Hae-Yeon

 
“Thank You!” I take the letter from Mi-Seul’s hands and put it away inside my bag to read it once I go back home.

“Hae, have you ever thought about what it would be like to meet Jake in person?” Mi-Seul’s question makes my eyes leave the racks of onesies that I’m checking out for tomorrow’s photoshoot and meet her inquisitive gaze.

“I mean, yeah, I’ve obviously thought about it many times,” I dismiss it with a chuckle.

“Do you want to meet him someday? If that’s even possible…” Her question, once again, makes me focus on her.

“Mi,” I breathe out, “I don’t know if I’m ready to meet him. I also don’t know if he’s ready to meet me. We’re just writing to each other, and I find him to be a very comforting person. Honestly, I’ve also been wondering if I’m developing romantic feelings for him, but I don’t know yet. I don’t want to feel some kind of unrequited love and get depressed later on. So, I’m happy with how things are at the moment, and, if anything is meant to happen, I think it will. Don’t you think so?” I send a smile her way before picking out two onesies from the display.

“Since nobody knows what he looks like in real life, there’s also a chance that you might have already seen him somewhere,” her shoulders lift in a small shrug. “I mean, a slim chance is still there, right?” She raises her eyebrows in question.

“That’s true,” I agree, nodding. “There is a possibility of that too. Forget about it. What’s going on with you and Taehyung?” I wiggle my eyebrows at her, and her face instantly bursts into a furious blush.

“What’s going on between us? Nothing? We just went out for dinner yesterday, and then he dropped me home, that’s it,” the smile on her face doesn’t reduce in intensity, and the blush that’s painting her whole body is palpable even from where I’m standing.

“Just a dinner date? Yeah, okay, just a dinner date where you both took selfies, and he posted them on Instagram with a cheesy caption,” I roll my eyes, breaking into peals of laughter when I see Mi-Seul’s jaw dropping slack in shock.

“He did that?” She swiftly pulls out her phone and visits his profile from our studio’s page while I stand there studying her expressions that gradually evolve from shock to a smile and then a giggle as she scrolls through the ten images that he had posted earlier in his feed.

“Tae’s a nice guy, Mi-Seul,” I step closer to her, and she raises her head to look at me instead of their selfies from last night. “You should try going out more with him, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, and I think he’s interested too,” I gently ruffle her hair, and she looks away, smiling shyly.

“Never seen you blush so hard before. I need to get used to this,” I pinch her arm playfully, only to make her blush grow wilder.

We then spend a little more time eating our takeaway dinner and finalizing the set and props for tomorrow’s photoshoot, after which I hand over a last-minute purchase list to Mi-Seul, and then we both leave the studio and head back to our homes.

As I halt at a red light on the way, I turn my head to look at Jake’s letter that’s on the passenger seat beside me, and at this point, it almost feels like the letter is a person accompanying me on my way back home. A smile makes its way up my lips as I reach out to pick up the letter and open it up, but the light soon flips to green, and I heave a sad sigh before returning the letter to its place.

I even contemplate pulling over and spending a few minutes to read it and putting an end to my curiosity, but I don’t do that, not wanting to be too dramatic.

Once I reach home, I do the bare minimum of locking the front door and kicking my shoes off before I throw myself on the couch and carefully unseal Jake’s letter. His handwriting is a little messy as always, but I don’t mind at all. It’s his words and honest emotions that make me crave these letters and not his calligraphy skills.

The smile on my lips doesn’t tone down one bit, even though I’m only just starting to read the letter, which is much shorter than his usual reply letters.

 
Dearest Sarang,

Wow! We’re the same age, and guess what? I’m so thrilled to know that, and I don’t even know why.

I hope my letter reaches you while you’re feeling good. Can I tell you something? I’m going to tell you anyway. Haha.

Although I really love the traditional way of communicating through letters, I feel that it may create suspicion among my PR team and my manager if they start to notice that I’ve been sending frequent letters to one particular person. I trust them a lot, no doubt about that. But word might start getting around and catalyze rumors, and I don’t want that to happen. The thing is, I really like hearing from you and talking to you, but doing it through letters may cause trouble. I hope you understand.

So, I was thinking if we could, maybe, talk to each other on the phone? But please don’t feel forced to give me your phone number just because I’m suggesting this. I thought about it over a few days and decided that I wanted to give it a try, but only if you’re also comfortable with it.

In case you decide positively, text me on this number: 010-1997-0109

In case you don’t want to do it, write back to me, and I’ll be happy to hear from you in any way.

Love,
Jake

 
I re-read his letter three times, and in the process, I also memorize his phone number. My hands grow cold and begin to tremble as well, but my cheeks feel so contrastingly hot, and I can feel my pulse in my temples as I put his letter down on my lap and pick up my bag from the floor.

My fingers feel like they’re coated in butter as I nervously fumble with my phone while trying to type in his contact number and save it.

Should I do it?

This really feels like taking it further, and I’m already dreaming of holding random imaginary conversations and text chats with him at a later time.

The pandemonium within my head breathes its last when I finally tap the send button on the simple message that I typed out. I almost typed in Hae-Yeon and quickly changed it to Sarang before sending him the message.

Me:
Hi, this is Sarang.

The message gets delivered and read as well, all in a matter of a heartbeat. I put my phone screen down on the coffee table, suddenly feeling too nervous and not knowing what to ask him when he replies.

Dealing with letters was an entirely different thing because I could go over them a hundred times and then frame a decent reply and send it whenever I was ready for it. But with texting, he would know exactly when I received the message and read it, and I’m someone who isn’t the best at giving spontaneous replies.

I have no idea how many seconds or minutes pass by with me overthinking and being an anxious mess as always, but the ding sound on my phone signals the arrival of a message and drags my thoughts back to the device.

Picking up the phone, I open the reply message from Jake, a smile tugging at the corners of my lips as I do so with cold and damp hands.

Jake:
Hi, Sarang. Thank you for texting me. I hope you had a good day today.

My fingers have no trouble in typing out the lamest reply I’ve ever imagined giving him, and I regret sending it as soon as I tap on send, but it’s too late to undo the action now because he has already seen my message.

Me:
I did, thank you.

Jake:
Can I call you?

My eyes widen, and I’m not sure what to do now. I’m always unconfident about how my voice sounds over the phone, and I would any day choose texting over phone calls. It’s just one of my countless insecurities that I have a very hard time coming to terms with.

Even with my business, I rarely ever answer any phone calls, and it is always Mi-Seul who does that for me. I only handle social media and in-person interactions at work, but right now, turning Jake down would probably seem rude. But accepting would also mean that his smooth honey voice will definitely make me sound like an old scratched record.

I feel like crying, but my emotions are contained when I receive another reply from him after a whole ass three minutes.

Jake:
Are you still there? It’s okay if you don’t want to talk. We can text.

Thankfully, he understands, but I feel a little bad about turning down his request. At this point, it’s just my insecurities that are holding me back, and not because he would judge me or anything. He never would do that, and I’m sure of it. So, after just a few more seconds of radio silence, I place a call to Jake’s phone without thinking too much.

In just about one full ring, he answers the call, and my entire body goes stiff for a moment. There is complete silence except for soft breathing sounds from his end that somehow make the hair on my forearm stand upright.

“Sarang?” The sound of his husky and sexy voice causes my limbs to tremble, and a warm sensation begins to churn in my stomach.

“Hi,” I answer meekly, in a voice that suddenly sounds too fragile and squeaky.

Rustling sounds are heard on the line, followed by a deep breath he takes in, and the sound of it leaves me breathless for some reason.

“Did you just get back from work?” Jake asks me in a low tone, and I’m quite convinced that I’m falling in love with his voice all over, once again.

I listen to him singing all day, and I even listen a lot to podcasts of his radio interviews. Yet, directly talking and listening to him over the phone is making my mind, heart, and senses play tricks on me.

“I did, a while ago. Are you still at work?” I lay down on my bed and pull a pillow to my chest as I talk to him.

It takes me just about a few seconds, by which time my nerves calm down, and I roll over onto my side with the pillow still stuck to my body. Jake and I start off talking about awkward and weird topics and making senseless small talk, but it only lasts for a while, and then we slowly drift off towards a little deeper topics. He seems to have loosened up a lot as well as opposed to how uptight he seemed with his words at the start of this phone call.

The minutes keep ticking by, but the two of us seem like we couldn’t ever get enough of talking to each other, and it is when the battery of my phone runs out and ends the call that I bother to notice the time on my bedside clock.

My eyes widen in shock when I see that it is already way past midnight, when in reality it seemed like just a little while that we were talking.

How did three hours even pass by?

I waste not more than a minute plugging my phone into the charger and powering up my phone once again. It takes more than a minute to power up, and once it boots up fully, I consider sending a text message to Jake. But he sends me a text first.

Jake:
Did your phone run out of battery?

I laugh softly as I type out a reply to him.

Me:
Yeah, I didn’t realize it, sorry.

Jake:
Hey, don’t be sorry. Are you sleepy?

Me:
Doesn’t look like it. Are you sleepy?

Jake:
I want to keep talking to you

Jake:
But my phone just warned me of low battery too.

Jake:
Can we talk on Skype? Without turning on the video.

My poor heart just about exploded in place upon seeing his message. It feels so unreal and definitely like some pleasant dream from which I wouldn’t want to wake up, and I’m pinching myself right now to check if this is, in fact, the reality.

The way I’m grinning so big is making my cheeks and jaw hurt, and my hands are cold with nervousness once again when I type out a reply to him.

Fortunately, I have a very random username for my Skype account and not my real name. So, I don’t think twice before sharing it with him, and he shares his Skype ID with me and asks me to call him, which I do promptly in a few more minutes.

Jake answers my call, and even though the quality of the call isn’t as good as it was over a regular voice call, the tone of his voice is still so enticing and soothing to my ears.

After ensuring that my laptop is connected to the charger, I get back into bed, and we resume talking. He talks to me about his work, and when I ask him about the process of song-making, he happily explains every step in detail.

I’m being careful all along not to let out any personal details about me or my job or my friends, but I still end up spilling a little about Mi-Seul and Taehyung, and our friendship, without giving him names or other details.

He, too, tells me about his close friend of over ten years, and I maintain my decency by not asking him for names because he privileged me to that level of privacy. It would only be right to give the same to him, and I wouldn’t ask him anything unless he wants to use names.

It is extremely entertaining and comical even to listen to stories of him and his friend, and all I do is mostly listen to him and laugh at the funny things he says because my life isn’t remotely close to that level of ‘interesting’ as his. I don’t have any fun experiences to talk about, but I’m truly enjoying listening to him talk so freely.

Jake cautiously steers clear of speaking about his partner or his daughter except for answering me at the start that she’s doing well, but I don’t pry him on that. He seems relaxed and comfortable, and I wouldn’t want to disrupt that fine balance at any cost.

“Can I ask you something a little personal?” He asks me suddenly, after a few hours of talking.

“I’ll try to answer it.” I word my answer carefully.

“Is Sarang your actual name?” His question should have stunned me, at least momentarily, but I only laugh softly in response.

“No, it isn’t. I hope your next question isn’t asking me what my real name is.”

“No. I won’t ask you that until you are ready to tell me. I love the name Sarang as much as I love your company,” he declares, punctuating his words with a faint crumple of sheets.

Now this stuns me a little and steals away my words for a moment. Jake speaks softly to fill in the silence, “I really like talking to you, and I like you too, Sarang. Do you know why?” He asks, definitely with a smile on his lips.

“Because we both use fake names?”

He laughs heartily at my reply, and I laugh a little too.

“Exactly, but to put it in a better way, I relate so much to you because we both feel comfortable with this veiled identity. We hide behind a name to stay anonymous, and to outsiders, it may feel like we are being fake. But the truth isn’t that. We pretend for the world, but with each other, we are being our truest selves,” he explains patiently in an unhurried voice, and it makes me melt a little. It makes me go softer for him.

“That’s true,” I sigh softly, “anonymity, indeed, feels good. You definitely know it better than me.”

Jake chuckles softly upon hearing that, after which we both remain totally silent for a while. There is silence on the line, but it isn’t dead yet. The sounds of his breaths and the ruffling of sheets on his bed feel to me as if we’re in one bed, with me curled up to him. It feels so intimate right now; it’s as if he is with me, in my room, but he isn’t. Instead, we’re connected in a way that’s so personal.

A few seconds of silence later, I begin to hear soft snores, and the sound of it tranquilizes me, making my eyelids draw shut without my control, even though the early morning rays of sunlight are already starting to filter in through the soft lace curtains dancing over the windows in my room.

The peaceful silence would last only for a short while, but if giving up my sleep means I get to stay up talking and listening to Jake and falling asleep right along with him at the break of dawn, then I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.
 

Late night phone calls are the best!!
😍

Published on : 09/11/2023