Talk With Strangers!

There was no promise hidden beneath it. No grand claim about changing your life or finding your soulmate. Just four words sitting brightly on the front page.

The website delivered exactly what it advertised.

With a click of a button, allow access to your webcam and mic, and within seconds you'd be staring at someone you'd never seen before. Sometimes they were halfway across the world. Sometimes they lived only a few cities away. The website didn't care and neither did the people, for the most part.

The conversations were just as unpredictable as the faces.

One moment you could spend twenty minutes discussing favorite movies with a college student in Spain then the next, you'd connect to someone who simply waved before disconnecting without saying a word. There were musicians who wanted an audience, insomniacs looking for company at three in the morning, language learners practicing awkward greetings, and people who had clearly opened the site out of pure boredom.

Of course, there were plenty who skipped immediately.

A connection would last less than a second before the screen flashed to someone else. Some people covered their cameras while some never spoke and some were clearly trying their best to be funny and then there were others who were simply strange.

Every click carried the tiny thrill of uncertainty. You never knew who would appear next, what country they were from, what language they'd speak, or whether the conversation would last five seconds or fifty minutes.

It was a digital roulette wheel made entirely of people.

For those tired of familiar routines, it offered something that everyday life rarely could.

Most disappeared as quickly as they arrived, faces fading from memory almost the moment the connection ended. Names were rarely exchanged. Social media accounts weren't always shared. Entire conversations existed only in the brief window between two strangers who would likely never meet again. 

And tonight, you were on it again, wasting the time away until you decided to hit the hay.

Your first few clicks went as it normally did most of the time.

First, you met a guitarist that asked if you wanted to hear a song. You gave one and spent the rest of the time watching as they learned it on the spot.

You wished you had that kind of talent.

When they decided to disconnect, the screen faded to black.

Searching for a stranger...

Another face soon appeared.

It was a teenager wearing oversized headphones who immediately skipped you.

Then came another black screen.

Then next came someone who had their camera pointed at their ceiling fan.

When they didn’t say a word, you skipped to a group of friends crowded together around a laptop and shouted something in a language you didn't understand before dissolving into laughter then skipping you right after.

Then you met an elderly man that proudly introduced his sleeping cat without saying a single word.

The fluffy orange creature became the center of the conversation for nearly five minutes before the man gave a satisfied nod and disconnected.

You clicked for the next person to appear as the other camera showed static for a moment, looking for a connection.

You took the moment of pause to sip on a bottle of water by the side of your desk, eyes darting away to another side of the room and not noticing the person you connected with.

When you looked back, everything became frozen in time. 

As your eyes grazed over the camera, you saw another set of eyes looking back at you, wide, maybe shocked as you are but familiar nevertheless.

The bottle stopped halfway to the desk.

A bead of water rolled down the plastic, slipping over your fingers before splashing soundlessly against the wood.

Neither of you moved and you were struck with the website’s slogan once again because you weren’t talking to a stranger, not to you, not by a long shot.

“Haerin?” you mumbled.

Her face on the other side had changed in little ways. Her hair was a bit longer than you remembered, pulled lazily over one shoulder. There was a softness around the eyes that hadn't been there years ago, the sort earned through growing older rather than sleeping well but they were still the same cat-like eyes you’d promise to give the whole world to.

For a second, you wondered if your microphone had picked up your voice. 

On the other side, she blinked.

Her lips parted, but nothing came out. She simply stared, searching your face as if she was afraid it would dissolve into pixels the moment she looked away. 

"No way," she whispered then.

“(YN)?”

It had been years.

Years since the two of you had sat across from one another.

Years since your conversations had become shorter, then fewer, until eventually they stopped altogether.

There wasn’t an argument nor any dramatic goodbye like they always did in movies. Simply put, it was just two lives that slowly drifted in different directions until reaching out felt stranger than staying silent. 

You hadn’t wished to see her again after that. She had her own life and despite any promise she had made over the house the two of you might live in or the routine the both of you would follow to grow around each other, she hadn’t been entirely yours.

“It’s…” she let out a breath that made you unsure if she laughed. “It’s actually you.”

"I think it is." you stumbled out.

"I..." she looked away from the screen for a moment, rubbing lightly at the side of her forehead before looking back.

"I mean, what are the chances?"

You didn’t answer.

The question hung in the air, not needing to be answered. 

You continued to look as she leaned back into her chair, still studying your face with an expression that shifted every few seconds.