People's lives can change in just a moment.
After all, it takes only a moment to say, "I do," or to hold your baby for the first time, or to be handed that diploma, or to accept that new job across the country.
Or, in your case, for your manager to say:
"We need you to date Nakamoto Yuta."
If you had water in your mouth, you would've done a spit-take. How glorious that would have been, spitting a mouthful of water all across Manager Han and SM's faces. But instead, you choked on your own tongue for a moment before managing to stutter out, "I have to what?"
"It'll be fake, of course. For the cameras, the press, all that," your manager said, as if that was meant to reassure you.
"W-why?" Your solo career was doing very well under SM Entertainment, as was NCT's, you couldn't imagine why he felt the need to draw such attention to either of you.
SM spoke up, "I'm sure you've seen the videos of a certain NCT 127 member engaging in... unsupported activities whilst they were in LA."
"Mark got confused about the drinking age in America and had one beer, so now I have to become the most hated woman in not only South Korea, but also Japan?"
"In order to get the heat off of Mark."
You couldn't believe what you were hearing. Your big issue wasn't that you didn't know or didn't like Yuta, you had been friends with him since your trainee days and still saw him frequently. It was that you had feelings that went beyond just 'liking' for one of his group mates: Qian Kun. You hadn't meant for that to happen, but it did. And "dating" Yuta would mean seeing him more frequently, which you were trying to avoid because so far avoiding your feelings had been working pretty swell for you.
Your manager butted in again, "Don't worry about the 'being hated' part, we have a plan for that. Something no idol has ever done. The two of you won't be a career-ruining scandal that we try to sweep under the rug. You'll be SM's power couple."
☆
"You've got to promise not to actually fall in love with me, Y/N." Yuta joked as the two of you sat beside each other at a conference table a few days later. He surprisingly didn't seemed alarmed about this entire situation at all.
"Oh that won't be hard," you retorted, to which he stuck his tongue out at you momentarily.
"That hurts my feelings."
"Same goes for you, Nakamoto. No gross feelings for me either."
"Oh that won't be hard."
You flicked his forehead, and his own hand came up to grab yours tenderly. With a sigh, you rolled your eyes, "No cameras in here, greaseball."
"Oops," your friend was grinning as he released you, then turned to the two men on the other side of the table from you, your manager and NCT 127's. "So what are we doing?"
"We're going to introduce you two as a couple on SNS. Each of your Twitters, Instagrams, Fancafes, everything." Manager Han explained first, seeming a little too giddy about this plan.
Yuta's manager, Manager Choi, explained further, "It'll be a picture of you two, then a caption writing about how the two of you are in love, and how you hope your fans will support you having found your true love, or something to that extent."
"Gross." Your nose wrinkled up at this, but nonetheless you took out your phone. "Does it have to be like, super lovey-dovey stuff on all of it? Or could it be like, one Tweet of a picture of us saying 'Thank you to all the fans who have supported me thus far, I hope you will continue supporting me as I share with you someone who blah blah blah mushy gushy stuff,' and then start casually posting photos on Instagram or something. Like Hyuna and E'Dawn did! They're so cute, and they don't make a big deal about it."
"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.
"I'll continue on as if I wasn't offended by that statement. You know who else is at the Dreamie dorms right now?"
With a reluctant sigh, you asked, "Who?"
"Kun."
At some point in this fake relationship, you had admitted your unfortunately persistent and ever-growing crush on Kun to him. More like he had browbeaten it out of you at dinner one night, a dinner that half of NCT—including Kun—had attended with you. Thankfully, it was while Kun was in the bathroom, and you had dragged your friend by his ear to a corner of the restaurant before saying anything self-incriminating.
"Yuta."
"Y/N."
"I'm going home, Yuta. Come pick me up at my apartment."
"Nope. We meet at the Dreamie dorms or it doesn't happen. And then we both get yelled at by our managers for not posting tomorrow."
"Fine," you spat out before abruptly hanging up the call.
Kun thankfully hadn't been the one to answer the door, it was Ten, another old friend of yours from your trainee days. He greeted you with a big smile and a hug, ushering you in further to their dorms. While Kun didn't actually live in this part of the SM dorms, he only lived one floor up with Lucas and the Chinese rookies, so he visited the other NCT dorms frequently. And you weren't sure why Ten lived with Dreamies, but he at least fit in size-wise. Unlike Jungwoo, another non-Dreamie resident of the Dreamie dorm. Though, in enough time, Jisung would be up there with him.
Both of the long and lanky boys were sprawled across the couch, effectively taking up all the space.
"You noodles better move so I can sit down," you crossed your arms as you stopped in front of the couch.
They both leapt up to greet you, Jisung's normal disdain for skinship fading as he quickly yet tightly hugged you. While he usually pushed his older members away, he had come to SM and started training and debuted at such a young age that you'd pretty much turned into an older sister figure for him. He would never admit it, but you'd cradled him in your arms on the floor of practice rooms while he soaked your shirt with his tears multiple times. Which you probably couldn't do now, on account that your initial height difference had been reversed since then, but nonetheless you still held a fondness for the boy you would always see as your baby brother.
Jungwoo didn't know you for as long or in the same way that Jisung, Ten, or Yuta knew you. He joined SM well after you debuted, and you hadn't properly met him until you'd started fake-dating Yuta. But still, the affectionate man had never met a stranger he couldn't snuggle up to, which included you.
"We're watching Princess Monanoke!" He grabbed your hand without hesitation, tugging on it insistently for you to follow him to the couch. "We're like, ten minutes in, so we can rewind it for you!"
You were unfazed by the skinship, instead anxiously looking around for the one person Yuta had told you for sure would be here. Kun was nowhere to be seen, much to your relief. Maybe you could actually relax before Yuta came and picked you up.
"I'll go let the others know you're here, finally drag them away from their video games." Ten offered, turning to leave the room, but you stopped him.
"You don't need to!" You cried out, halting your move to sit down. "I'm not going to be here for too long, Yuta's coming soon."
"Well then I should definitely get them. I'll get an earful if they find out they missed you."
"No!"
Judging by the three doors opening, you had yelled that out way too loud. Jeno's head poked out first, looking around as Jaemin's voice came from behind him, "Was that Y/N?"
"Y/N's here!" Renjun cheered from his own doorway.
Jeno was suddenly pushed to the ground as two blurs of pastel pink and green hair barreled towards you, only the pink one slowing down as they reached you to gently throw his arms around your neck. The other nearly knocked you over in his excitement, arms around your waist.
"Y/N! I missed you!"
"You saw me two days ago, Jaemin," you scoffed, patting the taller boy's head affectionately.
The members of NCT knew that you weren't actually dating Yuta, which is probably why they felt comfortable showing this much skinship with you. After all, if you were his actual girlfriend, no way would they be able to so much as touch your arm without losing a finger. But you weren't, so they had a free pass to pretty much assault you with as many hugs and hand-holding and cuddles that you could deal with.
"Yeah, two days is pretty much an eternity."
"LeLe!" You squealed as you addressed the other boy that was superglued to your side, ruffling the boy's hair with two hands. "You, I have not seen in weeks! How are you? How's your family?"
Chenle lived nearby the dorms with his family, meaning that when you had spur-of-the-moment visits to the dorms, you weren't likely to see him, "Ah, we're doing good! My mom started an herb garden, she's really proud of her sage."
"Oh that's nice."
Once they had released you, Renjun and Jeno also came up to greet you, much mellower than them. The man who had come out of the third door had a polite smile on his face as he approached you, one that unfortunately made your heart skip several beats.
"Hi, Y/N." Kun nodded to you as he walked by you. So nonchalant.
Your cheeks turned embarrassingly warm to the touch as you were unable to reply. You were cursing yourself the whole time as you turned so that your eyes could follow him to where he stopped in front of Jisung on the couch. He held out an empty purple reusable water bottle to him, "It was under your bed, Jisungie."
"Oh. Thanks, Kun."
The other man on the couch was sitting there with a pout, glaring up at Kun.
"What?"
"We're trying to watch Princess Monanoke!" Despite his best efforts, he couldn't actually scold the others, really looking more like an upset toddler than an annoyed older brother.
"Sorry, Jungwoo." Kun apologized with humor in his voice, starting towards the door. "I've got errands to run for my dorm now, I'll see you all later."
"Wait!" Ten called after him. "Y/N just got here and now you're leaving? Don't you want to at least stay and watch the movie with us?"
"I'm good, I just watched it the other night with Hendery."
With that, despite the other members' continuing protests, Kun slipped his shoes on and wordlessly left the dorms. The remaining boys all let out noises of disappointment.
"Sorry, Y/N." Ten sighed as you joined Jungwoo and Jisung on the couch.
"For what?" You croaked out with your mouth still dry from the two words Kun had spoken to you.
He and Jeno exchanged a look before everyone else flopped down either on the couch, on another person, or on the floor in front of the couch to continue the movie.
☆
Yuta showed up right as the credits started rolling, mischievous smirk turning into a disappointed glare as he took in the boys sprawled out around you, "What are you cockblockers doing here?"
"Kun did all the cockblocking himself." Jaemin scoffed from where he was being enveloped by Jungwoo's much larger form.
"What?" You questioned, head resting against Chenle's.
Yuta still didn't address you, lecturing the others, "You all were supposed to leave Y/N and Kun here alone, but instead of coming back to find them making out, I'm greeted with you all puppy piled on each other watching anime with Kun nowhere in sight!"
"You really sounded like a voyeur there, Yuta." Ten teased as you could feel your blood start boiling.
You patted Jisung's head that was laying on your thigh as a signal that you wanted to stand up. Carefully stepping over the boys on the floor, you joined your friend by the front door, glaring intensely, "Did you seriously conspire to try to get Kun and I alone together? You're really fucking lucky we're about to go take pictures, or else I'd break your damn nose."
Remembering that the fans always left the most approving comments of your "relationship" when you were wearing his clothes, you snatched Yuta's jacket from his grip. After pointedly tugging it over your arms, you stomped to the front door, "Bye."
Yuta had to speed-walk to catch up to you outside the door, not seeming nearly as apologetic as you wanted, "Why can't you be that confident around Kun? You're so fucking badass, Y/N, but you never let him see that side of you."
"I know! I know that I don't!" You spat out, firmly gripping his upper arm as you started walking down the bustling sidewalks. "But it doesn't fucking matter. As soon as he realized I was there, he couldn't seem to leave fast enough for his liking! He hates me, Yuta."
Your fiery rant had pittered out to a self-pitying mumble as you felt hot tears of frustration and angst prick at your eyes. You urged him to stop at the doors of some shop, burying your face in his shoulder as you tried to conceal and stop your tears. Fansites wouldn't be following you, this wasn't an official schedule and as far as you knew, neither you nor Yuta had any sasaengs. But even then, you could never guarantee that a random fan wouldn't spot you and try to film you two. You had to get these tears under control.
Yuta could tell that he had obviously struck a cord with you, rubbing your back soothingly as he softly apologized, "I'm sorry, Y/N. I didn't mean to make you cry. If Kun really does hate you—which I highly doubt—then he's stupider than I thought."
You chuckled a little bit at this, wiping at your eyes as he continued on, "Hey, do you think they'll have us get like, fake-married, and have fake kids too?"
"Oh please," You took your face out of his shoulder to scoff. "I think I'd rather die than be the mother to your fake children."
"There's my Y/N." Yuta grinned approvingly, linking his arm back through yours and leading you back out onto the streets. "But really, I think our kids would be cute as hell, no matter how fake."
You pinched his arm, earning a satisfying yelp.
☆
From then on, you didn't trust pretty much any scenario that you knew Kun was going to be involved in, out of fear that Yuta and the others would try to pull that same stunt again. Luckily, having your own comeback to be worrying about kept you plenty busy enough to avoid every member of NCT.
Today was your first stage for your comeback, and your manager had told you earlier that Yuta was going to come visit you backstage beforehand, keeping up his supportive boyfriend persona. You were sitting on a couch trying to replace your earrings without a mirror when you felt a chin resting on top of your head.
"Hey, Yuta." You greeted him, still intensely focused on finding the hole that you knew was somewhere on your earlobe.
When the person didn't reply, you figured that it might not be Yuta, "Hey, Jungwoo."
Nothing.
"Jisung? Jaemin? Ten? Mark?"
"I'm offended that you'd think of Mark before me," they finally replied, and you lit up as Donghyuck came around to sit down beside you.
"Hyuckie!" You hugged your friend, not expecting him to come visit you too. "Oh my god, hi!"
"Yuta was taking too long trying to find a flower for you with our manager, so I left them."
"No, you pushed me into the stairwell and locked the door behind you," came the accusatory voice of Yuta from behind you.
You burst out laughing when you turned around to find him disheveled and irritated, a few pieces of hair stuck to the sweat on his forehead from climbing all those stairs, and a single red rose in his hand. Donghyuck giggled along beside you until Yuta thrust the rose towards you before pouncing on the younger boy. His giggles turned to a screech as the older man put him in a chokehold on the ground in front of your feet, "You're such a brat!"
"Let go of him, Yuta. He's just a kid." You snickered from above them, tapping them lightly with your foot.
Changing the subject, you took out your phone, "Here, we need pictures for SNS."
Donghyuck accepted the device, "But I also want pictures with you, Y/N."
"Of course, after the obligatory ones of SM's power couple." You handed the rose back to Yuta in order to take a moment and adjust his hair. "Gross, you're all sweaty."
"It's not my fault that they don't air condition the stairwells." He retorted, standing still patiently for you to finish making him look presentable.
Posing with the rose in one hand and Yuta's arm across your shoulders, you put on your brightest grin for the pictures. After a few different poses and taking a couple selfies with the front camera, you put your phone into Yuta's hands for him to take your pictures with Donghyuck. Finally, your manager came and took a picture of the three of you together.
"I'll send you the ones that I'm not posting," You told them as you drafted your Tweet, including pictures with the both of them in it, penning your in-character caption and tagging NCT and NCT 127.
"So are you only doing 'Water Drops' tonight?" Yuta asked as he made himself comfy on the one small couch in your dressing room.
Pushing his legs off, you sat down beside him, "I'm doing a mini-stage of one of my B-sides as well."
"'Just Saying?'" Donghyuck perched himself on the arm of the couch beside Yuta, and you were touched that he had knowledge of your new songs.
"No, actually 'Not You, Just Me.'"
"Oh, the one about Kun." Yuta stated nonchalantly.
"It's not—"
"It's a song about unrequited love and feeling like the person you like hates you. You're not fooling me, Y/N."
Donghyuck looked extremely confused, and at first you thought that he didn't know about your feelings for Kun and was about to put Yuta in a chokehold when he commented with a frown, "Kun doesn't hate you, Y/N. He—"
"Jesus, it's not about Kun!" You screeched, standing up and stalking over to your mirror with your earrings.
☆
After your performance, you were half-asleep in the backseat of your car ride home, tweeting out a couple more pictures of yourself and saying thank you to your fans for the support on your comeback thus far when your phone buzzed. You only glanced at the contact name briefly before the notification went back up. Eyes widening, you swiped down to double-check the text again.
[qian kun: your performance was really good]
You vaguely remembered having Kun's number from being put in a group chat during your trainee days, but you didn't imagine that he'd have kept yours, much less use it to actually text you, especially not to compliment you.
Your head was spinning as your lame thumbs hurried to type out your reply.
[you: thank you so much!]
The rest of the night until you finally fell asleep, you were anticipating a reply from Kun that never came.
☆
"So, Y/N, what's your favorite B-side from the mini-album?" The MC asked you, your new album proudly on display on the table between the two of you.
"A lot of my friends say that they like 'Just Saying.'" You replied politely, keeping up your 'idol smile' as you spoke.
"But I asked for your favorite."
You inhaled and paused. Your company, the MC, and fans watching were hanging onto your every word, waiting for you to drop breadcrumbs about your "relationship" with Yuta. To confirm the speculations that the most romantic track, 'Only One' was about him. In fact, your manager had coached you for this specific question beforehand.
"'Not You, Just Me.'" Was your confident answer, dropping your persona for a moment as you continued on. "It was a song whose lyrics I truly penned from the heart, from years of experience. Everything from the words down to the BPM were taken straight from me, from times when I've felt like that. Vulnerable, forgotten, not good enough. I remember the first time I listened to the finished version, I cried. It's so painfully me that I couldn't help it. And I hope that everyone who listens to it can feel something like that too."
A weight was lifted off your chest just then, even though you were well aware of the earful you'd get from your manager after this. You had always promised your fans to be honest about your music, and you weren't about to forgo that trust now. The interviewer nodded, flipping to her next notecard, immediately becoming animated again, "Ooh, okay. So we all know about the ridiculously stunning outfits in your music video, which was your favorite to film in?"
The rest of the interview continued on like that, superficial questions that you had little to no interest in. But you were content with your slightly rebellious answer from earlier, leaving you complacent and satiated for it. Your manager surprisingly didn't comment on your b-side answer as he lead you out to the car.
"Have you and Yuta started preparing your stage for SM Town in New York?" He asked instead, making your eyes nearly roll into the back of your head.
SM Town was having a huge showcase in New York in two months, and the company wanted you and Yuta to have your own 'power couple' stage for it. You still had no clue why they were keeping this up, netizens had long forgotten about Mark having a beer in LA, which was supposed to be your purpose for fake-dating. But now you had just celebrated your three-month fake-aversary, and it felt like it was dragging on for way too long.
"We have some ideas," You told him noncommittally. In reality, you hadn't done anything for it yet. "How long are we going to keep this up? People have forgotten about Mark by now."
"Y/N, it's more than that now, can't you see? You two are SM's power couple." At the clear skepticism on your face, he added on, "After the initial shock, our stocks went up by over 150%, and your fans and NCTzens alike are madly eating up every SNS post, music video, song, and album that either of you put out. You had an all-kill this comeback, Y/N. Last time you barely charted. NCT 127's teaser pictures are getting three times as many retweets as their last ones from just five months ago. This is the best thing that's happened to SM Entertainment in years."
"So I'm going to take that as an 'eventually.'" Disgruntled, you focused your attention down to your phone screen, making it clear to him that you didn't want to talk about it anymore.
☆
"Water break!" You declared, laying down on the cool floor of the practice room as Yuta went to pause the ever-looping song.
The two of you were practicing your duet for SM Town in New York and had been running through the whole thing on repeat for a good part of the day. It was a smooth, suggestive song that had you in a much closer proximity to your friend than you would've liked. At least you worked well together, it really brought you back to your trainee days.
"Do you remember our performance at the trainee showcase? Our last one before you debuted?" Yuta recalled as he grabbed two water bottles from the mini-fridge in the corner.
"Of course. It was me, you, Yeri, and Ten. We produced our own song that was absolutely horrendous, but we thought it was a banger at the time," you couldn't help but cackle along with Yuta as the song played in your head.
"And we absolutely killed it."
"Yeah."
Sitting up, you unscrewed the cap from the bottle he had just handed you, taking a deep breath before chugging three-fourths of it in one go. Refreshing. The two of you continued reminiscing in your trainee and rookie days for a few more minutes before determining that you had to get back up and start practicing again.
Just as you got to the part where you had to lean back and grab Yuta's face to bring it closer to yours, as if you were going to kiss—which you most definitely were not going to do—you spotted someone at the doorway to the practice room. With a surprised yelp, you wrenched yourself from Yuta's grasp, stumbling forward away from him before turning around to face the visitor.
Kun was dressed in a white t-shirt and dark wash jeans with his forehead peering out from underneath his light brown hair, a look that should not have had your heart thumping so loud in your ears, but it did. Or maybe that was the heart attack he had just given you. In his hand was a plastic bag with what looked like a couple to-go containers inside. He blinked blankly at you for a moment before looking away to address Yuta, holding the bag out towards him, "Brought you lunch."
"You're the best, Kun!" Yuta took it over to the singular stool beside the door. "Are you eating with us?"
"I can't. NCT U is practicing their SM Town stage and I have to be in the room for my very important part of doing absolutely nothing and not even being on stage." He deadpanned, a statement that brought a wrangled, choking laugh out from the depths of your constricted throat.
Kun's eyes snapped back over to you briefly, and you could've sworn you saw the corner of his mouth almost curl into a smile before he turned his attention to Yuta once again.
"I mean, Y/N and I were just finishing, and the other day she was telling me about this sasaeng who has started hanging out around her apartment building, so maybe you know, we should both walk her home, for extra protection."
You looked at Yuta with a nearly incredulous look. Every single thing he said was a flat out lie, you had at least another hour of practicing left, and there was no sasaeng out by your apartment building. "I don't—"
"It sounds like she needs a real body guard, not us two wimps." Kun once again had his dry humor in his voice, earning a strained giggle from you. He started back towards the door, gently turning the handle to yank it open, "Bye Yuta, bye Y/N."
Your heart lurched to your throat when he said your name, making you unable to even mumble a goodbye to him until the door was shut and he was long gone from earshot. Crumpling to the ground, you curled into a ball and let out a half-screech half-groan into your knees.
"I'm fucking pathetic." You moaned as you hit the side of your head against the wood paneling of the floor repeatedly.
"Y/N." Yuta forcibly sat you up to keep you from self-injury, mimicking your position to stay eye-level with you. "As your best friend of six years now—"
"Best friend?" You snorted, earning a silencing glare from him.
"As I was saying. As your good friend of six years now, I hate seeing you do this to yourself. You've been whipped for him for how long?"
"Five years."
This had clearly caught him off-guard, "Wait, what?"
"It was Kun's first day at SM. He knew a handful of phrases in Korean, even fewer in English, and I knew no Chinese. But he was so... genuine. Even though we didn't have a real conversation, I wanted to keep talking to him." You gripped your knees even tighter to your chest as you spoke, miserably reliving the interaction.
"And did you?"
"Yeah. We started going in for our language classes together, he was learning Korean and I was learning English. Every time he learned something new in Korean, he would share it with me, and he'd be so proud, and his eyes would just... light up whenever I complimented his pronunciation or grammar. We started having real conversations soon enough, and with each one my first impression of him never changed. He was genuine, well-rooted, and absolutely wonderful. And I had—have it bad for him."
"It's been five years."
"It hasn't been five years of pure pining, I'm not that pathetic." You scoffed at the notion, releasing one leg to gently kick his. "It comes and goes. It only got bad again once you and I started fake dating."
"And you want to real date him."
"Even if he actually liked me, there's no way we could now. SM has made you and me their power couple, we're the face of the company. They're not planning on letting us break up anytime soon, and after that I could never show any romantic interest in another idol, much less one under the same company and in the same group as you. I'd be labelled a whore who deserves to be burned at the stake by every netizen. It's a catch-22, a lose-lose for me."
Yuta flicked your forehead, a harsh snap out of your melancholy trance. "You, my dear, are extremely negative."
You flicked him back, "You, my dear, are obnoxiously positive. Besides, I'm not being negative, I'm being real."
"Who says being real means thinking everything's gone to shit? Being real can also be seeing a bright side to things."
"Please give me the bright side of this situation."
"We might actually have those fake kids."
At this you pushed him over, which he took in stride to dramatically roll over and sprawl out on the floor as if he was a cartoon character who had just been killed by an anvil. He popped back up to say, "But seriously, the bright side is that now you have the opportunity to confront your feelings for him. This is it, Y/N. You either do it or you don't. Tell him now or let him go. Don't let this keep eating at you."
"You sound like a fanfic, Yuta."
"Am I wrong?"
"Okay, so what if I do tell him? And what if he feels the same? Then what are we going to do?"
"You'll figure it out."
"You're such a big help."
"I'm not supposed to be planning your whole life for you. I'm here to motivate you to do that shit for yourself."
You had been on this uncomfortable and depressing topic for way too long, "Can we just eat and get back to practicing?"