All my days looked about the same. I sat behind the front desk of the bookstore attached to one of my parents’ old coffee shops; I went through the book catalogue and I patiently waited for a costumer that was interested in more than just looking around.

The first time I saw her, she was having coffee in the other side of the building. It was cold and pouring heavily outside - just a typical wintery day. She was wearing a long brown overcoat over a simple white sweater, and blue skinny jeans with a pair of equally white New Balance shoes. I remember The Book of Disquiet in her hands; the coffee cup sitting on the table, an intense expression splattered all over her face as she bit her lip intermittently between lines.

The second time, she was having coffee with a friend. The clouds were dark and the day was gloomy, but she was smiling a lot. It was the first I saw of her laughter: puffy cheeks raised into a mesmerizing eye smile; a dorky sound she tried to contain with her hand. They left just as quickly as they had come in holding hands with flustered faces.

I saw her again after a few months. She walked in with a defeated expression on her face; the smile that I had seen adorning it the last time seemed to have been gone for weeks at that point. She grabbed a cup of coffee and headed for the bookstore.
She paced around, observing each title and author as carefully as possible – sometimes sipping coffee; sometimes putting it away to peruse a heavier book. The scent of her perfume – a sweet flowery smell - merging with the one of old and new books.

She slowly approached the counter and placed a couple of books on top.

“Hi! I was wondering if you had any other authors like those? I’ve read them all, but I can’t seem to find anything else like it. Maybe you could recommend me something?”

“Well, you seem to have a taste for modernist poets.” D. H. Lawrence and Fernando Pessoa were staring at me and I sighed at the memories they were bringing me from my University days as a Literature student. “I think I might have a few suggestions.”

I walked her through the never ending shelves pulling out Mário de Sá Carneiro, E. E. s and T. S. Eliot. She flipped a couple of pages, gave me a satisfied smile and took them all home.
She returned a couple of weeks later with a small smile adorning her face: she had fallen in love with the authors and thanked me for the recommendations. She came back almost every day after that and we’d chat about books and miscellaneous things for hours on end.

She said her name was Kim Yongsun, but her friends had nicknamed her Solar. She liked singing and had finished her a music major a couple of years ago - she was now a singing instructor at a music school.

“Ah! I’m so sorry… I’ve been coming here a lot and I just take up your time rambling about myself. I’m really sorry.”

“Not at all! I appreciate the company. It’s not like there’s much to do here anyways.” I smiled reassuringly and she blushed slightly.

I’m not quite sure of when did it start – me - tossing around in bed with scrambled thoughts of her and a weird sensation in my belly; always longing to see her. Neither do I know when or how did I fall in love with her. It hit me over a pseudo-intellectual movie she had come over to watch - when the wine in our cups was starting to take the lead in our conversation, and the movie was playing long forgotten in the background as we hung around in the balcony in spite of how cold it was outside. She paused for a moment; breathing in the night as if trying to fill her lungs with the moonlight – her eyes shut and her face serene. And I couldn’t take my gaze off of Solar, because she was so beautiful and I don’t think I had it in me to even try to stir from her image. I wanted to burn it in my head; to carve it in my skin as much as it was carved in my heart already – that feeling of infinity as she stood next to me, but in galaxies so far away the simplicity of my balcony could never reach.

She looked over at me and I could feel my soul lighting up - as if the brightness of her being was casting a light over the shadows that constantly hung over my head. She sat beside me and let her head rest on my shoulder; her fingers intertwined in mine and my heart calmly beating.

I told her I loved her that night. The silence that fell between us after that wasn’t awkward or a rejection, it was somehow as comforting as the snow that had started to fall quietly from above. I think the courage to do it was partly due to the alcohol slightly boiling in my cheeks and partly the overflowing emotions I had in my chest threatening to suffocate me. And I like to think that what she did next was for the same reasons.

She took her head away from my shoulder, her fingers parting from mine. She wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me closer until our foreheads were against one another – with her eyes pierced into mine, she said in the sweetest and lowest of tones: “I think I love you too”.

I don’t think I can describe what I felt at that moment. I don’t think words would be enough. But I can tell for sure that the way I felt in that moment is the exact same way I still do now whenever she walks through the door of the apartment we’ve been sharing for a little over 10 years – her hair messy from the wind, her make-up a little smudged from the rain and her smile as bright as the sun.