They had chanced upon this small restaurant as unknown teenagers wandering around Seoul. They had been trainees then, and had taken to exploring the city together on their rare evenings off. They couldn’t get into “trouble” with girls – they hadn’t made it this far just to throw it all away. Hence, they would aimlessly roam about the lesser known streets.


Eric had always enjoyed ‘wasting time’ with Andy. They had first entered the crêperie out of pure curiosity. The foreign feel about it was somehow nostalgic and instead of walking away like most local people, they had entered it. It had been dark in the alley and they had mistakenly assumed it was a bakery, rather than a crêperie. The take-away window stood unattended – it had always been that way whenever Eric and Andy had come to this place.


The duo realised their mistake when they picked up the menu, which devoted two pages to explaining the “charms” of crêpes – in French andEnglish. There was no sign of anything Korean in the shop. It felt as if they had stepped into a different world in a matter of seconds.


“I don’t particularly like crêpes,” Andy had leaned forward and whispered to him after they had already given the orders. At any other place, it would have earned him a punch or kick in reply. But here, Eric could merely murmur that he should try it out anyway.


Even now as he sat in the same seat, more than ten years later, Eric remembered well why Andy had felt the need to speak as quietly as possible. They had been the only patrons in the restaurant. It was a small place and the manager standing near the counter looked as grim as any of their trainers. He was the only employee they had seen as, apparently, the crêperie did not employ any waiters.


Eric felt a strange sense of timelessness wash over him when the manager came up to take his order and again, when he served the crêpes. For a moment, Eric was absolutely sure that Andy was sitting across the table, eagerly awaiting the crêpes he had initially claimed to dislike.


“My mother cooked them really bad,” he had revealed later. “I had no idea they could taste this good.”


The crêperie was their special place – one that they hadn’t shared even with the other Shinhwa members. It wasn’t something intentional on their part. For some reason, the topic had never come up. After all, Eric and Andy had visited it only a few times since their debut – which itself had been really long ago.


The last time they had come here, it had been as deserted as ever. Eric was to leave for his army duty in a few weeks and that day had somehow been right to visit this place. The thought had occurred to both of them simultaneously.


Andy had been moody all throughout that evening. He had even asked the manager to change his half-eater order of fruit and cream crêpe, declaring that he did not like it. When the latter had declined to charge them for it, Andy had felt horrible and apologised profusely.


After all this time, it was an amusing memory. The manager had been terribly embarrassed by Andy’s sorrowful apologies. Eric had learnt then that the manager wasn’t stern but only a painfully shy old man. Andy had been close to tears and had broken down