“Help you?” I repeated, searching for some kind of joke. 

Yeah, I admit Youngji was cute. Yeah, much cuter than me, probably. But still, this guy was a pop star. He had thousands of people stalking him, hoping to get any acknowledgement, why did he want to settle on his neighbor. 

And it wasn’t even that. Youngji would never be interested in this guy. She had been pursued by the most attractive guys I’d ever seen. He, honestly, fell short. Grad students with bright futures and fortunes waiting for them had tried to win her over, and she was never interested. There’s no way she’d turn down those guys and accept this chump standing in front of me. 

“She’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.” He smiled back at me. 

“And?” I asked, making it clear that I had no idea how he expected me to help. 

“She’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.” The way he looked at her photo was positively disgusting. He looked positively enamored. He’d seen Youngji once, when she was half asleep and pissed off, yet he looked more into her than I had ever seen any guy look. What was with pretty boys? Did they fall in love at ten times the rate of normal human beings? 

“I’m sorry?” I looked to him to try to get a name, since he was still one of my seven neighbors and nothing more. 

“Jackson.” He replied. 

“I’m sorry, Jackson. I don’t think Youngji’s looking for anything serious right now. She’s really busy and she’s never been interested in any guy I’ve seen.” I shrugged and tried to take my camera back from him, but he kept his grip tight. 

“Youngji.” He repeated, smiling like an idiot. 

“Did you not hear anything else I said?” Unbelievable. 

“You can’t really be serious.” He still hadn’t let go of my camera, and his arrogance seemed to leak out of his voice. He raised his eyebrows at me, in what I could only assume was an attempt to be charming, but my expression didn’t change. 

“And why can’t I?” I forcefully pulled my camera back. If there was one thing I hated more than anything, it was an arrogant man. I knew pretty boys like him, entertainer or otherwise, and they all had the same, infuriating ego. Because no woman could deny the looks of a mediocre man. As if. 

“I mean, don’t you know who I am by now? I’m sure you did research. I’m Jackson from Got7. You know, Mr. Wild and y?” He lifted his arms and motioned to himself as if he was some grand prize to be displayed. I scoffed and rolled my eyes. 

Wild and y? More like deranged and average. 

“So maybe I know who you are after googling your group name, but that doesn’t mean I care about it one bit. You’re just my neighbor, and right now, you’re just an annoying guy. I’ve seen the best of the best be rejected my Youngji, and there’s no way she’ll settle for egotistical trash like you.” I pulled the camera with such force that I finally got it back, and stormed away without looking back. 

I was kind of proud of myself, for sticking up for a friend, but mostly, for my great retreating strategy. It could’ve gone far worse, and I was ultimately happy that I walked away the victor in that battle. Granted, it was versus a stranger who I had just met, but even small victories are victories after all. 

I climbed the stairs to our floor, humming myself a congratulatory hymn, and almost successfully entered my apartment before Mr. Deranged and Average stopped me from entering my passcode. I could have made a scene and accused him of following me, or being some kind of ert, which he was in some ways, but the fact that he lived next door would make that unsuccessful. I settled for shooting him a glare, and demanding he get his hands off of my door. 

“Just introduce me to her.” He pleaded, not retreating his hand even when I stabbed it with the bobby pin I had taken out of my hair. 

“No!” I exclaimed while continuously trying to push his hand away, to no luck.

“I’ll do anything.” He said with utmost sincerity. I stopped all movement when he said that. Good thing too; there was something unladylike and wrong about biting someone you’d just met’s hand, and I think I was looking for any excuse to stop myself. 

Anything? Anything?

Okay, so there were two things I hated more than anything. One was of course, arrogant men. The second was the fact that I had complete financial independence from my parents and had to fend for myself any way I could, and often times, that meant taking whatever fiscal opportunity was thrown my way. 

For a while now, I had been trying to sell male clothes on my online store, with very little success. People were always interested, but they always wanted to see the piece on someone. My lack of male models made the units incredibly difficult to sell, and I could only sell them at very discounted prices. I had tried to get my coworker Hyunsu to model them for me, but it never worked. With a model, I could sell more clothes, make more money, and be less stressed. 

If all it took to secure funds for myself was the exploitation of my roommate, who owed me 2 months worth of rent, then so be it. Isn’t it funny how money can turn someone from your friend to your roommate in a matter of minutes? 

“Anything?” I smiled sweetly at Jackson. He nodded, and after noticing my smile curl up, he seemed to regret his vague conditions. “No problem. I’ll introduce you to Youngji.” 

He removed his hand slowly, and allowed me to enter the code to open the door. I peeked in slowly, making sure Youngji wasn’t running around or doing anything else that would entice the fantasies of this ert I was dragging along with me, and found her propped up in front of the TV. I wanted with every fiber in my being to scream at her for leaving me hanging during our shoot, but given the awkward situation I was going to put her through momentarily, I thought it would be best to keep my cool. 

“Hey Ji.” I sang as I entered, dragging Jackson behind me. 

“Semi.” She sat up, looking alarmed, and obviously waiting for me to yell at her. 

“I see you’re cooling off. Just came in here to get some clothes for my new male model, Jackson.” I motioned to him, and smiled in satisfaction at his reaction to his new title. I shrugged at him, and mouthed back “anything”. He set aside his protest and pushed past me to shake Youngji’s hand. His smile sank when she returned the handshake with a disinterested expression, but I ignored it. The deal was that he would do anything for me in exchange for an introduction, and that was already done. 

I skipped over to the boxes of male sweaters, t shirts, and pants, picking out a few items to shoot first. I was practically gliding across the room in joy when I handed to clothes to Jackson, who was unsuccessfully making small talk with Youngji. 

“Well, we’re gonna be outside shooting if you want to join us any time soon, princess.” I called out as I pushed a very disappointed Jackson out the door. 

“What was that?” He screamed as soon as we got outside. 

“An introduction?” I replied, playing dumb and not acknowledging that things didn’t go his way. Maybe, just maybe, it was time for him to realize he wasn’t as wild and y as he had thought himself to be. 

“You couldn’t do better than that?” I shrugged and handed him his clothes one again, urging him to put them on. He glared at me and entered his apartment, returning ready to model in a moments notice. 

Arrogant creep or not, a promise was universally a promise. 

“Just don’t get my face in the picture, okay?” He ordered as I began taking pictures of the clothes. 

“Wasn’t dreaming of it. That’s not the moneymaker.” I replied from behind the camera. I was really taking to admiring his figure, in the least creepy way I possibly could. He fit the clothes well, and it certainly helped that he could pose. These were going to sell in no time. 

“I feel like I got the poor end of the deal.” He complained, but continued to pose for me, and change outfits upon my request.
“Definitely not.” 

“What do you mean ‘definitely not’? I’m doing work for free, and I got two words in with the girl of my dreams. You get profit, and the chance to ridicule me.” 

“This isn’t even close to ridicule.” I murmured. “Besides, think of it this way, if you model for me for, let’s say, 3 months-“ 

“3 months?!” Jackson exclaimed in disbelief and began to walk away from me. I jumped in front of him and blocked him from leaving, which was quite the task considering how he just about towered over me. Jackson wasn’t exactly tall, but I was shorter than I’d like to admit. 

“Hear me out before you decide to break your promise.” When he was no longer trying to get around me, I relaxed myself. “See, you’ll be my model, fulfilling your ‘anything’ clause, and Youngji will also be my model. You two will spend an awful lot of time together, and pretty soon she’s going to have to at least talk to you. We all get what we want!” I smiled enthusiastically to try to cover the extreme amounts of crap I was dishing out, and he wasn’t buying it. I could see him turning over just how important it was he meet a girl, and whether it was worth his extra workload or not. He must’ve been kind of dim, because it took him forever to reply. 

“Alright, I’ll agree to this unfair agreement,” I jumped up onto the tips of my toes to relay my excitement, but he pushed down on my forehead, making me stand at my normal height. “but you have to make every excuse possible to make Youngji spend time with me.” He looked proud of himself, and I almost felt bad for bringing him back down to reality. 

“There’s a glaring problem in that.” I began slowly, taking in everything I had learned in the online course on Elementary Teaching Strategies I took recently, “Youngji and I have lived here for quite a while, and we have never interacted much with anyone. She’ll know something majorly weird is going on as soon as I start interacting with you.” 

“Figure it out. Be a good neighbor. Start running out of common ingredients that you’ll need to borrow from your neighbors.” He crouched down to meet my eyes. “I don’t care what you do. Just make it happen.” 

He pet the top of my head before he left, and I assumed that meant our shoot was done for the day. 

Something about his eyes made him incredibly intimidating. I was frozen, and I didn’t know why. This guy meant nothing to me, other than a bigger paycheck. I knew nothing about him, I could live the rest of my life without knowing anything about him, but still, I felt incredibly compelled to follow his order. 

Get it together, Semi. 

Hi all! I think this is as good of a time as ever to introduce myself! I go by J, and I'm a long time AFF author who has been switching accounts since 2011. This is currently my second story in progress, after my EunjixSehun story titled The Way It Is. I'm a college student, so I will try to update as frequently as possible, but forgive me if I don't! 

Let me know what you guys think of the story so far, I appreciate all comments! 

J