Luhan seemed trustworthy, she couldn't risk the potential of leaking her biggest secret, because if Kai found out, she was screwed. Nobody else knew about it and she was okay with that, but could she really trust another person to know the truth? Maybe it was better to do so, just to clear things up about what happened yesterday. Sungmi feared that if she didn't admit to her gender disguise now, Luhan would pry it out of her eventually and make her tell him anyway. He definitely didn't seem like the type to back down a self-appointed challenge.

Sungmi heaved a large sigh before spilling her secret, the words tumbling out of in a hurry. "He--Kai thinks I'm a guy." 

She waited for a gasp or a surprised choke of some sort, but none of that came. Luhan only looked back at her with a quizzical brow, as if he had already suspected what she was going to say. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms again. "And how did this happen?" 

Sungmi proceeded to tell him about her and Kai's first meeting, when he had barged into her house and automatically assumed that she was a male. She excluded the part where Kai undressed in front of her, because Luhan didn't need to know that. 

"And why didn't you tell him?"

Because the fool had already undressed in front of me, that's why. I didn't want to say something and make Father explode in my face for scaring him off. But Sungmi didn't say this. "Something happened and I couldn't," she answered tersely. 

Luhan stared at her profile in curiosity. That wasn't the specific response that he had wanted to hear, and he knew there had to be a special reason as to why she would be hiding her gender for this long. Most normal people would never cross dress (but not actually cross dress, in Sungmi's case) and stay that way for an extended amount of time. Her life wasn't a drama where she had to enroll in an all-boys school with a male identity. No, Sungmi just wanted to be mistaken for a boy. He clucked his tongue and said, "You know, friends shouldn't be hiding things like this from each other. What if Kai finds out and realizes you've been lying to him all this time? Don't you think you're going to hurt him?" 

"I--" Again, Sungmi didn't know how to answer. She felt herself drown in a bucket of guilt as the reality of it hit her. Luhan was right. Friends shouldn't be lying to each other about their gender, especially since Kai told her she was a friend to him directly. He was so caring, so attentive, and so, so perfect in every way that she feared letting him know the truth might break him. He was going to be hurt and betrayed. Sungmi didn't want him to ever feel that way and she certainly ne