Chapter 45

At Haagen Dazs

Yoomin's POV

"I haven't seen Seonhee the past few days, except at the corridor and she'll just smile at me and quickly walks off," Jiyoo said, using her spoon to flick away some whip cream off the ice cream. "She's avoiding us, Yoomin."

I did not reply. Not even a nod or a grunt. It was all my fault that this is happening. If I...if I had not confronted her that day, if I had just let her tell me herself, instead of forcing it out of her, maybe, just maybe this is not happening. It was very easy for her to avoid us, with her being in a different course altogether, and her lessons being in a different building. Even Eunhyuk has disappeared from our table. Perhaps to accompany her wherever she was.

It has been almost two weeks since we last talked to her. We often caught sight of her along the road on the way home, but she just simply ignores us. I often asked Sungmin about her since they were in the same class.

"She's constantly with this girl in class, Sooyeon," he said one time during Japanese class.

"Its quite surprising actually because those two never talked before and then suddenly they became like bestfriends," he continued, whispering to me behind a huge Japanese book propped open to hide both our faces.

"She was always with Sooyeon at the library studying but trust me her projects and tests are not improving but continue to take a dip."

I pursed my lips, as I remembered that conversation with Sungmin. I turned to Jiyoo.

"How about Eunhyuk?" I asked. "What does he do?"

Jiyoo shrugged.

Every time I see Eunhyuk in class, he was always in a bad mood and refuse to speak to anyone including Donghae. He wasn't just coming late to Legal Comm class, he sometimes skipped lectures. Even Siwon oppa, is worried.

"Siwon asked what was going on, and I explained the whole thing to him," she continued flicking the whip cream off her ice cream.

I took a huge scoop of the caramel biscuit and cream ice cream, trying to perhaps make myself forget even just for awhile.

I tend to eat sweet stuff when I'm feeling unhappy and usually it worked, and soon I will be almost cheered up. But it seems like it doesn't work anymore. The ice cream is not making me any cheerful, in fact it made me even more weepy, when I recalled Seonhee and I coming over to this place often.

I remembered how much we laughed the last time we came here, when she shared how she met Eunhyuk. I felt like it was just yesterday when we were still sharing that banana split, at this very same comfy chair that Jiyoo and I are sitting on.

"I miss her," Jiyoo mused, taking a spoon of her vanilla ice cream. This time I responded with a nod and took a huge scoop of my caramel biscuit and cream.

We both sighed, thinking about when all the things will go back to what it was.

Perhaps if I apologize...? I don't know why, but it's just...so difficult to do. I'm so afraid that even if I do, I get rejected, and...and...I don't know.

Suddenly, Jiyoo's phone started ringing from within her bag. She first placed her spoon on the side of her bowl, then after her thumb, she quickly dug through her belongings. When she found her phone, she quickly picked up the call.

"Hello?"

"Oh okay," she said, replying the caller. "I have my Legal Comms book. Yeah, at your house? Okay I'll be there in an hour."

Then she hanged up.

"You need to go?" I asked, as I finished the last spoonful of ice cream.

She nodded, and started packing up her stuff and quickly shoved the last two spoonful of her ice cream and quickly stood up, bag slung over her shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," she said, walking over to my side to pull into a tight hug, before hurrying out of the shop.

.

Seonhee's POV

"That is so funny!" I laughed, my sides all aching from laughing as Sooyeon shared to me about a dude she saw at the shopping centre who ran straight into the 'under-construction' sliding door, which obviously wouldn't open for him, causing him to fall flat onto the floor with a huge red bump on his forehead.

I was lying on my stomach on her bed, supporting myself with my elbows, books propped open infront of me. Sooyeon was sitting cross-legged on the floor, using her bed as a table.

"I know right," she said, tucking loose strand of black hair off her face behind her ears.

Sooyeon was one of my biomedical classmate, one I hardly spoke to. But in just two weeks we have become very close indeed. She was someone I can rely on, someone who would listen. She was very friendly, sympathetic and cares a lot about others.

"Emm, Seonhee ah," she said, twirling her pen around her fingers.

"Do you still think of your other friends?" she asked, looking at me.

Do I still think of Jiyoo and Yoomin? Do I?

I missed our laughter, shared memories, their presence and just spending time with them. Even as I spend time with Sooyeon, I always recall how Yoomin and I would do something similar too, or how Yoomin would have reacted at some things. I somehow also missed how Jiyoo eat, constantly taking her emotions out on her food. When she's angry, she murders her food. When she's happy, she laps it up in a few minutes. When she's bored, she plays with her food. I've spent a lot of my time with them and they have been my close friends for very long.

Well, Yoomin, yes. We have been friends ever since we were kids. She was the only friend my parents allowed me to sleep over at. We would spend the whole night until 4am the next morning, talking and talking, sharing secrets under the blanket with a tiny torchlight. We grew up with each other, sharing our crushes, boys that we ever fancied, boy problems we had, movies we watched, practically everything. She knew me in and out. She had always been there for me. In the good times and in the bad. Especially when I get lectured by my parents over getting a 78 for my literature subject in high school. Yoomin was my listening ear, a shoulder I had always relied on.

As we graduated from high school and moved onto college, Yoomin met Jiyoo and introduced us to each other. It wasn't hard to be close to Jiyoo. She was very friendly and easy-going and has kind of a naggy self at some times when we did something wrong. She was hilarious and her quirkiness has really brought much joy to our life. Jiyoo was a person of action, when you needed someone to help you whether it's revenge, a party, a dare, Jiyoo was one to rely on. In this two years we have known each other, she had very much become an integral part of my life.

So do I still think of Yoomin and Jiyoo? Heck yes, every second. Every freaking seconds I don't see them. It hurts so much to watch them from a distance at our same table, eating, talking. It hurts even more that I can't go over and just sit with them. It hurts to think that if one day I pluck the courage to, someone would already have owned that place and it would have been shoved to my face that I had already been replaced.

"Seonhee?"

"Ah?" I was jerked back to present.

"Do you still think of them?"

I took a deep breathe and my voice wavering a little, I spoke.

"No. Not at all," I said, more like convincing myself than her.

"That's good. I'm your friend now, you wouldn't need people like them. I'm here for you."