Beautiful // Nomin

~4~

"Appa? What's going on? Why are you here now?"

Jeno spoke to the man and Jaemin's eyes widened. That was Jeno's father? It was too coincidental...Jeno would hate him even more now, for whatever trouble Jisung had caused.

"Hey Jeno, it's just about our car problem. I found a student ID lying around and I'm just asking about him."

Jeno leaned over and took a peek at Jisung's ID, looked at Jaemin, then looked back at the ID. Jeno's dad said, "That's not him, it's his brother."

Jeno and Jaemin made eye contact and stared. Jaemin looked away first. He had too much pressure on his shoulders right now.

Jeno watched Jaemin's defeated posture, the way his shoulders slumped, the pitiful look in his eyes. No. There was something wrong. At that moment, Jeno felt a burning truth that life had taken advantage of the boy in front of him, hurt buried deep in his heart and blame and hate that he'd never been able to get rid of. Jeno felt like he could see the child underneath the pink-haired boy's face, the child who had to wear an adult's mask. At that moment, it didn't matter what Jaemin did outside school hours, what intentions he had in talking with Jeno, what horrible reputations he'd gained. Jeno felt sorry for him.

He took a breath and swallowed before starting his act...

"Park Jisung? He's my friend, he was at our house last week."

Jaemin's head jerked up and he stared blankly at Jeno. What was he talking about? A different Park Jisung?

"Who," Jeno's dad asked and pointed at the ID, "him?"

"Yeah," Jeno replied and nodded naturally, "he actually called me later and told me he couldn't find his ID and asked me to look around. Where'd you find it?"

"Near the bush beside the car outside."

"Ah, I hadn't looked outside."

The police turned to Jeno. "Is Jisung at school right now?"

"I don't know, he told me he would leave early for something but I don't exactly remember."

Jeno's dad furrowed his eyebrows. "How come I don't know this Jisung? Have I met him?"

Jeno lied, "I thought you did, yes sir. I even introduced him to you at the party last week, before you went to the conference. Remember? Maybe you were in too much of a hurry..."

His dad shrugged. "Maybe. You have too many friends I really can't remember a whole lot of them."

Through the confusion, Jaemin felt relief for no good reason, because he had no idea what was going on. Maybe because of a certain someone's presence? Did Jeno being near him make him feel a little safer? Or maybe it was just because the attention was off of him for now?

Jaemin was brought back to his senses as the officer's deep voice said to him, "Jaemin is it? So where is your brother? Shouldn't he be at school? And how old are you—"

"I don't think he has an involvement in it, sir," Jeno's dad hastily came in, himself feeling rather sorry for the boy who seemed to be falsely accused at this moment, innocent of wrongdoing.

"Well what about the boy Jisung," the officer said flatly.

"That's just my son's friend. I believe he was just unfortunate in losing his ID in my yard. Besides, the kids had BBQ at the house a week ago and they were all over the place outside. I'm pretty sure this kid was there. Yes, now that I think about it, I think I do remember Jeno introducing me to him. He's not a bad kid."

"Are you asking us to drop him?" the officer asked.

"Yes sir, if it's good."

"Well...all right then." The police turned to the secretary. "Where are the other boys?"