A/N: Forgot to mention! Thanks to krisjod16 for upvoting me! :DDDD

                The changes were slight, but she felt them all the same. It was like he’d been powered off or something. He just stopped. Stopped standing next to her when they gathered for the opening sequence, stopped staying behind the rest of the group to walk shoulder to shoulder with her, stopped buying her Americano between breaks, even stopped making funny quips for their Monday Couple segment. She expected to feel the old familiar wave of relief wash over her. It’s okay, she tried to tell herself. This was the way things were supposed to be anyway. But she just felt chilled and empty, the way you feel when you rip off a heating pack in the middle of a cold day, and she was tempted to rub away goosebumps that weren’t actually there.

               The other members began to notice the changes as well. They whispered to each other in hushed tones, excluding Gary and herself from their conversations. “I’m fine,” she snapped back after the 8th time Kwangsoo bent over to ask her if she was doing okay. She willed herself to believe that she was fine, ignoring the loneliness that she felt when she got off work with no one to give her a lift home but her manager or when she wanted to go out for a drink but had no one to go with. She was fine, she told herself firmly. But it still hurt when she saw Gary’s back on Mondays as he hurried along to catch up with the guests or the other members, making a big show of not turning around to look at her.

               Finally, on one Monday when Gary began to flirt with a female guest so excessively that it put even Haha’s past playboy-ish antics to shame, she snapped. She followed him into the break room, rushing to move in front of him so she could see his face. It was the first time she had been able to get up close to him in a while, and her heart squeezed.

               “Kang Gary. Are you mad at me or something?”

               She noticed that he avoided her gaze. “Of course not,” he mumbled, turning away to get a bottle of water.

               “Then why are you avoiding me?”

               “I’m not.” She stared at him as he downed the drink in one go and moved as if to leave. She caught his arm to whirl him around, and he finally made eye contact with her, staring her down. The coldness in his usually warm brown eyes made her stumble back.

               “You’re supposed to be my friend. You asked to be my friend. You wanted to,” she reminded him, horrified to find her voice cracking and burning tears welling up.

               His gaze softened for just a moment. “Mongji-ya. I’m not mad at you. It’s just. I don’t think we can be friends anymore.”

               “Why?”

               His eyes traveled down to look at her hand tightly gripping his, and she realized that somehow through their conversation she had suddenly taken his hand. “I…. I know that I was the one who asked you to be friends with me. I was the one who said we could make it work. But I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

               “What do you mean?”

               There was a pause, and Gary’s jaw worked before he continued. “I don’t think...I don’t think I can be just friends with you. Anymore.”

               Her mind reeled around, and without meaning to, she dropped his hand like it was on fire. She stumbled backwards in shock. What did that mean; did that mean that he liked her?

              Then she looked up. He’d been watching her, gauging her reaction. For a brief moment, she thought she saw sadness in his eyes, but he soon smiled a rueful smile, like he understood. Like he knew that would happen. He nodded briefly, then walked silently out of the break room, leaving her behind in a cloud of confusion and, for some reason, hurt.