My hands were already poised on the keyboard, ready to finish the chapter that has been nagging at me for days. Somehow I can’t get the words out of my head, because something was disturbing me greatly.

“But you are my friend! We’re all friends here—“

“No, Yoona, no, because I AM STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU!”

Is it true? Does SeoHyun still love me, after all these years?

The cursor on my screen blinked tantalizingly in front of me, as though mocking me. Darn I can’t write anything!

I stood up from my chair and started pacing about. All around me were remnants of my past sleepless nights: left-overs of Chinese take-outs, crumpled-up papers, even rented DVDs, all evidence of my attempts to get a good night’s sleep.

I have perfectly convinced myself that I have moved on. Of course, after 8 years, who wouldn’t be able to move on from a relationship, right? What SeoHyun and I had 8 years ago is ancient history, as I usually called it. Our relationship—heck, I don’t even know if I could call what we had back then as a “relationship”, because it was too one-sided.

But…

If it was one-sided, why did SeoHyun say that she’s still in love with me? Was she already in love with me back then…?

Wait, why am I thinking of these things? I have already moved on, right? So stop this nonsense, Yoona, and get back to your book!

But I can’t. SeoHyun’s outburst, and the way she looked at me kept popping up in my mind.

That day is still very fresh in my memory, as though it only happened yesterday instead of a week ago. A week ago, for the first time in 8 years, I saw SeoHyun again.

*Flashback*

Like everyone else, I was shocked when I saw SeoHyun enter the restaurant with TaeYeon. And I was happy, of course. Like everyone else, I missed SeoHyun so much, ‘cause she was also my friend back then, you know? So I welcomed her, hugged her, even, and told her how good she looked.

That day—I don’t know why—I wanted to make her see that, “Hey, SeoHyun, the Yoona who was head over heels for you 8 years ago has now moved on!” Perhaps I wanted to show that I am not stuck in the past anymore, because SeoHyun might think it silly that I haven’t moved on after 8 years. Yeah, she might laugh at me for being so… lame. Like, is there no other girl in the world other than SeoHyun?

So, I acted the way I did when we were still friends. I’m quite a touchy-feely person, so I gave her all these friendly skinship that I give to all my other friends.

I wanted to make her see that I am unaffected by her presence. I wanted to make her see that I am unaffected by how she let her hair down that day, or how good she looked that day, looking all confident and beautiful and matured and so lady-like. I wanted to make her see that despite the fact that my heart was beating so fast that day, I now only see her as a friend.

Because she herself, she looked unaffected. I remember back then, whenever I would hug her, she would turn all red and she would look at me shyly (which never failed to make me laugh, because it was just a hug!) But when I hugged her that day, it was different. It seemed as though my hug meant nothing, like, “Yeah, I got a lot of hugs at Yale, and I’m like, totally used to it.” When I saw that, I realized that I better show that I, too, am unaffected.  

You could say that I did a little experiment that day. I brushed her hand with mine, I leaned close to her, whispered to her. But my expected reactions from her did not come, for nothing seemed to affect SeoHyun.

You might be wondering, why did I do all those things? And my answer: I don’t even know. Was it to see if she is still the same old, shy SeoHyun? Was it to see if we are back to the old Yoona and SeoHyun, best friends since elementary school?

Or was it for myself, to see if I am still affected by SeoHyun? That despite spending all those 8 years of telling people that I have moved on, the truth is, I still haven’t moved on? That I remember clearly how soft her hand felt, in those rare moments when we held hands? Or that time in the movie house when we were watching a horror film and she clung on to me tightly for the rest of the movie, and that I was wishing oh please, never let this movie end, please, because she smelled so heavenly and being near her just made me so, so, so happy?

My little experiment kind of backfired on me, though. Because at the end of that day, when SeoHyun ran out of the restaurant after her outburst, I realized one thing: I am still in love with her.

As that realization hit me, my eyes caught something gleaming at my desk. It was the elephant keychain. 

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Just a short update. :) The finale is fast approaching, so please anticipate~! Keke. Thank you to all who have posted comments and subscribed to this story so far... :)