I left home for the summer...

It is a long way from the airport to the house of Lu Han's grandfather. After seven hours of packing, driving, and flying, the twenty-four year old still had another ninety minutes before he reached the seaside town his late grandfather had resided in. 

Put simply, the old man had passed away. Lu Han had received the notice two weeks ago along with his grandfather's will, which requested that he receive a simple burial with no funeral and that his entire property go to his one and only grandson, Lu Han himself. As a result, the novelist had parted from his apartment in Beijing for his grandfather's tiny seaside home, in part to collect his old man's belongings and in part to stay there for the summer in his last minute attempt to cure his five years of fruitless writer's block. 

Long eyelashes fluttered slightly as Lu Han startled from his nap, his back aching and the sticky humidity of the car clinging uncomfortably to his skin. He turned slightly to the window, which was rolled down a few inches. That probably explained why the taxi interior felt like the inside of a sauna. 

The warm, thick air of summer rain drifted lazily through the cab. Lu Han could smell the crisp scent of salt and seawater wafting through his surroundings. As fat raindrops pelted the windows and splattered across the glass, the soft rain and heavy air lulled him back to sleep.

He ran his fingers through his creamy, wheat-colored hair, frowning as he slouched over his notepad and lukewarm macchiato. His worn, ink-stained fingers flipped hastily through wrinkled pages as thin eyebrows knitted together in frustration.

Pages of messy, smudged Chinese characters were turned rapidly, each page passing with more hurriedness and more irritation. All these ideas and suggestions and yet none of them seemed right! Lu Han sighed and wrapped his fingers around his cup, inadvertently wiping ink onto the stainless porcelain. Taking a long sip of his coffee, his gaze flitted to the circular clock hanging on the wall. It had been thirty minutes since he had arrived in his grandfather's seaport town. He hadn't felt like going to unpack his things, so he had decided to stall time by stopping at the cafe nearby. His two leather suitcases still sat by his chair, unopened ever since he had packed them that morning.

That was the problem working a freelance job. Sometimes it felt like he just had too much time on his hands.

Time... Maybe that was why things seemed to have lost their colors recently, why he just couldn't seem to write anything substantial. Recently, flowers didn't seem to smell as fragrant, chocolate didn't taste as sweet, the sun was more of a nuisance than a source of warmth. Even though he was making money with the job he had always dreamed of, when he should have been the happiest man in the world, he felt far from happy.

Too much decadence had made him sick.

Lu Han stretched his arms to rest his aching shoulders, a breath of resignation leaving his lips. 

"It's nothing, I'm just getting old," he mumbled quietly to himself. A look of uncertainty flashed in his dark eyes.

A paperback of roughly a little over 200 pages sat on the worn edge of a wooden table. Its cover was a stark white with large, printed black letters, titling simply, "Finale."

The slight breeze from a hanging fan nearby rustled the pages carelessly with cool air.

A tall, middle-aged woman with neatly bobbed hair, a pale blue apron, and a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes, seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and approached the novelist with contained interest.

"Ah, you must be Lu Han!" the woman said, her voice full of nervousness and excitement with a touch of a slight accent, "I heard rumors that you'd be stopping by this town for the summer, but I never thought I'd see you at my cafe. I love your novel, it's absolutely brilliant!" 

The novelist (who had been deep in thought), was startled and blinked in surprise, dark eyes trailing upward to the face of the woman smiling down upon him. He was fully aware of the amount of backlash he had received from the public when parents had filed petitions to get his novel banned from school libraries across Asia upon the first year of its release. The fact that this timid-looking, middle-aged woman was complimenting his work was a rare thing he didn't get to experience often. 

"Thank you," he said, his voice rather underwhelming and hoarse from lack of use, "Would you like me to sign something or..?"

"Oh no, it's alright," the woman flashed Lu Han a large smile, "But come by whenever you can so I can see you working. I'd love to be one of the first people to read your next novel."

He nodded politely, though he was slightly put off by how strange and overly-friendly this woman was being. 

"Please come by whenever you'd like," the woman said, and though it seemed impossible, her smile grew wider (and creepier). Her teeth seemed impossibly white and impeccably straight. "I'm Jung Yoohye."

Ah, a foreigner, Luhan thought to himself, that explained the accent. 

As a large group of girls entered through the door and Yoohye turned her attention away from the novelist to greet them, Lu Han took another defeated glance at his novel. With a groan, he pushed it to the end of the table, sliding on his elbows until his cheek rested against the smooth wood.

It felt cold; it was hard to believe that such a cool, lifeless feeling had once belonged to something that was very much alive.

Something, Lu Han decided, something would come to him during this vacation that would inspire him to write his new book.