Chapter Text
It was a nondescript Thursday evening when Soobin made what was possibly the biggest mistake of his adult life.
He had arrived home from work earlier than usual that day. Right before he could unlock his apartment door and melt into his couch like he’d been dreaming of doing all day, he felt his toes hit something solid.
Sitting at his doorstep was a package.
Which was odd, Soobin was sure he hadn’t ordered anything recently. Maybe it was delivered to the wrong door.
He picked the small box up to inspect the return address.
Choi Beomgyu
42 Hangang-daero
Yongsan-gu, Seoul, 04389
South Korea
As if right on cue, he felt his phone ring from inside his back pocket.
“Soobin! When you get back home, can you please not open my package until you can call me back? Pretty please? ”
“No worries Gyu, I just got home. What’s this?”
Hugging the package against his chest with one arm and pressing his phone against his ear with his shoulder, Soobin quickly tapped in his passcode and made his way inside.
Beomgyu’s excited giggles could be heard even without the speaker on. “You’ll see~”
After kicking his shoes off and stepping into his favorite pair of fluffy bunny house slippers (matching with a bear themed pair Beomgyu had), Soobin trudged down the entryway and toward the living room, where he set the package down on his dining table.
“Have you opened it yet?”
Soobin put his phone on speaker mode and placed it down before locating a pair of scissors to drag through the tape. “Doing it right now.”
Nestled inside the box was what looked like a book, or maybe a kpop album. Curiosity piqued, Soobin ripped open the bubble wrap to reveal the item within.
The cover of the album—book? was a rather lovely photo of Beomgyu standing beside his boyfriend Kai. The couple were wearing matching outfits of pure white. Kai had a tender smile on his face as he held a banquet of daisies out to Beomgyu with one hand. The set up reminded Soobin of the kinds of youth dramas he was fond of watching. The couple looked like a pair of lovesick students.
At the top right-hand corner of the cover were the words:
Together, Forever
Choi Beomgyu & Huening Kai
Wait.
Soobin flipped the cover open and nearly dropped the entire album in shock. “Wedding invitation?” He screeched. “Oh my god, Beomgyu? Congratulations! Wait when did this even- How did- What?”
As he listened to Beomgyu fill him in on the details, (Hyuka was the one who proposed—it happened exactly a week and a half ago, on my birthday—yes, it was super romantic — nice, right? This is just a prototype invitation before the details are finalized, I wanted you to find out first! But we’re thinking of a summer wedding — yes, I’m sorry I never mentioned this to you until now I just wanted it to be a surprise, please forgive me Soobinie hyong pwease pwease pwea—) he looked through the half-filled sheets inside meant to serve as inclusions that explained wedding details.
The concept really was nice. Looking at the photos of the happy couple sent a minute thrum of sadness through Soobin’s heart about his own relationship status: painfully single.
He was single by choice, but the point still stands.
“Hey, Soobin?” Beomgyu suddenly said.
“Yeah?”
“I want you to be my best man.”
Soobin dropped the album for real this time. “Oh my god,” he started, scrambling to pick everything up. His mind whirled with a flurry of thoughts about his future schedule and any potential roadblocks or prior commitments.
Oh, who was he kidding. Of course, the answer was a resounding— “Yes. I’d love to.”
(He wasn’t sure why he was so surprised by the offer. He and Beomgyu were best friends, after all. This was a given. Who else would he ask?
Even though Soobin’s postgraduate adult life and Beomgyu’s hectic overseas filming schedules made meeting up in person more difficult than it used to be, and recently Soobin felt like he hadn’t seen Beomgyu in so long he’s grown out of the loop of who and what was going on in the other man’s life, they were still best friends.
Soobin was going to stop thinking about this right now.)
"-and I can’t wait to meet your plus one! I can’t believe you’ve been gatekeeping him from us for so long. You’re so stubborn.” Beomgyu was saying on the phone.
All of Soobin’s previous excitement died out. “Uh, what?”
“Your secret boyfriend, silly.” It shouldn’t be possible for Soobin to see the over-exaggerated, salacious wink Beomgyu made at that, but somehow he did. “Don’t think I forgot about him!”
Memory of a little white lie he’d told Beomgyu once months ago struck Soobin with the intensity of the asteroid that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Soobin would very much like to also go extinct right now.
“Oh, yeah! Him! Uh, about that...”
Before Soobin could reveal the truth, or better yet, lie again and say he and his nonexistent mystery beau broke up because he was a terrible, awful person, urgent knocking was heard in the distance from Beomgyu's side.
“Shit, gotta go soon. I have a casting interview to get to in an hour. Catch up with you later?”
“Yeah, sure!” Soobin immediately said, like a fool. Like a coward.
“Great. And Soob, before I go, I just wanted to let you know how I really am happy that you finally found someone that lasted. I didn’t want to say this before, but I was really worried about you. As your best friend it’s my duty to make sure you’re happy and well taken care of, and— oh my god I’m coming! Lord, people have no patience these days... talk to you later byeee!”
The call ended with an abrupt click.
For a long moment, Soobin just stood there silently with the invitation still in hand, phone left abandoned on the table.
“Well fuck me.”
The balcony railing was beginning to look real comfortable.
Beomgyu and Kai got engaged in March, and their wedding was set to take place in late summer of the next year.
That should have given Soobin a reasonable amount of time to acquire a real boyfriend to be his date, but against all odds, he somehow managed to forget about his nonexistent boyfriend dilemma. To be more precise, he put off dealing with the issue for so long, he actually forgot about it.
But it wasn’t as though he didn’t try at first!
Immediately after experiencing the five stages of grief after his call with Beomgyu, Soobin got to work downloading all of the most popular dating apps, and crafting the most appealing profiles possible to maximize his dating pool.
(They were a great success. So much so that Soobin grew overwhelmed by all the attention he was getting.
He ended up deleting all profiles but one.)
Then it was months of going on half-hearted dates every week that only ever ended in one of two ways: Soobin ghosting his match afterward, or having a hook up he ghosted the morning after.
Over time, his brain began to view the dates the same way it viewed a dreaded chore. Nothing was working out. He couldn’t force himself to be interested in the guys he’s forcing himself on dates with, and there was a dangerous lack of urgency since the wedding was still a whole year away. The outings slowly lessened in frequency until one day in the middle of the summer, they died out completely.
Like a healthy and functional twenty-something year old, Soobin instead poured all his time and energy into his career and personal development.
His professional life passed by in a blur of endless lesson prep and sticky-fingered children whining for his attention on the daily. The vicious cycle of semesters and professional development times and evaluations took a heavy toll on his energy and stress levels, and it would be really nice if he could be paid more, but for the most part he was satisfied with where he was in life.
Outside of work he met up with friends when he could in the evenings, took the occasional day trip on weekends, and never missed out on his bi-weekly calls with Beomgyu and/or his parents back home in Ansan. He even took up some new hobbies (yoga, to alleviate his back pain from having to constantly use child-sized furniture)(baking, for that sense of accomplishment! and to help manipulate his new students and his coworkers into liking him more).
Soobin was simply too busy enjoying and appreciating the simple, boring, little life he had to bother himself with silly things like forcing an unwanted partner on himself.
The months seemed to almost blend together, and in a blink of an eye, it was four weeks before the wedding.
Disaster struck Soobin the weekend of Beomgyu’s bachelor party.
They were all at a hot-springs resort in Japan. Soobin had been so proud of how meticulously he’d planned everything. It was no easy feat wrangling together the availability of multiple grown adults with full-time jobs—half of which involved unconventional work hours and days—but he did it. He’d even made sure to validate the safety and privacy of the ryokan he booked for the comfort of all of the guests, and to perfectly coincide the itinerary with the rest days of Beomgyu’s Japanese filming schedule.
Despite all the effort, he couldn’t help but to have this tiny, little, irksome feeling that he’d forgotten about something important.
The problem Soobin missed reared its hideous head on the final night, when a very drunk Beomgyu suddenly started babbling on and on to everybody about his excitement for finally being able to meet Soobin’s mystery man soon.
Perhaps Beomgyu had been trying to respect Soobin’s boundaries, or maybe practice self control, but he had never even mentioned the boyfriend once during the times he saw Soobin the past year and a half. At the sudden shocking reminder, Soobin’s heart stopped. He felt the blood drain straight out of his face, and the alcohol clear right out of his system.
‘Do it, confess to him that there is no boyfriend! This is the perfect time! ' the angel on his shoulder whispered.
‘And look like a pathetic, lying loser? Are you insane? ’ the neighboring devil hissed.
“Yeah, he can’t wait to meet you, too!” Soobin laughed nervously. He thanked his lucky stars that Beomgyu was too out of it to notice his odd tone.
Later that night, while Beomgyu was safely sprawled across the futon of their shared room and drifting off to dreamland, Soobin quietly padded off to the sitting room. He perched on the couch anxiously gnawing at his knuckles, trying to figure out how to dig himself out of the web of lies he tangled himself in.
Why was Beomgyu so believing of this alleged boyfriend story in the first place? How trusting! How naive! Soobin had only mentioned it once, twice…maybe over three times to ward off more of Beomgyu’s earnest attempts of setting him up with his or Kai’s celebrity friends.
Yeah, no. Soobin was the problem here.
The more Soobin thought of it the more awful he felt. The copious amount of sake he had at dinner a few hours ago must’ve still had lingering effects on him, because it was the only possible explanation for what he did next.
—
I Am A Liar And A Fraud. Here's How You Can Help Me Continue To Be One!
Long story short, I have been lying to my long-distance best friend about being in a relationship for the past two or so years. Said best friend is getting married next month, and believes I will be bringing this non-existent partner with me as my plus-one.
This is where you, my dear reader, comes in: I need someone to act as my boyfriend for the wedding. It will be a week-long, all expenses paid, destination wedding on an island, and I’m willing to cover any additional costs for compensation. I’m also not being picky here. I don’t care about what you look like or what you do for a living. I just need a man in their mid-20’s to early-30’s. However, someone with at least a decent personality would be appreciated!
Serious inquiries only, please. I beg.
—
The next morning, Soobin rose with the sun. He felt refreshed and energized. Nothing but peace and tranquility flowed through his veins.
He spent a healthy amount of time in the bathroom to freshen up with the travel constrained steps of his morning routine. After he massaged in enough skincare products to make his face all dewy and pretty, he went back to the room to gently shake Beomgyu awake. When that kind approach didn’t work, he aggressively shook Beomgyu awake.
Once that entire ordeal was over, he enjoyed a light Japanese breakfast with Beomgyu and the others in the dining area of the ryokan before heading back to their room to pack his bags.
What he didn’t do, was check the inbox of the burner email he used to create his new Craigslist account.
Before he departed for the airport, he hugged Beomgyu goodbye. The two exchanged playful promises to not run away from their duties and to see each other again in a few short weeks.
It wasn’t until five hours later, when Soobin finally returned to the safety of his apartment in Seoul, that he flipped his laptop open and anxiously logged into his burner email profile.
In all honesty, he couldn’t even remember what he had written. When the listing title finally flashed across the screen, Soobin dug his face into his hands and screamed loud enough his neighbors probably thought he was getting murdered. Why did the title sound like something that would only attract criminals? Soobin of the past, what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.
As anticipated, from the few replies he got, there were none that was sane or good.
He quickly deleted the browser tab and got up to sift through his kitchen cabinets for snacks in an attempt to take his mind off of everything.
The next few days Soobin steadfastly avoided looking at his email, and frequently contemplated deleting the post and pretending it never happened.
Maybe he could beg one of his co-workers to do the job. The new music teacher would be perfect, actually. Zhang Hao, was it? Only…he was already in a loving and committed relationship with some dance instructor. Soobin wasn’t that much of a monster to try to break up a happy couple.
As Soobin lamented over the critical shortage of eligible bachelors in his life, he found himself opening the inbox of his email again. To his extreme surprise and trepidation, there were a lot more replies than before. This time, most of them were actually quite genuine sounding.
There were a few messages from people making fun of his situation, or cursing him out for being a pathetic and manipulative person. Soobin swiftly trashed those.
Half of them only wished him luck on his endeavor, which was very sweet but not very helpful, so into trash those also also went.
Then there were real offers, but they were either from well-meaning women or sounded too suspicious to be considered.
Before Soobin clicked on his most recent and final email, he closed his eyes, clasped his hands together, and prayed to every deity out there that it would miraculously be the one.
—
From: [email protected]
Subject: Reply re: post “I Am A Liar And A Fraud…”
Hey Liar ~
A friend of mine saw your listing the other day and sent it to me telling me to take it up as a joke, but unfortunately for him and fortunately for you, I’m actually considering helping you.
I guess I should start by introducing myself.
You can call me Daniel. I’m not really a foreigner and I have a Korean name I normally go by, but for privacy reasons I’ll be keeping it a secret for now. Sorry!
Now some things about me… I was born in ‘99 and I’m an ENFP. I was born in Seoul, but lived in San Jose, California for a few years when I was younger. I’m currently in a master’s program at an American university so I live overseas, but I’m back in Seoul this summer for research purposes (and to visit my family!). Outside of my work, I’m into fashion, dance, reading, and photography. I absolutely adore ramen and pho, and Fu Bao is the actual love of my life.
I am also now growing increasingly self-conscious of how much I’ve used the letter “i” this entire message, and feel like to alleviate my self-centeredness I should try learning more about “u” for a change ;)
Haha ><
Jokes aside, if you’re actually willing to take up my offer, we could meet up in person at a coffee shop or something to discuss details. No pressure though! Let me know what you decide.
Best regards,
Daniel
p.s. Absolutely fascinating choice for a title, but can’t say it didn’t intrigue me. Were you even sober when you wrote that? Lol
—
Something akin to hope bloomed in Soobin’s chest.
How could it be that someone so qualified and refreshingly honest actually responded to his ridiculous posting? Daniel seemed like he was actually an interesting person with a personality, and he was close enough in age to Soobin. His confident personality shone through his writing, even with the crap joke he made.
It sounded almost too good to be true.
Soobin read the email again, searching for any hidden signs of deceit.
Within a minute, he sent his reply requesting to meet.