Luhan is a person you could describe as confusing, crazy, melodramatic, bewildering, mystifying, devious, complicated, out of this world, peculiar, odd, freakish, surprising, funny, adorable, cute… Mainly just complicated, that would be a good description of him. All these words I just used to describe him, are words I understand. This means, that they do and do not have things in common with Luhan. They describe him, but there is no way that I can ever understand Luhan like I understand the meanings of those words.

     Words like these are easy to digest, to perceive and to apprehend. Basically you can just grab a dictionary out of any bookshelf and look them up to understand their meaning if you don’t. But Luhan, Luhan wasn’t like any of those words if you looked at it like that. You couldn’t just look him up in the dictionary to find out or understand him. Understanding him would be impossible to begin with, let’s get that clear.

     Of course, every person is complicated and some are a bit harder to understand than others, but Luhan, to me, was a lost case. I didn’t understand him at all.

     So I decided to write a dictionary myself. A Luhan-dictionary. I wanted to learn about Luhan, about how his mind worked, what he was thinking, how I could understand his logic and make it my logic. I figured that I just had to translate his body language and doings into words so I could understand him better.

     So one day I went to the store down the street and bought a random notebook, one with an air balloon on the front. There was a little boy inside the box and underneath him was a big city. The city looked small, in comparison with the balloon. I liked the notebook.

     When I got home I took a marker and wrote down Lu-dictionary on the front in big fat letters. Deciding that this was going to be a master piece I drew a little smiley behind it. Now all I had to do was wait for a moment to write my conclusions down.

     Since that day I always carried it with me in my messenger bag, together with a dictionary.

I never understood how Luhan’s mind worked. He had the craziest ideas and he sometimes reacted differently than other people would. Luhan was one big mystery to me, an unsolved puzzle. No matter how hard I tried to put the pieces together, the puzzle wouldn’t become a whole. And when I thought that I almost got it solved, there went a piece missing, or one didn’t fit, meaning that I had to start all over again.

     His logic always seemed clear to himself though, something that fascinates me. He could tell me most crazy things and totally swipe people off their feet while he seemed to understand everything he was saying, thinking or doing.

     For example; one time he decided that he wanted to tie all his action figures onto a sky-rocket and launch them up in the air. He realised that he needed help with that, but he didn’t accept my offer to help him. My brows went up high in the air when he told me that he just needed a random person for it, someone he didn’t know.

     I didn’t understand why he would ask a stranger for it, but his hypothesis was that he needed someone he didn’t know to not make it too complicated. He believed that if he just asked a stranger to launch his action figures into space, that person would just help him and he would never have to see the person again. He also said that the stranger and him wouldn’t have any strings attached or anything, I didn’t understand why that was important.

     Luhan worked out a plan for his idea and started asking people to help him. It took him a while to get everything ready, but he never backed out.

     When it was the day of his action figures’ departure, I asked him why he actually wanted to do it. I expected that he wanted to do it for the thrill, but his answer was completely different. He told me that he wanted them to reach another planet, far away from the Earth. Over there they wouldn’t have action figures, he believed.

     I didn’t tell him that his action figures were most likely to explode together with the sky-rocket, landing back on earth in nothing more but ash.

     When he was gone I took my dictionary out of my bag and tried to find something that could give me a clue of what his mind was thinking.

     A little while later I stored my dictionary away, back in my messenger bag and took my notebook and pen out, scribbling down my conclusion.

Date: November 12th, 2004

Translation: Undefined

This had been in fifth grade, I didn’t know much then. Right now, I learned more and more how to deal with Luhan, but I still didn’t understand him. A bit better than before though, but still not enough.

     It didn’t matter that I got older either, I still couldn’t get a grab of it. But I had fun uncovering my little mystery.

     Luhan had gotten older too, and with that his intellections had gotten more and more wicked. Probably because he had learned how to use his brain properly and I was absolutely convinced that there was some kind of Einstein hidden in this man. The problem was that no one really understood him, which was a real pity.

     Years passed and my notebook became fuller and fuller. However, I still found myself, mostly, writing down the same thing over and over again. Nine out of ten times I kept taking my dictionary out of my bag and I would try to find something that could give me a clue of what his mind was thinking. A little while later I would store my dictionary away, back in my messenger bag and would take my notebook and pen out, scribbling down my conclusion.

Date:

Translation: Undefined

Right now, Luhan and I are in the first year of university. We aren’t majoring the same subjects, but we do share a room together. Last summer we had filled in our application letters together and Luhan had given me his letter to check while he claimed mine to read it through. I couldn’t describe the grin that grew onto my face when I read something on the foot of the letter. Roommate proposal: Oh Sehun. I had written down his name too, of course.

     That way we ended up as roommates, and because we’d known each other for so long already, since my birth, we were really happy instead of awkward. We’d know each other’s flaws already so it was okay. I was used to Luhan separating his underwear by brand, colour and type. Why he did that was a mystery to me though, but that’s with the most things he does.

     Luhan had taken over two hours to get all his stuff settled and parked in the right places, while I just emptied my suitcase on the bed and stored it away in my closet within twenty minutes. It took him two days to make a complete mess of our room though, but he said that he didn’t care if it was messy or not, which made me question why he sorted everything out in the first place. His underwear is still sorted though.

     One day I had to search something in there and accidentally made a big mess without realising. He went cross that evening and had to take five minutes to calm down before he stormed out of the room.

     When he was gone I took my dictionary out of my bag and quickly tried to find something that could give me a clue of what his mind was thinking.

     A little while later I stored my dictionary away, back in my messenger bag and took my notebook and pen out, scribbling down my conclusion.

Date: March 15th, 2012

Translation: Undefined

Luhan has this habit to pick me up after class and to take me out to do something. Sometimes his friend Kyungsoo would tag along and sometimes we would just go alone.

     Today the usual routine happened and Luhan dropped by at my locker with a wide grin.

“What are you up to?” I asked him, side-eyeing him suspiciously while I stored my books away.

     Luhan pulled his most innocent face and told me that it was nothing. This was one of those moments I could actually look through him, he was planning on something, just like how he was terrible at lying.

“Come,” he said while he grabbed my hand, “I’m taking you somewhere.”

     With a quick jerk he pulled me away from my locker and I was just in time to give the door a swing before he dragged me away.

     We went all the way down town and I was just thinking that he was going to take me to the amusement park a few miles away when he turned left and entered a store. Actually, it wasn’t a store. It sure looked like one at first sight, but it turned out to be some kind of inn.

“What are we doing here?” I asked my friend softly when I turned around to give him a confused gaze. Luhan just laid a finger on his lips and closed his eyes.

“Shhh,” he whispered, “Let’s enjoy this silence for a second.”

     My eyebrow quirked upwards while Luhan just stood there with his eyes closed, concentrated on the silence. Figuring that I had to stay here anyway I let my surroundings sink in and realised the soft music, the smell of aroma simmering through the air. It was actually quite relaxing. Just when I was about to accept that I was going to spend my afternoon here Luhan grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the inn.

“Hey,” I said, “where are you going?”

“I’m done,” he said happily, “let’s go get some ice-cream.”

     While Luhan waited in the row for the ice-cream car I took my dictionary out of my bag and lazily, I was still in my zen-modus, tried to find something that could give me a clue of what his mind was thinking.

     A little while later I stored my dictionary away, back in my messenger bag and took my notebook and pen out, scribbling down my conclusion.

Date: June 10th, 2012

Translation: Undefined

     Luhan sat down at the other side of the table and handed me my cone with vanilla and chocolate flavour. The inn was never mentioned again.

It was not only because Luhan’s logic was just complicated that I didn’t understand him, it was also because he never actually explained why he did things. Luhan just did them without second thought. As long as he understood what he was doing it was fine with him. But one day he’d done something totally outrageous again and I was trying to figure out why, when Kyungsoo actually joined his train of thoughts and they started a conversation. I’d been totally overwhelmed, because I still had no clue at all and someone actually seemed to understand Luhan. Then I realised that there was another reason why I didn’t understand Luhan. I was just stupid.

“You aren’t stupid, Sehun,” Luhan said when I told him this. “You’re just not really clever.” I pouted.

“That’s the same thing.” Luhan shook his head and smiled warmly at me, throwing his arm over my shoulders.

“It’s not.” My fingers fiddled with the hem of my shirt.

“Then what is the difference?” I asked him, a bit ashamed because I hadn’t know that there was a difference. Another thing that proved that I was stupid. Or not clever, whatever you wanted to call it.

“When you’re clever, it means that you display sharp intelligence or mental alertness. So, when you’re not, you’re just not really sharp on things and less alert. Like, you don’t really pay attention to things and you aren’t overly smart. Being stupid just means that your intelligence is low and that’s absolutely not the case with you. No, you’re not the country’s smartest citizen, but neither am I. You aren’t stupid, Sehun, don’t say that.”

     I just nodded, still not really understanding what he meant. Then I recalled that most of the time I didn’t understand what he meant if he explained something, so I just let it go.

Luhan had to find my notebook eventually, but let’s not talk about that. It’s not a day I want to remember, it’s a day I seriously want to forget. Let’s just say after suffering a big bowl of humiliation and a whole lot of yelling on Luhan’s behalf, he threw the notebook to the ground, stamped on it with his foot and stuck the thing up my .

     When I finally got it out and made sure it was all clean I sighed and tried to think of a reason why it got him so mad. I wouldn’t have minded if he did the same thing to me, I would’ve found it cute.

     So I took my dictionary out of my bag and desperately tried to find something that could give me a clue of what his mind was thinking.

     A little while later I stored my dictionary away, back in my messenger bag and took my notebook and pen out, scribbling down my conclusion.

Date: October 15th 2012

Translation: Undefined

Days without Luhan were boring, silent, but most of all, they felt empty. Something was missing and sadly enough, I couldn’t really do anything about it. My best friend was mad, like really, really mad.

     It wasn’t like he’d never been mad