They went out for coffee after breakfast.
In their university days, the two of them had hopped between as many different coffee shops in town as they could, trying to find the best one possible. It took their whole first year of exploring every inch of the town to find the one they were most happy with. They'd found it on the last day of first year, the two of them on a high after finishing their exams, running around the city to try and see everything they hadn't seen already before they left for the summer. It was a small place, and unless you knew it was there or happened to stumble upon it by accident, you wouldn't have found it. It had large sofas with plush cushions, the best coffee and some of the friendliest people working there, and in the coming years, it had quickly become one of Jimin and Minjeong's most frequented place in town, besides the bar that Minjeong worked at.
They both ordered a coffee and claimed ownership of the window seat as they always did, looking out into the street outside, sinking into the seats while steam from the coffee swirled into the air.
"So I had this idea," Jimin said, drumming her fingers up and down on her mug.
Minjeong took a sip from hers. "Dangerous," she remarked.
"I was thinking about this reunion business," she said, ignoring her comment.
"...And?"
"...And I was thinking, well maybe, what if we pretended that we were a couple?"
Minjeong choked on her drink. She coughed for a little while, batting a hand against her chest as she laid her mug down on the table and stared at Jimin with wide eyes. "Jimin, when I told you to sleep on it, I didn't mean for that to be your solution."
"I know, I know, I was just thinking that it would only be for the weekend, and we'd be able to shut Yuqi up, and it would make my Mum happy, and then... then if she asks about it, I can just say that it didn't work out, she can't be too heartbroken about that, right?" Her voice fizzled away, and she stared down at her cup. Minjeong was suddenly very hard to look at.
"Jimin..." Minjeong said, still staring wide-eyed at her, frozen in space. "This is crazy, you know that, right?"
Jimin sighed, and looked back down at her coffee. "I just thought – y'know we're friends, we know each other well enough that it wouldn't, y'know, mess anything up and actually you know what, forget it, it's a terrible idea," she gabbled, slinging the mug back onto the table, burying her head in her hands, sinking back into the sofa.
Minjeong stared at her for a moment, eyebrows raised. "I feel like I just watched a car crash of a thought process," she said. "Horrifying, brutal, and somehow I just can't look away."
"Ha, ha," Jimin said, rolling her eyes and sweeping her mug into her hands and taking a long swig.
Minjeong let out a laugh and shoved her gently in the shoulder. "I mean, c'mon," she said, "There's got to be a simpler solution to this."
A few moments passed, and they both focused their attention on their drinks.
"In any case, wouldn't your parents already know who I am?" she asked, breaking the silence between them.
Jimin fiddled with the handle of the mug and didn't speak for a few seconds before looking up at her again. "I've never really told them about you, Jeongie."
Minjeong blinked. "You haven't? Not ever?"
"Maybe in passing. But not, like, by name."
Minjeong stared at her, her eyebrows raised.
"Don't like to talk about my life to them," Jimin muttered, waving a hand in front of her face. "Gives them more to criticise."
She said nothing at that, and Minjeong shook her head. "Don't worry about it," she said. "It was stupid idea. I'll think of something else."
Minjeong wiped her face with a napkin and threaded her fingers through the coffee mug again with one hand, the other pulling at a loose strand of hair that had escaped from her braid. A few moments passed while she twirled her finger around the strand of hair, her gaze fixed down at her drink.
"What if you didn't go?" she suggested, tilting her head back up to look at her again.
"I can't just not go," Minjeong said. "It's my parents' favourite day of the year. They'd be so upset if they thought I didn't want to go."
"What if you couldn't go? Faked sick, or something?"
Jimin absent-mindedly swirled her finger around a pool of spilt milk on the table, making patterns across the wood. "Wouldn't work," she said. "They'd know. I never got away with anything like that in school."
Minjeong sighed, and shifted back to relax into the sofa, closing her eyes. "We'll think of something."
Jimin's eyes flickered over towards her and a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. Minjeong's head was tilted up over the back of the sofa, her face raised towards the ceiling. Her fingers drummed on the sides of the mug resting in her lap, before she opened her eyes and tilted her head over towards her, a grin on her face.
"What about a freak weather accident?" she said.
Jimin let out a laugh. "I'm not sure I can control that."
"Eh, you never know," Minjeong said, waving a hand in front of her face. "It's an option we can't rule out."
Jimin grinned. She couldn't help but notice how Minjeong had been using 'we' every time she discussed solving Jimin's problems; more and more, Jimin was feeling very lucky to have her as her best friend.
**
Her apartment felt cold and empty when she finally went home. She'd left very early in the morning the day before, and had not come back since, and somehow it had felt like she'd been gone for weeks, not just for a night. When she opened the door, her dog was on the floor at her feet, barking at her indignantly.
"Yes, boy, I know," Jimin mumbled, pulling her coat and shoes off and dumping them into a heap on the floor.
She dumped a blob of dog food into his bowl and put it on the floor for him to eat.
Exhausted and done with the whole day, Jimin dropped onto the floor beside him, arms splayed out. "It's been a ridiculous day," she said, when the dog climbed up onto her and made his home on the stomach. Jimin resigned herself to not being able to leave until Jax saw fit. She scratched him behind the ears
"Sorry for leaving for so long, Jax," she mumbled as she stroked the dog. "I've just made a big mess for myself."
Jax seemed entirely uninterested in anything Jimin had to say, just glaring up at Jimin with his cold eyes when she stopped stroking.
Jimin sighed and resumed running her fingers through the dog's fur.
"Hey, do you want to be my boyfriend?" she asked hopefully, lifting her head up and grinning down at the dog.
Jax stared at Jimin for a few moments, and then stood up, jumped off of her chest and stalked into the kitchen, leaving Jimin alone on the floor.
"Figures," Jimin muttered, dropping her head back down and closing her eyes.
**
She didn't find a solution to her problem. No matter how many ways she spun it around in her head, no matter how many angles she looked at, she couldn't find anything that would get her out of the mess she'd got herself into. More often than not, she found herself in the bar Minjeong worked in, sitting at the same spot behind the bar while she fed her drink after drink, until Minjeong refused to give her anymore and demanded that she go home.
On the forth night, after her fifth drink, Minjeong clicked her tongue against her teeth and rolled her eyes.
"Trust me, Jimin, this problem isn't going to get any easier to solve the more alcohol you pour down your throat," she muttered, her fingers drumming against the bar top.
"Maybe I'll die before then," Jimin said, morosely clutching onto the glass she'd been refilling for her with a pitying look.
She frowned. "Don't tempt fate," she said, pulling the glass out of her hands. "I think you've had enough of this."
Jimin knew better than to try and protest, though she glared at Minjeong and stared at the glass longingly as she watched her pour it down the sink.
"Just tell the truth," Minjeong said, sucking in a breath and slinging the empty glass into the sink. "Your cousin will make fun of you. Your parents might be disappointed. They'll get over it."
Jimin gave a long sigh and propped her chin up on her folded arms. "I'll tell them. I'll tell them tomorrow, and then they won't be upset on the day."
"Good," Minjeong said, taking a breath out and turning away from her to run a rag across the dirty glasses. "Good plan."
She resolved that she would tell her parents the next time they dragged her over to get a good meal into her. She'd come clean, let them know that she'd lied, she'd let them be upset, let them get out their frustrations, and then that would be the end of it.
But she appeared at Minjeong's door later, her face crestfallen and sheepish as she slipped into her flat.
"I couldn't do it," she admitted, her voice quiet. "I just couldn't do it to them."
Minjeong sighed and stood to the side to let Jimin into the flat, watching her kick her shoes off and slump onto her sofa, her chin all but resting on her chest.
Minjeong lifted her head to the heavens and resisted the urge to let out another sigh. "This is getting out of hand," she mumbled, more to herself than anyone else.
But then she took another look at Jimin on the sofa, lying still and defeated, and her face softened. "Right," she said, squaring her shoulders and clapping her hands together. Jimin jumped at the sound, her eyes flickering up towards her. "If we're going to do this, we're going to do this right."
Jimin's head jerked up. "What?" Her voice was quiet.
"We're going to need to get our story straight, and make sure both of us know exactly how we met and how we got together," she said, her tone bossy and full of business. "If we're going to do this ridiculous plan of yours, we're going to do it properly."
"Really? You'd do that for me?" Jimin said, slowly slipping up and off the sofa onto her feet.
"Yeah. It's only for the weekend, right?"
"Of course," Jimin said, quickly. "Only for the weekend, and after that I'll find some excuse. I'll tell everyone it just didn't work out, or something."
Minjeong found herself a little taken aback when Jimin threw her arms around her, and it took her a few seconds to respond, threading her arms through hers and leaning into the hug.
"Thank you," she mumbled. "I owe you so much."
"Uh, no problem, Jimin," she said, raising one eyebrow as she patted her on the back.
Minjeong hadn't realised until that moment how much this had meant to her.
**
"I think it's best if we keep most of the backstory the same," Minjeong said, jotting things down in a notebook. "We met in university, we had a lot of the same classes together and we became friends. The only place it needs to differ is in the romance zone."
Jimin nodded, leaning over her shoulder to look at what she'd written.
They were sitting in their coffee shop, nursing drinks as they discussed how they were going to approach the coming weekend. If there was one thing Jimin knew about her, it was that Minjeong didn't do anything by halves - if she was going to do this, she was going to make sure that the two of them were as prepared as they could possibly be.
"How about - we drifted away after graduation when we both got jobs and moved on to different things. Then we happened to run into each other, got to know each other all over again and started to date," Jimin said.
"That's good," Minjeong said, scribbling it down. "How long have we been together?"
Jimin swirled her drink around thoughtfully. "Not long, I reckon. We've only been dating for a few months, and that's why we didn't tell anyone."
"Because we wanted to make sure it was going somewhere before we got everyone all excited about it?" Minjeong added, and she nodded.
"We should probably learn some basic things about each other in case anyone decides to quiz us," she said.
"That's easy, we already know the basic stuff," Jimin said. "Like, your name is Kim Minjeong, you were born on the twenty-seventh of March, your favourite colour is yellow and you could drink anyone under the table."
Minjeong blinked at her, and for a moment all she did was stare. And then she said, "Damn. I should be getting you to write my dating profiles."
"Have many of those?"
"A few," she said. "Anyway, I could do the same for you. You're Yu Jimin, you have an English name 'Karina' despite being Korean, you were born on 11th of April, your favourite colour is Blue and you like dogs more than most people."
"Well, jeez, that about sums me up," Jimin said, deadpan.
"You work as an artist, it doesn't pay very well, but you do it anyway because you like it so much. You like the way you can create something out of nothing, and you'd never throw that away for a 'real job'," she continued, her voice taking on a much more serious tone. "You adopted a dog from being put down because you loved him so much you couldn't bear to see him go and you're just about the kindest person anyone could ever meet, but you'd never let anyone know that."
There was a moment of quiet, as the two of them shared a long look, Jimin scratching the back of her head and shifting uncomfortably in her seat.
"Wow," she said after a while. "You're really selling this."
"I told you we were going to do this properly."
Their eyes were still locked together, and for a few moments, they were staring at each other intensely. Jimin was the first to look away, swallowing and staring down at her drink.
"So," Minjeong said, tapping her hands on her legs, "what was our first date?"
Jimin thought about it for a moment. "Dinner and a movie?"
"Classic. What kind of dinner?"
"Fancy restaurant?" Jimin offered. "So, I took you to see a film and then together we went to the Ivy, I paid for everything, I swept you off your feet-"
Minjeong cocked an eyebrow. "Oh you did, did you?" she said, a smirk twisting at her lips. "Wouldn't have guessed you were the kind of girl who enjoys dressing up."
"Well, maybe I'm full of surprises," Jimin said. "Why, what would you have thought?"
She tilted her head to the side, as if appraising her carefully. "Pyjama shorts, Netflix and pineapple pizza. Am I right?"
ennie scowled. "Okay, maybe I'm not the dressing up kind, but you could at least try and make me sound a little bit romantic."
"But what about believability?" she said, a grin spreading across her face.
Jimin hit her with one of the sofa cushions.
By the time Minjeong had to get up to leave for work, the two of them could recount every detail of how they met and their first, second and third date as if they had actually happened. They were as sure of their fabricated relationship as if it was their own life, and the pair could answer any get-to-know-me quiz about the other in the blink of an eye, though Jimin had found it wasn't much of a feat, because as Minjeong was telling her everything, she realised she already knew all of the answers.
**
Two nights before the reunion weekend, Jimin's phone rang. She's been cooking at the time, her hands occupied with a frying pan and a spatula, oil sizzling away. Jax sat on the floor by her feet, looking up at her with his eyes while licking his paws.
Jimin narrowed her eyes down at him. "I'll get you the good kibble if you answer it," she said.
Jax barked reproachfully, gave his paw one last lick and then turned and left the room.
"Typical," Jimin mumbled, turning down the stove, wiping her hands on a tea-cloth and picking up her phone.
"What am I wearing?" Minjeong said, in lieu of a hello.
"...Is this some kind of test?"
She heard Minjeong scoff the other side of the phone. "What am I wearing to the reunion, dummy?"
"Oh," Jimin said. "I don't know. It's up to you?"
In that moment ahe swore that she could hear her rolling her eyes. "I mean that we never talked about what kind of event it was. Like, if my family was going to have a reunion, we'd all show up in t-shirts and shorts."
"It won't be like that. Um, smart but casual?" Jimin offered, passing the phone between her hands and balancing it between her ear and shoulder. "My parents usually dress nice, but it's not so... posh, I guess."
"Well, thank you for that very enlightening description," Minjeong said. "I'm so glad that you could help."
"It really doesn't matter what you wear."
"Yeah, but I'm trying to make a good impression on your parents, right?"
A pause. "You want to make a good impression on my parents?"
"I thought that was the whole point of this."
Jimin grinned. "You'll impress my parents just by showing up."
"Guess I'll show up naked, then."
Jimin's heart skipped a beat. She was trying to fluster her - but it wasn't going to work. Two people could play at that game.
"That'll definitely make a good impression," She said.
There was silence on the other side of the phone and Jimin revelled in the moment - she'd won.
"Whatever, Jimin-shi," she said. "I'll find something. See you Saturday."
"I'll pick you up."
"Later, fake-girlfriend," she said, and she could hear the smile in her voice through the phone.
"Bye, fake-girlfriend."
She pressed end-call and went back to cooking, finding herself unable to keep a smile from her face.
**
Jimin was outside Minjeong's door early on Saturday morning, ready for the drive to her parent's house. Her body had screamed when she'd tried to get out of bed that early on a weekend, and she'd thrown her alarm clock across the room before managing to drag herself out of bed and into her only set of nice clothes.
"You can't come in," Minjeong said. She'd slid the door open just a crack and poked her nose out to tell her that after she'd knocked, before promptly closing the door again. "I'm not ready yet!" she yelled, from behind the door.
"You can't be serious," Jimin said, and tried to push the door open, only for her to push it shut again into her hands. "C'mon, Jeongie just let me in."
"You'll compromise a delicate situation!" she heard her call.
"What are you even doing?"
"Trying to look nice."
Jimin pushed the door open a crack. "But you always look nice."
She heard her sigh, and then the door creaked as she pulled it open. She had a bobby pin in her mouth, and she tilted her head, gesturing her into the room.
Her flat was a mess. There were clothes littered all over the floor, dumped into crumpled piles. From the way it was lying haphazardly across the rug, it looked like she'd had a war with the hair straightener, discarded along with numerous brushes and combs.
"Well, this is disturbing," Jimin muttered as she laid her bag over the side of a chair.
"If you think this is disturbing, then don't look in the bathroom," Minjeong said, standing by the mirror and sliding the bobby pin into her hair. She tilted her head this way and that, trying to look at her reflection from all different angles. "It's way worse."
"Why all the fuss?"
"Trying to look nice, like I said."
"By making a mess of your room?" Jimin said, her gaze hovering around the signs of destruction all across her flat.
"The room had it coming," she said, before turning to face her, her arms outstretched to the side "I'm done, what do you think? Does it look okay?"
Jimin looked at her and stopped short. She knew her best friend was pretty, she wasn't blind, but this was one of those moments that made her stop and gape a little.
"I've never seen your hair in a bun before," Jimin said, after she'd remembered how to speak.
Minjeong's hair was twisted around the back of her head, plaits coiling around like a crown. It made her face smaller somehow, and drew attention to her eyes.
"That's because I never do them. I had to watch like, eight, Youtube tutorials," she said with a grin. "And I don't think I've seen you in anything but ripped jeans and sweaters before."
Jimin was wearing a dark blue suit with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows.
"And we match," Minjeong pointed out, gesturing to the suit and blue dress. "Ugh. Everyone's going to think we did it on purpose."
"...Won't that be a good thing?"
"We want to look like a couple, Jimin-shi, but not that kind of couple," she said, wrinkling her nose.
Jimin laughed. "I'm sure no one would dream of misjudging your character Jeongie, or mistaking what kind of person you'd be in a relationship," she said. "Now, shall we go, my dear?"
Minjeong scowled at the last bit, just like she knew she would, but she linked her arm through hers when she offered it, and together the two of them left the apartment. Jimin couldn't help but notice how warm Minjeong was against her, but she chalked it down to the early morning weather. It had been cold outside.
**
It was an hour drive to her parents' home. She liked the distance; the drive was short enough to see her parents as often as she liked, but also long enough to avoid seeing them. It was also a city over, which made it unlikely that she might run into her parents accidentally - god forbid they ever found that her usual haunt was the local bar. Jimin shuddered at the thought of the lecture they would give her if they found out how often she had a drink in her hands.
Minjeong put her feet on the dashboard five minutes into the journey, ignoring Jimin's protests.
"You're going to make it dirty," she whined.
Minjeong looked pointedly at her, slid her feet back down onto the floor, kicked off her sandals, and put her bare feet straight back up onto the dashboard. Jimin scowled.
"So, tell me more about your parents," Minjeong said. "I need all the intel."
"You make it sound like we're going to we're going into battle," Jimin said, her eyes on the road, but a smile threatening to emerge from her lips.
Minjeong rolled her eyes. "Well, from what I've heard you say about all them before, we just might be."
"They're not that bad, they're just... overbearing, sometimes."
"Aren't everybody's parents?"
"They're worse," Jimin said. "I just feel like... they have a strong sense of who they are, you know? And a strong sense of what they want the
Yu family to be. It's hard to live up to."
Minjeong nodded and stayed quiet.
"Sometimes I feel like they wanted something different for me. Like they expected something more from me," she said.
"More?"
"You know, earning more. Having a better apartment. Finding someone to spend the rest of my life with," Jimin said, her breath hitching on the last one.
Minjeong blinked. "You're only 23."
"They don't see it that way," Jimin explained. "All they see is time ticking away."
"What are their names?"
"Siwon Choi and Tiffany Young."
There was quiet in the car of again, the conversation lulling, leaving the just the sound of the car engine and the occasionally bird tweeting.
"Okay, I've got to ask," Minjeong said, after a while. "I wasn't going to but I can't not."
"What?" Jimin said, raising an eyebrow.
"Does everybody in your family have a long ass name? I mean, Siwon Choi Yu . Tiffany Young Yu. Yu Jimin," she said teasingly, her lips quirked into a smile.
Jimin kept her eyes on the road, concentrating on steering. "Just a family thing, I guess. I think my grandparents named me too? I'm not sure."
Minjeong grinned, her eyes glittering. "I guess the...family thing, didn't apply to your height"
"Okay, you have got to stop with the height jokes."
"Not while there's breath in my body."