The next day you had to cut through the smoker’s area to get to your class. This somehow gave Nick, who was smoking there, the impression that you were willing to talk to him. He followed you to the door of the building you were headed to, despite smoking not being allowed within any campus buildings.

“Hey Erin.” He huffed, blowing smoke into your face as he blocked your path.

“Hey Nick.” You half coughed. “Sorry, I’m in a hurry right now.” That wasn’t a lie. You still wanted to review some of the reading before class started and ask the teacher about your assignment.

“We haven’t hung out in ages though. You can be a little late. And for once that isn’t here to bother us.” He grinned. His teeth were yellowed from the years of smoking. You tried not to gag as Nick blew another puff of smoke into your face. Did he think that was charming or something?

“I really have to go. Besides, I really don’t like smoke.” You waved it out of your face.

“Psh, it’s all bull. I had an uncle who smoked all his life and never got sick. I got those good genes.” He smirked. You tried to move around him, clutching your bag tightly. Maybe he had good genes, but you had asthma and didn’t feel like having an asthma attack right now. Or ever, really.

“That’s nice, but I really don’t have time.” You offered. Nick sighed exasperatedly.

“Well you can at least give me a hug before you go. You know you want some of this.” He gestured at his body with the hand that was still holding the cigarette. He then spread his arms expectantly and wiggled his eyebrows at you. Seriously?

“No, I’m good.” You answered nervously. Nick seemed offended and stepped closer to you.

“Don’t be like that. Just one hug and I’ll let you go.” He winked. You shook your head. Nick now looked outright angry, his face turning red as he seemed to puff up out of indignity. Before you could run past him, he grabbed you and forced you against his chest. The smell was so overwhelmingly disgusting that you gagged, pushing against his chest in a desperate attempt to get away from him. Nick wouldn’t let up.

“Don’t be such a stuck up ! You’re not too good for me you dumb !” He exclaimed.

“Get your hands off my girlfriend!” Taehyung. Oh thank God. With Taehyung’s outcry surprising Nick, you managed to escape, running to hide behind Taehyung, nearly crying with fear and nausea. Nick, having realized his prey got away, glared at Taehyung who was sheltering you.

“Erin’s not your girlfriend. She’s way too hot for you, a guy like you couldn’t handle like that.” Bam! As soon as those words left his mouth, Taehyung slugged him in the face hard enough to knock the unsuspecting creep over.

“Don’t talk about her like that, ever! And leave her alone!” Taehyung growled before turning back to you. He was still angry, too angry to give you his usual smile, but offered you a shaking hand instead which you took.

During the walk inside, Taehyung slowly calmed down, though his hand was still shaking when you arrived at your classroom. You felt worse for him than you did for yourself now, so you sat him down and patted his arm soothingly. Taehyung said nothing, his face having turned rather pale. Sensing it’d be best to give him some time, you sat down next to him silently, the back of his hand. Taehyung sighed and dropped his head on your shoulder as he tried to breathe evenly.

“I punched someone. I punched a man in the face. What if I get expelled?” He trembled. It was both endearing and upsetting to see him like this. Instinctively, you wrapped your arms around his shoulder, rocking him ever so gently.

“It’s okay Taehyung. It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong, no one will expel you. Just breathe.” You whispered, trying to comfort him. Taehyung sniffled and clutched at you, nearly crying. As he had done for you before, you reached up and gently wiped his tears away.

“I don’t like being aggressive. I don’t want to scare you, and I hate hurting people. I just got so angry.” He bit his lip and turned, pressing his face into your shoulder, letting out a quiet sob. You rubbed a hand over his back, occasionally stopping to give him a gentle pat. “Do you think I’m aggressive?” Taehyung finally whispered. You shook your head.

“I think you were very brave to stand up for me like that. It’s easy to look away at times like that. I know you’re not the type to hurt anything. You’re the sweetest guy I know.” You whispered. Taehyung let out a giggle between his sobs, looking up at you with a spark of happiness.

“I knew he was bullting. You do like nice guys.” He laughed, and you laughed along, gently tapping his forehead with your middle knuckles.

“Of course I like nice guys. And out of all nice guys I like you best.” You weren’t too ashamed of admitting that. Taehyung smiled, rubbing away his tears to sit up slightly.

“How do you think fake dating is supposed to work?” You asked sheepishly. You’d officially outed yourself to Nick as ‘dating’, so now you had to start acting like that. Taehyung glanced up at the ceiling as he was thinking, pursing his lips slightly. After a few seconds he shrugged and looked back at you.

“I guess just say yes to people when they ask if we’re dating?” He grinned. You nudged his shoulder, but nodded. Yeah, that might help. “I mean… As far as I know, couples have a lot of skinship, but we already do that. And they like each other, and we also like each other.” He said it stone faced, making you yelp and nudge him again.

“Well, I wouldn’t want a relationship like a drama that’s true.” You agreed. You didn’t have time to wait and misunderstand each other for several weeks. Taehyung nodded in agreement and leaned back in his seat, thinking it over again.

“We should sit together at lunch…- Wait we already do that too. And I walk you to your classes. Did you ever date anyone before? What was it like?” He leaned closer to you, showing an almost childlike innocent interest. You raised an eyebrow. If teen magazines had taught you one thing, it was to never talk about your exes to boyfriends. Of course, Taehyung wasn’t really your boyfriend.

“I don’t know… We played Mario Kart together? And this one time I pecked him on the cheek. I was fourteen okay?” You shrugged. Taehyung laughed, though it didn’t seem like he was laughing at you. “I baked him cookies once. But I don’t have an oven here.”

“I have an oven. I could bake you cookies.”

“You can bake?”

“No. But I have an oven.” Taehyung earned another punch to the shoulder for that remark, but he also made you laugh. Maybe that was the most important thing, making each other laugh? As you pondered that, you realized that it was high time for your class to start. After hastily bidding Taehyung goodbye, you grabbed your back and ran into the lecture hall. At the door, you stopped to give him a wave, which he returned, but then you rushed to get a front row seat.

Your class was a practicum rather than a lecture, so you got to work on some animation models, which you were happy about. With everything going on, you weren’t sure whether you’d have been able to concentrate on a lecture for an hour and a half. Especially not when you hadn’t even had coffee yet. Instead, you spent half an hour struggling with attaching shoulders properly to a model, getting frustrated and tossing the shoulder models into the trash, designing new shoulders and starting all over again.

“What do you reckon?” You asked a Chinese exchange student who was attempting to work with you, though she was trying to figure out knee joints. She glanced at your third attempt at shoulders and nodded vaguely.

“I don’t know how much better we could make them with the resources we have right now. If we could download a template for shoulders that would help.” She sighed, running a hand through her already messy hair. You’d noticed she had a tendency to scratch her scalp while working, resulting in video game-esque hairstyles.

“Yeah, as if they’d make it easy on us.” You mumbled, dropping your head on your desk. Your fellow student copied your action and sighed out loud.

“I can’t concentrate either. Today’s my anniversary with my boyfriend but he hasn’t even texted me yet.” She looked really upset about it. You nodded, wondering what you’d feel if Taehyung didn’t text you in the evening. It was such a daily event, you’d feel a little empty without it.

“Is he in this university as well?” You asked, tapping your mousepad once without real interest in what would happen to your model. All your models were backed up twice anyway. The girl sighed and shook her head.

“No. You are so lucky your boyfriend does go here.” She commented, casting a glance at the door where you’d waved goodbye to Taehyung. You felt your cheeks turning bright red, but couldn’t deny it. You decided to make use of this moment and ask her for some advice. She was your senior in relationships after all.

“Hey, can I ask you about that?” You propped yourself up on your elbows. “To be honest, we just started dating recently and we’re actually at a loss. Like, we were really close friends. We’re still really close friends… I don’t know, I’m not sure how to differentiate us from before. What should I do?” The girl also propped herself up, giving you an odd look.

“Your relationship doesn’t have to look like anything to be valid, you know? As long as you two both feel the same, it’s a relationship. Plus, you two look really intimate already.” She poked your cheek. “It’s making me feel all depressed over my boyfriend.”

She was probably right. You tapped both your cheeks and took a deep breath before getting back to the modelling. The shoulders were still an absolute pain, but it seemed to go a little easier now. The girl introduced herself as Zhao Bing Bing, which sounded even more adorable when she pronounced it, and you exchanged phone numbers. You advised her to tell her boyfriend about how she felt. It was what you usually did with Taehyung. Even if you weren’t really dating him.

During lunch time you could practically feel Nick seething as he glared at you and Taehyung walking hand in hand. It looked and felt a little awkward because you might naturally have held his hand, but it felt like everyone was watching you right now. Bing Bing hadn’t warned you about this. Taehyung didn’t look like he had a care in the world, but that was probably because his favourite dish was on the menu.

“Should I get you some coffee?” You asked, feeling a little elated at all the skinship. It was weird. Taehyung looked up at you in surprise, then shrugged though he cast a glance at Nick. Nick was on the other side of the cafeteria, the coffee machines weren’t too far away and Taehyung would still be between you and Nick. It was probably safe. “Sorry, I just feel like everyone is staring for some reason. I’m sure caffeine will help me.” You laughed nervously. Taehyung smiled, letting go of your hand.

“We’ll hide behind Jungkook. He’s very tall.” He gave your arm a gentle pat and you skipped off to the coffee machine. Taehyung usually liked rather fancy coffees, but the machine only had a few. So you picked the chocolate-iest one and waited. While you waited, you heard a commotion behind you. Please don’t be Nick, please don’t be Nick, please don’t be Nick, you wished desperately. But it was Nick. He’d snuck up on Taehyung and was cursing him out.

A rage built in your chest and before you knew it you’d marched your way over to Taehyung and the deranged stalker. With more power than you thought your 5 foot nothing body could muster, you shoved Nick away and took a protective stance half in front of you. Taehyung towered over you, but it was the gesture that mattered. Nick looked at you in surprise, but you weren’t about to back down now.

“Leave my boyfriend alone! I’m not going to break up with him and date you, ever! And by being such a huge , I don’t even want to be in the same room as you. Get it through your thick skull!” You yelled at him, only belatedly realizing you’d yelled it in Korean. Nick apparently heard your ranting as a threat, taking another step back.

“Geesh you psycho, just calm down. I wasn’t going to do anything.” He scoffed, raising his hands in mock defence. You felt even angrier at that.

“Then go away. Just accept that Taehyung is the guy I chose. I’ll kiss him right now if that makes things clearer for you.” A fantastic threat, you thought sarcastically. Apparently Nick did see that as a serious threat. Muttering something about ‘no one wants to see that’, he turned around and stomped out of the cafeteria. Watching him walk away, your rage drained slowly and you reached up to touch your temple. The screaming and feeling of liberation left you feeling a little lightheaded. Taehyung’s coughing called you back and you quickly turned around, eyes darting away from his face.

“Ehm… Sorry.” You muttered. “I… The coffee…” Taehyung stared at you silently and you felt like sinking through the ground. To avoid further embarrassment, you shame-walked back to the coffee machine and picked up his coffee. Your hands were shaking so badly you thought you might accidentally spill it.

After your outburst, you felt too ashamed to sit with Taehyung’s friends. They probably heard everything. Everyone had heard everything. Most people had the decency to go on with their lives, but a few people still pointed and whispered. Head hung in shame, you decided to sit alone at an empty table with Taehyung’s coffee still in your hands. Damn it. You’d ruined everything. What must Taehyung think of you now? You didn’t want to look at him. Maybe if you just tried to fall asleep you, this would all be a horrible nightmare.

“Hey, Erin.” You froze when you recognized Yoongi’s voice. What was he doing here? Scared to death because his voice had that cold chill to it again, you looked up to see him standing next to your seat. Taehyung wasn’t with him. You swallowed and looked down again, not sure what to say.

“Get your to our table. I don’t know how it works in the UK, but here you can’t just leave a guy hanging after telling him you’ll kiss him.” Yoongi smirked, prodding at your shoulder. You winced, dropping your head on your arms.

“Shut up. I didn’t mean… I mean I meant that but…”

“Then get your to our table. I’m not asking you again. You walk or you get carried, missy.” You weren’t entirely sure whether or not he was joking.