It was like they'd all conspired against him to keep rubbing it in his face that he hadn't talked to her in six damn days. And that whole time, he couldn't concentrate because he'd been too busy forcing himself not to think about her.

Then, like she was reading his mind, Nina asked, "So where's Soojung these days?"

Sehun stilled, the cinnamon roll dough only half-rolled up, and took a breath. But there was a low, insistent buzzing inside his head that he couldn't shake.

Finally he muttered, "She's around."

Not really paying attention to him, Nina leaned over and pinched a bit of raw dough off the roll he'd just formed. He clenched his jaw—he really hated when she did like that. 

"I was just wondering," Nina said, absently playing with the tiny ball of dough. "She's usually, like, attached to your hip but you've been coming in for the past few days and I haven't seen her at all." Her eyes were on her fingers as she pressed the dough into a small, flat circle. "What'd you do, fire her?" she joked.

A wave of irritation went through him. Part of it was with Nina, but mostly, it was with himself. No, he hadn't fired Soojung. But he might as well have since they weren't even talking.

Which was his own damn fault.

After a moment of silence, Nina looked up, wondering why he hadn't responded. Her eyes widened a bit and Sehun realized he was glaring at her. 

"Sheesh, I was just kidding, Sehun," she said with a small, dismissive laugh. But when he just kept staring at her, the smile turned impatient. "Seriously," she went on, "I know how good of friends you are. I just hadn't seen her for a while…" she trailed off, her eyes narrowing as she studied Sehun's grim expression. 

"Okay, well, clearly you're no fun today," she said, sliding off the stool. "Anyway, I only came by to pick up my knives. So, I'm gonna go. See ya." With a final, lingering half-smile, she gathered her knives and left.

Now that Sehun was alone like he'd wanted, it didn't even matter. Nina's words were enough to torture him. 

I know how good of friends you are…

.

He'd been trying, so hard, not to think about Soojung. He'd even been avoiding Sugar and Sam specifically so he wouldn't have to talk about it. So it figured that it'd be Nina, in the KIRA kitchen, who said the words just now that made him hate himself. Made him finally face the reality that he'd been avoiding for the past six days.

Soojung was the good friend. Not him. No, he was just an . 

Anger, with himself, burned through him and, working hard to keep it in check, he wrapped up the uncut cinnamon roll dough. He couldn't work anymore. He'd been forcing himself to keep busy this whole week but now he had to take a break, do something else, or he might lose it. 

Not really thinking about what he was doing or where he was going, he put the dough in the fridge and left the KIRA building, letting himself really, truly think about Soojung for the first time in days.

He thought of her in all the places she'd been over the last two years: Soojung standing on the sidelines during his tapings here at KIRA; her fielding phone calls from that pushy publishing rep who'd wanted him to co-write a cookbook for dog treats; her driving around to three different grocery stores at six in the morning because he'd bought the wrong phyllo dough for the baklava he'd made on his first show.

It took him about ten seconds to finally admit that he'd been a huge jerk—and about more than just the Sara Lee competition. He wasn't happy about her leaving, but still, he knew he shouldn't have reacted the way he had. It'd been the combination of stress and outright anxiety that'd gotten to him, which was why he'd flipped out so badly when she said she was quitting.

It was bad timing, all around. 

When she'd quit, he'd already heard back from the Sara Lee competition people and, for weeks, the whole thing had been messing with his head. A hundred top-ranking chefs from across the country competing over four days on national television wasn't exactly something he looked forward to. 

He loved being on camera, but this was an entirely different ballpark from the laid-back approach he had on Sweet Talk. With that, there wasn't any pressure, no one sizing him up, looking for flaws, but with the Sara Lee thing…. Just thinking about it right now was making him a little nauseous.

He made it out to the parking lot and got in his car but just sat there, staring out at nothing. All he could think about was that he'd run off the one person he needed most right now. But what was worse was that he didn't know what to do about it. 

He couldn't just call her up and say, "So, yeah, sorry for being such a . Friends again?" But without her around, nothing felt right.

Every single dessert he'd made over the last few days just felt off for some reason. They looked fine and tasted fine, but something just wasn't right. About any of them. 

Or his life, actually.

He needed Soojung's opinion about his recipes for the competition. He needed her to look over all of the paperwork and rules to make sure he didn't miss anything. He needed her to help him calm the hell down. 

His fist clenched around his car keys.

Hell, he just needed her.

********************

It was five past one when Soojung settled herself at the bar in Sugar. 

The shop's walls were painted a warm, honey-brown color that perfectly picked up the glow of trendy track lighting in the ceiling. Small, square tables and black, wrought iron chairs marched along the curved wall separating the bar from the main dining floor. And the actual floor was done in chocolate-brown tiles that were specially made to sparkle in the track lighting—as if the floor itself had been liberally sprinkled with sugar.

During the day, the bar was one of Soojung's favorite places to sit because it gave her such a great view of the shop but right now, all of her attention was narrowed down to a single point. She kept stealing glances at the door, half expecting Sehun to walk in. She didn't know if she was hoping he would or praying he wouldn't. Deep down, though, her heart was willing him to appear. 

God, she really had no spine at all, did she? 

Frowning, she glanced toward Sam and was surprised to find him studying her from behind the bar.

"Still bummed about the whole college thing?" he asked after a second.

Wordlessly, Soojung nodded. Okay, so actually, she'd been hating herself for still wanting Sehun Blake—but, technically, the 'college thing' just made the last few unpleasant days worse.

"Well then," Sam said, scooping ice into a cocktail shaker, "it's a good thing I happen to know the lady has a thing for chocolate."

"You know me too well," she said with a small smile, watching as Sam constructed her favorite cocktail, a chocolate martini with Godiva chocolate liqueur, half-and-half, crème de cacao and vodka. 

Just before he was about to put the lid on the shaker, Soojung laid a hand on his wrist and he glanced up. "Make it a double," she told him with a bigger smile.

"That's my girl," Sam laughed, knowing exactly what she meant. Rather than reaching for the vodka, he added in another liberal swirl of the dark, velvety chocolate liqueur.

He was just setting the glass in front of her when he looked toward the door, probably checking to see if Doug had shown up, and swore.

"What?" Soojung said and, without thinking, turned to see what he was looking at—only to be caught up in Sehun's gaze.

Even across the room, she felt him.

She'd been in love with him for half her life, but almost never had this strong of a reaction to his presence. It was the time away, she told herself. She hadn't seen him in days and her idiotic heart had gone through a withdrawal…but that didn't explain why her hands were shaking the way they were. Or why she literally had to drag her eyes away from his penetrating