Obvious

"She was boring."

"Boring??" Haewon's voice pitches up half an octave, the way it always does when she's about to lose her shit at you. She's already sprawled out across damn near two-thirds of your couch, legs stretched out with her feet shoved under your thighs, and a takeout container balanced poorly on her lap. Pad thai, extra peanuts. She ordered for both of you before you even got home. "How was she boring?? She's a graphic designer who does rock climbing on weekends. That's like, the most interesting girl you've ever had a chance with."

You shrug, picking at your own noodles. "I don't know. She just... talked at me the whole time. About climbing grades and chalk bags and her gym's new route setter."

"Because you didn't ask any questions back!"

"I asked questions."

"'That's cool' is not a fucking question." Haewon points her fork at you accusingly. A peanut falls off and lands on your cushion. She doesn't notice. "You do this every single time. You just sit there and wait for the date to end instead of actually trying."

You flick the peanut onto the coffee table. "Maybe I'm trying with the wrong people."

"Oh my god." She drops her head back against the couch dramatically. "That's what you said about the last three. The barista was too talkative, the grad student was too serious, that girl from the bookstore was 'trying too hard'—your words, not mine."

"She laughed at everything I said. I wasn't even being funny!"

"You can be funny sometimes! It is pretty nice when you shut up though."

"Thanks."

"I'm just saying." Haewon scoops more noodles into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully before continuing. (With her mouth open, because she knows how much it grosses you out). "At some point you have to admit that maybe you're the problem. Not in a bad way! Just... you're picky."

She's not wrong. This is the fourth—no, fifth—setup she's arranged in the last two months, and you've found something wrong with all of them. Before that it was the clubbing phase, where she dragged you to three different places in one night and kept trying to push you toward girls on the dance floor. Then before that, the bar hopping disaster where you left after the second stop because there were too many people and the music was too loud and Haewon got annoyed that you were "wasting her effort."

She means well. You know she means well. Haewon "adopted" you four years ago—literally walked up to you in the campus library, declared you looked lonely, and inserted herself into your life with the kind of insane lack of social anxiety only extroverts possess. She's been trying to "fix" you ever since. Not in a malicious way. She just cannot for the life of her understand why you wouldn't want to be at a crowded theater on opening night or why you'd rather stay in than go to her friend's house party.

"Firstly, will you close your fucking mouth when you chew, you cow?" you start, pointing your chopsticks at her threateningly despite the smirk on her face. "Second, I'm not picky. I just know what I want."

"Okay, so what do you want?" She shifts, turning to face you fully now, pulling her feet out from under you to fold them underneath her. "Seriously. Describe your perfect person. Maybe I've been setting you up with the wrong type."

You pause, considering. You haven't really told her all of it before, not fully. "Someone who doesn't expect me to be someone I'm not, I guess."

"…well that's fucking vague. Keep going."

"Someone who gets that I don't always want to go out. Who's okay with just... this." You gesture vaguely at the apartment, at the two of you with takeout containers on a Friday night. "Someone who listens when I talk instead of just waiting for their turn."

Haewon is watching you now, her usual restless energy stilled.

"And like, someone who's funny. But not in a performing way. Just naturally funny, you know? Someone who makes me laugh without trying to."

"Uh huh."

"Someone who already knows me. Who I don't have to explain myself to every five seconds." You're picking up momentum now, the thoughts coming faster. "Someone who pushes me sometimes, but not in a way that makes me feel like I'm stupid. Like they see me and they're okay with that, but they also know when to tell me I'm being an idiot."

The apartment is very quiet suddenly. You look up from your noodles and find Haewon completely frozen, staring at you with an expression you've never seen on her face before. A look that makes you want to bust your ass laughing at her, if it isn't for the look in her eyes.

"What?" you ask.

She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. "You're describing me."

The words just hang there. You open your mouth to argue, to say something, literally anything, but your brain has completely stalled out.

"You just described me," she says again, louder this time, sitting up straighter. Her takeout container tips and she catches it without looking, still staring at you. "Every single thing you just said. That's me."

"Haewon—"

"No, you shut up, let me—" She sets the container down on the coffee table too hard, sauce sloshing over the side. "I listen to you. I know you better than anyone. I push you but I don't try to change you, not really, I just want you to see that you're capable of more than you think you are." She's talking faster now, the way she does when she's figuring something out on the fly . "I'm funny, you laugh at my jokes all the time even when you're trying not to. And we do this—" she gestures wildly at the apartment, at the takeout, at the two of you, "—we do this like three times a week and you never complain about it."

Your heart is doing something weird in your chest. "That's not—"

"I told you to shut up." She shifts closer, her knee bumping into yours. "It is. It's me. You were describing me and you didn't even realize it."

You hadn't realized it. But now that she's said it out loud, now that she's sitting there looking at you like you're the stupidest person alive, you can't stop seeing it. Every failed date, every wrong person—none of them were Haewon. None of them knew that you fold your pizza or that you're weird about odd numbers or that you need at least twenty minutes of silence when you first wake up.

"Well… fuck." you say, very, very quietly.

"Yeah." Haewon laughs, but it sounds kind of breathless and almost nervous, which is wrong because this girl never gets nervous. "So what are we gonna do about that?"

"I don't—what?"

"What are we gonna do about it?" She's closer now, you didn't even see her move. Close enough that you can smell her shampoo, that coconut shit she's been using since sophomore year. "Because I'm sitting here realizing I've been setting you up with all these random girls when I—"

She stops. Bites her lip. You've seen her do that exactly twice before, both times before she did something completely impulsive and pretty fucking stupid.

"When you what?"

"When I want you for myself," she says quickly, and then she's kissing you.

It's not gentle or tentative or any of that movie bullshit. Haewon kisses you like she does everything else—fully committed, with no hesitation, her hand coming up to grab the front of your shirt and pull you closer. Your brain does that Windows blue-screen thing again where it just completely fucking blanks, and for a second you're just frozen with her mouth pressed against yours and your chopsticks still in your hand like an idiot.

Then your brain reboots and you drop the chopsticks and you're kissing her back.

She makes this sound against your mouth, something between a gasp and a laugh, and her other hand is in your hair now and she's practically climbing into your lap. You can taste the peanut sauce on her lips and it should be weird, this should be weird, this is Haewon, your best friend Haewon who you've known for four years and never once thought about like this—

Except that's a lie, isn't it? You have thought about it. Late at night when she's fallen asleep on this same couch during movie marathons, or when she shows up at your door at midnight because she had a bad date and wanted to complain about it to someone who actually listens, or every single time she laughs at something you said and looks at you like you're genuinely funny instead of just awkward.

You've thought about it and then immediately shoved it down because she's Haewon and she's your person and you couldn't risk fucking that up.

But she's kissing you now, so apparently she's been thinking about it too.

"Are you—" you start when she pulls back for air, but she cuts you off.

"If you ask me if I'm sure, I'm gonna punch you in the dick." Her pupils are blown wide and her lips are already looking darker and she's breathing hard. "I'm sure. Are you?"

You should probably think about this. You should probably consider the consequences and what it means for your friendship and all that responsible shit. But Haewon's in your lap now, her thighs on either side of yours, and she's looking at you like she's daring you to say no.

"Yeah," you say. "Yeah, I'm sure."