Somewhere, somehow, Luhan had fallen asleep while in the midst of his conversation with Lay. When he next opened his eyes, he found himself on the opposite end of the room, resting at the same spot on Lay's bed the previous night. He sat up wearily; a throbbing pain in his head desisted him from recalling how and when he had dozed off.

Despite feeling like he had been sleeping for quite some time, the room they were both in was still murky dark. Luhan looked at the clock into the distance, making out the digitized words off its electronic screen. It was barely 5 in the morning. Everything had been left exactly the way they were before he closed his eyes and shut his connection with the world.

The dormitory was shrouded in silence and inactivity. None of the other members seemed up and about.

 

“...Mmph.” Luhan heard a moan from the side, and found Lay shifting on his sheets, miserably shoved to an edge of his bed where he slept soundly. It seemed like Lay and Luhan were engaged in a war for space on the bed, but apparently Lay capitulated and surrendered his spot for a measly one at the foot of the bed.

 

A sense of contrition and malfeasance filled up in Luhan, who sheepishly climbed off the bed. He smiled a little, seeing Lay deep in sleep and how he gave up most of his bed to him. It was an especially rare sight for Luhan too, considering he was known to be the slugabed amongst the members. Luhan crept over and gave him a quick ruffle of hair.

 

“Thank you.” went Luhan softly.

 

The morning air was still chilly and crisp. Lazy sun was still in its slumber. Luhan thought the air to be both cooling and invigorating - something that ignited his brain to start thinking once again. Yet, a part of Luhan knew that there was nothing more that he had to think about. He had already made up his mind without himself being fully conscious of his own decision-making, but he did know what to do.

 

It was true that he knew nothing about Hee Yun. His image of her lingered in the few encounters they shared - mostly at the bubble tea shop and one other...

 

Luhan moved over to his bed before he reached out his right hand and dug under the pillow, his fingers wounding around the sole solid object he could feel. He drew it out, then hooked his index finger through the ring of the keychain, allowing it to dangle freely in the space before his eyes.

 

The keychain borrowed light off the shaft of moonlight that slanted through the window. It sent off a silvery glint, its features slowly coming into focus – a yellow beak, a set of huge, oval eyes, a navy blue sailor's uniform and a goofy smile.

 

His Donald Duck keychain continued to dangle in mid-air, grinning at him through the darkness.

 

Luhan clasped the keychain into his palm and held it close to his chest. Seeing the keychain always brought forth the images of that day.

 

With the keychain firmly in his grasp, Luhan allowed his memories to rewind and take him back to the day where his feelings for Hee Yun became incipient, accompanied by the gentle susurrus of the foliage beyond the glass windows.

 

 

 

“Ken... Cha? Na... Yo.” With his head bent, Luhan began ruminating off his piece of study notes. It felt a little odd to hear himself verbalize those syllables – his mouth seemed to be moving in a really peculiar fashion that he was not accustomed to, almost like this speaking mechanism of his did not belong to him in the first place.

 

His determination balloon now deflated, Luhan dropped his hand holding onto the paper and heaved a sigh of disenchantment.

 

It has only been days since he came to study in Korea, but Luhan felt a pressing need to learn and improve his proficiency in the language. It certainly has not been easy for him trying to immerse himself into a vastly different society with an opposed set of cultures and beliefs. Everywhere he paced on the streets, every channel he heard off the television – everything was in an alien language.

 

Luhan did not enjoy not understanding a word the other party was saying. He did not enjoy feeling the missing sense of belonging-

 

His eyes caught something. Like an agog child feverish with excitement, he dashed up a flight of stairs, stopping right before a convenience store and its line of capsule machines arranged before the entrance.

 

He just flushed all his anxiety away in the blink of an eye.

 

“哇！ 这个！”

 

(Translation : Whoa! This!)

 

He trained his eyes stubbornly on the image printed of Donald Duck pasted on one of the capsule machines. Luhan leant a little behind, trying to look at the contents within the capsules, trying to gauge to see if any one of them contained his Donald Duck keychain, but he could barely get a good glimpse off of them.

 

His obscured vision was hardly a drawback to him. Luhan immediately dug into his pockets, fished out his coin and slotted it into the machine. He started turning the knob, the whole time having his heart run a marathon. He could hear the drumming of his accelerating heartbeat in the pits of his ears.

 

He heard a clank eventually before he hastily opened up the flap and grabbed out the capsule. He unscrewed the lid and -

 

It was a Mickey Mouse keychain.

 

Luhan sighed, feeling his shoulders droop. He slipped the Mickey Mouse keychain back into the capsule and reached for his wallet again, searching for another coin he could use, but he found none. He was penniless for the day.

 

“算了！回家好了。” said Luhan, his voice bitter with disappointment.

 

(Translation : Forget it! I'm going home.)

 

When he next raised his head however, he was welcomed by the fact that lady luck was not exactly on his side.

 

Outside, the rain was pouring.

 

“怎么下雨了呢？惨了，没带伞！” Luhan thought to himself as he panicked a little.

 

(Translation : Why has it started raining out of the blue? Oh no, I forgot to bring my umbrella!)

 

He did not exactly like to spend his time loitering before a convenience store, but Luhan was left with little choice. Defeated, he reclined against the wall outside the convenience store and fiddled with his notes restlessly.

 

“Ah!”

 

It took the scream of a girl to snap him back to reality. Luhan traced the direction of the voice, to find a girl halted in her tracks before the row of capsule machines, her eyes staring intently at one of them. She apparently tried to reach for something, but her slight jerk caused her load of books she had been cradling in her other arm to scatter across the ground. This elicited a second scream from the girl, who immediately went on all fours and began retrieving all her dropped possessions.

 

Luhan was about to move over to lend a hand when the girl speedily picked herself back up, leaving the load she was carrying on the space before her feet. He watched quietly as the girl slotted in the coin into the capsule machine that he was previously at and began to turn the knob patiently.

 

When the clank sounded, the girl pulled out the capsule and loosened the lid. From where he stood, Luhan could barely make out a shade of blue and his heart skipped a beat – because that shade of blue only appertained to one character.

 

Should he make a trade?

 

Will the girl agree?

 

Those were the thoughts racing through his mind as he locked his sight on the capsule containing his favorite cartoon character. He continued watching as the girl put down the capsule on her load of books in annoyance, as she slotted in a second coin into the machine and repeated her sequence of actions. When the second capsule was released, she picked it up in a hurry and peered at its contents, but once again she dropped the capsule onto her load and shook her head.

 

She muttered something under her breath but Luhan could not catch her. Even if he did, he was guessing he would not understand her, anyway.

 

The girl bent over and hoisted her load off the ground, apparently preparing to leave. This was when Luhan scrambled to his feet, rushing to stop the girl.

 

He gave her a light pat on her shoulder and the girl spun around, completely taken aback. Her eyes went wide and in that fleeting moment Luhan found the girl to be rather cute.

 

It was only after Luhan had captured her attention that he realized he forgot about something important – and that was how he was going to phrase his question to her. He did not exactly prepare his speech and now he realized he was not sure how to initiate a trade with the girl.

 

The girl stood there, confused and staring at him expectantly.

 

Frustrated, Luhan presented the capsule holding the Mickey Mouse keychain to the girl. The girl glanced over at the keychain, then looked up and looked straight at him, not fathoming what he was trying to say. She said something in Korean, but Luhan could not really comprehend what she was going on about either.

 

“那个...” Luhan blurted out some Chinese in his frustration to say something the girl could understand.

 

(Translation : That...)

 

He started doing hand gestures, pointing at his own keychain, then pointing at her capsule.

 

The girl finally seemed to understand what he was trying to convey. She put down her load back onto the floor and unscrewed both her capsules, revealing two Donald Duck keychains. She made a cursory scan of both keychains, before she fished one out of the capsule and held it in her open palm, which she then reached out and waited for Luhan to take.

 

“给你。” The girl went in Chinese as she flashed a smile.

 

(Translation : Here, for you.)

 

Luhan did not realize that he had been set into some sort of trance. There was something about her smile that made him momentarily lose track of time. A ray of sunshine, maybe? Something that filled you up with a little hope?

 

Her smile tickled the edges of his lips and made him want to smile as well.

And did she just speak in Chinese?

 

Hearing her speak in Chinese suddenly made him feel strangely over the moon, almost like for a second there, he was not exactly estranged in a foreign land. It made him feel a little welcomed, and he felt happy about that.

 

His body reacted slowly to get the keychain off the girl's hand. It was only when the girl turned around and started running away did he realize that he had, perhaps, been mesmerized.

 

It was also only then did he realize that he had failed to make the trade ; the girl had left without his Mickey Mouse keychain!

 

Luhan rushed forward, trying to stop the girl, only to be assailed by a crowd of people. The girl had simply vanished into the flow of human traffic, blended in with the stream of passers-by, blended into an ephemeral piece of memory of his.

 

 

 

Their encounter lasted for sixty seconds. Maybe fifty, or even less – but those transient sixty seconds were enough for the girl to leave her mark in Luhan's reminiscence.

 

She was a stranger; a stranger amongst the billion population across the world, but Luhan just could not forget about her. The probability for two strangers to meet was one in a billionth, and that made their meeting seem all the more special.

 

Then again, he might just still be trapped under the spell of her seraphic smile.

 

He became conversant in Korean.

 

He was scouted as he went on a shopping trip.

 

He underwent training.

 

He finished his training and made his debut – the pages of the calendar went and went, but nothing about Luhan's wanting to meet the girl wavered. In the depths of his heart, he always hoped he could meet her again, maybe for a short while, and this time maybe he could properly thank her for giving him the keychain, and then maybe he could present her with the Mickey Mouse keychain that he had failed to trade and then maybe -

 

And then what? Luhan will always smile to himself, and then what, when you don't even know the face of the girl from then? It has been years since then. You have changed, so will she. Even if you passed by her on the streets right now, you will never recognize her.

 

“Welcome! Can I take your order?”

 

You will never recognize her-

 

“Our shop's specialty would be the milk tea! Would you like to try?” The girl attendant flashed a smile, her keen eyes unflinching.

 

But Luhan never answered her. An alternate dimension seemed to spring out of the thin air, boiling up an invisible sphere of distorted reality around him that began to in the sonance of everyday life and even the flowing time itself. Everything got strangely quiet, and with each blink of his eye he could see her better and better - the center of attention amongst all these tranquility; so full of life, emanating a soft, seraph-like glow.

 

“Luhan!” There came a robust nudge to his waist, one that jabbed him awake. The cacophony of the afternoon streets streamed back into his ears and that mysterious time-stilling dimension snuck back into its world of oblivion. Luhan raised his head, a little out of sorts and looked at the culprit behind the afflicted pain.

 

“Hey, are you all right?” Sehun said, waving his hands before Luhan's eyes. “Don't space out right before making an order! It's scary!”

 

“I... That-” Luhan turned back to the girl. She had stopped smiling and was now peering at him with curious eyes.

 

“I...”