When Luhan dreams of his mother, he always could smell something baking as he drifts through sleep. Perhaps it wasn’t quite a dream than it is an echo of a memory, as he could recall everything with sharp clarity, the outlines enhanced and the colors saturated. He viewed his dream world through the eyes of a toddler, as he was when his mother was still alive. The kitchen was so big and palatial and wonderful, with the gigantic copper and cast-iron pans hanging over the center island, with the pantry cabinets looking like entryways to worlds out of the fathomable universe, with the oven’s handle placed higher than his head, with his Momma and her long, long dark hair tied back and her large, dark eyes sparkling as she watched her little Luhan mix the flour and the sugar together.

The kitchen was a grand, whimsical place full of excitement and fantasy, and Luhan’s Momma was the queen of this magical kingdom. She sang to him in French, her high voice hitting all the proper liquid trills with an ocassional note of Oriental.

Homme de la pâte, homme de la pâte, combien plus la farine?
Êtes-vous trop chaud? Non, madame!
Trop froid? Non, madame!
Coller à la table? Non, madame!
Tourner et rouler, tourner et rouler, tous ont besoin de chaleur pâte à augmenter.

Luhan didn’t really know what the words mean, although he recognized some words here and there from some rudimentary French his Momma has taught him: “dough,” “no,” “madame,” and “warmth.” The glass windows, which covered the entire wall from ceiling to floor leading to his Momma’s garden, where the early morning sunlight poured into the kitchen, while the birds twittered about on his mother’s beloved peony trees.

Now, though, he saw butterflies—a whole multitude of them, like if you bombed a wasps’ nest and all the insects just swarm out, except it was butterflies—flit above the chandelier, a dense cloud of fifty different colors and patterns. How could they have gotten into the house? The glass windows weren’t open, but little Luhan didn’t mind. He saw a big, blue and white butterfly settle on his arm, away from all the rest of them, and he decided that among its friends above, it was the prettiest and the best. Luhan jumped and wailed indignantly as the big, blue butterfly flitted away, and he ran after it, his short legs pumping busily to catch up.

He looked back to his mother, after a few more toddling steps, and she nodded, as if to say, go on, and smiling, and they were in the garden now, amongst the blooming peonies, and his Momma said, smiling, ‘Don’t let that one go, alright, ma cherie?’

Then, Luhan wakes to the shrill cry of that wretched human invention, the alarm clock, his eyelids sticking together like each had lead painted over them. He doesn’t feel like lifting his arm and hitting snooze, but after a few moments of just lying on his bed, stewing in grogginess, he finally decided to stand up and pull the damned device’s plug. The damn maid should take care of that. All the sound his voicebox could produce were guttural groans akin to a zombie or one with intestinal problems. Luhan couldn’t decide at the moment.

Christ, he thought. What the was I downing last night?

Oh, right. Vodka. The post-graduation party. Damn, that was a riot. Vodka, girls in string bikinis, beer pong, and more vodka. Bits and pieces of the party were floating around, incomprehensible, then—

Wham!

Suddenly, all the memories from last night came flooding over his tired, alcohol-pickled mind, like a high-pressure torrent from a dam that burst from just a tiny leak. He collapsed back in bed, thankful that the shades were down. He lost his phone, and Luhan assumed it was just wedged somewhere in the folds of Kim Jongin’s mom’s suede sofa, but that one was already getting outdated. Luhan would just get a new one. He probably drank twenty gallons of Smirnoff, dear God. He hoped to that same big guy upstairs that he hadn’t contracted AIDS, because he couldn’t remember if he ed somebody, and if he did, who she was. The girls at Jongin’s parties were always suspicious.

Now that he has officially graduated from the clutches of the terrible, calculus-spewing monstrosity called organized education, Luhan possessed the liberty to take his time in making himself as decent as possible before appearing at the breakfast table, where his father, business tycoon, owner and CEO of the Pearl Dragon Group of Companies, and a particularly harsh critic of pretty much almost everyone is now probably reading the trends of the stock market at the daily newspaper, drinking expensive single-sourced Colombian coffee and ignoring his equally expensive breakfast of Christ knows what dished up by the private chef.

The old dweeb should just deep-fry some fresh hundred-dollar bills, Luhan thought irritably while brushing his teeth with a vengeance. Damned food’s just slightly better than McDonald’s, anyway.

After more or less fifteen years of anticipating the appearance of a beard-to-be, Luhan still doesn’t shave, and yes, every morning he looks for the beginnings of facial hair. It’s a ritual.

As he had predicted, Luhan found his father sitting at the head of the dining table, his usual place at every meal, business meeting, or the like. Lu Jian, fully dressed in a double-ed navy suit, looked like a Chinese Viking in Armani, without the helmet. For an Asian man, he was tall and well-built. When he stood at full height, he made Luhan look like Tinkerbell, which was often berated upon by the older Lu. He was, to Luhan’s eyes, the epitome of manliness. He ignored the Mandarin jabbering of Luhan’s Lao-lao and sipped his coffee.

A few seats down was his grandmother, which Luhan called Lao-lao, meaning grandmother on the mother’s side, wrinkly and ancient but still very much alive and indestructible—in fact, Chang Tzay Pyng outlived her husband and her daughter. Luhan’s grandma grew up in the way of the traditional Chinese: superstitious, religious, and yes, near immortal. You could probably napalm the woman and she’d still be making offerings to her ancestors next week. The only things she were missing were bound feet and a cheongsam. Lao-lao seemed to be made up of circles, from her perfect bun to her stomach to her thighs, add to that the fact that she’s short. Tzay Pyng jabbered to Jian about how the dining table was facing the wrong way and should be rotated to bring good luck, according to Feng Shui.

Luhan sat opposite to his grandmother, ignoring the shy and giggly ‘good mornings’ of the younger maids, and almost immediately, his Lao-lao turned the jabbering to him.

“This one listens to his Lao-lao, unlike his Papa! You’re a good boy, but you should get me a great-grandson already, okay, okay? I want a chubby one, like those babies in the calendars with the milk formula ads! Now that you’re out of school and all—“

“Han,” his father interrupted. His firm voice commands all of the people within earshot’s attention and respect. Even Lao-lao stopped jabbering. “That brings me to something I would like to discuss with you.” He speaks in fluent Korean, with just the slightest inflection of his native language. Luhan’s father reasons that one must speak the language of the soil one is stepping on. Luhan used to snicker—behind Jian’s back, of course—that if talking Korean was considered talking the Korean soil’s language, why, he’d be fluent.

, what did I do now? thought Luhan apprehensively. Finally, he gulped back a mouthful of saliva with difficulty, and choked out a pathetic, “Yes, Papa?”

“I have decided to put you in a… graduate school. It is only proper for a Lu to know what he is managing,” said his Papa, looking at Luhan directly in the eye. His eyes said, You better listen, because I may or may not put my words in a legal document. “You will be attending Saint Pierre Culinary School, as a form of higher education for your future management of the company.”

“What?” The outburst escaped Luhan’s mouth whinier and more petulant than he imagined. Saint who? That’s not possible. Luhan can’t even boil water, much less attend a culinary school. He’ll burn the whole building down.

“You heard what I said, boy,” boomed his Papa, his voice lowering a few octaves in irritation. “My decision is final. My secretary would discuss the terms and conditions of your living in the school at precisely two in the afternoon.”

Luhan slumped in his seat in defeat, his mouth pressed into a thin line and his fists clenched. “I lost my phone,” he mumbled. His grandmother hadn’t said anything to help him get out of the situation, that hag. But Luhan can’t blame her. The head of the family’s word is law, and even though she was an iron lady, she still had to obey. It was Chinese tradition.

“Then buy a new one and call my secretary with it,” said his Papa with a curt tone, as if a parent tired of speaking to a retarded child. He always expected Luhan to be the best, to be a little Lu Jian in every way—to be fluent in 5 different languages and to be able to be top of the batch every year, to hit a home run at every game, to play such a wide range of instruments he could be a one-man symphony, to impress, to command attention, to be the very best.

He wanted Luhan to be a man like him.

“Yes, Papa,” whispered Luhan, not daring to meet the eyes of his father. It’s not as if he could say no.

“Good,” boomed Jian as he set down his coffee cup and his newspaper, rising and adjusting his cufflinks. “I expect you to do well in that school. And stay there. Do you understand, Han?”

“Yes, Papa.”

Luhan had thought that after he had finished college, his father would be satisfied at seeing his only son’s accomplishments: first in the batch every year; president of the Student Council; captain of the soccer team; trilingual (well, almost); countless awards, medals, and certificates at competitions; one of the rare breed that balanced the Adolescent Holy Trinity—social life, extracurriculars, and studies. He graduated summa laude. That, alone, could already say that he had been the best, but Lu Jian didn’t even attend the graduation ceremony. When he saw the diploma and the medal, he simply grunted and went on talking to a board member. He had, as always, expected more. Luhan is expected to be the absolute best.

“Ah, your Papa acts more like a board director than a father,” harrumphed Lao-lao, an orange segment into extinction. She then scooped up a spoonful of jook, or rice porridge, into which was lined with thin wrinkles. “I want you to do this! And this! Have you done that! Deadline this!”

Lao-lao exhaled with exasperation, leaning across the table toward Luhan like she was going to share a big, salacious secret, lowering her vocal volume into a staged whisper. “You know, your Papa?”

Luhan rolled his eyes but still said, “What, Lao-lao?” as if he was interested. Lao-lao was always like that. She grew up in southern parts of China, and her mannerisms echoed that of a peasant lady selling fish in the market than that of a dowager of one of the richest men in Asia. She even spoke Siyin, one of the many Cantonese dialects, still.

“He acts all chummy-chum with his business buddies but when he gets home, he’s like Chairman Mao!” gushed Lao-lao, hitting the cherrywood dining table for emphasis. “Tsee! That ho-um-ho loh!”

“Ho-um-ho loh?” asked Luhan, frowning. Sometimes, Lao-lao blended Siyin and Mandarin, and it was akin to blending together German and English in a sentence—the two languages related, but still incomprehensible to nonspeakers. No, Luhan did not speak Siyin.

Lao-lao clucked at him with her tongue, as if it was his fault he didn’t speak Siyin. “Very no-good man. It’s only your Mama who he listens to and takes orders from. Now he’s turned into a little Mao Tse-tung.”

Typical Lao-lao. Aside from her daily recommendations on