It was lunch time, so Somi found herself in the cafeteria with Kyulkyung, pretending to eat her sad cardboard pizza. She listened half-heartedly to Kyulkyung as the older girl rambled on about how confusing Nayoung was being. Ordinarily, Somi would be all ears and give some advice, but her mind was elsewhere.

Doyeon was mad at her.

At least, Somi thought so. She didn’t actually have any proof that Doyeon was mad at her, but Doyeon had been distant from her lately. She stilled texted Somi and had lunch with her occasionally, but there was a weird awkwardness that tainted all of their interactions. It’d been driving Somi insane because Doyeon was one of her closest friends, and she didn’t want to lose her over some silly miscommunication.

When Somi had asked Yoojung about it, Yoojung had panicked before saying that it wasn’t her right to be saying Doyeon’s business. After that, Yoojung had hightailed it away from her and had been avoiding her since. Somi understood why, assuming Yoojung didn’t want to get caught in the middle, but Somi was still upset since Yoojung was the #1 Doyeon expert around.

Looking up from her food, Somi saw Doyeon leaving the cafeteria. Somi quickly rose, throwing Kyulkyung a quick excuse and bye before she took off after her.

“Doyeon!” Somi called out as she jogged after her.

Somi saw the way Doyeon hesitated before turning around. Frowning a little, Somi caught up to her.

“Hey,” Somi greeted, trying to keep her eyebrows from furrowing. “Whatcha doing?”

Doyeon bit her lip and said, “I was just gonna nap before a surgery later.”

“Could we talk?” Somi pushed.

“Uh, sure.”

Doyeon walked them over to an empty on-call room. Doyeon stayed standing, pacing the length of the room while Somi sat on the bed and watched her.

“Are we okay?” Somi blurted out after watching Doyeon pace for five minutes.

Somi’s words made her pause though. Doyeon looked at her in confusion and asked, “Why wouldn’t we be?”

“I just feel like you’ve been distant,” Somi admitted shyly. “I don’t want to come off as clingy or needy, but you’re one of my really good friends, Doyeon. I just wanted to make sure I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Not you,” Doyeon muttered under her breath, but Somi caught it.

“What?”

Doyeon paled and shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Doyeon…”

“I just think it’d be better if there was some distance between us,” Doyeon confessed, still pacing.

Somi stood up immediately and demanded, “Why? What’s wrong?”

“You don’t need to know,” Doyeon tried.

“If it’s interfering with our friendship, then I deserve to know,” Somi snapped.

Doyeon finally stopped pacing, but when she looked at Somi, there were tears in her eyes. Somi stumbled backward into the bed in surprise, mouth falling open slightly.

“I like you,” Doyeon whispered, “as more of a friend.”

The first thing Somi thought to say was, “I have a boyfriend.”

“I know that,” Doyeon said bitterly, wiping her tears away before they could fall. “Do you see now why I don’t think we should be friends?”

“Doyeon…”

Somi didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t disgusted or anything like that. She’d always known uality fell on a spectrum and that she herself was fairly fluid when it came to dating. However, she’d been dating her boyfriend for years and the thought of dating someone else had never crossed her mind. Certainly not Doyeon.

Doyeon had been a confidant… A best friend. Somi didn’t know what to say.

“Forget it,” Doyeon sighed. She wiped away the rest of her tears and went for the door. “Let’s just forget this even happened.”

Somi could only stand there in shock as the door shut behind her.

A/N: Don't kill me.