Midnight in Seoul : 'Appropriately Inappropriate'

1 | Black & White

My twenties kicked off with Kai by my side.

That winter, as the ink on my freshly minted ID was still drying, we newbies who'd aced our way into the same uni were hurrying to connect on social media before classes even started.

Group chats popped up left and right – same major, same hometown – and meetups were happening frequently.

I first bumped into Kai at a Sinchon meetup. But our bromance – scratch that, our love story – began with one random DM he fired off before we met face-to-face.

Just minutes after the group chat went live, out of nowhere, I got a private message from this Kai Ahn dude I'd never heard of. Peeking at his profile pic, I had to admit, the guy was easy on the eyes. We were gonna be classmates, so I figured I'd play nice and chat with him a bit. But something was... off. This guy's texts were dripping with cutesy charm.

At first, I thought maybe this dude swung both ways. All those flirty messages he kept bombing me with.

As we continued our chat, it hit me – this fool thought I was a girl! He assumed I was a girl just by my name. (Yuri is typically a girl's name in Korea.) Back then, I hadn't uploaded a profile pic, so he must've jumped to conclusions.

Seeing this eager beaver trying to hit on me before we even started college, I decided to roll with it and play the girl card.

Today, creating a fake persona is child's play.

As Sun Tzu's wise words go – "Know thy enemy, know thyself. A thousand battles, a thousand victories." – I, as a man myself, knew exactly what made guys tick. While texting, I'd throw in some "kk" instead of "okay," pepper my messages with emojis, and before you knew it, we two dudes were playing an epic game of love-dovey tug-of-war.

Soon enough, Kai asked for a pic. I thought about finding some random hottie's photo online, but instead, I pretended to be shy and said we should meet in person at the meetup.

After that, Kai's messages slowed to a trickle. Guess he reckoned my fake persona as some girl with zero self-esteem.

I chewed over it for a moment, but in the end, I was eager to make this man mine.

Late at night, I'd shoot him a casual "Whatcha up to? LOL" to keep him on his toes.

Now Kai was trying to sweet-talk me into late-night phone calls.

Wanting to chat on the phone instead of texting? Classic move from a guy who thinks he's got a way with words.

I'm a fan of phone calls too, so I knew exactly what he was up to. I played hard to get and turned him down, then headed to the meetup, practically bursting with excitement.

Kai's profile pic wasn't some Photoshop magic – the dude was just as fine and tall in person. With looks like that, he could probably have his pick of the ladies. He kept scanning the room, obviously hunting for the girl version of Yuri. After a while, he gave up and texted me.

"You here?"

"Yup. Sitting down. I can see you, btw. LOL"

When it was time for introductions, I locked eyes with Kai and, using that sexy voice he'd been dying to hear, I manned up and introduced myself.

"What's up, everyone? I'm Yuri Kim!"

Kai's face was priceless – looked like he'd just seen a ghost. I couldn't help but crack up.

"You know Kai from before?" some rando next to me asked.

"Oh yeah, we've been texting every day."

Kai shot up so fast that his chair nearly toppled over.