Hyoyeon’s apartment was small. The medium sized main hall had a small couch and equally small coffee table. An LED TV was pinned on to the wall in front of it. There was very few furniture. The wall was covered with cream papers with small pink sakura flowers on it.  The kitchen was separated from the main hall just by a waist length counter. Luhan saw a door to the right side of the hall and guessed that it would be her bedroom.

Right then Hyoyeon stepped out of her bedroom in her pajamas with some clothes in her hand.

“These are my brother’s. You can change into them. It’ll fit you.”

Luhan thanked and walked into the room to change. It was a small room that could barely fit her single bed, a wardrobe and a desk and chair. He messaged the head butler about the sleepover before changing into the clothes.

Nothing was planned when Luhan thought about paying Hyoyeon a visit at her working place. He just wanted to see whether she was okay and may be spend some time before returning home. He hadn’t done anything out of whim. So right then, he was feeling an odd sensation throughout his entire body. Something he was feeling for the first time, a tingling sensation in his nerves, stomach churning in his body, adrenalin slowly building up, feeling of excitement. He couldn’t wait to find out what she had in store for him because with Hyoyeon, you can’t predict what will happen. One day was enough for him to understand that.

Hyoyeon didn’t disappoint him. What happened was something he didn’t foresee. Hyoyeon literally was unpredictable.

“Shone loved Nam from the beginning!”  Hyoyeon cried into the tissue paper as Luhan gave her strange looks. “Their love is so beautiful!” She took another tissue and blew her nose into it. Luhan took a deep breath and covered his face with his hands and breathed out. What has he gotten himself into!

The whole sleepover Hyoyeon had planned for Luhan was sitting on the couch and watching the Thai film ‘A little thing called love’. It’s not like Luhan hated the movie but he didn’t get why Hyoyeon was crying buckets of water. She literally cried a Han River by the time the movie ended.

“I’ll go get ice-cream from the fridge. Ice-creams are the best cure for aching hearts.” She ran into the kitchen and immediately returned with a tub of strawberry ice-cream. “Dig in!” She handed him a spoon and started eating the ice-cream directly from the tub.

According to Luhan, it was unhygienic to eat directly from the tub but he succumbed. But he was disappointed. This was not what he expected from her.

After eating a few spoons, Luhan kept the metal on the table and stared at her. She was occasionally sniffing, after effects of bawling over the cheesy movie, and eating spoonfuls of ice-cream. She noticed his stare and with the spoon in , she looked back. “What?”

Luhan raised a lone brow at her. “This is your idea of a sleepover?”

She hummed as she dragged the spoon out of . “Yeah?”

“From which angle do I look like a girl to you?”

“0 to 360 degrees?”

Luhan sighed and shook his head with closed eyes. “Not funny.”

“Not even a bit?”

“Nope!” He shook his head.

“Okay fine.” She put away the tub and the spoon. “I was really tired after working till late night. I barely had energy for anything!”

Luhan blamed himself for not realizing that before. She probably worked from morning till late night and this has been her routine for two weeks. Nevertheless, she found time to spend with him and stayed awake even after working till midnight.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve thought about it.” He scratched his nape. “Don’t you have work tomorrow?”

“It’s okay. I was the one who proposed to do this and no, I don’t have work tomorrow.” She smiled. “Let’s do one thing.” She snapped her fingers.

“What?”

She didn’t answer him and again, she grabbed a blanket and just dragged him along with her and he let her guide him. They climbed the stairs to the rooftop. The door to the rooftop was locked so Hyoyeon found an alternate route and they finally settled themselves on the roof. She arranged the blanket so that it covered both of them and lied down. Luhan followed and lied next to her.

The two remained in that position for a while, silently staring at the sky, before Luhan spoke.

“No stars huh?”

“Nope, not even one.” Hyoyeon replied. “We only have Venus which is not a star and doesn’t even twinkle.”

“So you wanted to stargaze?”

“Actually” she turned to her side and faced Luhan “that was not my intention. It would’ve been better if there were some stars though.”

Luhan turned his head to her side. “Then what were you planning to do?”

She smiled. “Tell me about your relation, how you met your girl friend and when and how you fell in love.” Luhan could feel from her voice that the girl was excited. In his eyes, she looked like a six year old who was waiting for somebody to tell her a new story.

“You are still not over that cheesy movie, are you?”

Hyoyeon’s smiled stretched into a grin like a kid caught while doing a naughty deed. “Nope.”

Luhan chuckled. “I don’t think my story is very exciting.”

“It’s okay. Tell me.” She propped her head on her hand giving him her utmost attention.

“Well” he started “she is my father’s friend’s daughter so we met at a family gathering when we were eight years old.” Hyoyeon nodded along as he continued. “I really don’t know what you meant by ‘fall in love’ to be honest.” He conveyed his concern.

“It means when your heart started going all ‘dugun dugun’ when she is near or when you think about her?” She did the heart beating gesture in a rather funny way making the guy laugh.

“If that’s what shows whether you have fallen in love pr not, then I have not fallen in love with her or any girl.”

After hearing this, Hyoyeon kept on staring at him with a blank expression. Not getting any response from her, he snapped his fingers in front of her face and she didn’t even blink.

“Hello? Earth to Hyoyeon, earth to Hyoyeon?”

“So why are you two together?”

“I don’t know. It just happened.” Luhan gazed back at the sky and shrugged. “After we started highschool, whenever we had family meetings, our parents used to tell us how we match each other and how good it must be if we were together. Even my friends used to say the same that we would make a good couple. I gave it a thought and felt, why not? She is good looking, has a nice personality, our families go well with each other and everyone wanted us to be together. I talked to her about the idea of us being together and she agreed immediately.”

“You must be kidding me.” Hyoyeon said in a monotonous voice.

Luhan let out an airy laugh. “Actually, right now, the way you are looking at me, I wish I was but no, I’m not.”

Hyoyeon gave him a sympathetic look and lied on her back gazing at the sky.

“What?” Luhan asked after noticing her expression.

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. Tell me!” He urged her.

“You’re going to marry her, right?”

“Probably.” He shrugged.

Hyoyeon let out a sigh. “I feel sympathy for you. You probably will never experience the excitement of a love life in your whole life.” She heaved another sigh.

“Is that something I should experience?” He furrowed his brows.

“Oh yes.” She nodded.

Silence followed.

“You have anyone?”

“Had.” Hyoyeon corrected him. “Three. Wait, two and half actually.”

“Two and half?” Luhan snorted.

“Yeah, we used to go out and do couple things but he never told me he loved me.”

“So did your heart..umm…did the ‘dugun dugun’ thing?” It felt funny to say ‘dugun dugun’ but Luhan failed to find a word to replace it.

“Yup.”

“With all three of them?” Luhan gave her a look. Hyoyeon nodded back. “I thought true love happens only once in life. At least that is what I’ve heard.”

“That’s bull .” Hyoyeon waved off. She was feeling drowsy so she pulled the blanket over her body closing her eyes. “You can fall in love more than one time. You can fall for the same person again and again as well. It’s only wrong if you love more than one person at a time.”

Luhan nodded. It was like he was attending a class. He was the student and she was the teacher. “Tell me more about it. How was your first love?”

“It was exciting.” She mumbled.

“How exciting?” He asked curiously.

“Very exciting. Like a rollercoaster ride.” She managed to say despite sleep taking over her senses.

“Tell me more about it.”

Luhan got no response so he nudged her, again no response. He sat up and examined her under the moonlight. She was sleeping like a baby curled into a ball covered in the thick blanket.

For the first time, he carried a girl in his arms. He placed her on the bed and tucked her well under the blanket. It was 5 in the morning and he decided to leave. After changing back to his dress, he folded the dress Hyoyeon gave and placed it on the desk with a note.

One of the maids opened the door for the young master who, for the first time, had had a sleepover. On the way to his room, he came across his father who had the habit of waking up really early. Mr Xi was sitting on a bamboo chair reading the newspaper in the veranda.

“Good morning dad.” Luhan walked up to his father.

Mr Xi noticed his son only when Luhan wished him. He folded the paper and kept it on the bamboo table. “Good morning son.” He smiled warmly.

Even though his father did not ask anything about his absence the other night, Luhan felt obliged to explain himself. “Dad, yesterday” he was about to explain but was cut out by his father.

“You had a sleepover. Mr Lee told me.” Mr Lee was their head butler who had been with them since they moved from China to Seoul. He was more like a family than an employee.

Luhan nodded. “Don’t you want to know more?”

“Actually, I do.” He removed the reading glasses. “How was it?”

“W..well, it was good.” The reason why Luhan stuttered was that he had expected his dad to conduct an enquiry on the whole thing because he was feeling guilty for doing so without their prior consent. He didn’t regret it though.

Mr Xi smiled. “That’s good to hear son.”

“Dad, aren’t you mad at me?”

“For what son? For being normal?” Mr Xi laughed. “When I was at your age I used to have sleepovers a lot at my friends’ house. I thought you were not interested in such things. I’m glad you did something like this for a change son. I need you to enjoy while you can.”

After a few more minutes of chit-chat, Luhan went up to his room. All the while, his father wanted him to be more carefree and he never knew. Luhan was never pressured by his parents to be in a certain way. He somehow got the feeling that he was obliged to be the way he was. He could never be any wrong and it took a Hyoyeon for him to realize that.

Later that day, after waking up, Hyoyeon saw the note Luhan had left for her.

‘I would like to go on a rollercoaster ride as well.’

She stared at the note for a good five minutes trying to decrypt it. She tried recalling the last thing she remembered about the night. No matter how much she tried, she could remember telling him about her two and half boyfriends. The rest was a blur.

“Eh? Rollercoaster?” She scratched her scalp. “Ahh..may be he wants to go to amusement park.” She placed the note aside and said to herself. “I’ll take you on a rollercoaster ride Xi Luhan.” She smirked grabbing the clothes he wore to wash.

Luhan’s life is about to go on a rollercoaster ride!