Warning(s): a lot of social media references, cursing
Length: 2.7k words

[ June 6 ]

The first time Seulgi saw Irene, she knew her heart was never going to be hers again; it was going to be Irene’s. From the moment her little “crush” turned from subscribing to Irene’s YouTube channel to literally creating an Instagram fan-page for the girl, Seulgi knew. In all her 23 years of existence, never has she felt like her heart was eating her from the inside out.

Is it pathetic? Perhaps, but the world is changing. If people can find love online, why can’t she do the same?

[ June 7 ]

“Do you ever look at another person and just wanna cry?”

“Are you high?”

“It’s a serious question, Baek!”

“For who? Stoners?”

Seulgi throws her PS4 controller at him, but he catches it easily in one hand. “It’s a serious question,” she insists. “Do you ever see someone so beautiful that your breath kinda just…” Seulgi makes a WHOOSH sound, causing her friend to frown harder at her.

“The hell? Are you good?” he asks, eying her up and down.

“To be honest,” Seulgi raises her hand, “not really.” Baekhyun throws the controller back to her, and she absentmindedly twiddles her thumb over the controls. “I’m ed. There’s this girl I like, but I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

“You know, the usual. If she’s gay, if she’s dating someone—that kinda stuff.”

“Ohhhh shiiiit.” Baekhyun sets his laptop down and walks over to the couch where Seulgi is wallowing in self-pity. “Who is she?” he asks with a curious grin. “Is she another streamer?”

“No, she does YouTube.” Seulgi closes her eyes for a moment and thinks of her—the girl with luminous eyes and a voice forged from moonbeams and notes from Claude Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1. “She has 7 million subscribers so I’m basically nothing to her.”

“Hey, we literally have a combined follower count of 5 million on Twitch.”

“Yeah, but we’re ing streamers, and we .”

“Speak for yourself.” Baekhyun crosses his arms and looks down on Seulgi with his upper lip curling into a scowl. “I’m a legend, but I don’t know about you. By the way, move.” He lifts her legs to give himself space on the couch to sit. “Is she another a gamer?”

“Nah, she does this thing called ASMR. Ever heard of it?”

“Yeah, it’s when people tap softly on stuff and it helps people sleep.”

“Noooo,” Seulgi protests. “It’s different. It’s not just tapping. It’s like scratching noises, snapping, whispering—just sounds.”

“Uh-huh. So what’s so special about her?” Baekhyun looks over at Seulgi and squints his eyes. “Have you even talked to her or are you just stalking her Instagram or something?”

“I mean I’ve commented on her YouTube livestreams.”

“Wow, you ing loser.” Baekhyun laughs raucously as he poses his hand over his forehead to make an L.

Seulgi gasps at Baekhyun’s audacity. “As if you don’t spend hundreds of dollars on girls’ private Snapchats!”

“Hey.” Baekhyun raises both his hands and eyebrows to defend himself. “I’m supporting the work industry when I do that. What the hell are you doing? Being a creep on someone’s livestream?”

“I’m not being a creep,” Seulgi huffs. “I’m just…a fan.”

Baekhyun shakes his head in clear disapproval. After all, it’s not the first time that she’s pulled off antics like this. “Dude, you have to get it together. You can’t just stalk girls online and cry over their Instagram pictures. You have to do something.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “What’s her IG? I’ll flirt with her, and if she doesn’t flirt back then we’ll know she’s gay.”

“It doesn’t work like that!”

“Sure it does. What’s her username?”

“You know, just because a girl doesn’t flirt back with you, it doesn’t mean that she’s gay. She could just think you’re an .”

“But I’m not an . I’m pretty ing cool.”

“No, you’re pretty ing stupid.”

“Oh my, god, Seul. Just tell me her Instagram!”

Seulgi thinks about the last time she gave a girl’s Instagram account to Baekhyun. Not only did he DM the girl, he somehow managed to set her up on a date with Seulgi. It was probably the most traumatic experience of Seulgi’s existence—having to go on a random blind date with a girl that she had been following online for months. Still, as embarrassing as it was, Seulgi was and is still thankful that he did that.

“It’s ASMR Irene,” Seulgi murmurs as she pretends to go back to playing The Witcher 3. “You better not ing DM her.”

“I won’t.” Baekhyun taps at his phone for a few seconds, and Seulgi pretends to be sorting through her in-game inventory. In reality, she’s staring at Baekhyun through the corners of her eyes, waiting for him to make a comment about Irene. “Oh !” he exclaims after another few seconds. “She’s Korean too? Her real name is Joohyun?”

“Yeahhhh.” Seulgi once more pretends to be disinterested when she really wants to run over Irene. “She said in a video that she’s from Daegu, but she’s in LA like us.”

“You’re a stalker, Seul.”

“I told you I was a fan.”

“Uh-huh.” Baekhyun taps away on his phone, and Seulgi is concerned that he’s up to no good, but she doesn’t want him to accuse her of micromanaging. “You should just DM her. What do you have to lose anyways?”

“I have a lot to lose, excuse me. She could see me as a total idiot and not want to do anything with me,” Seulgi points out. She wishes she could be more like her confident, shameless friend—the idiotic yet somehow very lovable Byun Baekhyun—who isn’t afraid to curse loudly on streams, but she really isn’t that type. “You know, it’s easy for you to say that,” she counters. You’re a guy. You could date any girl you like without backlash. Meanwhile 70% of my viewers are male, and I’d go broke.”

“Well, I think you should just go for it. She’s right there.”

“I’ve never even met her.”

Baekhyun grins and rises from the couch. “That’s what DMs are for. Isn’t that how we met?”

- - - - -

Later that night, when Baekhyun is in the middle of a PUBG livestream and when Seulgi can’t sleep, she performs her evening ritual of pulling Irene’s ASMR channel on her laptop and listening to her whispers. Baekhyun has long stopped accusing Seulgi of watching (“Yeah,” Seulgi always countered in her head, “it’s called ear .”) out of his own hypocris