THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT US. winrina

O7: Stalker

It's three days later that Minjeong finds herself outside instead of in the comfort of her and Yizhuo's dorm. She isn't doing this willingly, by the way. Yizhuo dragged her out of bed and shoved her in the shower, screaming at her to “Hurry the fuck up and shower!” since, apparently, “Karina's albums are on sale! I'm getting that legendary photo card today!”. And now they're at the mall in a long, long queue outside of a gigantic bookstore Minjeong can't really bring herself to care about.

“If the stock runs out before I get there, I'm wrestling every person in this place.” Minjeong is only mildly concerned when she hears Yizhuo mutter the sentence without any follow-up expressions. She's more or less understanding though; it isn't every day your favorite artist's albums are on sale at a place nearby. If Minjeong were a fan, she would do all that she can to get at least one.

They've been standing in line for about forty minutes but Minjeong thinks time is just an illusion and that they've been here for almost a decade. She swears she's seen the same people, same couples and families, going in and out of the mall within the minutes they've spent here. Perhaps it could've been her head playing tricks on her, or maybe she just couldn't read the time as well now that her energy is draining.

Sighing for the hundredth time in that hour, Minjeong chances one more look at her watch and — okay, yeah, maybe she did lose the ability to read analog clocks from how long she's been standing because, both shockingly and not, now it's been over an hour and a half since they got to the mall. Some evil part of her wishes for a staff member to walk out and announce that they did run out of albums so she could go back to her bed. But for the sake of Yizhuo and her inevitable wrath if that moment ever comes, she puts up with it.

Unable to find the will in her to further listen to Yizhuo's upset mumbling with a mixture of song lyrics thrown into it, Minjeong begrudgingly puts her mobile phone to good use.

And upon unlocking her phone with just a swipe upwards — Yizhuo's been bugging her about setting a password but she thinks it's unnecessary when she has zero secrets on it. Plus, she knows herself well and she can tell that if she were to put a password on her phone, she'll forget about it eventually after not using her phone for twelve hours — she aimlessly scrolls and scrolls through her bland apps in search of any source of entertainment that can keep her sanity intact for the next hour.

She finds YouTube. She knows that some people are obsessed with it, knows it's for online videos. She's only ever used it for educational purposes and watching a man monotonously drone about coding structures wasn't at all the pleasant fun she hears people describe about the app. Surely, there's more than just education videos on there.

Nodding to herself, Minjeong presses on the app icon to make her first attempt at having fun. Although it looks like someone's got different plans.

Karina: hiiiii

Minjeong's eyebrows jump at the sudden intrusion. What does she want on a weekend? All Minjeong can come up with are dumb reasons; visiting SM again, small talk and boredom, annoying her, or asking a question. But then again, what would Karina even ask her?

Ultimately deciding to ignore Karina's message, Minjeong pays attention to YouTube again. She comes across two videos with interesting titles and thumbnails. Both of the videos contain puppies! But somehow she ends up in the Shorts section, and she's already beginning to grasp the concept of Shorts from the few videos she's watched. The videos uploaded in the Shorts section have a time limit, she assumes one or two minutes, and they're a good amount of random. In the past five minutes, she's already come across videos ranging from serial killers to K-Dramas to whatever ASMR is supposed to mean again.

She swipes her thumb on the screen, skipping another clip of some drama, and then feels her breath get lodged in her throat when she suddenly sees Karina's face on her screen. The first thing she notices is Karina's makeup; the smoky look suits her well, and thick eyeliner really brings out her cat-like eyes. Karina's wearing a lip piercing in the video, a thin black ring right in the center of her bottom lip. Karina's usually dark hair is bleached blonde and it makes her look less proper, but that could also be because Minjeong's never seen Karina in any other hair color except black. The look is so new and foreign to Minjeong that she actually taps on the video to pause, garnering some seconds to take in the different Karina.