“Hey Mingyu, who’s Jihoonie?”

Mingyu felt his heart drop to his stomach. He had left his phone with his friends in the classroom when he went to wash his hands (his damn pen broke and made a mess of black ink on his hands, much to his friends' amusement). He forgot that they could be nosy and that he had secrets he couldn’t tell them.

“More specifically, heart heart sparkle Jihoonie sparkle peach-“

Grabbing his phone from Seokmin's hands (Seokmin almost falling off from the desk he was sitting on, Mingyu thought it was too bad that he didn’t), Mingyu says a bit too loudly: “No one!”

Seokmin narrowed his eyes at him, and it looked creepy paired with the smile pasted on his face eternally. “Didn’t seem like no one,” he said suspiciously. “Must be really close to you if he’s asking you to buy milk.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you got a boyfriend!” Soonyoung accused.

“Holy , did you already move in with him?!” Seungkwan cried out, earning shocked gasps from their group of friends. “You said you were moving away to take care of your sick uncle but you actually eloped with a guy?!”

“No!!” Mingyu looked back at the three pairs of eyes staring at him intently, awaiting an explanation from him. He couldn’t come up with an excuse to have someone demand that he buy them milk or why he had to save their number surrounded by hearts and sparkles, so he blurted out: “Fine, I have a boyfriend!”

-

“Hyung, you have to help me!” 

“No way.”

It’s been an hour since Mingyu asked Wonwoo to act as a fake boyfriend, and Wonwoo had gone back to reading on the floor. But Mingyu sure was desperate. And annoyingly persistent.

“Say the magic words first,” Wonwoo said, not looking up from his book.

“I already said ‘please’ multiple times!” Mingyu wailed.

“Not that. Magic words. As in, what I'm going to get out of this.”

Mingyu thought for a moment. “I’ll buy you a book.” That was probably the way to Wonwoo's heart. He was always reading, or telling Mingyu to shut up because he wanted to read. Mingyu felt proud of himself for coming up with this.

“Just a book?”

“Books?” Mingyu asked hopefully. “Whatever you want.”

Wonwoo looked up from his book, seeing Mingyu bending down to stare at him. He scrunched his nose. “If you buy me the limited edition box set of classics that I want, I’ll consider.”

Mingyu grinned victoriously, oblivious of the cost of books. “Deal!”

-

“This is my boyfriend Jihoon,” Mingyu says sheepishly.

“I’m his boyfriend Jihoon,” Wonwoo deadpans beside him. 

Seungkwan, Seokmin and Soonyoung look at each other.

"He's handsome!" they all exclaim loudly. They then praise Mingyu for being handsome enough to snag a man like that. Mingyu can only grin in what he hoped looked like a shy way, but deep inside he just found the whole situation awkward.

Wonwoo turned out to be the perfect fake boyfriend. Not only was did he have the looks of an actor, but he was pretty good at acting cool too. Mingyu was surprised he didn't make any lame puns (which he feared he was going to whenever Wonwoo so much as breathed). 

Mingyu's friends were treated to ice cream by his cool older boyfriend (Mingyu was sure he would be paying for this too though, he thought regrettably) and Wonwoo smoothly managed to cut the meeting-the-friends scenario with a cringey "now I want to have Mingyu to myself" excuse. Mingyu wanted to puke but Soonyoung fanboyed over how "cute" they were.

-

"That wasn't too bad," Wonwoo decided once they got away from Mingyu's friends and the tall boy could heave a sigh of relief. "Your friends seem okay. I bet they would've found my puns punny." He chortled at his own joke.

"No they wouldn't," Mingyu whined.

They sat on a park bench for a while, watching the sky get darker as the sun started setting.

"You okay?" Wonwoo asked. The younger boy seemed awfully quiet for someone who just got out of a sticky situation, eyes staring out into the distance.

"I dunno, hyung." Mingyu sighed, shoulders slumped in defeat. "I don't want this secret marriage to get out and be troublesome for Jihoon, but I hate lying to my friends."

Wonwoo nodded silently. Somehow this kid was still thinking about his friends, no matter how "annoying" he described them to Wonwoo when they were planning their fake boyfriend story. He ruffled Mingyu's hair. "You're a good friend. They'll understand when you tell them in the future."

Mingyu gave him a sad smile. "I hope so."