Thoughtlessly, you rolled again, and that made it the seventh time. You weren’t sure whether you couldn’t do anything or you didn’t want to do anything, but obviously, you had been lying on your bed since you came back from the airport.

You let out another sigh. Luhan probably couldn’t get any sleep on the plane even if it was a 101 minutes long flight. You could picture that he would be both too excited and too anxious that he couldn’t sleep. All in all, you just wanted him to be fine, especially because he was flying by himself, when did the last he fly by himself?

After taking a glance at the clock on your desk, you rolled for the eighth time, this time towards the other end of your bed to reach your phone. Luhan was probably touching down right now. Would Luhan call? Or should you call first? You would call but what if he was still occupied with his luggage and or immigration things? You didn’t want to disturb him. Eventually, you unconsciously opened social media instead of calling him. In the middle of scrolling, you caught his Weibo update, a minute ago. Just a simple ‘I’m home’. A smile spread across your face.

If it was a simple occasion you would’ve went sulky because he updated his SNS first, instead of calling you; but today was not a simple occasion, so you let him go. You were positive his plane just landed some minutes ago and he was probably still in the airport right now, be it waiting for his luggage or taking care of the immigration. He must have been so happy that he made some time to post on Weibo.

Decided to give him some more time to enjoy himself arriving on his hometown with no burden, you continued to scroll through social media. You would just call later.

After you gave yourself some more good rolls on the bed, you grew bored and you didn’t even know what you were doing, you sat up. Your hands immediately made its way to your face, carelessly moving your hair sprawled on the way due to your continuous rolls. You stood up in one go to change your clothes. You should get going. It wasn’t that you were separating for forever. It wasn’t that you couldn’t see him anymore. It wasn’t that the world was over. Yeah, you should be fine, you had to be.

When you were already on your short and outsized tee, you went to the kitchen and brought a glass of water to your room. You just put the glass down on the table next to your bed when your phone vibrated, continuously. You were not actually in the mood for a call unless the caller was Luhan, but since Luhan was probably still busy, you lazily reached it to at least check the caller id.

You gasped when your phone showed his name, well, that was quick. Not that you complain.

“Hi,” you said simply. You just figured it out now that you didn’t have idea of what to say. Because you surely hadn’t faced this kind of condition before.

“Hi? Did you just say just ‘hi’?” You could picture he grinned playfully. Ish, this deer, really.

A chuckle slipped your lips as you lay to your bed again, back to a lazy potato. Whatever, you decision was fixed, you would spend the rest of the day by doing nothing. “Well, what do you expect, huh? If you were on a tour, I usually asked what time the rehearsal or the next schedule would begin. Now what am I suppose to say?” you asked still in between small laughs, trying to joke at the things that seemed to be a no-no topic.

As expected, Luhan just mumbled ‘okay, okay’ while he was laughing a little. He let out a small sigh and then he didn’t say anything. You supposed he was on his own thought so you gave him the time and just stay quiet too. You just started to wonder what would happen to him after all of this, when you heard his voice again. “You are not probably mad because I updated my Weibo first than I called you, are you?”

You snorted. “Of course not! I’m not ten.” Another pause came to presence.

“I posted it on my way home, couldn’t help myself.” There you have Luhan being all guilty and insecure again.

“There’s nothing wrong with that. Most of the fans are glad you were eventually home and even let them know.” True yet untrue. You saw on the social media that most of them did, but a part of you realized you might have unconsciously ignored those who didn’t. “How are your parents? Why did your friend pick you up anyway? Not your parents?”

“Because I didn’t want to commotion in the public. Can you imagine my parents cried and hugged me endlessly at the airport? You know I don’t want my privacy to go public, I’ll keep my family at home.”  Well, he got a point. “Oh, they are fine, by the way. My mom hugged me and cried a lot when I got home. I caught dad’s eyes got watery but he didn’t cry and just patted my shoulder, saying I did the right thing for myself.” You have never met his parents, even until today. But just by a few phone calls with them by Luhan’s help to translate, and his daily stories about them; you could picture that his family was a warm one. Well, perhaps that’s genetic since you could see it clearly in Luhan.

“Did you cry?” you teased as you crossed your leg. Now that you think of it, it was probably the first time you shared a long phone call with Luhan. Usually, phone calls were made when he was overseas or out of the town; he was super busy at those time.

“That’s a secret.”  Ehey, from his response, you assumed he cried. You didn’t get it why it was so hard for boys to admit that they cried. Luhan and his pride for being a real man.

“What are you doing right now? Your parents?” He should be spending the time with his family that he fought for that. Not that you were complaining, but why in the world he indeed spent in on the phone with you?

“I’m in my room, enjoying my room sweet room, haha, mom is making dinner and I hear dad on the phone with EXO members, I guess they called right after I texted I have arrived.” His sentence ended but his tone trailed like he was going to say something else, so you waited. “Come to think of it, there are only Lay and Tao left to translate anything in Chinese,” he added with a dry laugh, trying to shrug of his guilt.

See.

“You are feeling guilty, aren’t you, Luhan?” You could almost see he nodded weakly to your question.

“I—I don’t know. Am I doing the right thing? It seems like I disappoint everyone...” For God’s sake, Luhan, how could a person as nice as you existed in this cruel world.

“You didn’t disappoint anyone. If there’s any, it is yourself if you keep on blaming yourself like this. Don’t be like that, Luhan. Time goes on, and everything will be fine by the time being. Trust me, will you?” You sighed. It wasn’t that you were tired of him, not at all. But you were worried about his insecurities. You didn’t know exactly what was inside his mind and how far his worries were, you were afraid it would went too far and you acknowledged exactly about how Chinese, Korean and Japanese people dealt with their stress. In the name of the whole heaven, you didn’t need any more drama in your life to have your boyfriend do that. No way.

But you had no answer, for a too long time for your liking. “Luhan, are you there?” You heard a soft hum, well, at least he was there. You unconsciously let out a small sigh, how you wished you were there and give him some hug. “What is your closest plan?”

“Let’s see... Tomorrow noon my friends asked me to play football, maybe we’ll eat dinner after that.” You rolled your eyes in a slight annoyance, but you were glad he could joke. Wasn’t that a sign that he was slightly relaxed? No?

“Fine, that’s it, Luhan, I’m hanging up the phone—“ you returned his joke and ended your words in the middle of the tone as if you really turned off the call.

Out of your expectation, he laughed out loud. What was so funny?

“But really, Luhan, what are you going to do?” You sat up and reached your once forgotten glass of water, quickly downed it one go.

“I’m not going to do anything in a while, I don’t want to. I want to pull myself back from the camera—“ Soundlessly, you felt a pang on your ribs, picturing Luhan stopped himself from entertainment world, “—at least for now. Is that okay?” At least for now.

“Luhan, you should ask that to yourself, if you are okay with that, then it is okay. I know you are so considerate of others, but you should put yourself before anyone else. It is your life and it is your right to do whatever you want, I’ve told you, right? Just, be you, and whatever you will be, I’ll always be on your side, the people who love you will.” There was nothing more frustrating than having this kind of conversation without being able to see him. Because you couldn’t see his reactions, you couldn’t see if there’s anything else he didn’t spill.

“I’m still worried about the fans. They are the only one I can’t directly talk to. I can talk with you, with the members, with my parents. Like, I want to tell them everything, at least I want to tell them I love them; but I couldn’t.” You always knew he loved his fans so much, but you didn’t know that he treasured them this much. God, Luhan was like, what, an angel trapped in human form.

An idea popped in your mind. It was a little risky, but now that Luhan already pushed it this far, then who cares? “Who said you couldn’t?” you asked in amusement, trying to imply him your idea. “It’s not like your agency took over your phone or SNS.”

“Why didn’t I think about that?” Luhan didn’t explicitly tell you what he was thinking but you believed your idea delivered right to him. “I’m hanging up the call, okay? I’ll call you later. And you probably already know this, but you know what? You’re the best.” He sounded so excited that all you could do was hummed in agreement.

Silently, after he hung up the call, you switched accordingly from Weibo to Instagram and then the cycle back to start. Somehow you had a feeling there would be some update from him.

And you were not wrong for any bit.

A small smile crossed your face along with tears lined up your eyes as you saw his post on his Instagram. It was plain, even the photo only consisted of two colors and he didn’t write anything at the description. But you were sure the post would pass what he wanted to say to his fans.

It was a simple photo with plain white as the background, with ‘I just wanna all of you to know that I love you all.‘ written in plain black. Your head hang low as a tear escaped your left eye. Your heart hurt to imagine why a person as nice as Luhan had to go through all these things. He was practically an angel, trapped in human form, stuck in this cruel world.

You didn’t bother to leave a comment. No matter how he sometimes scrolled through his fans responses, it was just impossible to read them all. So you just simply liked the post and closed the application.

No, Luhan, it was you who was the best.

I'm so so so terribly sorry for the late updates because deadlines are practically killing me, I'm still on it but the day is just one of that whatever-day where I didn't give any slightest care to my assignment. Please, don't try this at your responsibilities. I’m just this kind of person.

And anyway, there is a slight change again. So before you be like ‘okay, that’s the last chapter!’ and close the tab, wait for a little while because I’ll double update today ♥ See the title of this chapter? Right, it is 3.1 ♥ The very last chapter (3.2) is done though, I’ll just reread it one more time and upload it tonight.

Anyway, did you guys see the updates that Luhan went to the coffee shop? He looked so fine and so casual and so human, oh my god ;-;