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How to Find True Love in One Daeyoung Kim
A comprehensive fifteen-step guide by Yushi Tokuno
For my Jaehee.
1. Meet him for the first time.
On the steps leading to the Performing Arts Department, when you’re a sophomore and your best friend, Sion, has finally convinced you to join one of the university’s youth volunteering org. You make eye contact for the briefest of seconds when you turn at the sound of his footsteps hitting the concrete stairs, before you keep walking toward your friend who’s waving eagerly from a group gathered around a wooden bench. You feel that slight unease that comes when a stranger close by seems headed in the same direction, but you forget about it as soon as you reach the group, preoccupied by the fact that you’re shy at first meetings that don’t involve alcohol in any way.
The orientation starts, and when the org chairman, Chenle, pulls out a guitar and sing-songs his introduction, you’re reminded of the reason why you finally decided to join. The org essentially treats official meetings as an excuse to sing and jam on the grass field between the Visual Arts and Performing Arts departments, a place everyone on campus simply calls the Field. Sion says it’s fun, and well, you want to have fun too.
Introductions go clockwise from Chenle, and when it gets around to a familiar pair of deep brown eyes you’ve glimpsed earlier, you learn of a honeyed voice and an infectious smile that go along with the name Daeyoung.
2. Bump into him around campus.
You see him between classes (boring classes for the business degree your family forced you into instead of the literature degree you’ve always wanted) walking through the hallways; sitting at picnic tables around campus or hanging around covered outdoor spaces during lunch; on the second floor of the building across from you, exiting a room as you stare out the window from your boring class on the first floor. Sometimes, he’s alone, head swaying and airpods in both ears, mouth pinched in a way that you can tell he’s trying hard not to sing out loud in quiet areas filled with strangers. Most times, however, he’s surrounded by people—some of whom, you’ll eventually learn, would become the people he considered his constants through the four years of standing on the precipice of adulting known as college. Others aren’t so lucky. They’ll pass through, just one of those familiar faces he’ll meet in passing, yet they’re all similar in the way they gravitate toward him like bees to nectar, like ants to sugar.
Daeyoung becomes a permanent fixture in your peripheral view. You’re vaguely aware of him even though you don’t think about him too much—or even at all, initially.
Then one day, three months after you first met him on the steps leading to the Performing Arts Department, you find yourself meeting the same brown eyes on the stairs outside the library. In the few seconds it takes you to decide whether to awkwardly acknowledge him or to ignore him completely, he’s already skipping down toward you.
You can’t help but notice the upturn of his lips and the slight crinkle of his nose when he asks you if you’re headed to your org’s meeting. When you reply with an awkward “I guess?” (boy, were you painfully awkward in those early encounters), you’ll finally see up-close the apples of his cheeks pulled up and his upper teeth on full display, snaggletooth looking like a saber tiger’s, eyes twinkling ever so slightly. There’s no reason for you to feel that much breathless when you’ve been walking slowly, but in that moment, you will.
By the time you gather your senses, he’s already a few steps ahead of you, beckoning you to walk with him with a nudge of his head and a cheerful “Let’s go, Yushi-hyung!” ringing in your ears.
You’re halfway to the Field when you realize that it’s the first time he’s ever said your name.
3. Convince yourself you hate him.
The way he hits your arm repeatedly when he laughs. The way his voice rings loud and clear when he calls you from across the hallway. The way most of his classes are located near yours and you constantly find him queuing at the same water fountain. At this point you convince yourself that you hate it when he snakes his arm around yours while you walk in the same direction. All of it makes your stomach churn, and that’s reason enough for you to hate him.
Even when he sings, you’re convinced that the weird feeling in your stomach is just annoyance at how unfair it is for someone to have a voice like that. The way he makes you chuckle with his jokes and antics despite your best efforts not to. The way he quickly befriends everyone around him, including half of your own friends. The way children flock to him when you’re volunteering in daycares. The way he constantly sends you memes over the holiday break. The way he made you overthink your reply to his holiday greetings. The way he hugged you tight after spotting you in the hallway once classes resumed, paying no mind to the crowd of students passing by. The way he makes you self-conscious, your brain going into overdrive thinking of what to say whenever he’s around. The way he wormed his way into your haphazardly crafted schedule of snack breaks and study sessions and regular college night-outs. The way you always expect to see him barge in the room, loud and obnoxious and surrounded by people.
Really, you hate the way he made you so hyper-aware of his presence in the last five months from the day you first heard your name coming from his lips.
4. Have your best friend call you an idiot.
By the time you finish rambling to Sion about how much you hate Daeyoung, his left eyebrow will be permanently raised while he fixes you an unimpressed stare. You’ll squirm in your seat for a minute because Sion rarely looks at anyone judgmentally for too long. He seems to expect you to say something, or to realize something else, but he eventually gives up before the gears in your mind can shift.
“You,” he pauses for emphasis (as if pointing at you with his eyes squinting judgingly wasnt enough), “are an idiot.”
Your first instinct is to feel offended, of course, because you just bared your heart out to your best friend and the first thing he says is that you’re stupid. But when you sputter out a “Just because everyone likes him, doesn’t mean my hatred is stupid!”, your pitch climbing higher with every word, Sion would just laugh at you the way he laughs at people when they push a door that’s supposed to be pulled.
“You’re right, Yushi. Everyone likes him.” Another pause for emphasis. “Including you.”
It’s your turn to raise an eyebrow.
“And with the way you guys are going,” Sion adds, “I bet, soon enough, you’ll be the one who likes him the most.”
5. Realize that your best friend is right.
You don’t really hate him. Daeyoung may annoy you at times (you’re not really annoyed) but you don’t feel genuine hatred for him. Everyone (and you mean everyone, because if Daeyoung managed to make Dejun, the guy who’s rarely fond of his juniors, treat him like his little brother, that constitutes for everyone else) loves him for a reason. You’re still unsure of what exactly it is that makes everyone light up when he’s around, but you like him too, just like everyone else does.
You like how he hits your arm repeatedly when he laughs. How his voice rings loud and clear when he spots you from across the hallway. How he snakes his arm around yours when you’re headed in the same direction. How everyone would pause to listen and get mesmerized when he sings. How he makes you laugh with your whole body through his jokes and antics. How he quickly rose up the list of your favorite people once you dropped all apprehensions against him. How old people flock around him like he’s their favorite grandson when you volunteer in nursing homes. How he constantly sends you memes even though you’re in class. How he makes you overthink your reply to his “have you eaten?” texts. How he always envelops you in a hug when you bump into each other in the hallways. How he quickly became one of the first people you think to invite to snack breaks and study sessions and regular college night-outs.
You’re so aware of his presence now that you find yourself wondering when exactly he went from being just a fixture in your peripheral view to becoming permanent in everything else.
6. Realize your best friend is even more right.
It’s the first week of junior year and you don’t think much of it when you’re sitting on a plant box beside the library steps, waiting for Daeyoung so you can walk together to the Field. When he finally arrives, beaming at you the way he always does, it dawns on you that neither of you ever agreed, at least out loud, to wait for each other before going to your org meetings. The realization comes, admittedly, late. You’ve been doing it since last year. But before you can think too deeply about it, Daeyoung is already pulling you up by the hand, telling you anecdotes about one of his eccentric professors, his reenactments so exaggerated you forget your earlier thoughts and just laugh.
It isn’t until a month later, when Daeyoung texts you that he’s sick and can’t attend the meeting, that you remember. You don’t stop by the library steps. Instead, you text him a “get well soon” with a flood of emojis and head straight to the Field. And when you plop down the grass beside Sion and the freshman member, Ryo, you’re suddenly aware of how everyone is asking you about Daeyoung’s whereabouts. They’re not asking Riku, his best friend, nor Sohee, his blockmate. They’re asking you. Which leaves you confused and nervous for reasons you can’t explain.
And when you voice this out to Sion later that night, while the two of you are waiting in line at the local Chinese restaurant—waiting for your spring rolls and the congee you promised to take to Daeyoung’s dorm—he’ll just shrug his shoulders and tell you that it’s because everyone thinks you and Daeyoung have something going on. Your incredulous “What!?” comes out louder than intended, earning curious stares, but Sion just grins, soaking up the attention. When the lady on the counter calls your order, he smirks pointedly at the plastic bag holding the hot congee meant for Daeyoung.
You think about it for a week. Almost every free moment is spent replaying and nitpicking on memories with Daeyoung, analyzing every smile and every touch. Everything finally clicks when Daeyoung greets you with that familiar beam as you slide your backpack off the chair you’ve been saving for him in the library. You like him. Like really really like him. And while Daeyoung busies himself with taking out his notes from his bag, you remember your best friend’s words from last year, back when you were so convinced that you hated Daeyoung.
“You’re right, Yushi. Everyone likes him. Including you. And with the way you guys are going, I bet, soon enough, you’ll be the one who likes him the most.”
Sion was right then, and he’s still right now. Surprisingly, you realize you don’t mind being the person who likes Daeyoung the most.
You just wish you're the one he likes the most back.
7. Confess and ask him out on a date.
Not the usual lunch dates at budget-friendly diners or the study sessions you guys normally do. An actual date. An actual, honest-to-God, romantic date. The kind where you’ll spend the night before stressing about what to wear, if your breath smells bad, and if your palms are too clammy to attempt holding his hand (this one scares you the most. You have sweaty hands). But those are things to agonize on for later when you’ve actually managed to ask him out.
It doesn’t come easy. Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into months, each one filled with sleepless nights, cramming sessions, and aborted attempts that end with the words lodged in your throat. Those sleepless nights and cramming sessions come and go, but still every attempt to ask him out on a proper date is squashed by the fear of rejection. You rehearse what to say in the shower, in the mirror, under your breath while walking to class, but when Daeyoung smiles at you—so bright, so dazzling—you choke every time.
Because how do you confess to someone who feels larger than life? You're convinced that Daeng is too talented, too beautiful, too funny, too good to accept someone like you.
(You're not as bad as you think you are, by th eway. He'll tell you as much one day.).
It finally happens on the library steps, when he smiles at you the way he usually does when he meets you there, eyes twinkling and pearly whites on full display. Your brain short-circuits, the way it usually does when you meet him there. And so the words tumble out before you can lose your nerve. You cut off his "Hey, Yushi!" with a sudden confession.
It’s messy, nowhere near as romantic as the ones you’ve practiced in your head. But it doesn't escape your notice the way his cheeks turn red and the way his smile just seems to grow bigger and brighter after the momentary shock.
He doesn't answer immediately, not in words, but he doesn’t have to. There's no room for doubt of his acceptance in the way he slides his fingers between yours and walks in step with you to the Field; no reason to think you were rejected with the way he stares in your eyes the whole time he was singing along to a love song your org was jamming to.
(Still, just for good measure, he'll text you before bed. “So… when’s our date?” And you’ll panic all over again.)
8. Go on that date.
Wear the cute tight shirt that shows off a little bit of your midriff when you raise your hand to say hi. Put on that lip gloss. Style your hair and make sure your bangs don’t cover too much of your big, bright eyes so he could see the thick, pretty lashes you’re so proud of. Agonize over everything. Your outfit, your breath, the way you walk, your sweaty hands. As if you’ve never been beside him a hundred times before. As if your almost two years of friendship didn’t give you time to get used to his presence. This is different, you remind yourself. This isn’t lunch at the budget-friendly diner or study sessions that end with laughter echoing between stacks of library books. This is a date.
When he shows up outside the café, he looks almost as nervous as you feel, tugging at his hoodie strings and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. But then he spots you, and that familiar beam breaks across his face like sunlight through clouds, and for a moment you forget all the things you were panicking about. He insists on paying for the drinks, his hand brushing yours when he hands you your order. The café is warm and loud, but between the stolen glances and the way his knees bump yours under the table, the world feels like a movie in technicolor, all bright hues and deep tones. Just wonderful. So, so wonderful.
You talk about little things—the professors you can’t stand, the best movies to fall asleep to, the ridiculous TikToks Sakuya keeps sending the org group chat—but every laugh, every glance, feels charged in a way it never did before. You keep thinking about holding his hand, and then halfway through your walk back to campus, he just takes it, casual and sure, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Your palms are sweaty, and your heart is pounding, but you don’t dare let go.
Later, when he walks you back to your dorm, neither of you knows how to say goodbye. There’s a pause, a lingering moment where his smile is softer than usual, his eyes tracing your face like he’s memorizing it. As if he hasn’t stared at you enough to get his fill. You don’t kiss, not yet, but the possibility hangs between you as you finally say goodnight.
That night, you stare at your ceiling, cheeks aching from smiling, wondering how you ever thought he might say no.
9. Fall into the rhythm of being boyfriends.
After the first date, there’s no hesitation. You’re boyfriends now. It happens easily, without fanfare. Just a tender moment on the library steps when Daeyoung looks at you and asks, “Does this mean we’re official?” and you nod, cheeks burning, before he pulls you into a hug that smells faintly of laundry detergent and fig.
From then on, everything feels the same yet entirely different. The waiting on the library steps, the walks to the Field, the inside jokes—they’re all still there. But now there are stolen kisses between classes, fingers intertwined openly, his head resting on your shoulder during late-night study sessions. You reserve seats for him in the library not just because you’re friends, but because he’s yours, and he teases you for how seriously you guard the spot.
Friends notice, of course. Riku rolls his eyes fondly at your constant texting. Sion keeps making exaggerated gagging noises whenever you and Daeyoung share a look. Even Chenle makes jokes about “the campus power couple.” You’d normally shrink at the attention, but Daeyoung takes it all in stride, and when he squeezes your hand under the table, you can’t help but grin back.
By the time you finally tell him “I love you,” it feels like the world has shifted into place. Late-night walks back from the library, his hoodie draped over your shoulders, his laughter filling the quiet spaces. Everything becomes tinted with the kind of warmth you didn’t know you were missing. You and Daeyoung talk about the future in fragments, not quite promises, but enough to make you believe in forever.
10. Break up.
They did say college relationships rarely last. The thing about young love is that sometimes, even when it feels perfect, cracks start to show. It isn’t one big fight. It’s little snowballs of hurt feelings that turn into an avalanche. Missed texts, rescheduled plans, the way exams pile up and org work stretches both of you thin. You find yourself sitting alone on the library steps more often, scrolling through your phone and wondering when he’ll show up. He does, sometimes, but he’s distracted, tired, already halfway to somewhere else. You find yourself swimming in guilt when you spot the smile he puts on to hide his hurt, every time you apologize for forgetting to meet him for Friday night dates.
You start to think about the future. How you’re not even sure if you’re willing to stay in Korea. How you might not stay in Korea. How he might never leave. How your parents mention opportunities overseas, how job offers tug at you with promises you cannot ignore. The guilt stings worse when you realize the long-distance logistics are not even your biggest concern. The truth is simpler, heavier. You are not sure you can keep holding on.
The breakup comes quietly, gently. Because you’re Yushi, and he’s Daeyoung, and you thrive in gentleness, in softness. You’re sitting together on the Field after a meeting, the grass damp with evening dew, the hum of athletes practicing late into the night faint in the distance. You are the one who exhales first, the one who snips the thread, the one who says the words. That maybe it would be better if you were just friends. Your voice cracks but does not falter.
For a moment, Daeyoung just looks at you. Then he nods, eyes steady though his lips press tight, like he has been bracing for this. He admits he was thinking the same, but couldn’t bring himself to be the first to say it. Relief and heartbreak mingle in the space between you.
You want to take the words back, to ask for more time, to promise you’ll do better. But you both know it wouldn’t change the truth. Because deep down, you feel it too. The distance that’s been growing, the way you’ve both been drifting. So instead, you nod, forcing a smile even as your chest feels like it’s caving in, even when your ribs feel like they’re too tight for you to breathe yet too wide for your heart to stay safe in. He holds your hand one last time, lingers like he’s memorizing it, every line, the warmth, then lets go. You both walk away, neither daring to look back, because you know if you did, you’d run to each other and never leave.
Later, when you’re alone in your bed that still smells faintly of laundry detergent and his fig-scent, the hoodie you stole from him enveloping you—remnants of Daeyoung that you cling on to—you think about how easy it was to fall into him, how natural it felt to call him yours, and how impossible it feels now to let go.
11. Leave Korea after graduating.
Graduation comes with all the clamor of endings that are supposed to feel triumphant. Caps flung into the air, flashes from cameras, classmates pulling you into embraces as if this would be the last time you would ever see each other (for most of them, it is). Beneath all the celebration is a quieter truth. You are not just leaving school, you are leaving behind the version of yourself who waited on the library steps, who spent dusk to daybreak surviving on unhealthy food choices, who measured the happiest of days with his smiles.
You are halfway through your goodbyes when you see him. Daeyoung. He moves through the crowd with that same easy smile that once undid you, carrying a bouquet of pink carnations. When he reaches you, he does not say much. Just “Congratulations, hyung” and your name spoken like it still matters, before he pulls you into a hug that feels both too brief and impossibly long. For a second, it seems like nothing has changed, like you will walk to the Field after this and fall back into the rhythm of being his. But then he steps back, and you both know this is the last time.
(You wish it isn’t. You pray to whatever higher being there is that it isn’t.)
His hands linger on your arms as if he wants to say something more, then he lets go, leaving you with flowers that feel like a thank you and a goodbye.
Packing is mechanical. You fold your org shirt and push it deep into the bottom of your suitcase, where his hoodie that you never bothered to return lies, burying it the way you have been trying to bury your feelings. You tell yourself this is what you chose, what you needed to do, and yet the ache does not dull. Because even if you were the one who said the words first, walking away has not made it easier. If anything, it feels heavier knowing you are the reason the thread snapped, even if he wanted it as much as you did.
At the airport, there is no rom-com movie chase, no last-minute appearance to stop you. There’s only you, clutching your boarding pass, watching the city blur into a wash of lights beneath the clouds as the plane takes off. The weight of what you left—friends, memories, and him—sits with you in the empty seat beside you. You tell yourself this is moving forward. You tell yourself this is what growing up requires. But the hollow in your chest argues otherwise.
12. Move on.
Or try to. For a while, you do.
13. Come back to Korea.
Years later, work calls you back, and for the first time in a long while, your flight lands in Seoul. The city greets you with its usual frenzy of billboards full of pretty celebrities, honking cars, and the chatter of a thousand lives everywhere all at once. It should feel foreign after so many years away, but the streets fit around you like an old coat you left on your last visit home.
Walking through the city is like opening an old notebook you forgot you still owned. You find scribbled notes in the margins, doodles pressed into the paper, and a faint shadow of handwriting that does not belong to you. Everywhere, there are echoes of him. You hear a laugh that rings out too brightly on the street, and for a moment your body jolts, convinced it belongs to him. You smell a familiar scent brushing past you in a crowd, and it makes you turn your head too quickly. A song drifts from a café, and you stop mid-step, remembering his voice blending into the chords.
That is when you realize the truth you have avoided. You may have grown older, your body steadier, your days filled with work, but the part of you that loved him is still alive.
14. See him again.
You do not plan for it. It happens the way all life-changing moments do, without warning, without fanfare, in the middle of a day that should have been ordinary. You are running late, clutching a coffee you barely had time to buy, in a street you once knew well, your thoughts tangled in deadlines. And then you see him.
Daeyoung. He stands there like no time has passed, except time clearly has. His shoulders are broader, his face sharper, his expression touched by years you were not a part of. Yet he still carries that same unshakable light, the one that once drew you in and kept you wanting more. The sight of him knocks the air out of you.
It is not just recognition. It is muscle memory. Your entire body remembering the tilt of his smile, the curve of his laughter, the way his mere presence alone shifts the air around him. He looks up, and his eyes meet yours. For a moment, the years collapse in the space between you both. You are twenty again, standing on the library steps, stammering through your words as his laughter wraps around you like sunlight.
The spell breaks only when the moment stretches too long, forcing you both back into the present. You are not kids anymore. You are older, wiser, steadier. But the look in his eyes tells you that some things never faded, no matter how many years passed or how far away you ran.
15. Never break up again.
This time, there is no hesitation. No cautious circling, no waiting for the other to make the first move. An invite for coffee becomes an invite to dinner. Dinners turn into weekends. Weekends turn into months of daily messages, of samgyeopsal and jjigae dates, and months of surrendering to the pull of the tide clearly still existing between the both of you. Months dissolve into years that stitch themselves seamlessly into the fabric of your lives. You fall into rhythm once more, but it is not the restless, desperate tempo of youth. This rhythm is slower, gentler, steadier. It is grocery runs and quiet mornings with sunlight pooling on the kitchen table. It is worrying about bills and holding each other through nights of exhaustion. It is the comfort of falling asleep beside him after days that wring you dry. It is conversations that wander from everything to nothing, the kind that last until dawn because you simply like the sound of his voice, low and sweet and all just for you.
Your friends smile knowingly when they see you together. Riku calls you over Facetime and threatens you with mock-seriousness to keep Daeyoung’s heart safe, his eyes shining with fondness at the two of you. Sion throws an arm around Daeyoung’s shoulders, pulling him into a headlock while joking that he better take care of you too. They laugh and say they always expected this ending, that the years apart were only an intermission, a long commercial break before the show returned. For once, you agree.
There is a wedding at some point, simple and intimate and warm. It’s not legally binding, not on paper, unfortunately. But you have a ceremony because both of you are sentimental, and maybe you still have the hot-blooded rebelliousness of your youth to some extent. Someone mentions the library steps in a speech, and everyone laughs. Someone recalls the Field, and the room hums with nostalgia. Daeyoung sings you a song, his voice trembling but bright, and you sing one back through the tears you are no longer embarrassed to shed. Whenever the slideshow of old photos and videos your friends made for you makes his throat close up, he mouths “I love you, Yushi,” with eyes that glimmer like that first eye contact you shared. The ceremony is not grand, but it is overflowing with love and faith and acceptance, and that is enough. It is more than enough.
Years will roll. Wrinkles deepen into the corners of your eyes, laughter carving itself into lines that never fade. You grow older together, and yet nothing about holding his hand ever feels old. It is still the same hand you reached for on the library steps, the same warmth that steadied you on the Field, the same palm that never cared whether yours were clammy or unsure. Only now it carries the weight of decades, of promises made and promises kept, of a life that grew around the two of you until it became impossible to imagine one without the other.
You will never break up again. Not in this lifetime.
(You pray to whatever higher being is out there that the Yushi and Daeyoung of every other lifetime never will either.).
15 +1. Write this guide.
Because you have the free will to write about Daeyoung. Because you found the love of your life and you’ve found one true love in the form of Daeyoung Kim. This guide is both a record and a promise, a reminder that what you share is worth every heartbeat, every hesitation, every risk.
You write because the pieces of your life slip away before you can hold them. Names blur. Faces fade. You know you love him, but the details, the small perfect details, do not always come easily. The library steps, the Field, the way he grins so wide it breaks his face. You remember them in fragments, like half-remembered dreams.
So you write. You write because you fear forgetting him. Fear that one day his laughter will be only a shadow in your mind, that the love you share will feel like a story you once read but cannot fully recall. You write because love is stubborn. Even if memory fails, you want him to know that every ordinary, beautiful moment mattered. Every touch, every glance, every smile—you write them down so they remain alive, if not inside you, then on the page.
Some days the pen shakes in your hand. The right words do not come. You feel the depth of your love, but sentences fracture before they reach the page. Still, you try. You try because this is how you fight back against forgetting, how you keep him alive when your mind wants to let go. You write so that anyone who reads this understands that love endures. Even when he cries when the doctor tells you it’s incurable. Even when he hugs you for far too long when you cannot remember the university where you first met. Even when both of you uproot the life you built together to move across the ocean so you can spend time with your family before you forget them too. Even when you hear the palpable relief in his voice when he sees no confusion in your eyes every day, when you wake up and greet him good morning with a kiss.
Maybe whoever reads this that isn't me will find their own Daeyoung too. But not my Daeyoung. Not my Jaehee. Please. In this lifetime, he is for me alone to have and to hold. With this guide, in this lifetime, he is for me to remember.
From your Yushi.