“—and then he was all like, “we can’t hold hands in public!”, I mean I don’t understand? We’re going out, why can’t we hold hands?” Nayeon hasn’t been having the best day, which is understandable, seeing as her boyfriend has been less of a friend and more of a boy for the past few weeks.
“Mhmm,” says Mina, over the phone.
This response isn’t good enough for Nayeon, “thanks for your great input,” she rolls her eyes.
Mina sighs, “Nayeon, every night for the past three weeks, you’ve called me to complain about your “boyfriend”—if you can even call him that—and you’ve only been going out for three weeks. So, like I said, way before you guys even were a thing; it’s not going to work out—it’s not working out.”
Nayeon huffs, “I can’t believe I expected you to understand; of course you wouldn’t, you're not us.”
Mina groans, “Im Nayeon, for crying out loud, I don’t have to be “us” to understand that he has zero, absolutely, and completely no interest in you.”
“Okay but listen—” Nayeon begins, but she’s cut off by Mina before she can really argue anything.
“Sshhshshshshshhhhh,” Mina hushes her, “no today you listen. I am so tired of hearing all your boy problems, so you listen to me, it ends today.”
“I—okay fine,” Nayeon gives in. Mina has never liked any of her past boyfriends, but this is the first time she’s every been so adamantly against any of Nayeon’s relationships, so maybe she’ll listen (Mina is also usually right, so it’s probably for the best).
“Right so, do you remember when he called you “Taeyeon” by mistake?”
“Yeah, so? It was an accident, I mean our names both have the ‘yeon’” Nayeon is confused.
“No, he was all like “Taeyeon-ah, look at this!” and he was super smiley and until he realised it was you and his face completely fell. Clearly you weren’t the one on his mind.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Nayeon is not convinced.
“That—that proves—okay, fine. Does he know that your birthday was 5 days ago?”
“Uh…no—but that’s only because I didn’t tell him!”
Mina is exasperated, “if he really cared about you he would know without you telling him! He would make the effort to find out! Like I did!”
“That’s different, you're my best friend! You're supposed to know!” Nayeon argues.
“Wh—and your boyfriend isn’t supposed to know?”
“That’s not the point!”
This is becoming too unbearable for Mina, “alright then, what is the point?”
Nayeon can’t see Mina’s face, but she knows that Mina is fuming on her end of the line, because she’s suddenly become calm and quiet, and Nayeon knows that she’s in for a huge storm.
“I—uh—I like him?” Nayeon stammers, slightly intimidated.
“You like him, is that it? Does he like you? Does he know anything at all about you? Does he know that your favourite colour is sky blue, that you’re scared of ghosts and bees, that you can’t eat salmon unless it’s in sushi, that your eyesight is terrible but you—you still look super cute in glasses?” Nayeon isn’t sure, but she thinks she hears Mina’s voice starting to shake.
Mina continues, “does he know that you collect lipsticks because you really like them, even though without lipstick, your lips still look perfect and I always want to kiss them?”
Her voice starts to tremble and Nayeon doesn’t know if she’s sniffing or if that noise is just the sound of her moving around.
“Does he—” Mina’s voice drops to a whisper “does he know that I—that I’m in love with you?”
Nayeon is a little shocked at Mina’s abrupt confession, but she realises that Mina is probably having a harder time with this situation than she is.
“No, he doesn’t know any of that,” she sighs.
She’s one hundred percent sure that Mina is sniffing on the other end and she doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what to do.
There’s a silence, punctuated by Mina’s occasional sniffs, and Nayeon speaks again, “I—I’m really sorry Mina, I didn’t—” she sighs, “I didn’t know you felt that way, I just—”
For the second time that night, Nayeon is cut off, “no it’s okay, I’m sorry. Just forget anything I said about my feelings and I hope everything works out between you two. Bye.”
Mina hangs up, and Nayeon is so—so confused at her sudden indifference. She stares at her phone, weighing the possibilities, the could haves and would haves, in her head, and she realises that she’s been so blind, so stupid. Mina has always been terrible at hiding her feelings and she’s always so obvious. But then again, Nayeon has alway been bad at picking up on other people’s feelings.
She sighs.
Mina’s probably not going to pick up her phone anymore, not if she calls, anyway.

    “I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” Nayeon sighs.
“Well, yes, but what’s new?” Jihyo shrugs.
“I don’t think that’s what she really wants to hear right now, Jihyo,” Sana shakes her head.
“But how am I supposed to know that Mina’s in love with me?” Nayeon huffs and runs her fingers through her hair in frustration.
Jihyo and Sana share a look.
“Wait,” Nayeon squints, “you knew?”
Jihyo fidgets, “well it wasn’t so much as “we knew” than “we figured out because Mina is super obvious and you’re just an idiot”, but I guess you could say that?”
“You knew and you just watched as I continuously gushed about all of my boyfriends to Mina,” Naeyeon hisses.
“Well what were we supposed to do? Tell you that Mina was in love with you?” Sana exclaims.
Jihyo interjects, “that’s not really the point here, anyhow. What you need to do is talk to Mina about this, before you lose your friendship, you know?”
“I don’t think she’d want to be friends with me anymore, not after that,” sighs Nayeon, “I wouldn’t even want to be friends with me.”
“And yet here we all are,” Jihyo rolls her eyes.
“I hate you.”

    So she finds herself outside Mina’s room, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, a fist clenched undecidedly, hovering close enough to the door to touch, but she doesn’t knock.
Then the door opens, and she doesn’t need to knock anymore.
“H-hey,” she manages to stutter as she looks up in surprise at an equally surprised Mina.
“N-Nayeon.”
“You’re—you’re dressed up,” Nayeon notes.
Mina simply nods, “did you—did you need something?”
Nayeon doesn’t like this, doesn’t like walking on eggshells around her best friend—there’s just something so unsettling and uncomfortable and she doesn’t like it.
So she tells the truth.
“I—I broke up with him.”
Mina’s face shows no expression and for some reason Nayeon begins to feel nervous.
“Oh.”
Suddenly it’s awkward between her and Mina and she doesn’t like it.
She clears , “Mina, about what you said—”
“Let’s not talk about that,” Mina says coldly, shutting and locking the dopr behind her as she sweeps past Nayeon without so much as glance.
Nayeon watches as she hurries away, and there’s a sting in her chest she’s never felt before.

    “Why does it hurt, Jihyo?” Nayeon sighs, staring at the ceiling as she lies on the sofa with her head on Jihyo’s.
Jihyo doesn’t look away from her book, “why does what hurt?”
”Why does it hurt when Mina walks away?”
Jihyo sighs and puts her book down, “because—you already know why, don’t you?”
Nayeon starts to sob. She doesn’t know why, but the tears start and they don’t stop. They don’t stop and she cries and she nods, because she knows exactly why it hurts, but she’s too afraid to admit it.