not you, just me ☆ q.k | ✔

01

"No, did you see how well that ended for them?" Your manager reminded you of the outcome of that.

"But theirs started as a rumor and a scandal before they started their casual posting." You pointed out insistently. "If we start off as SM's supported power couple, and immediately begin posting casually, wouldn't it be better? It'll be a big enough deal that they won't care about Mark's beer mishap in LA, but not so much that I'll have crazed NCTzens coming to my apartment to kill me."

The managers were silent as they seemed to be deliberating through telepathy or something. Yuta spoke up in agreement with you, "That sounds like a much better plan. It'll be more natural and fits our personalities better. I couldn't imagine Y/N ever being mushy-gushy about anything except for her dog."

"Exactly."

Manager Han and Manager Choi had a small conversation in hushed murmurs before your manager reluctantly addressed the both of you, "Alright, let's compromise. One official post on SM's newsite, and on Y/N and NCT 127's fancafes. Tweet out a link to the fancafe posts on your Twitters, as well as one tweet that believably shows that you two are in love, okay? Then you can go about your casual posting after that."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Yuta shrugged, and all three men waited upon your approval with mildly bated breath.

"Fine, fine. But I'm not using the word love in any of my posts."

☆  

And so from there, almost every post, mention, and appearance of your "relationship" was carefully planned out by your managers. From the initial Tweets that contained one picture of you two standing next to each other, Yuta's arm around your shoulders with your respective captions asking for the fans' support in your relationship, to a strategically-placed question in one of your interviews which required a somewhat rehearsed answer, to your "dates" in public, and casual posts on your Instagrams.

Yuta took on the part of the heads-over-heels boyfriend while you were the slightly-embarrassed but mostly indifferent girlfriend. And the fans ate it up.

"Hey, I'm going to be there in like two minutes," you said as soon as Yuta had picked up your call, emerging on the streets outside your apartment building. Being a solo artist meant that you had more freedom to choose where you lived, while idols in groups tended to have to be in the dorms with their members. You weren't terribly far from the dorms, but at least you weren't actually inthem. You had some sense of freedom at least.

"Where's there? The dorms? I'm not there right now. Jaehyun, Taeil, and I went out to lunch." Yuta explained, and in the background, you could hear the sounds of the two mentioned men holding their own conversation.

You stopped right at the corner where if you turned left and took a mere three steps, you'd be at the door of their dorms. "We were supposed to go out to lunch at one-thirty, Yuta. The managers put it in two days ago, don't you check the schedule?"

"No, you're usually nagging me about these things so that I do remember."

"We're not going to fight like an actual couple about this, are we?"

"Nope. I apologize, I'll make sure to look next time."

"Can't believe I did my makeup for nothing."

"We can still meet up and go to a park after this to get the pictures for SNS, okay?"

"Alright, I'll just wait for you at the Dreamie dorms. They're way more fun than you grandpas in NCT 127."

In the brief time that you had been in this fake relationship with Yuta, you'd become familiar with all the members and both NCT 127's dorm and the Dreamie dorm. They were only one door down from each other, meaning that you were likely to find your "boyfriend" in either one on any given day.