Luhan’s crowd of fan girls have not left him alone since the beginning of this week. It has gotten to the point where he misses hanging and eating with his friends with the freedom of chewing and swallowing what and when he pleases, not what or when tons of girls want him to. Not being able to handle the obsessed fandom, for the first time ever, he blurts out, “I’m currently dating someone, so I’d like to be with her.”

The scene of the girls whimpering and making a ruckus in response almost causes Luhan to be suspended for being the so-called “starter” of everything. Within a week, rumors have been passing around that the girl Luhan is dating is in the same school and everyone knows who that girl is.

And, that is why today’s lunch at the rooftop is in a turmoil atmosphere.

Luhan and Hana are eating at opposite sides and are not looking at each other. They haven’t spoken to one another since that day. They even walked to school alone.

“Hana,” Lay says, “didn’t you always say that as long as we know you two aren’t going out then it is fine?” He is trying to lessen the silent heated confrontation between his two friends.

Xiumin does the same, too, “That’s right. So, I don’t see why you two are making a big deal out of this.”

“I am not. She is.” Luhan butts in, pinning his chin at her.

An invisible vein pops at Hana’s head and she angrily puts her chopsticks down, “Look, if this pabo hadn’t said anything like that in front of the entire school, no, if he hadn’t said anything at all about this “fake” girl that he was dating, I wouldn’t have to be in this mess.”

“I didn’t say your name and it was them who assumed it was you, so I didn’t bring it upon you.” Luhan retorts. “I don’t know why you’re so mad at me.” He quietly adds, “You should be glad you were thought to be dating me. It’s an honor.”

Hana overhears and she scoffs, “Honor, my ! Because of what you stupidly say, everyone is now saying that we’re dating when we’re not!”

Luna tries to calm Hana down by putting a hand to stop from the two friends going at each other, “Luhan does have a point, Hana. He already explained to us why he said it. It was to get the girls off of him.”

“See, even Luna understands. Why can’t you?” Luhan questions with his mouth full.

Hana frowns and grabs a nearby tissue and wipes his mouth for him. “I just…I just feel that now, whenever we say we aren’t, they won’t believe us much anymore.”

He shrugs, “So, we’re graduating this year. It’s not like they could torture us with it either. If you think about it, isn’t it quiet advantageous for us?”

“How so?” The friends ask.

Arching his brows up and down twice, he cheekily answered, “I’m aiming to get crowned as the best couple of the year!!!”

Luna gasps and stands up, “No you cannot!!!” She points to Lay and then back at her, “We are aiming for that this year!!!”

“You/We are?” Xiumin and Lay utter.

Xiumin stares at Lay and Lay stares back. He means to comment to himself, but has accidentally says it out loud, “Yeah, you are the submissive one in the relationship. No wonder you didn’t know about what Luna plans to do.”

“Shush, Xiumin.” Luna says, not happy that Xiumin implies her dominance as something bad. Putting her hands on her hips, she scoffs, “You and Hana must back out.”

Hana puts out her hands in a defensive manner, “Hold up. I didn’t say I am going to be in this because that would mean that I will have to pretend to go out with Luhan for the entire year.”

Luhan rolls his eyes, “pabo, you won’t. It’s only on that day.”

This time, Hana arches her brow for further information.

“We can normally hang out like we usually do. It’s only for that event that we have to ‘act’ like a couple or ‘be’ a couple. Get it?”

Understanding, Hana nods. “Ah, I see.”

Luna fears that Hana is being persuaded, so she pulls Hana to the side and says, “Hana, even if it’s only for a day, you’ll be known in history as one of Luhan’s girls!”

“But she isn’t and she won’t.” Xiumin utters as he unwraps a lollipop that he just took out from his pockets.

“Quiet, you!” Luna knows Xiumin’s comment will not help her at all. In fact, it does the opposite.

Hana faces Luhan and asks, “Ne, I can understand why Luna wants to win the crown, but why do you?”

Everyone looks at Luhan when they also become curious of the same question. He doesn’t need to be crowned as a couple with someone since he doesn’t have a girl to begin with. So why is he even planning on participating?

With a hint of seriousness in his eyes, Luhan answers his friends, “I am going to leave my legacy of Rolling Luhan!!!”

*

“You’re stupid.” Hana says to Luhan as they walk to the day care center to pick Taeyang up. “I cannot believe you are going to partake in that event simply because you want to leave a legacy of your middle school days.” She makes a face, “It’s not even a legacy anyway.”

Luhan ignores the latter part and nudges her, “You’re stupid, too, then, for agreeing to do it with me.”

Because Hana was against it at lunch, finding Luhan’s reason to be childish, she decided to join in on the party when Xiumin volunteered himself with Gayoon since he didn’t want to be left out. She felt bad that Gayoon didn’t have the choice to decide on her own, but that flew out the window when Gayoon confessed to the friends that she will be looking forward to a great competition between the friends. That was something that made the friends thought that Gayoon is much stronger person than how she actually portrays herself to be. Thanks to that, Hana had no choice but to participate with Luhan because she knows he will annoy her at home. What the friends don’t know is that she also decided to participate because she has never been allowed to be involved in these kinds of non-academic festivals and celebrations. Now that she’s on her own, it is her decision to make and choose without restraint.

“I think it’ll be fun. Like Gayoon had said, it’s not every day that we get to go against our friends in a friendly and fun competition like this.”

Luhan makes a face, “Oh yeah, about Gayoon…when she said that then, I was so surprised. I thought she was a different girl.”

“I know right.” Hana chuckles, “She’s stronger than she looks. And quite competitive, too.”

“Hmm, so all three of us challenging one another.” Luhan rubs his hands excitedly together, “I cannot wait for the year to end now!” He freezes and instantly slips his backpack off of his back and brings it to the front. He has remembered something and brings attention to it. Did I bring them with me?

“What are you looking for?” Hana asks as she waits for him to search within his things.

“Um…nothing.” But his actions show otherwise.

“Nothing?”

Luhan finds what he is looking for and then zips the bag closed. “They’re there.”

“You sure?” She asks, curious, although she doesn’t know anything.

He nods and confidently says, “Yep. Let’s go.”

Upon entering the day care, Luhan hurries inside without Hana and heads to the back of the day care center. Although she wants to question what he is doing, she has other needs that grab her attention. After greeting Taeyang who is sitting on the floor with a cube block in each hand, she goes over to his cubicle and gathers his stuff.

A staff comes over and asks Hana, “Here is his bottle. He ate an hour ago and had a two hour long nap. He was a good boy like always.”

“Thanks for all the hard work you’ve done today.” She glanced back and forth between the room Luhan is in and then back at Taeyang, “Do you perhaps, know what Luhan is doing in there? I thought only employees are allowed.”

The staff coys away, “He’s been working with the Head Lady about something.”

“Do you happen to know what it is about?”

“Um…” Her long pause hinted to Hana that she knows but has been asked to keep shut about it.

“It’s okay, thanks.” Hana says, saving the staff from trying to lie her way out. She decides to change the subject, “Is there anything I may have forgotten?”

“I believe there isn’t, M’am.”

“Well, I’ll go get Taeyang.”

“Sure.”

As Hana turns and walks away to pick Taeyang up and dress him, she tries her best to peek into the room at the distance where she is. It isn’t successful as she is too far and is unable to even see a shadow. What does he have to talk to the Head Lady about?

*

Luhan bows to the Lady in charge, “I hope to see all you on that day.” He stands up straight, “Please continue to keep this a secret from Hana.”

“I’d love to, but she’s such a sweet girl for me to do so.” The elder says with an embarrassed smile. She looks down at the invitation she has just received from Luhan, “Isn’t it better if you two did this together? It is for Taeyang after all.”

“It’s not just for Taeyang. It’s also for her.” He looks at the envelope that has a baby blue lace string attached to it, “I also feel bad for keeping this from her, but I want to show her that I’m happy with the both of them in my life.”

The biggest grin slaps on his face as he walks backwards out the door to his virtual family.

*

“What were you and the Head Lady talking about?” Hana asks Luhan at the dinner table. She puts Taeyang’s messy plate far from him since he was full and is playing with his sticky fingers. “Does it have something to do with Taeyang?”

“Not really.” Luhan answers. Although he answers her question, his mind is off somewhere.

“What do you mean?

“Hm?” Luhan turns his head to Hana in a questionable manner. "What were you saying?"

Hana sighs. He wasn’t listening at all. “Never mind.” She scoops up a spoonful of rice and takes a bite. I'm sure if it's something important related to Taeyang, that pabo will tell me. She gives one last good look at Luhan who doesn't catch her staring at him. Or will he not tell me?

*

Hana gets out of the shower in her blue lace pajama that. She has had that pajama for almost four years and hasn’t grown out of it. When she wore it on the first few nights living with Luhan and Taeyang, it made her depressed because it was the pajama Mariko and her brother in law who bought it for her as a birthday present.

For the years she babysit her nieces and nephews, she had always told herself to never say a complaint about babysitting because they’d gift her a present on her birthday and on Christmas, and if she were to say something, she’d feel guilty about it. On the other side, another voice had echoed to her that even if she were getting bribed with gifts, it wasn’t enough for all the hard work she had to sacrifice as a virtual mother and that the longer she was the virtual mother, the real parents would never parent up.

She sits on the bedside and stares at her pajama pant. It’s been a long time since she has been depressed about the families she left behind.

The door swings open and in pops Luhan who was talking on the phone with someone outside the room to not disturb Taeyang’s sleep. “Hey, I got it.”

“Got what?” Asks Hana.

“We could use Xiumin’s parents’ mini double burner.” He says, hopping up and down and then ending it with his victory dance. “All that’s next is getting some tents. Xiumin and Lay don’t have tents because they don’t do outdoor camping, but Luna’s father does, so you ask her.”

Hana cross crosses her legs and then frowns, “If you wanted to camp, why didn’t you go on that baseball training camp?”

“I told you I didn’t want to go without you.” He pouts and comes over to sit on the opposite end facing Hana. “Besides, this will be our first family night out.”

She scoffs and laughs in between, “Yeah, right. How is this a night out when we’re not even going anywhere?”

“To make it more realistic, duh!” Luhan crawls to his usual bedside and rests his head on the pillow. “When Taeyang grows up, we’ll definitely go camping for real.”

“But, why camping all of the sudden?” Hana touches her hair and assesses that her hair is slightly damp and hasn’t been completely dry yet. She stands up and walks over to a drawer and takes out a towel. Folding it in half, she spreads it over her pillow and then hops onto bed. “We could just have a small picnic or something, you know.”

“No, I want something big—something fun and—and something that isn’t done on a daily basis.”

Hana turns on her side and looks at the serious and compassionate Luhan, “Fine, fine. It’s only indoors anyway.”

Luhan turns over, too, but with a smile. “When he grows up, we’re definitely camping.”

“When he grows up?” Hana’s utter makes the two friends pause.

They both have already promised to leave this virtual life when Taeyang turns five and his biological parents aren’t found, so what age will they be camping then? Four? Three? Taeyang would still be too small to even camp in the wild, even if they are going to be safe about it. But, the age isn’t what really makes them curious; it’s what will happen after they bid their virtual roles goodbye.

Can they still act like a parent to Taeyang?

“We are definitely going to go camping.” Luhan assures her with confidence. He then adds, much quieter, “Even if it’s the last thing we have to do.”

*

“What are you two doing?” Luna asks as she sits on the couch in the virtual family house. Another weekend has arrived and she is here to drop off her tent for her friends who had been bothering her for the entire week about it. She thought she’d be able to annoy her friends, but it was her who had been annoyed. “Are you two going somewhere we don’t know?”

“No, Luna.” Hana answers as she exits out of the room where she had escorted Luna’s moving men to put the big tent in. Later at night, she and Luhan will set up the tent, but for now, it’ll be in the storage room to be out of the way. “Luhan wanted to do an indoor camping kind of thing.”

“Luhan? It was his idea? Why camping?” She pats the empty space beside her to signal for Hana to sit with her.

Hana comes over and explains with a shrug, “I don’t know. He randomly blurted out, ‘hey, let’s have a family night out’.”

“And you’re going along with it.” Luna says it as if Hana is stupid to had done so.

“I see no problem.”

Luna analyzes the room, “Where is he?”

“Out shopping for camping supplies.”

“But you guys aren’t even going out at all.” Luna snorts. She finds it funny that Luhan is even wasting money on items that he doesn’t need to buy since it’ll be an indoor camp kind of thing. “You shouldn’t be following too much of Luhan’s desires.”

“Honestly, I find myself enjoying the absurd ideas he gives.” She bashfully confesses.

Luna gasps, “You find enjoyment in the things he does?”

Hana nods. “Yeah…he brings excitement to my life. He’s like the sweet to my bland.” She then laughs it off, finding her comment cheesy and stupid.

“Huh?” Luna raises a brow, not understanding the comparison her friend made. “What do you mean?”

“Well, my life before all of this was very typical, robotic, and repetitive, but living this somewhat virtual life with Luhan, I got to experience many things I never thought I would. And it’s all because of him. That’s why he’s the sweet flavor in my bland life that I don’t usually get.”

Luna puffed her cheeks. She can’t say anything about that. She knows it’s true. “But, that’s partially because you were always chained to your