5:55PM ME: Yo, Baozi, were you at the library this afternoon?

6:48PM BAOZI: No, why?

Hm. It wasn’t like Minseok to reply so late. Or with only two words. What was up with him?

6:50PM ME: Oh, okay. I must’ve seen wrong, don’t worry.

6:51PM SKYSCRAPER: I’m hungry…

6:52PM ME: Me too. Buy food, I’m too lazy to cook.

6:52PM: SKYSCRAPER: I’m picking you up, let’s go to dinner.

Something seemed fishy. Alarm bells rang in my mind at he way Kris responded so quickly, as though he’d already had this in mind…

6:53PM ME: This is a trap, isn’t it? We’re having dinner with Yixing, aren’t we?

6:53PM SKYSCRAPER: Okay, you got me… Do you still want to come?

6:54PM ME: By myself? I don’t want to be the third wheel :( give me a sec…

6:55PM ME: Hey, Baozi, are you free for dinner, like, right now?

6:57PM BAOZI: Nah, I’m already out now, sorry Lu.

Hmm. Who could I take now? 

That’s when the perfect suggestion popped into my mind.

Kris pulled up on the street outside the apartment and I raced out, hopping into the passenger seat.

We arrived outside of a modest home with roses growing in the front garden. I knocked on the door and grinned when Zitao opened it before calling out to someone inside the house, most likely his mother.

“I’m going now!”

“Not too late, Zitao!” Came the loud and resounding response. Definitely his mother.

I chuckled to myself but also felt a pang of homesickness as I thought of my own mother.

“Don’t worry, I’ll have him back before 10, Mrs. Huang!” I cried before linking arms with Zitao and skipping over to the car with him.

Zitao was a childhood friend, too – he, Kris, Yixing and I had once been a group of friends in school, sometimes having to protect and console each other from the bullying we’d occasionally experience. Those were some of the best and worst days of my life.

I shook my head of such unpleasant thoughts, returning back to the present.

The restaurant was modish and stylish, a fusion of Chinese and Korean culture. It was a pleasant evening as we all joked and laughed, reminiscing together.

“Oh! Remember that time Lu Han’s pants fell down in gym class?!” Zitao practically screamed in his delight.

Kris, Yixing and Zitao were nearly crying with laughter at the mere mention of that story. 

“And he… he tried to blame it on you for… for pulling on his drawstrings.” Kris gasped between howls of laughter.

I had to chuckle myself. Several years later, it was finally funny to me.

Back then, though, it had been just a leaf out of the nightmarish story that was my life.

I’d been losing weight fast, too fast. All my clothes were loose on my nine-year-old self. I wasn’t able to take much in – my body just wouldn’t tolerate the food here. 

I was a miserable child, homesick, physically sick and longing for my parents.

Kris’ mother did her best to care for me, she treated me like I was Kris’ little brother – despite being older than him. She was able to make the meals my mother would make. They weren’t the same, though. Nothing could replace my mother.

Kris’ father did his best to comfort me, at night he’d stay with me for hours, calming me down every time I woke up from the night terrors that haunted me. He’d sing the song my father had used as my lullaby. It wasn’t the same, though. Nothing could replace my father.

The worst nights had been when Kris’ parents would work late. Those were the nights I would silently cry myself to sleep, trying not to wake Kris who was oblivious to the nightmare I was living. The nights when I’d pray everything would return to the way it had been, back in Beijing.

I was startled out of my reflection by three sets of curious eyes turning in my direction.

Zitao appeared the most eager for some sort of response from me and so I figured he’d been the one to ask me a question.

“Sorry, Zitao, I caught none of that.” The four of us chuckled and Kris, Yixing and Zitao shook their heads at me.

“I asked if you were seeing anyone?”

Oh. 

Obviously, the answer was “no” but some psychotic part of my brain, conscious of the fact that Yixing was present, that he had already moved on and a “no” would make me look pretty pathetic in comparison, decided that it was okay to lie to Zitao.

“Well, there… there is someone I have my eyes on.” I felt my cheeks flush slightly.

“Really? Who is it?” Zitao asked, his growing interest evident in the brightness of his eyes.

“Oh,” if this continued, I’d be a beetroot by the end of the night. “You wouldn’t know him. None of you would.”

Glancing round the table, I spied an intrigued look on Zitao’s face, an odd smirk on Kris’ lips and a genuine, dimple-showing smile from Yixing.

“Hmm,” Zitao would not let this drop. “Maybe we can meet him sometime?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Following a subject change from Kris, I blessed his soul to the high heavens as I took a sip of water in relief, laying that conversation to rest indefinitely.

Having said our goodbyes and dropping Zitao off, Kris and I headed home. 

“I never got the chance to ask how your tutoring was going.”

“It’s not so bad, Sehun… Sehun, he’s…" How could I describe Sehun? "He’s nice, I suppose.”

“Just nice?” Kris' eyebrow rose.

I shrugged. “Well, he’s not exactly Prince Charming but he’s relatively decent.”

Kris chuckled as he pulled up to the apartment. “Why is it so hard for you to give a compliment?”

I shrugged again, hopping out of the car. “I only give them when they’re due.”

“Fair enough.”

After such a long day, I was beyond relieved to climb into my bed. Sleep evaded me, however, when my head hit the pillow as my mind wandered to Minseok. I was a bit disappointed in him and yet worried about how weird he had seemed when I’d texted him earlier that day.

What was his problem? Had I done something wrong? I couldn’t even tell.

I reassured myself that this would just blow over, that he’d go back to being his baozi-like self in no time. Or, that I had over-analysed or over-exaggerated what he'd said and that nothing was wrong at all. I guessed I would just have to wait it out.

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