Jin was in the dorm room she shared with Sena and working on college readings, when she suddenly got a call from Soekmin. She became nervous. Ever since that fateful meeting  when he said he want to help her find someone to date, Jin had felt weird. Whenever she thought of Seokmin, she felt uncomfortable.

Nervously, she picked up.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey Jin,” he replied quickly, “where are you now?”

“In my room.”

“Is Sena around?”

“No, she’s out somewhere.”

“Great, are you free?”

“More or less. Why?”

“Come over, I was looking at the Facebook profiles of some of the guys you told me, and it felt kind of weird doing this without you. Come over and we’ll look together,” he said.

Jin agreed. She wasn’t necessarily looking forward to talking to Seokmin about her ideal guys and stalking Facebook profiles with him, but she felt bad saying no given that he actually took the effort.

This was a problem for Jin: she just couldn’t say no to anyone really.

He told her where his dorm was, and she got ready. She put on a random outfit and went outside. It was only when she walked for a bit that she realized how cold it was. Too lazy to go back inside and get a coat, she just carried on and decided to deal with it.

But it was really cold. She put her arms around herself and rubbed in an attempt to stay warm as she walked.

As she made her way to Seokmin’s dorm, she came across a familiar face. She tried not to make eye contact, not wanting to attract unwanted attention, but unfortunately for her, he spoke up first.

“You cold there, Frostbite?” Vernon asked her with a smug smile.

She stopped to acknowledge him, just to be polite, “I’m okay,” she lied, even though her entire body was shivering.

“I tell you what,” Vernon said, “I’ll let you burrow a coat if you give me three kisses on the cheek.”

Jin didn’t like how upfront he was. She smiled to acknowledge the “joke” (at least, she thought it was a joke), and replied: “I’m good, but thanks.”

“Fine, I’ll take one kiss. Come on, it’s a good bargain,” he replied with a cocky smile.

Good god, he’s such so obnoxious, thought Jin, starting to realize he was serious after all. But he’s cute.

Vernon’s face suddenly turned into one of recognition: “wait!” he said, pointing at her: “you’re that cute girl’s best friend right?”

Jin’s face dropped instantly. This guy was in her class and he still knows her as “the cute girl’s best friend.” She would always be secondary to Sena. Always.

“I have to go,” Jin told him, and turned away and walked as quickly as she could. He called her back, but she didn’t look back.

It was kind of a blow to her that he only recognized in relation to Sena. It put her in a bad mood, because she realized that it wasn’t really just him. It was everyone. Sena was the popular, pretty one. Jin was the quiet best friend of the popular pretty one. The only reason Seokmin was even wanting to hang out with her right now was because he wanted to date Sena.

Jin started to wish she hadn’t gone to the same college as Sena after all.

She arrived at the dorm room building and was relieved to finally get out of the cold. After getting the room number from the security; she arrived at his room and knocked on his door.

Seokmin opened it almost immediately.

“Come in, let’s do this quickly before my roommate arrives,” Seokmin said, gesturing her into his room.

He was wearing an undershirt and boxers, which was awkward to say the least. But she had gotten used to awkwardness with Seokmin now.

There was a long piece of duct tape on the floor, separating the two sides of the room, Seokmin and the roommate's. Seokmin’s side was quite the mess. Clothes and books and papers all over the place that he kicked out of the way to pave way for Jin to walk. When he got to his bed, he removed all of the stuff on there and put them to the side.

“Sit,” he offered, pointing to his bed. She climbed onto the bed and rubbed her arms in an attempt to defrost.

“Are you cold?” Seokmin asked. He didn’t even wait for an answer before going into his closet and giving her a sweater.

“I don’t need it,” Jin told him.

“Don’t worry, I have never worn it and I don’t think I ever will. My mom made it for me to take with me to college as a souvenir, but I don’t really like it. You can have it, I’m serious.” Jin bowed her head and took it, putting it over her head. The warmth it brought her instilled a wave of relief within her.

But still, she felt a heavy heart. Something was bothering her. She almost instantly remembered her encounter with Vernon, and realizing that she was just Sena’s second-rate friend. This whole thing with Seokmin is also a role she played as Sena’s second-rate friend. It was so discomforting and put her in such a bad mood.

“We have to get down to it,” Seokmin said, grabbing his laptop and sitting beside her, “if my roommate gets here, he’ll kill me for inviting a girl.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s a Chinese hyung. I call him Jun. He’s super mysterious. Kind of like you,” Seokmin joked, “but he’s also kind of weird. He has this OCD thing where his side of the room has to be spotless.”

“It’s not spotless,” Jin said. It really was not. Jun’s room was organized, but there were clothes on the desk and dirty coffee mugs everywhere.

“Relatively,” Seokmin said, pointing at his own room.

“Can’t disagree with that,” Jin replied, “if you’re going to date Sena, you’re going to have to get your act together. She hates messy people.”

“Really?” he asked, his eyes lighting up at the mention of Sena.

“Yeah. In Jordan, it’s part of the culture to be very clean. Jordanians in general clean and mop the floors every day. People are always cleaning there. Me and Sena kind of adopted that trait.”

“Tell me more about her,” Seokmin said, turning to face Jin and listening attentively.

Jin felt that negative feeling in her heart again. There it goes again. Jin had just told him about a trait that she and Sena shared, but he is only asking about Sena. Jin felt like she’ll only ever be anyone because of her relation to Sena.

“She’s a good friend to me,” Jin said, “She’s very kind and open-minded. She’s loves animals. She had a cat when she was in Jordan, but the cat died, and she was devastated. She’s so kind-hearted. She gives something to every beggar on the street she comes across.” And that’s the worst part, thought Jin to herself, I hate that I am only anything in relation to her, but I just can’t hate her.

Seokmin was smiling when Jin described Sena. “Let’s go find you a boyfriend,” Seokmin said. Jin and Seokmin sat beside each other on the bed against the wall to get comfortable, and browsed through the Facebook profiles of some of the guys.

They found out that that Seungcheol had a girlfriend, which crossed him off the list. Seungkwan, on the other hand was quite the mama’s boy. Almost 50% of his pictures are with his mother.

“He’s the kind of guy that probably has a picture of his mother tattooed on his buttcheek.”

“Eww,” Jin said, laughing, “I actually think how he openly loves his mom like that is kind of cute.”

“No, Jin. It’s not cute. It’s disturbing. Plus, if you start dating him and his mother murders you, I’ll have blood on my hands for setting you up with him. Plus do you really want to date a guy whose idea of a date is helping his mom make kimchi?” Jin could not help but laugh.

The other one, Hoshi, was apparently a huge SHINee fan. His profile picture was a selfie he took with Key. His also had pictures of his collection of SHINee albums, which was huge to say the least. A selfie he took in his room revealed that his walls are covered with SHINee posters. He also ran a SHINee fansite, apparently.

“Nope. Let’s cross this guy out,” Seokmin said.

“Why? He has a passion, what's wrong with that?” Jin asked.

Seokmin raised an eyebrow, “oh please. Probably never dated in his life.”

“Well I haven’t either.”

“He’ll be the kind of guy that would ask you to kiss him and maybe even sleep with him just so that he has enough experience to write his SHINee fanfic.”

Jin laughed.

The other one, Minghao, didn’t seem to have a Facebook. And if he did, his name was in Mandarin and so there was no way of finding him. The two of them browsed through other profiles of guys that go to their college. Jin spotted Vernon’s name.

“Click that one,” Jin told Seokmin.

“Oh no,” Seokmin said defiantly, “no. I would not accept it.”

“Just click it,” Jin told him.

Seokmin clicked and they browsed through the pictures.

The pictures were pretty normal. There was nothing there for Seokmin to pick fun at like there was for Hoshi and Seungkwan.

“I think he’s decent,” Jin said.

“First of all,” Seokmin said, “do you really want to date a guy called Vernon? When someone says Vernon, you think of that fat guy in Harry Potter. Do you really want to be associated with that name? And secondly, he’s and douche and a bully. Do you see how he treats girls?”

Jin was reminded of her interaction with him earlier, and realized that he really did have a condescending way of talking.

Seokmin continued: “He actually lives four doors down from my room, and he dedicates his life to just picking on people. I feel so sorry for his roommate. I saw him once asking a girl for a kiss on the cheek so that he could help her with her homework…”

“I actually met him on the way here. He saw that I was cold and asked me for a kiss on the cheek in exchange for a jacket.”

“See. Douchebag.”

“He’s cute though.”

“Do you see the way he flicks his hair though? He thinks he’s some sort of model or something.”

Jin didn’t even notice that Vernon flicked his hair, “I think you pay more attention to him than I do,” Jin said. “I think you're the one with a crush on him. That’s probably the reason you’re not letting me have him,” she joked.

That made Seokmin smile, “maybe,” he said with a raised eyebrow.

“But you’re right,” Jin said in all seriousness, “I wouldn’t want to date someone like him in the first place.”

“Great, so now I can have him,” Seokmin joked, making Jin laugh again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Diary,

Today I went to Seokmin’s dorm to stalk Facebook profiles of guys he could potentially set me up with. I actually had a great time. Seokmin is so funny, and he’s nice too. It was really cold outside, and so when I came in he gave me a sweater that his mother made and told me I could keep it.

I feel like we grew closer in this little meeting we had. We laughed a lot, and joked a lot, and it was the most comfortable I’ve been around anyone other than Sena for the longest time.

Before arriving at Seokmin’s, I ran into a douchebag named Vernon who asked me for a kiss in exchange for a jacket. Me and Seokmin also stalked him on Facebook, and holy crap he’s super attractive. Why are all the attractive ones a-holes? Anyways, the Vernon guy told me “you’re the cute one’s best friend, right?” It made me feel really bad, and ruined my mood. I just felt like I was nothing in and of myself, that I am only known because of the pretty little princess called Sena.

I guess I feel jealous of her. I’m jealous how free-spirited she is, how pretty she is, how sociable and kind she is. And I hate that people will always think of me in relation to her. But I just cannot hate her. I love her. She is my best friend, and she would do anything for me. I just hate that she’s so perfect and I’m so not.

I always thought that Seokmin was using me for Sena, but today I realized that it wasn’t really like that. He was telling me that he wouldn’t accept it if I dated an douche like Vernon, or losers like Seungkwan and Hoshi (well, I don’t think they’re losers, but Seokmin does). If he was doing this only for Sena, then he wouldn’t have cared which guy to set me up with.

Seokmin told me to keep developing that list of guys I like so that there would be more options for him. I started coming up with more names. I’m kind of excited to be honest. I like the prospect of dating again, and I like that someone is helping me with that.

Before, I had felt that this whole situation was awkward, but for some reason, I don’t feel awkward about it anymore.

A/N: I know Vernon’s appearance in this story is really slow. Sorry to all the Vernon stans waiting for it! It’s taking longer than I thought to have him appear for some reason.