Jaemin stared at the message for eleven minutes before sending it.
He knew it was eleven minutes because his phone's clock was visible at the top of the screen while he typed, deleted, retyped, deleted, and finally hit send with the resigned energy of someone jumping off a diving board they'd already climbed.
The message said:
"I realized I don't know your favorite color. That seems like something I should know."
He read it back. Cringed. Read it again. Cringed harder. It sounded like a survey question. Like something a government form would ask if government forms were interested in romance.
He sent a second message before he could stop himself.
"Also, I'm not good at texting. I wanted to say that upfront so you have accurate expectations."
Then he put his phone face-down on his desk and pressed both palms against his eyes.
"You good?" Sunwoo said from across the room, not looking up from his laptop. His roommate had been editing something for the past two hours — a short film, apparently, though from what Jaemin could see it was mostly footage of pigeons.
"Fine."
"You've been staring at your phone like it insulted your mother."
"I was texting someone."
Sunwoo's fingers stopped moving. He turned around slowly in his desk chair, one eyebrow raised in a way that suggested he'd been practicing the expression in mirrors.
"You don't text anyone."
"I text you."
"You text me things like 'out of milk' and 'your shoes are blocking the door.' That's not texting. That's issuing municipal notices."
Jaemin didn't respond. Sunwoo rolled his chair closer.
"Who is she?"
"What makes you think—"
"Because you've checked your phone six times in the last four minutes and each time you look like you're reading lab results."
Jaemin considered lying. He'd known Sunwoo for exactly three days, which didn't feel like enough time to discuss this. But Sunwoo had the kind of face that made lying feel like more effort than it was worth — not because he was intimidating, but because he'd clearly see through it and make the whole thing more embarrassing.
"A girl from orientation," Jaemin said. "She confessed to me."
Sunwoo blinked. "She what?"
"She walked up and said she liked me."
"And you said...?"
"Okay."
The silence that followed was long enough for someone to microwave rice.
"You said okay," Sunwoo repeated. "To a confession."
"Yes."
"Like... okay, I acknowledge this information? Or okay, I also have feelings?"
"The second one."
"And you used the word 'okay.'"
"I didn't have anything better."
Sunwoo rubbed his face with both hands, the way people do when they're witnessing something they can't believe. "Bro. No. You can't—" He gestured vaguely at all of Jaemin. "You can't just 'okay' a confession. That's like responding to a love letter with a read receipt."
Jaemin's phone lit up. Face-down, but the desk vibrated. He didn't move.
"Are you going to check that?"
"In a minute."
"It's been three seconds and you're already sweating."
"I'm not sweating."
"Your ears are red."
Jaemin touched his ear. It was, in fact, warm. This was a problem he'd had since childhood — his ears operated as independent emotional broadcasters, transmitting his internal state to anyone paying attention. He'd once considered wearing a beanie year-round but decided the social cost was worse than the exposure.
He picked up the phone.
"blue!!! like not sky blue, more like the blue of a really clean swimming pool on a hot day? like AGGRESSIVELY blue. what about you?"
Below it, a second message:
"also you're fine at texting. that was a very good question. most guys just say 'wyd' and I have to pretend that's a conversation"
And a third:
"wait are we really doing this? like getting to know each other? because I have approximately 400 questions and I need you to tell me now if there's a limit"
Jaemin read the messages twice. Then a third time. Something happened in his chest that he didn't have a word for — a kind of unclenching, like a fist he hadn't known was closed.
She texted the way she talked. In bursts. With momentum. Like her thoughts were racing each other to the finish line and she didn't bother picking a winner. It should have been overwhelming. It was the opposite.
He typed back:
"No limit."
Then, after consideration:
"Navy blue. Not for a reason. I just like how it looks at night."
He put the phone down. Picked it up again. Added:
"I looked up 'what to talk about with your girlfriend' and most of the results were from 2019 forums. I don't think they're reliable. I'm going to ask you things instead and hope they're not weird."
Sent. Cringed. Considered throwing his phone out the window.
Sunwoo, who had been reading over his shoulder with zero shame, made a sound like a balloon deflating.
"You Googled it."
"The forums were outdated."
"You Googled 'what to talk about with your girlfriend.' On the same day you started dating."
"Research is important."
"You are the most insane person I've ever met," Sunwoo said, but he was grinning. "I need to meet this girl. Anyone who confesses to you and gets 'okay' back and still wants to text you is either unhinged or has incredible taste. Possibly both."
Jaemin's phone buzzed again. Three messages in quick succession.
"YOU GOOGLED IT"
"that is the cutest thing anyone has ever done"
"ask me anything. literally anything. I'm an open book. actually I'm more like an open book that someone left in the rain and all the pages are stuck together but I'll answer everything"
He smiled. Not a big one. The left dimple barely appeared. But it was there, and Sunwoo saw it, and Sunwoo's eyebrows went so high they nearly left his face.
"Oh," Sunwoo said softly. "You actually like her."
"I said okay."
"Yeah, but now you're smiling. You've smiled twice in three days and one of those was because the vending machine gave you an extra drink by accident."
Jaemin ignored him and typed:
"What's the worst food you've ever eaten and why did you eat it?"
Her reply came in nine seconds.
"my roommate's 'fusion kimchi pasta' last night. I ate it because she was watching me and I didn't want to hurt her feelings. I smiled the ENTIRE time. it tasted like someone cried into a pot of noodles. I think I'm still processing it emotionally"
He laughed.
Out loud.
Sunwoo dropped his phone.
It wasn't a big laugh. Jaemin didn't really do big laughs. It was a short exhale through his nose that turned into something with actual sound — two syllables of genuine amusement that he couldn't catch in time.
"I'm calling the news," Sunwoo whispered.
Jaemin kept typing. The conversation had its own gravity now, pulling responses out of him faster than he could second-guess them. She asked about his hoodie rotation ("is it a system or do you just own three hoodies?" — it was both). He asked about her enamel pins ("do you have a favorite or is that like picking a favorite child?" — it was the tiny toast one, because it looked like it was trying its best). She sent a blurry photo of her dorm room that was mostly pillows. He sent a photo of his desk that was mostly code and one sad tangerine.
"you have a tangerine just sitting on your desk???"
"I forgot about it."
"HOW DO YOU FORGET A TANGERINE"
"I got focused on a project."
"jaemin."
It was the first time she'd used his name in text. No honorific. No emoji. Just his name, lowercase, with a period. It sat on his screen like something he wanted to keep.
"yes?"
"eat the tangerine."
He peeled it while typing with one hand. It was still good. He sent her a photo of the peeled tangerine on his keyboard, which he immediately regretted because there was a visible energy drink can in the background that undermined any illusion of healthy living.
"I'm eating it."
"good. I'm adding 'make sure jaemin eats actual food' to my list"
"You have a list?"
"I have many lists. you're on several of them now. don't think about it too hard."
He thought about it very hard. He thought about it so hard that he forgot to reply for two minutes, and she sent:
"hello?? did the tangerine kill you"
"I'm here. I was thinking about the lists."
"oh no"
"In a good way."
"oh."
"oh?"
"yeah. oh. 💛"
The yellow heart sat at the bottom of the screen like a small, brave thing. He stared at it longer than was probably normal. He didn't know what to send back. An emoji felt wrong — he'd never used one voluntarily. But leaving the heart unanswered felt worse.
He typed, deleted, typed again. Settled on:
"I'll text you in the morning. Goodnight, Hana."
Her name. No emoji. Full punctuation. His version of a yellow heart.
Her reply came in four seconds:
"goodnight jaemin 💛💛"
Two hearts. He noted the escalation. Filed it away in the part of his brain that was rapidly constructing a Hana-specific database of patterns, preferences, and things that made her use caps lock.
He put his phone on the charger. Lay back on his bed. Stared at the ceiling.
"For the record," Sunwoo said from across the dark room, "you've been texting for three hours."
Jaemin checked the time. 1:47 AM.
"Oh," he said.
"Yeah. 'Oh.'" Sunwoo rolled over. "You're doomed, roommate."
Jaemin closed his eyes. His ears were still warm. The tangerine peel was still on his desk. His phone buzzed one more time — a final message, sent after the goodnight, like she couldn't help herself.
"I'm really glad I took that dare."
He didn't reply. Not because he didn't want to, but because anything he could say felt smaller than what he felt, and she deserved more than small.
He'd figure out bigger words tomorrow.