“Get your nose out of that book or you’ll run into a lamppost!” my mother bellows at me, but in reply I simply raise an eyebrow and swiftly turn the page. This annoys her, and when she huffs a breath it becomes visible in the cold December air. The sun is long gone, and as my parents and I make our way toward the fancy restaurant, we have to be careful not to slip on the snowy surface. My mother, finally fed up with my inattentiveness, grabs me by the elbow and pulls me along to walk even faster.

“Honestly,” she says. “I love how studious you are, honey, but tonight’s your birthday and we’re eating out to celebrate, can’t it wait ‘til later tonight?”

“Alright, alright,” I say, dog-earing the corner of the page and stuffing it under my arm. I intertwine my fingers with my mother’s and she drags me along to walk side-by-side with my father. He smiles down at me and takes my other hand, and together, the three of us enter the restaurant.

My parents reserve a table at a new fancy restaurant on my birthday every year, and tonight, they have chosen a place that serves Italian cuisine for an Asian palette called Il Cielo. As usual, I looked up the restaurant and was quite pleased to see its wonderful reviews.

But this same week, I had also just bought a new book, and ever since starting it three days ago, I’ve been unable to put it down. The intricate designs of the plot grab me the most, and reading the words, letting the ink fly off the page and slip into my mind, possesses me in a way which renders even my birthday dinner uninteresting. I bite my cold lips, wishing I could continue reading. I had just reached a pivotal moment in the story in which the main character must choose between saving her lover or replenishing the power source of her country. She would have to decide soon.

Once inside, I sit down on one of the benches and flip through the pages again. After I find my spot, I fix my eyes on the words and begin reading.

Meanwhile, my mother approaches the maitre d’ who stands at the podium and gives her the reservation name. She is accompanied by a young man who is dressed sharply in white slacks, a white shirt, a white vest, and a black bow tie contrasted against his clothes. He stands beside the head waitress who then turns to him with instructions to prepare the table which has been reserved for a party of three. He smiles brightly and complies.

Taking three menus from the side of the podium, he bows to my mother and father and tells them to follow him to their table. Still fully engrossed in my novel, I decide to be a bit of a rebel and wait until my mom pulls me up by the elbow and drags me along again, pushing the limits of my reading time ever further. Instead, I get the feeling that I am being watched very intently, and I prepare myself to look up at my mother’s dagger-like stare.

Instead, when I look up, I catch the eyes of the young male waiter, who hurriedly looks away as soon as I catch him staring. I narrow my eyes at him a bit, wondering why he seems so familiar. He turns his head back toward me, and I recognize him: Tao, a boy I go to school with. I get up from where I sit and join my mom and dad. Tao smiles and bows to me in much the same manner that he treated my parents.

“Hello,” he says. He looks flushed and I imagine that he has just had a very busy shift.

“Hey, Tao,” I say in reply. My parents gawk at me and I hurriedly explain that Tao and I are classmates. To this they nod in understanding and Tao shows us our table. On the way there, I make sure to trail behind my parents in an attempt to hide my reading.

“Put it away,” my mother says.

“Mhmm,” I say, though I don’t make any move to put my book away.

“Here we are,” Tao says, gesturing to a table which has been fashioned with bright white linens, a small bouquet of pale-pink peonies in the center, and the best-polished silverware. Tao recites the specials of the day from memory, but I don’t look up from my book.

“Just brings u two glasses of ice water and a Shirley Temple for my daughter,” Mother says in a rehearsed tone. My parents are no strangers to fancy restaurants. I turn the page in my book, slightly breathless. My mother rolls her eyes at me.

“Sweetheart,” she says. Tao looks down at me too, one side of his mouth turned up just slightly.

“Just a minute, Mom!” I say with my mouth ajar, hanging onto to every single printed word. Mother finally sighs and relents. She turns to Tao and begins to give more orders.

“And can you bring out some lemons ahead of time?” she says and Tao nods, remembering her order. “And please be sure to tell your chef that any meat served to us must be well-done, not a single bit of it rare, alright? Also, do you have a special discount policy for special occasions?”

I look up from my book and begin to make signals to my mother, begging her not to ask Tao and the other waiters to sing to me. Tao notices my gestures and I try to smile at him, but while I am doing that, my mother drops the bomb.

“Tonight is my daughter’s birthday,” she says with a proud smile and I widen my eyes at her.

“Mom, please,” I begin to say but Tao speaks up.

“I know,” he says and I look at him feeling slightly puzzled. When he catches me eye, I could swear that his cheeks start to flush as pink as the peonies. “Uh, I’ll inform the maitre’d about that and she’ll add it onto your bill.”

“Do you sing?” my mother asks and I bury my face in my hands. Tao smiles.

“I’m afraid that’s not in our policy,” he says, and I look through my fingers at him. He winks at me before turning to give our drink orders, and I feel better about having someone on my side during this night. Finally fed up, my mother tells me that she doesn’t want to see me reading at all tonight. Unwilling to comply, I instead hide the book on my lap under the table, away from her view. This way, I can still read and technically she won’t see the book at all.

The evening wears on and I try to keep myself from reacting too much to the story. I fail to notice that the drinks haven’t been brought out despite the fifteen minutes that go by. Finally, Tao comes back with a platter of drinks… but not the drinks that we’d ordered. Instead, he sets down three brown bottles of beer and tucks the silver platter under his arm. He’s about to talk away but he suddenly spins back to face us.

“Wait a minute,” he says to himself while Mother and Father watch him with wide eyes. He smiles apologetically and collects the beer bottles. “Wrong table, sorry,” he says, directing the words to me even though I am still engrossed in the novel.

The evening goes on and Tao continues to make rookie mistakes. Aside from serving us the wrong drinks, he also serves us the wrong food, and it takes another ten minutes for him to realize and fix it. He forgets to tell the chef to make sure Dad’s meat is cooked well-done. His Italian-style steak is served a little too rare for his taste.

He forgets about the lemons until our food is finally served. He clears the dishes from the wrong side, and a senior waiter is required to come by and correct his technique. When he clears our dishes, he accidentally pushes a little sauce onto Mom’s Louis purse. Tao immediately grabs a napkin to clean it off, apologizing the entire time. I took my fork and began feeding myself little by little while I continued to read.

“Well, what are you staring at?” I heard Mother say, and I look up at her. She has an annoyed expression I her eyes, but I notice that they aren’t directed at me. When I follow her gaze, I see that Tao is standing over me with a silver pitcher of water in his hands. He stops staring at me and then bows apologetically to Mother.

“Sorry,” he says again and again, and begin to feel sorry for him. Before he can scamper back to the kitchen, I call him.

“Tao!” I say, and when he turns to look at me, his eyes are wide and happy. “Can I have a refill of water?”

He smiles wide at me and walks slowly back to our table. Using all the grace he’s learned from years of waiting tables, he starts to pour water into my glass. His return his smile, taking a break from reading. “Don’t worry,” I whisper to him as he leans over and pours water. He catches my gaze. “You’re doing fine,” I say.

Tao holds my stare and then smiles shyly. He doesn’t notice the glass is almost b over.

“Tao!” I yell and he turns back to the glass but doesn’t realize that the water has spilled over already. Stunned, he lifts the pitcher up to stop the flow, but in his astonishment, he stumbles backwards, bumping into the waiter behind who carries a platter of water glasses. The glasses tumble over, and the icy contents spill all over me like a waterfall.

The frigid water bites my skin like sharp teeth and the dampness seeps into the silk of my dress. The material starts to cling to my warm skin. I feel cold and exposed, and every guest’s eyes are on me. The ink in the pages of my book are smeared and ruined. Mother and Father gape at me and then they look angrily at Tao. I look through my soaked hair at Tao, and his eyes are wide with horror at what’s just happened.

“__,” he says slowly. “I am so sorry – ”

“Ugh, forget this infernal restaurant!” my mother says standing up and grabbing me. She pulls me to stand up and my book toppled off my lap and onto the floor under the table.

“Mom!” I try to protest, but she shushes me.

“Not now, dear!” she says. “We’re getting out of this place. I never should have considered this place!”

She makes my dad get up and follow her as we storm toward the exit. I trip along behind her, hugging my torso to hide my wet and exposed rib-cage area. Dad drapes his blazer over my shoulders to protect me from the cold December chill while Mom complains to the maitre’d. I hear Tao’s name thrown into her litany of complaints. The waiter in question still looms over our abandoned table. A senior waiter is berating him and he looks down in shame.

Mother finally finishes up and drags me away. When I look back, I see Tao through the glass. He takes off his white blazer and starts to walk toward the back exit. But Mother and Father drag me away, and they tell me not to look back anymore.

It’s three days later, at University, when I meet up with my friends. They tell me their stories about a new club that just opened up in Hongdae, and the lively conversation continues until it’s time for their next class. Their disappearance leaves me alone to wander the campus until it’s my turn to go off to class.

Because it’s too cold to go outside, I make my way to the student cafeteria. No one ever really eats in there, but it has free WiFi and a heater that warms you up to the core. So when I get inside, I shed my coat at a two-seater table and place my bag on the table. I start to rummage through my bag but then I remember that I don’t have my book anymore. This is a shame, since now I’ll never know how it ends.

There’s a pat on my shoulder, and I turn to see who it is. “Tao,” I say gently, a little surprised to see him. Instead of the all-white tux however, he’s dressed a white shirt, jeans, and a tan jacket. He smiles shyly again and stands over the empty chair.

“Do you want to sit down?” I ask him, but he shakes his head.

“Just wanted to apologize again,” he said. “About the water disaster at Il Cielo.”

Thinking about the situation makes me a little uncomfortable. But I shrug it off. “It’s okay,” I say, but another question nags at me. “Did you get fired because of me?”

Tao laughs nervously. “Got fired, alright,” he says. “But trust me, it’s not because of you.”

I fidget with my fingers. “I still feel a little bad about it,” I say. Tao nods.

“Anyway,” he says. “I just wanted to give this to you.” He reaches into his backpack and takes out a book. My book. The one I’d dropped at the restaurant. He slides it across the table to me and my eyes light up at the sight of it. The ink is still smeared, but the pages are dry now, albeit a little battered and brown. I pick it up and flip through the pages. My bookmark is still where I left it and there’s now some tape in the place where a page was torn. I smile down at it and then look at Tao.

“Thanks!” I say. “Really, this means a lot to me.”

“It sure does,” Tao says. “Considering how distracted you were at dinner that night.”

I laugh at him. “I still say you were more distracted than I was,” I say, and his smile starts to simmer down. I wonder what I said that caused this reaction from him. “What were you so distracted by anyway?” I ask.

Tao looks up at me and then he starts to rub the back of his neck. With a deep breath, he catches my eye. “Honestly,” he says slowly. “It was you.”

His answer takes me back a bit. I didn’t know my reading would distract him so much. Before I can say anything, he slides the chair out and sits in it. I have a feeling a serious conversation is about to ensue, and I widen my eyes at him. Tao sits quietly for a long time, and when he looks up at me, he seems nervous.

“You know, back at Il Cielo, I got employee-of-the-month twice in a row?” he says and I feel like laughing, but I can’t. “It’s true. I don’t know why that’s relevant to anything I have to say right now. But I’ve been keeping this to myself for a while and I thought that while I was apologizing, I may as well say this, too.”

I blink at him. “Okay?” I say. “Go on.”

Tao smiles and takes a deep breath. “I’m not usually this clumsy and I definitely have not spilled icy water on anyone while waiting tables. Ever! But when you came into the restaurant, I just got so anxious and I wanted to impress you and fulfill my job duties and I wasn’t sure how to balance that out and I guess… I guess what I’m saying is, I’m sorry about what happened, again. I’m not usually so stupid and clumsy, but you just looked so pretty that night and… damnit.”

A smile breaks out across my face and I can’t help but laugh. Tao laughs nervously along.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “It’s just… that’s probably the sweetest thing anyone’s said to me.”

Tao smiles. I had never taken him as the bumbling sweetheart that he was being right now. But I suppose that everyone at some point turns into an idiot when they see someone they like. After all, it’s not really love unless you’re falling and tripping all over yourself. I never imagined myself getting a confession like this. But I’d have it no other way.

Tao stands up suddenly and I’m afraid that he’s about to walk away.

“Well, that’s all I came to say,” he says. “I like you a lot. But… if you’re still upset about the water thing, I get it. Umm… I’ll go now.”

I turn toward before he walks off. “Hey, wait!” I yell after him and he stops and looks at me. I smile at him and look around at the cafeteria. The snack bar has just reopened, and I signal him back toward the table.

“You know, our last restaurant night didn’t go so well,” I say, and he agrees, laughingly. So I signal for him to take the chair again. “So, how about a second chance?”

Tao smirks as he sits back down in the chair. “Alright,” he says. “But no reading this time.”