It was another Friday night; young and energetic youth dressed to nine in the latest fashion, street lights blinking and bouncing off the reflective surfaces, young people hanging out in their little groups while checking out others - eyeing for the prey of the night. They were all having the time of their youth in the most vibrant area of Beijing’s nightlife, where clubs and restaurants are abundant just like the young, well-dressed people.

A tall figure of a man whose face was covered by face mask walked in a hurried manner through the crowds of people and bumped into a few as he walked past, causing others to mumble words of annoyance, “what is wrong with him?”, accompanied with a glare. Several seconds after he had past, a group of excited-sounding young ladies and a few boys followed him. They, too, bumped into other people as they walked excitedly.

“Oh my god, what is your problem?!” one girl screamed at top of her voice in annoyance, her face was red and patchy from slight intoxication. She glared at the shorter girl, who bumped into her. The short girl squeaked and whispered, “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry…” she apologized over and over again, “it won’t happen again. I promise.”

“Yo,” a young man called out a girl, who seemed like she was following the former tall man, “did he steal something? Why are you guys following him?”

One of the girls swished her hair around and looked at the young man, as if he was speaking nonsense, “Thief?” she scoffed “No, that was Wu Yifan, can’t you see? What are you? Blind?” and stomped off.

~~~

“Haaa~haaa~haaaaa” Wu Yifan panted as he pressed his back on the brick wall in the alley way behind a club. “That was close,” he mumbled, “very close.” He looked around the area over and over again before taking his mask off. A wave of excited voices went past him as the girls walked past the alleyway he was in. His body tensed in slight fear and anxiousness as he held his breath in. He leaned back into the wall impossibly close, hoping that he would not get discovered.  

“There he is!!” a screech shattered his dream. He cursed under his breath and started running, with the same group of girls following him, all screaming in desperation - ranging from ‘Gege don’t go!!!’ to ‘Wu Yifan I love you!!!’ He ran as fast as he could until he reached a place where he felt like he would finally be safe and away from the horde of over-enthusiastic fangirls.

The sign read ‘Male Toilet’

Without thinking, he dashed into the toilet and looked for a cubicle to lock himself in. The toilet reeked of cleaning agents and cheap perfume. He held his breath in even further, ‘What have I done?’ he thought to himself and sunk himself on the closed toilet seat after he had shut the lid close. He sat on it with his elbows resting on the knees while his head rested on his palms.

Soon enough, bangs on toilet doors approached in closer and closer. There were alarmed voices of other men saying ‘excuse me! this is not your place!’

‘Shut up!’ a girl’s voice stopped the man. “Gege~ I know you’re in here. Please come out and say a few words to us,” a voice pleaded, accompanied with several knocks on the door. Yifan put his legs up onto the seat and made himself feel as small as possible. He felt powerless as he already was.

Knocks and rattles on his cubicle door increases. ‘This won’t hold up well,’ Yifan sighed and pulled out his mobile from his trousers pocket. The phone screen was filled with multiple calls, which he ignored, from various people - his manager, his stylist, his makeup artist, acting coach, and last but not least, his best friend, Luhan.

“Manager Zhang?” he sighed into the phone after pressing a button on speed dial, “can you please pick me up?” he recited the address of the place he found on the phone’s GPS. “Also, bring a few bodyguards.” he added to his manager before hanging up. The noise outside his toilet cubicle kept doubling up as the minutes ticked by while he waited for his manager’s booming voice to appear.

~~~

“Have you had a look at what you have done?” an iPad slid in front of him with a website page on. The words on the screen were

‘A YOUNG MASTER’S WILD NIGHT OUT: EXCLUSIVE NEWS!’

His eyes wandered further downward to see blurry photographs where faces cannot be distinguished properly, excerpts from people whom he had not met giving interviews with falsified facts, girls claiming that he had hit on them, and other people saying he misbehaved. Yifan diverted his eyes away from the screen before he read more.

“Yifan,” his director’s concerned voice appeared. He looked up to see her. His director, Angela Cheung, is a friend of his mother, who manages his studio, was looking at him with anxious expression and her lips pressed into a straight line - an expression that she always does whenever she is not happy with how headlines about him turn out in the media.

Angela Cheung, or his second mom, is one woman he adores in his life. Just like his mother, she looks out for him like he is her own son. Yifan used to manage his studio on his own but as his progress became better and better, he realized that his career became solid and that it was time to get an experienced person to manage his career while he focuses on other things in his life. That was when Angela came in. A woman in her early fifties, who looked capable to the core, took over his studio and been managing him ever since.

Yifan leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes, “Director Cheung,” he spoke, “can we not?”

“No,” she refused, “we must. What’s up with you these days, Fanfan?” Angela continued, switching to the endearing term used to refer to him by close people,  “is there something that we should be concerned? You are not yourself and you have not been accepting projects either.”

Yifan’s head shot up straight, “That is not true!” he stared at Angela, who now tilted her head with raised eyebrows.  

“Have you been keeping track of all the project proposals that I sent you?” she asked gently. He bit the inner part of his lips in slight anxiousness. “I have sent you seven project proposals this month.”

“I must have at least took something!” he protested, even though the chances of him being right were sheer.

Angela chuckled, “You turned all of them down and they all went to your rival. Yifan, you must stay ahead of the game. You must keep your focus in the game. You should know better.”

Yifan blankly stared at his director. She was right. He had not been paying much attention to his career lately. If he had to be true to himself, he wanted to be just like any other people of his age, a normal 29 years old. The thought of him turning thirty, entering into a new decade of his life brought so many worries upon him.

He spent the entirety of his 20s working for the career he dreamed of having. He enjoyed it very much - going from one project to another, working with different people, experiencing different lives of others, both real and fictional, in various movies and travelling around the world.

However, there was also a price he had to pay - a substantial price that is his freedom. Even though his personal life remained very much protected, as far as it could go for a celebrity, due to his ferocity towards protecting it; his freedom vapourized into thin air once his name started to get popular. He used to be able to enjoy the fun of playing basketball, going to the movies with his friends, walking around the city to enjoy streets foods, a quiet walk in the park, and all the other things that other people like to do in their free time.

It is not the same for him anymore. He couldn’t play basketball without fans filling up the benches of the court even if it was something he planned secretly. He couldn’t walk around the city without attracting a large crowd, or at least getting his photographs snapped at him regularly. He had long forgotten the fun of going to the movies during normal screen times, instead movie premieres and private screenings became the new norm for him. He has lost a part of his personal freedom alongside the fame he had gained.

If someone asked him whether he regretted choosing his career over his personal freedom, he would say he would do the same thing over and over again. Being a paradoxical person that he is, a little part of him hopes that he would be able to enjoy freedom just like any other person of his age and not be a burden to other people he was with.

Like right now.

In front of him sat Angela, his director, who was looking at him with concerned eyes but a stern expression, waiting for an answer. He didn’t know what to answer since he knew what he had done was wrong, for him. A well-known public figure entering an underground club was something that does not happen everyday in the city. He went there to experience the hip-hop scene happening in the city and re-live the part of his youth when he was obsessed with hip-hop and basketball.

His eyes looked down at the mahogany table in front of him, “I don’t know, Angela,” he sighed, “I think I just want to experience my day like a normal person and I don’t know how the news broke out.” He replied as calmly as he could. The older woman sighed, “I don’t want to pressure you, really,” she interlaced her fingers together in front of her as she sat straight at the chair, “you’re like my own child - someone that I never had. And I just want the best of you.” He looked up and saw that she was smiling gently at him, as if she was encouraging him.  

“If you have nothing more to tell me, I would like to excuse myself,” Yifan excused himself before getting an approval from her and walked out of the office room. He felt so tired and wanted to go back to his apartment - to sleep and not wake up for another eternity.

He felt so tired.

~~~

The mobile phone placed on the bedside table vibrated and made a buzzing sound against the hard wood, which woke him up. He opened his bleary eyes and lazily reached for it. The screen was flashing the words ‘Mama’ at him and he sighed.

“Mama?” he answered as he rubbed his eyes and looked around. His room looked the messiest state in the longest time - clothes strewn all over the place, hats in piles on the floor, and there were empty packets of crisps that he had consumed in the past few days while he was watching movies in his bedroom. ‘The cleaner auntie needs to come soon. I cannot live in this dump anymore,’ he thought to himself.

“Fanfan?! Where are you?” his mother’s half-worried, half-frustrated voice pierced his ears.

He smiled groggily, slightly wincing, “Ma, I’m in my apartment. Don’t worry I’m in my apartment.”

“Good!” she exclaimed, “Because I am in front of the door and you are to open this door at once. Since when did you change PIN?!” his mom’s voice changed to demanding and borderline nerve-grating.

With hurried steps, he went to the front door of the apartment, knocking over a few items scattered across the floor in the living room. He looked at the full-length mirror to check whether he looked presentable. A tall, gangly man in his late twenties was looking at him; dressed in white, slouchy, long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of grey track suits cuffed at his ankles- his pyjamas.

“Young man, you are to tell me what happened,” were the first words his mother said as soon as the door swung open in front of him. Mama Wu, whom he fondly calls Miss Wu sometimes, dressed in pale pink sweater and a pair of gray fitted pants, completed with a pair of high heels was looking at him with an unimpressed expression, her right foot was tapping on the floor.

He smiled. “Miss Wu, please come in first,” he stretched out his arms and put his arms around her, calling her with the name he uses whenever his mother needs emotional comfort. His mother was not giving in, as her body remained stiff. “Come on, Ma,” he pleaded like a child as he tugged on her hand, “I’ll tell you everything,” he hugged his mother by the shoulder and brought her into his apartment.

Two pots of tea and a few slices of honey cakes later. His mother started to calm down from her initial rage. She was telling him how Angela, her best friend, had told what had happened to him and how she flew in from Guangzhou to see him.

“Fanfan, you had been acting strangely,” she sighed after sipping on her cup of tea, “I am very worried. How long has it been since you had been turning down projects?”

“A few months, maybe,” Yifan shrugged as he helped himself to some more tea.

His mother smiled, “Six months,” her smile was crooked, “it has been that long. You need to get yourself together.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. People were starting to get on his mind and it had started to feel as if nobody knew how he felt and what he really wanted - a free state of mind. “Mama, I know,” he sighed, “just let me enjoy my time at my pace and enjoy life, okay?”

Mama Wu leaned back on her chair as she played with her tea cup, “I know, Fanfan. I just want you to experience life - just like a normal person.”

At least somebody got him. He exhaled in relief. He wouldn’t have to worry about Angela pushing all the proposals for the time being since his mother would tell her best friend that he would want to enjoy his life. “Thank you,” he smiled.

“You don’t mind if Mama helps you with helping you to enjoy life, do you?” his mother asked as she picked up her bag from the floor. “I know what you want.”

Yifan’s smile deepened with a slight smug etching on top of it. He knew that his mother would know the best, just as expected. “I don’t mind, Mama.  You know me.”

“Great!” she exclaimed as she stood up and smoothen out the creases from her trousers, “then I’ll call you soon, okay?”

He nodded in smiles as he sent his mother off from his apartment. He knew he could trust his mother.

~~~