The Great Pretender

Surprise

Seunghyun had been right about getting scolded for his hickey. They had another performance slotted for Inkigayo, and his makeup artist had hemmed and hawed over him, tilting his head to the side and slathering concealer over his throat.

She chided, "Tell whatever girl you've taken up with to stay away from your neck next time. Keep the marks somewhere they won't be visible."

"It wasn't a girl! It was Jiyong! And I tried to stop him."

Jiyong giggled in the chair beside him. When their noona turned an impressive eyebrow his way, Jiyong's laughter came to an abrupt stop. He sat up in his seat and looked straight forward, a child caught misbehaving.

She shook her head in amusement, dabbing at Seunghyun's throat with setting powder. "I don't even wanna know."

She was still fussing over his mark when Jiyong relaxed back into his seat. "Speaking of girls, I think I saw the one from last time lingering out in the hall."

"One from last time?"

Jiyong primped his hair in the mirror. "Yeah, the one with the legs."

"Don't most girls have legs?"

Jiyong turned to the side to check out his profile. "Do they? You tell me, you're the expert."

"Me?"

Jiyong shrugged. "Anyways, she's out there if you want to talk to her."

Seunghyun barely remembered what she looked like, hadn't given her a passing thought since she'd left their waiting room, heels clicking as she walked. "I don't want to talk to her."

"Too shy?"

"Not interested," Seunghyun corrected.

Jiyong caught his eye in the mirror. "What, already? You moved on quick."

"There was nothing to move on from. She's not my type."

Jiyong snorted, focusing his attention back on his hair. "I think she's exactly your type."

Seunghyun was about to retort when the buzz of a cellphone interrupted him. Jiyong pulled his phone out to check his messages. "Soohyuk says Joowon and some of the other models they did the shoot with are getting together tonight. He asked if we wanna go."

Seunghyun saw it so clearly in his mind, how another evening with Joowon would go. More smiles, more of Jiyong's attention on someone other than him. More of him watching from the sidelines. "We can't," he blurted.

Jiyong paused, fingers poised over the keypad to accept Soohyuk's invitation. "Why not?"

"We're busy," Seunghyun lied.

"We are?"

Seunghyun's mind raced to come up with a suitable explanation, something he could say to get himself out of this. "Yeah, um, we have plans."

"What plans? I don't remember any plans."

"That's 'cause it's a surprise."

"A surprise?"

"Yeah..." Seunghyun said, dragging the word out, trying to stall till he could come up with something. "For, um...for your birthday." His mouth twisted, unsure where that had even come from. It wasn't even August.

Jiyong gave him a weird look. "My birthday's not for another few months."

"Yeah, I know, but..." Seunghyun trailed off. God, why was he so dumb? He finally decided to do what any good liar did after muttering something absurd. He committed. "Well, you know how I'm really bad at remembering this kind of stuff? Yeah, so I figured we should probably go ahead and celebrate now while I was thinking about it. So you don't yell at me for forgetting later."