Our meeting with the entire Fiction and Fact team was two days after the first episode. That was enough time for the network ratings to come out, as well as reviews to come out. That also meant I technically didn’t need to see Lu Han for two days. 

When I got home after the screening fiasco, Andi was waiting for me. I gave her a vague explanation about what had happened before falling asleep. I was already so tired, and I felt emotionally drained. 

I wondered what Lu Han would do, what would he would say the next time he saw me. Would he let me down easy? Or pretend like it had never happened. Was it possible that he would pick me over Nana?

Andi’s flight back to Beijing was at 11AM. We got up early, had congee and *oyster omelet for breakfast before I saw her off at the airport.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” she whispered in my ear when she hugged me. “No matter what happens with Lu Han, he’s just another boy, okay? You’ll be back in Beijing soon, and we can see each other all the time like we used to.”

That was a comforting thought. I had already purchased my own ticket home which was in about two weeks.

In the taxi on my way back home, I got a message in wechat from Lu Han. It was a sticker of a bear holding a pair of chopsticks. “Come over for dinner?” was the message that accompanied it. 

Dinner? That has to be a good sign, right? 

“What does it mean when someone you’ve confessed to ask you over for dinner?” I asked the cabbie who I had been chatting with. He was an old guy, probably in his sixties, who reminded me of a friendlier, older version of my father. 

The cabbie laughed. “It sounds like you have an admirer, Miss,” he replied, eyes twinkling. 

An admirer? Could it be? 

I got to Lu Han’s temporary apartment a few minutes early. It had started to rain the afternoon so I wasn’t sure how bad the traffic would be. To my surprise, the door to Lu Han’s apartment was propped open. I pressed the doorbell just to alert him of my arrival before stepping in. 

“Oh, Yejing! You’re here already!” Lu Han was standing in front of the stove, looking frazzled. Whatever he was cooking in the nonstick pan had burned, sticking like crisps to the bottom. It looked like it might have been some sort of stir fry at once point. 

I forgot all about the awkwardness between us and peeked over his shoulders into the pan. “Is that our dinner?” I asked, taking the spatula from him. I poked at a piece of sausage stuck to the pan, burned black. 

Lu Han was pouting at me. “I just stepped away for a second to do my hair,” he said, turning to glare at the pan again. 

I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Your hair looks nice,” I told him. He had pushed it back from his face, off his forehead, making him look a little older and more mature.  

“I wanted to cook you dinner,” Lu Han sighed. 

“Why?”

He shifted from one foot to another, avoiding my gaze.     

 “Why?” I asked again. He already knew how I felt…wasn’t it only fair for me to know how he felt too? 

Lu Han looked nervous and unsure of himself. He bit his lip but looked back up at me. He seemed to hesitate for another moment, gathering up his resolve, before continuing on. “Ever since our trip to Thailand, you’ve always been on my mind,” he confessed in a hurried rush. “That’s what I wanted to tell you at the screening, actually, but you beat me to it. Also, Nana and I might have gone on dates once or twice, but we were never dating. I was never her boyfriend.”

So I hadn’t been imagining it all? Lu Han also felt something when we went to Thailand too. 

“I like you too, Lin Yejing,” he finished, pausing to draw in a breath. “I was trying to make you a romantic dinner tonight.”

“Oh.” I looked back down at the pan. “Should we call for delivery instead?”

Lu Han frowned. “That’s not very romantic,” he argued. He opened his fridge again, as if looking for something else to cook last minute. 

It was kind of endearing to see how hard Lu Han was trying to impress me. “We had a romantic dinner in Thailand, it’s okay,” I said, pulling him away from the fridge. “Let’s order beef noodle soup.”

Lu Han tried to put up a fight, but instead caved in when he realized how hungry he was. I called in the order, and then returned to the kitchen to help Lu Han clean up the mess in his kitchen. 

“I tried really hard,” Lu Han groaned, after all the burnt food had been thrown away. “I even looked up recipes online!”

I laughed, patting him on the back. “Next time you cook, I’ll supervise,” I told him. 

We enjoyed the beef noodle soup at the kitchen table, and then split a small tub of ice cream for dessert. We had eaten together loads of times before, but things felt different this time. There were furtive glances and shy smiles, almost as if we were meeting again for the first time.  

After dinner, Lu Han and I curled up on the couch to watch a movie. We picked out Iron Man, and Lu Han popped it into the DVD player, He disappeared into his room for a moment, before reappearing with a blanket. He flicked off the lights and settled in next to me, tucking us into the blanket. 

Sitting this close together, I was hyper aware of every single movement Lu Han made, every single breath that he took. 

About ten minutes into the movie, I felt Lu Han’s hands curl softly around my own. When I turned to look at him, Lu Han was still staring straight at the screen, pretending like nothing had changed. I laced our fingers together carefully, and I saw Lu Han smile in the darkness. I leaned into him, resting my head on his shoulder. 

“Are you my boyfriend now?” I asked, voice lowered. 

Lu Han gave me a gummy smile and a vigorous nod in return. “Mine,” he mumbled, tightening his grip on my hand. 

The dubbed Chinese voices on TV, combined with the darkened room, my full stomach, and the warmth from Lu H