“You look pretty,” he says and pulls out a chair.

Whether he’s lying or he means it, I don’t care! It feels good to hear this gorgeous man say it. “Thanks.” I beam, no longer able to keep the happiness off my face. I start to sit when my eyes fall to a pretty packaged gift on the side of the table. My smile slides off immediately. A gift. I’d forgotten to bring a gift. It was in the list of customs and practices that I’d reviewed earlier, but in my haste to get ready and arrive at the restaurant, I’d forgotten. Could I possibly run out and buy something real quick under the pretense of having to use the bathroom? Of course that would only work if I could recall the phrase for “where is the bathroom?” Annyeonghaseyo I remember, but what was the bathroom one? Hwagon edeyeo? Hwagahaseyo?

“Is something wrong with the chair?” Yujun asks.

I realize I’m hovering stupidly over my chair while Yujun looks on in confusion. “Nope.” I drop inelegantly into my seat and try smiling again, but it feels awkward. Where was all the confidence I gained from navigating the subway on my own? Somewhere in my shoes, I guess.

Yujun returns to the other side of the table and presses a button. “Is it okay if I order for us? I know that can seem . . .” He pauses, not quite sure what word to use.

“It’s fine. Great, actually. I’m going to leave myself in your hands.” Your perfect, large, nicely veined hands.

“Wonderful.”

A staff person arrives and Yujun gives the order. I listen closely and try to make out certain words. I think I hear “bulgogi” and kalbi, which I remember are marinated beef and short ribs, but ddeokbokki I’m not certain of, nor am I familiar with soondubu jjigae.

When I ask Yujun, he explains, “Ddeokbokki is a spicy rice cake, and soondubu jjigae is a soft tofu stew. Spicy and very good.”

He reaches out to pour the water but I nearly leap onto the table to grab it. “I’m supposed to pour,” I remind him.

He looks like he’s going to fight me for a moment but eventually sits back and motions for me to go ahead. “So you are. Have you been researching?”

“A little bit,” I admit, “but I forget more than I remember.” I eye his gift again, which he’s made no move to give to me. Maybe I’m overreacting and it’s for his mom.

“Did you have a difficult time finding the place? I could have picked you up. I’m always available to do so.”

“Your instructions were perfect and I enjoy riding the subway, I guess. I feel like I’ve accomplished something when I go places by myself. Like I’m a local.”

“Have you been to many places since you’ve been here?”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that no, I’ve spent two of my days in a funeral home. Part of me wants to tell him the whole story—how I got here only to find that my bio dad had passed away, how my inheritance was photos of five different women, how my friend Boyoung spilled my drink on the photos and I don’t have the first idea how I’m going to find these women—but as I look at him across the table, his brown eyes bright with interest and a small smile playing across his lips, I decide not to. I don’t want to taint this time I have with Yujun. He’s like this light in the middle of a dark night. I want this memory of my trip here to be good, and I know this brief flirtation, these dinners together, the charming smile, will linger long in my memory so that no matter what else happens, I can pull these occasions out of my memory bank. That’s what I want to take home with me, not the smell of incense and the single portrait of my father on a bare altar, missed opportunities, what-could-have-beens. I don’t want this, my homeland, to be a place that I associate with sorrow.