The Idol and the Ulzzang.
Virtual Friend.Yuna set her phone aside, finally giving up on waiting for a text or call from Sungyeol.
Just a phone call, and she found herself drawn to him. She wanted to hear his voice again.
But she was too shy to call. And it might not be a good time for him for her to call.
Who knows what he was doing at the moment?
Yuna opened up her laptop and checked on her minihompy.
She had just uploaded pictures from today's pictorial with Park Taejun.
It was exhausting, having to change into three or more different outfits plus accessories within the hour.
But she wasn't complaining. She loved what she was doing. And she loved how she was praised for the pictures. And how she was selling the product and wearing it, as her senior, Park Taejun, had said.
As Yuna scanned her hompy, she decided to check on Lee Sungyeol.
She giggled and dismissed at the thought of that tall Infinite member as the virtual friend, Sungyeol, she had.
It was impossible. An idol is too busy to go online and chat with random strangers.
He'd rather spend that free time answering fan mails or resting.
Yuna wasn't really a fan of the band, but she knew the names of the members and listened to a few of their songs.
But she hasn't seen their live performances and variety shows yet.
She was too busy with her modeling career for that.
The page finally finished loading and Yuna scanned the display pictures of the user search results under Lee Sungyeol.
One was the legit Lee Sungyeol of Infinite that didn't maintain his hompy.
So far, Yuna found no one that matched the description of the Sungyeol she knew.
So she turned to Twitter.
Everyone had Twitter. Well, not everyone. But most people.
She opened two Twitter tabs. One was to search a Lee Sungyeol in Hanja. And the other searched for Lee Sungyeol in romanization.
Yuna found the Sungyeol from Infinite again. He had no display picture and didn't tweet very much.
It proved that Sungyeol from Infinite wasn't really much of a computer, slash, internet kind of person. Seeing as he didn't take care of his hompy and didn't even tweet regularly, much less, uploaded a display picture. It just proved that her friend, Sungyeol, was not the guy from Infinite.
Yuna sighed as she grew weary.
She couldn't find a legit Sungyeol.
Her only resort was to ask him for a picture. Or a link to his hompy. Or Twitter.
She wanted to see him. Months of chatting with him, and it was already long ago that she was curious about what he looked like.
---
Yuna woke up the usual time she does.
She rubbed her eyes and then checked her phone for messages.
There were a few unimportant ones from her ulzzang friends, one from her Park Taejun sunbae (informing her about a photoshoot), one apology from Sungyeol, and an offer from an entertainment agency to star in a music video.
She declined the music video offer.
Yuna wasn't a good actress. And even if all she had to do was show a poker face all throughout the music video, or even if they didn't show her face, she had to decline. She thought she was pretty awkward to do acting.
Yuna, then, replied to Sungyeol's apology about hanging up on her last night. She said it was no problem and that she understood.
Lastly, she replied her 'boss', owner of Aboki clothing line, Park Taejun, to confirm her schedule for a mini photoshoot later in the day.
---
Sungyeol sighed for the nth time as he stared at his phone.
He had messages Yuna in the middle of the night, last night, and received a reply in the morning.
He asked if he could call her again, but she hasn't replied.
Sungyeol tapped his fingers on the floor surface. He glared at a random faraway object, burning holes.
He didn't even notice Myungsoo entering their dorm room, dropping his luggage loudly on the floor.
Myungsoo noticed his roommate all worked up and furrowed his brows as he stared at Sungyeol.
Myungsoo walked towards him and snapped his fingers in front of the older guy.
Sungyeol was still burning holes on the wall, oblivious to Myungsoo's plead for attention.
Finally, Myungsoo couldn't take Sungyeol's weirdness anymore. He rolled his sleeves up, and with great force, pushed Sungyeol, sending him to fall on the floor.
"Ya! What was that?! Ya! Oh! You're back!" Sungyeol cried as he realized it was Myungsoo.
"What's wrong with you? You seem...weirder than usual," Myungsoo said. "Don't tell me...you got someone pregnant in real life?!"
Sungyeol hit Myungsoo's head, sending the second one to laugh his head off.
"None of your business," Sungyeol said and stuck his tongue out to his dongsaeng.
He stood up and got his bag.
"Got to go. Filming today," Sungyeol said.
Myungsoo nodded and continued to unpack his stuff.
"Good luck," he told his hyung before Sungyeol exited the room, to which Sungyeol nodded.
---
Sungyeol slumped on his bed after a day's filming.
He was very tired and all he wanted to do was sleep it off.
But someone must really hate him when he heard his phone vibrate and ring.
He wanted to ignore the phone call, but thought that it could be important, or an emergency.
But when he checked the caller ID, it wasn't. His eyes widened and his exhaustion went away.
He began to feel excited.
Yuna was calling him!
He cleared his throat before pressing on the answer button.
But before he could even do that, the call had ended.
He frowned and checked the new message he had ignored a few moments earlier.
He immediately regretted ignoring it.
It was from Yuna.
"Hey. I got busy. Sorry I couldn't reply earlier. Can you call? Or maybe I'll call this time?"
Sungyeol pressed on the reply button and typed in his message.
"Sorry didn't see your message earlier. I'll call."
He sent the message and went to her contact.
Before he pressed the call button, he took a deep breath and cleared his throat.
He listened to GNA's voice get cut off and heard Yuna's voice ring through the line.
"Yuna sshi," he started.
"Sungyeol oppa," she acknowledged.
"Sorry about yesterday. My roommates are being a pain," he apologized.
"No problem," she dismissed. "I'm sorry about not replying to your text earlier. I got busy."
"Mm, I understand. What is it actually that you do, Yuna sshi? I'm very curious..."
"Well..." Yuna contemplated on whether she should tell him that she was an Internet ulzzang.
She decided and thought of showing him instead.
"Um, can you go online?" she asked.
"Why?" Sungyeol puzzled.
"I'm going to send you a link to my minihompy. Check it out and you'll know for sure what I do, who I am, and what I look like," she said. "But first, you do the same thing, too!"
Sungyeol thought it was a win-win situation.
Although he didn't have much to show on his minihompy, he did have a few pictures that proved it was him.
He put his phone on speaker as he pulled his laptop from a messy pile, turned it on, and waited.
He had a random conversation with Yuna while he waited for his desktop to finish loading.
When it was done, he connected to the internet and clicked open a browser.
He went to the chat site, logged in to his account, and saw that Yuna was already online.
"Okay, I'm finally on," he said.
"Okay. Wait, let's send each other our minihompy links at the same time," Yuna said.
Sungyeol agreed and typed in his minihompy URL on the text box.
"You done?" he heard Yuna ask.
"Yep."
"Okay. Three. Two. One."
Sungyeol pressed enter and received the link to Yuna's own minihompy.
He wasted no time to click it.
It led to a well tended homepage. He checked on her side bar which had a short description of the user.
"Shim Yuna. 19. Uljjang."
Her default picture was of a girl covering but was obviously smiling to the camera through her eyes.
The message on the sidebar was that of a song from TVXQ.
He clicked on an album in her photos labeled '~ing'.
There were selcas of a pretty girl filling the page.
"You've got to be kidding me. She couldn't be possibly a... No way..." Sungyeol muttered, amazed and disbelieving at the same time.
He was still on the call, but not even the person on the other line could hear him.
Yuna was too busy arguing with herself.
He couldn't possibly be Infinite's Lee Sungyeol.
An idol is too busy to make an account at an underrated chat website and interest himself with a girl like her.
She fought with her ego and super ego.
Her ego, telling her that it was the Lee Sungyeol. That she had been talking with him for a while.
But her super ego was rational. It told her that this person could be a poser.
But how far did this poser go? From chatting with her to texting to calling?
But everything snapped in place when she remembered what he did. Memorizing—script lines. Tolerating—practice and hard work and all that. Pleasing—the fans.
But then again, it could all be a trick.
She wanted to meet him in person to prove it herself.
But she was also afraid.
Afraid that this person would not be Sungyeol and would end up being a e looking for a victim.
She was doubtful and didn't realize she had ended the call.
"Oh ..."
---
Sungyeol, and the rest of Infinite, had their mouths hung open as Sungyeol showed them the pictures of his Internet friend.
Not only was Yuna pretty and cute, but she could be y if she chose to.
Finally, after hours of stalking, he reached the end of her countless of pictures.
The rest of Infinite dispersed, except for Dongwoo and Myungsoo.
Myungsoo clamped a hand on Sungyeol's shoulder.
"Relax, hyung. She could be a poser using that ulzzang's identity. Don't believe yet," Myungsoo told him.
"But...but...but..." Sungyeol muttered and watched as Dongwoo took his laptop away.
"Ask her to meet you, then," Myungsoo suggested.
"What if she's an ajumma? Or worse! A sasaeng fan!"
Myungsoo looked at his hyung disbelievingly.
"Whatever..." Myungsoo gave up, not in the mood to knock some sense into Sungyeol.
He'd give him more time.
He knew Sungyeol wanted to meet Yuna already, but was afraid he'd get disappointed when he sees different.
There's always next time, then.
---
Listening to: 소녀시대 - 수원을 말해봐; 손현우 - 이제야 알겠어
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