I still remember the day I first met him. It was Friday. A beautiful sunny day of winter. I was freezing and lost in Seoul and barely knew any Korean to ask for directions. All I could do was drink coffee and walk around hoping to find any kind of familiar street. Finally I got tired and sat on a bench. It . And it was cold and getting late. I decided to try and look for a subway station and examine the map to find a way to my rented apartment.

And there I stood trying to figure out where I had to come back to. Key word – trying.

“Excuse me, can I help you with something?” he was wearing a denim jacket, grey t-shirt, black jeans and a black beanie. His shoes were sparkly and he had sunglasses on. To this day I can’t forget that outfit.

“Oh, well, I’m not so sure myself of what I’m looking for. I’m terribly lost,” I smiled lowering my head and feeling like a .

“It’s OK. Do you have an address written somewhere? Or do you remember at least a part of it?” he was one of the first Korean people I talked to and I was terrified he wouldn’t understand English well but he was pretty much fluent.

I remembered I had written the address down in Korean in case I needed it. Genius! All this time I had it…

I showed him the address.

“Oh, it’s not so far away. Actually, there is no need to take a subway. I can walk you there.”

“Really? Thank you!” my happiness was indescribable.

He was really nice to me that day. The name Jiyong didn’t say anything to me back then. I was just happy to meet someone who wanted to help.

And that was pretty much our first meeting. He just walked me back to my street and we said our goodbyes. I was and still am a romantic so I liked idealizing that day. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t ‘in love’ or something like that. It just was romantic – a guy randomly offering to help a clumsy girl and walking her back home. When I think back, he didn’t tell me much about himself. He mostly asked where I was from, what I was doing in Korea and so on. Now I understand why but the day after that I didn’t.

 

Then I met him for the second time. It happened three months later and it was spring time already. I knew Seoul a bit better by then. My time in Korea was nearing the end as I had come there for five months. I don’t remember exactly how Jiyong was dressed then just one thing for sure – he was wearing a plain grey T-shirt that I wear around the house a lot these days. Of course, I couldn’t have recognized him.

I was standing behind him in a queue in a coffee shop. My phone battery was dead and I was kind of in a hurry with no idea what time it was.

“Excuse me, could you tell me what time it is?” I asked him after looking around for a clock and not noticing any.

“It’s 9.30.”

“Thank you,” I bowed slightly – a habit that a had already developed back then. 9.30 meant I had a bit time to spare and charge my phone.

After buying coffee I sat down. Noticing I sat alone with not much to do he carefully asked if he could join me. Honestly, the talk with Jiyong lifted my spirits. I was kind of stressed about moving business and having a lot of assignments due to next week.

I remember beating myself up for falling for a stranger. I always had a thing for smiles and to this day Jiyong’s smile is my favorite one. I didn’t get to see his eyes though (again) because of sunglasses but I walked around thinking about him all day.

But that was all – just a nice chat about life, coffee and Korea.

The important meeting after which we finally did become friends was only two days after our last meeting. I was walking down the street in Gangnam (can’t say which one, don’t remember) and reading an email from a friend. Well, if you walk around with your nose in your phone, you’ll always hit someone at least once. And I did. I bumped into him. My luck, my phone fell and the screen cracked. He apologized so many times even though I didn’t get why since I was the blind one. Of course I didn’t recognize him. Jiyong was in a hurry and so he apologized again and had to walk away.

But the important part wasn’t that. A few hours later I was sitting in a café drowned in my own thoughts. The waiter brought me a cup of green tea saying, and I quote ‘a gentleman is sending you this’. Next to a cup was a note ‘sorry…’. I looked around and saw the same smile I fell in love with a few days ago.

Somehow during that meeting we managed to figure out how many times we had met already. Jiyong stated that if we bumped into each other so many times, it has to be for a reason. We exchanged phone numbers.

I got back to my country and we started texting. From the very beginning I knew that I was into him more than just a friend. And it because we were thousands of kilometers away from each other. We became close friends. In one year I mentally included him in my best friend list. After a while I found out he did the same thing.

It was scary acknowledging my feelings towards Jiyong. I tried talking myself out of it and my friends did too. When he asked to meet I couldn’t say no. A bit more than a year passed and I was flying back to Korea. I was really scared because I didn’t want to decide on staying there. I knew I could because I had just graduated from university.

And I did. I met Jiyong and we talked through a lot of things. I had always wanted to begin my career somewhere far from my home country. Jiyong asked me out on the day I told him I was staying. We started dating even though it was extremely complicated to date an idol.

 

And here I am looking at our newly painted walls in a huge house I never thought I could live in. It’s so weird that five years passed by so quickly. Me and Jiyong are married for six months now. We like to talk about our first meetings and laugh at how childishly in love we were at the first stages of our relationship.

“So you like it?” Jiyong stands next to me and runs his hand through his newly dyed blond hair.

“It’s not bad,” I lie wrinkling my nose. Jiyong chuckles.

“Just admit I was right. This color is nice.”

I stick out my tongue and he side hugs me laughing.

“Tomorrow we can move in. There’s a lot of packing to do. We should head home.”

“Yeah.”

We exit the house holding hands. Jiyong notices my gaze locked on him.

“What?” he smiles.

“That’s what I wanted to see.”

 Jiyong pecks my lips.  “You haven’t changed at all.”