Yubin didn’t know what her night was going to consist of. But she surely didn’t think she’d end up on a chat roulette site to cure her boredom. She let out a sigh, ending conversations with people who weren’t interesting or were interested in things she wasn’t willing to talk about.
Until she landed on one chat thread.
The person on the other side seemed nice, said they were a girl, and apologized for their English. Yubin of course apologized for hers as well, but it wasn’t that terrible. Yubin could understand the basic gist of what this person was saying.
They talked for an hour on the chat thread, eventually sharing one social that was still under an alias for Yubin. A nickname that she had gotten, of course, but it wasn’t her real name.
But she got this person’s name or nickname, or something…
Lily_le_lapin: Do you want to video chat to prove faces?
Yubin was a little shocked but she liked the idea. That way she knew this girl was real. And indeed a girl.
Pandami: Yeah that works.
Yubin felt her hands get clammy, unsure why she was nervous. But she knew she was real and her photos were real.
It took a few minutes, but a call eventually came through, and Yubin answered it. It took a few seconds to buffer before it finally loaded.
She couldn’t help but blink a few times, completely floored with the woman on her screen. Even with the pixels, and slow internet connection, she could see clear as day that the woman in the photos was indeed her.
“Ah… you match,” She smiled.
“You match also,” Yubin chuckled.
It was awkward, but oddly comfortable.
“Mm… Where… You from?” She asked.
“South Korea,” Yubin answered. “You are from..?” She asked. She heard a thick accent when she spoke English, and she didn’t want to assume.
“Ah..mm… France!” She finally answered.
They spent an hour on the video chat, broken English back and forth before Yubin learned her name was Minji but for the sake of her education, she went by Lily growing up.
Back and forth for days they chatted. Learning the time difference, learning slowly about each other. Yubin was over the moon with how this woman was. Minji was beyond perfect and it made her want to just keep talking to her.
“Who are you texting so much?!” Her friend, Gahyeon, frowned.
“I met this girl,” Yubin smiled. “She’s from France, and she’s just different… and pretty, and I think I’m starting to crush on her a little bit…” She whispered.
“Show me! Show me! Show me!” Gahyeon pestered, immediately grabbing her arm and shaking her.
Yubin showed the profile, and Gahyeon was shocked.
“She’s so pretty!!! And you made sure she’s real?” She asked.
“Yeah! We video chat a lot,” Yubin chuckled. “She doesn’t cover her face or anything.”
“Good!”
Yubin felt horrible for defaulting to Korean a lot, but Minji said it was fine that she was using a translator. Which led to her asking if she was French Korean. Which she guessed right. Minji just never learned from her parents and only learned phrases here and there and certain words. All of them are mostly related to food.
But it worked out because Minji tended to drift back to French, leaving Yubin to use her own translator app. But Minji did her best, trying to keep English going until she was too tired to think.
So Yubin did the only logical thing to do.
She started learning French.
It was hard to start, learning and finding a reputable app that made sense. She didn’t want to ask Minji since she wanted to surprise her, but it was rather difficult until she asked her friend to ask one of her own friends.
It was not easy. It was incredibly hard and she wanted to murder her own throat and brain.
Yubin thought it was a nice language. She heard Minji speaking to her parents, her friends and even her dog in French and it just sounded so pretty. So pretty to her… but she wasn’t sure if she was admiring the language or if she was just thinking everything Minji did or said was just beautiful.
“Maman, je vais rester debout tard, alors s'il te plaît laisse-moi dormir demain matin…”
Yubin could only see Minji looking at someone, speaking to that someone who responded in the same language. She only understood the first word so far from her lessons. Minji was talking to her mother.
“Sorry… I tell my mother to let me sleep,” Minji smiled at her phone camera, seeing Yubin starting to fall asleep on the screen. “Dami?”
“Hm?” Yubin blinked a few times, waking up again.
“You… Are up early…” Minji frowned. “Get sleep.”
It was a pain in Yubin’s ass having to work around the time difference. It was an eight hour difference and she would set an alarm just to video chat with her. She would even stay up as late as she could just to send a good morning text at the right time.
She loved the weekends, being able to stay up as late as she wanted just to keep talking with Minji.
Until she danced around the whole idea of her crushing hard on the woman. She was going to tell her that night, but when she answered the video call, she saw someone with Minji.
“Dami!” Minji smiled.
“C'est la fille à qui tu as parlé ?!” The other woman asked
“N'est-elle pas mignonne ?” Minji smiled at the other.
Yubin stayed silent, waiting until Minji looked back at her.
“This my friend!” Minji smiled. “Her name Yoohyeon. She lived in Korea!”
Yubin perked up at that, immediately looking at the friend.
“You lived in Korea?” Yubin smiled.
“Oh! Yeah! I lived in Incheon,” Yoohyeon gave her a big smile, now talking to Yubin for a little bit before Minji asked her a question.
Yubin couldn’t help but see how close they were, clearly best friends or something more.
Yoohyeon was gorgeous to say the least too. It made sense. Minji would be attracted to Yoohyeon and not her. She liked to think she was handsome. At least her mom told her she was.
How could she compete with Yoohyeon?
“I… I think I will call later… very tired…” Yubin lied.
“Oh?” Minji’s smile immediately faded, forming into a pout. “So soon?” She asked.
“Yeah… I should sleep…”
She ended the call, shutting her laptop before falling back on her bed. Maybe she could just swallow her feelings and ignore them. But that terrified her. She read enough of her favorite anime fanfics to know that unrequited love ended with her dying from the flower disease.
And she was not going to let some flowers choke her out.
So she grabbed her phone and immediately texted the entire thing, not even bothering with anything. Just sent her the message.
Pandami: I’m sorry for ending the call but I have strong feelings for you and I want to call you my girlfriend. I hope you feel the same but it’s entirely okay if you don’t. Goodnight.
Once she hit send, she set her phone down and the panic settled in. She grabbed her phone, wishing there was an undo button. A delete message function. Something. But there was not and now she had to suffer.
She thought the feeling couldn’t get any worse.
But it did. When the message changed from sent to read with the time.
She chucked her phone, almost afraid of what the response was going to be. She didn’t touch it for a while, and when she picked it up, it had been thirty minutes. Thirty minutes since the message said read and a notification from Minji from fifteen minutes prior.
She didn’t want to read the message. She really didn’t.
But she knew she had to.
So she unlocked her phone, seeing the message.
Lily_le_lapin: I have felt the same!!!! I didn’t want to say anything but I would love to be called your girlfriend!!!
Yubin immediately dropped her phone, the panic slowly washing away and being replaced with shock.
Minji felt the same.
Sacrificing her sleep seemed less of a chore and now more of a necessity. She loved talking to Minji and loved hearing her tired voice. Sometimes they would even fall asleep on the video calls together, sometimes Minji would have to end the call to get ready for her day, sometimes Yubin would end the call to do the same.
But she couldn’t get Minji’s cute sleeping face out of her mind.
She couldn’t get her face out of her mind ever.
Months of going back and forth. Living so far apart and being in a relationship was hard. Neither one thought long term and it was something Yubin didn’t want to think about.
They were adults. It would be okay.
“It’s cold…” Minji pouted.
She was entirely bundled up in her bed, extra blankets on top of her while she stared at her phone screen. Yubin was in the middle of getting ready for work, brushing her teeth while listening to Minji.
“I would cuddle,” Yubin smiled.
“Come, hurry. Need it,” Minji pouted.
They always joked about it. Always joked about meeting in person.
But Yubin was terrified. Terrified of the what ifs. What if she wasn’t what Minji wanted if they ever met face to face.
As time went on, they were more and more casual with one another, Minji slowly picking up on the new language she was learning from Yubin. But with how casual everything had gotten, how comfortable everything was, Yubin let herself think.
And when Yubin started thinking, she felt as if she was never going to be enough.
She was in the middle of her lunch break, and Minji was getting ready for bed. She wanted to call, but Minji wasn’t answering her messages. However, she was answering these random profiles that commented on various posts she had from the past few days.
She couldn’t help but click on the other profiles, seeing all of them were the same three men.
They seemed relatively close and Yubin felt like she really wasn’t enough at that point. How could she compete?
She felt defeated. Going through the motions of just being so far when she could have someone closer. Someone who could love her in a better way.
“You are sad…” Minji frowned when they were able to finally video chat again.
“I am,” Yubin sighed.
“Why?”
“I don’t like that we are far like this.”
Yubin had chatted with Minji consistently after that. But the more she chatted with her, the more her mind went to various places. Each one worse than the last. And she thought she was going to lose it when she recognized the same men from the profiles in her house when she was walking through.
“Who are they?” Yubin asked. Clearly an impulse since she didn’t mean to sound so rude.
“My brothers!” Minji smiled. She pointed the phone to them, letting them wave at Yubin.
Brothers. Now it made sense.
“We are going on… ah… a trip!” Minji laughed.
“Oh… so you will be busy.”
Yubin knew trips meant being busy. Busy meant less time with Minji. Which meant sad sleeping times.
She hadn’t heard much from Minji, just knowing she was busy packing and getting things together for her trip. A trip that she barely told Yubin about. Only saying she was visiting family.
It had been a few days of few messages and no calls. She was in the middle of work when she got a message from her girlfriend.
Lily_le_lapin: you should try this cafe! My friend says it’s very good.
Dami clicked the link, recognizing the cafe. She could stop by for lunch since it was close. And she worked hard.
Pandami: I’ll try it for lunch today!
She was able to take a normal lunch hour, walking to the cafe. It wasn’t as crowded as she thought, which was a plus, but the second she stepped closer she immediately recognized a woman.
Minji was standing there, looking just a little worried until her eyes landed on Yubin.
Despite the months of pixels and terrible connections and even failed calls, Yubin knew her face clear as day.
Minji was taller than expected, and a lot more beautiful in person than on screen. She stepped closer to the younger woman, stopping just a little bit in front of her.
“Hi…” Minji smiled.
“Hi…” Yubin smiled back.