It was a beautiful fall day in Seoul. The sun was shining, the bright coloured leaves were glowing in the light, but there was a slight chill in the air, a sign of colder days to come.

“Perfect,” Leela thought, as she walked into her favourite café.

After a couple of years living in her parents’s native country, she could speak Korean better, her accent wasn’t as bad as when she arrived, and she even got to practice her French once in a while: working as a journalist for the national paper had its perks, and since she was multilingual, she was sent on out on many overseas trips to get the scoop on whatever big event was happening at the time.

Anyway, even though she went on a few trips throughout the year, she knew her way around the city, which meant that she even had her usual spots, like this coffee shop that was between her home and her workplace.

Late mornings weren’t really busy, which was how she liked it and which was usually the time she came into the café, and today, there was no line.

As she waited to be served, she heard the sounds of the street trickle in as the door to the café opened behind her. She didn’t turn to see who entered, mostly because if she were the one entering, she wouldn’t want to be looked at either. So, she just waited patiently at the counter.

Then a loud voice behind her said, “Hey man! How’ve you been?”

She nearly jumped out of her skin, which caused her to look over her shoulder to see who it was.

To her surprise, it was Super Junior-M’s Henry, who was currently talking into his phone, not that she let it show. She knew the Kpop scene and she was a fan, but she had gotten over seeing celebrities walking around Korea very quickly since it seemed as though they were everywhere.

“No way, that’s crazy!”

Leela rolled her eyes. She knew what he was trying to do because she had watched his most recent Happy Together episode when it aired: when he saw a girl he could be interested in, Henry pretended to be on the phone with a friend, and would use big English words in a loud voice to catch the girl’s attention. After he finished the fake phone conversation, he would politely apologize to her and then the flirting would begin.

“So yeah,” he continued, “I’ll see you at the amphitheatre later, right?”

A pause.

“Alright, yeah, cool, bye.”

Just then, a barista came to the counter.

“Keedareekaehaesoh chaesohamneeda, moseul dohwa deuleelkayo?” Sorry to keep you waiting, how can I help you?

“Kwenchana Hee-young-ah,” Leela said with a smile. “Moka latte han-na-man ju-sae-yo.” It’s okay Heeyoung. One mocha latte please.

Hee-young grinned. “Neh eonnie. Dareun gohn?” Ok [older] sis. Anything else?

“Anee,” she replied, as she gave the barista the exact change for the drink, “Ke-goh-ya.” Nope, that’s it.

“Okay,” Hee-young replied, as she put the coins in the cash register and called out to her co-worker to make the drink.

Leela gave Henry a small smile as she passed him to take a seat by the window to wait for her drink.

She heard Henry give Hee-young his order (an Americano and a piece of black forest cake) as she was looking at the outside world through the window, when she heard a throat being cleared.

Startled once again, she looked up.

“Chae-so-han-deh-yo,” Henry started, “Hajeeman nan ke-nyang eejeonae sagwahago sheepohtda