Kiss me when the time is right…

She’s always been clear about her feelings.

“I don’t fall in love with a friend.” Or that’s what she told Joohyun when one of her closest friends admitted to be falling in love with her. Unfazed — unlike all those people who are coming after Joohyun’s heart, she told her that.

“Why?” Joohyun had asked back then, already crying. That was the first rejection she ever received in her life and it came from her best friend.

“Because I want you to be my friend for a long time.”

It didn’t become easy for Joohyun — or Seulgi. Or their other friends.

As friends, they get with each other. Sometimes, Joohyun would just get the urge to touch her but she knew Seulgi doesn’t want that. She’d turn around and hate herself for feeling something for a person who would never feel the same way back for her.

“She’s in love with you. You know that, don’t you?” Yerim confronted Seulgi.

“She’s my friend.”

“Yes, but she’s in love with you,” Yerim continued, sounding hostile even for her soft voice during early winter. “Don’t get in front of her if you’re not willing to sleep with her. Or even kiss her. Or at least, don’t be so obvious that you’re never going to feel the same way for her. It’s mean for a stranger. It’s unacceptable for a friend.”

Seulgi wasn’t able to say something because she knew Yerim was right. It hasn’t been exactly easy for their friends.

Suddenly, she needed to move.

Joohyun came to her room. And she was the one this time. Her pale, thin body was draped with a blanket and her eyes were swollen when she opened her room.

Seeing the room packed, it only made her cry as she let the blanket feel to her feet.

“Joohyun,” Seulgi began, looking at her disapprovingly.

“Just this one time?” Joohyun had gave her a small smile. A small, melancholic smile of the unrequited love she had been wanting to let go off for a long time but couldn’t. She knew it was pathetic to end like this but tomorrow, she’ll be gone and she didn’t want to regret anything.

Seulgi looked at her eyes for a moment before coming up to her, dropping before her to pick up the blanket and wrap it around her friend again. She held her hand and led her to the bed.

Joohyun had followed obediently, lying on the bed beside her.

“You can’t be like this when I’m gone, alright?” Seulgi talked softly, her whisper ghosting the back of Joohyun’s ears. “You can’t just offer yourself to someone. Not even to people you love very much.”

Joohyun was already weeping as she kissed Seulgi’s hand that was wrapped around her over and over again.

“Don’t think about me too much. You’ll only miss me more.”

Between heavy hiccups, Joohyun answered, “That’s going to be difficult because everywhere I look and everything I see reminds me of you. I think of you all the time.”

“Just try,” Seulgi had said.

“Will you think of me, too?”

Seulgi smiled and buried her face on her back. “Of course. You know I’ll do.”

“I know,” Joohyun softly muttered, resting her face against Seulgi’s hand.

She let Joohyun sleep beside her that night and the next morning, before Joohyun wakes up, she’s long gone. Joohyun had began crying since a couple of weeks but she cried worth what she cried for two weeks the morning she felt coldness beside her on Seulgi’s bed, with nothing on the room but a white rose on the bedside table along with note:

Goodbye, my friend.

***

A/N: This is supposed to be part of something longer I want to write but I'm not sure if I'll have time and courage to write that so I'll post this one-shot instead first and foremost because I've been wanting to write this part since a couple of days ago and it's eating me up and maybe I'll still include this if I get to write that or not.