Wu YiFan - There Is a Place

It was during winter break when I returned, but not in the way any of us had expected. I came back with an air of maturity that nothing other than university could give me. Being into a completely new environment without anyone to rely on—specifically Luhan—I was forced to grow and adapt. I learned how to pay for things on my own, speak more fluently and confidently during seminars, and overall have more faith in myself. I was actually able to make a few friends, and I found myself smiling more often.

The first person I befriended at university was a young man named Zhang Yixing, but people had found it much easier to address him as Lay. During the first month of Humanities, Yixing was always sitting beside me and nodding off during the professor's lecture. Sometimes his head would begin to loll forward before violently snapping back, eyes wide and alert. I laughed every time, and whenever he turned to catch my gaze, I immediately ducked in an attempt to contain my sniggers. He found this entertaining as well and moved to introduce himself. Eventually, during one class, he had tapped me on the arm and politely asked for me to wake him up whenever I found him dozing off, thus beginning my incessant pencil prodding for about a week. Yixing later informed me of small bruises that were beginning to form, and he was afraid one of his friends would mistake them as hickeys. I laughed at this, and a pleasant, dimpled grin brightened his face.

Yixing was an eccentric character with a passive personality, and the tone in which he spoke was soft and alluring. His dry, unexpected humor always made me laugh at the strangest times. I don't even think he meant to be funny, but most of the things he said came out that way, which made me like him even more.

Upon observation, I noticed that he was also an extremely courteous person, putting others before his own well being. He would rush ahead of the crowd to hold the door open for them, allow people to pass first before he dared take a step, and bowed to everyone he greeted. And even though he was much more polite than Luhan, I still found it acceptable to be in Yixing presence. It might have been because he was like this to everyone, instead of having all of his attention directed solely towards me.

When we got to know each other a little better, I learned Yixing was born and raised in Changsha, China, which he always spoke fondly of. So it was quite unexpected that he would ask permission to tag along with me on the journey back to my hometown.

Puzzled, I inquired, "Why don't you want to go back to Changsha for the break? I'm sure your parents miss you."

He then flashed me a shy smile—the dimple on his left cheek basically becoming a vortex for my heart—and said earnestly, "It's alright, Changsha is a lot closer than where you're from. I could always visit them on a weekend. And, I want to know about the place you grew up in. You hardly talk about it, and it's got me curious. Like, what places did you go to on the weekends? What are the schools like? What kind of people live there? The only people you've ever vaguely mentioned were your father and friend."

Yixing was always such a passive character, and seeing that he was so insistent on making the journey with me, I could not deny him. Honestly, I was quite flattered that he would want to see the drab old town which was all I had ever known for the past nineteen years. Maybe bringing a piece of the new me back could change things. Maybe Yixing could change things.

So it was at 4:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning when we boarded the first high-speed rail train to arrive at the station. We had purchased two tickets for economy class seats beforehand and were currently loading our luggage into the compartments overhead.

The two of us were only planning to stay a few days, however, Yixing was practically b with giddiness. When I asked what was the need for all the excitement, his smile faltered, and with a confused expression he asked, "Are you not excited?"

It would be a lie if I said I wasn't, but the emotion I was feeling right now could better be described as nervous, since the last time I had spoken to anyone back home was when they were seeing me off at the airport—those people being my father and Luhan. And it's not like they never texted or called, because they did quite often. But I rejected all forms of communication with them because I wanted Luhan and my father to see how much I changed when I returned. I wanted them to see that I changed for the better, a complete one-eighty compared to the insecure, quiet, naive girl I was back then.

I put on a wan smile and replied to Yixing, "Just a little bit."

Now finished with stowing away the baggage, I caught my reflection in the window and began to scrutinize my outward appearance. My hair had been chopped short to the point where the strands tickled the tips of my ears, and there was a healing scrape on my left cheek from falling off a bike someone lent me. I was donned in a yellow sundress with white flats, and a varsity jacket pulled over the entire outfit along with a baseball cap. It didn't match at all, for the last two bits of clothing actually belonged to Yixing. But when he saw the goosebumps on my skin and how I was shivering due to the train's air conditioning, he shrugged off his clothes and draped it over my bare shoulders, leaving himself in a loose button-down.

"We won't be there for quite some time. Why don't you get some sleep?"

Placing his hands atop my shoulders, he steered me into the direction of our seats, forcing my bottom to settle into the plush cushions.

"Sleep," he instructed as he tucked the dark blue fabric into the waistband of his jeans, "I'll wake you up when we get there."

Not bothering to object, I grinned before letting my eyelids drift to a close; Yixing's sparkling eyes and dimpled grin being the last thing in my line of sight.

~~~~~

"It's much colder up north," Yixing commented as he bounced from one foot to the other, watching the frosty breaths escape his lips. We were now standing on my front porch in the frigid winter air as I moved to ring the doorbell. "And you were planning to come in only that dress?"

I shrugged. "The weather forecast said it was going to be sunny."

He laughed. "Well, seeing that the sky is the kind of gray that could rival the color of the stuff that my grandfather picks out of his ears, I believe that the forecast was just a bit off."

"Really? The stuff he picks out of his ears?"

"Yup," he replied, popping the 'p'.

As I shook my head at Yixing's absurdness, the front door suddenly swung open to reveal the crinkly-eyed smile of a middle-aged man who had been left alone to live in this two-story house. A pair of spectacles were perched on the bri