"Minho, pay attention! We're not going to win much if all you do is let go of that ball!"

My ears ring when Coach blows on his whistle again, and I wince, wishing practice ends.

"Again!" He yells.

Thomas moves forward with the ball in his hands, passes it to Alby, who throws it toward me. I clench my jaw. Come on, and I catch the ball in my hands as pain shoots through my wrists.

I manage to turn around, holding the heavy object, and attempt to give it to Jeff. Unfortunately, my throw is weak and the ball doesn't even get close to the boy.

"Alright, that's it!! Take a break!" Coach yells. I sigh, palming my face in embarrassment and as some sort of way to punish myself. I shouldn't have gone that deep.

I grab my water bottle and take some sips while I try hard not to look at Sammy, who has been watching us play since the beginning.

Even worse. Ugh, she saw me struggle like that.

Oh, and now she's walking over to me. Awesome.

I swallow, turning my head at her.

"Your friends gave me this advice," Sammy tells me, just like she had done at the party.

My stomach does a flip at the same time as my eyebrows raise. "What advice?"

She glares at my teammates in the corner, then back at me. "Try not to overthink it."

I hold my breath when she places a kiss on my lips, but just a peck. Then, I pull a face at her.

Where was the cupping my face and moving the lips and holding her waist?

"Told you, try not to overthink it," she says.

"If you're gonna come over here and kiss me-," my eyes squint, because it's obvious who forced her to do this, "-then at least make it a real kiss. 'Cause if I would compare your way of kissing to what you read-"

She cups my face out of a sudden, and starts moving her lips against mine. Her hands linger on my chest, I trail mine to her waist without thinking, purely focusing on her soft lips against mine.

They do not taste like honey and cotton candy and sweets. No one's lips taste like that and whoever says they do, is probably one of those little nasty boys that appear in books.

No offense.

But she smells like a soap and literally something elegant, which is enough for me.

The spell breaks when she aparts her lip from mine, and I wish I would've had the confidence to press her against a wall or something, so she wouldn't let go- for fuck's sake, Minho.
"Good acting," I say, trying hard not to stare at her lips again, which are still just an inch away from mine.

So instead, I watch her eyes. They're dark brown, but I still manage to find a few more golden sparks in there, and realize it must also be her eyes that I'm in love with.

"You too." Slowly, she moves her lips to my ear and I suck in a breath. "So now you better go try harder with basketball, 'cause I'm not doing this again today."

I crack a smile. "Tomorrow, then?"

Please.

Her eyes darken. "Funny, Minho."

I do really hope we kiss again tomorrow.

"Look, if you want to make this relationship seem realer, you better try harder too. Give me your phone."

Those words are synonyms to hinting I want her to kiss me again, but she doesn't, unfortunately.

"No."

"Your phone," I repeat, my eyes trailing down to her bag.

She tilts her head. Raises an eyebrow.

"Please," I add. She finally hands me her phone.

"Password is 71526483."

"Who has a password like that?" I murmur, but I shouldn't complain because I know I tried to fit as much birthdays in my password as possible. "Also, what the hell is this?"

I see a guy with blonde, a bit curly hair and straight eyebrows. His eyes seem sleepy, and he's staring at me like he's trying to seduce me or something.

I don't like it.

"Now that, is Hayden Christenen."

"Yeah, as long as I'm your boyfriend, you're not having Christ Of Hay as your Lock Screen," I say.

AKA, have me as your Lock Screen.

"Now isn't that possessive."

"Hand."
With a roll of her eyes, she allows me to take her hand. I make a picture of our intertwined fingers and put it on her background.

It's hard to resist the urge to send this picture to myself so I have it too.

"What are you doing?"

"No girl on this earth has her boyfriend's real name as his contact name." I click on her camera roll and scroll through it. I regret that. "Why does your camera roll only exist out of... men."

"Because some men, unlike you, are amazing." She tries taking her phone back, but I turn around. "Hey, give it back! You've done everything-"

"What's Character AI... why do you have twenty missed texts and what the shuck is Wattpad?"

It's not hard to find out what Character AI is. You have characters and you have AI, who you can usually speak to.

And I'm well aware what Wattpad is because when Fry and I are bored in the middle of the night, we sneak under a blanket and make fun of the crazy shit on there.

No offense, Sammy.

"Enough." She snatches her phone out of my hand. "If you're gonna change my contact name for you into..." She looks down. "Min with a heart, then I want to know what your contact name for me is."

"Naui salang," I say.

"No salami?"

I groan and repeat it.

"Naui salang?" She also repeats it, but way slower.

I take her arm, a shot if electricity sparkling through my body, and show her my phone.

나의 사랑 <3

"The what?" Her nose scrunches up and I nearly drool at the sight.

"It's 'my love' in Korean."

"No one here understands Korean so I don't understand the point in changing my name into that-"

"They'll get the point, Nerd." I bite my lip. "Are you going to give my phone back?"

"Subway Surfers? Minecraft?" I see her attempt to hide a laugh. "Interesting. You bought bandages and rubbing alcohol and-"

The soft feeling in my stomach gets replaced by a thunderstorm and my blood runs cold. Immediately, I pull my phone out of her hands and hide it in my bag, my heart dropping.

"You need books, I need that."

She can not know. I swallow, fearing she was about to ask questions.

"I never judged, did I?" She says. The tone isn't the kindest, but I'm grateful that she mentions it. "Why did you buy those?"

"Basketball often gives me injuries," I say, my tone blank. "Well, coach is waiting. I've got to go."

I mentally scoff. Of course, basketball injuries.

"Hey- we're still meeting up this weekend, right?"

"Yeah."

❤︎︎

My mood is even worse when I remember principal Gray, AKA Sammy's mother, asked me to meet her in her office at seven.

So here I am, sitting in front of the woman and mostly wondering how a perfect girl like Sammy could come out of that.

It- sorry, she stares at me with raised eyebrows, and I shudder.

Her eyes are piercing through me like they're hawks. The bun on top of her head seems so tight I realize that that's maybe why she's so grumpy, and her thin, pressed-together lips appear to give me a warning.

"Minho," she says.

"That's me," I confirm. "Thanks for the reminder."

I want to bury myself alive.

This woman already hates me and I'm making it worse.

"What did you want to talk about, Mrs. Gray?"

She squints an eye at me.

She kind of looks like an alpaca right now.

I hold back a laugh.

Or maybe a frog with narrowed eyes.

I snort.

Her eyebrows raise even higher. It looks like a penguin with those long, yellow eyebrows. "Something funny?"

"Not at all, Mrs."

She sighs. "Alright. How're you?"

"I'm perfect." I tilt my head at my fast reply. "Hm, perfect I am. Anyway- how are you?"

Not perfect.

"I'm good," she tells me. A silence falls.

I frown. "Are we going to speak about anything here or...?"

"Your biology grade isn't the best. Actually, it's the worst grade from your whole class, and as long as keep going like this, I don't want you to date my daughter."

"Well." I can't believe what I'm saying, but, "Our next test will be about sexual things. Perhaps you could allow me to date Sammy just 'till that test. And you know, I'll definitely get an A plus. Because, yeah, I'm dating Sammy."

Oh my god.

I mentally groan. Not because I'm teasing Edith Gray (I'm super funny), but because I would never use Sammy like that for a stupid grade.

Well, she thinks I'm using her for good grades but I'm not and certainly not for biology tests about sexual activities.

It was just two birds one stone, alright? I do get good grades if she shares those answers and I can also seduce her with my amazing charm and change our fake dating into real dating.

Because yes, I'm in love with Sammy.

I do need to work on that last thing.

Also on my grades, though.

I need to work on both.

But especially charming her.

Which she seems immune to. And that's new, 'cause no girl can resist my charm, ya know?

Except for Sammy.

So I'm not sure why I chose to fall in love with the one who I can't seem to get, but I enjoy it.

"I think you should go," principal Gray wakes me up from my daydreaming, her face full of hatred.

Well, even kind parents would look at their kid's boyfriends like that if they made such a childish comment.

I get up fast, happy to leave. She opens the door. When I step outside, I freeze. My joking mode seems gone.

Sammy is laughing with Gally. Jealousy crawls up my body and makes me use her actual name, with a cold voice.

"Sam."

I seem to have interrupted her sentence. She looks up and her smile fades, which makes me feel even worse.

Of course Gally, not my favorite person at all, makes her laugh, and I... sometimes make her laugh.

"And Gally." I pierce my eyes through him.

Not literally, of course. I don't want to see that damn cocktail sausage.

Gally gives me a nod. "Minho."

"Sam," her mother speaks.

"Mom." Sam gives her a nod too. "Lovely reunion."

Her mother disappears when she asks another boy to come inside her office.

I fold my arms. "What brings you here?"

What could Sammy possibly have done that caused her to speak to the principal?

She's like the most holy, nerdy, well behaved girl here.

Excluding the unholy things she reads.

Sammy swallow "I could ask you the same thing. I thought you were gonna do better this year."

"Just a little mistake can't miss, can it?" I look at Gally again, not very surprised he's here. "And you?"

Gally and I are teammates and we're nice during basketball, but beside that, I have never been able to like him much.

"Pushed a kid."

I scoff. "Typical."

"Offensive," he shoots back.

I look back at Sammy, already done with Gally.
Ha, rhyme. I should write poetry.

I can already see it. Me holding a heavy book with "MINHO'S POEMS" on the cover. The poems all about this Asian guy with amazing looks-

Sometimes my confidence overflows.

"Need to negotiate with your mom?"

She tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear.

I'm kind of wishing I was the one who did that.

Damn, I should go to therapy.

"No, with yours."

Mentally, I'm grinning at her sassiness. In real life, I look emotionless. "Funny. What rule did our nerd break?"

"Blamed myself for having a pack of cigarettes in our dorm," she says, her tone just as cold as mine.

I'll gladly call it sexual tension.

One-sided.

Of course not from my side.

Anyway.

"Are there any couple miscommunications here? Do I need to get y'all a couple therapy sessi-"

"Shut up, Gally," I snap.

"Just sayin'. I've seen happier couples. Ah, it's my turn." He gets up once Sammy's mom appears again. "Hope to see you again, Sam."

He's lucky. I would've hit him if he suddenly had some kind of nickname for her.

I immediately sit down next to Sammy. "What did he want?"

"To recreate my book scenes. We're doing it tomorrow night."

My fists clench. Hitting him suddenly sounds even better, even though I know this is a joke.

I sigh.

"Hey, if you're so moody, why don't you go to bed? I'm not asking for your presence."

"And since when are we enemies," I lean closer, "while we're supposed to be dating?"

Shuck this, man. Her acting like that toward me makes me even more in love.

"Since I found out you're kind of a prick and we might not fit together as good as we thought," she says.

See? I chose the one that doesn't even like me.

"Well, if you want this to work," I lean even closer, attempting to do I don't even know what, "you better act like you like me. That's the whole point of fake dating, Samuel. Pretend."

I almost gasp when she lies her hand on my thigh, high enough for my stomach to do a flip. I almost choke on the air, and my face flushes. I don't want to speak of what else happened.

The annoyance is somewhat bursting off her face. "Sure. I'll pretend."

I try to move her hand, but she presses it down even harder and I hold back a groan.

Not a groan in annoyance, unfortunately.

"Touching my thigh isn't gonna show people more of our," I cough the lump in my throat away, "so called love."

"Oh, yes it is."
And when the door opens, Sammy gets up so roughly her elbow smashes against my stomach.

What was that necessary for?

At least she killed the butterflies.

"My apologies, Honey." She pats me on the head and I cringe. "But I've got to go. Hope that leaves more room for your ego."

When she walks away, the butterflies are right back and I can still feel her hand burning on my thigh.

She's only making things worse.

I walk to my dorm with a smirk. But once the door is closed and I'm left in an awful silence, I feel empty.

Mostly because I can't believe I made that stupid joke about biology and Sammy. I'm afraid it might've seemed like I was sexualizing her, which I wasn't trying to do at all.

I distract myself from the sharpeners by going on a run, even though it's almost nine.