At the back of the Jaguar, Luhan was wallowing in humiliation and resentment, putting his Gucci-loafered feet up on the genuine leather seats, because what the hell, let his Papa suffer to have a speck of mud that looks like on his the next time he rides this goddamned vehicle from hell.

Let’s see what you’d do with an accident like that, Big Boss, he mentally scowled at the image of his father. Luhan felt like punching somebody, particularly the chauffeur—what the hell, did his Papa think he was a preschooler? This is why he took driving lessons, for God’s sake—or Lao-lao or Eunmi or that damned barista or his Papa. Sort of more of his Papa, actually.

It was like getting ferried across the Styx by Charon, to enter the pits of hell, and the way you died was because your father thought you were too incompetent to run the family business to live. And he told you so. And so now, you’re fuming in the back of the boat and trying to imagine what you’d stick in his face the next time you meet the old man.

The events from the past two days added up to make a good blob of angered determination in Luhan to prove that he’s more than worthy to get out of school, with some splashes of get-out-of-my-way ambition to be the best in Pierre’s, the damned place, thrown in the side. Luhan’s going to make this year a grudge match, on one side him and on the other side the rest of the world, and fueled by ambition and effort alone, he’s going to win, going to get first place. Let that chinky old man just wait and he’ll see.

Luhan’s going to be more of a man than he is!

Looking out the window, Luhan saw the car pass by that cursed café, La Cocotte, which turned out to be pretty damned close to Pierre’s, almost a walking distance, actually. The thought annoyed him and comforted him, the latter kind of being obscure why he felt so. It meant that he could easily get that free thing that the infuriating barista had promised him, and the offer alone aggravated him. Luhan’s net worth was a hundred times higher than his! What, didn’t the guy think that Luhan had money? Jesus Christ, and the way he could manipulate Luhan into being a blob of Silly Putty. Just a movement of facial muscles and Luhan could’ve had a heart attack.

That maddening barista, well, made Luhan mad. What annoyed him so much was that the guy made him act so irrational, so unlike himself, with such ease, and the irritation only hit after they had gone away from the café. Luhan had actually thought that he’d like to come back, but now, he’d never even go near that place if it meant never seeing the barista again. That total, complete stranger just riled him up, made him submissive, then made him act like a shojo manga schoolgirl, like he was the puppeteer of Luhan’s marionette emotions.

Luhan’s shojo-manga-schoolgirl mode’s sudden and unexpected debut particularly irritated him.

He was not gay, nuh-uh, no sir. He had a girlfriend—well, more like friends with benefits, or more likely foster little sister with benefits—and queers did not have girlfriends. Or foster little sisters with benefits. Luhan was not gay, not homo, not queer, and he does not swing for the other team, in Eunmi’s words.

So why did Luhan turn into mush before that vexingly attractive barista?

The guy simply was just good-looking, that’s all, and Luhan wasn’t used to seeing people too attractive to be human, despite encountering models, Asian or otherwise, in the advertising meetings at the company at a regular basis. It was natural for human beings to admire attractive people. That’s why the ancient people worshipped gods, who were so beautiful they were hard to look at, right? Just like Amaterasu, or Dalnim, or the sun sisters of Chinese folklore. Extremely good-looking, just like that guy, so it was perfectly normal for Luhan to have his jaw drop to the ground. Yes, perfectly normal. Not queer, literal meaning and homo meaning both.

Okay, still not gay after yesterday, I’m still plain ol’ Luhan, he assured himself.

Damn, for a barista, he was just so darned handsome. Was he the shop’s door-buster or something? thought Luhan, getting out of his strangle-everybody mode and actually getting more calm, surprisingly, as he thought of that stranger. Store personnel never make an indelible imprint on his mind, but this guy, this Sehun, kept coming back to his memory. He had, even though it was a decision made by his shojo-manga-schoolgirl side, kept the cup which the mint tea—which was surprisingly good—was served in.

It was actually in his backpack right now, and yes, it was gross and stalker-like for him to do so, but that smiley-face beside his name, in Hangul characters, made him strangely yet nicely happy.

He smiled as he thought of that Sharpie smiley face.

Luhan decided that the barista wasn’t so bad, after all.

But he was still pretty darned infuriating, with that Miss Luhan incident and the little passive-aggressive insult. If decorum would allow it, Luhan would still want to get a slug at his gorgeous face.

“Maybe I’ll just stroll over to that damned café again, after all,” he whispered, and his voice surprised him, because he had just involuntarily spoken, and because despite being a passenger of H.M.S. Jaguar to Hell, he sounded peaceful. It’s just a school, he comforted himself. And just like any school, I’m going to graduate summa laude.

The Jaguar rolled into the school parking lot, slow and smooth, giving Luhan his first impression of his ‘graduate school’, Saint Pierre. It did not look like a culinary school.

“Oh, holy Jesus Lord,” he whispered, rolling down the tinted window to get a better look.

From the his vantage point in the parking lot, he saw part of the school, a stout, majestic building, apparently constructed with classic, Versailles-style architecture and a helluva lot of white marble, where a large flock of the new students congregated.

That must be the place, Luhan thought, hitching his backpack straps higher, where all the actual cooking happens. As he walked to the white steps leading up to the entrance, the sound of the Jaguar starting made him turn his head around to see that the car was leaving, back to the house, presumably, or to pick up his Papa from work. Okay, then, leave, motherer! he wanted to call out to the rear of the car. It’s not as if I need you, anyway!

Right now, though, Luhan thought it would be better to have somebody he knew with him right now than to have arrived in a brand-new sports car. He struggled on hauling his luggage—Jesus, the thing felt like it weighed fifty tons—and keeping a face devoid of the helplessness he felt.

Luhan had never felt more isolated. He was in a campus where he knew no one, where he was to board in an apartment or flat or whatever the hell it was, alone with a stranger, where he was expected to cook, which he had never done in his life. The place was big, and not for the first time in his life, he felt like Tinkerbell in a forest full of baroque structure. The intimidating presence that emanates from his Papa seemed to have magnified in Pierre’s, growing and closing in on him, where brick walls and an ornate wrought-iron gate provided no escape.

Pierre’s looked like a cross between the White House and a gothic cathedral, with three floors up of intricate but minimalist décor, and there were young men waiting on the steps, some scattered and some congregating in small cliques, almost everyone carrying at least one rolling luggage bag and a backpack, like Luhan. He hoped to God he wouldn’t have to lug his bags around, for three floors up and down for the tour around the school, plus the dorms, plus the other facilities. Oh, dear God, please, no.

These young, wealthy men, most likely heirs to their families’ fortune, were dressed in prim and preppy clothes, just like Luhan, most of them in loafers and pressed shirts and khaki chinos and the like, most probably because they would want to give a good impression on their future teachers, or because the power females in their familial lives had insisted so. A third looked nervous, another third looked like they couldn’t care less, and the last third looked like they wanted to bolt. Luhan had classified himself into the last one. The school opens at 7:50 A.M. to begin the tour, and as Luhan neared the entrance, he hears clips of conversations, mostly about getting-to-know-you questions, why they were there, and the usual guy stuff.

Luhan was standing alone, near one of the rose hedges at the side of the steps, wishing desperately to just get home and kneel before his father to pull him out of here, until a young man approached him, apparently having just arrived, jogging effortlessly up the marble steps due to a lack of a rolling luggage bag. Luhan envied him, until he saw who he was.

“Holy ,” he murmured to himself. “Is that… Is that Yixing?” What is that idiot doing here? Luhan didn’t care. He felt like running to meet that idiot and hugging him, just weeping with tears of happiness and thanking Yixing for just merely being alive.

“Hey, loner boy!” called out Yixing, laughing when he saw Luhan’s shocked yet weirdly delighted face. Looks like I won’t be a loner at school, after all! Luhan felt like crying tears of joy and fist-punching the air in victory. He won’t look like a weirdo! Luhan wanted to run and hug his best friend. Yes, oh, God, yes! Yixing suddenly stopped laughing and fixed him a look, frowning and smiling at the same time.

“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, did you forget your meds or something?” asked Yixing, giving Luhan a Jack Nicholson eyebrow. His lips were pursed in suspicion at Luhan’s exhilarated face.

“Oh my God, you’re a lifesaver,” breathed Luhan, ignoring Yixing usual sass. “I never thought in my whole life that seeing your face would make me feel better.”

“You know, I’ll take that as a compliment, although I personally think that you’re out of place in here,” said Yixing, rubbing his neck and looking around. “I mean, cooking school isn’t manly. You try to be manly. It doesn’t add up, you know?”

Luhan deflated. Two people saying he tries to be manly. Thanks a lot, Yixing, you were supposed to be my friend, last time I checked. He gave Yixing a dry look.

“Yeah, I was dumped here by Papa, so what choice do I have, right?” Suddenly, Lao-lao’s voice comes up, muttering in Siyin when something Papa orders her to do disagrees with her traditionalist upbringing: Mo vun fut, mo vun fut. What choice do I have? Luhan’s smile faded a bit. Mo vun fut. It was a sentence often uttered within the Lu family, particularly the only son.

Luhan cleared his throat and changed the topic. “Well, I figured you’d pass for a short-order cook, too, but not a chef, you know, so why are you here?” He kind of expected Yixing to take some sort of an additional education on cooking, too, like Luhan himself, because being the third son of the president of a luxury confectionary company, there were people who expect the heirs to the epicurean thrones to have some kind of diploma in a school such as Pierre’s.

“You know, the usual ‘public-wants-this-and-that’ bull. I mean, it’s pretty useless, too, since Yidun’s the one at helm, and I’m the last kid. I figure critics want even the cat to have a diploma at some cooking school,” replied Yixing sourly, mentioning Zhang Yidun, his eldest brother and next in line for the throne. Yidun has a diploma from Le Cordon Bleu, and not the one in Seoul. Yes. The one in Paris, France. Luhan remembers from a past conversation that Yidun never really cooks anything, except perhaps grilled cheese sandwiches.

Most people weren’t really aware that the kids of hotel-and-restaurant CEOs and presidents would most likely be off juggling tasks like handling wage management gone out of hand, rather than cooking a five-course meal and problems such as meals being sent back. Businessmen don’t have it in their genes to be chefs, too—administrative stress was bad enough.

“Wonder where the dorms are, though,” muttered Luhan, craning his neck to look at the terracotta roof of Pierre’s. “I don’t want to lug around these bags just looking at ovens and cupboards.”

“Hey, are you rooming with anybody?” asked Yixing suddenly, his head tilted in curiosity. Luhan had always had the best in everything back in college, from field trip hotel suites to concert seats, and Yixing usually got some of the benefits, being Luhan’s best friend since middle school and all.

“I don’t know if there’s any space available for a student with a flat all to himself. I guess the one who paid the school director the most money would get it, if it exists,” added Yixing, although the concept of rooming with somebody wasn’t so foreign and disagreeable to him. He had two other brothers living at home with him, after all. Ah, the memories of boogers at door handles past. He still remembered the smelly socks and the nasty little bombs on the floor that his brother always leave. Rooming with anybody other than Yidun and Yisui would be a blessing to him.

Luhan, on the other hand, was an only child. His living quarters had always been his and his alone.

“You know, Papa already said I’ll be rooming with somebody, you know, so I guess there’s not much space available,” replied Luhan, smirking slightly, confident that there won’t be other people getting a flat that’s better than his—it was one of being a Lu’s perks: you always get the best. “At least, I know I won’t have to be jealous of some hotshot kid that has a crib all to himself.”

Yixing rolled his eyes at how spoiled Luhan is, but after how many years of knowing Luhan, a guy could get used to how ridiculously pampered his best friend is. Being rich has plus sides that ordinary people can’t afford, but even Yixing wasn’t allowed a foreign sports car for his freshman gift, or the newest models of consumer technology every other month, or privileges that Luhan receives without asking.

The only other guy with outrageous privileges such as Luhan’s was the oldest son of a power marriage between a prestigious fashion designer and the CEO of a luxury vehicle company. He was the some hotshot kid Luhan was not-so-discreetly referring to.

“Kim Jongin,” muttered Yixing, with a generous amount of grudging envy in his voice. His best friend, he could stand, but Kim Jongin was another case. Luhan detested the guy for reasons that was beyond Yixing’s grasp of understanding, but he guessed competition was one of them. “Well, I bet 5,000 won that the guy would sleep with his roomie before a week passes by, not that I’ve seen him around here at Pierre’s. He’s like a rabbit on .”

Luhan nodded somberly. “I’m betting on three days, Xing. Three days and Kim would send his roomie’s ity—if it’s still there in the first place—back home to Jesus.” Back at the uni, Kim Jongin was known for throwing the best, wildest parties known to collegiate species and an indiscriminate ual appetite. It’s a wonder how the guy still hasn’t contracted herpes or something.

“Hey, I wonder how we could get food here, though,” said Yixing without warning, suddenly remembering that he only packed clothes for a week’s worth. Let’s just say he got lazy. He didn’t really care about clothes and other items, but food had a special place in his heart. “I mean, we’re practically in the middle of nowhere. It must be a mile or something before we reach a pla