A small debt can become a large distance when both people keep avoiding the conversation.

The money is rarely the problem for long. What grows is the awkwardness around it: one person waiting to be asked, the other waiting to be offered, and both editing their messages slightly to avoid the subject. Over months, that editing becomes the relationship, and the original sum stops mattering to the size of the gap.

If something like this is sitting between you and someone, name it plainly and without apology in a single message. Suggesting a small repayment, or writing it off entirely, ends the avoidance, and the avoidance is what has been doing the damage.