A/N: Sorry for delayed update! You won’t believe how busy I am even though I’m on summer break @_@ once I get done with an event that I have been preparing for on Saturday, I’ll be good to go, hopefully.

It was Sunday. Several weeks had passed since the scare with Gary, and the members had fully recovered from the whole episode, going back to their normal joking selves, though they constantly ribbed Gary for his absence the way good friends did. Perhaps because of the scare or because they felt closer somehow, the seven of them spent more time together outside of filming, gathering together for a quick meal at Haha’s restaurant every once in a while or going to Jongkook’s house to watch the new episode of Running Man together. That Sunday was one of those nights, and Jihyo had spent the past three hours watching the airing of the episode they’d filmed the previous Monday, laughing with her friends at their antics and the hilarity of the games. She came home smiling just thinking back to how fun her evening was and how glad she was that the seven of them were still all together and was surprised to see her boyfriend already home, sitting on the couch.

            “Oh, Oppa! You’re home early today,” she exclaimed, leaning in for a greeting kiss.

            “Mmm, I’ve been clearing up as much stuff to do as possible so that I’ll be all clear for when I have to go on that business trip next week, but I decided to take a break today.” He leaned back to observe her. “What are you smiling about? Had a good time?”

             “Eoh. I was watching the Running Man episode with the oppas and Kwangsoo.” She flopped down on the couch next to him and took off her bag. “What are you doing right now?” She glanced at the television and noticed that he was watching Running Man as well, though he was on an older episode. She laughed. “Oppa, that’s from two weeks ago,” she told him. “You’re late.” She laughed again when the dodgeball game against the VJs was shown. “Oh that part was so funny! I was watching it with the members and they were complaining loudly about how hard the VJs threw the ball. It was a good thing that Gary and I lost early on so that we didn’t have to play that game. Aish, it was all his fault that we lost that first game, though. He just laid around on the muddy field, not participating properly and causing problems for me.” She grinned in spite of herself thinking back to that day.

             “You sure are hanging around with the members a lot recently,” her boyfriend commented. “Especially Gary,” he teased.

             She spun around to look at him. “I am not!” she protested. As if on cue, the scene switched to her and Gary who were riding in the loser’s car to the next destination. There had been a fly in that car, and she had turned unwittingly into girly mode, screaming at Gary to kill the bug for her and clinging to his arm a little. In her defense, bugs were absolutely disgusting. She lost her mind whenever there was a bug around. Gary had killed the bug and a little by swatting at her arm a few more unnecessary times. She glanced at her boyfriend, who raised his eyebrows at her. She bit her lip. Somehow she felt guilty, and that made her annoyed.

             “Should I be jealous?” he asked. She rolled her eyes in response.

             “Of course not, oppa! I chose to be with you, didn’t I?” she exclaimed. “It’s just the show. I enjoy hanging out with each of the members equally.” He changed the topic after that, but that little conversation made her feel self conscious. Maybe she should keep a little distance between herself and Gary, just in case. So the next day during filming, she was half glad when she was put on a different team from Gary. She managed to avoid having to interact with him much the entire day and only went up to him in the ddakji game for their required Monday Couple moment, since the PDs were urging her to. He gave her a weird look after the game ended with his victory, but didn’t say anything to her. The same thing occurred the next week, in which she avoided him for the whole two days of filming except for when they had gatherings for all the members together or for the required Monday Couple moments. He noticed something was up on the second day of filming and commented on it when the members gathered together to share a dinner of barbecued pork at the restaurant. Kwangsoo, who’d been sitting next to her during the meal, had moved down to Jongkook’s side of the table to fight for the last piece of meat, and before she even knew it, Gary had quietly taken Kwangsoo’s seat.

             “What’s up with you these days, Mongji?” he asked in a friendly but cautious tone. She bit her lip. She knew he was trying to be nice, and that it wasn’t really fair of her to suddenly act cold toward him without reason, but she felt the need to protect herself a little bit. He was like family to her, just like all the other members, but there was something...more… to Gary. He was attractive, she admitted to herself while watching him putting more pork on the grill out of the corner of her eye. He wasn’t terribly good looking, which didn’t matter to her because she didn’t care about looks anyway; he was slow and had a reputation of being somewhat of a player. But he was attractive and charismatic in a dangerous way from which she felt a heightened need to shield herself.

             So she tersely replied, “I’m good,” and then focused on picking up pieces of pork off the grill to put into her lettuce wrap.

             “The filming went well today,” he tried again. She made a noise of agreement and avoided his attempt to make eye contact, looking around instead for the pepper paste. She looked up and down the table that they sat at but just couldn’t find the elusive pepper paste, with her frazzled nerves not helping the situation. Where on earth could the sauce be?

             Wordlessly, as if he could read her mind, Gary handed her the jar of pepper paste, which he’d picked up off the floor between her and Kwangsoo’s cushion seats, where she’d left it last. She ducked her head in embarrassment and took the can from him, mumbling her thanks. As she spooned some sauce for her wrap, she felt him staring at her.

             “What?” she asked while shoving the lettuce wrap into , finally turning to face him while she chewed. He continued to look at her deep in thought and smiled a wry smile.

             “I don’t get it,” he said.

             She swallowed the wrap. “What don’t you get?”

             He took off his cap to play with it, eyes following the cap as he spun it on his fingers. “I mean, some days you’re perfectly fine, acting like my best friend and even going as far as stalking me from my company to convince me to return to the show, and then other days you just shut everything out; shut me out. Like today, and yesterday.” He lifted his gaze then, and she saw something like hurt and confusion in his eyes.

             “I know you used to not like me, but I thought we were over that by now. I thought we were friends now.”

“We are friends..”

“Then why are you acting so standoffish, like the way you used to?” he asked. “Are you mad at something I did, or suddenly had a change of mind, or what? You have to tell me. I’m trying really hard to open up to you and get to know you too, but I can’t do that when you just shut down like this.” His voice was a little raised by the end of this, and some of the members stopped fooling around to stare at them. After a long pause, Gary sighed and waved them away dismissively.

“Forget it. Forget I said that, Jihyo.” he said in a lowered voice. He moved to get up, the meat on his plate untouched.

“Oppa-” she started, but he cut her off.

“It’s just that sometimes, it’s hard to be friends with you. But I’m trying.” And then he got up and walked out of the restaurant, leaving her feeling terrible.

          A/N: Sorry about the cliffie again!!!