"Crap, I lost her again..." Baekhyun panted as he tried to catch his breath.

A few days went by and Baekhyun, like promised, had calmed down about the issue of Su Kyung and Luhan as mentioned in his letter to her. But for some strange reason, Su Kyung was avoiding him. Every time they would meet eyes, she would turn away and act like she hadn’t seen him. And whenever he called out her name, she would continue on like she hadn’t even heard anything. It was irritating how whenever he would try to chase after her, she would somehow magically escape and was out of sight.

Well right now was one of those times. He had just lost her in the crowd of students and it hasn’t even been three minutes since he’s tried to talk to her this morning. Frustrated, he ran his fingers through his hair as he searched around the school for any sign of her brown red hair.

“Aish jinja, where does that girl keep disappearing to?” he sighed and gave on searching, plopping himself on one of the benches. He was annoyed and confused. Why was she avoiding him? What did he do now? Didn’t he already apologize in the letter? He thought she wasn’t mad at him anymore. It always frustrated him whenever someone ignores him and it felt worse when Su Kyung was the person. Usually she’d always be the one looking for him, not the other way around.

His pocket rang as he received a text from Ji Eun.

Hey Su Kyung and I just arrived. I’ll stall her so hurry up and come here so you can talk to her. 

He glanced at the entrance in the distance and indeed saw Ji Eun hurrying for him to come. Without hesitation, he automatically sprang up and ran towards them. Yep, Ji Eun was helping him try to get Su Kyung to talk to him. It wasn’t easy even for her best friend. Ji Eun would always lose sight of her too or she would just slip away.

“YAH WOMAN!” he yelled, hoping to get the usual response from Su Kyung when she saw him, but instead was met by a fleeing Su Kyung.

“Seriously?! I turn my back for one minute and she runs away,” Ji Eun was talking to herself when Baekhyun arrived.

“Why is she ignoring me?” he groaned in irritation.

“You really don’t know why?” she asked in a disbelieving tone and raised an accusing eyebrow at him.

“What? Did I do something again?”

Ji Eun faced palmed herself. “I swear Baekhyun, you’re an idiot sometimes.”

Baekhyun was taken aback at her somewhat harsh words. “Is it because of the way I treated Luhan? I apologized to her, I swear!”

“No.”

“Because I always make fun of that woman?”

“Even you should know she’s used to that.”

“Then what did I do wrong?!”

She gave him a sympathetic look and sighed. “Her party.”

“Party?”

“It’s because you didn’t show up for her birthday party. She was really crushed that one of her closest friends couldn’t make it even though he didn’t have a reason not to come. She’s hurt, disappointed, and angry at you.”

“It’s not a big deal though. I’ve taken rain checks on her all the time!” he tried to defend himself. Yes, it was true, he had left Su Kyung hanging a lot of times and cancelled their plans together almost always. It was hard for them to actually hang out together. The only time he would actually come was when it was to talk about Ji Eun.

“It’s not a big deal to you maybe, but this was her 20th birthday. That’s a really special number to her. Her parents were out of town on a business trip so all she wanted was for all her friends to be there, but why didn’t you come?”

Baekhyun thought about it for a while. Why didn’t he come?

“B-Because I was still mad at her for the Luhan thing and… I thought she wouldn’t want me to come.”

Ji Eun sighed pitifully and touched his arm lightly, but Baekhyun’s heart didn’t speed up like normal when he was around her. Maybe it was because he felt too guilty to feel anything.

“Su Kyung was never mad at you in the first place. She forgave you immediately and was hoping that even if you were mad at her, you would still go to congradulate her. But in the end, you didn’t. Baekhyun, you should have seen her. During her party, she would always look at the door as if she was waiting for you to ring it at any time.”

Guilt splashed all over him after he heard that. He felt terrible now. He had always been such a jerk to Su Kyung and he never noticed it until now. But yet, she never got impatient with him or exploded about his annoyingness. She always accepted him for who he was even if he treated her badly.