𝑴𝒊𝒏-𝒆 || Min Ho x Reader

✧˖° | 10

The plan worked!

Paparazzi photos of Min Ho and I on the hill spreading like wildfire, posted on every major gossip newsletter and fanpage. The internet was tripping over itself, and I had to admit that it was hilarious. All I had to do was sit back, scroll, and act like nothing had happened.

"I called it!" Q said the moment I told him.

 If only they knew the truth.

But it wasn't just my friends that bought our ridiculous fake-dating scheme. I thought it would be quite obviously fake, but it was everyone. Friends, classmates, total strangers... People were so quick and more than happy to believe whatever I shoved in front of them. 

So to them, Min Ho and I being a couple makes sense?? I thought to myself incredulously, every single day after the hard launch. Unbelievable. The bar for critical thinking is underground.

My phone had blown up with notifications of mentions, tags, or DMs. Everyone suddenly had a keen interest in every aspect of "my relationship." My feed was flooded with posts titled "A match made in heaven" and headlines like "Couple of the Year?" There were even relationship experts studying our body language to see if we really liked each other! I thought was waste of their sociology degrees, because they all collectively reported that we were in love. 

I hadn't expected to go so viral. I'd only wanted my mother off my back! The whole situation was rather unnerving.

I found myself pressing the mute button on every platform until the buzzing stopped. The screen dimmed, and I just stared at my reflection. 

It was the first month, and I was already over it.

The weeks that followed blurred into something I hadn't expected. For all his arrogance and selfishness, Min Ho wasn't a terrible fake boyfriend. He showed up, and not always in an obvious way, but in small actions that chipped away at the distance I'd tried to maintain.

At first, it was study sessions. On the days I didn't have to tutor Ray, he'd meet me in the library and slide into the empty seat across from me. I would tell him to get out, and he'd toss his notes onto the table with an exaggerated sigh.

"I won't bother you," he'd say loftily. "I just happen to work better when I'm smarter than the person next to me."

He was rude about it, and yet he'd stay for hours. We'd either work in silence, which was nice, or he'd ask questions he didn't really need help with just to anger me, which was not as nice. 

Sometimes, when I got frustrated, he'd grin and repeat my words back to me in a mocking voice until I threw my book at him. Someone posted us with the caption "play fighting," and I was so disgusted I ordered him to never set foot at my table again.

Then it was lunchtimes. The first day the photos were released, I walked into the cafeteria to see him already sitting at my table, acting like it was the most natural thing in the world. 

"What. Are you doing here."

"I moved to your lunch," he told me, smirking. "Every romcom teenage couple sits at the same table." 

After that, it became routine. He'd steal food off my plate "for the press", pretend he was doing me a favor by finishing it, and in return I'd kick him under the table. It was easy, almost too easy, to forget that we once despised each other.

There were late-night calls too. Some nights, when neither of us could sleep, we'd end up calling until the next day, or until Dae yelled at him to go to bed. He told me stories about Seoul, and KISS, and his life in the spotlight. I enjoyed these talks, because we were both too tired to banter. I got to know more about him, and in turn, I shared things I didn't normally say out loud.