Chapter Text
"You should have moved on by now!" Momo exclaimed out of frustration, close to pulling her own hair out.
Or Mina's.
The day marked the fifth month of Momo's daily quest of trying to convince her sort-of-best friend Mina to finally move on from Dahyun, the latest in Mina's long list of failed not-exactly-a-relationship misadventure, another situationship - which in Momo's opinion was nowhere near a romantic nor platonic relationship but was more of borderline friendship and cruel assassination plot to insanity.
And Momo was tired of seeing Mina being on the crazy end of the spectrum.
"Dahyun and I are good friends," Mina said sheepishly. This was perhaps the thousandth time that Mina had used the same excuse for every person she had encountered whom she thought was finally her destiny.
But Fate always had other plans.
Mina met Dahyun in a literary workshop she attended a year ago. They were paired in one of the activities and hit it off right away, talking and seeing each other even after the workshop ended. Mina felt there was chemistry between her and Dahyun, and she thought it was also there when she co-authored a novel with Dahyun.
Even after Dahyun published the book as the sole author and with no mention of Mina even in the acknowledgements or "thank you" pages, Mina did not even have an ounce of annoyance at Dahyun, telling herself that Dahyun needed it more, for her career to take off.
Even after the book became a bestseller, Mina stayed by Dahyun's side, being happy for her and contented with seeing how successful the girl had become.
She was happy and contented with seeing and talking to Dahyun even when those became episodic - when the 24/7 conversations dwindled to almost nothing and they only saw each other via Skype.
She was happy with being given the bare minimum that she even had to beg for.
Until that one fateful afternoon during one of their Skype conversations when Dahyun just told Mina nonchalantly, "I'm dating Eunwoo!" and all Mina could do was smile and be excited for her now-established friend.
It had been five months since that fateful afternoon and somehow Mina still refused to stop initiating casual conversations with Dahyun.
Momo glanced at Mina who was then busy typing away in her phone. "You're talking to her again?"
"Nope," Mina replied without looking up from her phone, emphasizing the "P".
Suspicious, Momo quickly grabbed Mina's phone and took it away. "Hey!" Mina ran after Momo as the other dodged to keep the owner from retrieving her phone.
And that was when she saw the phone's screen.
"You bought her a laptop?!" Momo threw the phone and watched as Mina scrambled to catch it - well, she did, successfully and thankfully.
Mina wiped the phone on the hem of her shirt and shrugged her shoulders at her friend. "I figured she needs one because she's gonna start her second novel soon."
"Didn't she submit a typewritten manuscript for her first novel?"
"Yes, but she used my laptop for that." Mina answered so casually as if it was nothing to her.
Momo right then and there was finally convinced that her friend has completely lost her mind.
"Fine! Give that to her but that better be the last time." Momo's voice hinted the cold wisp of boiling anger and a firm resolution: Mina needed to meet someone new.
Momo slouched on the couch beside Sana, her other sort-of-best friend when they met one weekend in a cafe in town. Sana gave her friend a puzzled look and frowned. "You should've told me you don't feel like going out today instead of looking like a sack of potatoes." Sana handed Momo the menu, but Momo just sighed.
"If I drown Mina in a gallon of coffee, will she finally wake up and realize how stupid she is?"
Sana thought about it. "I don't think a gallon is enough to drown Mina." She took out a pen from her bag and grabbed one of the table napkins then began scribbling. "You see, Mina is 1.63 meters tall and a gallon is 3.78 liters, so..."
"That's not what I meant!" Momo cut off Sana's mathematical equation explanation before it even went any further. She groaned and slumped even more on the couch.
Sana decided to give her friend some time and just stood. "Okay, I'll just order for you. The usual?" She did not wait for Momo to answer and instead just headed straight to the counter.
It had been two weeks since that encounter with Mina. She chose to ignore how happy Mina looked when she accompanied her to the courier to have the laptop delivered to Dahyun and instead reminded her friend of their deal, "This better be the last time."
And since then, it had been two weeks of watching Mina sneak around chatting with Dahyun on her phone, conversations which she knew are one-sided and forced --- just her friend trying to get Dahyun's attention until Dahyun ignored her until she needed Mina again.
Sana came back with a tray of their food and drinks. She placed it on the table and arranged the food before taking a flatlay photo of it. "You can eat now," she told her friend.
Momo held her fork and took one big roll of pasta which she aggressively shoved in her mouth. Chewing, she started telling Sana about all her frustrations with Mina's unending unreciprocated devotion to Dahyun. "I absolutely think all she needs is someone new to keep her busy," she ended her blabbering as she finished eating the plateful of pasta.
And Sana had not yet even taken a single bite of her cheesecake.
"We can't force Mina to fall in love with someone else." Sana took a sip of her iced coffee, pacing herself. In Momo's condition, she felt this might be quite a long discussion.
Momo raised an eyebrow. "I'm not saying she needs to fall in love." She sat up and looked at Sana. "She just needs to talk to someone else who can keep her busy and stop her from talking to Dahyun."
"Like out of sight, out of mind?" Sana asked.
"Precisely." Momo beamed, showing signs of pride contradictory to how defeated she appeared when she arrived at the cafe.
Sana scratched her temple. "I don't know, Momo. It's like we're forcing Mina."
"Then you go talk to her and watch her break her own heart over and over again."
There was really no arguing with Mina, and certainly no arguing with Momo either. Sana was always caught in the middle between her two friends knowing she cannot win against either of them, and she knew she will end up giving in to both of them somehow.
It's not that Sana wasn't concerned. She just knew how stubborn Mina can get whenever she is head over heels over someone. The problem with Dahyun was that the girl was so good at leading Mina on that she had their friend on a leash and it was already too late when they all realized it, and Mina was very much a willing prisoner in a cell she practically put herself in and had long refused to leave even when the door was wide open for her to run.
For a doctor who was supposedly smart, Mina had the tendency of losing all her brain cells when it came to love.
"Okay," Sana said. She knew this was going to bite her someday but she just had to wing it at this point. "I know the perfect person for Mina to drown herself into."