Chapter Two

Mika stares at the clock on his phone with a lazy yawn, watching as the time shifts from 9:12 to 9:13.

He's late, Mika thinks for what feels like the millionth time. Honestly, after all that nonsense about Mika not being late, his ass can't show up on the time they agreed upon. Or maybe I just have the wrong car?

He peers into the backseat of the beat-up Toyota Camry curiously, looking at its contents. The back seat is filled with miscellaneous stage props and old fast food wrappers. Mika wrinkles his nose in disgust, thinking there are probably a dozen McDonald's burger wrappers littering the floor. This is definitely Yuu's car, alright. He was fully aware of Yuu's obsession with McDonald's.

Mika sighs, knowing full-well he would need to clean out the filth before he can even think about setting foot in Yuu's nasty old car.

"Mika!" He hears a voice shout his name. Mika lifts his head to see Yuu barreling down the nearly-empty parking lot, wielding two large rolling suitcases, an overstuffed backpack, a cooler, and an inflatable inner tube. He looks absolutely ridiculous, like he is about to trip over his own two feet as he scrambles to drag everything towards the car.

"You're late," Mika deadpans heartlessly, shoving his phone into his back pocket. "And why are you bringing so much shit?"

"I like to be prepared!" Yuu whines childishly. He shoulders off his backpack and rummages around in the front pocket until he retrieves a set of car keys. Mika resists the urge to make a comment on his egg-shaped polymer charm on the keyring and waits for Yuu to unlock the trunk.

There are two tennis rackets, a can of gasoline, and a spare tire already in the trunk; after shoving them to the side, Yuu starts to stack the bags, taking Mika's suitcase and placing it on top of his before Mika can even suggest doing it himself. He decides to make himself busy and open the back seat to clean out the car. "I fail to understand how you can live your life this way," He shouts as he balls up the disgusting trash wrappers in one hand. "Ever heard of a trash can?"

"Don't tell me how to live my life and I won't tell you how to live yours," Yuu sasses back. "And I was going to clean that up eventually."

"Sure you were," Mika mutters under his breath, taking the mound of trash and carrying it to the trash can, holding his breath as to not breathe in the rancid remnants of the expired fast food. "You're going to have a heart attack before youre thirty." After the trash is properly disposed, he shudders distastefully and wishes he had packed hand sanitizer.

When Mika returns to Yuu's parking space, he finds that Yuu is attempting - more like struggling - to shut the trunk door after stacking the trunk to the brim. He's clearly losing this battle against the trunk, and Mika would've laughed if it weren't for the fact he wanted these two weeks to be over as quickly as possible. He brushes Yuu to the side and forcefully slams down on the trunk, effectively shutting it.

"Let's go," Mika insists, as Yuu silently gapes at him, then at the closed trunk, then back at Mika. Shaking his head, Yuu flounces into the driver's seat, whereas Mika is already buckling up in the passenger's.

The key is put into the ignition, and the radio, which was left on, starts to play cheesy pop music in some language Mika doesn't understand on full blast. He jolts in surprise as Yuu casually turns the volume knob, slightly lowering the volume the music (but not enough to satisfy the blonde).

"What the hell is this crap?" Mika shouts over the techno beat, covering his ears. Yuu ignores him, looking over his shoulder to back out of the parking spot, reversing onto the road and shifting the car into forward, taking off through the student parking lot towards the university's entrance. When he's on the main road, Mika pokes him in the shoulder angrily. "Don't ignore me!"

Taking his eyes off the road, Yuu looks at him coldly, straight in the eyes. "It is art, Mika," He says dramatically. "Don't ever let me hear you insult kpop again." Tapping his fingers to the beat of the song, Yuu rolls down the acceleration ramp into the highway, turning the wheel to merge with the other cars.

With a roll of his eyes, Mika turns the knob down a bit more to where the volume level is barely manageable and settles into his seat, staring at the clouds in the sky. This is going to be a long ride.

- - - -

Yuu is a terrible driver.

Mika swears he's nearly gotten them into an accident three times.

The first time, Yuu swerved into the left lane to avoid hitting a dead squirrel, cutting off a driver in the process. The second, he was too busy singing (or rather, butchering) the foreign lyrics to his shitty music to see everyone was slowing down due to a traffic jam and was inches away from rear-ending the Mustang in front of him. ("Rich prick probably deserves it," He defended himself.) The third time, a truck was driving too slow in front of him, so he sped up and tried to pass the person just as they decided to merge, thus making Yuu slam on the brakes and throw Mika back into his seat.

Oh God, Mika realizes. I'm going to die in this nasty old Camry. And with Yuu, of all people.

And not only is Yuu a terrible driver, but he loves to criticize the driving of others (also known as screaming curses out his window at the people who cut him off). Mika can't even count the number of times Yuu has honked his horn impatiently at the traffic, earning quite a few profanities screamed back at him. Mika felt himself sink lower in his seat out of embarrassment, wishing he could be anywhere but here.

Eventually the traffic thins, and after a couple flipped birds, Yuu is driving happily in the fast lane, going eighty miles per hour. His crappy "kpop" music is still playing, and Mika wonders just how vast his collection of unintelligible, bubblegum-pop songs is.

"So," Yuu says eventually, reaching to turn down the music so it was just faint background noise in the silence. "We need to talk about this."

"About what?" Mika asks dumbly, knowing full well what he meant by this; he is just wanting to put off talking about it for as long as possible. According to Yuu, the car ride is over four hours, anyway. Surely he has more time to scroll through various social media and avoid talking to Yuu at all costs.

"You know. Our fake relationship. The goal is to actually fool everyone, you know," Yuu explains. "We need to have a game plan."

Looks like there's no way around this. "Fine," Mika sighs, hitting pause on his phone's music and pulling the earbuds out of his ears.

"So, how about the story of how we met?" Yuu starts, looking slightly uncomfortable. He keeps his eyes trained on the road in front of him, which is uneven and makes the car rattle when they hit a bump or a pothole.

"Well, how about how we actually met?" Mika offers. "We met through Shinoa at university, and as we came into the same friend group, we slowly fell from friends to lovers. Or something like that."

"How boring," Yuu huffs, clearly unimpressed.

Mika blushes angrily, offended. "Well, sorry that I'm trying to keep things realistic!" He doesn't know why he feels like he needs to constantly defend himself around Yuu, but he does practically every time he speaks, and it's becoming tedious and annoying. "Sorry if that doesn't satisfy your drama-queen desires!"

"How about," Yuu ignores the comment, continuing to brainstorm, "You saw one of my plays at university and were practically enamored by my acting skills. Then, you used your connections of Shinoa to get to know me," He suggests, grinning.

Mika whacks his shoulder, earning a mixture of a laugh and a cry of pain from Yuu. "You make me sound like a creepy fangirl," He argues. "And I would never do that. Your acting isn't even that good, anyway."

Yuu pouts in fake-hurt and dismisses the idea. "Fine, we'll go with your idea. But you should know my story would get a much more positive reaction out of my family."

After that, Mika thinks that would be the end of the conversation, but he is proved wrong when Yuu speaks again after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence.

"How about boundaries?" He asks.

"Boundaries?"

"Well, if we're trying to act like we're dating, we'll have to do things. Hold hands, do cute things, kiss-"

Kiss?

"And I was thinking maybe we have pet names, just to seal the act, and- hey, are you even listening to me?" Yuu looks over at Mika, who is staring forward, open-mouthed in shock.

Kiss kiss kiss kiss kisskisskisskiss...

"Hey, Mika!" Yuu shouts, hitting the horn to startle him out of his reverie. A car zooms past, honking angrily in response. Yuu glares at the car's license plate before turning back to Mika. "What's wrong?"

"What? Oh, it's nothing," Mika shakes his head to clear his thoughts. Of course you're going to have to kiss him, idiot. He told himself in an attempt to reason with the preposterous idea. You're pretending to be his boyfriend for God's sake. Why didn't you think this through?

"You're acting weird," Yuu notes, although he dismisses Mika's strangeness without a second thought, much to his relief. "Anyway, what do you think? Pet names or no?"

"Pet names?" Mika repeats hesitantly, dread seeping in his chest. The thought of kissing Yuu is still on Mika's mind, refusing to leave the front of his thoughts, and Mika finds his gaze drifting down to the curve of Yuu's mouth. He shivers distastefully and hopes it wouldn't come to the point where they'd have to do that in front of strangers.

"Yes! God, keep up!" Yuu rolls his eyes, speaking with a raised voice that, once again, snaps Mika out of his wandering thoughts.

"No. Pet names are cringey," Mika firmly decides with a cross of his arms, allowing himself to get distracted by the banter. "And we're not that kind of sappy couple."

Yuu seems annoyed at his answer and groans in frustration. "Come on, we need to be believable," He whines, and Mika can't help but think of how utterly childish Yuu acts. Is this guy really twenty years old?

It was clear he is not going to drop the argument; once he gets started on something, he latches onto it until he gets his way, and this fake relationship is no exception. It was downright annoying. "How about it, sweetums?"

"Oh, God! No!" Mika shouts in disgust at the nickname, covering his ears. "You disgust me."

"Cupcake?" Yuu tries.

"No," Comes Mika's stubborn reply as he sulks in his seat.

"Princess?" He bats his eyelashes innocently.

"No way in hell."

"Snuggluffagus?" Yuu tries to hold a straight face, and judging by the way the corner of his mouth twitches, he's going to fail in about two seconds.

"Fuck off."

"Daddy?" Yuu suggests. He's smirking now. He's clearly enjoying this, Mika thinks.

"I will legitimately throw you out of this car and leave your body in the ditch," Mika glowers, his fingers digging into the flesh of his arms so tightly he's leaving white-hot imprints on the skin.

"You're no fun. How about baby, then?"

"You-" Mika starts, catching himself. Well, it's not as bad as the others. He sighs exasperatedly, pinching the bridge of his nose in disgust. "Whatever. Fine." He is only agreeing to make Yuu stop, anyway.

It is clear that Yuu is enjoying every second of this, a twisted smile on his face like he's stuck it there with superglue. "And I refuse to call you anything, so don't even ask," Mika says, because it's clear Yuu is thinking that exact thing. He rolls his eyes in irritation and doesn't push it.

"Are we done, then?" Mika sighs in defeat, feeling drained from the conversation. "Because I'd like to go back to ignoring you now."

"Okay, baby," Yuu smiled, and Mika frowns.

"You're awful."

"And you're a terrible road trip buddy," Yuu complains. "And no, we're not done, we never actually discussed boundaries-"

But it was too late for Yuu to finish his sentence, however, because Mika had already plugged his earbuds back in his ears and had turned up his music to full blast. Mika closes his eyes and tries to relax on the scratchy upholstery of the seat, allowing the melody of the classical music to soothe him into sleep.

And maybe, just maybe, when he wakes up, he'll realize this is all a dream.

- - - -

A/N: This story is so enjoyable to write omg. I love the banter between Mika and Yuu. :) Thanks so much for 50+ reads after just one day! Don't forget to leave feedback and votes so I know I should keep writing this!