The First Words
Luhan, the Fake Boyfriend
I still remember his first words to me.
They had been said shortly after Ahri had broken the news that my popularity was slumping.
"Go outside and meet him," she had urged. "Get the first encounter over with. I'm sure there'll be a lot of chemistry!"
"You can't force chemistry," I had said, but I stood up nonetheless and made my way over to the door leading into her waiting room. I was a er for romantic books and poetry, but this was nowhere near "Romeo and Juliet" status. In fact, it was a little nauseating to force love out of two unwilling people.
Well...at least..I had been unwilling.
Shut up, Liyin. You want to be number one. This is what it takes. You had a choice, and you said yes.. The little voice in my head often preached to me when I least wanted it to. But it had been right that time. I sighed and turned around one last time, receiving an encouraging look from my publicist before she returned to her Blackberry. Taking a deep breath, I shoved open the door. All of the boys looked up, and Luhan stood up from where he sat on the floor and said, "Hi. I'm Luhan."
Okay...so his first words hadn't been very romantic.
"Hi, Luhan. I'm Liyin." I shoved my brown hair, streaked with shades of golden brown, out of my face and watched in amusement as he shoved his own mess of blonde hair out of the way. He awkwardly held his hand out, and I slowly took it. We shook and then stood there, not quite sure what to do. Yep, how lovely. That was the first encounter with my supposed boyfriend.
"Well. This is nice. Two fake lovers meet at last." The one wearing a striped shirt and rolled up red pants that stopped at his ankles--I can still remember that outfit, remember I thought he looked like a sailor--spoke. He was still sitting on the floor, smirking up at us.
"And you are?" I stopped looking at Luhan to fix my gaze upon him.
"Xiumin," he offered. I raised my eyebrows at the weird sounding name.
"Xiumin, don't harass the poor girl." A boy with short blonde hair and an incredibly deep voice said, shoving Xiumin in the shoulder.
"Not harassing, Kris. Just casually disrupting Luhan's relationships. Whether they're real..." he looked me over slowly as he said this, "...or fake."
"Luhan's a little awkward around pretty girls," Xiumin continued. "Tao here, he was awkward around him for months." He then had gestured towards the dark haired, dark eyed one with a badass look on his face and earrings studded in both of his ears sitting at the end of the row.
"Oh, be quiet Xiumin," Tao said, but good naturedly.
"We're all big fans of your singing," the smiling one sitting on the other end of the row piped up. He had a heavy accent...but definitely not Chinese. I was surprised to see he was saying this to me.
"Thank you...." I had looked at him questioningly, waiting for him to offer up his name.
"Jongdae, and this is Yixing." He grinned at me, and I was surprised to see him smiling brightly. The other one smiled casually, his dimples showing.
"Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you all." I said, my eyes skimming over the boys.
"Well." I jumped and turned around to see Ahri standing there behind me. "This is wonderful...are you all acquainted?"
"I'm afraid so," Xiumin said with a smug look on his face. I had already identified him as the group loudmouth.
"Here." Ahri motioned for me and Luhan to follow her into her office, where she shut the door. She sat us down next to each other, standing at the other end of the table.
Luhan had been oddly quiet throughout the whole interaction, now that I think about it. But anyways.
"Children." She eyed us. "You two are beautiful together. You are both beautiful people, and beautiful people should be
together. It's like...you were destined." She turned and began rummaging through a drawer for something.
"Liyin," Luhan had whispered. I turned.
"What?"
"Are you alright with this stuff? I mean, I agreed to this....but you don't look very happy. Er...I mean, you probably aren't happy, being shoved into a 'relationship' like this.." He airquoted himself, and then continued.
"I mean.." I sighed. "I probably wouldn't have been able to find a boyfriend otherwise anyways. So I can just use the fake experience in the future...if I ever have the oppertunity."
"Never had a boyfriend?" Luhan looked kind of alarmed, but not turned off. Just surprised. "Wow. Never would've guessed."
"No one would have. I guess I'm just not girlfriend material," I had said. I jumped at the feeling of his cold hand grabbing my arm.
"If it helps, Liyin...." he gave me a shy smile, showing off his carefree attitude. "You're my type."
"Thanks.." I felt the heat spreading in my arm and my face flushing, and I looked up as Ahri cleared , her eyes sparkling.
"This is what I'm looking for!" She had looked extremely excited, and me and Luhan exchanged a glance. "Real emotion." She had thrown two large packets on the table. One had Luhan's name on it, and the other had mine.
"You guys are going to have a year long relationship. Not too long it's like you're an old married couple, but long enough so that people are used to you two being together. Flip open to the first page please." We did as we were told.
"Now," Ahri continued. "The first page lists facts about your lover, facts that aren't even on the Internet that a couple would know about each other. On the second page.." she waited for us to flip, "you will see it says 'Scene One: Luhan asks Liyin'. This scene will be performed tomorrow at the beach. I happen to know JJ Lin will be there so paparazzi will be everywhere. You have to memorize your lines, just like in a movie. This is the script and the guide to your relationship. This is the script you must follow in specific scenes in front of the paparazzi. But..." she paused for breath, "I would like to remind you that to make your relationship look real, I want to to continue off the camera lens. So spend as much time as possible with each other. Swap contact info now. Do everything a boyfriend and girlfriend would do."
Silently, we traded phones and put in our contact information.
"You guys have this afternoon and the first half of tomorrow to memorize the script. You may go now." She looked at us over her glasses. "And...if I must say so myself....you two look like you were meant for each other."
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