[This is actually a part of a round robin exercise, but since the character's not really used in the rest of the series and I kinda created him, it works well enough as a self-contained story.]

By this point, we already had each other’s time zones and calendars memorized. It’s roughly 14:45 in Yel’s time, giving us an hour or so of “alone time” before her afternoon classes. Her webcam was usually the high point of my day and I’d joked about having a flexible girlfriend more than a few times.

The rest of the time was spent messaging. Admittedly, it was high volume and low content, and I’d rather not imagine what the phone and internet costs would be without the cultural diversification deductions. Still, distance never stops being a factor.