Kris handed you the bag of empty food containers when the two of you stepped outside of the practice room, “Thanks for bringing us lunch again.”

“It’s really no trouble,” you smiled up at him, “I’m not the one with the schedule that doesn’t even allow me to eat lunch every day.”

A small smile appeared on Kris’s lips as he wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you closer to him.

You glanced down at your watch, “I better get going and you,” you unwrapped Kris’s arms from around your body, “better get back to practice.”

You jumped up onto your toes and gave Kris a kiss on his cheek, “I’ll text you later.”

You looked over your shoulder and gave Kris one last wave as you walked down the hall. You were about halfway to your car when you realized that you left your container of utensils in the practice room.

‘Hmm, I’ll just pop in and grab them. I don’t think they’ll mind,’ you thought as you turned around and headed back to the practice room.

When you made it back to hall that you and Kris were just talking in, you noticed that the door to their practice room was slightly open. You were just about to walk in when you heard hushed voices coming from inside.

“So are you ever going to tell her?” you heard Luhan ask.

“I don’t know,” you heard Kris sigh.

“Well I think you should. She has the right to know why you asked her to be your girlfriend.”

“Well, what am I supposed to say?” you heard Kris asked in a frustrated voice, “’Oh, hey, ______, I meant to tell you this before, but I only asked you out because I wanted fangirls to stop stalking me. Our relationship isn’t really real because I was just using you’?”

You stumbled away from the door as if someone pushed you. You knitted your eyebrows together as you tried to comprehend the words that just left Kris’s mouth. Did he really mean that? Was he really just using you? When you felt your breathing start to get heavier, you ducked y our head down and walked as fast as you could out of the building.

“Not like that,” Luhan shook his head, his nose wrinkled.

“Then how else?” Kris asked, “I really like her, like really, really, like her. But I want to tell her the truth. I wish I didn’t ask her out because of that.”

Luhan patted the leader’s shoulder sympathetically, “You’ll figure out a way.”

---

You let out a deep breath as you sat next to Kris on a bench in a desert park. You weren’t really surprised that there was no one around, it was almost midnight after all.

It had been a couple of months after you overheard the conversation between Kris and Luhan. But you continued to stay with Kris because you being with him made life easier for him. That’s all that really mattered right? That he was happy, or at least happier. And plus, if he was acting, so could you.

Kris took a shy glance at you and frowned when he saw you staring down at your feet with a blank expression on your face. He noticed that you were more distant lately. You rarely held his hand and he could tell that most of your smiles were forced. But the thing that troubled him the most was that you stopped giving him goodbye kisses on the cheek, only weak one-armed hugs.

“Um, h-happy anniversary,” he stuttered as he held out a rectangular velvet box to you.

Your expression didn’t change as you took the box from his hand, carefully making sure that your hand didn’t brush his. Your eyes widened when you saw an expensive looking necklace resting on the silk inside the box, the small diamonds glittering under the light from the park lamps.

“Kris,” you whispered.

“I know you don’t like flashy stuff,” he said quickly, “But I just thought since it’s our six month anniversary …”

You quickly snapped the box shut, “I can’t accept this,” you said in a low voice as you held the box out for Kris to take back, not daring to look at his face.

“No, I want you to have it,” he tried to push the box back towards you.

You sighed and placed the box onto Kris’s lap, “You shouldn’t be giving $500 necklaces to me, especially when I’m not really your girlfriend.”

Kris tensed after hearing the last part of you statement, “What are you talking about?”

“I heard you talking to Luhan that day I brought you lunch. I didn’t meant to eavesdrop, I just,” you swallowed a lump that formed in your throat and closed your eyes as tears started to pool in them.

Kris sat and watched you in shock as you tried to stop your tears from flowing. He didn’t know what to do, so he ended up just gripping the velvet box tightly in his hands.

“But we can still pretend,” you whispered, “It makes your life easier right?”

You lips quirked up in a force smile as you glanced at Kris for a split second.

Kris placed the box on the bench between the two of you and abruptly stood up. You looked down at your lap when Kris moved to kneel in front of you. He took your face into his hands and forced you to look at him.

“I don’t want to pretend,” he said, looking into your eyes, “I’m not going to lie that I did ask you out because I wanted fangirls to stop bothering me, but I found out that you’re everything that I’ve been looking for. You’re sweet, funny, beautiful,” he smiled as he rubbed his thumb gently against your cheek, “And I honestly like, no, I honestly love you.”

You bit your lip as you looked into Kris’s eyes and found pure honesty and sincerity in them.

“Can you give me another chance? I’ll prove to you that I really am in love with you.”

The sides of your lips turned up a little as you nodded your head.

Kris let out a sigh in relief and he grabbed the box that was sitting on the bench next to you. He took out the necklace and reached up, clasping it around your neck. Kris smiled as you looked down and examined the diamonds.

You looked at Kris to see him adoringly staring back at you. Not able to contain your smiled any longer, you launched yourself off of the bench and attacked Kris in a hug, burying your face into his neck.

Kris jerked back a little from the impact but smiled to himself as he wrapped his arms around your waist and placed a kiss on your forehead.