Modern Pen Pals
1. 하나 ‘hana’
ENTER USERNAME:
What username should I put?
This is so stupid.
My mind comes out blank when I try to remember the last time I joined a social platform. They used to be for connecting. Nowadays they seem more for show, but Ms Julie said it could help.
ENTER USERNAME: HeythereDelilah
USERNAME ALREADY TAKEN
TRY AGAIN
ENTER USERNAME: HeythereDelilah28
USERNAME NOT TAKEN
VALID
ENTER PASSWORD: ********
ENTER PASSWORD AGAIN: ********
CREATE ACCOUNT
HELLO, HeythereDelilah28
WELCOME TO MODERN PEN PALS
‘Lilah? Where are you?’ I hear Elisa’s voice outside my bedroom.
Oh shit.
She can’t know about this. At least not yet.
‘In my room!’ I shout.
My flatmate’s face pops into my bedroom at the sound of the doorknob turning.
‘I’m having some friends over for dinner. Is that okay?’ Her deep-ocean eyes widen for an answer of only one option.
‘Hmm…okay.’ I don’t know what else to say. It’s not like she doesn’t bring people here all the time.
‘Thank you! You’re the best,’ she says.
The moment her back faces me, my head switches to its former position so I can continue providing personal information to a place that will most likely leak it or sell it without my permission.
‘Do you want to join us?’ The sound of Elisa’s voice refocuses my attention on her. She bounces her smooth, chocolate-coloured curls as our eyes meet again.
A sudden heatwave consumes my body, and my heart palpitates faster as I take off my robe. There’s this warmth inside of me every time she repeats those words, but contrary to the shaking beneath me, as my foot incessantly taps the ground, my mouth cannot move.
‘Well, you know where to find us if you want to join.’ Creases form under her eyes as the corners of her lips lift.
My ears don’t catch her leaving as the image in front of me blurs together, her words taking me back to the moment we met.
I was reading a pamphlet near the university campus. Mixed housing, it said. I held the little paper with the phone number for way too long as those words repeated in my brain. Mixed housing , which meant I would live with all genders. I already had a hard time talking to my gender, but with the other, my throat dried every time. It’s not that they couldn’t be friendly, but the jitters made it very hard for any acknowledgeable sentence to be formed.
My shoulder felt an unknown pressure, and the little paper fell out between my fingers as I searched for the pressure’s cause.
A young woman stared at me with breathtaking eyes. They just popped with her dark skin. My entire face relaxed at her sight. She had a magnetic energy around her—I’ve always imagined her as a descendant of sirens.
‘Are you looking for a place to live?’ I heard, still blinded by her pull.
‘Huh?’ I asked, the word leaving me close to a breath, so she repeated her question.
Just like that, the spell broke, and I came back to reality. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘Fantastic! I’m looking for a flatmate.’ Her hands collided, and she smiled. ‘It would be just the two of us. You’d have a room all to yourself, and it’s just a quick drive or bus ride to campus.’
With no hesitation, I blurted, ‘Yes.’ I didn’t know her then, but the words mixed housing still made my stomach churn.
At first, I kept mostly to myself. The snow on my balcony’s flowers had time to melt before I opened up more to her, but there wasn’t one day, even when her voice was the only one that filled the car, that we didn’t go to school together. From the moment my feet crossed the gate, my existence would perish at the sight of Elisa Burk. Every single soul on the way to class would stop to either talk to her, talk about her, or simply stare.
So I know, even though she is my best friend, she wouldn’t understand me trying to make friends through letters.
Anyway, Lilah, stop overthinking. Remember what Ms Julie said in our last session. ‘Breathe. Not having friends isn’t the end of the world, but if you don’t have more right now, it is because the right people haven’t shown up.’
Let’s see if this Modern Pen Pals thing will make me a friend. At least not being face to face, seeing the person’s expression, might keep the flower’s snow intact before I open up.
ENTER YOUR LOCATION: London, England
SEARCHING FOR PALS
63 PALS FOUND
AMAZING! YOUR LOCATION IS PERFECT TO MEET NEW PEOPLE.
SELECT A PEN PAL
Damn, a lot more people use this than I thought.
I can only see their usernames. There is no other information. What if I choose a murderer?
It’s best if I open a PO box just for this. I don’t want them to know where I live, but I wonder if people put their actual addresses on this thing.
Ugh, I hate meeting new people. I mean…I hate people in general.
This one has a funny nickname, Pamelicious. Let’s see if they want to connect with me.
While I wait for the answer, I grab my recipe book and search through it to choose what I’m cooking for dinner.
The doorbell echoes through the house and a moment later the silent ambience ends. Laughs and voices fill up the air.
There is one voice in particular that makes butterflies slap their wings against my insides. Let’s ignore the fact that if that expression was possible in real life, it would be creepy as hell.
I keep a low head around everyone, but with Elijah my whole world stops and I’m stripped down into the purest form one can exist, without a mask or anything to cover up how I feel. I can’t even greet him sometimes. That’s just how far out of my league he is.
On the lower left corner of my computer, the little bell blinks, letting me know I received a notification from Modern Pen Pals, so I click to read it.
WE’RE VERY SORRY, IT SEEMS LIKE Pamelicious ISN’T AVAILABLE TO MAKE NEW PALS AT THE MOMENT. THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT YOU STILL HAVE 62 PALS TO CHOOSE FROM.
SELECT A NEW PEN PAL
Perfect. Not even online am I lucky with people.
Ugh, let’s try again. This is the weirdest homework my therapist has ever given me.
As I’m scrolling, the name Daldust stands out to me. I don’t know what dal is, but dust is what I want to turn into sometimes.
To become bodiless, just a pack of tiny specks that float around. They travel more than any human can, and their size varies as they encounter more of their kind. Dust can exist from a multitude of things and is created from the essence of those. I wonder what kind of essence I’m born of.
Let’s find out if they want to connect.
I stand up to place my recipe book back on the shelf, quitting on trying to make something from there .
Throughout the years this house’s flaws became normal to me; how the third floorboard on the left side of the hallway squeaks letting me know someone is near the door, or how the lavatory door creaks allowing me to go on my turn, but there’s one thing I’ll never find normal. What was the architect thinking when he decided to create the only entrance to the kitchen from the living room? And how did no one else warn him about how bad of an idea that was?
I only wanted to go from the comfort of my room to my second safest place in this home, but for that to happen, I need to face my worst enemies.
Humans.
The soundtrack of a battlefield plays in my mind as I swallow every ounce of courage to enter the room. Hoping, praying to any form of higher power that I am as agile and noiseless as a cat.
‘Lilah, you’re here,’ Elisa says.
Why aren’t the invisible cloaks from Harry Potter real? I would sell my kidney to have one.
An invisible wall prevents me from walking further, and with a swift glance towards my flatmate, I say, ‘Hi,’ avoiding possible eye contact with any other person.
They greet me back. Elisa and Elijah get back to talking, and a guy I’ve never seen before looks down at his phone.
Withholding my breathing, I walk as fast as I can to the kitchen and pound my hand against my forehead as I breathe out in arrival.
Why can’t you be normal, Delilah? Why can’t you go back to that cheerful person, the one you were before him?
Nobody warns you that having your heart broken is not the worst part of a breakup with a crappy ex. The trauma they leave you as a parting gift is.
At least food doesn’t mock me; it’s made to please me. That’s why I love my job. Cooking makes me happy, and it’s my form of meditation, especially baking. And the people that come into my bakery are there for what I create. They don’t judge me—quite the opposite—they celebrate me, putting a smile on my face with every order they take.
Moving my hair backwards with my headphones so my ears are free to listen to music, I touch the white metal handle to see what we have stored in the cold. The cherry on top is when my playlist plays something from my favourite seven boys on earth. There’s nothing like the love of Bangtan .
The ingredients slide from the chopping board to the sizzling pan, causing tiny drops of olive oil to jump into the air at the same time as the beat I’m listening to drops. I take a step back to avoid the hot oil and move forward on the second beat, moving my feet as I hit all the notes.
Singing to myself with my eyes closed, I make a turn so I can check the time on the wall clock. As I open them, they widen more than needed to see the hours, and the wooden spoon I was pretending to use as a microphone hits the floor.
‘Hi…’ the stranger in my house says.
I suck the air out of the room and stare at the spoon lying on the kitchen tiles, where I wish I could descend to. A small ant approaches it, and I telepathically ask it to take me with it, back to my comfort zone. I inhale the food’s aroma to make sure it isn’t burning, as I’m trapped in this invisible box with no way out.
I remember Ms Julie’s words: ‘Whenever you face a situation where your first instinct is to flee, inhale and exhale five times. That will slow down your heartbeat and keep you in the moment. Remember that feeling of cooling down; make that your first instinct.’
My eyes trace the way from the spoon to his eyes and as I open my mouth to greet him, Elisa enters the kitchen, saving me. The box vanishes in a flash, and I bend to pick up my wooden spoon.
‘Lilah, that smells so good. Are you cooking for more than one?’ my flatmate asks, looking over my shoulder at the stove.
‘Yes, you can have some after,’ I say, washing the spoon and drying it before mixing the pan.
Besides my therapist, the only other person I speak with is Elisa. We’ve been living together for almost ten years, and by now she knows how I function. She’s seen me go through a lot and stayed every step of the way. I’m still not at that point where I feel a hundred percent at ease with her, but it’s not her fault, it’s mine. I have to work on my shit before I can open up to others.
‘That’s why you’re my bestie.’ The sweet smile she has on for me dims down as her head turns in the opposite direction. ‘Moon Hee, do you need something?’
‘ Gwaenchana . I mean, it’s fine, I’m okay,’ he says, hurrying his pace back to the other room.
I recognise that first word. He spoke Korean. My eyes were mostly glued to the floor the entire time he was here, so his face’s a blur to me, but his name is Korean, too.
I turn off the stove and peek at the living room. Elisa is gesturing with her hands as her mouth moves, and the guys’ focus is on her. I take that as my chance to pass unknown on my way to the hall, and as I’m walking through the wall separating both areas, I face back.
‘You can go taste it now.’
The moment I notice their heads turning towards the sound, my feet start and don’t stop until I’ve crossed the line of my safe place.
‘Thank you!’ my flatmate says, and I can hear Elijah’s radiant voice talking about the smell that comes from the kitchen.
‘Elisa, your flatmate sure does know how to cook.’ His words warm my heart.
The door’s latch clicks and I place the plate on my dark wooden desk. As I sit down on the desk chair, my eyes capture the little bell blinking, impatient to share its news with me.
CONGRATULATIONS! Daldust IS EXCITED TO CONNECT WITH YOU!
CONFIRM TO BE PALS
My index finger hovers on top of the ENTER key, finding some resistance to move lower. I inhale as much as my lungs can take, and before letting that air out, I press it down, sensing the bottom of the key hit the board. Releasing my lung’s capacity, the bright screen focuses as I attempt to picture what’s coming, thrilled for the first step in getting out of my comfort zone.