“He said that you’re really interesting?” Chaerin confirmed once again.

“Yes,” answered Dara. She frowns and bits her lips thoughtfully.

“What do you think it meant?”

The two of them are in one of the cafes in Hongdae. The cafe is pretty crowded because it’s Sunday and many young people are around. Besides ordinary customers, there are many people who take a break after busy shopping for Christmas Day that are only three weeks away. Since the beginning of December, shops along the streets of Seoul and all shopping centers have begun to put on Christmas decorations. Christmas songs are heard everywhere.

“I don’t think he meant anything,” Chaerin said lightly while shrugging. “Just small talk.”

“Is that so?”

“Of course. Don’t think too much about it,” said Chaerin. “Painters really like acting weird.”

“He is a painter?” asked Dara in surprise. Yesterday she forgot to ask the man’s job, but Jiyong doesn’t look like a painter. Well, of course, Dara herself had never met any painter, so she herself isn’t sure. She feels that the man is more suited to work as... as... she doesn’t know. Anything but a painter. A painter usually looks messy, shabby, and... Well, wait a minute. Isn’t that Jiyong’s appearance when Dara first met him? Dara still clearly remembers his figure who was standing straight in the doorway. With his hair and messy appearance, he looks like a painter in of Dara’s eyes. He was also...

“Who? Kwon Jiyong?” Chaerin interrupted her thoughts, then waves her hand. “No, no. He is a photographer. He himself said that.”

Dara immediately stops her imagination which begins to wander everywhere.

“But you said he is a painter.”

Chaerin frowns and shakes her head. “No. I mean, he is an artist. Painters and photographers are both called artists, right?”

Dara opens to argue, but then turns away. Sometimes Chaerin’s words are difficult to understand and Dara is used to it. Finally she just murmurs, “I think so.”

“I wonder why he suddenly came to Korea,” Chaerin said. “He is very famous in America, you know? Even in Seoul, he has been flooded with job offers, but he said he didn’t want to work for the time being. He wants to take a vacation.”

Dara looks at Chaerin in amazement. “How do you know all of that?” Chaerin just shrugs and smiles. “I’m good at combining the information I received.”

“Seunghyun!”

Dara’s head turns towards the shrill voice and her eyes are fixed on a slender teenage girl with long orange hair waving to her friend sitting at a table not far from Dara’s table. The boy with hedgehog-like hair called Seunghyun waves back.

“Have you waited a long time?” Dara hears the girl ask again and her friend shakes his head.

Dara’s attention returns to Chaerin when she heard her friend click her tongue. “Teens nowadays,” muttered Chaerin. “What do you mean by wearing a miniskirt in this winter?”

Dara smiles and shrugs.

“I can see you still remember the boy,” Chaerin said suddenly.

Dara raises her eyebrows. “Who?”

“Who else if not your first love? Choi Seunghyun, right?”

Dara looks down and looks at the steam rising from her teacup.

Chaerin folds her hands on the table. “Do you think the hedgehog is the Seunghyun you’re looking for?”

Dara snorts and laughs. “Gosh, Chaerin! Of course not. The boy is too young.”

Chaerin sighs. “You’re really something. Still waiting for your first love even though it’s been a dozen years.”

“I’m not waiting for him,” Dara said.

Chaerin sneers. “Your head rotated so fast it almost broke just because you heard someone said Seunghyun’s name.”

Dara lowers her head and stirs the tea slowly.

Chaerin tilts her head. “I was thinking... Do you still recognize him? After all, it’s been thirteen years. People’s faces can change, you know? What if you crossed the road and you don’t recognize him?”

Dara just shrugs, then turns to look out the window of the cafe, staring at a row of bare trees on the edge of the road. She still remembers the occurance thirteen years ago very clearly. That’s when she first met a boy in a blue wool hat with a friendly smile that made her heart pound. Choi Seung Hyun. Her first love.

Winter thirteen years ago... It was at school time. Dara squatted while waiting for Bom next to the school building while rummaging through the snow on the ground with a thin branch. Bom had to finish the punishment given by the teacher because she had just made a fuss with one of their classmates in the class this morning. Dara had forgotten what the annoying girl’s name was, but what was clear was that annoying girl who started the mess first.

Ah, if she is not wrong, the name of that annoying girl was Sohee. She snatched Dara’s necklace ––a present from her Grandma––and threw it out the window. Dara knew Sohee had been jealous of her since she showed the white gold necklace with a pendant shaped as “Dara”. Bom also had one, of course with a pendant shaped as “Bom”. Sohee wanted to borrow the necklace, but Dara didnn’t allow her. How could she allow the spoiled child to wear her precious necklace? But Sohee desperately seized the necklace and “dropped it” out the window. She said it was accidental, but of course only blind and deaf people believed her. The basically fiercer Bom immediately went berserk and attacked Sohee. That’s when the teacher came and saw Bom launching a ferocious hair-pulling move.

With a sullen face holding back annoyed tears while occasionally blowing her hands that weren’t gloved, Dara looked down and searched among the piles of snow on the ground. Grandma must be angry if Dara lost of the necklace.

“What are you doing?”

Dara’s head turned towards the sound. Her eyes narrowed slightly from glare. She raised a hand to shade her eyes and then she could see clearly who was speaking. It turned out that a boy in a blue wool hat. The age of the boy must be older than Dara. He looked like a middle school student. Her senior? She didn’tt know, Dara had never seen him before.

“What are you doing?” The boy asked again.

Dara hesitated for a moment, then muttered softly, “Looking for something.”

The boy walked over. “What are you looking for?”

“Necklace,” answered Dara briefly, then returned to look down on the ground. Because she didn’t hear his reply, Dara turned and saw that the boy had been looking around.

Just as Dara returned to focusing on the ground around her feet, she heard the boy exclaiming, “Your name is Dara?”

Dara looked at him in surprise and nodded. “Yes.”

The boy smiled broadly and showed something shiny in his right hand. “Found it!”

“Really?” Dara jumped to her feet and ran toward the boy.

The boy handed over the necklace to Dara. “Take care. Don’t lose it again?” He said in a friendly tone.

Dara looked up at the radiant face. She was about to open to say thank you, but the boy had turned towards the field and waved. Dara turned her gaze in the same direction and saw a group of teenagers standing there, four boys. They looked like middle school students.

“I go first,” said the boy in the blue hat. “You also better hurry go home.”

As soon as the boy left, Bom ran to Dara while grumbling shortly. Dara quickly pulled her closer. She knew Bom knew many people. Maybe she knew who the boy was. And Bom did know. She said his name was Choi Seunghyun, a middle school student. He and his four friends also went to the same elementary school as Dara, then after graduating they moved to another middle school. That day Choi Seunghyun and his friends came to their old elementary school to meet with one of their former teachers. Since that day Dara had never met Choi Seunghyun again.

***

“Have you called your mother?”

Jiyong averts his attention from his camera then looks at the man who is standing beside him. He smiles faintly and shakes his head.

Yang Hyunsuk sighs at his nephew who seems unconcerned. Jiyong has lived in New York for more than ten years and during that time he never returned to Korea. As far as the Uncle’s knowledge, Jiyong’s life in New York is very good. The boy has become one of the most well-known professional photographers. Therefore he was somewhat surprised when Jiyong called him a week ago and said he would return to live in Seoul.

But his nephew doesn’t want to stay in the luxury apartment provided for him at Galleria Foret. Instead he rents a small old apartment in the downtown Seoul. Yang Hyunsuk had asked his sister— Jiyong’s mother—about what Jiyong really wanted b