Irene was avoiding her.

It’d been almost a week since that night in the bar with Wendy and Joy, and Seulgi hadn’t seen Irene since. Well, technically she saw glimpses of her before Irene noticed her and ran in the opposite direction. Every time it happened, Seulgi was half-tempted to just chase after her, but as a respectable attending, she couldn’t actually do that.

After telling the story how Seulgi and Irene had met and the subsequent dating question from Joy, their time at the bar had still been fun but slightly tense. Seulgi noticed it immediately but couldn’t quite pinpoint its cause. Irene had been no help, avoiding eye contact the rest of the night. Seulgi thought it might’ve been the dating question then panicked over the idea that Irene knew Seulgi was basically in love with her.

Seulgi’s fears were dismissed though when an exasperated Sowon had promised her that Irene was still oblivious. However, that only helped Seulgi so much. She was still at a loss as to why Irene was suddenly avoiding her now.

This was why Seulgi hunted down Joy and dragged her into a supply closet.

“Why, Dr. Kang,” Joy teased, “what would the other nurses say?”

“Aish, don’t be like that,” Seulgi whined. “I need your help.”

“With?” Joy asked curiously.

Seulgi sighed and looked away shyly. She mumbled, “Irene has been avoiding me.”

“You’re so pathetic,” Joy told her flatly.

“Hey!” Seulgi protested. “Will you help me or not?”

Joy sighed dramatically. “I guess. What do you want to do?”

“Uhhh,” Seulgi paused, eyes widening.

“You idiot, you don’t even have a plan?” Joy scolded, whacking Seulgi in the arm. Seulgi whined at the hit, but Joy just rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you just drag her into a supply closet like you just did with me?”

Seulgi frowned and sulkily admitted, “I would if she would actually come within five feet of me.”

There was a pause before Joy bursted into laughter. Seulgi glared at her, but it was pointless because Joy was too busy laughing to notice her. After far longer than Seulgi appreciated, Joy managed to contain her laughter, but Seulgi saw the mirth still lingering in her eyes.

“Are you done now?” Seulgi asked, not even bothering to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

Joy wiped away imaginary tears and looked out her with a wide grin. “Yes, Dr. Kang.”

“Now, will you help me?”

Suddenly, Seulgi regretted asking Joy as what could only be described as an evil smirk spread across her lips.

“Okay, here’s the plan…”

Two hours later, Seulgi was lost as to why she was having lunch with Wendy. She didn’t mind at all because Wendy was quickly becoming a good friend, but Seulgi didn’t understand how this connected to getting Irene to talk to her.

“Are you okay?”

Seulgi realized she had spaced out, completely missing whatever Wendy had said. She apologized and asked, “Did Joy say anything about us having lunch?”

Wendy’s eyebrows scrunched together adorably as she thought. After a moment, her face relaxed and she shrugged unhelpfully. “She just asked if I would have lunch with you since Irene has been busy lately.”

“Right,” Seulgi said slowly. What the hell was Joy up to then?

“Oh, weird,” Wendy said, frowning slight, “there’s Irene.”

Seulgi turned around to where Wendy was staring, and surely enough, there was Irene chatting with Sowon as they paid for their lunches. Seulgi tried hard not to glare at the two of them, but she couldn’t help the pure frustration that filled her at the sight of Irene. It was completely immature of Irene to avoid her and not just tell her what the hell was wrong. Not only that, but Seulgi missed her best friend.

“Oh, looks like she’s joining us,” Wendy commented curiously, and Seulgi blinked rapidly as she realized she’d spaced out.

Just as Wendy said, Irene was heading toward them, strangely sans Sowon. When Seulgi glanced around for her, she spotted Sowon sitting with that cute plastics attending, Eunha. Hmm, a question for another time. For now, Seulgi focused on Irene… She looked kind of angry.

“Mind if I join you?” Irene asked as she walked up to them, flashing a charming smile that Seulgi recognized as Irene’s if-I-don’t-smile-I-might-end-up-punching-someone smile.

Seulgi just shook her head dumbly while Wendy reassured her they’d love for her to eat with them.

“How’ve you been, Irene?” Wendy asked conversationally, smiling brightly. “I haven’t seen you around since the other night.

Seulgi fully expected Irene to tense up at the mention of their night at the bar, but instead, Irene smiled and said, “I’ve been good. I heard you’ve got a tough case this week. How’s that going for you?”

Irene was acting perfectly normal, except for the very obvious fact that she was ignoring Seulgi like she wasn’t even there. Wendy seemed to notice too because she kept throwing Seulgi concerned looks to which Seulgi could only shrug at.

Changing topics in an attempt to help Seulgi, Wendy said innocently, “I’m glad you could join us today. Before you came, it was just going to be me and Seulgi for lunch.”

“Oh?” Irene said, but there was something off in her voice. “No Joy?”

“No,” Wendy shook her head, “she’s pretty busy today, so she suggested the two of us just eat together.”

“That’s… nice of her,” Irene smiled, but now she was tense for some reason. Suddenly, Irene turned to Seulgi, and Seulgi jumped at the attention. “Why didn’t you invite me, Seulgi?”

Seulgi felt her eyebrows furrow as she stared at Irene incredulously. “I couldn’t find you,” Seulgi said slowly, deciding to not let Wendy know that she hadn’t been able to find Irene because Irene was avoiding her.

“You should’ve texted me,” Irene pouted.

“Texted you?” Seulgi repeated, voice raising despite her best efforts. As if Seulgi hadn’t texted Irene twice a day since the night at the bar? All of those texts that had gone unanswered. “Excuse us, Wendy. I need to talk to Irene about something.” Without waiting for an answer, Seulgi grabbed Irene’s wrist and pulled her into a nearby storage closet down the hall from the cafeteria.

“What are you doing?” Irene asked, tone offended at best and pissed at worst.

“What am I doing?” Seulgi exclaimed. “What are you doing?” When Irene opened to clearly make up some excuse, Seulgi cut her off and said, “No, you are not allowed to try and smooth talk me some bull as to why you’ve been avoiding me since that night in the bar. You see me in the hall and you run. I text you and you ignore me. Then today? You ignore me at lunch then suddenly talk to me and act like it’s my fault we haven’t spoken to each other in a week. What did I do wrong, Irene? Just tell me.”

Seulgi waited for Irene to say something, but she said nothing. Seulgi shook her head angrily and turned away to leave. Just as she grabbed the handle, Irene tugged her back to face her. Seulgi glared and tried to snap at her to let her leave when Irene cupped her face and kissed her.

Irene Bae was kissing her.

What?