Time: 20:41.

She was late. He felt like he had been waiting for a whole hour when in reality she was only eleven minutes late. Twelve now.

By the the time his patience reached its limit and he decided he should get going, she came through the door.

"You're late," Jongin said coldly.

"I know, sorry about that," Seulgi apologized. "I was hesitating, you know, if I should come or be a coward because it's so much easier," she said.

She tried to ease the atmosphere with a subtle joke but Jongin didn't even flinch for a second from his cold façade. He had his arms crossed on his chest and didn't look like he came to joke, unfortunately for the already nervous young girl in front of him.

She looked at him like she was already sorry for what was going to happen, her pitiful eyes hesitated to look straight at him and moved from the floor to his dark brown eyes.

This one had been their third fight since last week. A new high score for the usually perfectly synced duo.

"I have another dance practice in a while so if you have something to say…"

"That's right, sorry," she apologized again. "It must be nice to finally get to debut."

Once again, he didn't move one bit.

He must be really mad this time, she thought.

"Hm, okay…"

"Do you want to talk about it or something else?"

"Why do you say it like it was something you hated?" Seulgi asked on a defensive tone.

"Is it really far from the truth?"

Seulgi lost her composure and all the good intentions she had when she opened the door left at this right moment. Did he have to make her feel bad about it every time? If she had a choice, she wouldn't feel the way she felt. The only bad decision she made was to let him know and she hated how he changed right after her confession. The Jongin she knew would have never said something that could hurt her like this but here she was not even surprised by his words as she was used to it. This was their new friendship: they fight when they see each other and regret it when they are far away.

"You said it was okay to be friends again, but you let me down at the practice yesterday." Seulgi changed the subject because she didn't want to hear him repeat how much of a burden her feelings were for him. She got it, he didn't want to know.

"You can't expect me to act like nothing happened so easily."

"Then try, it's the only thing we can do now."

"That's pretty selfish of you to confess and tell me I'm wrong for thinking about it."

"You know that's not what I mean," she tried to explain. "I just want the old Jongin back and our amazing friendship—"

"Should have thought about it before," he murmured.

She let out a painful and long sigh.

Seulgi could understand his frustration as he was nearing his debut and everything was nerve-wracking: the managers always on his back, the diets, the vocal training, the photoshoots, the late dance practices, the stress of being on the stage alone against so many, the stress of being watched intently and knowing that every one of his action can be criticized, the other successful groups threatening to overshadow his own debut, the little amount of sleep he got daily, having to say goodbye to his friends and classmates as he didn't know when he would see them again and so much more that she couldn't even imagine.

She knew it was really a bad time to add the burdensome feelings of a stupid best friend he didn't love back but she didn't know at that time that he was struggling like this because of his debut. As usual, he kept all his problems for himself and when Jongin told her he wanted to talk, she thought he was going to tell her he felt something too (she was way more naïve back then) but they hadn't prepared the same surprise for each other. 

Even if he was stressed, that wasn't a reason to treat her like that and get rid of it at her expense.

"This is why we always fight," Seulgi said. "You always say my feelings this, my feelings that: stop bringing it back! I know I shouldn't have confessed, period."

"We didn't fight before."

"And again! Before I confessed, I know," she snapped. Seulgi started to feel annoyed by his repetitive speech. "Maybe if we stopped making a big deal out of this situation, we could be friends like before."

"You know, I've been thinking about it and I'm not sure if that's possible anymore," Jongin peacefully said.

Jongin was thinking deeply about the situation. He wasn't even expressing his anger like their other fights, which meant that he was seriously envisaging this. And it scared her.

"What do you mean?" Seulgi asked. "You want to part ways? To not talk to each other again?"

"Does it make sense to you that we stay friends when I don't know if I'm hurting you by saying something dumb or ignore completely your feelings like that? It doesn't seem right to me."

"Yes! It makes sense," Seulgi exclaimed. "You know what, I never loved you, I hate you Jongin, I really do!" she rambled.

She was crying.

"Out of all people, I hate you the most!"

Seulgi was panicking. The last thing she ever wanted was to lose his friendship and that's what she was getting at.

"I don't even know why I would like someone like yo—"

"Stop," he pleaded.

She was a sobbing mess and he couldn't stand to watch her like this.

"I'm sorry Seulgi," he started.

"Why are you sorry?" she asked between two sobs. "Wait no, I don't want to know. Don't be sorry."

He wanted to hold her hand and say something comforting like he would have in the past but nothing came out.

"We are only hurting each other like this, it can't work…"

"Yes it can," Seulgi continued. "At least, give me another chance, I'll prove it to you!'"

***

Seulgi let out a lazy yawn followed right after by a tired sigh. Why must she have these kind of thoughts at this ungodly hour of the night? Being sad is tiring but being nostalgic takes so much more energy for nothing, really. It's not like she didn't have anything to do: she was sitting on her bed in her low lit room trying to choose an outfit for the airport. Yes she was doing it in the dark: it's for inspirational purposes. Anyway, fashion was way more important than these unwanted, ugly, irrelevant and stupid things called feelings.

As she was hesitating between some distressed dark blue boyfriend jeans and a pretty light orange skirt, her phone rang. Seulgi looked its way once thinking it might be Seungwan coming back from her individual schedule asking her if she wanted anything to eat. She will leave me a message anyway. Twice, wondering who could call her past 2 AM because Seungwan never let two rings pass with her as she knew her heavy sleeping habits. Thrice, and then she gave up.

She picked her phone up from her night stand and frowned a bit when she saw an unfamiliar number. Nobody changed numbers in her group, family or between her managers. Seulgi remembered the three rules her manager unnie always repeated for unknown numbers : First, do not answer. Second, don't even think about answering. Third, if for some dark and really foolish reason you feel like you must answer, act like it's not your number.

And for some dark and really foolish reason, Seulgi picked up the call without thinking.

"H-hello?" she whispered hesitantly on the phone.

"Why are you whispering?" the voice answered back with a whisper.

Seulgi blushed when she realized she was whispering for nothing and that it might have sounded a bit weird. 

"I-I don't know?" she said after clearing . "I mean, who are you?"

She gained back her composure and started to think rationally. Why must she have to explain herself to a complete stranger when there could be many reasons an idol would whisper through a call. 1) They might be hiding from fans. 2) They might be hiding from their managers. 3) They might be in a room full of people spying them. If that