He raises the phone with one hand and waits. I don’t move. I like taking photographs, but I don’t like being in them.

He lowers his arm. “What is it?”

“I hate pictures.”

“Why?”

“Because . . .” I don’t want to admit it because it sounds like I’m both insecure and fishing for compliments, which, yes, I’m a bit insecure about what I look like but I’m not fishing for compliments. I’ve never enjoyed how my face looks in photos. It’s too round, for one. My eyes are too small. My nose is but a bump in the middle of my face.

“We can’t leave without a picture. It’s against the law.” He does the hand gesture again, his fingers pointing toward the ground, pulling me forward with the invisible strings he’s tying around my heart.

“What if I don’t like it?” I ask, sliding reluctantly over to his side.

“You’ll like it,” he says with the utter confidence that he has about everything.

“But if I don’t?” We’re like the North and South Poles—opposites in every way. I’d like an ounce of his surety.

“If you don’t, you can delete it. Say cheeseus.”

“Cheeseus,” I repeat dutifully. He takes a picture. Several of them. And then he holds out his phone in front of him so we can both see.

“See. The picture is perfect.” He stops at the second photo. The sun is setting and the red-orange globe dipping its toes into the Han River makes everything glow. “You have a beautiful eye smile.”

He taps the screen where my eyes are nearly closed and all that can be seen is a small crescent of black where my lashes fall over the dark brown of my pupils.

“My eyes are closed.”

He tilts his head, my flat tone catching him off guard. “Mine, too,” he points out.

I’m startled and examine the photo again. I was so focused on my own face that I didn’t realize that Yujun’s eyes had the same downward curve. In fact, his is more pronounced because his smile is bigger, the divots bracketing either side ocean-deep.

“Eye smiles are considered a very attractive feature.” He lets his lashes fall and his lips curve up. He pokes a finger into one of his dimples and says, “Isn’t mine cute?”

My throat closes up. In the picture, his eyes are like mine. They aren’t the exact same shape. His turn down slightly at the inner and outer corners, looking more like a slight paisley curve, while mine are crescents, like a true upside-down smile.

I glance away from the phone screen only to end up staring into a gaze that is so full of tender warmth, I would swear that the sun was rising instead of the moon. But it’s not the sun; it’s a man who is so sweet, so kind, so endearing that I do what any other person in my position would do. I kiss him.

His eyes widen in surprise but he doesn’t back away. He sets his phone down, curls his hand around the back of my neck, and angles my head to deepen the contact. My heart soars and my fingertips tingle. I press myself closer, forgetting the food and beer sitting on the bench between us. He pushes it all to the ground and hauls me so close I’m practically in his lap.