The first time I met him was nerve-racking to say the least.  It was after a concert in Seoul, at a fan meeting.  I stood in line behind many others, some of which carried signs and presents to give them.  I was nearing the line, he was sitting next to Changmin-ssi at a small table, his head down and his eyes directed to the paper he was signing with a smile.  He looked up as he passed the paper back to her, and she graciously thanked him before passing it on to Changmin-ssi.

           I tried to stop the shaking in my hands as I got closer to him.  He spoke quickly to the girls in the line in front of me.  His eyes were kind, unlike his intense stares in music videos, pictures, and on-stage performances.

           I reached the head of the line and spoke:

          “Could you please sign this for me, Yunho-ssi?” I asked, completely calm as I handed him a portrait drawing I drew of him.  He smiled and took the piece of sketchbook paper from my hand.  He continued to look at me as he asked me for my name.

          “Choi Yerin,” I replied with a smile.  He returned the smile and looked for the first time at the drawing.  He asked me if I was the artist.  I told him I was.  He laughed and said it looked like he was looking into a mirror.  I thanked him as he signed it and gave it back to me.  I said hello to Changmin and asked him to sign a drawing I did of him.  He signed it and handed it back, I thanked them both again and left.

          I wasn’t necessarily trying to get him to remember me in any way.  I was just a fan, not an obsessed one either.  The second time I met him was also at a fan meeting, but this was in Busan, about six months later.  I took the old portrait from the folder it was in, left my house and headed to the concert.  After it was over, I stood in line until I reached the table where they were seated.  Yunho gave me the same smile he gave all the fans, no sense of recognition in his eyes.  I smiled, asked him to sign the piece of paper.  He said of course and asked me for my name.  I told him it was Choi Yerin, he said it was nice to meet me and looked at the paper for the first time.  His eyes scanned it carefully and ran over the place where he had written his name before.

         He looked up with me, surprise in his eyes.  “I remember you now!” he laughed.  I smiled and said hello.  He smiled brightly, more than just his generic one.  My heart skipped a beat.

         “Do you still want me to sign this?” He asked.

         “Yes, please.  I’m afraid it was starting to fade,” I lied.

         As if he saw right through it, he gave me a knowing look and a small smirk.  He picked a different spot and signed it there, a smile on his lips the entire time.  He passed it back to me, I thanked him.

         “Of course, Choi Yerin-ssi,” he replied. “Come back soon.”

          And I did.  I kept going back with the same picture and he would sign it in a new place every time.  I went to each of their concerts.  In the beginning, he wouldn’t recognize me until I brought out the picture.  That was reasonable; they did meet hundreds of fans each concert.  But as my visits to the desks became more frequent, he seemed to recognize me.

          “I thought you weren’t going to come,” he said on one occurrence as I handed him the paper. “I couldn’t see you in the line.”  I laughed at that, told him I would always come.  He smiled as he signed the page again.

           By the end of that year, I had run out of room for him to sign on the front of the portrait.  He pointed that fact out at the table. “Should I sign the back?” he asked.  I told him he could.  And he did.

          My fingers passed over the signatures on the picture.  It was completely full, front to back.  I watched as the little tidbits he wrote went from formal to casual.  I read as my name morphed from “Yerin-ssi” to “Yerin-ah”.  His sentences went from “Please continue to support DBSK in the future!” to “I tried to see you in the audience but it was hard to see.  Where were you sitting? ^^”.

           “You’re looking at that again?” A familiar voice called from the doorway where he took his shoes off.  I barely heard him as my eyes read some of the older notes on the portrait back of the portrait:

           “I’ll have tickets waiting for you at the next concert.  I want to see you when I perform.”

           “I have no schedule next week on Wednesday.  Meet me at the usual place?”

           “Dinner Friday?”

           “Yerin-ah, why don’t we go public? Jonghyun-ah did it and everything was fine.”

           “Want to go to Jeju this weekend?”

           My fingers traced over the familiar handwriting when my eyes caught something.  You see, I had left a space open for the concert next week.  Alarmed that it was the last space and it was filled when it hadn’t been yesterday, I read it:

           “Yerin-ah, I love you.  Marry me?” It asked.  I read it again.

           I dropped the paper on the floor and tackled him in a hug.  “Yes,” I cried, tears of joy springing from my eyes.  He picked me up and twirled me around, his lips capturing mine in a kiss as he set me down.  My arms laced around his neck as his strong arms encircled my waist.