When you meet your best friend in real life, or you meet your soulmate, you just know it, and you feel it.
-Lili Reinhart

00| Best Friends

We were the best of friends.

Inseparable, our parents used to call us. Ever since we were little, he was the only boy that I had known. I thought we would always stay the way we were-- that he would always be beside me. That was before my feelings for him started to change.

I do not know how it happened but it did. I only realized it when he started to have admirers. He was so popular for his good looks and good grades. His fangirls would drive me insane with jealousy. Ever since that, the mere touch of his hand on my shoulder would send shivers up my spine. His smile would make me smile; his laugh would light up my whole day. Even when Sehun was bullying me like he always did, my heart was contented.

However, I was only his best friend.

I was hiding my feelings for him inside, not having the courage to tell him for fear that I would ruin our friendship so I was pining for unrequited love all by myself.

When my parents dropped the news that we had to move when we were in high school, I was beyond devastated. Sehun was not going to be beside me anymore and the thought was troubling me. That was when I had mustered up the courage to confess, hoping that he’d feel the same way.

I still remember the day like it was yesterday.

I went to his house and asked him to meet me at the front door. It was a week before I had to move. My whole body was wet with perspiration. I did not know whether it was due to the summer heat or because I was too nervous. It was the first time that I would confess to a boy. Seeing this scene on the dramas on television for countless times had seemed so easy but I experienced first-hand in real life how difficult it was. My heart was beating in a weird rhythm and my hands were shaking.

“This better be good,” Sehun had mumbled sleepily on the phone when I called him before coming over.

I rang the bell and waited anxiously for him to appear. I had practiced the whole thing repeatedly in my room the night before but none could ever prepare me for the actual moment.

“What do you want to talk to me about, Hana?” he inquired when he had appeared at the door. He gazed down at me with sleepy eyes so I knew that I had just woke him up from his afternoon nap.

This might not be good, Kim Hana! He might be cranky because you ruin his sleep. You need to have him in a good mood, I thought to myself.

“Err…” I started.

Sehun leaned his back on the door and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He yawned a little and cocked his head to look at me. It was enough to stop my heart from beating. My fingers had become cold and clammy and my throat felt dry. It was as though I could barely speak.

“Err?” he asked inquisitively, “You ruin my nap just to say ‘err’?” Sehun scoffed and shook his head. “What has gotten into you? Why are you acting so strange?”

I took a deep breath. This was not how I had imagined my confession to be. In my imagination, I was doing it all effortlessly and had succeeded without as much as a stutter. Of course, it was only in your imagination that you could do anything.

Sehun was still looking at me weird with his brows furrowed together like trying to read me. I could tell he was still waiting for me to speak.

God, why is this so freaking hard?!

I used to be able to talk to him about whatever nonsense before. Heck, I even had told him about my menstruation. I remember him looking like he was about to vomit when I had asked him to accompany me to buy the sanitary pad at the drugstore. However, Sehun still went with me even though he looked like he was dying from a terminal illness.

I took a deep breath and was determined to confess.

“Sehun, I’m going to tell you something crazy today,” I said. “Please don’t be startled. Please.”

Sehun let out a soft chuckle and shook his head. “Don’t you always say something crazy, Hana?” there was an amused glint in his eyes.

I put an index finger in front of my lips to motion for him to shut up. He immediately made the gesture of zipping his mouth and waited for me expectantly.

Here goes nothing.

“Sehun, I like you.”

The silence that occurred after that was deafening to say the least. Sehun’s eyeballs looked like they were about to pop out. He blinked repeatedly as though he did not catch what I was saying.

I bit my lip and looked at him expectantly for him to answer. Instead, Sehun was looking as though he had just consumed a sour apple. “But Hana, we’re best friends,” he pointed out after some time like it was so hard for him to say, “I don’t think of you that way. I just can’t think of you in that way.”

I could feel my heart shattering to pieces. That feeling was giving indescribable pain to my heart.

It was then that I was met with the cold, hard reality. It was then I had found out that he did not feel the same way that I did. It was then I found out that he thought of me only as his best friend.

Sehun was rejecting me just like how he was rejecting his other admirers.

To conceal the hurt that I was feeling, I started to laugh. It was all I could do to stop myself from bawling my eyes out. “Gotcha,” I said.

Then, he started to laugh too. He laughed so hard that there were even tears coming out from the corner of his eyes. “You nearly gave me a heart attack,” Sehun had said in between laughter, “If you ever pull this kind of prank on me again, I’ll bald your hair.” When he had stopped laughing, he asked, “Seriously, what did you want to tell me?”

That was it! I wanted to yell but decided against it. Instead I told him that I was moving the next week.

“You’re moving? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” he looked so upset, a far cry from the laughing Sehun that he was prior to that.

“I just found out,” I said, my voice was quivering, “So I came to tell you goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” Sehun muttered, looking at me in disbelief. I nodded.

We just stood there gazing at each other without speaking another word. Then we hugged for a long time. It was like we knew, it was our last moment as best friends. I did not go to see him after that; I was shutting myself for fear that I would break down should I see his gorgeous face again.

Sehun did not come on the day that I moved and it was the last I had seen of him. We did not keep in touch and as time flew by, the heartbreak he was giving me was mending by itself. I thought that I would never see him again; I was wrong. As fate would have it, we met again in the most bizarre circumstances.

After moving to Busan, I graduated high school with mediocre grade and was lucky to be accepted into college for a business degree. When I had graduated, after a few months of job searching, I was finally accepted to work as a file clerk at the Finance Department at SanYung Corporation in Seoul although it was not what I had wanted to be and the pay was little. I figured I could work my way up in the company if I work hard enough. Days passed by and I did not even realize that it had been 5 years that I had worked at the company and I was still the file clerk.

In fact, it was as though my life was in a stagnant mode. I was still single, still barely able to pay the bills, still the lowly file clerk; still not sure about my life.

On that fateful day, nothing was going right. I had woke up late due to my fault of not turning on the alarm and then I found out that there was no water because I had forgotten to pay the bills (again) so I had to go to work without showering but I made it up by spraying sh1tloads of perfume all over me to conceal my 'natural' smell. Then I had to pay the out-of-this-world expensive cab fare to my office since the bus had already left. It was making me even more broke than I already was, if that was even possible. I was just there in the nick of time and when I arrived at the elevator, there were so many employees already waiting. I managed to squeeze myself in between them, sandwiched between a woman and a guy.

Then the guy beside me had sneezed multiple times.

“Bless you,” I had said, not even looking at the guy.

The guy fidgeted a little. “It’s your perfume,” he stated, sounding angry, “Did you just drown yourself in perfume?!”

It was embarrassing to say the least and I could feel all eyes were on me. I bit my lip and lowered my head so that my hair could cover my face. It was the longest elevator ride in my life. I was never more relieved to see that it had reached the 13^th floor. Without turning back, I sprinted all the way to my office.

“Omo, why are you looking like such a mess?” ChaeYoung, my colleague who had been my only friend at the office had asked me, “Did you even look at yourself in the mirror?”

I shook my head and she handed me her pocket mirror. I gasped when I saw how I had looked. To say that I look like a mess would be an understatement—I looked like a ghost with my flyaway messy hair and my smudged lipstick that was done in haste in the cab. My crumpled skirt and blouse was making it worse.

“I woke up late,” I answered, “I didn’t have the time to tidy up.”

ChaeYoung shook her head. She handed me a comb and a tissue. “Go to the toilet and neaten yourself. Don’t you remember that our new Head of Department is coming in today? You don’t want to give a bad impression now, do you? The rumors said that he’s very strict and quite barbaric. So go now!”

I took her comb and sprinted towards the toilet. It was then that I collided with a man who was just coming out from the male toilet. Bowing my head to apologize, I was about to leave him to enter the female toilet when I heard his voice. The voice that I had longed for. The voice that could make my heart beat in a weird rhythm.

The voice of Oh Sehun.

“Hana?” he asked in disbelief, “Kim Hana?”

Sh1t!

This was not how I had imagined our next encounter would be like. I had always imagined that I would meet Sehun again when I am already a successful and elegant career woman; definitely not when I was looking like the ghost that I did. To make matters worse, Sehun was looking even more gorgeous than he was before. He eyed me up and down and I lowered my head in shame.

What in the world was he here for?

“Sehun, long time no see,” I said, still looking down at my worn out shoes. “How are you. What are you doing here?” The irregular beating of my heart was making it hard for me to even breathe. I knew that if I had looked at his face, my knees would turn to jelly.

Funny, I was so sure that I had gotten over him but it turned out that my heart had not completely recovered. I had thought that I would be able to converse with him with poise and elegance the next time that we would meet.

I thought wrong. I was still the insecure me in front of him.

He did not answer my question. Instead, without me having the time to even think, he reached out his right thumb to wipe the smudge of my lipstick at the side of my lips. This exact gesture was giving me a mini heart attack.

Calm down. Remember to breathe, Hana. He is just your old buddy. You have gotten over him. Be cool! JUST BE COOL GODDAMNIT!

I had to keep reminding myself.

“I got to go,” I said hastily and quickly ran into the toilet. I could hear him calling after me but I did not care to stop. I needed to run away. I needed to stop this old wound in my heart from bleeding again.

I splashed my face with the cold tap water and looked at my messy reflection in the mirror. I dried my face with the paper towel, reapplied my makeup and neaten my hair. When I walked out of the toilet with caution, I was relieved not to find Sehun there. It would be awkward to face him again and I prayed that it would be some time before our next encounter. Should I see him anywhere at the building again, I was determined to avoid him at all cost.

ChaeYoung was already at her desk and when I went to her to return her comb, she gushed with excitement, “Our new boss is so handsome, Hana-ah,” she said with a dreamy look on her face. “He looks like an idol.”

“But you just told me that the rumor says that he’s barbaric,” I pointed out. “I just hope that he won’t fire me. I badly need this job to keep me from being homeless.” At that moment, I was still recuperating from my sudden encounter with Sehun. At least my heart had stop its palpitation.

ChaeYoung blinked rapidly. She was about to retort something to me when we were interrupted by the voice of our manager. We could see that all our other colleagues had gathered in front of him so we quickly followed suit. I could see another person—the new boss I presumed—was standing beside him but could not really see his face since my point of view was blocked by the other colleagues. But from the dreamy looks on the female colleagues' faces, I could see that ChaeYoung was right about him being good looking.

When we were near him, my eyes widened. There, beside him was Sehun. My Oh Sehun. I could feel all the blood had left my face.

Please don’t tell me….

“May I present to you our new Head of Department, Mr. Oh Sehun,” my manager, Mr. Shin had said as though hearing my thought.

Oh. My. God.

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