Gentle Giant 2

Gentle Giant Chapter 2

A new chat began with the same repeated phrases. Not even a grain of expectation arose anymore.

Still, thinking that it would feel bad if the matched person suddenly disappeared, Dain decided he should at least say hello once before leaving, so he typed a greeting with an apathetic expression.

[Me: Hello?]

[Other person: Hello. Are you Korean by any chance?]

A different type of conversation from before came up in response to his casually given greeting. Huh? Dain, who had a question mark pop up in his mind, replied.

[Me: Yes, I’m Korean.]

[Other person: Oh, that’s a relief! Maybe it’s because I’m in America right now, but I kept getting matched only with Americans. So I changed my settings just in case, and now I finally got matched with a Korean person.]

[Me: Ah, I see! You must be living in America!]

[Other person: Yes, I’ve been living in America for a long time, but lately I’ve been wanting to talk with Korean people… This is my first time trying today, but it really feels good to use Korean^^]

“Wow.”

It was the first normal person he’d met. Judging by how they were sincerely answering his questions, they seemed different from the people he’d met before…

However, there had also been people who started by having normal conversations like this, but then had the same crazy conversations as the others after some time passed.

Having experienced such things several times in a short period, Dain continued the conversation carefully without dismissing his potential suspicions.

[Me: This is my first time today too, but honestly there were only weird people here so I was about to delete itㅠㅠㅠ]

[Other person: Weird people?]

[Me: They kept asking to meet and do that thing…]

[Other person: That thing?? What’s that?]

[Me: That, with the body… that…]

[Other person: Ah, that thing. They were really weird perverts. You must have had a hard timeㅜㅜ]

[Me: Right?ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ]

Dain cried intensely. Even though he had explained it poorly, the other person understood perfectly and firmly called them perverts, so Dain’s fingers moved rapidly as he empathized.

[Other person: If it’s things like that, you can be a bit more at ease since I live in America. That’s fortunate.]

[Me: A bit… But you really have good manners and don’t seem like a pervert. Really really!]

[Other person: Thank you ㅋㅋ]

Even though it was just text appearing on the computer, it seemed to emanate an exceptional kindness.

Dain didn’t want to have such a short conversation and part ways with the normal friend he had met with difficulty. In just a few hours, or perhaps this might be a normal person he’d never meet again on this app.

As soon as that thought occurred to him, Dain suddenly became anxious and gathered his courage.

Jung Dain, you can do it! Beast-people, by beast-people, for beast-people! Making friends! Dain shouted the app’s slogan in his mind while rapidly typing.

[Me: If it’s okay with you, could you tell me your personal messenger instead of this app? I really want to make friends…]

[Other person: Personal messenger?]

The other person’s chat appeared after a slight delay. As expected, it won’t work. From the other person’s perspective, I must seem like a pervert for suddenly asking for their messenger…

Dain became dejected again at that one phrase he sent. As expected, I won’t work out. With an even more depressed face, Dain was writing an apology when the other person’s chat appeared before Dain’s message.

[Other person: LJHO1130]

[Other person: This is my messenger ID^^]

“Gasp!”

[Me: Sorry ga- Gasp! Thank you!!]

He hastily deleted what he was trying to write and sent a thank you message. The message he had written first didn’t get deleted and went up mixed with the typos from writing hastily.

Fortunately, the other person seemed to understand even the messy sentence that was incomprehensible, and a chat saying [Yes ㅋㅋㅋㅋ] appeared.

Dain quickly opened the messenger app and searched for his ID. Fortunately, it wasn’t a non-existent ID. With a trembling heart, he pressed add friend.

A red circle appeared in the newly added friend list after a long time.

He clicked on the name that was neatly written as ‘Lee Juho’. Since no profile picture was set, a default image appeared large. Dain pressed the speech bubble below it and hurriedly sent him a message.

[7:32 PM │ Hello? I’m the person who just chatted with you.]

His heart was pounding as he waited for when the other person would reply, but not long after, an alarm sounded that he had received a message.

[Lee Juho: Yes, hello. I’m Lee Juho. │ 7:33 PM]

It was the first message with Juho.

Starting with an awkward and polite message, he had quite a lot of conversation with Juho. Dain was the one who led most of the conversation by asking questions to keep the conversation from breaking off.

[7:48 PM │ Juho-ssi, come to think of it, what species are you? I’m feline!]

[Lee Juho: I’m also feline. │ 7:53 PM]

[7:54 PM │ Amazing!!! Really?? *.* So fascinating! Then Korean feline?]

[Lee Juho: Yes, well… I suppose so? │ 7:58 PM]

“Same cat! Really fascinating.”

Dain pounded the bed with his large paws. A kind feline beast-person. It was incredible luck.

The bed springs creaked and groaned under Dain’s kicking, but it didn’t reach his excited ears at all.

[7:59 PM │ Then how old are you, Juho-ssi?]

[Lee Juho: I’m 21 in Korean age. │ 8:00 PM]

“Oh, he’s younger!”

Dain, who was 22 this year, discovered another commonality that Juho was around his age. If he was too young or too old, there would be less they could relate to, but it seemed like he and Juho-ssi would get along very well.

[8:01 PM │ Wow, I’m 22! I’m the hyung ^.^]

[Lee Juho: Ah… I see. │ 8:03 PM]

[8:03 PM │ Yes yes! You can comfortably call me hyung! Hehe~ Juho-ssi, then what’s your blood type???]

[Lee Juho: Yes, then I’ll call you hyung. Type O. │ 8:07 PM]

“Ooh, we’ll get along great!!”

Dain, who was type A, liked his blood type that supposedly had the best compatibility with type A.

[8:08 PM │ I’m type A! Our blood types will get along perfectly!]

[Lee Juho: Hmm…? Is that so?? │ 8:11 PM]

[8:12 PM │ Of course! I saw it in a book! Type O and type A are a fantasy pair!]

Dain didn’t know that the book that supposedly told about blood type compatibility had already been out of print for over 10 years.

Juho’s college major, where he lived, zodiac sign, family relations, hobbies, special skills, etc. Asking all sorts of TMI, Dain became more and more excited.

To be able to perfectly execute the friend-making method he had only seen in books!

Juho also seemed to like the conversation with him, answering well so the messages never stopped. As this continued, he even thought that perhaps he actually had tremendous talent for making friends.

Dain’s shoulders swayed cheerfully.

If he continued like this, expectations swelled that he might become popular like other cat beast-people and make quite a lot of friends.

The two people who had been conversing by message for several hours only took a break when it was time for Juho to attend university lectures.

Even after that, Dain sent messages asking Juho about this and that whenever he had time, and spent each day with an excited heart at Juho’s kind answers.

And a few days later.

Dain realized. He had absolutely no talent for making friends, and the friend-making method he had believed in like gospel was already an old method treated as legend.

“What do I do… I won’t get blocked, will I…?”

Chewing his lips anxiously, Dain lowered his gaze to the phone he was holding.

Today too, he had come to school after having a morning message conversation with Juho.

After listening to one short lecture that started early, he had a free period and was browsing the university community when he mindlessly scrolled down and discovered a post.

[I’ll tell you about the real losers you should filter out on dating apps!]

Drawn by the intense title, he unconsciously clicked on the post and read it seriously. While thinking about the weird guys he had met on the friend-making app before matching with Juho.

And there he found out. That he himself was the ‘loser’ this post was pointing to.

[Lots of people meet through apps these days, right? I’ll make a list of what kinds of guys you should filter out.

Don’t get caught by the wrong guy and ruin yourself, filter them out properly.

Age superiority complex – Young old-fashioned guys who say “I’m this age and you’re that age so call me oppa” and pull the “back in my day” card
Background investigation – Guys who try to find out everything down to how many spoons are in your house while spouting TMI you’re not even curious about
Meeting pusher – Guys who say “let’s meet” or “let’s meet since we’re in the same neighborhood, I’ll buy you food” after barely exchanging a few words
Player – Guys who bring up all sorts of things like zodiac signs, blood types, MBTI and say it’s fate or that you’re well-matched
Bank transfer – Guys who cry and beg saying they have no money and it’s hard, asking you to buy them food (common among younger guys)
Beeper phone – Guys who contact you constantly every few seconds regardless of time, advertising that they have no friends

Etc. etc., originally it’s hard to meet proper guys on dating apps. Most of the guys I’ve met had these patterns. Phew, but choose well anyway.

By the way, the most fucking annoying seems to be background investigation + beeper phone. I feel like they’ll ask for my social security number next while spamming chats ㄷㄷㄷ…

If you’re talking with guys like this, I quietly recommend blocking them. You’ll experience your block list getting filled with all sorts of trash.]

As he read down the post, the color drained from Dain’s face.

Out of the 6 items on the list, a whopping 5 applied to him, excluding bank transfer.

Moreover, what people hated most was background investigation + beeper phone…! Wasn’t it supposed to be about getting closer by learning about each other in detail?

Dain was confused. Certainly the book stuck on his home bookshelf had guided that those list items were methods to make best friends.

They were methods he had read so much as a child that he had even memorized them. The teaching was to increase familiarity by sharing information about each other. However, the teaching that had impressed him deeply had somehow changed into a loser list that absolutely had to be filtered out.

Below, as if agreeing with the post author’s opinion, were incomprehensible words like ‘ㅇㄱㄹㅇ ㅂㅂㅂㄱ’, ‘ㅇㅈ’, ‘Kingjeong’ and number games like 22222, 333333 etc. filling the comments.

Notes: those hangul letters are unreadable ones so Idk how to translate them they are just random gibberish.

Cold sweat ran down Dain’s back. Just moments ago, he had been thoroughly questioning Juho about what he had eaten today.

Dain clicked on other posts with similar topics just in case, but most posts also greatly disliked other people’s ‘TMI’.

People were tired of learning information about strangers unrelated to them and didn’t want to tell others about themselves either.

Then how much Juho must have disliked answering inwardly.

Dain recalled that he had not only been the first to suggest calling him hyung, but had also forced him to tell personal information including not just family relations but blood type, zodiac sign… etc., just what he could remember off the top of his head was more than one or two things.

At this rate, he might really get blocked.

Maybe Juho was just accepting it because he lived in America and didn’t know Korean atmosphere well yet. If he made other Korean friends, he might realize how much of a loser Dain was and cut off contact immediately.

No way! Dain’s fingers moved urgently over the message window.