A/N: We've come to the end! When I first started writing this story (during testing week, no less, lol), I had a basic idea of the plot- the beginning, and the end, but I had no idea how to do the middle. Because of that my story was often incoherent and weird and slow, but you guys encouraged me with your comments and subscriptions and upvotes :D I owe it to ya'll for being so supportive!!! Here we are finally. Enjoy, and I'll see you in the next fanfic I write (maybe? I'm thinking about it)!

            It was Monday. Like all the Mondays of late, Jihyo and Gary spent the entire time trying to avoid each other, but also as per usual, she caught herself gazing over in Gary’s direction several times throughout the filming process.

           There he is. That’s him. That’s the guy you like, Jihyo, her heart whispered whenever Gary breezed past her during one of their missions. That was new.

            It startled her greatly when she flung open the door to the waiting room during break to collect a coat she’d forgotten behind earlier and saw Gary there by himself, drinking some apple juice. He froze when he saw her, and so did she.

            She cleared , trying to act normal, though she was sure he could hear her pounding heart from all the way across the room. “Oh…. o-oppa. I was just here to look for my-”

            Before she could finish her sentence, Gary had reached down, picked her jacket up from the back of the couch nearest to him, and crossed the room to hand it to her. She reached out a hand to take the coat from him, and when he passed it over, their hands touched. Her thanks dried up in .

            They stared at each other in silence. A moment passed when his lips parted and she was sure he was about to say something to her, but after a split second, he had his heel and hastily left the room.

            Filming continued. Her hand still tingled where he’d touched her earlier. Her eyes continued to stray to Gary unconsciously, and she’d given up trying to focus. At some point, when her head had turned toward his direction once again, she was taken aback to see that he had been looking at her, too. Then he dropped his gaze so fast that she wasn’t sure whether she had imagined the moment or not. But her heart raced nonetheless.

            The slate was clapped. Jihyo had a sudden urge to find Gary, to ask him what that moment of eye contact had been about, to ask him what he had been up to recently and how he’d been doing, to ask him or talk to him about anything, really. But when she stopped Haha before he exited the building to ask him where Gary might be, he shrugged and said that he didn’t know. Almost dejectedly, she turned away and headed into the parking lot.

She spotted his back as he made his way to his car. Without knowing what she was doing, she ran in front of him and stopped him. He tried to step around her, keeping his head low, but she blocked his path. He stopped but stared at a point above her head, and she suddenly felt angry.

“What’s this; you’re not even going to look at me anymore?”

She was a little taken aback when he did meet her gaze reluctantly. His eyes darted around urgently, and his face was filled with sadness and a little bit of resentment.

“Kang Gary, I-” she started, but he cut her off.

“Jihyo-ya. I’m sorry about this, but I really can’t stand to be around you right now. Please just let me go,” he said, and his voice broke. “I promise you, I’m trying to get over you right now. It’s going to take me some time, but I’ll make it happen. Then, maybe I can face you again, and we can be friends. But until then, please leave me be, because I can’t promise that I can control myself around you anymore.”

With that, he brushed past her roughly and headed on to his car. To her surprise, hot tears started dripping out of her eyes, and she rubbed them away vigorously. Though her mind was telling her to keep a cool head, to back off and leave, her heart cried out one phrase over and over. Don’t go, Kang Gary. Don’t let him go. She spun around.

“Yah, you idiot, fool Kang Gary! You said that you could get over your feelings for me, but what about me? What am I supposed to do with my feelings for you?” she hollered at his back before she could stop herself. He stopped in his tracks.

The old Jihyo probably would have never done this. The old Jihyo would have never done something that made her feel so vulnerable. She would have rather let him go, let her feelings go, rather than have to reveal them. She would have brought back those broken down walls around her heart, building them higher and thicker than ever. She would have stubbornly stuck to her promise that she would not let what the media and the script dictated ever happen.

But he’d changed her. He and his silly little smile, cheesy jokes, warm Americanos bought at midnight, deep conversations over soju, and open, kind heart had won her over, making her walls of caution come crumbling down.

Sometimes, It’s okay to let things happen the way they may, to not be in control for once. Falling in love was never meant to be controlled, anyway, Kwangsoo had said.

She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.

“I’m saying… I’m saying that I like you, Kang Gary!”

There was maybe a one second, two second pause. Time seemed to hold its breath.

And then he was closing the distance in between them and drawing her to him, meeting her lips with such force that she stumbled backwards a little bit. And she kissed him back just as hard, knocking his cap off his head and running her hands through that messy but adorable hair, bringing him closer to her just as he was tugging her waist closer to his. They kissed and kissed, and it felt so natural, so familiar, so right.

He finally let her up for air and touched his forehead to hers, grinning his silliest smile. Her favorite smile.

“I always knew that your real talent was love, Mongji-ya,” he joked, referring to that first episode when he had suggested that she was good at love. She pulled back and rolled her eyes, though she was smiling. She picked up his snapback off the floor and placed it on his head for him. He stood there for a while, smiling, and they had a silent conversation with their eyes. Then Gary reached up and took of his cap, ran his fingers through his hair nervously, and set the cap back on his head. Jihyo was reminded of that time so long ago when he’d asked to be friends, and she stifled a giggle. He’d been just as nervous then as he was now.

“Mongji.”

“Hmm?”

“Can we call a truce?” he joked, reminded of that time too. They both laughed, and then Gary began again, more seriously this time.

“Mongji-ya, for these past four years since I’ve gotten to know you, I’ve enjoyed being your Monday boyfriend, and I loved having you as my girlfriend every Monday. But nothing would make me happier than if you were to be my girlfriend everyday.”

She waited, looking at him with her trademark blank expression just to . He frowned a little, fooled by her hard to get act. It was cute.

“What I’m saying is…. I want to be a real couple. With you.”

Of course the five other nosy members of Running Man had to ruin the moment by tumbling out from where they’d been hiding behind a column, watching the whole scene unfold. Sukjin, who’d ended up at the bottom of the human stack, rubbed his waist and rump vigorously.

“Yah! That really hurt!” he shouted.

“Hey, who pushed into me?” asked Jaesuk as they were getting up. “It was you, wasn’t it, Jongkook?” he turned to the larger man, who had somehow managed to avoid falling over with the rest of them, indignantly. “I feel a huge bruise from your giant arm forming on my back!”Jongkook shrugged.

“You were in the way, hyung,” he explained.

“Yah, when did you guys get here?” Gary cried.

Kwangsoo at least had the grace to look abashed. “Since…. since noona…. confessed,” he admitted, then hurriedly dodged behind Jongkook when Jihyo made a slashing motion across with her thumb. Haha was not so easily bullied.

“That means,” he cackled evilly, “that we saw the kissing.” He then proceeded to make immature kissy noises, much to Jihyo and Gary’s chagrin.

Jaesuk cleared his throat. “Anyway, don’t mind us. You can, ahem, continue,” he said, motioning with his hand, as if he were still emcee-ing. “I do believe Miss Mong has a question to reply to.”

“Oh, how embarrassing!” Jihyo groaned, putting her face in her hands. Then she straightened up and thwacked Gary on the chest. “Yah! This is all your fault!”

His mouth dropped open. “How is this my fault?”

It was his fault for knocking down the borders she so carefully set up, for turning her life upside down. His fault for breaking her heart, then picking it back up, as if he were bringing it on a wild rollercoaster ride. His fault for being such a thickheaded, infuriating, quick-witted moron with such irresistible charm. It was all his fault.

But, she thought as she stood up on tiptoe, took Gary’s face in both hands, and kissed him in response right in front of her immature coworkers whose whistles and catcalls she ignored, she loved him for it.