I finished my book on a Wednesday night. Well, not exactly night. It was 2:15AM on a Thursday, so maybe Thursday morning was the better description. Andi was asleep, Lu Han was still in Korea, and the apartment was completely empty. I had gotten into a habit of writing the dark, probably terrible for my eyes, so I was sitting by the window with only lights from outside and my laptop screen. 

I scanned the last chapter I had written again, almost in disbelief. I changed a typo, edited a few sentences, but honestly, I was pretty happy with it. I attached the word file in an email to my editor and closed my laptop. As my eyes were adjusting to the sudden darkness, I was blind for a moment, seeing only stars dance across my vision. 

I reached across the counter for my phone and checked wechat. Lu Han had send me a voice memo only ten minutes ago. I pressed on it to listen, and slumped down as my boyfriend’s beautiful voice came over the speaker. 

“Just finished with dance rehearsal. Tonight was a long one…a few of the members kept messing up so we all had to stay until everyone got it down. Anyway, I’m next to use the shower and then I think I’m going to go straight to bed. I’ll call in the morning, okay? If you’re sleeping in, just silence your phone so I don’t wake you up. I miss you. Bye.”

He sounded so tired and miserable in the message, and I felt my heart twinge painfully in my chest. I immediately knew that I had to do. I opened my laptop again, squinting into the harsh light. An hour later, I went to sleep with a lighter heart. 

I ended up sleeping in the next morning. I actually had my phone on vibrate, but I was sleeping so soundly that even the sound of my phone buzzing and sliding across my bedside table didn’t wake me up. I called Lu Han back later, hoping to catch him during his lunch break, and to my relief, Lu Han picked up on the second ring. 

“Yejing! Hi! Did you just wake up?” His voice was a lot more chipper today, happy, upbeat.

“Yeah, I’m still curled up in bed.”

I could hear him chuckle. “Is Xiao Lu with you?”

Reaching around my pillow, I grabbed the stuff animal, sitting it carefully next to me. “Of course,” I answered, flopping over onto my stomach. “Hey, Han, I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“I finished my book last night,” I told him. I waited for a moment to hear his response, before dropping the rest of the announcement. “And I booked a plane ticket to Seoul for tomorrow. Missed you too much.”

“Tomorrow?!”

Hearing Lu Han’s excitement and happiness made me smile. 

“I still need to book a hotel and stuff. I’ll do that after breakfast,” I added. 

“I’ll send you some links in a minute to some convenient hotels,” Lu Han said immediately. “I’ll find you a place close to me and close to a metro station so you can go sightseeing easily.”

After I took a shower and ate some food, I realized that I should have probably called Kevin before booking the tickets. And maybe my editors and publisher. But whoops, I wasn’t about to let them convince me otherwise. It’s only for a week anyway. 

When I called my editing team, I got some grumbling about my last minute travel plans but they just told me to head over to meet them as soon as I got back. Kevin was annoyed at me for deciding to travel on a whim until I told him that I had finished my book, upon which he fully supported a short vacation. 

I flew to Korea Friday morning. I spoke pretty much no Korean but didn’t have much trouble finding the hotel I had ended up picking due to directions that Lu Han gave me. As I strolled through the hotel lobby on the way to the elevator after checking in, I realized that this might be the last time where I could travel so freely like this. Soon, when my book gets released, everyone in China would know my face. Would I even be able to make grocery trip runs as freely as before? Or would reporters be dogging my footsteps? 

Lu Han had to sneak out to see me. He pretended that he was going to go ride bikes down at the Han River with Xiumin and Lay, but left them to visit me instead. We ordered food up to the room and had a late dinner. He had practice for half of the week, but he helped me plan out places to visit and wrote directions for me to get everywhere. 

After eating, Lu Han pulled on a dark snapback and took me to the Han River where he was supposed to have been the entire time. Xiumin and Lay were playing basketball together and waved when they saw us. 

“I’ve always wanted to be the first person to get a secret girlfriend,” Lay mused, sitti