I wasn't able to meet the boys the next day, since I had to stay back a little longer after training to do some more work in the lab. I called them though, and figured it was for the better that I didn't go, since it seemed like a boys' day out, with all of them meeting after a long time. 

The next few days passed in some sort of blur, with my schedule packed tighter than ever. I was beginning to consider dropping my workout since I was becoming a lot more drained than usual, but thankfully the weekend was coming, so that wasn't necessary.

Finally friday evening came, and I was able to meet Rina.

Rina is my best friend, and although I'd probably never say this to her face, she was literally the most talented, stupid, beautiful, irritating, awesome person I knew. We had been close since middle school, and even stayed close after she switched schools (*sob*) to go deeper into art, which she is so super incredibly talented at.

I, on the other hand, stayed at the same school till I graduated, going into biology with music as my side course. I hadn't met her in a while, so I decided to surprise her with some cookies that I made that morning (so they were fresh because cookies DO age).

By the time I got to Rina's place, it was already starting to get get a bit dark, so I figured I would ask her if I could stay for the night.

When I rang her doorbell, she came to the door in a hoodie and shorts. She had little flecks of paint on her fingers, and her short pixie cut hair was disheveled in one side. I threw my arms around her and held her tight for a minute.

"Hi," she said, sounding suffocated by my tight embrace.

"Hi." I broke off the hug and we made eye contact.

Silence.

Then we both burst into laughter.

***

"So how's work?" Rina asked me.

She was laying down on the couch, and I was lying down on the floor in front of the tv where some movie was playing, which we were almost indifferent to.

"Eh. Fine, I guess. I have a lot of new friends there, so it's not too boring, but you know how it's like work but then there's training as well, right?"

"Right."

" yeah so sometimes they let us out late, and we have to do more research at home for the next day, which can be kinda irritating."

We talked for hours and hours, as if we hadn't spoken in years, until somewhere along the line I fell asleep in the middle of a conversation.

***

I woke up in an uncomfortable heap on the floor, my arms bent at awkward angles and my neck hurting sharply. Through the blinds I could see that the sun was about halfway up in the sky, so I guessed it was around 7 or a bit before. 

I got up and stretched a bit, trying to relieve my throbbing muscles, but they screamed in protest. Rina was lying on the couch, her mouth half open, snoring gently. I grinned and grabbed her phone, took a picture of her and replaced her wallpaper with it.

Trudging to the bathroom, I pulled my hair out of its tie that it had been in for the night and combed through it with my fingers. I then washed my face and grabbed an extra airplane toothbrush from the little cupboard below the sink where I kept a few of my stuff. 

After brushing my teeth and getting most of the knots out of my hair, I walked into kitchen to make myself breakfast. I took about half an hour making a heavy breakfast and began scarfing it down before Rina walked into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes.

"Why are you up?" She asked grouchily. "It's not even eight yet." To my intense annoyance, she grabbed food out of my plate and started chewing it slowly.

"Stop it."

"No you stop it's your fault you got up so fricking early"

"Rina, the sun is already up. Look! Wow, it's so pretty!"

She turned to look at the sun and I took the opportunity to stuff the rest of my food into my mouth.

"Hey!"

"Ssk puh be ou" I said, trying to swallow. "Sucks to be you", I clarified at her blank expression when she didn't understand what I was trying to say.

"Idiot," she grumbled, and stalked over to the fridge to get some milk.

I left about an hour later to go to a store to look for a present for Yoongi. His birthday was next Sunday, and I wanted to get him something really special. Even after much debating and a discussion with Rina, I couldn't quite decide on anything. 

I spent my entire morning searching through different shops (I'll admit there was a point where I got distracted and went into a home decor store too look for something that could go in my brother and my new apartment), but even after stopping and breaking for lunch I had nothing.

I ended up just walking through the men's section for clothes in a mall as a last resort. I rifled through the rack, not really looking at anything in particular.

"May I help you?" A voice came from behind me. I turned around and saw a guy about my age in a pair of jeans, a blue collared T-shirt and a cap. 

Who the heck wears a cap inside the mall? I realised he was a staff member here. 

 He was a lot taller than me, obviously, and his hair was shaggy, with some brown highlights. His wide brown eyes and his smile was gentle, lips curving upwards. Cute.

"I- uh... no thanks," I said, sounding like an idiot. "I was just looking, nothing specific" my voice got quieter with each word, and I looked away, embarrassed.

"For your boyfriend?" He asked.

"Oh- no no no," I said, smiling. "Just my very close friend. His birthday is coming up and I've been searching for perfect present since this morning."

"Your boyfriend isn't helping you out with that?"

"I don't have a boyfriend." I said to him.

"Really?" He said. "Wow. I'm surprised."

What's so surprising about that? I thought. It took me a second or two for it to come to me.

He's flirting, you idiot. This cute boy is flirting with you.

He began to say something else when my phone started ringing.

"One sec, so sorry" I apologised, pulling out my phone and walking a bit away. It was Rina.

"What?" I hissed into the phone. "I was talking to someone"

"Hey to you too," said Rina. "Do you know where the chicken tenders are?"

"The heck?"

"No, the chicken tenders. Where are they? They were in my kitchen yesterday. Did you eat them?"

"No. You did"

"Did not"

"Bro you literally did last night."

Silence.

"Shit. Can you get me some?"

"No get them yourself bro I'm far away and the shop is right opposite your home"

"Fine. Byeee." She hung up.

I walked back to the rack I had been looking at, and the guy was still there surprisingly.

"I'm surprised! You didn't run away while you could!" I said jokingly. I realised I didn't know his name, so I glanced at his name tag, which read Daehyun.

"Oh no, I wouldn't run away. It isn't every day that I get to actually talk to a customer here, much less..." he broke off and scratched the back of his neck like he was embarrassed. I didn't really know what to say so I just started up another conversation.

"I'm y/n, by the way." It was a lame thing to say, but I just went ahead with it. I hated awkward situations.

"I'm Daehyun."

Gosh, this was even more awkward. 

I hated it, so I turned back to the rack and pretended to look at a red hoodie that was on clearance sale (because I have a cheap ass). It was nothing special, but like practically everything in the rack, it would look great on Yoongi. 

I picked it up and turned around, telling daehyun that I was taking this one, and then walked over to the billing counter, where there was a long queue to pay for it.

As I was walking there, daehyun caught me up. "Here, let me take at for you." He took the hoodie from me and walked over to a counter where there was no shop attendant billing and turned on the computer to bill my item immediately. 

"Perks of being friendly to the staff," he said, grinning. By his little act of kindness I managed to save almost a quarter of an hour of standing in a line doing nothing.

As I passed him my card to pay, his fingers brushed over mine and I felt a little rush. I thought he smiled at me, but I wasn't sure if it was because of that or because of the fact that he was trying not to laugh at how red my face probably was.

"Hey um... y/n?"

"Yeah?"

"I actually get off my shift in like five minutes, so unless you have something to do right after this, would you mind coming with me to the ice cream place outside? They have this Valentine's Day sale for couples until tomorrow and I really want to try their new flavours, but they're hella expensive without the discount."

I fought back a smile. Sure, I would love have an excuse to hang out with this cute guy, and discounted ice cream with it? I didn't see why I should say no.

"Sure, Daehyun"

***

As promised, we left five minutes later to go to the ice cream place. He created conversation effortlessly, making me laugh so easily. I was holding my stomach from laughing so hard at the stories he told me about his childhood and past.

 He told me about how he was trying to get a little more money form this part time job he was working in the store we had just left so he could buy a nicer car. His main job was in a publishing company. 

At last, when we reached the ice cream place, he took my hand, making me blush, which he laughed at, and we walked in, pretending to be a couple.

***

"Which flavour do you wanna get, honey?" He asked. He was going way over the top with this couple thing.

"I don't know," I replied truthfully . They all looked so good, and I wasn't really able to focus well when he moved his thumb in circles on the base of mine. "You choose."

"How about that one?" He asked, pointing at the first one that had caught my eye. "It looks really good."

"Hm? Sure."

He let go of my hand and clapped his like a little kid. "Okay!"

He went to order the ice cream while I went and sat down at a table, texting Rina about everything that had happened so far. This was incredible, especially for me- I didn't usually do well with cute guys. It was more like: 'you sir, are attractive, therefore I shall stare at you,' which usually scared any guy away.

Rina had just texted me back gushing about how I shouldn't mess up when daehyun walked back to the table with our ice cream.

"We have to use the same cup? Seriously?" I asked quietly.

"Honey!" He said, acting offended and laughing. "Don't break character quite yet," he whispered. "They will bill us on the way out."

I groaned, but began eating anyways. Because holy shit, this ice cream was good.

We maintained the facade of a couple all the way through, until we billed, where the cashier herself told us about the sale and gave us the discount. We pretended to be politely surprised, but burst out laughing as soon we were out of sight of the shop.

"I have to admit, y/n, you played the part of the annoyed girlfriend very well. Your acting was top notch."

"I wish I could say the same, bro," I managed to say between giggles.

"Bro? I am attacked, baby! You can't call your boyfriend bro!"

"Do you prefer sugarplum?"

"No."

"So stop complaining."

We jabbed back at each other for a little bit before I figured it was probably time for me to get home. I still needed to do the laundry, and I wanted to get a good workout in today after missing yesterday's. 

Daehyun insisted on taking me somewhere else, but I told him that Rina had been waiting for me for a while, and I really had to get going. I didn't want to tell him that the reason I was going home was to do chores. It was partially the truth, anyways. Rina was definitely waiting to hear the details.

We said a quick goodbye and went in opposite directions, but before I made it far Daehyun ran back up to me and gave me a quick hug, and I wasn't sure, but I thought I felt a little kiss on the top of my head. Before I could remember how to form a complete sentence, though, he had already run off in the other direction.

I tried to hold back the little smile that kept trying to make its way onto my lips as I walked home.

The rest of the evening went exactly as planned- I had a long chat with Rina as I did my laundry, giving her the details of my 'date' with Daehyun. 

After that, I took a long run in the park near my place and returned home for an early dinner. While eating, I called my brother and talked to him, after which I called a cousin. It seemed like I had so much catching up to do, at least when it came to talking to my family.

My parents were many more hours behind my time, so I settle with a long and detailed message about what I had done over the week. I left out the part about daehyun, though, because to be frank, I was embarrassed. 

Even when I told them that I was dating junsu, things got real awkward, but there it was a bit better since they knew that we hardly met once a day for coffee- I probably went to his house once or twice the whole while we were dating (the only time he came to my place was when he helped me a bit with packing materials. 

Whatever I told them, they would be uncomfortable with the fact that I went for ice cream as a couple with a random dude I just met.

I was just heading to bed early when I got a notification:

theonlydaehyun wants to follow you

Smiling, I clicked on 'accept' and opened our chat.

Today, 9:38 pm

Daehyun: heyy

Me: hi :)

Daehyun: what are you going right now?

Me: I'm going to sleep

Daehyun: so early?

Me: I'm an early person

Daehyun: ah ok then good night!

Me: gn

Daehyun: <3

I put my phone away and got into bed to get some sleep finally, dreaming about ice cream and chicken tenders.