“Is your name really Juliet Capulet?” he asked, handing her a Black-eyed Susan as she stepped out of the doorway.
    “Different spelling.” Juliette said, following him down the tight staircase to the street out back of the shop, not sure what to do with the flower. “But yes, my mother really was so classless that she’d name her daughter Juliette when she had the last name Kepulette.”
    “I think it’s funny.” he shrugged.
    “You speak near-perfect English.” Juliette realized suddenly.
    “Oh, yes. I practice very hard.” He nodded.
    Juliette didn’t question him any further as to why he never disclosed that information on the train and gave her such a hard time communicating. She put the flower in her jean pocket. Jinki strolled down the street a ways and Juliette tried to guess which car was his. The Honda Civic? Not the Prius. She was losing herself in guesses when he handed her the helmet.
    “What is this for?” she asked.
    “I’m not letting you ride without a helmet.” Jinki said with a small smile, and to her horror Juliette realized he was referring to the motorcycle in front of them.
    “I can’t. I mean- Motorcycles make me really uh….I can’t do that.” she stammered.
    Jinki was unfazed once again. “I may not be attractive, or clever or kind, but I make a pretty decent bad boy. You have to work with me here, though.” He put his hand out again, this time to help her on.
    Juliette squeaked in terror, but obliged, muttering “That sounds like a song lyric.” and not adding that she thought he was attractive as well as a decent bad boy. The clever and kind would have to come to light in good time. Jinki climbed on in front of her, and turned the engine on. She clung to his jacket with her tiny fists like a toddler and held her breath as they started off.
    Jinki could feel her face pressing into the back of his jacket so hard she could have cleared her sinuses on his shoulder blades. It gave him incentive to be a careful driver, with the hopes of getting her to relieve some of the pressure from his back. Eventually, he felt her look out upon the reflection of the city on the water of the bay for a few seconds until they turned and her head went back to its original position, shaking like trees in a windstorm. The silver buildings shimmered and rippled in the water, glowing and illuminating their ride around the city. He had researched a bit earlier that day in the way of places to eat, and pulled over at his choice - a small Chinese Restaurant called Penang. After further thought Jinki realized this may not have been the best choice, since she lived in Chinatown, but he hadn’t known that until recently.
    He helped her off the motorcycle, and gave her a moment to steady herself on the pavement. All the color had drained from her face, and she looked like her legs might give out, but her condition seemed to fade the longer she was on her feet, coping by using what sounded like Lamaze breathing exercises. Jinki held back a snicker, but it showed in his puckered face. Juliette saw him and, still shaking, burst into awkward giggles. Jinki lifted his arm and gently draped it across her shoulders. She didn't pull away. Leading her inside via his arm around her shoulders, the woman at the counter looked up dully and recited her "Welcome." until she noticed Juliette attached to Jinki. Her eyes lit up and gave Juliette a look, her eyes wide and wrinkly, nodding serenely. The color had returned to Juliette's face and then some.
    "Do you know her?" Jinki asked, pulling out a chair for Juliette.
    "I, um...I don't want you to feel bad." Juliette said, then remembered she was sticking with the honesty policy. "I eat here a lot with my sister. Since I was very young, we used to go with our father after Kate's performances down the street. We go once a week now that we both live in Boston."
    "Oh gee, are you sick of it? Do you want to go somewhere else?"
    "No, no, it's fine!" Juliette waved her hand as if to shoo something.
    The portly Chinese woman had now approached the couple to take orders for drinks, and Jinki noticed as she discreetly squeezed Juliette on the shoulder. After she had left with their food decisions, egg rolls and pork ramen for Juliette and General Tso's chicken for Jinki, he needed something to talk about in the freezing cold water he was treading in after breaking the ice. To his surprise, she spoke before him.
    "You're from Korea." she said, more a statement than a question.
    "Yes, I'm from Gwangmyeong, Gyeongii-do. Before I came here, however, I was around Seoul." He explained, fiddling with his chopsticks, and breaking them unevenly.
    "Oh. How long have you been here?" Juliette asked, making sure to break her chopsticks fastidiously, and rolling the sleeves of her sweater up.
    "Ready?" Jinki was turned around so she couldn't see his face, leaving her question unanswered. He whirled around to face her, wiggling jazz-hands, his chopsticks wedged under his top lip, stuck down over his canines like long wooden vampire fangs.
    "My name in Korean means 'walrus-face'." He grinned, and the sticks fell off into his lap. "Not really." he corrected quickly, picking them up and laying them on his napkin once he saw her clenched jaw.
    Juliette wasn't sure how to act around him. He was carefree, silly and animated. Everything Juliette was not. She could feel her anxiety suffocating her with every word he said. Every time the arch of his slanted eyes moved or his bumped nose crinkled. She couldn't even bring herself to look at his lips. She thought about how he must have remembered her words and gone to some trouble to find her via her sister's studio, just to ask her out. It made her dizzy. She didn't know this boy, even functioning on a social level was too much for her, let alone getting on his motorcycle. She wished Ngo would stop giving her looks as she delivered their food. The old lady's awe over Jinki only made her more embarrassed and petrified to be in communication with him. Half of her wanted to stare at him forever, but the other wanted to run and hide so she couldn't be judged.
    "Are you okay, Juliette?" He asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.
    "Yes! Uh, what was I saying....you can't be much older than me. I'm not sure how the school system works where you were. Are you still in school? Or if not, what do you do?" She blurted, trying to looked interested in something other than her own frantic thoughts. In truth, she really was curious.
    "Well, I haven't been in school since something like 2006, when I was seventeen or so. I play music with my friends nowadays. You're a full-time student, right? That's very impressive."
    So he's 21, Juliette thought, concentrating on not slurping her soup. "Thank you." she said quietly.
    There was period of silence between the two as they ate, and Jinki took it to compose himself and try to formulate a plan. She was shutting down right before his eyes, so obviously he was doing something wrong. She was colder than December, uninterested and so quiet.
    "I like it very much here. Things at home are good too, but they were very bad for a while. And I don't even know what to think about North Korea." he said.
    Something clicked within Juliette, and Jinki noticed her sudden spark of interest towards intelligent conversation.
    "I can't even imagine." she mumbled.
    "The things that bother me the most are the restrictions based upon Kim-Jong-Il's personality cult. All this art and culture and music they have, it all reveres a leader they don't love. Music is everything, but they don't let people produce it on their own. That's not communism or democracy. That's Tyranny." he said, hoping it was correct.
    It was. Juliette started right up on the idea of personality cults, and the various unfortunates of Fascism. The discussion went on for most of dinner, and then turned to the food, English versus Korean, and then to more casual subjects like favorite animals, and hobbies. Things smoothed out between them, and the evening drew out well.
    “When I play music, sometimes we use a few lines of English in our songs. And so when I was first learning English, for the longest time all I could say was song lines. People would say ‘Hello, how are you?’ and I would have to reply ‘Love is all you need’, or ‘I can feel it coming in the air tonight!’ It was awful.” Jinki told the story as he helped Juliette off the bike in front of the seamstress’ shop.
    Juliette laughed briskly, and started up the steps. She didn’t seem as nervous this time around, and she didn’t shake when she removed the helmet and smoothed down the frizz that had developed on the top of her head. He followed her up, until she stood with her back leaning against the door, face to face with him. He figured coming in was too much to ask. She had opened up and been animated for a while, but that didn’t change who she was; she had returned to her stolid gaze, looking up at him expectantly for last words before she could go inside and sleep.
    “Do you think I could see you again?” He asked slowly, choosing his words carefully.
    “Sure.”
    “Same time next week?”
    “Sounds fine. Goodnight!” Juliette opened the door, slipped inside and closed it in his face faster than he could’ve said ‘rude‘.

    He felt like he was taking part in a business transaction rather than participating in a romance. He touched his nose to make sure the door hadn’t taken it off when she slammed it. It was still there. He trod down the stairs and found the Black-Eyed Susan on the third step, where it had fallen from her shallow pocket. The stem had gone weak and soft from all the abuse in her jeans and on the asphalt, and he used it to tie the flower around the first rung of her fire escape, adjacent to the lower door to the seamstress’ shop. He put the spare helmet away, and put his own on. As he was mounting his bike, he saw her come out to the top of the fire escape.
    “Thank you, Jinki-ah.” She called, and her figure was seen in a light from a sunset eerily similar to the sunrise where they had met, and yet also vastly different.