LESSON HIGHLIGHTS:

How Not to Deal With Failure
A Crash Course on Jealousy
Good Housekeeping (Testosterone Version)

If Luhan’s emotional reactions could be any slower, they’d be going backwards. His natural irritation and indignation only comes after a good deal of thinking and time, like the instance when he got dazzled by Oh Sehun at that stupid café, and now, especially, with the whole Chef -Kent-yelling-at-him-for-almost-poisoning-her thing. It wasn’t his fault that the food tasted like… Luhan didn’t really know what it tasted like, to be honest, and he didn’t want to criticize his first masterpiece without finding out. It looked okay to him.

He ate a spoonful. Almost immediately, he spat it back out again.

“Oh my Lord,” groaned Luhan. Wow. He looked around for any bottles of water, or something like that, because one, the “stew” was spicier than Satan’s asscrack, and two, it tasted putrid in an unexplainable way. If the stew was a person, it would be bat crazy right now, flinging feces at everybody—that’s how it basically tasted like:  bat. Luhan wasn’t exaggerating, because to him, even though he had some sentimental attachment to that potload of red stew, it tasted like a mixture of expensive organic hand soap that Eunmi buys, plus a puddle of spilt Tabasco sauce on the road that had been left to simmer in the hot sun. That, and the debris of charred solids that tasted like something you’d find at the bottom of a grill.

In simple words, it was way beyond mere ew. It was unspeakable.

Yixing looked over at him with an expression of curiosity. They hadn’t talked to each other for two hours, which was quite a stretch whenever they were within two feet radius of each other (just ask their middle school teachers). Yixing had been more fortunate to get that Hispanic-looking guy—turns out, his name was Chef Ramirez—but he hadn’t been too lucky on the rating. Chef Ramirez just took one look at his dish—the  pile of scorched scraps of shrimp and noodles, mounded as neatly as possible on a plate—then shifted his eyes at him, and said something like, “No offense, but I’m not going to eat that.”

“I heard that lady chef yelling at you,” said Yixing, smirking in a half-condescending, half-sympathetic way. How he does that, Luhan had no idea.

“No ,” retorted Luhan petulantly. “If you hadn’t heard her, you’re something worse than deaf.” He just wanted to get out of here—this day was so long, he could almost feel wrinkles forming around his eyes. Luhan didn’t want to be humiliated even more in this stupid cooking school—he hated losing, hated being the stupid one, hated not being the best, or at least not being among them.

Luhan hated not knowing anything.

As he glared at the front of the room, where all the chefs have congregated to discuss something that Luhan didn’t know nor care about, resentful feelings simmered inside him like his stew, bubbling with vengeance and malice. He wasn’t used to being so clueless. What would his Papa say of his failure?

Do you think you’re worthy to carry my last name, Han? he would’ve boomed, his eyebrows furrowing and his eyes full of derision, towering over Luhan like Goliath, being at least a full foot taller than his son. Do you think that this wealth you have is free? That it simply comes from being born in the Lu family? Is this your way of showing me that you deserve to run the business, that you really are of my blood? Carry on being like this, and you will find yourself out of my house and without a last name.

Luhan couldn’t stand being in here, in a place where he was more than a disappointment, but a catastrophe. He simply walked out of that stupid practicals room without a word, and when he got out of there, he sprinted to wherever direction his feet would carry him, running aimlessly. Eight years of soccer took him a long way around the campus effortlessly.

He felt like crying. He felt like screaming and throwing that stupid, ing pot of stew or whatever the it is out of the window, throwing it at that ing Chef face and scorch her ugly lo fon face off. He felt like hitting somebody. He felt like shrieking into his phone at his Papa, yelling as much Chinese expletives as he could remember at the top of his lungs, and he felt like running into the corner and sobbing his heart out, because he failed. He failed big-time.

Luhan was mad at himself, most of all. At first, he thought that Chef Kent just really had a problem with the rest of the human population, or him, in particular, but when he found out that her reaction was—painfully and vexingly—justified, he understood how… how inadequate he was. How cooking was so out of his league, how it was the most frustrating and difficult and just ing irrational thing he had ever tackled in his life, and even though he did all the steps he thought was logical, what turned out was a putrid jumble of pure disappointment. He could have done better, because maybe it wasn’t his total lack of knowledge on the field, maybe, he thought, it was just him overlooking a seemingly insignificant step that turned out to be crucial, maybe he just did something stupid, maybe it was—

“Goddammit!” Luhan tripped over God-knows-what and making his shoulder skid over the hard, compact dirt as he crashed clumsily. Nice one, Luhan, he told himself bitterly. And that’s with eight years of soccer. He didn’t have the motivation to stand up anymore. He just rolled on his back and struggled not to cry, his face contorting into an ugly grimace, so Luhan just covered his face with his dirt-streaked forearm and pounded the dirt with his other fist.

Luhan fumed to himself. “ my life, me, this, what the am I doing with my life, anyway? I was headed to a pretty good start after college, right, if Papa didn’t intervene? Right?” he muttered furiously under his breath.

No, not really, a no-nonsense yet weirdly sad voice inside his head answered back. Even if you are working now, you’re still gonna be a little loser that tries his hardest to please his Papa. You’re gonna die trying to make your Papa proud but miserably failing. Let’s face it, Luhan, it doesn’t matter which path your Papa makes you take—you’re still gonna feel like a failure either way.

Luhan dropped his arm onto the ground, staring at the great, blue sky. He didn’t want to admit it, but the voice had a painful point. He didn’t want to recognize that fact’s existence, period. He wanted to believe that maybe someday, if he worked hard enough, if he just met his Papa’s expectations or, by some miracle, exceed it, he might just get his Papa’s approval.

“About as possible as me getting facial hair,” muttered Luhan absently, in a weak attempt for humor. “Or Eunice and me actually doing it.”

Then Chef Kent’s screeching voice came back to him again, saying, You’re just wasting your time!

Luhan had never felt so pointless, so useless in his life.

In the periphery, his eye caught the glint of the conservatory’s glass walls and roof, sparkling under the afternoon sun. The Glass Cathedral, he remembered Chef Bertrand calling it. The name was apt—it did look like a church, the crystalline panels forming a massive dome over the delicate, blooming shrubs, trees, and flowers. Luhan, among the greenery inside, saw Chinese tree peonies.

The peonies were gigantic, pale pink flowers, almost in full bloom. The peonies in the Glass Cathedral were small compared to Luhan’s Momma’s, back in Shanghai, just about as big as Luhan’s palm. He could almost see Momma reaching up, admiring one of the flowers, her fingers lightly touching the petals as she looks down, smiling, to her little Luhan. The ache in Luhan’s heart throbbed painfully, missing her badly—she was the only person who had understood Luhan wholly, who loved Luhan with all of her being, loved her little Luhan, even… even until the end.

No, Luhan’s mind unconsciously whispered. Not those memories again. Anything but those.

Luhan sat up. The sight of those flowers, almost as if they were shipped from Luhan’s memory, were haunting. Peonies, pale pink, white, peach, red, peonies from Momma’s garden, the favorite flowers of a certain little child, Peony’s peonies, Mudan’s flowers. Delicate, beautiful flowers, blooming in Momma’s garden, only flourishing under a skilled, loving hand, under perfect care, much like children, much like loving. Peony’s peonies.

The mere sight of peonies intoxicated Luhan with memories, memories of his mother that he tried so hard to run away from. Failure, an event that almost had never occurred in Luhan’s life, had cracked Luhan’s mental defenses. He didn’t want to remember. He’d tried so hard to run away, run away as fast and as far as he can, because he didn’t have the strength to face that event, that dark spot in his memories that had been willingly erased, like a chapter ripped clean out of a book.

Or its pages had merely been blotted out.

Luhan’s feet seemed to move on their own, one foot in front of the other, until he reached the Glass Cathedral, his hand pressed on the crystalline paneling, the glass warm under his touch. The peonies, blooming on the tree, seemed to watch him expectantly, like his Momma’s big, soft eyes, staring at him, her eyes mirroring his own, even at the end, even as she lay bleeding on the—

“Stop,” Luhan whispered, his voice choked. “Stop it.”

Luhan pressed his face against the warm glass, and finally, as the walls he had built since his Momma’s death begin to crumble down, Luhan cried.

Sehun hated having Luhan out of his sight. His knuckles were white on the counter, his grip on it deathly tight and almost digging into the soft marble stone. He hated being cooped up in here, because chasing after Luhan would raise suspicion, both from his future classmates to Luhan himself. He had no choice but to stay.

And he hated it.

So far, the chefs had been announcing the classes that each student would be grouped into, and due to some manipulation from Mr. Lu’s part, he had been placed into Class D, where Luhan had been assigned. Not that bad, but it sure wasn’t good, either. Some talented cooks were also scattered among the lower classes, so as not to put unwanted attention on Sehun, with the reason being that they could ‘share their knowledge with the beginner students.’ Sehun disliked lying, but on the other hand, he can’t exactly pretend not to know how to cook, either, since he was supposed to be a scholar, with the tuition paid for by his “sponsor,” which happened to be the Pearl Dragon. Ah, coincidences, coincidences.

Sehun wanted to go find Luhan. He felt like an ADHD kid being forced to sit through a History lesson—now, he didn’t know how Korean History classes are like, but he knew American teachers, for the most part, are extremely adept at making the Civil War feel like the Hundred Years War. Literally.

But I digress, he thought. Formalities, as much as he could tolerate it, were a waste of time, in his opinion. Especially when he had an emotionally unstable collegiate boy running around the school campus about the size of a small African nation, with the prospect of an unknown someone who may or may not know he’s here, and hunting him down. If Sehun was that somebody hunting Luhan down, this time would be perfect to eliminate Luhan.

A simple job, that’s all that it would take, just take the young man somewhere no one would hear him, do what you’re supposed to, then burn the body. Nobody would know where he went. The authorities can simply conclude that he ran away, due to his perfectionist nature and the massive failure he experienced today. Luhan can vanish without a trace.

Sehun took a deep breath, closing his eyes and trying to stabilize himself. A panicked soldier is not a soldier at all. Balance. Keep it cool, he thought. Sehun exhaled. Presence of mind. Presence of mind. His heart rate slowed down to an 82, calm, but the beats were strong, determined.

Sehun slowly opened his eyes. Scanning the room, he saw a window, nondescript and probably just installed so the students can get some fresh air, just beside the station in front of where he is. After elbowing a few students out of the way, the window proved not to show a lot of the campus below, but Sehun, in an extremely lucky strike, found what he was looking for after his eyes ran over the ground in a cursory glance—Luhan, just beside the conservatory, his body pressed against the glass, his shoulders visibly shaking despite of the distance. A passing thought about how Luhan was to wash the dirt away from his brand-new jacket crossed Sehun’s mind.

An odd combination of relief, frustration, and worry settled inside him. Relief being from the knowledge of where Luhan is, and what he was doing, and especially, because he was safe, frustration from the fact that yes, he could see him, but he can’t do a thing to reach him in case something goes wrong.

And worry from the fact that if something does go wrong, he could witness it from his post, but he’d be too late to reach Luhan.

The practicals room felt so much like a prison. Sehun was suffocating in it. On the windowsill, his knuckles were bled-white, his grip deathly tight, just like at the counter a while ago.

In St. Pierre’s, greenery seemed to be everywhere. Ornamental hedges, shrubs, bushes, trees… there were plenty of places where one could easily watch and hide, and Luhan was an easy subject to the watcher. The young man had been sitting cross-legged now, his back against the conservatory as he looked down on his loafers, which may or may not be ruined by all that running down the stairs and across the campus. The watcher was impressed with how little Lu seem to not tire of running until he tripped over something, and he himself had to run up in order to keep an eye on him.

It was pretty obvious that the guy was not at all aware of his surroundings, being so carefree and vulnerable it was amusing. He was just there, ripe for picking, out in the open. If the watcher was worth several billion dollars like this guy, he’d realize sooner or later in his life that he’d better be really careful about where he hangs about, because his money’s not going to form an armor around himself. Rather, it may be one of the reasons why he’d better watch out. Apparently, little Lu had not come to that realization.

Yet.

Ever since the boy crash-landed onto the ground, he had done pretty much nothing but mope, basically, which is fine for the watcher, since he’s barely recovered from that little jogging exercise his subject gave him a while ago. When it became apparent to the watcher that the boy really wasn’t planning on going anywhere, he can’t help but mull over the information he had acquired from his employer about the Lu boy.

Lu Han, last name Lu, first name Han—also called Luhan (no, no pause in between syllables this time) because it’s kind of awkward calling someone in Korea a monosyllabic name, like Han. It was just weird. He’d recently graduated summa laude from the Jayu Sasang-ga University, like an Asian equivalent of Harvard or Cambridge, captain of the varsity soccer team, president of Student Council—basically your cookie-cutter all-around model student. In the watcher’s opinion, Lu Han was better than all the other rich kids horsing around and wasting the money they’ve inherited from their great-great-granddaddies; but he still wasn’t really an ideal person to be, if one had a choice.

To be honest, the watcher felt sorry for little Lu. It wasn’t just from the fact that he more likely that not had been trained to be an overachiever—again, the wonders of inside sources—but it was from the way his mother died, too, some ten years ago. The watcher had read the newspaper clippings about the death of Lu Zhen Long, when his employer gave the data to him. WIFE OF BUSINESS TYCOON MURDERED, the headline had been emblazoned on the yellowing paper like a tombstone engraving.

On the front cover was a picture of Mrs. Lu, a photo taken as she was ducking into a shiny car, probably taken by paparazzi. She was smiling congenially at the camera, and it looked natural on her, effortlessly bringing out her large, dark eyes. Beside that photo was a picture of her on the crime scene, curled in a fetal position on the ground, and the newspaper company didn’t need to censor her face, since almost all of it was covered by her long hair. Even if the picture had been a decade old, with the colors and outlines fading already, the watcher had noticed the dark maroon of the blood staining the crimson carpet, garish as he stared at the photo.

The newspaper had rattled off the gritty details of the murder with great relish, because hey, it’s not everyday that the wife of a prominent businessman gets killed, much more the wife of one of the top five richest ones. The reporter sounded like he’d been there when it happened, but the watcher sure as hell knew something that the newspaper didn’t know.

Little Lu had been there when his Momma was murdered. The watcher’s employer hadn’t known this when the job had been done some ten years ago, but now, they were going to finish the job once and for all.

A rustle of leaves, crushed lightly by shoes, startled the watcher further into his hiding place. His sight was partially obscured by leaves of the hedge he was hiding in. It might be the bodyguard that the watcher has heard about, but not sure of the existence, that had been hired by Big Lu for little Lu, and based on the rumors, he didn’t want to take his chances, and he bolted. He didn’t need to worry about losing his chance with little Luhan, though—the job would be done, in one way or another. That, the watcher was sure.

“Oh, man, all that dirt’s going to take ages to wash,” a voice said somewhere from Luhan’s back. “I’m guessing you’re one of the new students, because everyone who’s been here for a while knows that washing the uniform is a real pain in the a—.”

Luhan, before turning around to see who it is, wiped his face vigorously with the clean sleeve of his jacket. Standing beside the Glass Cathedral was a tall young man, wearing the same uniform as Luhan does, but his jacket was red, with white embroidery that Luhan didn’t bother to read at the moment. His face had this amiable, playful quality to it, with big eyes, big ears, and a big, impish smile, and a good helping of boyish good looks. His whole aura just screamed ‘older brother.’

“So what are you doing out here?” asked the stranger. “I mean, it’s not everyday that I see a rogue newbie covered with dirt when I skip class—I mean, take a stroll.”

“I… I kind of blew my test,” admitted Luhan softly. He pursed his lips as a pang of humiliation hit him again, his nails digging into the soft flesh of his palm as he clenched his fist. He wanted to tell the guy to leave him the hell alone, but Big Brother right here didn’t seem to bother him all that much. In fact, it was kind of nice to have this guy around.

“Literally or figuratively?” asked Big Brother, a nervous look creeping in on his face.

“Figuratively,” replied Luhan with indignation. Hey, he wasn’t that bad.

The crease lines in the middle of Big Brother’s brows smoothed out. “Oh, okay, then, so what’s the problem?”

Luhan stared at Big Brother for a moment, then he found the statement to be so funny, so simple, but it erased all of his issues just like that. If somebody else walked in at the conservatory, he or she would’ve thought that Luhan was going crazy by the way he’s laughing, but Luhan didn’t care, even if his sides and his cheekbones and his throat hurt from laughing at how petty his issues were. It’s not that the placement test didn’t matter—it just wasn’t the end of the world, that’s all.

After Luhan stopped cracking up, Big Brother raised an eyebrow and asked Luhan, “Hey, are you okay? By okay I mean mentally