“Is this thing on? Can you guys see me?”

Yeah, we can see you!

Wow, looking so pretty, Irene.

Finally getting to see Irene live!

She laughed.

“Well, I guess you’re wondering why I’m having a live chat out of nowhere, right? But I’m not going to be so much as chatting with you guys. I’ve actually been meaning to say something that I’ve been struggling with for so long, so I thought I’d use this opportunity to say it.”

Joohyun tore her gaze off of her laptop camera. Heaving a sigh, she crossed both of her arms on top of her study desk, gaze peering off to the side, mind in wonder. She lightly laughed when she came to the realization that she was actually in a live chat with her viewers and averted her gaze back to the laptop.

“Sorry, I thought I had this all figured out in my head, but I still don’t know how to work this out.” She bit on her lower lip and began reading the comments as a way to help pass time and possibly formulate the thoughts. “Okay, well, I’ll just wing this and hopefully whatever I want to say will be said.

“Hello, my fellow viewers who are friends, family, friends of friends, or just very great people who stumbled across my channel. If you’re watching this, then I really do hope you stay till the end… This is very important to me.

“Throughout my whole life, I have been told that love is between a man and a woman, that love should only be with the one boy I cherish, that love should be with the one boy who makes my heart flutter and form butterflies in my stomach. I didn’t argue with that because you see, I grew up with the idea of prince charming riding up to my door step, taking me out on a nice date with flowers and candles and starry night skies, kissing me sweetly on the lips at the end of the night, and continuing that notion from there on out. Not bad, right? It’s not. But the thing is—this doesn’t exist.

“Most of prince charming nowadays will park on the curb by your house, text you that he’s here, drive you off to some three-star restaurant voted on Yelp with crying babies and clumsy waiters dropping plates and silverware, and spend the rest of the day at your house watching some show you don’t even like on Netflix.”

Joohyun paused for a bit and chuckled to herself at the thought. That date was such a disaster. She read a comment: Did that happen to you, Irene?

It sure did.

“But don’t get me wrong. I had a few tear-jerking, romantic dates from nice boys. I just happened to receive the worst of them as well.

“Okay, I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that I believe in the idea of love being open and free. It doesn’t have to be between a man and a woman. It can be between a man and a man, a woman and a woman, and you get the gist of it, right?”

Joohyun bit her lower lip again out of nervous habit and stared at the laptop camera.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m suddenly doing a lecture on the topic of love, huh.”

She sighed once more and peered off to the side, a smile gracing her face.

“I’m going to be telling you a story of how I fell in love…”

 Her smile widened.

“…with the most beautiful person in my life.”