“I saw Sehun two days ago,” I said as the four of us sat in an Italian restaurant for dinner. Mia and Sam nodded half-heartedly as they continued to stare intensely at the menus in their hands.

“That hot model?” Clara asked, placing her menu on the table and directing her attention solely at me. The three of them knew that Sehun and I had worked together years ago, and they knew how close we became. At more than one point in my friendship with Sehun, the three of them had urged me to date Sehun, claiming that he took an interest in me long ago, and that I should get over Chanyeol one day or another.

It wasn’t because of Chanyeol.

It was true that I still loved Chanyeol – I couldn’t tell if I loved him just as a friend, but I knew even before they forced me to consider dating the young model that I no longer felt lingering feelings for Chanyeol. At that time, I was levelheaded enough to know that we couldn’t get past the problems that persisted in our relationship, and we could never rebuild lost trust.

“Yeah, saw him in the coffee shop next to my apartment.”

Mia and Sam finally decided on their orders and joined our conversation. “I thought he was working in California?” Sam commented.

“He booked a job here apparently,” I replied, refraining myself from disclosing the upcoming shoot that we were both part of.

“So he’s back for good?” Mia asked.

“For now.”

“Then go for it!” Of course Clara was the first one to urge me to try dating the guy.

“Well, we’re meeting for dinner next week…”

“It’s a date!” Mia almost shot up in her seat in excitement. I didn’t understand how she could get so worked up about a simple dinner, but she always did.

Back when Sehun and I first met, we ate together outside work at times, and every time I casually mentioned about the dinners to the group, Mia always, without fail, squealed in excitement. With that, they claimed that we’d be a cute couple, and thus fueling their plot to get me to date him. But I simply dismissed their excitement with an incredulous glare.

“It’s just dinner.”

“Dinner date,” Clara refuted with a wiggle of her brows, and the others just followed her lead. When the waiter approached our table with our respective plates, I gratefully turned away from their judging stares and to my plate of linguini.

“It’s just a meal, like what we’re doing right now,” I said, while unfolding the napkin on my lap. “There were reasons why we didn’t start dating back then, and those reasons still hold true today.”

Unlike what they thought of me, I wasn’t actually callous enough to think that Sehun had no interest in me. We met with each other outside of work a few times too many to be considered merely coworkers. Sehun and I almost became best friends – almost.

When he left for Paris two weeks before I left the studio, we both knew that our friendship was to be pu