To Put On An Act [bxb]

Chapter 5 - nothing to worry

Kaya spun around on the office chair, her knee hitting the desk everytime she had made one full rotation. Everytime, she let out a little ough, but made no effort to adjust her seat to avoid the pain. Her bag was on the floor, exactly where she'd thrown it when she had walked into Youngbin's room about fourteen minutes ago, and she didn't seem interested in pulling out any of its contents.

She'd told Youngbin earlier that she still needed the notes from yesterday's biology lesson she slept through and thus was required to come over to copy them personally. And Youngbin wasn't the person to deny Kaya coming over, especially not on a boring Saturday like this. Though now she didn't seem as interested in biology notes anymore.

Watching her spin round and round, Youngbin sat cross legged on his bed, his iPad in front of him, with his notes on human evolution open and unused. Kaya did not seem to be very interested in them, and he had a hunch that biology wasn't the reason she was here.

"Kaya? My notes are right here, by the way?"

"Yep. Forget the notes. I don't care about bio that much."

Of course she didn't. She hated their biology teacher. And the subject in general.

"So you came here because...?"

"Duh!" She abruptly stopped spinning by grabbing the desk. "Your boyfriend business! What the hell is up with that!"

"You didn't have to pretend to need help with bio to get here, you know that?"

"Still wanted a valid reason to hang out."

"'I want to hang out' is a pretty valid reason to hang out."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't distract from the topic at hand, Binnie. Alex. You. How. When. Why?" She spun to face Youngbin, leaned forward and looked at him with her huge golden eyes.

"Since Thursday. He asked me out." Youngbin tried to make his voice sound as neutral as possible. Though talking about someone you were supposedly in love with wasn't all that neutral.

"Thursday? He asked you out after you got glued to his table?" Kaya exhaled, biting her lip as she looked to be pondering. "Bin, I don't mean to alarm you, but- Are you sure he's not messing with you?"

Well, he sure had thought about this plenty of times as well. And something in the back of his mind was still screaming at him to break this off now, to wake up and realise Alex was just trying to hurt him. But something else, a very gullible and naive part of him, had taken over since their visit to the cafe. Alex was safe. For now. Probably.

"It's not like that. He's really nice."

"Of course he is. His bruised knuckles and alcohol consumption on school grounds tell you how nice of a person he is."

"Kaya, really. He's nice." Nice probably wasn't the word to use when talking about a boyfriend. But what were the right words? Dreamily? Heavenly? Perfect in every way? "We get along really well." And that, also, didn't seem like the right description.

"So you're dating him because you 'get along well'. That's what you waste your first boyfriend experience on." She fell back on the office chair and it creaked horribly. "I didn't know you were that desperate for a boyfriend."

Well, that was rude.

"It's not that I'm desperate!" Youngbin felt the slightest bit of heat creeping up in his face. "It's just- I guess we just- clicked!"

"You don't sound like it c- Okay." With a sigh and another creak, Kaya got up from the chair and flopped down on Youngbin's bed, missing his iPad barely. She had a look on her face that looked a bit like Youngbin's therapist when she was about to say something very serious and very worrying. "Youngbin, if Alex is pressuring you into this, you can tell me. I'll help you out. I'll stab him in his sleep if I have to. You can tell me-"