AN: All the requests which I'm currently writing are listed in the foreword. If your request isn't there, just drop it in the comments, and I'll get around to writing it! Thanks! :)

For ainaeun + datzme

Straw

They had made a pact at the age of seventeen. And without knowing how much time had passed by, it was time to bring that pact into fruition.

*********

Naeun found her best friend Luhan, emoting by himself in a corner. He hadn't gone to work and she was worried about him. His mother directed her to his room and she found him in a depressed state, eyes bloodshot from crying. When she opened the door, she accidentally kicked his phone, and saw that it was cracked, probably because he threw it. The pictures that were plastered neatly on his wall was also torn and in pieces, surrounding Luhan on his bed and around the trash can. She sat down with him on the floor and put her arm around his shoulder.

"What's the matter, Lu?"

"She broke up with me..."

Naeun rubbed his back, attempting to somehow ease his pain. This wasn't the first time that a girl dumped Luhan, but this was the first girl that Luhan fell completely head over heels in love for. Naeun actually believed that this girl was going to last with Luhan, but obviously, she was just like the rest of them.

"It's okay, you'll find someone a million times better than her..."

"Maybe...I might give up on this whole dating thing for a while though..."

"Don't do that...just wait...you'll find someone..."

Less than a week later, Naeun was eating her words when Luhan found her crying in her bedroom. He wrapped his arms around her, and rested his head on her shoulder.

"Wanna tell me what's up?"

"He broke up with me..."

Luhan ruffled her hair.

"I guess you and I are in the same position right now. Getting dumped by people we really really liked..."

"How many times have you gotten dumped?"

"I think that was my fourth within the span of two years..."

"Yeah...this was my third in the span of a year..."

"Wanna give up with me?"

"Give up on what?"

"Love? Dating? Take your pick..."

"Let's get out of here? It's Friday, and you and I should go out and have some fun..."

"Where?"

Naeun quickly wiped her eyes, grabbed her phone, keys and wallet and threw them into a bag and pulled Luhan along with her. They took a bus and then ended up at a barbecue restaurant.

"Here!"

"You want us to eat?"

"No. We're going to drink. The meat is just a side dish..."

Luhan shrugged his shoulders and he could smell the scent of pork and beef wafting through the night air.

"What are we waiting for then?"

They got a seat in the furthest corner, away from the sight of public eyes and ordered a feast that could feed about ten people. They didn't care. They were just trying to forget their problems. Along with that, they ordered a starter pack of six bottles of soju and they poured a shot each for each other. They took successive drinks, and before the first set of meat had even finished, they had drunk two bottles together.

"This fun, don't you think, Lu?"

"Yeah...way better than any of the dates hat I had with that girl!"

"Eat up! It tastes good!"

They ate and drank well into the night and into the wee hours of the morning. They were stumbling over each other in their way home so they decided to sit it out on the street for a while before they called a taxi to come and pick them up and take them home.

"Naeun-ah..."

"Ne?"

"Let's make a promise..."

"What?"

"That if our future relationships don't work out, and we're both single on New Years Eve when we both will turn thirty, we will marry each other..."

Naeun was half asleep when she agreed to his proposal.

"Okay..."

"Promise me..."

Luhan held his pinky finger out, and Naeun hooked her pinky with his and sealed it off with their thumbs touching.

*********

"It's New Year’s Eve..."

"We still have an hour before the clock strikes twelve and we are both officially in the age where the digit starts with a three..."

"As if you and I would find someone within the next hour...

"Who knows, you found the last girl you dates pretty fast...you might be able to do it again tonight..."

"That's probably why my last ten relationships didn't work out and why yours didn't either..."

"We both fell in love too quickly..."

*********

Luhan was sitting in the park, taking photographs of the scenery when someone sat next to him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"I'm sorry, but could you maybe take a photo of me by that tree over there?”

“Sure.”

Luhan snapped a few photos and then when he checked them over to see if they looked nice, he couldn’t help but notice that she was a pretty girl. When he handed her back her camera, he asked her out for a cup of coffee and she said yes.

The coffee date turned into another and another and by the fourth date Luhan had already asked the girl to be his girlfriend. After three months, the love affair fizzled out and Luhan was left single again. The only difference, he learnt to move on much quicker, but of course, with a little help from his best friend.

After Luhan ended his relationship, Naeun got a boyfriend. Naeun was volunteering at the local library and instantly became attracted to one guys who was a frequent visitor. She noticed that he normally borrowed romance novels, and although she found it weird, after a while, he asked her out on a date. She said yes, and they had a romance of five months, like the ones in the romance novels.

Naeun broke up with him, when she found out that he was gay. She wasn’t that heartbroken and her and Luhan had a good laugh about their love lives after that.

*********

"The hour is up...it's a new year...and we're now officially thirty years old..."

"So..."

"So..."

Luhan knelt down and presented Naeun with a simple silver ring with a modest diamond on the top. She didn’t look surprised that he had it prepared. They both always had a feeling, that in the end it would be them.

"Will you marry me?"

"I distinctly remember saying yes before...but I'll say it again now. Yes!"

He slipped the ring on her finger and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"I'm glad I'm marrying my best friend..."

"Me too..."

"Hey, you know what? We could always say to our future children that you and I were always destined to be together..."

"Don't get too far ahead of yourself, Lu...who said that you and I will have kids?"

"We are going to be married!"

"But we are in a ‘best friends who love each other’ situation..."

"Then...let's proceed to one of friends with benefits?"

He raised his eyebrows and Naeun smacked him on his back.

"Come on LuLu...let's celebrate our engagement at home...if you know what I mean..."

She winked at him before walking ahead.

"Does that mean the benefits start now?” he yelled after her, and then whispered to himself, "maybe I will like being married..."