The first thing that Jongdae did when he saw her the next morning was laugh.

“Did you trek through the forest in your sleep or something?” he asked, reaching towards her hair and plucking out a stray leaf tangled in it.

Embarrassed, she ran her fingers through her hair, parting the strands from the crown to the ends. “I think it came from potted plant above the door when I was on my way out. Believe me, I’ve only been there two days and one of things that I learnt was that the plant sheds leaves like how a cat sheds its fur.”

He chuckled as he shifted his camera onto his right hand, adjusting the strap around his neck that kept it from accidental slips. “Really? Where are you staying anyway?”

“Taeyeon’s Bed and Breakfast,” she replied automatically, shoving a stray piece of paper that had fluttered out the open flap back into the bag.

“Ah, good choice. Taeyeon looks small and docile, but she manages the place with unusual efficiency; you can’t find anything going wrong there. Not even trivial matters, like the accidental misplacement of room keys.”

“You seem to know her very well,” she observed. The wind whistled past her, skimming over the still water of the lake.

Jongdae shrugged. “Friend of my sister. She lets me in her garden sometimes to snap a few shots.” He rubbed his hand together. The camera bumped against his chest, sharp edges pressing against his sternum. “Have you had breakfast?”

“Yeah, I just had the most delightful waffles –”

“Perfect!” he grinned. “We can go for ice lollies then.”

They left the park in good spirits to (at least, according to Jongdae) search for ice lollies. Junhee wasn’t sure if there were any in such an early weekday morning, during which most of the customers would more likely be in school than hunting down frozen treats, but Jongdae’s secret smile assuaged her doubts. He had this aura of confidence, characteristic of a photographer out to show his work to the world.

He led her through the gates –the main ones, the ones she never bothered coming through because the back entrance was nearer to the path she took and far more inviting in its lack of flashy lights –and past the intersection, his long, carefree strides proving to be a challenge to keep up with. He seemed refreshingly chipper, which, Junhee had to admit, wasn’t something she was entirely used to with guys; her best friend, Chanyeol, was only ever awake if he had sufficient servings of coffee at every two hour interval from eight to noon.

He led her through several streets, most of them being alleyways really, as Jongdae appeared to have an encyclopaedic knowledge when it came to the town’s street plan. They passed a cafe, the scent of roasted coffee beans mingling with the scent of flowers from the adjacent shop. Then, they breezed past a newsstand, where paper rustled between fingertips and the models in the glossy covers of magazines smiled up at them with artificial happiness. She saw an old woman flash a smile at Jongdae and judging by the warmth of the smile he offered her in return, she surmised that this must be one of his more frequent haunts. He talked while they walked, telling her about the town and its people, the lives they lead and their occupations. It felt strange to her how he could know so many people on such intimate basis. Back in the city, life was all about jostling aside strangers, ducking into cabs and diving for seats in busses and trains. A life of rushing from place to place to complete one’s day.

“Are the ice lollies any closer?” she asked, interrupting his short introductory speech on the hardware store across the street. “I know I’m not the one who’s been talking, but a walk this far is seriously making me thirsty.”

Jongdae laughed. “You’re a city girl, alright. Not used to walking, huh?”

“I do walk,” she protested indignantly. “It’s just that... well... we have taxis to make things more convenient. And also busses and subways. But they’re all optional.”

He snorted. “Right.”

“I do walk,” she insisted.

“I believe you!” he said, holding up his hands defensively, but there was a twinkle in his eyes that made her forget for a while what the debate was about.

Somehow, in the midst of their playful banter, they had ended up stopping right in the middle of the street, in front of a cardboard cutout of Kim Hyunjoong promoting the latest releases of Etude. Another odd thing about this town was that despite being completely isolated by trees and miles and miles of grass, it was surprisingly up to date in terms of fashion. To attract tourists, she thought, and left it to that.

“So?” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and glancing left and right.

“Hmm?” His voice seemed to lift a little at the end, making it seem like a sung note instead of an absent enquiry.

“What are we supposed to do next?”

He gestured at the cutout of Hyunjoong. “Well, you could get acquainted to one of Korea’s biggest stars. I think he’ll gladly do a picture with you.”

She gave him a withering look. He grinned, and her heart melted a little.

“We’re waiting.” His fingers drummed against the leather surface of his camera bag, quick, staccato beats that formed a rhythm to which the footsteps of passing strangers matched up to.

“For?” Honestly, he had a way with getting on people’s nerves.

Something roared from across the street –an engine, she realised, when she turned and saw a truck backing up into the road. Beams of light somehow punctured its way through as the truck vacated its spot, and Junhee realised that she was staring at a space between two buildings: an alley, though in its dimness it was more like a tunnel. 

“The yellow brick road to appear,” he said. There was a glint in his eyes as he wrapped his hand around her wrist and tugged her across the road.

Her heart jolted with the sudden step, and slowly, she could feel Jongdae’s touch sear its way into her skin. His fingers were clamped on with just the right amount of pressure that wavered between an act of guidance and something more... something she couldn’t understand –or wouldn’t actually, since she was sure it was just her head playing tricks.

He led her through the tunnel, plunging into the shadows with the familiarity of dog diving into its kennel. She didn’t know why she closed her eyes, maybe it was because that Jongdae had sprinted across the street with barely a glance at the cars or maybe it was because her subconscious registered it as the most appropriate thing to do. What she was sure of though, was that she didn’t regret it when she finally opened her eyes.

Greeting her was the little square she had seen in Jongdae’s collection of shots. The rocky overlay looked even more misshapen than they did in the picture, but it seemed to add to the charm of the place. Some of the stones had been holed up and filled with earth, from which manicured trees rose upwards, perfectly uniform in size and shape. There were flowers too, little blooms cultivated in small boxes underneath windows, or in vases suspended by overhead hooks. The little stores that ringed its edges looked old and worn, but contributed so much to its loveliness that removing one would lead to the disfigurement of the general picture. There were also vendor carts, placed in appropriately spaced intervals so that you could easily gravitate from one cart to another without having any reservations about your dealings with each respective trader being overheard by the others.

Her eyes lit up in glee. “This looks like something that came out of a fairytale,” she breathed excitedly.

“Yeah,” he said, threading his fingers together behind his head. “It does. Sometimes, I half expect Cinderella to come dancing out of the shops.”

“It looks exactly like the picture you showed me.”

“Well, technically, a picture is a frozen image of corporeal objects so that shouldn’t be much of a surprise, now would it?”

She turned and gave him a look. “That was a compliment. I meant that you’re good at what you do.” She reached out to touch the rough bark of a tree, her eyes wistful. “Your pictures contain the life which I would love to incorporate into my sketches.”

When she turned, she realised that he was staring at her with uncharacteristic gentility. “Well, it’s always easier to capture the life of something when you’ve seen it come alive. Now, come on. I promised you an ice lolly.”

 Jongdae led her towards the nearest cart that had pictures of multi-flavoured lollies. The colours looked obnoxiously vivid, and the names of the flavours plastered next to the corresponding pictures left her brows furrowing in amusement, but their actual taste wasn’t all that bad really. She supposed it was redemption of sorts to minimise the creator’s guilt for his highly uncreative naming ability. The man behind the cart looked up and greeted them with a smile and a slight bow. He had a slight accent which she couldn’t quite place. A bit Southern, perhaps, but still in keeping with Seoul’s crisp manner of speaking.

“Wait,” Jongdae said, holding up a hand before she could tell him the flavour of her choice. “Let me guess.”

She closed and cocked her head in amusement, intrigued by the dancing light in his eyes. She crossed her arms and watched as he raised a finger and tapped his chin, his gaze trained on the morning sky as if it could grant him a clue to the answer.

“Orange,” he said with a snap of his fingers. “For your sweet and sour tongue.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?”

“No, it means that you’re one of the few people that understand and appreciate my rather genius humour,” he said with roguish grin.

She rolled her eyes. “Try again. And by the way, besides your talent for photography, I highly doubt you’re a genius, especially since you seem to value a good prank more than self-preservation,” she said, referring to the incident on the jetty.

He laughed, but cocked his head back and hazarded another guess. “Cherry?”

“And why is that?”

“Your propensity towards cherry scented items,” he said, rather cleverly, she had to admit. “I caught a whiff of the hand-sanitizer you used the other day.”

“Close,” she said, pinching two fingers together, “in terms of colour. My favourite flavour is strawberry.”

“Sweet and fragrant,” he said with a touch of amusement, before turning around and citing her choice towards the vendor, as well as his, which turned out to be lime.

“For your acid tongue?” she joked, to which he laughed wholeheartedly.

“I can be sweet too,” he said, and then proved it by paying for both.

They settled back against one of the trees, watching the comings and goings of passers-by as well as their dealings with the vendors. The sun was just peeking from behind the clouds, but the blue skies implicated a rather warm day ahead, so they tried to finish their ice lollies as fast as they could before it melted onto their fingers. While they ate, Jongdae began explaining the town square’s history.

“It was built sometime in 1935, a few years after the town was founded. Up until the late 1960s, it was a market. My grandmother told me how it flourished when she was still a young girl. Then, the town began expanding, and the developers built another market at the east end of the town, as well as another town square complete with a fountain that spouted out water in a flurry of multicoloured lights. Hence, this little square was forgotten.” He crunched thoughtfully on the last of his lolly, eyes glazed, looking wistful. “But everyone who lives here still knows what it is, and people visit sometimes, just so we can reminisce and see the pretty things the shops sell.”

“How sad,” Junhee commented softly. This place was much too charming to be abandoned in favour of something so flashy.

“On the contrary, I like how it turned out,” Jongdae said, his tone cheery. “Otherwise, this place would be completely congested with tourists, and I would have never gotten such beautiful shots.”

After they ate, Jongdae let her take her time to explore. In her excitement, Junhee had perused every store, every tree and every crack and crevice, trying to find the essence that she could incorporate into her sketches when she drew them. The square exuded a timeless feel, as if everything that had happened in the past few decades had been preserved within the walls, worn into the flat stones and witnessed by the trees. She couldn’t wait to capture it on paper.

Perhaps a painting would do, she thought, absently the hanging leaves from one of the potted plants in front of the door of a haberdashery.

Jongdae had drifted away, snapping his camera here and there, taking shots of almost everything. She knew that Jongdae probably knew this place like the back of his hand, judging by the way he seemed to prowl towards the hidden corners, snapping the square at angles that looked awkward in its position, but must have been perfect in terms of the end result. Once, when she was busy examining the misshapen stones underneath her feet, she realised he had been taking shots of her as well, something which he only responded with a secret smile when she confronted him about it.

“Have you contented yourself with your findings?” he asked about half an hour later, when she had finally sated her curiosity and was leaning against the wall of two adjacent stores. “Pretty earrings by the way.”

Lightly, she touched her ears. Out of curiosity, she had wandered into one of the shops, and had ended up emerging with a pair of simple round earrings embedded with beautiful sapphire-coloured stones. “Yup,” she said in reply to his question.

He detached himself from the wall. “Time to get going then.”