She worked up to telling Jongin over a month's time after that, fortified by the fact that not only had Minho already found out one of her secrets, but that he hadn't tried to get her kicked out of the school for it... yet. Minho wasn't even Taerim's friend, so how much better ought Jongin's reaction to be? Jongin was the sort to feel people out - he at least would be able to understand why she'd made the decisions she'd made that had gotten her here, hiding from the girl she'd been in the past, the girl who'd gotten her into so much trouble.

All she wanted was to be able to be friends with Jongin without her petty disguises seperating them. He was her human connection. To Taerim, it seemed like he was her only friend in the world. How much better could the friendship be once the lies went away? But which secret first? (Should I tell him I'm a girl first, then let him mull over that for a few days before I let him know that my past isn't as squeaky-clean as it seems? Or should I lead with Thailand, since it's the country we have in common?) Taerim agonized over the problem for days, finally deciding that her gender was the lesser of the two problems, so she should put it in the light first, just to see how he handled it. She would think about Thailand later.

But it didn't exactly work out how she'd planned.

Two days before she'd planned to take him out to lunch on Saturday, just the two of them alone, so she could pour out the truth like she'd never done before, there was a knock on Taerim's dormroom door just after Minho had left for his evening practice. Taerim opened it to find Jongin standing outside, whitefaced, with a wad of crumpled paper clutched in his hand.

“Jongin...?” Taerim stuttered, surprised, but all he did was hold out the wrinkled paper.

“Explain this,” he said, his voice shaking with some emotion Taerim couldn't identify. Puzzled, she looked down at the page, seeing that it was a printout of a portion of some Thai news website. Most prominently, it was a picture.

It was a picture of Taerim. She grabbed the page out of Jongin's hand and stared at it more closely, horror clutching at her heart. She recognized the day – the picture was obviously a still from some kind of security camera, of her and three other men in a Thai freightyard. The men (whom she'd stowed away with on her way to Korea) were unrecognizable, but Taerim was turned with her face towards the camera. It was obviously her, even though her hair was badly cut around her ears and her face was closed and empty.

Almost paralyzed with dread, her gaze crept up to the headline. “The Increasing Problem of Thai Drug Refugees.”

“Explain... this.” Jongin repeated. When she looked up at him, he was looking at her like all he wanted was for her to deny it.

She couldn't bring herself to deny it.

When she didn't say anything, Jongin's expression grew more desperate. “If you say it's not you, I'll believe you,” he said. “I swear I will.”

The pause suffocated her. “I... I can't,” Taerim said finally. I'm doing this for you, she thought, aching. I can't cheapen our friendship by lying any more.

He didn't want to believe her. “What?”

“I can't lie to you any more,” Taerim said, bracing herself. She held out the paper. “This? This is me.”

He was confused. “But this is... on a freighter...”

“I was running away. I lied to you about my mother being Thai – I'm Korean through and through. The only reason I can speak like this is because of this.” She pointed to the picture. “It's talking about refugees from the drug trade. But that's not me. I wasn't a refugee. I was a dealer.”

She'd reasoned that it would be best to get it all out in the open as quickly as possible. After all, you're supposed to rip the band-aid off all in one go, right? But she was wrong. Jongin's face had lost all color and as he stared at her, she could almost see all his preconceptions of her falling away in his mind.

“I don't...” he stuttered. “I can't...”

“I wanted to tell you earlier,” Taerim pleaded. “But I've been... I mean, I couldn't be sure how safe it would be...”

She was making it worse. She fiddled with the zipper pull on her jacket, horribly nervous, horribly certain that every word she said was pushing Jongin further away. But she couldn't stop herself. She had to salvage this situation. “I came here because I was running away, it's true. I, I did some things in Thailand that got me into a lot of trouble, things I'm not proud of, and eventually it was just too dangerous, so I had to leave. You see that, right? I was trying to get out of the business but it wouldn't let go, so I just had to cut all my ties and run. And when I came here, and you were so friendly to me... honestly Jongin, without you I would be nothing here. You're the greatest friend I've ever had. I want you to know that, okay? So whatever this says,” she jabbed the photo with her finger, “I'm not that person any more. I'm not here to do something bad. I'm here to be normal.”

He was shaking his head. “You... you lied to me.”

Taerim's heart sank. “It's not like that,” she said, even though it was.

“You said you'd been to school in Thailand,” he said, still shaking his head. “You told me your mother lost everything in the floods. Those were all lies? All that time, you were doing –“ words failed him for a moment “– you were selling drugs? You were ruining people's lives! Can't you see that? What you did hurt people, maybe even killed them! What the hell were you thinking, coming here...?!” Confusion and anger rendered him almost speechless.

Taerim felt like sinking into the floor and dying there. “You don't want me here?” she murmured.

“Hah!” Jongin's laugh was humorless. “Want you here? Why would I? This school isn't a place for criminals to stay. I'm here because of my parents' hard work and my hard work. And you're here because... because you thought this was a good place to hide!”

He was so angry that his breath came in short, forceful bursts. No matter how much Taerim wanted to be strong and show Jongin that she wasn't that person, that she'd changed, hot tears started to prick at the corners of her eyes.

“I don't know what to say,” she said, almost whispering.

“You don't have to say any more,” Jongin replied, disgusted. “I've heard enough.”

“Jongin...”

“You know what?” he said, stepping forward. Taerim shrank back. “It's true that we were friends. I really thought that we were friends. I'm not going to make you leave, or turn you in or anything. But if you do anything – anything out of line here, anything that damages this school or any of the students, I'm going to make sure that everyone knows what you did. I'm not going to let anything stop me from making sure you get what you deserve.”

He'd finally finished the work of stomping on Taerim's heart. He turned without another word and left, slamming the door shut behind him.

~~~

A/N: Hello my lovely subscribers! I just want to say thanks for reading! I am really trying to keep up continuity in the story even though I'm improvising a lot here. I am not a huge fan of this chapter but it had to be done. Thanks for bearing with me and please give feedback (or requests!) if you have any. <3