Adjusting the sleeves of my blazer, I took another glance at my phone screen. I was really hoping Tao would call me so I had a legitimate excuse to leave. My eyes scanned the girls seated around the table and I groaned internally when I finally tuned into what they were talking about – diets.

Scattered all over the table were plates of various type of salads – I can assure you that they all tasted horrible; eating a salad was like chewing grass. Looking down at the piece of chicken on my plate, I noticed I was the only one who happened to actually have real meal.

I don’t even remember how I managed to trap myself in another one of Subin’s conferences. They were always so stupid – the girls all talked about the same things over and over again. Heck, I didn’t even know all of the names of the girls here. The only reason I was even included in their friendship circle was because of Minhee but since our friendship has pretty much gone down the drain, I wanted out of the stupid group.

“Minyoung, I have no idea how you can eat that.” One of the girls said to me with a disgusted look on her face while she eyeballed my plate. I didn’t bother coming up with a sarcastic reply because I would be wasting my energy. Instead, I just simply rolled my eyes at her until she turned away and pretended to engage in an interesting conversation with the other girl on her left.

Something was off. I noticed that everyone was here but Minhee. I’m pretty sure all the girls present preferred Minhee over me so I was kind of curious to why I was here and Minhee was nowhere to be found. It finally hit me once they all stopped their conversations and turned to look at me. It was quite annoying when you had about ten plastic Barbie dolls eyeballing you with the same devious look on their faces.

“So Minyoung, have you talked to Minhee recently?” Subin asked with her arms crossed in front of her chest which I might add were fake.

“Did she really steal Chen from you?” Someone else asked. A few of them gasped in unison and in between all the noise, I heard someone mutter ‘I wouldn’t be surprised’.

“No, I haven’t talked to her.” I replied, glaring at Subin. I knew Subin never liked me and the feeling was mutual so there were no hard feelings or anything. 

I heard a pair of footsteps approaching me from behind, the clicking of heels resonated in my ears. Once the heel clicking ceased, I could feel a pair of eyes burning into the back of my head. I didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out who the two people that were standing behind me were. 

“That’s because you won’t even talk to me.” It was the person I was hoping I’d never actually have to run into but it was inevitable considering where I was right now. What’s one of Subin’s girly meetings without the ever so lovely Minhee?

I just wanted to burst out laughing because Chen was standing right next to her. Was the world trying to torture me?

“That’s because we have nothing to talk about.” I simply stated without even turning to look at them before I began shift in my seat and grabbed my bag from the table. When I got up from my seat, the sound of the chair rubbing against the hard wood made a few people turn their heads in our direction. At this point, some of the other girls began to whisper to each other. 

“You’re the one who’s been avoiding us.” Minhee retorted.

 “Minyoung,” Chen said softly, trying to ignore the stares from other people.

“What?” I shot back, not caring that other people could hear us.

Why are you doing this to me?

My eyes happened to glance down at Chen’s hand, which was interlaced with Minhee’s. She noticed where my gaze was and slid her hand out of his when my eyes landed back on Chen’s face. 

“Can we please go somewhere private and talk about this?” Chen pleaded.

“You know I hate repeating myself but you two obviously weren’t listening. I said we have nothing to talk about.” I said flatly before I tried to make my way out of the restaurant.

“Please just let us explain.” I could sense the strain in Minhee’s voice. She was never used to begging since she always had everything her way.

“Why?” I snapped back irritated. From the corner of my eye, I could see the restaurant manager and the staff beginning to walk over to our table. “Because you feel guilty?”

“Minyoung, you’re making it harder for us.” Chen said in a low voice. I glanced over at his direction and glared at him.

“Me? I’m making it harder for you?” I scoffed, repeating what he just said. “Do you know how hard it is to find out that my boyfriend was cheating on me with my best friend?!” I yelled at him.

At this point, the entire restaurant went quiet and the sound of cutlery dropping against the glass tables filled the awkward air. The restaurant manager walked over to us and kindly asked us to leave the premises. I took it as my cue to leave and I brushed past Chen and Minhee without a word to Subin and the other girls.

Wa

Was it safe to assume that I would never be invited to another one of their stupid conferences anymore?  That was was totally fine by me. I nearly made it all the way to the restaurant’s exit when I felt a warm hand lock around my wrist, stopping me in my tracks. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” I spat out.

“Please just let us explain.” Chen said with a small sigh.

“Fine. You have twenty minutes.” I replied indifferently. I felt his grip around my wrist loosen the moment the words left my mouth.

Perhaps this was the best way to get over everything that happened and get a move on with my life. 

“Well, are you going to talk or what?” I asked with an annoyed tone. “I have things to do and places to be,” I lied.

Chen and Minhee both looked worried and anxious as they held each other’s hands. Minhee probably noticed me staring at their hands because soon, she slowly let go of Chen’s hand, folding them in her lap.

The tension in the air began to ease when the waitress came around with our orders and placed them on the table. Chen kept fidgeting with his watch, looking down at his feet. Minhee cleared and spoke up first.

“Minyoung, I know this looks really bad but I never meant to-”

“Steal my boyfriend?” I offered sarcastically, butting in.

“Minyoung, don’t.” Chen said in an attempt to scold me. I rolled my eyes as I crossed my arms across my chest and slumped back into my seat.

“I don’t even know how to start explaining.” Minhee said with a desperate sigh.

“From the beginning would be nice.” I muttered.

“You probably know what it’s like to be controlled by other people, right?” Minhee said with a bitter laugh before continuing.

“Well, my parents were arranging one of their daughters to get married to one of their business partner’s sons in order to save the family company from going bankrupt and me being the eldest, they forced to me get married. I’m twenty one. I didn’t want to get married but I couldn’t go against my parents because they would have disowned me.”

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Minhee even though I knew where this was going. I remember that one time Minhee called me up at one in the morning, drunk, complaining about her parents and the time Chen told me his parents were having problems with their business but never in a million years did I expect this to happen. 

“So I agreed and went to meet my future husband. I was completely shocked and devastated when I found out it was Chen.”

“When we found out, we were both freaking out. We tried so many attempts to get out of the marriage but our parents wouldn’t budge. Both of our companies desperately needed the merge so we had no choice but agree to the marriage.” Chen explained.

“Did you ever plan on telling me this or did your plans get ruined when I caught you two?” I asked bitterly.

“We wanted to tell you but when your father found out that our companies were going to merge and that Minhee and I were supposed to get married, he took the opportunity to tell me to break up and to stay away from you.” Chen struggled to look me in the eyes.

I wasn't surprised since my father is always involved in one way or another. So many emotions were running through me to the point, I didn’t even know how to react to what they were saying. My face remained straight as I couldn’t even differentiate between all the emotions I was feeling.

“The night when you saw us at the restaurant was our engagement party. After one year, we planned on getting a divorce since our parents only wanted us to get married in order to merge the companies but once the merge is done, we decided to go on our own ways.” Minhee said.

“Minyoung, you have no idea how sorry I am that things had to come to this. I never meant to hurt you and I would have never done anything to purposely hurt you.” Chen’s eyes began to turn glassy from the tears welling up in his eyes.  

“We never expected things to turn out this way. We tried our best to get through it without anyone knowing. Get married to satisfy our families and get divorced as soon as we possibly could.” Minhee admitted as a few tears finally dropped from her eyes.

I knew she was telling the truth. We were friends ever since high school and I’ve always known Minhee that Minhee was never the type to lie. Minhee quickly excused herself and hurried to the bathroom to clean up the mascara stains on her cheeks. Taking a deep breath, I tried to compose myself after hearing everything. Chen cleared his throat and took a sip of his drink as he tried to get himself together. Thankfully, we were in the back of the café so there weren’t many people around besides an old couple who were busy in their own world to care about what was happening around them. 

“Minyoung?”

“Yes?”

“This probably isn’t the best time but I just want to let you know that I’ll always love you and I don’t care if you hate me but please forgive me – that’s all I’m asking for. If you never want to see me again, I’ll make you never do.” Chen pleaded, his eyes searched for mine. I could see the desperation in his eyes as he grabbed my hands.

“As much as I want to hate you, I can't. I don’t hate you. I just hate what you did to me. I can forgive you but it doesn’t mean I’ll forget what happened.” I told him as I attempted to pry my hands from his.

"Do you think..." Chen hesitated. 

"That we can still be friends?" I laughed dryly. "I don't think so. Everything's so awkward. I don't even think I can be look Minhee or you in the eye without feeling uncomfortable." I explained. 

"Okay, I completely understand." Chen said. 

"You might wanna go and check up on Minhee." I told him as I got up from my seat.

"Don't you want to talk to Minhee?" He asked, 

"I think Minhee's gone through a lot already. I don't want to make her feel even more upset." I stated. Chen nodded his head before walking off the bathrooms. I saw Chen slowly stopped and turned around on his heel to face me again. 

“Thank you Minyoung and I'm sorry again. For everything." 

word count: approx. 2k words.

once again, thank you to all of my new subscribers! this chapter was kinda hard to write but i finally finished. woohoo! holidays are coming up so hopefully I'll be able to make updates more often. subscribe, upvote and comment if you like~