If there was one thing any university student could agree on, it was their love of winter break. The pure white snow covering the ground in a thick blanket, the cozy atmosphere and the memories attached to it, the temporary relief from the stress of classes - it was always a more than welcome time of the year, and almost no one loved it more than Kim Seokjin, holiday enthusiast and burned-out culinary arts major.
That especially applied this year, where he had been unusually homesick and had been longing to see his friends, who unfortunately all attended different schools. And now, after weeks of anticipation, pulling himself through his final projects of the semester, and counting down the days, this was his second to last day of classes before he was home free. With the styrofoam coffee cups littered across his desk and the 30 tabs he had just closed out of on his computer, he couldn't be happier for that, because with his current environment and the excitement in the coming week, he doubts he would have been able to get anything done at the moment anyways. Right now, at least, he's refreshingly free from responsibility.
The pleasant sound of upbeat music in his headphones is interrupted by a soft buzz from his phone, followed by the upbeat tone of a notification. Glancing at the lit-up screen, he sees a message from none other than Kim Taehyung, the occasionally clingy but mostly humorous and loveable man he considered his best friend.
taehyuuunnngg: heyooo seokjin
WorldWideSugarGliders: hi!
taehyuuunnngg: can't wait to see that boyfriend of yours over winter break ;)
Boyfriend. Seokjin's boyfriend. Taehyung wants to see Seokjin's boyfriend over the holidays.
He's not sure what sort of bizarre imaginary friend Taehyung is referring to, because unless some drastic change has taken place or he's unaware of a creepy unrequited lover, Seokjin has a grand total of zero boyfriends. He's about to message Taehyung back to ask what in the world he's talking about when a months-old memory he would have sincerely preferred to forget surfaces.
In the past few years that Seokjin's friend group had known each other, their friendship thankfully hadn't changed much, with the band of six still managing to be as close as ever despite the physical distance between them as they separated to attend their different colleges. Sometimes it was hard, sometimes they didn't talk much, but they managed to work it out. There had been one major change, though: relationships.
Specifically the fact that all his friends, everyone in their little group except Seokjin, had found themselves in romantic ones.
Seokjin had never considered himself a hopeless romantic, but he would be lying if he were to say that he never got a bit jealous looking at the way everyone else talked about their partners, how it seemed like all of them were so genuinely happy and satisfied. It didn't help that one of those relationships was between Yoongi and Jungkook, so whenever they met up Seokjin would catch them making goo-goo eyes at each other anytime they thought someone wasn't looking (someone was always looking).
Was it mildly disturbing to see his normally silly friends so serious about something? Yes. Did it make him want to roll his eyes a bit at the pure sappiness of it all? Absolutely. But was it adorable? Also yes.
And he supposes that was why on a regrettable day two months ago, on one of their bi-monthly big group calls, out of pure idiotic instinct and a failed attempt to repress his own desire for the love he constantly saw, he lied. A big lie. A massive, un-hideable, almost achingly stupid lie.
"Yah, Seokjin, you're the only single one left! Saving yourself for someone special, huh?" Taehyung says teasingly, shit-eating grin ever-present as he sees Seokjin look away from the camera.
"I...no! I have a boyfriend, actually!"
And that was how Seokjin managed to completely screw himself over in a matter of five minutes. How was he supposed to get a boyfriend before winter break, when he would see his friends in person again? He hadn't had any plan for that, actually, just deciding to leave it to Later Seokjin to figure it out. Well, now he was Later Seokjin, and he had not even the dimmest idea about what he was supposed to do.
Almost immediately after the call had ended, save for the way he lied in bed that evening and ruminated over every mildly embarrassing thing he had said, he had forgotten the entire thing. And now, two months later, here he was, having no idea what he was going to do.
Should he just tell Taehyung he had been lying that day? He's surprised Taehyung remembers, but Taehyung always had been one to get too involved in other peoples' love lives.
He knows that would be the smart thing to do, the most logical answer. But he also knows that Taehyung would tease him relentlessly until the end of time if Seokjin told him that he had lied about having a boyfriend for such a stupid reason.
Would it really be so bad if he was to just try and keep his fabrication up for a bit longer? Well, it probably would be bad if it failed, but he's sure he can find some way to get himself out of this without anyone finding out first. After all, in the past he had always had a penchant for overly creative solutions.
Sighing and mentally cursing himself for doing any of this in the first place, with his fingers tapping against the screen of his phone, he decides to do the same thing he does with most of his assignments: dig himself deeper into a hole of procrastination.
WorldWideSugarGliders: he's excited to meet you guys too!:
taehyuuunnngg: he's heard good things i hope?
WorldWideSugarGliders:of course, what else would i say about my absolute angels of a friend group?
taehyuuunnngg : yeah yeah we're not that bad you're just a goody two shoes :P
taehyuuunnngg: clearly your boyfriend hasn't cured your sarcasm
taehyuuunnngg: just kidding love you please don't murder me in my sleep
Electing not to respond, Seokjin throws himself onto his bed, groaning in frustration as he shoves his face into the covers. Well, he can't exactly go back now, not unless he wants to make the consequences worse than they would have been in the first place.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did he choose to make things harder for himself? All he had wanted was a nice, relaxing holiday break with his friends, and he had managed to spoil it for himself with only a few sentences.
Sighing, he finally pulls himself back to his desk, grabbing his nearby notepad and half-dry pen, scribbling in rushed handwriting on a piece of paper. Step One: Find a fake boyfriend . He might as well start now. So he asks himself two questions: what guys did he know that were his age, and more importantly, which ones didn't already have plans for the winter break?
The first answer was easy enough - he had made quite a few acquaintances throughout his time at university - but the second one was...difficult. Obviously the vast majority of people, including him, already knew what they were going to do with their time off, and there was no way anyone would even consider changing their plans for a guy desperately trying not to embarrass himself. Who did he know who didn't have anything in store for the holidays? His first thought was the most unfortunate (and likely) answer: no one.
He's about to just resign to his fate when he remembers one person, a man who had somehow slipped his mind for a moment. Kim Namjoon, a student in his year who tutored him in the one subject that he could just never seem to master, Calculus. He didn't know much about him; handsome, genius, kind, and that was about it. What he did know, though, was that Namjoon fit his second criterion, based on a brief conversation they had had around a week before.
"Ugh, I can't wait for winter break. Calculus is killing my brain," Seokjin groaned, letting his pencil drop out of his hand onto the table out of pure defeat. Namjoon gave a slight chuckle, patting him on the back reassuringly. "Me too, honestly. It'll be here soon enough, though, you just need to get through what we have left first."
"Just a week and a half more before I can go home and see my friends. What about you? What are you doing on the break?"
Namjoon shrugged. "Nothing, really. My parents will both be travelling outside the country for work, and none of my friends are going to be near each other, so I can't really visit them. So I'm probably just going to stay here and chill, I suppose."
Seokjin and Namjoon could probably be described as acquaintances at best, seeing as they did see each other often due to Seokjin's arithmetic troubles, but they never talked outside of that, with their text history consisting entirely of repetitive "sorry, i can't make it today!" conversations pertaining to tutoring. They weren't friends, and neither of them had seemed particularly interested in changing that.
So why would Namjoon agree to help him with this, if they weren't particularly close?
Well, Seokjin would just have to hope that he could convince the man to do it, because otherwise he really had no idea what he was going to do. There had to be some way that he could make the decision worth it to Namjoon.
Hoping he'd actually be able to follow through on his hopes, he pulls out his phone again and opens his messages before he can chicken out. He would probably regret this later, but he needs a plan now , no matter how terribly thought out that plan might happen to be.
WorldWideSugarGliders: hey namjoon! sorry if this is a bit sudden but i need your help with something
KimNamjoonRM: ok! is it calculus?
WorldWideSugarGliders: no, something else. it's probably better if we talk in person
KimNamjoonRM: ah. want to meet in the library, then?
WorldWideSugarGliders: yes, are you able to come now?
KimNamjoonRM: yep, i'll see you there
Seokjin gets up, wrapping himself in his black down coat and magenta wool scarf as he grabs them from beside the door. Shoving his phone in his coat pocket and preparing to brave the chilly outside weather, Seokjin opens the door, knowing that what he just did was probably the easiest part of the whole ordeal.
•
Seokjin's not ready for this. Not when he can barely look up at Namjoon, who's sitting across from him at one of the tables in the library, black hair in a messy side part under a fluffy beanie and chocolate eyes looking at him in curiosity. Namjoon sips on a cup of coffee, hissing as he pulls it away from his mouth, and Seokjin can see the steam coming out of it. Briefly, randomly, he wonders what kind of coffee Namjoon likes, if he'd like Seokjin's favorite caramel macchiato.
But that's trumped by the more important issue at hand. Namjoon is staring at him expectantly now, head cocked to the side in curiosity, and it's then when he inevitably asks Seokjin a question he knows he has to answer but doesn't quite have the answer to.
"So, what did you need my help with Seokjin?"
"Well, uhh...you don't have any plans for the winter break, right? I remember you telling me that..." Seokjin fidgets with his fingers, and it's practically an Olympian task for him to maintain his eye contact with Namjoon. Normally he wouldn't be this anxious in a conversation, but this wasn't normal - he's asking someone he hardly knows outside of academics to be his fake boyfriend, which was something that he, for obvious reasons, had absolutely zero experience with.
"Yeah, I'm just staying here," Namjoon nods, a slight shrug following his words, but his eyebrows are still raised in a question, a question Seokjin still hasn't answered. "Why do you ask?"
Seokjin sighs, wishing he could just bury his head into his arms and disappear into his pile of warm clothes with how much he's embarrassing himself. He tries not to care too much, considering he's about to embarrass himself a whole lot more. Tapping his fingers on the table, trying to calm his heart a little bit, Seokjin starts to get out the words as best as he can.
"God, I don't know how to ask this. All my other friends are in relationships, so a few months ago I lied and said I have a boyfriend so I could feel involved, and I totally forgot about that today. So now they're expecting me to show up over winter break with a boyfriend I don't have," Seokjin blurts quickly, feeling heat rush to his cheeks as he gets further and further into his explanation of his ridiculous problem.
"Ok, so you made a mistake and you don't have much time to fix it, I understand. But...how does this relate to me? Do you want me to help you tell them or something?"
Knowing how smart Namjoon was, Seokjin had been hoping, praying , that he wouldn't have to explicitly say what he meant. But it's obvious he hasn't realized. Seokjin's going to say this out loud, isn't he? He's going to have to ask Namjoon to be his fake boyfriend in all the mortifying glory of such a crazy request.
"No. I...listen, my friends will make fun of me until the end of time if they find out I lied. I know it sounds stupid, but will you come home with me over winter break and pretend to be my boyfriend?"
Namjoon doesn't move for a moment, and Seokjin feels a deep sense of regret, wanting to take back every word that has ever come out of his mouth, which only deepens as Namjoon finally processes what he's said, eyes widening as his jaw drops without any words coming out, and Seokjin doesn't know if he's just seeing things from his own anxiety but he swears he sees the tiniest tinge of pink dust Namjoon's face.
"I fully understand if you're not comfortable with that! I can try to find someone else, I'm sorry..." Seokjin exclaims, waving his hands in front of him frantically. Why, why, why, why, why did he do this?
"Could I...have some time to think about this?" Namjoon asks, and Seokjin nods, relieved that he hadn't just said no immediately. Hope was definitely better than nothing, at least. "Yeah, that would work. I just need an answer by tomorrow, okay? Because later in the day I'll leave."
"Well, I'll see you later, Seokjin," Namjoon pushes his chair out from the table, standing up and brushing seemingly invisible dust from his long grey coat. As Seokjin watches his tall figure slowly get further away, not looking back once or leaving more time to say goodbye, his nervousness starts to slowly drain out. He's starting to wonder if it was really all that worth it to set out on this endeavor just to try and imitate the feeling which captivated all his friends. He didn't have an answer to that.
•
It's around 23:00, when Seokjin is finally starting to drift off and retreat to his dreams, that Namjoon gives his answer. The high ding of a notification startles him right back into consciousness, and as he opens the phone to see the text, the dim light of his phone feels blinding. Though it's a bit annoying, his mood immediately lifts again when he sees the contents of the message.
KimNamjoonRM: i've decided i'll help you. you have to do something to help me too, though
KimNamjoonRM: and there's one condition: i'll pretend we're dating in front of your friends and do what we need to to make it look real, but when we're alone, no lovey-dovey stuff. Deal?
WorldWideSugarGliders: deal! definitely deal. seriously, namjoon, thank you so much!!
WorldWideSugarGliders: what do you want me to help you with? i'll do anything to pay you back for this
KimNamjoonRM: teach me to cook
WorldWideSugarGliders: really? that seems kind of small compared to what you're doing for me
KimNamjoonRM: you just haven't seen how terrible i am at cooking. You're a culinary arts major, right?
KimNamjoonRM: learning from someone who's good at it is the best shot i have, and it might take a while
KimNamjoonRM: i'm just desperate to be able to make something other than burnt ramen
WorldWideSugarGliders: well i'm up for the challenge. you're in good hands to learn cooking, trust me!
WorldWideSugarGliders: i'm planning to leave tomorrow afternoon. do you think you'll be able to pack and be ready by then?
KimNamjoonRM: yeah, i should be able to do that
KimNamjoonRM: good night, seokjin
WorldWideSugarGliders: night, namjoon :)
Seokjin genuinely couldn't believe his luck. Through Namjoon's kindness and some bizarre miracle, his plan was actually beginning to work, and if he could make his luck run a little longer he might be able to get through all this. Smiling in triumph, he puts down his phone and buries himself back in his cocoon of blankets, falling asleep within a minute of when he puts his head back down on the pillow.