It was now the second week of school, and whether if I wanted to admit it or not, I was struggling with my school work. Everything was so complicated! Why couldn’t they just call derivatives, derivatives and integrals, integrals and gravity, gravity and titanium, titanium and Austria, Austria. But no! Every single word and subject vocabulary had a difficult - sometimes completely elusive and irrelevant - Chinese translation!

Well...an explanation would be that I was studying in China…

Who’s idea was it to study abroad anyway?!

Right...mine…

Why didn’t I think this through before making this rash decision? Why didn’t Kris stop me or knock some sense into me?

Because he’s a caring friend. Sometimes, I thought he followed my word and decisions - mostly rash - way too much. I mean, I extremely appreciated him being such a great best friend, but I didn’t think we’d survive much longer with my irrational and reckless, yet indecisive mind. But then again, Kris was a genius. I guess wouldn’t die. Maybe.

Anyway, back to the school thing. I really didn’t know how I was supposed to pass with limited knowledge of Chinese. Sometimes, my brain got so strained that I could no longer make out characters anymore - perhaps I should have listened to my mom and read the Chinese newspaper more often. Oh well, there was nothing to help me at this point.

But there was someone to help me.

“Hey, Luhan!” I greeted Luhan with my arms wrapped around my language books when he opened the door.

“Hey! Welcome!” he beamed, as usual. “Come in.”

“Oh, Luhan honey, do we have a guest?” an older, female version of Luhan appeared from behind him.

“Yes, mom. This is Jiayi. Jiayi, this is my mom.”

“Hello, Mrs. Xi,” I bowed at Mrs. Xi.

“Well, come in, Jiayi! Just call me auntie! I’ll make you guys some snacks while you study, okay?” she had