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Yoonchae groans. “I need a loser boyfriend.”
“I could be your loser boyfriend.” Megan blurts out. “Do you ever think about that?”
Yoonchae stares at her with practiced blankness. You see, recently Megan had acquired the annoying—sometimes inconvenient—habit of spitting out the first thing that crossed her mind. Right now, she can tell this particular gaffe falls more into the inconvenient-inappropriate side of the spectrum instead of the funny-annoying one. Personally, she hates when this happens, because suddenly she's not Meiyok (full of whimsy and childlike wonder, loser-coded girl) but Megan (stupid, an actual-loser and full of shit).
“I never thought about that.”
But there's something. At least, that's what Megan thinks. Yoonchae paused for too long and maybe her lips trembled a bit before answering too. Perhaps Megan might be succumbing to insanity—which is a more plausible scenario than Yoonchae being conflicted about answering an obviously rhetorical question.
“I was joking.”
No, she wasn't. And maybe the danger lives there, knowing she wasn't joking. That and Yoonchae's reaction.
“My bad.”
“What does a loser boyfriend even mean?”
Knowing the meaning already, she asks just for the sake of it, hoping to change the subject as fast as possible—and discreetly. Yoonchae doesn't seem eager to help.
She shrugs. “I don't know.”
Megan audibly sighs. “You’re a woman of so many words, Yoonchae. I hope you never stop yapping.”
“I don't know, Megan.” Okay, this is bad. Just a bit. Her name comes out a little tense, stressed and worn out—if it's even possible to do that with a word. “Just— just a guy. Like, walks me to my dorm and carries my backpack when it's too heavy. Buys me chocolate when I have a bad day. And a loser, I don't know.”
Megan nods slowly, digesting everything. She tries to ignore the fact that she already does all of these things. For instance, that's why she's here, in Yoonchae's bed, watching The Diary of a Wimpy Kid in her laptop on a piracy site that bombs them with ads every two minutes. She fails because today, she 1) bought Yoonchae a pack of colourful jelly worms at exactly 3:30 p.m—because at 3:17 p.m she received an i flunked calculus :( text from Yoonchae. 2) Handed said jelly to Yoonchae while walking her through the whole campus just to guarantee she makes it safe and sound to her dorm and 3) She literally did all that while carrying her backpack. Also, Megan is a loser, she accepted the fact in high school when undeniably cooler girls assigned her that role.
Megan is her loser boyfriend. Now, does Yoonchae know that too or is it a one-sided thing and a huge coincidence that she just described Megan.
“It sounds like you're describing a boyfriend but I don't see the ‘loser’ part of the deal.”
Yoonchae nods. “I guess so.”
Megan is about to say something very clever about it all when Yoonchae dismisses an ad saying Samantha lives close by and she's alone! Click here… and she can't help but crack a smile. Yoonchae stares at her again, but instead of the resting stoic face, there's a thin curved line and Megan knows she wants to laugh.
“What?”
“You’re such a loser for laughing at these ads.”
Megan heart's misses a lot of beats.
“So I'm a loser?” She asks and, as stupid and silly as it may sound, hopes Yoonchae will answer something so mean about it, just so she can go back to her dorm, cry with Lara and sleep it away.
But, again, Yoonchae is not eager to help. She never is.
“You’re a little loser-coded, Megan. I'm sorry.”
But she's not actually sorry. She's smiling, all coy and fox-like.
“It’s okay. Girls are into losers nowadays.” Megan nudges her lightly. “Right?”
In the silence, Megan can hear her abnormally large rings brush against Yoonchae's finger. It's an accident. Neither of them looks down.
“Shut up, Megan.”
This time, there's no bite to her name. Maybe it's something, maybe it's nothing. But then, Megan is almost sure she could hear the smile when her name was uttered. Maybe it's everything.
“How do you even know Yoonchae?”
Lara—somewhat hesitant—stops typing her thesis’s introduction and stares at Megan like she's crazy. She might be.
“Huh?”
“Yoonchae,” she repeats. “Jeong Yoonchae.”
“Oh,” Lara nods slowly. “We had Statistics together. She helped me study for finals.”
Megan has a lot of questions. Like, why did Lara and Yoonchae have classes together if they're pursuing opposite degrees—since the streets love to say humanities and STEM don't go together. Also, why did she introduce them? Lara—her best friend, of all people—supposedly possessed a loving soul and a malice-free mind; she should've had mercy on Megan's poor heart. She should've heard the fateful can you introduce us, please please please? from Megan and immediately locked her inside a closet forever.
“Is she, like— gay?”
Lara squints her eyes. “Oh, honey.”
“Don’t oh, honey me. You did this to me.”
“You asked to meet her.”
Megan groans into her pink pillow, which happens to be Yoonchae's favorite color—and she hates knowing that, thinking that. Megan dreads how her body shivers on the verge of collapsing because she must say out loud that's Yoonchae's favorite color! otherwise she will die.
“I’ll kill myself.”
Lara has the audacity to snort. “You’re doing too much.”
“I’m going insane!”
“Look,” Lara finally stands, taking time cracking knuckles and stretching her back. “Having a crush never made anyone insane. You’ll be fine.”
Megan can't stop herself from groaning. She looks up from the pillow, feeling her face all crumpled up, just to find Lara staring at her with all the sincerity of someone who has never been on the unreciprocated side of a platonic thing.
“I’ll be the first one,” is what Megan eventually settles on. “They’ll put me in straitjackets and make me do pottery.”
Lara giggles, though the sound comes out uneven.
“Are you always like this?” She asks. “I don’t remember you ever acting this way — not even when you were into that emo boy.”
Megan shrugs and shoves her face on the pillow in lieu of answering.
Lara gives up too, not before haunting her.
“I think she's gay, by the way,” she says, “I’m almost sure I saw her with a girl before. Also, she plays basketball.”
That's something, Megan thinks. But again, Yoonchae might not be into her.
Megan likes to think she's well-adjusted. Some days, when leaving her room sounds more like a sisyphean task rather than a common thing people do, she congratulates herself for acting like a human being instead of a plaster-eater gremlin—because one must imagine Sisyphus happy, or whatever the phrase is. Today is one of those days.
“Mei, you need to chill.” Daniela tells her when Megan had a mini mental breakdown over not being able to open a soda can. In her defense, she usually doesn't have long nails on. “Let me— give me that.”
She snatches the can before Megan can protest.
“Here.”
Daniela also has long nails on, Megan notices.
“How do you even—” she gives up. Must be a talent or something people are just born with.
She waits for Daniela outside the bathroom, trying to ignore how they're losing half the game. Yoonchae probably won't mind, but Megan feels this uncanny necessity to go back there and watch her even if she's warming up the bench.
“So, hot dogs?” Daniela asks as she leaves.
Megan shakes her head. “The game is still going on.”
Yoonchae has a lot of talents. For example, she draws well, she sings—Megan almost died when she first heard that low timbre—and she held herself pretty well that one time she jokingly defied Daniela for a dance battle. Basketball, though, is her thing. Yoonchae is so clearly in her element, nobody can stop her and, even if some giant steps on, she's not in trouble for long. She spins, shoots, shouts at people—teammates, opponents, the referee, it doesn't really matter, no one's safe. Megan has never seen something like that.
Beside her, Lara snorts.
“Dude, you're actually drooling,” she says and shoves popcorn on Megan's mouth, “at least eat something.”
Megan rolls her eyes. “I’m just looking.”
“You’re ogling her,” Daniela chimes in.
Okay, ogling is a ugly word and an enormous exaggeration. Megan's just a secret admirer. Maybe not so secret, but she's perfectly fine and reacting accordingly.
“I’m not even paying attention.”
Beside her, Daniela and Lara laugh like two hyenas. She doesn't care. Especially because one of them—probably Lara—was so noisy that Yoonchae actually looked at them and, it might be Megan going insane again, but she's almost sure she saw her smiling.
“Why are you freaking out, anyway?” Daniela asks as the players line up after a foul.
Before Megan answers, Daniela needs to recap her soda can fiasco to Lara, so she can understand the context.
“Is this movie I have to shoot. I'm acting and directing and it's worth half my grade.”
Lara groans. “Sounds hard.”
Megan nods. “It is, but it's nice. I... I was thinking about inviting Yoonchae to watch it.”
“Sounds nice,” Daniela smiles. “Are we invited too?”
“Your presence is actually required.”
They smile, the foul is called and Yoonchae scores. Megan watches as she does a "M" with her fingers as a celebration. Megan's heartbeat stumbles.
After the game, in the comfort of her dorm, Megan makes the first mistake of the night by opening Instagram. The amount of people bombarding her with happiness and hope is unbearable, but after Twitter timeline got too bot-based, she has no real option for bed time doomscrolling.
She clicks on Sophia Laforteza’s stories and is almost too much. That girl is loaded. At least, that's what she concludes after noticing the pool at the backyard and the clothes she wears. That's fine. She decides to stalk Manon Bannerman instead. Bad idea, she's in fucking Switzerland. And the term is still going on, this is just a random weekend. How is that even possible.
Anyway, Megan decides to search for Yoonchae's profile to look at one of her feed photo—she’s just a girl, not one of God’s strongest soldiers. It's a bit bittersweet when she notices the green circle around Yoonchae's pretty face. It's sweet because it means Megan's in her private friends, which is a win. It's bitter because, when she clicks on it, Megan can only contort and silently scream as Yoonchae's look for the night shines on her screen.
“What are you doing?” Lara asks from her bed.
Right. She's not alone.
“Yoonchae posted a pic.” Megan whimpers.
“Gosh.”
Despite the reaction, Lara seems pleased—in a sadistic way—to see Megan like that. She's probably having so much fun while Megan is one platonic interaction away from eating glue.
“She’s so pretty.”
“Let me see.” Before Megan can protest, Lara grabs the phone from her hand and squints. “You should send her a message.”
“Never,” she squeaks, “she’ll ghost me.”
“You should invite her to your movie thing.”
“Lara, just— what are you doing?” She almost screams when her roommate types into the floating keyboard. “Stop!”
Lara stares blankly into Megan’s eyes, clearly deciding between sending the message or not.
“You’re never going to kiss her,” she concludes while handing the phone back. “Coward.”
“I’m not a coward.”
“Sure.”
Megan keeps staring at her phone screen while Lara goes back to watching whatever old show plays on her laptop. There's a h on the message bar that Lara typed, lonely and waiting for other letters. There won't be other letters. Megan's about to erase it when, somehow, she sends it. Damn long nails she isn't used to.
“Lara,” she squeaks, “I sent it.”
“What?” Her roommate jumps, stumbling out of bed and almost landing on Megan's leg. “What did you say— oh. An ‘h’?”
Megan nods. “It’s your fault.”
“Girl—”
“What if she reads it?”
“She’s typing.”
Yoonchae types and erases twice. Each time, Megan can physically feel her skin bristle and her brain turn into a soup of gray mass. Finally, on the third time, she has an answer.
is that supposed to be a hi?, Yoonchae writes and sends the thoughtful emoji right after.
Lara nudges her. Hard. “You need to say something.”
Megan types, erases, types again. The cycle goes on until Lara decides she has had enough.
“Hey!” Megan protests, but it's too late.
“Here, you can buy coffee as a ‘thank you’ tomorrow.”
She almost doesn't believe it when she reads do you wanna go to the student film festival? followed by i made a movie :), which doesn't match Megan's mood because she certainly doesn't feel like using a smiley face at all. Lara seems proud of herself though.
“I hate you,” Megan declares.
“She’ll go.”
Yoonchae has started typing four times in a row now, still no response. Megan is almost losing hope when she reads sure, i'll be there :D and hey, she got a wide grin instead of a smiley face, so that's something.
“Yoonchae will go,” she screams. “I won't buy you coffee.”
“Yes, you will.”
They called it a festival, but it was really just a projector on the quad and twenty people pretending not to watch their own reactions for one afternoon. Of course, they all brought friends, roommates, partners and all, but most of the people are Megan's classmates.
Her own roommate and a few of her friends are sitting in a flowery blanket close by, but not too close—it was probably Lara's idea. Judging by the way Daniela and Manon look at them, she probably told too many people about the Yoonchae-situation. Megan doesn't mind, though. If Lara telling half the world about her feelings allows her to sit alone with the girl she's into for a few hours on a bisexual blanket, that's fine.
“Thanks for inviting me,” Yoonchae smiles.
Megan's heart sinks deeper into her ribcage. “It’s nice that you came,” she says, “I thought you wouldn't make it.”
“Why?”
“I don't know. Last week we watched all three movies of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I didn't think you would like coming here.”
Yoonchae nods, but slowly squints her eyes and smirks. “Are you saying I'm not cult enough?”
Panic starts to settle in, but Megan notices in time she's just joking. It's hard to read Yoonchae sometimes. Perhaps that's why Megan thinks she's so, so interesting. Because despite having a stoic expression almost 24/7 and the rumors she might be an alien learning how to live in society, Yoonchae chooses when to be understood—and when she does, it feels deliberate, almost intimate, like Megan is being let in on something she wasn’t supposed to see. Maybe that's why she chases her attention like a moth to the flame. Megan hopes for a scenario where she ends up winning the pretty girl instead of burning.
“I’m just saying you could watch something else. We should have a movie night or something.”
Yoonchae's smile somehow gets wider. “I’m about to watch a great director right now, shut up.”
Megan should point out she's not only a director, but an actress and writer. It sounds too cocky though, so she just smiles and nods.
There’s a growing monster eating at Megan’s stomach, getting faster and bigger each time her Production I professor opens the folder of student films. Sometimes, when a silent scene comes up—which happens a lot—Megan wonders if Yoonchae can hear it too, or if the projector’s hum manages to drown it out.
“Some of these are really good,” Yoonchae mutters halfway through. “Where’s yours?”
Megan shrugs. “I don't know.”
To be honest, she knows. Megan keeps a count for each movie and, if she calculated right, her work is the next one. She wonders if, like her classmates, she'll watch the audience more than the movie itself, whisper about the angle of a certain shot or find something equally annoying to do.
Yoonchae nudges her lightly. “What is your movie about?”
Their shoulders are still brushing, heads almost touching. Megan breathes in slowly before answering:
“Just a couple getting together.”
“That’s nice. Didn't know you were the romantic type.”
She's about to say something clever when her name shows up on the projector. There's applause and whistles coming from Lara's side, which Megan acknowledges with an awkward bow.
The movie begins and Emily, a close friend, shows up immediately. She smiles and jokes around and Megan can't take her eyes off of her. It feels weirdly familiar. Of course, she acted, but it's more raw and real than most of the movies they saw today.
Megan watches with the strange detachment of someone seeing her own handwriting in a stranger’s notebook. The shots are longer than she remembers. The silences stretch. The camera lingers on the other girl—on the way she stands still, on how often she’s being watched without ever looking back. She doesn't even remember making these narrative choices.
Halfway through, Megan becomes aware that Yoonchae hasn’t moved. Not once. Her hands are folded in her lap, her gaze steady, almost guarded.
There’s a shot Megan doesn’t remember planning. The camera drifts closer, careful, reverent, afraid of being noticed. The girl on screen doesn’t smile, doesn’t speak—just exists, contained and impossible to read. Megan feels something twist. She’s never filmed anyone like that before, her cameras are never this obsessed with a person like they are now.
Megan suddenly sobers up, which is ridiculous since she's not even drunk, but there's this slow epiphany creeping up on her. She knows what will come in one minute or less.
She looks at Lara before it happens and her best friend clearly figured it all out.
I need a boyfriend, Emily's character blurts out out of the blue. It's the only piece of real dialogue Megan included, no jokes or random Twitter-adjacent slangs. I can be your boyfriend, her character replies, smirking. The movie ends in a silence, both smiling while the sun sets behind them.
The credits roll. Megan doesn’t breathe until the applause starts.
It isn’t until she turns toward Yoonchae that it finally makes sense. Megan hadn’t meant to make a short movie out of them. She’d just filmed what came to mind. Problem is, Yoonchae was and still is on her mind a lot.
“So— did you like it?” Megan asks, because that's the only thing she can say.
“Yeah, I… I did.” Yoonchae answers. She doesn’t look away from the screen right away.
“Cool,” Megan says. “So, that was… that.”
Yoonchae hums, like she’s thinking. “You didn’t tell me you were making something like that.”
“I didn’t know I was,” the words stumble out of her mouth. Megan sounds so suspicious. Somehow, she manages to say softly: “Did it make sense?”
Yoonchae considers this longer than necessary. “Yeah,” she says. “It did.”
“It was… it wasn't—” Megan swallows it down. She doesn't know how to explain without stepping over imaginary boundary lines.
“It felt honest,” Yoonchae admits. “I’m impressed.”
Megan nods slowly, unable to stop herself from smiling bright. “I’m glad.”
There's a pause, but only between them. Around the bisexual blanket, people talk and laugh and some of her classmates try to over explain Megan's choices. She would like to hear them to find out what the hell was she thinking, but with Yoonchae beside her, Megan's not capable of much.
“You’re good at this.”
Megan almost jumps in surprise. “At making movies?”
“No— I mean, yeah, that too,” Yoonchae shifts. “You’re good at… intimacy, I think. You look at things very closely,” eventually, that's what she settles on. She doesn't sound accusatory nor teasing, just factual. Megan's more than happy with that.
“I guess I am.”
Yoonchae nods once and looks at her. “So, is the movie night still up?”
In the golden light of the afternoon, Megan wonders if Yoonchae's flush comes from the sun or from something else.
“Yeah, whenever you want,” she smiles.