Italics are spoken in Korean.

It was a beautiful outside and for the first time since you had arrived in Seoul you had a full day off. Things were always very hectic since you had lectures Mondays to Fridays and advanced Korean classes sprinkled between, though you didn’t really need them they were a compulsory course for all foreigners at your university. Weekends weren’t much better since you had piles of homework to do as well as working your part-time job to support yourself. You barely had time to breathe so having a whole day off was a welcome change. You had spent the morning in bed, revelling in the novelty of having a lie-in and just lazing around and now that it was a bit later you had decided to go out. So far you’d just been walking around and admiring the city you lived in but hadn’t been able to see yet.

You walked from tourist attraction to tourist attraction, snapping pictures as you went along and you found that you were immensely enjoying yourself. By now it was late afternoon and you had decided to go to your local park. The place was beautiful and there were people all around, some were having picnics and others were just relaxing in tents they had brought themselves. You ended watching the people as much as the city which is how you noticed a weirdly dressed man following you. He was decked out in head to toe black with a weird cap on his head and a black surgical mask covering his face. He had a weird back pack that looked like a purple sausage and he was also wearing black sunglasses. All in all he looked extremely suspicious, especially considering the fact the man had purple hair and that he was currently hiding behind a tree with just his head sticking out.

Maybe ‘man’ was the wrong word to describe him because judging from his build he couldn’t have been more than twenty years old and to be honest he looked kind of skinny. You weren’t exactly bothered by his following you since it was still day time and there were people around but just to calm your nerves you began telling yourself you could take him if worst came to worst. So you continued walking around, occasionally stopping to take a picture of something particularly striking, all the while with the weird dude still following you.

This went on for quite a while until you decided to take a break from walking. You spotted a bench just ahead of you and sat down but barely a minute passed before the stranger caught up with you and sat beside you. He proceeded to take off his mask and sunglasses and though you admitted he was rather good looking you now began to look at him strangely. If he wanted to murder you he wouldn’t be following you in bright day light much less sitting next to you so what did he want from you?

“Hi. Do you like pigeons?” he enquired in a surprisingly deep voice just as you were about to ask him what his problem was. You were startled by his strange question and just looked at him confusedly. You started thinking that maybe he was crazy until he started speaking again.

“Oh… ermm… You like bird? You know bird? Eat bread and fly? Erm….” he asked in the cutest, most broken English you had ever heard but what totally got to you was when he got up and started flapping his arms and bopping his head in an attempt to visually show you what he meant. You started laughing hysterically to the point where you were crying but he didn’t stop his demonstration. It took you quite a while to calm down and when you finally did you answered his question, though you couldn’t stop the occasional giggle from bursting out.

“Hello to you too and yes I do like pigeons.” you told him in the best Korean accent you could muster. You watched his face turn slowly red before he hid behind his hands. He started murmuring to himself but you couldn’t hear what he was saying through your laughter which had started up again. When you finally stopped laughing again he scratched the back of his head before getting up and telling you to follow him with simple gestures, as though he was afraid to speak. Again you giggled.

You followed behind him as he led you to the other side of the park. You had to admit it was much more beautiful here with all the trees and bushes. The fact that there were barely any people here was an added bonus but it suddenly struck you that this was gradually turning into one of those murder novels you read a lot. “Girl killed in woods by mysterious stranger.” You could see the headlines already and your imagination was doing nothing to sooth your racing mind. However when you looked up to locate the potential murderer you saw him sitting on a bench a few feet in front of you with a loaf of bread in his hand and his sausage bag by his feet. He was looking at you strangely as he patted the seat beside him, still refusing to speak. Your face coloured beetroot red in just a second.

You quickly sat down next to him as he broke off half the loaf and handed it to you with a small smile on his face. You smiled back at him before you turned around and began feeding the birds that had crowded around you two by now. You giggled as the birds became more comfortable around you and before you knew it some were perched on the bench with you and even on you. You and the stranger, who you now realised still didn’t have a name, were enjoying yourself. You couldn’t seem to stop laughing and neither could he though his laugh was more of a goofy chuckle which you liked. You realised you liked a lot about him like his beautiful eyes or his weird coloured hair or his deep voice or the fact that he had a sausage bag that matched his weird coloured hair.

Suddenly though you were brought out of your musings by a cold and slimy substance dripping down the back of your neck. You gasped and dropped your quickly diminishing loaf of bread both out of shock and embarrassment. The stranger turned around and looked at you with confusion evident on his face until he saw the pigeon sitting on your head but his next words took you by surprise.

“You look even prettier now.” he simply said before he chuckled goofily again.

“Seriously? I have a big grey bird on my head and trailing down my neck and you’re telling me I look pretty?” you asked him totally bewildered. You had no idea how the guy’s brain worked but he was absolutely fascinating even if he was a bit on the weird side.

“Well, I think you do but if you want I can wipe the off for you.” he said as he began rummaging through his bag for something.

You couldn’t help but all out laugh again at his response. Everytime you expected a certain response from him he went ahead and said the complete opposite. And you loved it. You had never had this much fun talking to a person and you definitely hadn’t laughed this much in a long time. Even the pigeon poop on your neck wasn’t bothering you anymore. The sound of a camera shutting stopped you from laughing and you looked next to you to see the weird guy with his phone in his hand. He had this strangest grin on his face - you could literally see all of his teeth - but it was also the cutest thing you had ever seen. You weren’t even angry that he had taken a picture of you. You simply shook your head as you got up, grabbed the tissue he was offering you and wiped yourself clean before you turned around and extended your hand out to him.

“My name is ___ and I like you. Wanna come for a coffee with me?” you asked with an equally bright beam on your face.

“My name is Taehyung and I’d loved to.” he answered with that stupid grin still plastered on his face as he grabbed your hand and led you out of the park.