༄ THE next day was strange.

People stared at her in classes, whispered when she passed, or even whistled. And somehow, she knew that probably had to do with the same rumors Teresa and Sonya told her about.

She. Was. Not. Dating. Minho.

So after the awfully long day, she forced herself to step into the sport building and go find that six foot three Asian boy.

Very surprising she found him playing basketball with some other boys.

"Hey, Minho!" She got noticed soon. "Your girlfriend's waiting for ya!"

Sam sighed deeply. It was her second day here, come on! Where was her peace?

The boy told the others something before he walked over to Sam, a questioning look on his face. "How can I help you? It's not like I got all the time in the world right now."

"Sucks for you." She grabbed his bicep and started walking. Luckily, he moved with her. "Rumors are going around."

He shrugged.

"What, are you completely oblivious?" She pushed him into a room after checking it was empty.

"I've been getting some random high-fives and hugs and everything, though." He casually sat down on the bench of the changing room. "What is the rumor?"

"People think we're dating," she blurted out, and then immediately regretted saying it like that. "They saw us kissing at that party, you whispering to me yesterday, and then our conversation in the hallway."

"Oh, you mean the one where you were desperate for congress? Or reading about it, at least?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not desperate for anything." Well, fictional men, maybe. "But that's not even the point! Did you hear what I just said?"

"People think we're dating." He looked up at her. "People are stupid. Dumb, idiotic."

The frustration nearly caused her to explode. "I don't want to spend this whole year with rumors and laughs about me."

She wanted to spend her last year with nice people, things that were comfortable, and studying so she at least knew something about the world before it would be taken away from her. Not rumors that she was dating some popular basketball boy.

"And I swear to god if my mom thinks I'm dating someone—"

"Your mom won't catch one single rumor from this school as long as she's not around, which I know she will not b—"

"My mom's the principal of your school."

"What." His face darkened in a second. "Yeah, I'm dead."

"Oh, you're the dead one now? If she happens to hear this, she'll explode."

Because Minho didn't seem like a holy gentleman at all.

"I'm dead, because she threatened to expel me if I don't behave this year. My visits to her office were weekly things last year, and I lost count on the amount of times I had detention, Samira. So if she thinks that I'm dating you, she's gonna kill me with her looks and definitely give me detention with each little fault I make."

"Then do something about this."

"What do you expect me to do? I know I'm amazing, but I can't let rumors vanish either."

Sam wandered around the room, constantly wiping her clammy hands on her skirt. "Minho, I really, really don't want this year to suck. It's gonna be my last normal year before my life... I don't know, it'll just be ruined. So I don't want people to whisper rumors about me."

"What that's supposed to mean?" He leaned backward, face full of curiosity now. "You're able to predict the future or something? How the hell are you supposed to know that your life will be ruined?"

"None of your business," she snapped. Took a deep breath as she turned her back to him, then almost immediately turned around again.

He was silent for a long time. "If we can't let the rumors disappear, why don't we just confirm them?"

She thought she misheard him for a good second. "Excuse you?"

"Pretend it's real." His gaze got sharper.

"Or we could just say we broke up. Mutually."

"Your mom's also gonna hear about that. I'll be expelled right away!"

Sam sat down too, lots of feet away from him. "Fake dating is the dumbest idea ever."

"My grade list exists of just F's and I can't seem to get anything about it to change, no matter how hard I study. With that, your mom hates me. So if we pretend to date, she won't hate me anymore, because I'll treat you right. And if you just act overly happy, she'll be happy with me. And since you're her daughter, you can give me answers of tests by overhearing her conversations with teachers or something. I won't be expelled, your life won't be considered with rumors, because we confirmed them."

Sam thought about that for a long time. "You want to use me... to get answers to tests... so you can get good grades... and a good impression on my mom... so you won't be expelled."

"There was no need to say it that dramatically, but yes." He let go of a breath. "I know there's much more benefits in it for me than for you, but—"

"Oh, no. There's a lot of benefits in it for me." Her eyes started to widen as her heart made a jump. "Like, you're going to save my life with this."

"I- what?"

Sam looked at him for a while. He seemed calm and steady, a bit confused and worried, but still calm and steady. "Promise me you won't tell anyone about this."

"Alright. I promise," he said, almost immediately.

"I mean it."

"I do, too."

"Alright." She nodded to herself. "Fine. So... at the end of the year, I'll get a forced wedding with a man who's like twenty years old than me. That's why I wanted to make this year fun, because after that, I won't have any freedom. And the biggest benefit is, is that my dad told me that if I manage to get someone else before the wedding... I won't have to get married to that man."

Minho's eyebrows had scrunched as she summarized it, and his eyes now gained sorrow. "Oh. That's a lot. Shit."

Sam just shrugged a bit. "Yeah, well, I guess I've got a little bit of hope now. So if we're gonna do this, it means we will have to do it for at least a whole year."

"I'll be fine with that. One year for me to correct my grades."

Her heart was now beating rapidly. It was like living in a book, except she was sure they wouldn't turn out to be truly in love, like all the fictional couples. "Alright. Agreed. But we've got to... make a contract or something."

He tilted his head. "And why, exactly?"

"Well, there's got to be rules. We're gonna have to be respectful, for example."

"Why in the world would you think we're not gonna be respectful?"

"Seeing as you got detention a million times last year..."

"That has nothing to do with my respect for women." He folded his arms. "My school has nothing to do with women, so nothing I do there has to do with women. All my respect goes to wom—"

"I understand!" She held up her hand. "Okay. That's settled. We're gonna be respectful- wait, let me grab my notebook."

"Let's just go outside first. This room stinks and I'm afraid people will enter soon."

"Right."

So there they went. Outside, twilight was starting to fall, but they a lot of time left before nine o'clock would hit, and sat down at a picnic table between the two schools.

Sam lay her notebook down and grabbed a pen out of her bag. Wrote 'contract' in some fancy letters and marked it with pink.

Minho snorted. Offended, Sam looked up. "If this fake dating requires fake smiling, I'm out. Don't laugh at my way of taking notes."

"My notes are," he paused, "I don't even have any notes."

"Try taking them and you might score a bit higher."

"Whatever. On with those rules. Being respectful. What else?"

"We won't make out again, just so you know." She cleared her throat. "So I suggest we're not gonna randomly jump at each other and kiss."

"Like you did at the party, yes." A chuckle escaped his mouth. "Which I must admit, was not the worst—"

"Shut up." She blushed, and wrote down 'no kisses'.

"But it's weird if we never touch each other. People are gonna get suspicious."

"Have you watched To All The Boys I've Loved Before, Minho?"

"I'm not putting my hand in your back pocket. That's like the most cliche thing ever." He shook his head heavily.

"I'll take that as a yes," Sam mumbled. "Okay, no hands in the back pocket. But since you're such a popular boy," she almost spat the words out, "people must expect you to touch me."

He rolled his eyes at her tone. "We'll see. Just no random kissing unless it's an emergency."

"Okay. Anything else?"

"I don't think so."

Sam nodded in agreement. "Okay. I'll write the ending date down. No other rules, but we've got some shit to make this more realistic to others."

He lifted an eyebrow.

"We're gonna have to meet more often than just at your trainings."

"Attending parties, walking around the campus, and some meet ups in the weekends?"

"Sure." Sam lay her hands down on the table. "But I go home in the weekends. So if you want that, you will have to come over."

"We'll see about that too." Minho shuddered. "Dinner with your mom... no offense, but rather not."

She laughed, ignoring the bad feeling in her stomach. "Yeah. Not exactly my favorite thing either. I don't even know why I'm still there in the weekends because— doesn't matter." She lowered her head. Swallowed. "Uh, so, in the weekends, yeah. I'll tell my parents Friday night. I don't know about your parents.."

"Oh, they won't really care about what I do." He smiled. "I guess we'll attend some parties. And maybe we should exchange phone numbers."

"Of course." Sam typed her number in on his phone as he did the same to hers. "Let me know if you have any other priorities."

He rested his head on his palm. "Well." And trailed his eyes over her. "Not right now, but I'll let you know. You too."

But before he got the chance to walk away, "Wait!"

"Hm?"

"You shouldn't be calling me Samira while you're," she made air quotes, "dating," air quotes gone, "me."

Minho stepped closer again. Looked down at her. "Then what should I call you?"

"Sam."

"Everyone calls you that. I'm certain it's very basic and if I'm going to be your," air quotes, "boyfriend," air quotes gone, "then I should be calling you something better."

"Like what?"

"That, I'm not sure of. I'll go philosophize about it tonight, while you go read your nerd porn. Enjoy it, I must say."

Slightly annoyed he made such a thing out of her books now, she gave him a glare.

"Two hands on the book, though!" He added once he was a few feet away from Sam, leaving her with an open mouth again.