✌ Five

Little did I realize then how Jessica's words would change the course of my life forever. Like, literally.

My BFF's suggestion kept me up late that night, long past my designated bedtime for beauty sleep, tossing and turning in bed as I struggled to come up with some other strategy for catching Kai's attention. I mean, my situation wasn't totally desperate yet, was it? Surely there was some other route to the bad boy's heart, some other means than coercing a gay kid into letting me play his beard. Leather miniskirts? I gagged at the thought. Lip fillers? No, too pricy...

The next morning, I carefully primped as usual, despite feeling like the walking dead thanks to my unforeseen bout of insomnia, and decked out in plum leggings, an acid-washed denim dress, and my favorite hot-off-the-shelf Miss Maud pumps. I was still in the middle of teasing my hair for poufy perfection when I heard the distinct sound of Corvette wheels screeching into the driveway and Jessica's horn honking through the window. Since I most definitely did not want to be late for first period again – not with that bogus grump of a Biology teacher on the prowl for anyone who dared set foot in his class two seconds late without a tardy slip, at least – I gave my hair one last spritz and tossed the can of hairspray aside, deciding to let the wind on the ride to school do the rest of the job for me.

Jessica spent the entire drive over wigging out about how unfair it was that her parents canceled her weekend trip to Cancún all because of one little detention, and I had more or less tuned her out by the time we finally parked on campus, wondering more importantly whether I had applied enough concealer to mask the gaudy bags under my eyes. But the millisecond we waltzed into eyeshot of my locker, I suddenly snapped out of my zombie-like trance, instantly perking up like I had just downed a twelve pack of Mountain Dew. I couldn't believe my eyes. No, it couldn't be. I squinted to be sure. I gasped. It was. It totally was.

I kid you not: Kai was standing right in front of my locker, his greasy hair slicked back, his leather jacket hanging wide open for all eyes to see his totally in' abs, and he was slipping something distinctly fuchsia into my locker.

"Like, oh my god, Jessica!" I squeaked, cutting my BFF off right in the middle of babbling something about doing body shots off a hot Incan boy on the beach. "Did you see that? Please tell me I'm not dreaming. Did Kai just slip a love letter into my locker? Because, I mean, he totally did."

"Like, be still your beating heart," she snorted at my frenzied reaction, but I was way too stoked to ever chill out ever again.

"It, like, had a pink envelope and everything!" I spat, grabbing Sica by the arms and bouncing on my heels like I was two seconds from going postal. I mean, to be fair, I had due cause to be excited.

My bestie rolled her eyes and steadied me by the shoulders, offering a really good word of advice: "Mila, snap out of it. He's going to see you acting, like, like a hyperactive Chihuahua or something if you keep on."

Realizing she was right, I quickly straightened up and cleared my throat, turning back to my locker just in time to see Kai depart from it. He coolly strutted down the hall toward us, both hands slipped into the back pockets of his ripped jeans, before passing us by without even sparing me a casual glance. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest towards him as the air around us was suddenly perfumed by the scent of an ashtray. Oh, why was that so dreamy?

Jessica pardoned herself to the ladies' room for her morning smoke, and since I had much more important matters to attend to at the moment, I bid her goodbye before literally darting to my locker. I practically yanked the combination lock off with my bare hands before throwing the door open and diving inside. Frantically, I dug through the contents, through a multitude of schoolbooks and at least two makeup bags, but the love letter was nowhere to be found. Had it somehow slipped into the cover of one of my books? I flipped open one text after another.

The envelope had disappeared, vanished into thin air. I just didn't understand why. Why was the universe so cruel?

"Lose your homework, Popcorn Head?" a familiar voice suddenly piped up out of nowhere, and I was so enraptured by the hunt for the love letter that I shrieked in surprise. Immediately huffing, I slammed the locker shut and was met with a face full of the usual: Yixing, his mop head, his dimple, yada yada yada.

"I thought I told you not to call me that," I groaned, slapping the lock back onto my locker without much gusto. "Plus, why are you even talking to me? Don't you have somewhere better to be, like, mopping up popcorn vomit or something?"

"Take a chill pill," he laughed offhandedly. "I'm not trying to invade your airspace, just checking out my new locker. Looks like it's right next to yours." He pointed at the compartment beside mine, and I swear it took every ounce of restraint within me not to storm down to the office and demand a new one right then and there. I mean, realistically, I couldn't just go and change lockers, anyway. Kai wouldn't know where to leave my next letter if I did.

"I honestly don't even know what to say to you other than: 'Please go find a new locker elsewhere.' Now, if you'll excuse me. I refuse to be late to class again." I spun around on my heels and paraded away with what little pride I had left, making a mental note to arrive on campus five minutes earlier from then on so as to avoid him as much as possible. I couldn't risk being in the same place as both Yixing and Jessica again lest he decided to out my secret to her, after all.

It wasn't until, oh, fifty steps later that I realized he was walking right behind me, trailing my every step with his backpack hung over one shoulder like he was a cool kid or something. Ugh, the nerve of that guy. I whirled around and stopped dead in my tracks, glaring dourly as he sauntered up to me. "Are you following me?" I hissed.

"No. Are you following me?"

I rolled my eyes. "I'm walking in front of you, dweeb. Seriously, what gives? It's like you're actively trying to out me to my bestie."

"I'm walking to class," he snickered and joined me at the hip. Before I even realized what was happening, we were walking side by side in the same direction.

"Please tell me your class isn't in Room E4."

"It is." He beamed, dimple-cheeked and all. "How'd you guess?"

I promptly turned to the nearest locker and proceeded to bang my forehead on it for a good twenty seconds before Yixing finally questioned, "Um, what exactly are you doing?"

"I'm giving myself brain damage so I can forget about you." Bang. "Ugh, this is the worst day ever." Bang. "First, my love letter from Kai gets lost somewhere in some crazy locker dimension." Bang. "Now, this lamebrain is in my class." I groaned and peeled my head away from the locker, facing Yixing pathetically. "Is my hair okay?"

"Yeah, and so's the bruise on your forehead," he teased. I was pretty sure all color left my face, including that gnarly alleged bruise, until he snorted, "Gee whiz, I'm just yankin' your chain."

Looking back on it now, it's almost adorably pitiful how, at the time, I didn't actually think my day – or life, for that matter – could possibly get any more bogus. But it did. Yixing turned out to be not only in my Biology class but Home Economics and Study Hall to boot! Imagine the oh-so-delighted look on my face as we ended up walking to second period together much to my immense dismay. To make matters even worse, Kai seemed to have completely forgotten I existed by lunch, totally vanishing again! Jessica said she spotted him strolling out to the faculty parking lot to smoke by his bike, but it did little to quell my fears.

I was so bummed out by the turn of events that, somewhere in the middle of sitting as far across the room from Yixing as possible in Study Hall, I had an epiphany: maybe the love letter wasn't actually meant for me. Maybe Kai had slipped it into someone else's locker and it only looked like mine from across the hall. I mean, that would totally explain the envelope being abducted into a crazy locker dimension like something out of that terrifying Lifeforce movie.

My stomach churned at the inevitable realization that I truly was fighting a losing battle against winning my beefcake's heart over. I hated to admit it, but Jessica was totally right. Like, it was common knowledge that the fastest way to a man's heart was through means of jealousy and otherwise unavailability; that was only, like, rule numero uno in dating according to Sica. If I had a fairly average, marginally attractive boy like Yixing on my arm, Kai would totally see him and totally get jealous and totally realize he could one-up him and sweep me off my feet. It was foolproof!

I could hardly believe the lows I had stooped to, what my life had all too suddenly become. But as the final school bell rang that afternoon, I found myself ditching my plans to go shopping at the mall and check out the latest ornament-sized earrings Macy's had to offer in favor of sitting before my vanity mirror, giving myself a much needed pep-talk. It wasn't every day that a girl of my status approached a gay boy with the offer of being his beard, after all.

Hours after the sun set, I finally deemed it safe as it ever would be to venture over to Theatre without being spotted, donning the usual headgear from over the summer: the most oversized glasses my wardrobe had to offer and a tacky baseball cap that the real me would never caught dead in. I arrived at the box office of the timeworn Theatre and felt an odd rush of mixed nostalgia and nausea – or maybe it was just the Chicken Francese from dinner suddenly catching up to me. Figuratively rolling up my sleeves, I marched right past the ticket booth and made a bee line for the concession stand inside.

There Yixing was, lazing on the counter as he flipped through the September edition of Vogue. Like, I'm not even kidding: he was reading the September edition of Vogue with Cindy Crawford on the cover and singing along to some song by some soon-to-be one-hit wonder band playing through the lobby. "You spin me right round, baby, right round, like a record, baby, right round, round, round."

Jessica was so right about him.

I traipsed up to the snack counter and slammed my bag down on it, whipping out my wallet. The walk to Theatre had really parched me out, and I needed a drink before getting down to business with Yixing. He jumped before flipping the magazine shut.

"Popcorn Head!" he greeted, obviously surprised by my presence. Not that I blamed him, mind you. I had made it more than clear by now that I didn't exactly prefer being within six feet of him.

"Diet Coke," I clucked, pressing a single dollar bill to the glass top. He bounced up from his stool behind the counter and immediately began filling a small paper cup with soda from the fountain.

"Fancy seeing you here. I take it you're out for the midnight showing of The Cabbage Patch Kids movie?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Ha, ha, very funny. I'm here on business matters, actually. I have a proposal to make."

Yixing snapped a plastic lid onto the Diet Coke and set it down on the counter before me. "Like an apology for calling me a lamebrain?"

"No, more like a peace offering, I guess." I took a huge swig of the soda and gulped it down along with every remaining ounce of dignity in my body. "Look, I know we're not exactly besties, but I need you to do me a major favor. Mind you, I don't expect to be the only beneficiary of this. Like, there's totally a lot in it for you, too. So, anyway, I really need you to pretend to be my boyfriend for a couple of weeks – just until I can get Kai's attention, you know."

He gazed back at me, one eyebrow cocked, for a long, long moment as if shocked speechless by my proposal. Rightfully so, I supposed. I merely returned the stare, slurping on my cola as I telepathically urged him to reply.

"Let me get this straight," he finally piped. "You want me to drop everything I'm doing and fake date you because you think it'll help you win some other guy over."

I nodded. "That's the gist of it."

"I thought you said there was something in it for me."

"Oh, there totally is," I assured him. "If you want, you can introduce me to your parents, and I'll pretend I actually like you and be convincing to the max. That should get them to chill out about you not having a girlfriend and all, you know."

"What—"

"Plus, you would look totally popular dating me."

"Uh—"

"Oh, and I can introduce you to my ex, Tao!"

"Why—"

"Please, Yixing," I groaned in both exasperation and desperation, clasping my hands together in appeal. "I've never been rejected before. My confidence would take a major hit if you said no."

He gawked at me like this was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. "If you've never been rejected, then why don't you just ask Kai straight up to go out with you?"

"Because girls aren't supposed to ask boys out," I huffed, "especially not smokin' hot mega babes like Kai. So, what do you say? Throw me a bone. I'm, like, begging you. This doesn't happen often, you know."

Yixing laughed and shook his head before, of all things, grabbing a mop propped against the popcorn maker. "Look, Mira, I'm sorry, but you're barking up the wrong tree. Don't get me wrong: your offer is rad and all, but you can't even share a classroom with me without wigging out. How do you expect to play romantically involved long enough to convince anyone, let alone this Kai dude?"

I gaped at him, gobsmacked. Did my ears deceive me? Did he really just refuse my proposal? "B-b-but," I stammered, struggling to find words as he rounded the counter toward me. He stopped a foot away and just stood there with the mop in his hand.

"I have some popcorn vomit to mop up in the theater, so I'll catch you at school tomorrow. But, hey, don't feel too down because I, for one, will forever relish getting to see Little Miss Popular plead a lamebrain like me for a date."

He snorted as he waltzed away, leaving me staring at the back of his burgundy uniform in absolute disbelief.

✌ Author's Note

sobs I LOVE THIS FIC SO MUCH

I know it doesn't seem that way since I take 5ever to update it, but that's mostly because I really want it to be *good* and 99% of the time I just don't feel clever enough to make anything work. :( I think it would really be a shame to rush it out just to get it done with because imo it's been one of my better fics thus far...

But... I recently had this realization that I'm never going to finish my stories unless I actually write them, lol. So the next chapter will definitely not take two months. I already have Chapter 6 planned out in excruciating detail, so expect an update within two weeks tops!

Please take a minute to comment if you can and thanks for reading~ ^^

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