Chapter 2: The Unread Message at 3 AM
The buzz was a physical thing, a trapped bee against her ribcage. Karina jolted awake in the absolute dark, disoriented, heart hammering. The screen of her phone, facedown on the mattress beside her, glowed an accusatory blue through the sheets.
3:17 AM.
She fumbled for it, the light searing her sleep-softened eyes. A notification. A text. From an unknown number.
Her first thought was Yunjin. Car trouble. Hospital. Something bad. The cold fear was instant.
She thumbed it open.
Unknown: Yunjin gave me this number. It’s Minjeong.
Karina’s breath stopped. The words floated in the blue light, simple and devastating. The cracks in her bedroom ceiling, usually familiar as the lines on her own palm, seemed to shift and realign in the weak glow.
She stared. The last time she’d seen Minjeong was across a sticky Taco Bell table, her quiet “Drive safe” hanging in the air like a question Karina had fled from. That had been four days ago. Four days of Karina throwing herself into the gritty reality of engine blocks and overdue essays, trying to bury the memory of a soft voice saying, You’re interesting to me.
And now, 3:17 AM.
Why? Why now? Why ever?
Her thumbs hovered over the screen. What did you say to the quiet, beautiful girl who texted you in the dead of night? A girl who saw your contradictions and didn’t look away? Hey. Too casual. Who is this? A stupid lie. Why are you texting me? Too aggressive.
She typed a single, stark question mark.
Sent it. Instant regret. It looked angry. Standoffish. Which, part of her was. The safe part.
The three little dots appeared immediately. Minjeong was awake. Awake and typing.
Minjeong: Sorry. I know it’s late. I couldn’t sleep.
Karina exhaled, a shaky sound in the silent room. She pulled her knees up, the sheet tangling around her. The phone’s light painted her knuckles bone-white.
Karina: It’s fine.
Minjeong: It’s not fine, it’s 3 am. I’m being intrusive.
Karina: Why couldn’t you sleep.
It wasn’t even a question the way she typed it. It was a demand for data. A reason.
The dots danced. Stopped. Danced again. A longer wait this time.
Minjeong: I was thinking about the sound the gate made when you left. That rusty shriek. It was very… final.
Karina’s throat tightened. She remembered the sound, the violent protest of old iron. She’d thought it was just noise. To Minjeong, it was a punctuation mark.
Karina: It needs WD-40.
Minjeong: I’ll add it to the list.
A pause.
Minjeong: Why did you leave like that?
There it was. The question Karina had been asking herself for days, now shot back at her in plain text. No porch-light softness to cushion it. She could lie. She could deflect. She could not answer at all.
She typed, deleted. Typed again.
Karina: Because I looked at you.
She sent it before she could think. A bare, exposed wire of truth.
The dots didn’t appear. A full minute passed. Karina watched the screen, the darkness of her room pressing in. She’d scared her off. She’d been too much, even in text. Good. Safe.
Then, a new message.
Minjeong: I know.
Of course she knew. Karina pressed the heels of her hands against her closed eyes, sparks of color blooming in the black. This was unbearable. This was…
Minjeong: It unnerved me too.
Relief, sharp and confusing, washed through her. So she wasn’t alone in the freefall. Minjeong had felt it too, that seismic shift under the oak tree.
Karina: You said that.
Minjeong: I meant it.
Another pause. Karina could imagine her, sitting in some quiet corner of that big, dark house. Maybe with Dosa curled beside her. The image was so clear it ached.
Minjeong: What are you doing right now?
Karina: Lying in the dark. Talking to you.
Minjeong: Me too. Except I’m in the window seat in the library. The moonlight on the oak leaves looks like shattered glass.
Karina sat up, her back against the cool wall. She looked at her own window—a blank square of city-lit grey. No trees, no moonlight. Just the faint, orange glow of a streetlamp and the eternal hum of a distant freeway.
Karina: Sounds prettier than my view. Cracked wall and a flickering neon sign for a donut shop two blocks away.
Minjeong: I like that. It sounds real.
Karina: It’s real dirty.
Minjeong: Real is better than pretty sometimes.
They fell into a rhythm then, a back-and-forth flowing in the silent river of the night. Minjeong told her about the book she was failing to read, how the characters felt flat. Karina described the 1986 Kawasaki Ninja she was restoring in the garage, how its engine was a puzzle she understood better than people. Minjeong confessed Dosa had knocked her favorite mug off the desk that evening, a betrayal of the highest order. Karina admitted she’d burned her left index finger on a soldering iron and it throbbed like a bastard.
It was small talk. It was monumental.
With every exchanged sentence, the 3 AM strangeness faded. The blue light of the phone stopped feeling cold and started feeling like a tether, a thin, bright line connecting her messy, dark apartment to a window seat miles away.
At one point, Karina realized she was smiling. A real one, not the sharp, performative smirk she wore like armor. Her face felt stiff, unused to the expression.
Minjeong: What’s your favorite sound?
Karina thought about it. Not the roar of her bike, which was a noise she used as a weapon. Not the clatter of tools.
Karina: The click when a bolt you’ve been fighting finally threads right.
Minjeong: That’s a good one. Satisfying.
Minjeong: Mine is the sound of pages turning in a really quiet room. Just before the story pulls you under.
Karina read that and felt something in her chest, something tight and calcified, crack open just a hair. Who thought like that? Who said things like that?
Karina: Yeah. I get that.
The conversation drifted, slowed. The digital clock on her phone read 4:48 AM. The world outside her window was shifting from deep black to a grudging charcoal grey.
Minjeong: I should let you sleep.
Karina: You’re not stopping me.
It was the closest she’d come to saying don’t go.
Another long moment. The dots appeared, vanished, appeared again.
Minjeong: Would you want to see the oak tree in daylight? It’s less ominous, I promise. Less… final.
Karina’s pulse kicked against her throat. Her finger, the burnt one, tingled.
Minjeong: You could bring the WD-40.
A joke. A way out. An invitation woven so softly it felt like a choice, not a demand.
Karina closed her eyes. The safe thing was to say she was busy. To protect the fragile, new thing that had spun itself out of pixels and darkness in the quiet hours. To keep it here, in the dark, where it couldn’t be ruined by the clumsy reality of daylight and her own inability to be normal.
But the memory of Minjeong’s face under the oak tree, the flicker of surprise, the quiet knowing—it was stronger than the fear.
Karina: I have a can in my trunk.
Minjeong: Tomorrow? Today, I guess. Afternoon?
Karina: 3 pm.
Minjeong: 3 pm. I’ll make coffee. To counteract the lack of sleep.
Karina: I don’t drink coffee.
Minjeong: Tea?
Karina: Yeah. Tea’s fine.
A final pause.
Minjeong: Goodnight, Karina.
Karina: Night.
The screen went dark as Karina set the phone down. The room wasn’t pitch black anymore. Slivers of dawn, weak and grey, were finding their way through the blinds. The donut shop sign had switched off.
She lay back down, but sleep was a forgotten language. The entire night had the quality of a dream, but her buzzing nerves, the pleasant ache behind her eyes, the exact words etched behind her eyelids—they were all, undeniably, real.
She had a can of WD-40 in her trunk. She had a text thread that felt like a live thing in her phone. She had a time.
3 PM.
The fear was still there, a cold knot in her stomach. But under it, warmer and more terrifying, was a current of pure, unadulterated want. She wanted to hear the sound of a page turning in a quiet room. She wanted to see if the oak tree was really less ominous in the light.
She wanted to see if Minjeong would look at her again, and what would happen if she let herself look back.
The afternoon light was different. It filtered through the oak leaves in a dappled, green-gold wash, softening the edges of everything. Karina stood at the foot of the porch steps, the can of WD-40 feeling absurdly heavy in her hand. The gate, now that she looked at it in the daylight, was just a gate. Its earlier shriek felt like a melodramatic memory from another life.
Minjeong was already there. She wasn’t on the steps, but in a worn wooden rocking chair, a mug steaming beside her. She held a book but wasn’t reading it. She was watching a robin hop across the lawn. She looked serene, folded into the quiet of the afternoon. Karina’s boots on the gravel announced her.
Minjeong glanced over. That same direct gaze, but the sunlight turned her eyes a lighter, clearer blue. “You found the place,” she said, her voice just as soft as Karina remembered.
“The gate was a pretty clear landmark,” Karina said, lifting the can slightly.
“A screaming welcome mat.” Minjeong’s lips quirked. She set her book aside. “Tea’s inside. Come on up.”
There was no grand moment, no locked gaze that shattered the air. It was just a woman in a rocking chair, a woman on the gravel, and a stupid can of lubricant. Karina climbed the steps, each one a conscious decision. She sat on the top step, not in a chair, leaving a careful foot of space between her and Minjeong’s chair.
“Black tea,” Minjeong said, handing her a warm mug from a small side table. “No sugar. I guessed.”
“You guessed right.” Karina took it. Their fingers didn’t touch.
For a few minutes, they just sat. Karina sipped the tea. It was good, bracing. The wind chime tinkled. Dosa the cat slunk out from under a fern, gave Karina a slow, appraising blink, and then leaped into Minjeong’s lap.
“He remembers you,” Minjeong said, scratching behind his ears.
“He remembers I didn’t pet him.” Karina stared into her mug. “Cats know.”
Minjeong nodded. “They’re excellent judges of character. He thinks you’re interesting, but suspicious.”
Karina snorted. “Sounds about right.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was filled with the rustle of leaves, the distant drone of a lawnmower, the soft sound of Minjeong’s hand stroking cat fur. Karina felt her shoulders begin to drop, the permanent tension in her jaw unwinding a fraction. It wasn’t that the fear vanished. It sat right beside her, a cold, familiar stone in her gut. But it was quiet here. The air felt breathable.
“So,” Minjeong said after a while. “The bolt-threading click.”
Karina looked at her. Minjeong was watching the robin again, her profile calm. It was a simple cue, an open door. No pressure.
“Yeah,” Karina said. She took another sip of tea. “The Ninja’s front sprocket was fused. A real bastard. I’d been heating, cooling, tapping, swearing at it for two days.” She heard her own voice, talking about something she knew. It didn’t sound defensive. It just sounded like her. “Finally got the right combination of penetrant and leverage. Felt the threads catch clean. That click… it’s not even a sound you hear with your ears, really. You feel it in the wrench. In your hands.”
“A completion,” Minjeong said softly.
“Yeah.” Karina stared at her own hands, gripping the mug. “A completion.”
Minjeong didn’t say anything else. She just rocked gently, the chair creaking a pleasant rhythm. Karina realized, with a jolt that was more quiet wonder than panic, that there was no expectation. No script. She could sit here and say nothing at all, and that would be okay. She could say something stupid, or technical, or vulnerable. She could, hypothetically, pass gas or do a weird little dance, and Minjeong would probably just blink slowly, like Dosa, and maybe offer a mild observation about the quality of the digestion or the rhythm of the dance.
The thought was so bizarre, so utterly liberating, it stole her breath. This was freedom. Not the freedom of roaring down an empty highway, which was just running away. This was the freedom of sitting still, on a sunny porch, and not being judged for the messy, complicated machinery of her own self.
It terrified her.
Because this soft, calm acceptance was a solvent. It was seeping into all the cracks of her, loosening the rusted-on parts of her persona she’d thought were permanent. Who was she without the armor? The thought was a dizzying, open chasm. She gripped the mug tighter, the heat almost painful.
“You’re thinking very loudly over there,” Minjeong murmured, not looking at her.
“Just thinking about sprockets,” Karina lied.
“Mhm.” A gentle, knowing sound. She didn’t push.
Karina set the mug down with a soft clink. “I should fix that gate.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I brought the can.” She stood up, needing movement. She retrieved the WD-40 from where she’d left it on the steps and walked over to the offending hinge. She gave it a sharp spray, the chemical smell cutting through the floral air.
The silence returned, but it was a comfortable one. Minjeong watched her work. Karina pushed the gate open and closed a few times. The shriek became a sigh, then a smooth, silent swing.
“Fixed,” Karina announced, wiping her hands on her jeans.
“A completion,” Minjeong repeated, a smile in her voice.
Karina walked back to the steps but didn’t sit. She leaned against the porch post, looking at Minjeong properly now. The sunlight caught the fine hairs that had escaped her ponytail, turning them into a soft halo. She was beautiful. It was a simple, objective fact, like the engineering of a well-made engine.
“Why did you text me?” Karina asked. The question came out flat, stripped bare.
Minjeong stopped rocking. She looked at Karina, her gaze steady and clear. “Because I wanted to.”
“At three in the morning.”
“That’s when I wanted to.” She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I thought about the sound of the gate. I thought about you not looking at me all night at the barbecue. I thought you were probably awake too.”
Karina’s breath hitched. “Why.”
Minjeong considered, her head tilted slightly. Dosa purred against her chest. “Because contradictions are interesting,” she said, echoing her words from Taco Bell. “And I wanted to hear the sound of your thoughts, not just the sound of you leaving.”
The honesty was a physical touch. Karina felt it land right in the center of her chest. She had no sharp retort, no deflective joke. The armor was gone, left back in her dim apartment with the flickering neon donut sign. All that was left was her, standing on a sunny porch, feeling unbearably seen.
And for the first time in her life, looking at someone so soft and so open, she didn’t feel the old, destructive urge. She didn’t want to say something cruel to test her, to push her away, to prove that everyone leaves eventually. She didn’t want to be the one who made the light in those blue eyes dim.
She didn’t want to hurt her. The realization was a seismic shock, quiet and internal.
She wanted, instead, to protect that calm. To be worthy of the quiet space Minjeong offered.
“Okay,” Karina said, her voice rough. It was all she had.
Minjeong smiled then, a full, real one that reached her eyes. It was still the most beautiful thing Karina had ever seen. “Okay,” she echoed softly.
The robin flew away. The lawnmower sound faded into the distance. Karina pushed off from the post and sat back on the step, closer this time. Close enough that if she shifted her weight, her shoulder would brush Minjeong’s knee.
She didn’t shift. Not yet.
But she stayed.
But she stayed.
The sunlight shifted, stretching their shadows long across the painted floorboards. They talked about nothing consequential—the best brand of engine oil, the absurdity of reality TV, whether Dosa understood the concept of personal space. Each exchange felt like a breath held and released, easier than the last. When the tea was gone and the afternoon began to cool, Karina stood.
“I should head out,” she said, the words tasting less like escape and more like simple truth.
“Okay,” Minjeong said, still rocking gently. “Thank you for the gate surgery.”
“It was a humanitarian mission.” Karina shoved her hands in her pockets, feeling the ghost of that smooth, silent swing in her bones. “No more screaming.”
Minjeong smiled up at her, and Karina felt that click again, deep in her chest. A completion. “See you, Karina.”
The drive home felt different. The city noise didn’t grate; it just was. Her apartment felt less like a bunker and more like… a place. She kept hearing Minjeong’s voice, the soft “okay” that felt like a door left open, not a challenge.
Her phone buzzed on her nightstand just after ten that night.
Minjeong: Did the gate behave today?
Karina looked at the message, a small smile pulling at her lips. She was lying in bed, the documentary on her laptop forgotten.
Karina: Like a charm. You’re welcome.
Minjeong: I’ll consider my humanitarian debt paid in full.
Minjeong: What are you up to?
Karina: Watching a man slowly lose his mind restoring a 19th-century steam engine.
Karina: It’s soothing.
Minjeong: I’m reading a very dense article about Byzantine trade routes.
Minjeong: It is not soothing. It is a chore.
They texted for an hour, the conversation meandering from steam engines to the inexplicable popularity of glitter. It was easy. It was shockingly, stupidly easy. Karina found herself laughing aloud at one point, a rough, unfamiliar sound in the empty room.
The next night, her phone buzzed again earlier.
Minjeong: Dosa is currently trying to smother me in my sleep. A revenge plot for the vet yesterday.
Minjeong: Send help.
Karina was elbow-deep in the Ninja’s carburetor, grease coating her forearms. She wiped a hand on her rag.
Karina: No help sent. You brought this upon yourself.
Karina: A tyrant’s revenge is a dish best served fluffy.
Minjeong: He’s purring directly into my ear. It’s a war crime.
They fell into a rhythm. Late-night texts became a constant. Karina would be scrubbing grease from under her nails, or staring at a textbook paragraph that refused to make sense, and her phone would light up with some quiet, witty observation from Minjeong about her cat, or a book, or the way the moonlight looked on the hardwood floor. Karina would reply with something gritty and real from her world—the smell of gasoline, the ache in her lower back from hunching over an engine bay, the stupidity of her poli-sci professor.
It was a secret, this thread between them. Yunjin didn’t know. Winter certainly didn’t. It existed in the blue-lit space between midnight and dawn, a world that felt entirely their own. Karina started waiting for it, the buzz against her leg. She’d catch herself smiling at nothing during the day, remembering a particular turn of phrase Minjeong had used.
Then, on Friday night, the rhythm stuttered.
Minjeong’s text came at a normal time, just after nine.
Minjeong: Heading out to Giselle’s. Game night. May not be able to text much.
A cold little stone dropped into Karina’s gut. She was on her couch, a half-eaten slice of pizza congealing on the box next to her.
Karina: Have fun.
It was flat. She knew it was flat as she sent it.
Minjeong: Thanks! She’s insisting we try this new board game that allegedly destroys friendships.
Minjeong: I’ll report back from the battlefield.
An hour passed. Then two. Karina tried to watch TV. She picked up a wrench and put it down. The silence of her apartment, usually a comfortable blanket, felt thick and loud. Her phone remained dark.
She’s out. With friends. Of course she has friends. She’s a normal person.
The thought was irrational, but it buzzed in her head like a trapped fly. Minjeong had a life. A life that included people named Giselle, and game nights, and things that weren’t sitting in a window seat texting a scowling mechanic in the middle of the night.
Her phone finally lit up close to midnight.
Minjeong: Friendship survived. Barely.
Minjeong: Giselle is a ruthless Monopoly player. A real estate demon.
Karina stared at the screen. She typed, deleted, typed again.
Karina: Cool.
A minute passed.
Minjeong: You okay?
Karina clenched her jaw. She wasn’t okay. She felt stupid and taut, like a wire about to snap. She didn’t have a name for this feeling. It was a hot, restless itch under her skin.
Karina: Yeah. Just tired.
Minjeong: Get some sleep then.
Karina didn’t reply. She threw her phone onto the cushion beside her and stalked to the kitchen, getting a glass of water she didn’t want. She was being an idiot. A possessive, weird idiot. Minjeong was allowed to have friends. She was allowed to have a whole entire life.
Her phone buzzed again on the couch. She ignored it. It buzzed a second time.
With a grunt, she snatched it up.
Minjeong: Actually, I’m staying over here. Crashed on Giselle’s couch. Too late to drive.
Minjeong: Her roommate Hunt made pancakes. They were sublime.
Something sharp and ugly twisted in Karina’s chest. Hunt. A roommate. A guy who made pancakes at midnight.
Karina: Glad you had fun.
Her thumb hovered over the send button. It was bitter. It was petty. She added another sentence.
Karina: Sounds like a real party.
She sent it. Instant regret, hot and sour in her throat. It was passive-aggressive and transparent. She’d never cared about who anyone spent their time with. Never. Jealousy was a useless, weak emotion she had no time for.
This wasn’t jealousy. It couldn’t be. It was just… irritation. At the disruption. At being the one waiting for a text while Minjeong was out having pancakes with some guy named Hunt.
Her phone buzzed almost immediately.
Minjeong: Karina.
Just her name. Nothing else.
Karina’s heart hammered against her ribs. The single word felt like a tap on the shoulder, a gentle call to attention. She waited, the silence stretching thin.
Another buzz.
Minjeong: Hunt is gay. He’s also dating Giselle’s cousin. He’s basically my brother.
Minjeong: The pancakes were just pancakes.
Heat flooded Karina’s face, a scalding wave of shame. Minjeong had seen right through her—through the flat “cool,” through the bitter “sounds like a real party.” She’d pinpointed the unspoken suspicion and calmly, gently, dismantled it.
She hadn’t said “you’re being jealous.” She hadn’t gotten angry. She’d just offered the facts, simple and clear.
Karina sat down hard on the edge of the couch. The greasy pizza box stared up at her. She felt exposed, childish. She’d never felt this before—this hot, clawing possessiveness. It was ugly. It was hers.
She typed slowly, her fingers clumsy.
Karina: I didn’t mean… that.
The dots appeared. Disappeared. A long pause.
Minjeong: I know.
Karina waited, but nothing else came. No reassurance, no forgiveness. Just that simple, devastating “I know.” It left her floating in the silence, forced to sit with the tangled mess of her own reactions.
She stared at the screen until it went dark, reflecting her own strained face back at her in the black glass.