There was a whirr of a five-year-old MacBook working harder than it ever had in its humble, PDF-viewing life, before Yong’s screen flickered on with four windows of bluish-white light.

“Unniiiiieee,” sang the one containing Wheein.

“Wheeiniiiee,” she mimicked.

Wheein pushed closer to the camera, enough for one of her wolf ears to flop cutely to the side. “How are you, Unnie? Do you miss me terribly?” The pixels composing her eyes squinted.

“Not since the last time you asked me that,” said Yong, though not without warmth, “which was yesterday, when you spent thirty minutes texting me cat memes and a series of links to videos about cats harmonizing with pop songs.”

“That was comedy gold!,” Wheein mourned. “I wanted to make you smile while you’re away on that extended tour trip in Jeju.”

Yong batted a playful hand. “Don’t worry, it worked!”

On the leftmost window, Hyejin’s brows furrowed and her lips moved, and then a crackle of static “- me now?”

“Were you talking this whole time, Hyejin-ah?” said Wheein.

In Byul’s window, which was underneath Hyejin’s, the demon was busy lifting and looking under blankets and pillows in the bedroom behind her. Very clearly her and Yong’s bedroom back in Room 1031. “Be with you guys in a sec. Can’t find my phone.” Her mic faintly caught a lost, lonely ringtone, begging to be recovered.

Yong frowned, all her attention suddenly on the ransacked state of their shared bedroom. “You better tidy that up before I come home this weekend.”

Byul looked sheepish but her tone was teasing, “Yes, dear.”

“How could you lose your phone?” Wheein asked; there were faint sounds of laughter and chatting in the background coming from her. “Isn’t that thing perpetually glued to your palm or something?”

“Yong and I were video calling last night before bed,” Byul lifted the entire mattress off the bed frame and scanned the empty space in front of her, “I fell asleep without putting my phone on the bedside table, and now it’s missing.”

Hyejin frowned, before her video vanished entirely and all that was left in its place was a picture of the vampire onstage at the Blue Cosmos. “Hello,” it said, a little megaphone icon pulsing in the lower right of it. “Byulie-unnie, I hear your phone.”

“Hyejin-ah,” said Yong, “you turned your camera off.”

“I did?” she said. There was silence for a few beats before Hyejin started muttering under her breath, near enough to the laptop microphone that they could still hear her, “I hate technology.”

“Just click on the camera icon again!"

“Found it,” announced a shrunken Byul, crouching in the far corner of their bedroom, “it was by the closet,” the demon said to herself at first, before announcing it louder for the rest of her roommates “It was by the closet!”

Yong glanced at Wheein’s screen - she was now occupied with a sketchbook that was just beside her laptop, though she seemed to absently smile while she listened to all the online ruckus. Finally the werewolf looked up and squinted at her screen, presumably seeing something Yong couldn’t, finally she said, “Byulie-unnie what happened to the old photo in your bedroom?”

Yong refocused on Byul’s screen. Finally she saw it, the photo that hung beside their shared closet of the two of them from their ten year anniversary was missing, in its place was an old picture of them from before they were together. In the sixties probably. She could remember her sister taking that particular picture. 

“Switched it out,” the demon said, haphazardly tossing the disturbed pillows back on the bed without so much as a single attempt to dust them off after having picked them up off of the floor. Yong’s fingers twitched, and she made a mental note to change out their beddings the moment she got back to the apartment. “Since Yong left me here by myself, I found some other photos of ours from years before. I’m testing out which ones work best.” The demon said.

“Ooooh,” said Hyejin’s profile photo, “send them to our group chat, I wanna see some old photos of you and Yong-unnie.”

“No way,” Byul quipped, finally sitting down in front of her laptop, her eyes taking in each of their screens in turn. “Hyejin-ah turn your camera on!”

An exasperated grunt came from the vampire’s corner. “I’m not used to this okay! Just tell me what to click!”

“I told you, the camera icon!” Yong piped in, “It’s on the lower left of your screen.” There was a beat, but then instead of her camera turning on, the vampire’s rectangle announced that she was raising her hand.

“That’s the ‘Raise Your Hand’ function,” said Wheein, fully abandoning her sketchbook now, “The camera settings are to the far left.”

Yong nodded in agreement. “I can’t believe I’ve been on Earth for over a millennia before technology came about and even I’m better at you than this."

“Uh, yeah, no,” Byul’s screen seemed to be lagging, so even though Yong could hear the demon’s voice, the pixels that made up her face didn’t move, “The first time I got you a smart phone it took you a month to learn how to use it.” Finally, her video started moving in time with her words. “You’re only slightly better than Hyejin because we’ve been video-calling ever since you went on that extended tour guide assignment.”

“I learned eventually,” Yong frowned, “at least my camera is on!”

“Just barely,” Byul conceded, her voice teasing again, “You still won’t buy a tablet even though that laptop of yours is practically asthmatic”

Finally, Hyejin’s camera turned back on, “Yes! There we go!”

“I don’t see why I have to buy something new if my current device is working just fine,” Yong said seriously, this argument with Byul was an old one, “Capitalism is a demonic invention and just because I’m dating you doesn’t mean I have to buy into everything demons do.”

“‘Buy in’. Haha.” Wheein said. There were trees swaying in the breeze where she was, Yong smiled at the sight, “Byulie-unnie has a point though, last time I borrowed your laptop it took twenty minutes just to turn on.”

“It knows who its owner is,” Yong said, not even trying to hide how defensive her tone had gotten, “Anyway, how’s the artist’s retreat Wheein? Getting lots of inspiration in Jirisan?”

“Can’t complain,” said Wheein. “It’s nice being away from the city, but I wish you guys were here too.”

“Hyejin-ssi,” a muffled, distant voice somewhere said; Yong looked to Hyejin’s rectangle in confusion. The vampire was staring at something--or someone--behind her laptop, “The boss wants to know if you’ll be okay here by yourself while the rest of the team go out sight-seeing?”

Hyejin straightened up, her whole face disappearing from view until all they could see of her was the rumpled sight of the oversized, striped shirt she usually wore to bed. “Yeah, it’s fine. The show won’t be ‘til later right?” Whoever was with the vampire must have nodded because there were no other voices heard, just the sound of a door closing. The vampire rearranged herself until her face was in view again, the hotel bed she must have situated herself on, shifting under her weight.

“I take it the bar-singer-exchange-program in Daegu is going well?” Byul’s pixels said, her voice out of sync again with her video.

"That's not what it's called and you know it," The vampire said before shrugging. “The change in audience is refreshing, but I miss the Blue Cosmos crowd.”

“And I’m sure they miss you,” Wheein nodded solemnly, “their vampire crooner. The bar patrons will be frothing at the mouth by the time you return.”

Hyejin rolled her eyes at the tease before reaching for something off screen, “You say that like you don’t miss me too.” She brandished her thermos in front of her screen and Yong could just barely hear the blood sloshing around inside. “Admit it Wheein-ah, you miss me more than you miss the Unnies.”

In her frame, Wheein shrugged. “I miss you all an equal amount.”

Byul smirked. “Aww, look at our kids Yong, going through their first bout of separation anxiety.”

“They grow up so fast,” Yong agreed, pleasantly.

Her MacBook hummed with effort. As much as she hated to admit it, she did think it was high time that she bought a new one. She just wasn’t looking forward to the look on her demon’s face if she came home from the trip with a new device in tow. She sent a silent prayer to heaven in the hopes that the decrepit thing would at least survive this call, then she would buy a new one the moment she was back in Seoul.

“Stop lying,” said Hyejin, threateningly pointing a finger at her screen. “Last night you sent me a bunch of puppy emojis and a sad face.”

Wheein blinked lazily. “Ah, you’re such a bother.” The corners of her lips were turning up though. “I sent all of you different things, that doesn’t mean I miss one of you more than the rest.”

Byul was holding up her phone to her own webcam. Her screen whited out for a bit, adjusting to the new source of light, before refocusing again and revealing the pixelated sight of the demon’s phone, turned to a cooking channel. “Wheeinie sent me microwave mug videos and 5-minute photo hack tutorials.”

“I know what’s in Wheein’s heart,” Hyejin said dramatically, “just admit you miss me a little bit more.”

Yong smiled, taking in the sight of her roommates playfully arguing like this. It was strange for them to all be separated in different cities, not having seen each other in the last few days. Luckily, Wheein would be headed home the next day and Hyejin just a few hours after her, which meant that Byul wouldn’t be so alone in the apartment before Yong managed to make her own way home from her trip that weekend.  

Until then, they would just have to make do with this.

The call’s audio distorted with everyone talking at once. “Wheein misses me more,” said Hyejin, while Byul shouted “All she sent you were emojis! I got actual videos!” and Wheein said, “You guys are reading way too much into it!” Yong let them carry on for a bit, content with just watching the chaos. 

Eventually the discussion veered away from Wheein and into an in-depth analysis of the difference between a photo meme and a funny viral video. Byul and Wheein were taking turns trying to explain it to an increasingly confused Hyejin

“Look,” Wheein said, gently as anything, holding up her own phone to the screen. “Photo memes are things like this, they’re kinda templated and people use them to relate to like. Real world scenarios.”

Hyejin blinked in confusion. “So how come when you send me funny videos” she said, “the comments all say something like ‘this is memey’. Doesn’t that make it a meme?” 

“Not really,” said Byul, “there’s more nuance to it than that.”

“Although, people can take screenshots from viral videos and turn those into memes!” Wheein added, which was probably the wrong thing to say, because now Hyejin looked more lost than ever.

Yong couldn’t help herself. She started laughing

“This conversation” she wheezed, between peals of laughter, “is so stupid.”

It didn’t take long for all four of them to devolve into full blown laughter. Byul and Wheein were still trying to explain amidst their chuckles but Hyejin was already shaking her head, a hand on and the other on the screen as she tried to get them to stop talking.

When they finally calmed down, Byul cleared once, checking to make sure everyone was behaved before speaking. “Okay!” the demon clapped in an officious manner, “Now that that’s done we can commence with the agenda.”

Yong settled into the sofa in her hotel, resting her laptop on the coffee table in front of her.

“Who chose it this time?” asked Wheein.

“I did,” said Byul, “Don’t worry, it’s PG.” Not that that was a worry. Yong’s weekly horror-movie marathons in the past were enough to desensitize her roommates to the genre.

A series of busy clicks. “Everyone comfy?” asked Hyejin.

A chorus of yeahs and uh-huhs. Yong stretched and locked her hands behind her head, grinning at all of her friends in the rectangles of their life away from her that she was able to glimpse. They all shrank to a corner of the screen as a final, giant window appeared, and the opening credits of a movie began to roll.