Buy Lost Cities if it is just the two of you: it is a two-player-only design at 30 minutes and the far better game at that count. Buy Love Letter if absolute pocket size is the constraint; it is 2-6 players in the second edition at 20 minutes.
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Both fit in a bag without thinking about it, so this is not really a size comparison. It is a question of whether you want the smallest thing that works or the best thing that still packs small.
Round length and what an evening looks like
A round of Love Letter is a few minutes. You will play five or six in a sitting, keeping score across them, and any individual round can end on a single unlucky card.
Lost Cities is three substantial rounds making a 30-minute match with real arc to it. Decisions accumulate: committing to an expedition in round one shapes what you are willing to risk in round three.
That difference is the whole thing. Love Letter is what you play while waiting for something; Lost Cities is the game itself. Both are legitimate purposes, and knowing which one you are shopping for prevents the most common disappointment with each.
03Actual portability
Love Letter is smaller -- a short deck and a handful of tokens, genuinely pocketable. Lost Cities is a standard card game box, small but not pocket-sized, and the expedition columns need a bit more shared area than Love Letter's single discard row.
Both are fine for a bag. Only Love Letter is fine for a jacket.
