"So, Mark, do you really not recognize me or are you just ignoring your childhood best friend?"
When her best friend moved to Korea to become an idol, their contact died down and they soon started living lives completely separate from one another...
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"I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me."
Gyuri frowned at the voice on the other line as she pressed the phone to her ear and looked down, taking some stray hairs off the chair she sat in.
"I'm sorry, mom. So much has happened."
"I was kidding, love," her mother chuckled softly and Gyuri broke a small smile. She knew her mom couldn't actually be mad, she never was, but it still made her feel bad. She always tried to call at least once a week, but forgot about it occasionally and beat herself up over it. She felt so stupid blaming it on being busy when calling her mom took 20 minutes at most and only made both of them feel better.
It was their most intimate way of contact as they were so far away, and so Gyuri didn't want to miss out on any opportunity to hear her mom's voice. It was also the best way to keep up with what was happening back home since her mom knew all the gossip. It had always been that way; if anything happened, her mother would be one the first to know about it.
Gyuri was glad that speaking to her mom on the phone always felt so normal, like nothing much had changed. They talked about the same things they would've talked about in person. Gyuri usually couldn't remember all the topics they touched upon during a call because they were so random.
Gyuri's relationship had certainly shifted after she moved to Korea, which was reasonable. It only changed in a good way, though. Where, before, they would spend time with each other like it was nothing, they now treasured every moment they heard each other's voices as it wasn't as normal as it used to be. Hence Gyuri felt bad whenever a week went by in which she didn't call her mom.
She was always the one to call first; her mom understood that, even though Gyuri was her daughter, she had a lot on her plate and had a tighter schedule than she did herself. So, she always let Gyuri call first to ensure that she did it in her own time and actually had the time to speak to her.
Her mother was the person in her family Gyuri spoke to most. She occasionally talked to her dad briefly on one of her calls with her mother where he'd walk into the room and would be given the phone. She liked hearing his voice as it reminded her of when she was young, and he would read her and her brother bedtime stories. They slept in rooms next to each other, so he would stand in the hallway and read to them both at the same time until they fell asleep.
She wasn't sure how to classify her relationship with her dad; it was just... there. She couldn't call it bad but couldn't call it great either. Maybe that's just how it was with dads.
She mostly talked to her brother over text. As the true gen z they were, they preferred texting over calling. They often talked about random stuff and their daily life as they differed so much. They had always had a pretty chill relationship, aside from the usual sibling bickering that happened.
