“Woohyun-san, one order of set A please!”

“Hai~~ !”

Woohyun was thankful for the anonymity of the kitchen uniform. The mask, the hat – these were all familiar to him, except that now he was no longer wearing such items in the context of his life as an idol. Such accoutrements used to serve as his defence against many things, protecting himself from the cold air, yes, but often as a means of hiding an unshaven face free of make-up, or simply just hiding.

There was a slight disjunct then, in being equally covered up by the kitchen uniform, but no longer feeling overwhelmed by attention. No phones in his face, trailing him wherever he went, no glares of flash bulbs. No fear of a nosy reporter or a sasaeng.

No questions. No judgement.

The idea to leave Seoul for a while had come to him out of the blue one afternoon. He had been walking towards Boohyun’s place, feeling helpless and low, when he heard the roar of a plane flying overhead. He looked up, and saw the aircraft curving across the vast expanse of the sky, and eventually disappearing into the clouds.

That’s when he realised that he needed to get away. After all, what was the point of staying in Seoul if it meant aimless days, waiting on other people’s decisions, wondering what the press would say today, worrying about what the fans were thinking today, and generally living in limbo. He just wanted to be as far removed as possible from what his day-to-day life had become.

Which was why he ended up pulling a favour from a Japanese friend of his, who managed to get him a discreet gig helping out at this restaurant.

It was a nice change of scene. The eatery was along the commuter train line from Tokyo up into the mountains, but at one of the smaller towns which was mainly filled with long-term residents rather than tourists. It was owned by his friend’s elderly uncle, who ran the place more as a hobby and a way of keeping his mind and life active, rather than as a necessary source of income. It was the kind of relaxed joint serving predictable but good food, with regulars coming back again and again.

It had been about 2 weeks since he came to Japan. Working at the restaurant helped to keep him and his mind occupied. He was enjoying the process of learning to cook new dishes, but if he were to be honest with himself, the meditative mundanity of taking orders, counting change, doling out miso soup, pouring green tea, serving dishes and washing up, were in themselves comforting. The background buzz of other people’s conversations, the tinny enka music from the owner’s stereo, the clacking of tracks and the rumble of trains as they went past in the distance… All these helped shut out the voices in his head.

When he told Sunggyu of his decision, Sunggyu had looked at him squarely, arms akimbo, trying to read his face to decide whether he was serious about this harebrained plan (“You are going to do what? Go to where to wash dishes??”). But after a minute, his shoulders dropped and he sighed, saying that he understood and would talk to Jungyeop-hyungnim, and that he would phone Woohyun when everything had been settled, or had otherwise settled down.

Sunggyu knew it had been hard. It had been hard on all of them, but Woohyun faced his own unfortunate set of problems aside from the contract issues, and it would have been no bad thing to simply leave the country for a while.

The sliding door at the entrance opened, and everyone shouted out a cheery “Irrashaimase!” A young lady walked in, a little tentatively. Woohyun was still familiarising himself with the regulars, but could tell from everyone’s reaction that she was not one of them. The owner’s wife went over to greet her and after ascertaining that she was here on her own, ushered her over to small table by a window, overlooking the garden by the side of the restaurant.

Woohyun didn’t really pay much attention to the new guest, and went about his tasks as usual. After she had gotten up and left, Woohyun went over to clear the table, and was surprised to find a carefully folded paper star sitting on the place mat. Looking at the little star more closely, he recognised part of the restaurant’s name on it, and realised that she had made it out of the paper sleeve that the chopsticks came in.

This wasn’t the first time that a customer had left a folded chopstick sleeve behind after a meal. He had initially been surprised to see such wrappers, often just folded a few times like an accordion (and probably absentmindedly while chatting over a meal), some times with a more defined shape, such as knot. Woohyun had assumed that these were simply the product of restless hands, though he had also heard that some people had used these as a little gesture of thanks. Either way, he found the occurrence quirky and charming.

This however, was the first time he had seen something so deliberate, and artistic. The neat little star was almost poetically placed towards the bottom corner of the mat, like a rock in a zen garden.

Woohyun cleared the table of its cutlery and crockery, wiped it down, and replaced the place mat. The paper star found its way into his pocket, and later onto the top of the chest of drawers at his little rented flat.

The lady subsequently started coming once or twice a week, and she mostly sat at the same table by the window, unless it was already taken. She often ordered whatever was the set meal for the day, and while she would occasionally look at her phone and perhaps answer a message, she seemed absorbed in her own world, and her meal. And always, without fail, she left a little paper sculpture made from the chopstick sleeve in her stead. Once, there had been a flower, and another time a seal. Most recently, there had been a squid, its tentacles carefully crafted by tearing part of the thin wrapper into shreds.

He stole glances at her whenever she came, intrigued. Her meal times were almost a ritual. She would eat her meal quietly, and then after she was almost done, and was left with only her green tea, she would start folding the chopstick wrapper with purpose. It was almost as if she had spent the duration of her meal plotting out the lines and folds in her head, to be executed smoothly once the end of the meal drew near. He was mesmerised by her delicate, precise motions, and her slender fingers pressing and coaxing the wrapper into something completely different from its original flat, rectangular form.

Where had she learned to do all that, Woohyun wondered. Surely it was a lot less straightforward than folding square origami paper. It must be something she just did all the time, learnt through countless repetitions.

Of course, he didn’t just watch her when she was folding the paper sleeves - he started noticing other things about her too. He liked the way her cheeks puffed out when she blew on her spoon to cool down the steaming hot soup, and the way her eyebrows would furrow just a little when she was in the midst of her wrapper folding. He smiled to himself when he saw her laughing at the owner and his wife bickering and grumbling affectionately at each other. And he especially liked the way she bundled her hair up into a bun before she started eating - he found his gaze lingering just a little bit longer at the gentle nape of her neck whenever she did so.

With time, he found himself placing her cup of tea and rearranging her place settings to her left whenever she came, as he had noticed she was left handed. He saw that she always finished her pickled cucumbers but usually left some of the pickled daikon behind, so he would try to make sure that she had a larger helping of the cucumber pickles, if he was in the position to do so. He started to check that there was always an extra seat adjacent to her at the table, so that she could place her handbag on it instead of slung precariously on the back of her chair.

For someone who was more accustomed to overt, over the top declarations of affection through hearts and aegyo, Woohyun realised that he was somehow, falling for her, even though they had never really spoken. Their interactions had so far been limited to a few words about her order, a quiet thanks if he was the one to bring her food or tea over, or a polite goodbye once she was done.

Even as he grew more drawn to her, Woohyun never made a move to approach her. Wasn’t anonymity the reason he was here in the first place? This was all just a temporary state of affairs. In a blink of an eye, he would be back in Seoul, back to his idol life, far away from here, from her. No, he just simply didn’t see the point of approaching her. There was no room for attachment or emotion in all this.

As the weeks passed however, Seoul and his idol life there all started to feel like a dream. He had even given song writing a break, and chose instead to familiarize himself with the various enka and kayokyoku tunes that he heard in the restaurant.

He increasingly felt compelled to keep his mask on whenever he was at work, even when it was not necessary, but especially when she was around. There was something about her that made him long to sit down next to her and look into her eyes, and speak about everything and nothing, but he knew shouldn’t. It oddly felt like he was hiding all over again.

Nonetheless, he continued to collect all her little paper sculptures, and each time, he would place them carefully on top of the wooden chest of drawers. After a while, it had become quite the menagerie.

They finally spoke at greater length to each other one sunny afternoon.

Woohyun had been outside of the restaurant, on a smoke break. He had hardly smoked back in Korea, only occasionally taking one of Sunggyu’s if it had been a particularly stressful day. However, the owner often took smoke breaks, as did the other people around him, so it became a ritual, to step out to the back, remove his mask for a little while, and have a smoke break.

He was sat as usual on one of the larger rocks out in the garden, observing a line of ants marching into a patch of grass in front of him, his cigarette hanging limply between his fingers, when she came over.

“Hi there, can I borrow a light? I forgot to bring mine.”

She settled down next to him, and as she leaned over to light her cigarette, her face almost touching his hand where he shielded the flame from his lighter from the breeze, he caught a whiff of her light, floral perfume and almost felt giddy.

She turned away slightly to exhale a trail of smoke into the air, and then looked back at Woohyun.

“This is the first time I’m seeing you without a mask.”

“I… yes,” he stumbled, suddenly losing his words. “Sorry, I’m not from here, and I’m still working on my Japanese.”

Between his faltering language skills and his bare face, Woohyun suddenly felt and vulnerable, under her steady gaze.

“I wouldn’t have guessed it,” she said warmly to him. He felt his chest expanding, almost exploding.

There were some slightly awkward silences in between, but they managed to chat and find out a bit about each other. Woohyun explained that he was here as he needed some time away from Korea (fortunately, she didn’t seem to recognise him or feel the need to ask what he did back in Seoul) and she told him that she had started visiting her grandmother, who wasn’t very well, on a more regular basis, since her mother wasn’t able to do so at the moment.

All too quickly, they finished their cigarettes. She got up, dusting off her skirt.

“Thanks for the light”, she smiled at him, “and it was nice chatting.” She waved goodbye, and his eyes followed her as she walked off.

Woohyun could feel his heart beating as he remembered how closely they were sat next to each other, and how much he had relaxed and forgotten about his mask after awhile. He took out the little paper bird from his pocket that he had kept from earlier, and gazed at it, a hundred thoughts running through his mind. This was definitely not what he had come to Japan for.