Lu Han loved America. He loved everything about it: the freedom, the people, the air, even the greasy hot dogs and slightly unpalatable Chinese-American takeaway that didn’t remotely resemble anything that he was used to back home. Rib-eye soup they did not have here, but Lu Han was happy to have chow mien that tasted like rubber shoelaces if they reminded him that he was in the United States of America, land of the liberated and free. He’d only been here a year but Lu Han felt like he could stay forever. 

His parents had not bankrupted themselves to send him here, unlike most of his classmates who spent their time in the library cramming past midnight. Lu Han was more interested in the social side of things, and often spent his time walking around with a single-lens camera that he wasn’t very sure on how to use. His mother had bought it when they’d sold a parcel of land for a very good price: in fact none of them knew how to use it at all. It was a pretty piece of work, however, and Lu Han felt it was a good accessory. 

People often asked him if he were Chinese-American because he looked the part in carefully coordinated, effortlessly stylish outfits. His heart would swell with oddly placed pride at that, but he would still shake his head at the question. What would his mother say if he nodded there and then? Although, Lu Han thought, he was just a few strategically planned years away from a green card, and then perhaps a shiny new blue biometric passport with THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA emblazoned in gold on the front. That would look a lot better than his current red one. Kris often caught him staring at the photocopied chart of passports on the fridge and it was nothing embarrassing for Lu Han, because he had nothing to lose anyway. He loved America, and America surely loved him too. 






Kris Wu rubbed the counter down like his mother instructed him to and Lu Han pottered away at the side, packing maybe. They were not related in any way, except that they were both Chinese. But Kris was American. Lu Han was not, and had the visa to prove it. 

Kris’s mother ran a business that involved being the middleman for student visa transactions. It gave them enough money each month for a house with a garden that he had to mow every other weekend. Lu Han was the third boarder this month, fresh out of language school and with a brand new student visa that sparkled on the bright red passport he took out too often to look at. Lu Han smiled whenever he talked about America, which Kris felt unnecessary, and inexplicably irritating. 

Two weeks ago his mother had taken in another boy. This time he was from Korea, she announced, and didn’t speak a of English. Kris had looked up and asked, “Then why is he coming?” Lu Han had piped up in reply: ”With a lot of hard work, obstacles can be conquered and English is just one but of the many in everybody’s way.” Kris kept his mouth shut then, but called bull in private. The Korean boy’s name was plastered on the fridge in capitals, KYUNGSOO DO, and the both of them struggled to pronounce it. Their Chinese tongues just were not accustomed to the tones of Korean. Or in Kris’s case, American tongue. He was sure to rub it subtly in Lu Han’s face sometimes, all the time.

Byun Baekhyun lived down the street, and his mother convinced Kris to take him along with them. Usually Kris’s mother didn’t do favours for neighbours, because that definitely meant no money, and who was going to pay for the garden then? But Kris pointed out that the Korean boy Do Kyungsoo spoke very little English and he already had enough problems with Lu Han and his atrocious pronunciation. Byun Baekhyun would be a boon, at least, and certainly not a bane. After accepting eight hundred dollars in a gift box, Byun Baekhyun was added to the list. 


It was final then, that Kris Wu and Lu Han and Do Kyungsoo and Byun Baekhyun were going to be travelling together to college. 








Lu Han watched as Kris finished polishing up the exterior of his car. It was stupid he thought, because they were going on a road trip and the car was going to be burnished anyway. But it was not like Kris would listen to him or anything—Lu Han liked Kris, but he didn’t seem to reciprocate it very much.

The two Korean boys were up in the living room, where they were doing some last minute packing. The real Korean (as Lu Han dubbed him) Do Kyungsoo had only arrived three days ago. Byun Baekhyun dropped by the night before, and soon they were whispering in hushed Korean tones that neither he nor Kris could understand. Lu Han found it particularly rude that they would speak in a language that only they could understand, because he disliked exclusion. Inclusion was the way to go, and they were in America. America was all about inclusion and melding in, Lu Han figured, and if they didn’t adapt to it they would be the ones at risk anyway. 

Kris came back with one of the Korean boys in tow. “Hey,” the Korean one (Byun Baekhyun—Lu Han prided himself on remembering faces) said. His accent was crisp and perfectly manicured in the Californian style, the one that Lu Han had been trying to emulate for the past year and not really succeeding at. It was unfair, because the Korean one had been born here. However Lu Han was merely but a step behind—his teacher had estimated a three-month period before his accent could be flawless. 

“Hi.” Lu Han kept his replies short and pleasant. It was a personal preference, so that his Chinese pronunciation wouldn’t make an unwanted appearance whenever he said anything with the alphabet L in it. Kris had the unpleasant half-smile he disliked on again, and Baekhyun only shrugged in reply. Lu Han lifted his suitcases into the back of the car while listening in onto their conversation. It was seamless and flawless, the way they spoke and enunciated and conversed. It was textbook perfect, and if his teacher were here, Lu Han was sure that they would get an A with a gold star to spare. Each. 

“I’ll drive if you’re tired,” he heard Baekhyun offer as he pushed his yellow suitcase into the depths of Kris’s Hyundai. How did he manage to have so much control over his tongue like that? Lu Han wondered as Kris politely declined the offer. Maybe one day when he was in his sophomore year he would take a linguistics class and figure it all out. For now Lu Han was content to pretend that he understood most of what Baekhyun was saying to Kris because it was easy and convenient and wouldn’t get on Kris’s nerves. 






Do Kyungsoo found it hard to adjust to jetlag. He had attempted to sleep on the plane, which was non-stop from Incheon, and completely filled to the brim with passengers. His seatmates were however, two high school girls going to the United States for the first time, and they never stopped talking or bothered to turn off the reading lights, not even when he’d cleared his throat thrice. He could have given them a dressing down in Korean, but Kyungsoo had promised himself that he would not speak in anything but English once he was on the plane out. He wasn’t good at it, not yet, and the only way he could think of improving was under duress, because they had been trained this way. 

The signs at the airport were disconcerting but the tall Chinese guy had picked him up just fine. Kris—Kyungsoo tried to figure out how to pronounce it in a manner that didn’t depend on dividing everything into Korean syllables, but couldn’t—was his name. Kyungsoo worried about not being to say anything, but it was fine by Kris because he kept quiet throughout the entire ride and Kyungsoo felt like he was being nice to let him nap in peace. Only later did Baekhyun tell him that Kris only spoke English and very limited Chinese. Baekhyun had laughed, “Kris really doesn’t give a .” Kyungsoo didn’t understand the meaning of that—how could anyone not care about a job that he was given? America was weird already.


Baekhyun was his lifesaver, virtually, and Kyungsoo made sure to keep him in his sight always. He could not speak to anyone else, not even Kris’s mother, without Baekhyun translating for him. He wasn’t sure if Baekhyun was doing it properly, because most of the time someone would say four sentences and Baekhyun would whittle it down to two. Kyungsoo had to make do—in a world that he was completely unfamiliar with he had to stick to somebody who at least, knew what the hell he was saying and why he ate so much kimchi. The other Chinese boy (the one with pretty features) was friendly, but also only spoke English. His accent was odd and slightly jarring to the ear, Kyungsoo reckoned, but couldn’t place a finger on where he was from. 

Kyungsoo had watched from the living room as Baekhyun stepped out with Kris first. He was still nervous about the entire studying thing, because it hadn’t been his idea in the first place. His mother had pushed for it, downloaded application forms, applied for English classes, burned the midnight oil with him as he studied for the TOEFL with no other motive than to get a score above 100. Kyungsoo was here because his mother had wanted him to be here. The thought sent a jolt down the very bottom of his back and he became acutely aware of the fact that he had not eaten breakfast this morning. Kyungsoo glanced outside: Baekhyun was busy with Kris, who was busy with the car. The other Chinese boy had half his body inside the car boot. He waited until he had finished silently counting to ten, before slipping off the sofa and bolting towards the bathroom on the second floor. 






The car that Kris had was okay. Not very good, but good enough for Byun Baekhyun to wonder how it would be like for it to crash through the streets at a hundred miles per hour. Would the crash be painful? Baekhyun sometimes thought about things like that and it was not strange to him at all. He just made sure not to tell too many people about it because they would mostly freak out on him. Baekhyun didn’t like people who freaked out much, so he liked Kyungsoo a lot. 

Lu Han—was that his name? Baekhyun wondered again—was finished with his suitcases by the time Baekhyun had run the car through a virtual simulation in his head. The Chinese dude was fine, friendly enough, but Baekhyun was wary of Chinese people from the mainland. He’d thought Lu Han also American before, but a few snide remarks from Kris and several slips of the tongue later Baekhyun had learnt to keep his distance. It was always safer, like what his mother said. Despite being as white as he could ever be inside Baekhyun always found it a sounder bet to listen to his completely Koreanized mother on most matters. Again, he did not tell many people about this. 

“Where’s your friend?” Kris asked as he popped his head out from the passenger’s side. Baekhyun shrugged. Kyungsoo was mysterious sometimes, but perhaps it was because he was from the motherland. There were fundamental differences between gyopo and natives and everyone knew that. Even Kyungsoo did and so even though they had a sort of symbiotic relationship, he kept his distance. Baekhyun was ok with it, as long as he was no trouble and didn’t piss Kris off. He’d lived down the street long enough to know that Kris had a temper and it was slow burning, the sort of the worst kind because would go down when days and days of seething finally burst out. Lu Han had a tendency to spark it, he had observed over the past three days, and hopefully would be the only one on the receiving end of any blows or otherwise. 

Baekhyun was an opportunist, really. He liked risks but only when they were calculated and calibrated to the degree of which he would benefit the most. He had walked the fine line in high school, where he straddled between the Asian and white community just fine, even if he did get into trouble sometimes. But Baekhyun had fine-tuned everything to precision and most of the time he walked out scot-free and without any bruises. He found it interesting, mostly, testing the waters and patience of people and seeing how far he could go with it. Kyungsoo, he pinpointed, had no bottom-line. 

Lu Han pointed to the car boot. “You should start loading up.” Baekhyun could hear the tones falling flat in all of the words. It was one of the things Kris would mock at in private, and he shared in it sometimes, mostly because it was funny. Lu Han was an idiot, and everyone agreed but didn’t say it out loud because he was rich and extra cash was always welcomed. Baekhyun nodded and turned around to walk in. Kyungsoo didn’t usually dawdle but another call wouldn’t hurt. But Kyungsoo walked out at the exact moment and Baekhyun stared at his face instead. 

“What?” Kyungsoo asked and pushed the extendable handle of his suitcase downwards. Lu Han looked at him for a translation but Baekhyun couldn’t be bothered. There was something off about Kyungsoo’s face, like it was too red and somebody had just cuffed giant fingers around his neck and squeezed tight. Baekhyun squinted his eyes and examined it for a moment more before he replied, “Nothing.” 






The plan was to drive down south, preferably with him as the sole designated driver. Kris was not a fan of placing his car in the hands of someone else, because he’d earned it over two summers and a single winter. Even though his mother earned enough for a manicured garden it didn’t mean that he would automatically get a car. It was something that Lu Han couldn’t comprehend, and Kris hated him for it. 

He popped the glove compartment open and flung the GPS on Lu Han’s lap. Lu Han looked at him like he had no idea what to do. It was one of the reasons why he had wanted Baekhyun in the front seat, but Kyungsoo needed him in the back. Sometimes when Kris had to compromise he would go along willingly but this was not one of those situations. He heard Kyungsoo ask a question in Korean in the back, and was sure it had something to do with Lu Han and how dense he was. Kris detested mediocrity. Lu Han was mediocre in every single way but at least he had money, and that tampered his irritability down long enough for him to reach over and plug the GPS in himself. 

“You should have told me,” Lu Han dropped the English for once and told him. Lu Han was from Beijing, and the northern trill of his accent grated Kris’s ears. He was used to the soft lilt of the southern provinces, where his parents and grandparents had come from. They spoke very little Mandarin and too much Cantonese, and Lu Han’s pronunciation was the kind that his grandmother would call the “ing pretentious one” in her gentle Cantonese voice. Occasionally he felt sorry for Lu Han and the slack he wasn’t getting cut for in either language, although it would go away soon enough whenever Lu Han opened his mouth again. 

Kris kept his eyes on the road and replied offhandedly, “You should have known.” Lu Han didn’t have a comeback to that, and he could hear Baekhyun snigger in the back, while Kyungsoo’s eyes were wide with confusion in the rearview mirror. It was just twenty minutes into their journey and Kris was sure that they would make it through, but only barely. 





Kyungsoo had never driven around much back home. Staying in Seoul meant horrendous traffic and disgustingly long traffic jams, so he stuck to public transport instead. For the same reasons he never got a license, and now as he watched Kris drive with all the aloofness that he would show while opening letters for his mother on the kitchen island, Kyungsoo wondered if he should have gotten one instead. 

Baekhyun told him that a license was essential here. He’d never heard of that, not even back home, not even from his mother who had supplied him with all of the information he was supposed to need. Kyungsoo’s stomach heaved again and he clasped a hand to it. Baekhyun had his cheek mushed up against the window, asleep, and Kyungsoo kept his eyes on him cautiously. He didn’t know whether to trust Baekhyun or not. 

Everyone here was different. He’d known that it would be like this, but not the way that it had played out. Kyungsoo was wary of everything and everybody and all that he had to lay hands and eyes on, because nothing was ever written in Hangul and he needed to be sure of the things that he was associating himself with. He prided himself on self-resilience and control, but America was slowly disintegrating that into a puddle around his feet. Kyungsoo could not read, and he could not speak, and he could not do anything without Baekhyun, who could barely translate one sentence as accurately as his virtual dictionary could. Kyungsoo’s stomach heaved again. 





Baekhyun woke up by the time Kris pulled up to a drive through for lunch. Kyungsoo was looking out of the window nervously, at the enormous white signboard that had burgers and prices listed in a cursive font. He seriously doubted Kyungsoo’s ability to understand any of it—Kyungsoo had previously confided that after the TOEFL every single thing he had learnt about the English language had gone away in an instant—and so leaned over to take a look himself. 

“Hungry?” Baekhyun asked casually. Kyungsoo nodded and kept right on trying to read. It was impressive really, the way that Kyungsoo was addicted to education and re-education and that sort of things. Baekhyun had often wondered how he would have turned out if his grandparents had chosen to stay in South Korea after the war: Kyungsoo was the model answer right in front of his eyes. 

In the front Lu Han was reading the menu aloud in his odd accent. Baekhyun could see Kris trying his best to ignore the ruckus, although he was never sure why Kris disliked Lu Han so much. Perhaps it was for the same reason that he viewed Kyungsoo with interest; that Lu Han was the prototype of the person that he could have become. Maybe that scared Kris too much to allow him any civility towards Lu Han. Whatever it was it amused Baekhyun and he watched as Kris inched the car closer to the order window while steadfastly ignoring Lu Han’s reading aloud. Kyungsoo then turned around and decided on a chicken burger. Baekhyun went for the same. 




Lu Han had the habit of double dipping his fries. Kris never shared for the same reason, while Baekhyun and Kyungsoo didn’t seem to mind that much. Two hours into their journey south Lu Han was already beginning to warm up to the Korean boys more than he ever had for the last three days. Suddenly their Korean didn’t seem so exclusive any more; Lu Han had caught on to the fact that “uri” meant “us”, and that was more than enough when he needed to ask something. “Uri” with a circular hand gesture that encompassed him, Baekhyun, Kyungsoo, and Kris. Kyungsoo always got what he wanted to ask that way. 

This time it was about the majors they had been accepted for. Kyungsoo considered it for a moment before spitting out the name of his in rapid fire Korean. Even Baekhyun had to pause for a moment before translating for him. “Kyungsoo’s in aviation engineering.” Baekhyun replied, before biting into his burger again. “He’s asking about you now.”

Lu Han was a literature major. He had chosen to declare after months and months of poring over information and translating them into Chinese and sending them back to his parents via mail. They still didn’t know how to use an email system, so Lu Han had to settle. His mother agreed with his decision, mostly because it seemed easy to ace and graduate. After all, Chinese students are the best—she had said this like it was the truth and Lu Han gratefully accepted it as such. 

Kyungsoo looked slightly impressed as Baekhyun translated with a mouthful of fries and soda. That assuaged Lu Han’s ego a little, because why wouldn’t it? Kyungsoo was nice and everything but Lu Han could not help but feel sorry for the poor Korean boy who couldn’t speak a single bit of English. At least he had stayed here for the last year and experienced the magic of it all. Lu Han was sure that Kyungsoo would feel exactly the same after twelve more months. 

Baekhyun looked particularly tickled as he turned to speak to Kyungsoo in Korean again. Lu Han looked at the both of them, fluent and quick, and wondered if he could too one day be like them. Kris was still huddled in his front seat, eyes fixated on the scrolling screen of his Facebook feed, and Lu Han wanted to shake him by the shoulders and tell him to look at real friends instead. But he didn’t know if Kris even considered them to be friends, so Lu Han held his tongue. It was something he wasn’t used to doing, but being around Kris was difficult, like in a slow pressure cooker. Something was happening but one didn’t know when and how. Kris was like that, Lu Han felt, and there was not one facet of him that he could begin to fathom. 





Five hours in and everyone was asleep except Kris. He didn’t want to be awake in the relative wilderness of the road, with Lu Han snoring beside him, and Baekhyun and Kyungsoo both sprawled across the tan leather seats at the back. He wanted, even imagined for a moment, to be at Zitao’s house with an illegal six-pack of beer. The age limit was stupid, even more so when he and Zitao were in the mainland over the summer and alcohol was an all-you-can-drink buffet from any convenience store around the corner that didn’t card anyone and sold everything. That was his first taste of it and Kris didn’t think he could stop. 

His mother knew about it, he thought. Kris and his mother shared a relationship in which either party promised mutual obliviousness to personal affairs. She never asked what he was doing or who he hung out with, while Kris made it a personal commitment to never ask her where his father was or why she made him change his entire name twice. Now he could taste the tang of cheap Chinese alcohol on his tongue and it made his head pound even harder. 

They were headed for their first overnight pit stop at Minseok’s place. Minseok or Xiumin or whatever he wanted to be known as was the son of a family friend. They had too been partners while at camp and Minseok (or Xiumin or whatever. Kris had fewer names than he did) was the biggest drinker of them all. He hoped that Minseok had a secret stash but that was close to impossible. They were not yet in college, close to maybe, but the stature still stood and stared them down in the eye. Kris squinted and pressed his foot to the pedal. That woke Lu Han up but the Koreans slumbered in the back. 

“You crazy…” Lu Han trailed off into Chinese murmurs Kris wasn’t sure he knew what they meant. It was always like that, so much so that Kris sometimes considered the possibility of him choosing not to understand Lu Han instead. Lu Han was different from most of the boarders that took temporary refuge at their place, because he never seemed fazed by any of the things that America threw at him. The others were always dwarfed by the fact that they didn’t have any home ground advantage and couldn’t rise to any fight without causing any trouble for anybody. America defeated them easily, but Lu Han actually thought that he was otherwise, and could be otherwise. Lu Han thought that he could be one of them. Kris let that linger for a moment as they sped past a sign that told him he was 34 MILES away.




Baekhyun got off the car first. Kyungsoo’s jetlag made sure that he couldn’t wake up as easily and Lu Han too had problems opening his eyes, so Baekhyun stood in front of the perfectly manicured lawn and watched Kris knock on the door. It was almost dusk, and every house on this street looked identical to the ones on his street. Baekhyun didn’t find it strange or anything, because here everybody was the same. A prime example of the ongoing process was Lu Han, and he was watching with interest until Lu Han either succeeded or failed. The door opened after a while, and Kris came back with another person in tow. He was shorter and had keen, round eyes that looked at Baekhyun like he was in perpetual wonderment. Baekhyun wasn’t sure if he liked that or not. 

“This is Minseok,” Kris said as a form of introduction and Baekhyun could see the fatigue on his face. “He’s Baekhyun.” Minseok shook his hand and immediately launched into a barrage of Korean. He talked even faster than Kyungsoo did, and Baekhyun only understood the middle parts of each sentence, because they melded into each other, beginning and ending. For once Baekhyun felt like he might need Kyungsoo and not the other way round. 

“Uh, yeah. I’m a freshman.” Baekhyun’s Korean was actually more limited than everyone else thought. He had the gyopo glint to his speech, the sort that would be immediately recognized whenever he took trips back to Seoul and spent his nights around Hongdae and Gangnam. The girls there liked it a lot and flocked to him but Minseok here just raised his brows like he knew anything. Baekhyun kept his mouth shut until Kyungsoo stepped out of the car, swaying from fatigue. 





This felt a little more like home than anything else. Kyungsoo ate as much as he could while his stomach now did little flips instead. It was really a lot better than in the afternoon, when he had to excuse himself just before they pulled out of the drive-through car park. The bathroom was dingy and dirty—he’d heard so much about public establishments that nobody cared about because they were public—and Kyungsoo had no problem heaving everything back out. It didn’t feel good, because it was not supposed to, but as Kyungsoo looked at his ruddy face in the cracked reflection of the mirror he felt better for once. 

Minseok was enthusiastic enough as a host. Kyungsoo observed as he and Kris bantered in easy Mandarin, sometimes in English, while Lu Han occasionally joined in when Kris would allow him to. He and Baekhyun remained silent on the sidelines, picking away at the rest of the kimchi stew that Minseok’s mother had prepared. It tasted like any of the restaurants he had had here since touching down: good but American. 


Lu Han motioned to him after dinner was done, and they were in the den unpacking their sleeping bags. Baekhyun and Kris were in the other room, and Kyungsoo knew why he was assigned to Lu Han. Not that he minded much, because playing dumb was always a viable option here. Lu Han always tried to strike up conversation but Kyungsoo figured that less talking without Baekhyun by his side was always better. He didn’t like to do things that he couldn’t have control over, and however lousy Baekhyun was at translating, at least he could add on his own comprehension over the words that Baekhyun were telling him. 

Kyungsoo looked at him. Lu Han had his sleeping bag stretched half open already. “Let’s talk.” Lu Han’s English was easier to understand than that of Kris’s or Baekhyun’s. Kyungsoo had forced himself to listen to the hours and hours of English lesson podcasts preloaded into his iPod when in the car, and even though Lu Han had an accent that he still could not pinpoint, Kyungsoo could understand him. Even if he didn’t Kyungsoo would still listen, because it put him under stress to want and understand, and that would help him learn. It was a very effective method that had demonstrated itself in the form of his SAT results. But nevertheless he didn’t like to talk. 

So Kyungsoo shook his head and went back to unraveling his sleeping bag. But Lu Han went right on talking, because nothing ever fazed him, not even when he was met with flat out rejection. Kyungsoo felt like Lu Han was the titular kid that was not afraid of the tiger, like the old Korean saying went because he had absolutely no fear and Kyungsoo kind of admired that quality, although Lu Han’s propensity towards constantly talking about America turned him off. Lu Han loved America, and Kyungsoo didn’t know if he did yet. 




Kris had barely walked out of the shower when Minseok was already sitting on his sleeping bag, six-pack in hand. Minseok was a goof most of the times but when it came to alcohol he really hardly disappointed. Kris swiped it away from him, and watched the den door. “Does your mom know?” He asked. Minseok laughed in reply: “She wants us to drink more.” 

As Minseok tore the packaging open Kris wondered if they had vodka in the house. He was more partial to the stronger ones, because they had a more vicious kick back, the kind that made him black out and not remember as many things as he would normally. It was a good feeling, and Kris did it as much as he could. Though, it had been slightly long since the last time because Lu Han had arrived. Kris scowled. Another reason to hate the guy, even though he already had a laundry list all checked off. 

“Wow.” They looked up at the same time to find Baekhyun in the doorway, toweling his hair dry. He didn’t look surprised, and Kris was sure that he had no reason to be. Baekhyun made trips back to Korea sometimes and everybody did what they couldn’t in the States back in the motherland. It was a very peculiar situation, because they were supposed to be the free ones. Kris snorted at the idea, also because it was what Lu Han eschewed. The guy was deluded, but he had no intentions of telling him that. Minseok waved a can and threw it over. Baekhyun caught it with a single hand and pulled the tab open like a seasoned pro. They were all the same then, Kris thought, and took a long swig. It was ice cold down his throat and didn’t taste the same as the lousy Chinese beer he and Minseok and Zitao drank so much, but it was still the same. 




Lu Han had talked himself to sleep in the end. He didn’t find Kyungsoo’s silence particularly rude, because he understood that the Korean had troubles with English. Everyone did when they first arrived, but as somebody with prior experience he was sure Kyungsoo would be fine soon. Kris was loading their bags into the car, talking to Minseok in English, while Baekhyun scrolled through his phone beside him. Lu Han took a furtive peek while he pretended to look around for Kyungsoo—he was texting somebody or something. He couldn’t tell based off the name because Korean names tended to be extraordinarily androgynous sometimes, but Lu Han assumed it would be a girl and potential chat topic. Lu Han wanted to be Baekhyun’s friend, but he was always accorded a sort of polite distance that separated him from Kyungsoo and Kris. 

“Girlfriend?” He cleared his throat and asked. Baekhyun looked up at him, and Lu Han couldn’t tell if he was displeased or not. It was hard for Lu Han sometimes, because even though he was sort of American already, the locals had certain expressions that were hard to read. Kris though had extremely obvious emotions. Baekhyun shrugged, slipped his cell phone back into his pocket and said, “No, just my cousin.”

They stayed in testy silence for a while until Kyungsoo walked out of the house, dragging his suitcase behind him. Lu Han again noted the excessiveness of colour in his face—did Kyungsoo need more vitamin supplements? He had some in his backpack, but after the disastrous attempt with Baekhyun earlier he was now hesitant. Lu Han never actually had any problems with talking to the Americans—everyone in his language school was nice—but it seemed a lot harder now. Kyungsoo wasn’t even American but he had an American friend and Lu Han didn’t. Not here anyway, and so he thought it’d be better play it safe. 




Kyungsoo leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window while Baekhyun sat beside him in the back and texted away, a six-pack of beer tucked under his right arm. He could smell the leather off Kris’s seats, and that made his chest constrict even more. Kyungsoo had never been a sickly person but America was doing this to him. Even back home he never felt that urge to constantly ram his fingers down his throat, but here the American food seemed to stick in his esophagus like sludge, stuck there and severely hampering his ability to breathe. Every time he ate he felt that way, even more so than before, when he would throw everything his mother prepared for him back up. If he couldn’t control anything then at least he could take charge of what was inside his body. The glass felt too cold on his skin, and Kyungsoo pulled away. 

Baekhyun was still texting but Kyungsoo didn’t know to whom. If Baekhyun had not been a gyopo he would have been one of the boys in school that Kyungsoo actively avoided to make contact with. The air conditioning hummed quietly in the background as Kris backed out of the garden and turned back to the highways. He could see Minseok waving in the rear mirror and almost raised a hand to say goodbye himself. But he didn’t, and watched as Minseok got smaller and smaller before they and he both were specks in their visions of each other. 

“You needed to call your mom, right?” Baekhyun asked and looked up from his cell phone. Kyungsoo’s number back home had been cut off the minute he’d stepped on the plane out. It just wasn’t practical to leave it the way it was, because he wasn’t going to come back anymore. Kyungsoo swallowed at that thought. He nodded in reply and Baekhyun handed the phone over. He stared at the screen for a long time, Baekhyun’s wallpaper a picture of him and a girlfriend of times past flecked with pink hearts and gold stars, and Kyungsoo realised he either did not know what to do or did not want to do anything. His mother’s voice was always ringing somewhere in his head and perhaps he didn’t need to hear it in physical clarity now. Baekhyun looked at him a little curiously, and he handed it back: “Not now.” 





Kris had talked to Baekhyun in depth for the first time last night. Minseok was knocked out at the side, head lolling and asleep on Kris’s sleeping bag, while the both of them sat in front of the turned off television and several crushed cans. Kris thought that Baekhyun was a bit of a difficult person to read. He had the constant airs of a typical Korean, with manners and all that, but the way he spoke to Kyungsoo was a little different, even if he didn’t understand what they were talking about. Baekhyun told him that it was fun to see Kyungsoo confused and Kris had wondered aloud what exactly was Baekhyun’s definition of fun. “ing around with people,” Baekhyun had laughed. 

There were a lot of people like Baekhyun around anyway. Kris sat at their table in the rest stop as Lu Han and Kyungsoo stood in front of the menu not far away, trying to decipher the words that constantly eluded their understanding. There were many people like Baekhyun and if he considered it seriously he was one of them too. 

His last girlfriend told him that he was a little ed up inside. “You have serious issues!” She’d yelled, and he thought that was putting it a little lightly. Kris never understood the going ons of his life—it was always somebody pulling the cart in front, his mother pushing them on a journey that he didn’t choose to undergo. He was American but he never was before he turned ten. Lu Han didn’t know that but would he understand even if he did? Kris doubted it. Sometimes he wondered where his father was, perhaps in the northern cities of the mainland, maybe even the one with the grand palaces, lines blurred between the past and present and future. But it wasn’t important because Kris was able to assert control via the presence of a shot glass and Absolut Vodka when available. Then the images of the omnipresent motherland would melt away. 


Lu Han came back with a tray of random sized plates. There were soggy burritos and wet nachos atop, but Kris knew better than to expect too much of Lu Han. Kyungsoo followed slowly behind, while somewhere in the back and the sunlight Kris watched Baekhyun stub out a cigarette with the heel of his sneaker.