Taekwoon laid around the apartment, nowhere to go, no place needed to be. Today was his day off and although he was becoming bored in the empty apartment, he stared at his phone, unable to keep his eyes away. He had no clue what Snapchat was. All he knew was that Mari had downloaded it for him before storming out of the apartment to get to class. She told him not to delete it and she would show him the ropes when she got back but he wasn’t patient enough to wait two and a half hours. So he stared and he stared. He wanted to figure it out on his own and even though it looked simple enough, he knew that it was probably going to kill him in the end if he didn’t get it by the time she got back.

            Sitting in class, Mari stared at the power point from the back of the class, unable to bring herself to pay attention to the importance of the founding fathers of Psychology. Every class she had taken was interesting and although she was greatly intrigued by the vast world of psychological knowledge, she didn’t have the slightest care in her body about just who Sigmund Freud was.  Nonetheless she wrote down everything she saw and heard. She knew that her test was sure as hell going to care about what Freud did and his take of the psychoanalytical argument of the widely interpreted science and that was more than enough reason to pay attention, although slightly. And as she tried to listen, her hands working quickly to keep up with her professor’s tangents, but she couldn’t help to notice the light glow from her phone that was covered by papers with illegible and smudged words she knew she was going to regret later. Although she made an effort to not get distracted in class, no matter how boring it may be, she was dying to see just what must have happened because her phone didn’t fade back to an off screen but rather it stayed lit. Either someone was calling her or she was getting a lot of notifications. Whichever it may have been, it surely looked a lot more interesting than whatever the professor was ranting about.

            She resisted for a while, as best as her will could take her and it was a surprisingly long while at that. Every time she looked at her phone or even contemplated the thought of looking at her phone, she imagined Taekwoon’s face in her head, that face that just stared at her like she was an idiot—basically his everyday face and although it did little to stop the temptation, it did something. And when she tried to think of what Taekwoon would say if he knew the temptations that were bubbling inside her, she came out empty handed. He wouldn’t have said anything, which is pretty expected. If not just silently stare at her, she knew he would have taken her phone away without giving it a second thought. And although she tried to use him as a solid face of consequence, she was just never scared of him like she used to. He never bothered her the way he bothered other people. If anything, the thought of him tempted her to look at her phone even more and as she stared at her notes, she thought about her next move long and hard. She didn’t really need to pay attention. She had already read the assigned chapters for this week and the next. She knew what the professor was talking about; she already had notes on it since last week and looking at her phone was only going to take a few minutes at most. It wasn’t like she was going to skip class completely. So she took her phone and she looked at just who was bothering her during class and she couldn’t keep the smile that was peeling on her skin.

            There was a list of notifications, continuous alerts and messages that flowed in one by one, and although they varied from two different platforms, it all came from the same person: Jung Taekwoon. Mari stifled her light chuckles, looking at her phone endearingly as she read the previews of the angry texts Taekwoon had sent her. It had been a long time since Taekwoon had texted her and an even longer time since he texted her in this excess. And although the message between the two times was complete opposite, she still felt that childish giddiness bubble up inside her chest as she looked at her phone. Looking at her instructor, she knew that if she was to look at the snapchat’s her naive boyfriend had sent her, she would never be able to pay attention to the class for the rest of the day. But at the same time, she did need this class to start her science series. Stuck in a loop, Mari frowned at her seat. She loved Taekwoon and she would have loved to make fun of him but he wasn’t going to stop her from passing the class. So Mari tossed the phone in her backpack, forcing herself to worry about class and only about class.

            Three hours, three full hours of torturous lecture, she was finally done and as she stretched her arms over her head, she slouched in her seat as everyone else poured out of the lecture hall in herds. Although she was excited to get out of school, she was in no hurry as she grabbed her phone from the bottom of her backpack and read the angry messages from her beloved. She laughed. She laughed whole heartedly as she read through them, leaning forward, her phone ever so slowly nearing her face. He had been texting her since she had noticed and every message was contained a very aggressive set of words, some words she was surprised he knew. She laughed at the passion that he put into his text, making sure that she had gotten the idea of his frustration. Snapchat was a simple app and she knew it was going to kill him if he didn’t figure out how to use it to the best of the app’s ability before she came home.

            Taekwoon laid on the couch, his stomach compressed by the cushion as he hugged a pillow beneath his chin, staring at his phone as he tried to use the app. He got the basic point of it: to send pictures that lasted only a couple of seconds. That part was easy, that he got right off the bat. What he didn’t understand was the joys of it, what made it so fun. He felt like he was being cheated, like he was being duped and it frustrated him. He had always seen Mari laugh to tears because of the app; he didn’t know why he couldn’t do the same now. There had to be something that he wasn’t doing; that was the only explanation. He had to be missing something but what? He knew he could put texts on it, he knew he could color on it, there were options to add filters to the images—he googled everything he needed to know about the app but he didn’t understand the amusement behind it. What was he not doing that Mari did? What made her have so much fun?

            It was frustrating to say the least and as he spent the last hour ranting, he was close to giving up. And when his phone rang in his hands, he had given up all hopes in figuring it out before she came home. Looking at his phone, she was out of class he could tell by the time and the series of snaps from her end that were sent to his phone and he looked in awe as the notifications rang in his hand. Opening them, he saw pictures of her school, she was basically showing him around again: the library where she would stay when she ended class in the morning and needed to study until night, the science building where he would always go to pick her up whenever she had her late labs, the memorial where they had first met, the mutual friend that introduced them, the professor that fussed them about going out before they were together, the back of the fine arts building where he manned up the will to kiss her–Taekwoon smiled as the memories poured in as the pictures disappeared to never be seen again. It had been almost three years since they had been together and the thought of it made him laugh. Neither of them would have ever thought they would ever make it to three years but yet their third was only in a couple weeks and low key, he freaked when he remembered.

            And although he needed to figure out what to do for their third year anniversary, the snaps kept coming in and he watched the world through her eyes: the glare of the sun, the heat of the summer, the frown on her face as she walked on out of campus grounds. Taekwoon laid there and he held onto that pillow, his grinning lips pressed tight against the fabric as he tried to calm himself down. Although it was no secret that she made him happy, he would have rather not show it every time she was around, or at least to this excess. And although he tried, the grin pressed against his lips hard and strong, not willing to slip or falter and he was only at his own fault at that point. He continued to watch the pictures of her face, of her eye, of the dog across the street, of the toddler that ran too ahead of his mother and bumped into her; Taekwoon couldn’t stopped smiling even if he truly and sincerely wanted to. He smiled from ear to ear, his cheeks in pain and his eyes upturned crescents. He smiled at her and as he watched the video pan her surroundings and turn to her, he heard her last minute words. “Find me.”

            Taekwoon didn’t know what that meant but he had an idea of just what she wanted to play as he saw the first picture of the convenience store they used to go to whenever he picked her up from school. Shaking his head, he thought it was a ridiculous idea, completely preposterous but he complied anyway, whole-heartedly and readily. He got up and changed before walking out that door. If he could watch himself, he would have seen that he was walking a little faster than normal, the slight skip in his step, the itching glee in his eye. If he could watch himself, if he could hear the thoughts of everyone who noticed him, he would notice a similarity in the masses. He’s happy.

            Her school wasn’t that far from the apartment they shared. Actually, it was down a couple blocks and across the street. And since his pace today was faster than all the rest, he walked quickly, more swiftly through the crowds of people that met his way and it only took him a couple minutes to get to the convenience store but as he looked around, he saw no eyes that stared at him, that looked only at him—he didn’t see the eyes he adored every day since they met. He began to worry and his worry led to scenarios dreamt up and painted with his own two hands in the blackboard of his brain. His suspicions spiked, he was thinking the worst and he was going to call her but he looked at the notification: another snapchat from her. Opening it with haste, Taekwoon stared at the 10 second picture. A fountain and kids that would’ve been playing around if the picture moved. The store Ali’s was the focal point of the picture and he knew just where this place was. That store was like her guilty pleasure and he meant that in the most innocent way.

            Heading the opposite direction of their cozy little apartment on the 21^st floor, Taekwoon smiled lightly, knowing exactly where she was taking him. Cheating, he looked ahead at the pictures before he was even close to reaching its destination. Slowing his pace, he let out a light chuckle before shaking his head. He knew where she was going and he knew the quicker way to get there. Now the question to ask was to let her lead him there or meet her there by surprise?

            Walking quickly, Mari giggled to herself as she strolled down the street and to her final destination. This was the end of the great game, the place she wanted to meet him at and although she knew he was probably going to figure it out in a bit, by the time he did, she would be hiding in the park. She had led him on a wild goose chase, pretty much all around the district before coming here. Mari looked around skeptically, afraid that maybe he knew her better than she expected but he was no where in sight and she smiled to herself, snickering lightly as little children passed her, looking up in curiosity as to why she had such a mischievous smile on her lips. By the time he figured it out, it would have taken him a good 10 minutes at least to get to the park and by then, she would have already found the best hiding spot. She had been thinking about this ever since she started the silly game and she was so excited to reach the finale. As she walked into the park, she had the biggest grin on her lips. She was way too excited to surprise Taekwoon.

            Meanwhile, he sat inside the café on the other side of the street, right next to the window so he could see her when she was coming up the street. He had planned that the moment he saw her coming up he would cross the street and meet her at the gates of the park. And when he saw her coming up, he got up from his seat to leave but as he watched her skip with childish joy, the biggest idiotic grin on her lips, Taekwoon stopped himself and sat right back down. She was having fun with this and he couldn’t deny that he was too. Watching her through a looking glass, he caught her snap the picture of the park’s gates before disappearing into its wonders. Taekwoon smiled. She was just like a child.

            Staring at the clock, Taekwoon allowed 15 minutes to pass before getting up from his seat to go find her. But it didn’t take long since, just as he walked into the park, she jumped him from behind, holding onto him lightly as she hung on his shoulders. She held him tightly but endearingly, her puckered lips and puffed cheeks pressed against his face. She snuggled with him, her hanging on him to keep her up and he could help but laugh at her—with her. He could tell that she wanted to say something but her lips were too busy smiling and she didn’t want to do anything but smile. So he said it for her.

            “I found you.”

            Letting go of him, she fell back to her feet but as he turned around, she tackled him, her arms wrapped tightly around his torso as her face was stuffed in his chest. He could feel her pout against his chest and he tried not to cringe in ticklish fervor.

            “You made me wait so long!” She muffled against his chest. “You took forever to figure it out you idiot.”

            Looking down at her, Taekwoon petted her head. “Sorry,” He smiled. “I figured it out pretty late.”