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"you took me by surprise, the way you
walked into my darkened life. you sent
the storm away. never expected you to
be a friend to me. you meant much
more than that."
- i <3 u (boy pablo)
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FLASHBACK
YESEUL
"What are you doing out here?" Yeseul asked, seeing Niki outside the gates of their school, busily tapping on his phone before he heard her voice.
Hours earlier, she couldn't imagine the possible scenarios that would unfold that day, unable to decide whether to expect jeopardy in everything or simplicity in this act. All she could do was hope that whatever comes out of this stupid act of theirs would not be as bad as her head thinks it to be. With her camera on her hand, her mother had dropped her off to school where in front of the gates she sees her new fake boyfriend, collecting looks from students who passed by him.
"Waiting for you." He simply says with his usual cheeky smile, and surprisingly, she found this act of theirs funny, bringing a slight chuckle to her lips. "Come on, we should go in."
"Should we um..." Yeseul pauses, staring at his hand then back to his eyes, that for a second, showed hints of confusion as to what exactly she pertained to. But when she repeats what she did, finally he understood what she had been meaning to say.
As response, Niki extends his right hand to her direction and she wasn't quite sure what message he was trying to say with his action, or if whatever it is in her head, had been the answer. Seeing the dilemma she was suffering from, he gladly eases her worries by pointing at the bag hanging by her back. For a second she thought he was offering his hand to interlock hers with his, but he clears up the air of confusion simply by pointing.
"But it's light?" Yeseul asks.
"Still more comfortable if I do that than hold your hand in front of many people." He reasons, and she tilts her head and mutters 'you have a point' before handing her bag which was incredibly light. "Jeez, do you even carry anything?" He asks once the black bag was now hanging by his right shoulder.
She laughs. "Told you it was light, especially if the only thing inside it is a single notebook and one pen."
Finally, they began to walk inside, still discussing about Yeseul's habit of only bringing one notebook and one pen to school. While she explained in a sugarcoated manner how she doesn't bother listening or taking notes of the lesson, she could feel deep stares piercing through her. Their eyes examining the sudden closeness that appeared between two people that never seemed to have something just yesterday. But anyone understood anything could change drastically by tomorrow, hence their wonderment circled on how this sight happened.
"Everybody's staring." Yeseul whispers as Niki leaned down to hear her better. Quite an insult to her height, actually.
"Isn't that the point?"
Looking at each other, she sees the tiny smirk that appeared to his lips before he increases the distance between their faces again and headed to the direction of their classroom. Once in the doorway, he hands her the bag and whispers something incoherent to her which brings a confused look on her expression, but before she could ask, he was already in his seat next to his friend, Sunghoon, who was very quick to ask his friend what was happening. As soon as she was at the comfort of her seat, the girl sitting next to her, who barely talked to her back then, suddenly began to show interest at Yeseul.
"A-Are you dating Nishimura Riki?" The girl asked, looking as if she couldn't believe it and quite frankly, Yeseul fought the urge not to be offended by that.
Yeseul, choosing to be the bigger person, merely smiled. "It's not like we're keeping it a secret anymore." She knew the girl sitting next to her had more questions in mind but she was saved by the teacher who just entered the class premises.
From Niki's seat, he looked to her direction. She raised her eyebrows as a means to tell him to just say whatever it is he wanted to say but with the teacher in front of them, speaking about a lesson she once again did not understand, he could not open his mouth and use his voice. So instead, he does the most despicable and confusing thing by winking at her and facing the teacher again.
She swore her blood rushed to her cheek. It was another thing she should start getting used to. His inexplicable behavior.
Looking at the camera on her hand, Yeseul suddenly was reminded of her original plans of filming her current day before she forgot about it as soon as she realized how much attention she was getting by simply walking with Niki and having him carry her bag. Eyes usually look the other way when it came to her, she wasn't really the type of person you'd normally turn your head twice to get a better look. That had never been a problem for Yeseul because receiving minimal attention hadn't been all that bad, really. Now, she was living a moment in her life that she never thought would come, and it was all because of an old classmate that has been in her life for far too long.
Somehow, in the midst of this spectacle they've created, Yeseul finds herself wondering just how much more of her life would change because of this plan of theirs.
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"How much did we fool them?" Yeseul asked, laying on her bed with her phone pressed to her ear as Niki called her that night. After a tedious day of walking and talking with each other, she wondered just how much his friends believed that their youngest friend really was dating someone now.
She heard his soft laughter from the other side of the phone. "They couldn't believe that I'd have a girlfriend before any of them. But they believe us, so that's a good sign. Though they suspect a little bit how fast we got together."
"I told everyone who asked me that we were keeping it a secret at the beginning of our relationship." She says, still finding it weird to say what she said despite it now being half true. "Fooling everyone isn't as fun as I thought it would be."
"Well the hardest challenge isn't even the school. It's going to be my family." He tells her, reminding her of their actual plan of fooling his family. "Which reminds me, the party is in two weeks already so you should get ready. Do you have a dress? If you don't I can buy you one—"
"N-No need! It's fine, I have one here." She lied out of shyness. "Can you tell me more about them? Like, prepare me right now about what I should do, what I should not do, what I'm supposed to know, and what I'm not."
Gladly, Niki complied to her request. "Anything to keep you away those textbooks huh?" He laughs.
"Oh just start speaking." Yeseul says when he tells her the ulterior motive behind her request.
For the next hour, Niki spoke about his family and everything there was that she apparently needed to know, which included events that brought gasps and awws to her mouth. And when he was finished, the next hour was allotted for her family and everything there was that he would need to know if he were to pretend date the likes of her. She hadn't quite expected to enjoy her conversation with him nor did she expect being so immersed into their topic that she had completely forgotten that she was doing this in the first place to ignore the stack of textbooks sitting by her study desk, collecting dust.
Perhaps the next two months wouldn't be as bad as her head originally made it seem.
What could possibly wrong with fake dating Nishimura Riki?
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AUTHOR'S NOTE :
gASP i finally updated ?!?!?!
did not proofread this haha sorry