♡12

"Fake-date. Or we could fake-date." 

Hyemin's eyes widened at his words. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her words got stuck in her throat. There was no way he was being serious right now.

Never in a million years did she think she'd heard him out of all people say that. 

"Hyunwoo will leave me alone," she muttered to herself. "What about you? There's no way you'd do it unless it could benefit you too,"

"It's a long story and I'm not in the mood to talk about it." Sunghoon answered. 

To make it sort; he'd been lying to Ni-ki about having a girlfriend, and Ni-ki may have told Jake, who was upset that Sunghoon didn't tell him first, and Jake may have told his other friends, causing his entire friend group to believe he has a girlfriend when, in reality, he just had his heartbroken by unrequited love.

Plus, telling them the whole truth would be extremely unpleasant for Sunghoon, especially since Ni-ki and Jungwon would tease him endlessly about it, but just as he was about to do so, this whole rumor about him and Hyemin started going around. 

He didn't know whether to feel happy that he saved himself from embarrassment, or that he had a new problem to deal with. 

"So are you in or not?" Sunghoon asked.

A nod from her. 

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"Let's set some basic ground rules," said Hyemin while taking out her phone and Sunghoon nodded. 

Sunghoon was in deep thought for a few seconds before he spoke up, "Only hand-holding is allowed."

"If we're gonna do this, at least make it look authentic." She said. "How about hand-holding and hugging only?"

A nod from him. 

"Oh and no kissing." said Hyemin. A faint blush rose up to Sunghoon's cheeks at the thought of him and Hyemin kissing. 

"No kissing." 

Hyemin nodded as she types them down in her notes app.

"How about we walk home together 3 times a week? Is that convincing enough?" Sunghoon added. 

She really couldn't believe they were doing this. Just a week ago she wanted to rip Sunghoon's head off and now they were dating? Even though it was all fake, she still felt a bit weird about this. 

She's heard stories about people faking dating and the outcome was that they'd fallen for the other person. She shuddered at the thought of falling for Park Sunghoon. There was no way she would ever like someone like him. Right?

"Yeah, that's good enough." She said. "What about during lunch though? Do we sit together or separately?"

Sunghoon wanted to ask her and Jiwon to join him at his friend group's table but that meant he had to face Chaeyeon, which was something he still wasn't ready for.

For the past 2 weeks, he'd come up with excuses to not join them at the table whether it'd be going to the library or skipping lunch. 

As much as he's happy for Jungwon and Chaeyeon, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy whenever he sees them together. 

Though he managed to successfully avoid her for the last 2 weeks, he wasn't so sure he could do it anymore. It would just make everything easier if they just sat at a separate table with some of his friends so it wouldn't be awkward. 

"We'll sit at a separate table with Jay and Jake. " He said after some considerate thinking.

"So that's it?" Hyemin asked after they discussed whatever was needed. 

"I think so." Sunghoon nodded. That was until a thought hit him. "What about the uhm break up?"

She turned to face him, "Either one of us can call the quits whenever you find it necessary or not." 

Sunghoon nodded. He was thinking to continue this whole fake dating thing until Hyunwoo found someone else to bother or something. One thing he knew was to break things off before it got too serious. 

Hyemin grabbed her bag and stood up, "Well I gotta go now, bye." 

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Hyemin rang the doorbell and paused for a few moments. She tried again to think of something she might do to upset Jiwon that much for her to start ignoring her, but she couldn't think of anything. She only knew one thing: she wanted to mend it.

She couldn't afford to lose her best friend of 10 years. They'd been with each other through thick and thin and Jiwon even helped her get over her ex.

"Is Jiwon here?" Hyemin asked when Jiwon's brother answered the door. 

"Yeah, she's inside." He let her in. Hyemin thanked her brother and made her way into the house. She'd been in this house more than a hundred times and knew it like the back of her hand. 

She remembered that one time when she had a 5-day sleepover here. Having two sleep-deprived teenagers in the same house was a nightmare.

Hyemin knocked on Jiwon's room door and waited for a few seconds. Jiwon didn't even have to think to guess who it was. It was already obvious from the rhythmic knocks.

"Hyemin?" Jiwon questioned as she opened the door.

"Look, I know you're mad at me for something I did so I'm sorry if I did something to piss you off. Usually, when you're mad at me, you wouldn't ignore me and this is the first time you did so I figured I must've done something really bad and-"

"Hyemin," Jiwon called. "You're rambling again."

Hyemin stopped to think and realized she was right. "Well, I couldn't help myself since-"

"I'm not mad at you." Jiwon forced herself to say. "I was just... on my period and my brother was annoying me so I kinda directed my anger towards you. Sorry." 

She stared at Jiwon for a few seconds, then flicked her forehead really hard. 

"Ow!" 

"You idiot! I really thought you were mad at me. Next time you should've just told me so." She jokingly glared at her best friend. 

Jiwon had been thinking about asking Hyemin about a question that had been bothering her since she arrived at school today, but something else got in the way. She'd rather not tell anyone about it, not even her best friend.

"Don't you have any explaining to do though?" She raised her eyebrows at Hyemin. 

Hyemin's eyebrows furrowed in confusion until she realized what Jiwon meant.  

"Oh well, it's a long story." said Hyemin, as she sat down on the floor. 

"Oh." Jiwon muttered. She realized that Jiwon had an unreadable expression written all over her face. Hyemin tried to decipher what that look meant but she had no idea herself.

"So you're dating Park Sunghoon?" 

"It sounds weird when you say it like that." She shuddered, scrolling through her Instagram. "Anyways, let's please talk about something else now." 

this chapter was ass i know