THREE.

Oh No! They Were Fake-Dating!

Title: No Longer
Characters: Johnny & Ten + Mrs. Suh
Genre: Fluff, slight!angst & Soulmate!au
Warnings: A terrible attempt at comedy and fluff,
Wordcount: 3961
Author's Note: I had many ideas for this, but then I forgot the good one I had thought of and wrote this at midnight instead. Hope you enjoy for the first time a fluffy story, with a liiiiiittle hint of angst as always. <3

  “P L E A S E pretend to be my soulmate, Ten!”

What utter bull did Johnny just bring Ten into?

  “… Okay?”

What foolish thing did Ten just agree to?

  “Thank you so much! Because my parents are forcing me to get married, and I can only stop that if I find my soulmate, which I haven’t done yet, so please! You’re the only one who doesn’t have a soulmate.”

Johnny was right. Ten didn’t have a soulmate. Well, not someone who matched the numbers on his hand. The date and time matching the exact moment he was supposed to meet his soulmate was wrong. Because his soulmate didn’t gasp, nor did the other person understand it when he showed him his wrist. No, his supposed soulmate just showed his own which had another time and date far into the future on it.

Now, he worked for Johnny Suh, his best friend from high school and now his boss. The other was a tall and handsome man, who could speak two languages fluently and had taken over his father’s international company as the CEO of the Seoul department. Ten ended up as Johnny’s secretary when his mother’s restaurant went bankrupt and they found themselves in such a crippling dept that jail-time would be their only solution. Ten’s dream of working as a dancer was cut up into a million pieces by the cruel scissors of fate, yet Johnny came to the rescue. Ten owed the other his life. He had his own small apartment, good colleagues, and a mother who now worked at her friend’s restaurant but didn’t have to go jail or suffer the consequences of repaying a dept the rest of her life. No, she was happy and Ten was as happy as he could be.

Johnny was leaning over his desk, sleeves of his white button-up shirt pushed up above his elbows and his neatly styled hair now a mess. He looked desperate but was nothing like the CEO version of Johnny that Ten usually saw at work. No, the look on Johnny’s face brought him back to the memories of high school. Ten couldn’t say no to his friend, not just because he owed him everything, but because they were truly best friends. Johnny deserved to find the love of his life, who he was still desperately searching for because the date on his wrist proved to be a confusing one. Fate thought it funny to make the exact moment be when Johnny stood in a room full of people when the arrow of the watch hit midnight and a new year begun. Johnny had been spinning around but he had not met anyone, and it didn’t seem like anyone had been searching for him either. Ten found him just as Johnny was losing his mind. “Johnny! Happy New Year! How have you been?” He remembered himself asking and Johnny looked at Ten right before the arrow moved to a minute past midnight. Everyone was shouting and cheering. Johnny sighed and looked down at Ten’s wrist.

  “Right… You never met yours either.” He muttered and Ten leaned in closer.

  “What?” He had yelled.

  “I-” Johnny opened his mouth to explain. Ten was searching his face for an explanation when suddenly he gasped.

  “It’s today, right?” He asked and grabbed Johnny’s wrist. “Even if college separates us, I am glad I can be here on this important day! Who is it?” Ten looked at the time and then up at Johnny.

  “Nobody.” Johnny replied with a stiff smile. “I met you long ago.” He sighed.

At least they had been there for each other on the days their lives fell apart. So much for happy endings and romance.

  “How?” Ten asked. He was standing in the middle of the room, not getting the chance to actually approach Johnny’s desk before the other shouted the proposal. He looked awkward and small when he stood in the middle of the giant office.

Johnny ran his hand through his short brown hair, it went back in a wave on top of his head, looking less disheveled. “They can’t push me to give them any grandchildren if it’s a man, so it’ll be easier to fake. We haven’t tried living together; but working together every day and going on business trips tells me that we can do that with no problem.” Ten was surprised. It seemed like Johnny had thought the idea through before suggesting it. Yet it also sounded like a long-term solution and not just for a moment. Before Ten could get a word out of his mouth, Johnny continued talking, walking around the desk. “My parents have only heard me mentioning your name from time to time… hopefully they won’t suspect anything-”

  “Johnny.” Ten interrupted the other. Johnny was pacing from left to right in front of Ten. Now he froze in mid-step, brown eyes fixed on Ten and waiting expectantly. Ten pitied the other even more than he had pitied himself. He was young when he figured out that he would never find his soulmate and had no suspects. Johnny had tried to find every person at the party, starting with every girl on the list, but time was running out. None of them matched. He was still hopeful and didn’t want to give up. Ten had given up a long time ago. “Are you even gay?” He asked as his first question of many. The Johnny he knew had never been with a guy or shown interest.

  “Well…” Johnny began hesitantly, then he tilted his head to the side. “I wouldn’t know. My soulmate could be anyone and honestly the only thing I want is to find that person. No matter the gender.”

Ten nodded. He knew that feeling. “Do you find me attractive?” He asked bluntly. Johnny tripped over his own feet.

  “What kind of question is that?” He asked in bewilderment. Ten stood patiently and waited for an answer.
Ten knew he had to elaborate. “Could you pretend to be interested in me physically, because from what I’ve heard about your parents, they seem like they would want proof.”

  “Our dates don’t match.” Johnny then realized and Ten grimaced. That wasn’t an answer to his question. “We can’t show them the dates!” Johnny cried out and walked to the couch in the room and dropped down. Ten sighed before he too moved over to the couch opposite of Johnny. He sat down calmly and observed his best friend.

  “Johnny.” Ten then said calmly, once again having to stop Johnny from rambling on. The other had his face in his hands, looking like a mess. Ten had seen him like that before when he came back from a lunch-date with whom he hoped was his missing soulmate. Ten thought fate was even more twisted that he found a best friend, who unintentionally reminded him of the fact that he too was going to die alone all the time. Ten just hoped Johnny would give up as well. Either that or he would find that someone so Ten could have his peace. “I got my tattoo removed.” He reminded the other.

Johnny gawped. “When?” He asked dumbfoundedly and reached over the table. “Last I saw…”

  “… Was that night you didn’t find your match.” Ten finished his sentence and sent Johnny a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. His smile looked bitter. “I waited a whole year for that appointment, had chosen it long before we met again, but at that point I thought it was necessary for me to move on.”

Johnny pressed his lips together. “But…” Johnny went quiet. It took the other a while to let this sink in. Ten waited and tried to read his best friend’s expression.

  “I’ll help you.” Ten promised the other.

Johnny grinned, but he looked nervous. “Great.” He said, but Ten didn’t feel like the other was enthusiastic. “We’re meeting them this weekend.”

Ten eyed his bed, or what once was a neatly made bed. Now it was a pile of clothes. “Couldn’t he have warned me sooner?” Ten grumbled and went forwards to re-adjust his tie. “What the hell does someone wear to their first dinner with their soul-in-laws?” Ten tore off the tie and threw it into the pile of clothes.

  “ing Johnny Suh.”

The main part of this whole issue was his best friend and boss. The second? Himself.

What did it mean that he accepted his friend’s desperate offer? That he hadn’t moved on? That he still desired to have a soulmate, someone to spend his life with, even if it was fake? Ten looked down at his wrists, they were blank and had no traces of any date. Ten groaned and walked over to his bookshelf. Should he read it again? It had been a long time since he had read through his diary from that time. It brought back too many sorrows and so much pain, but it always brought back the reality that Ten lived in. He was alone. He needed to realize that.

A buzz stopped him from searching for the diary. It continued and developed into the melody of Ten’s ringtone. He walked back to his desk that stood beside the mirror he’d been staring into the