“I went to a strawberry café. It was adorable. Everything was strawberry themed, even the food.”

“Oh? I like strawberries,” he says, his right dimple flashing at me. “Did you like it?”

“I don’t know if it’s any good. I ended up spilling my drink and left after I cleaned it up.”

“Then we’ll have to try it out together.” He beams.

I almost swallow my tongue. “Absolutely.” Any time that I can spend basking in the sunlight sounds good to me.

“Any other places you visited other than the ttalgi café?”

I love how Korean sounds when he talks, more so than English. I wish I could understand more so that I could hear his native language with the soft l’s and the long vowels.

“I’ve walked around the neighborhood where I’m staying. There are five chicken restaurants, the strawberry café, a laundromat”—I tick the shops off on my fingers—“and some other stores. I’m not sure what they all are. I couldn’t figure out from the lettering and I didn’t want to stare through the window for fear the owners would think I was casing the joint.”

“Casing the joint?” Yujun’s eyebrow goes up.

“It means to survey an establishment to see if you want to rob it.”

“Ah, interesting. Casing the joint,” he repeats, folding the words over on his tongue so he can use the expression later. He stores English phrases while I file away Korean ones. We’re the same in our different ways.

“I read that Hangul was designed to learn in one day, but I’ve tried and either I’m dumb or the people in King Sejong’s era were mad smart.”

He laughs, his hand coming up to cover a flash of perfect teeth. “I don’t think you’re dumb, but it’s possible people in King Sejong’s time were brilliant. Have you visited his statue yet?”

“No. I haven’t made it to that part of Seoul yet.”

“Then I will put King Sejong’s statue on your tour list. Any other requests?”

“I’m going to leave it in your capable hands.” In between searching for the identities of the five women in my photos, I am going to spend as much time as possible with Yujun from Seoul.

He seems to like that. “Namsan, then, and the Seoul City Wall because those two have the best views of the city. Seoul Forest because it’s quiet and shady and full of trees.”

The right dimple, the deep one, makes a brief appearance before the waiter comes over and turns on the grill. Soon after, small bowls of what Yujun calls banchan are delivered.

“Cabbage kimchi, marinated soybeans, fish cakes, sweet potatoes, and scallion salad. The fish cakes are salty and don’t taste like fish,” he explains. “Every restaurant has their own banchan, a little like every restaurant in Italy serves their own limoncello.”

“I didn’t know that about banchan or limoncello,” I admit.

Yujun shrugs lightly. “Another thing for your to-do list. Seems like I’ll have to keep you around for a while.”