It was Luhan who woke up first the next morning. It was still early, but he was fully awake and well-rested, probably because he and Mei fell asleep long before they’d usually say goodnight. They were facing each other, lying on either of their sides. Their hands were long separated, but Luhan didn’t mind at all. Even if she wasn’t embracing his fingers, she was still so close enough to continue sending him comfort and warmth.

Reminiscing last night, he didn’t know when he stopped crying. Probably it was when he and Mei laid down, probably it was, when she hugged him and snuggled up to him, probably it was when he slowly fell asleep with her hand in his. He didn’t know. Pain and bliss somehow mixed together to something Luhan couldn’t really define.

(But there was one thing he was sure about.) Mei brought him happiness her mother had been talking about. Even in darkest times, she managed to give him a little bliss. Enough to keep him alive, lively and enough to bring him through the darkness. Maybe it was this happiness he needed to live a good life. Maybe it was not. And Luhan hoped for the latter, because he could never be with Mei. Ren was blessed with Mei. (And Luhan had no one.)

He needed to forget this thought and search somewhere else to find that special someone. He needed to forget this elusive feeling and go on.

But it was Mei’s innocent and angelic sleeping face which made his heart skip a beat. And then it just hurt. Luhan couldn’t keep his eyes off of her and let his sight trail from her hair to her eyes, her lashes, her nose, her cheek, her lips, her chin, her neck… He pressed his lips to a thin line and gulped. She was indeed beautiful. She was average, but beautiful in his eyes. (And she was Ren’s.)

Mesmerized, Luhan slowly lifted his hand and stopped halfway, trying to calm down and ask himself what he intended to do there. But once again: he couldn’t help himself. It was magical.

Luhan slightly touched her cheek and wandered with his hand further, brushing some strands of her hair from the side of her face. It was the moment his skin met hers when a smile appeared on her face.

She didn’t wake up. She smiled, because she was touched and Luhan knew it. He knew it and he glorified the moment when Mei was happy by being touched by him, although she wasn’t aware that it was Luhan. But who else could it be? (Luhan smiled as well, showering in the moment of which he thought it belonged to him.)

“Ren?”

It was a murmur, a whisper with a light, quiet voice, but it still had so much strength to swipe Luhan off his feet.

Ren. Sure, she thought it was Ren, because it was Ren she was (currently) with after all. And Luhan had taken the opportunity to actually make a move, to touch her, when she was asleep, being unaware of what was going on. He was ashamed of behaving like that and withdrew his hand.

Why did he let himself be led by his feelings? And what kind of feelings and instinct made him do this? Luhan’s thoughts were a mess and so was his heart, different kinds of emotions mixing up together once again, sitting in his stomach and making him feeling uncomfortable, yet so blissful. He felt so… alive.

“How do you feel?” Mei had opened her eyes. Apparently, his touch had awakened her. She smiled at him tiredly, but still encouragingly.

“Good,” he said, returning the expression. And yes, Luhan felt really good and full of life. Maybe touching Mei was wrong, and even if he felt something like regret the first time, he didn’t regret it at all now.

They had been touching each other so often already, didn’t they? It was natural skinship, something friends would do to support and comfort each other. Mei had held his hand the whole evening the day before.

But maybe it wasn’t the touch itself which made him feel uncomfortable deep inside. Maybe it was the feeling which enveloped him while touching her. And that feeling scared him, because he wasn’t allowed to feel that way. At all.

(But it felt so good.)

Mei didn’t know what to continue, so she remained silent for some time, examining Luhan’s face with a smile.

It was strange. She slowly awoke with the feeling of someone touching the side of her face, caressing her cheek. It felt very good, sending shivers down her spine, because it was tender and gentle. It was soft and very careful and it was certainly not something Ren would do. And when she woke up, she thought she had just dreamt it, because besides her was laying Luhan.

“Thank you,” he whispered lightheartedly, “for staying with me and comforting me.”

And those words brought her back to the night in Qingdao, when they first shared a bed. The night she had been closer to Luhan than she wanted to be. (Than she could afford to be.)

Mei remembered that Luhan fell asleep once they turned off the lights. The thunderstorm was just passing by and although Mei had been living in China her whole lifetime, experiencing that weather often every summer, she couldn’t help but be scared. No matter how much she experienced it, how much she told herself that nothing could happen, it still scared her after all.

Some fears couldn’t be taken away. They could be lessened.

Usually, when she was sleeping at Ren’s place, he would only shrug it off, telling her “Just sleep. It will go away anyways”. And then he would turn around, snoring a minute later and Mei would snuggle up in her own blanket and in her pillow, keeping her eyes shut and thinking of something good, a tale for example, and just hoped the thunderstorm would pass by as fast as it came.

But the night in Qingdao was different. Mei didn’t want to bother Luhan with her fears, being ashamed that he might be making fun of her. Sure it was not Luhan’s manner to do so, but she didn’t want to show her childish side. She was mature after all, an adult. Ren always said her fear was ridiculous, something only children would have.

The moment she began to wince at the noise the thunderstorm was making, she felt strong arms around her upper body and another body coming closer to her. She still remembered how shocked she was, whispering Luhan’s name quietly. But he didn’t answer.

Instead, Mei felt his soft breath touching the back of her neck, caressing it by doing so. It made her shiver, it tickled her, but it didn’t feel strange or wrong at all. He was spooning her from behind, holding her like that for hours. (She had never been held like this before.) Luhan’s warm and strong arms comforted her throughout the night, even when the thunderstorm had long passed.

And it was the moment she felt him that near to her when her fear vanished. She had never felt so safe before. (And it scared her.)

She didn’t tell Luhan that she returned the favor, that she did what he unknowingly did for her as well. She felt like he would feel guilty about it, because she was still with Ren after all, so she remained silent. (But she glorified the night even now.) The other’s presence and comfort was enough to make either of their pains and fears vanish.

“I’m always here for you, Luhan,” Mei answered.

“Are you willing to go with me there again before we depart? I just… want to see her again… the grave, I mean.”

“Of course I will.”

It was Mei’s mother who felt that something changed when both came out of the room to take breakfast. Not that they had been sleeping together. The aura, the atmosphere around them had changed. With a playful smile, she watched them. (And she enjoyed.)

Shanghai was the largest city by population in China and the largest city by population in the world. It had a total population of over 23 million and it is a global city, with influence in commerce, culture, finance, media, fashion, technology, and transport. Located in the Yangtze River Delta in East China, Shanghai sat at the mouth of the named river in the middle portion of the Chinese coast. The municipality borders the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the north, south and west, and was bounded to the east by the East China Sea.

Mei’s mother moved to that city after she had been divorced from her husband, beginning a new life in the city where she was from. And she succeeded in it. She had a good job and was living a good life- even without a new husband or a boyfriend. Mei was asking herself whether her mother was feeling lonely sometimes. She, herself, had her father, her grandmother and Ren. (Now Luhan as well.) But her mother was alone all the time. Wasn’t she feeling lonely?

Since Mei’s mother had only one day off, she decided to take the kids (she always called them like that when calling for them both) to Shanghai Nanjing Road. She wanted to do something exciting, yet something where you can see a lot of Shanghai’s city center, because Luhan and Mei were supposed to see some calmer, culture sightseeing the next day.

Nanjing Road was China’s premier shopping street, the number one, established in 1851. The 5,5 kilometer long road started at the Bund in the East Hongqiao and ended in the West at the junction of Jing’an Temple and Yan’an West Street with Shanghai’s center point People’s Square in the middle. It was a must-see metropolitan destination att