"... talking ..."
"... talking in japanese ..."
'... thinking ...'

chapter 3

It was very hectic to change flights in LAX - especially because Karin never flew by herself and she was trying hard not to be nervous. Luckily, her sharp personality kicked in and she pulled her way through. She was quite satisfied with herself as she sat down on the comfy seat and looked out of the window. It was hard, she thought, not to know what to expect. With way too many things still running through her mind, she slowly drifted to sleep.

Karin woke up from her peaceful slumber just when the flight attendants started checking if all the passengers are prepared for landing. She was happy that the tedious journey was coming to an end – although, the anxiety was slowly creeping up to her.

"Cha, you will rock this place!" said Karin to herself as the plane landed. When the "fasten-seatbelt" light went off, Karin quickly grabbed her carry-on bag and hoodie and made her way out of the plane.

Denver international airport, as she came to know later, was the biggest airport in U.S. as far as the area was concerned. It was all new and modern – Karin liked it a lot. She saw a little girl sitting on her father's trunk and blowing bubbles. Karin smiled for the briefest moment -America may not be that bad after all. She got on the train that was (hopefully) going to take her to the main hall, where her host-family should be waiting for her.

"Geez." scowled Karin when she saw her reflection in the train window. Her hair was holly mess and her baggy t-shirt 'Tokyo Rocks' and football shorts made her look like a culturally misplaced hobo. "Well, hell..."

Meanwhile, at the airport entrance, Toshiro was feeling little annoyed. "Aunt Retsu, you know, we should REALLY get going." said Toshiro for what seemed like a millionth time to him. "I know, I know. It should be somewhere around here." said Retsu absent mindedly, checking the time on her cell phone.

"The flight should be here already, so just look for someone short and Japanese." said Retsu unfolding the transparent. Toshiro felt a little odd, being there, tall boy in black with white hair, holding oddly colorful balloons saying 'Welcome'. Well, he really did hope that this will be done and over with soon.

Ok, now Karin was certainly feeling nervous. She got out of the train and after looking around for a while she saw the escalator going upwards. "Ok, let's go, Karin, let's go!" she muttered to herself and got on the escalator with deep inhale. The stairs moved slowly up and up, and she was tiptoeing to see over heads of the people in front of her. She saw the big transparent saying 'Kurosaki Karin' and visibly paled at the sight of her new "family" – now this is gonna be fun.

Suddenly his aunt started waving. Toshiro's teal eyes widened to the size of smaller saucers when he saw the person Retsu was waving at. The one somehow nervously waiving back at them was a petite raven haired girl in baggy clothes showing all signs of twelve hour flight. His mind went blank; the only thing getting through was 'I am going to kill Rangiku!'

"Hi!" said Karin with slight accent. "I am Kurosaki Karin."

Her dark eyes focused on the two people in front of her and she managed to muster weak smile. The woman with nice dark brown hair tied in long braid that looked to be in her late thirties smiled brightly as she started talking.

"Hello Karin, it is very nice to meet you, I am Retsu – I will be taking care of you - and this here is my nephew Toshiro. I am sure you had very tiring journey, my, you are flying all the way from Tokyo..." Retsu started talking, at a rate that left Karin wondering, whether she actually still spoke English or switched to some entirely different alien language.
"Aunt Retsu, don't freak her out." the tall boy said calmly and Karin couldn't help but to feel a little grateful towards him. "Oh, right, I am sorry sweetheart; I am talking way too fast." Retsu apologized with a smile. "That is fine, I think we are all, eh.." 'oh, crap, what am I trying to say?' "enthusiastic, right now." said Karin, in her attempt to reassure her new host mom. Kind of awkward silence settled in after Karin's last sentence, making her worried whether she said something inappropriate. Oh snap, she was never any good at this 'getting to know new people' business – that had always been Yuzu's area of expertise. Well, she would just have to make do somehow...

"So, what does your bag look like?" asked the boy as they made their way to baggage claim. What was his name again?
"Well, eh, it's a trunk – a huge blue trunk and it has black bandana tied to the handle." replied Karin while making gestures with her hands, trying to demonstrate the proportions of her baggage.
"Oh, I think I see it!" Retsu exclaimed, "no, wait, it has no bandana, never mind."
They concentrated on the carousel for a while before Karin finally spotted the bag and made a beeline for it. She cut through the crowd and attempted to retrieve the trunk, however, it stayed faithful to its previous evil ways (A/N: remember in chapter 1?). After Karin managed to remove it from the carousel, the unexpected weight made het tumble backwards in what would make for one painful fall. 'F**k' Karin thought as she braced herself for the fall – but funnily enough, it never came. She felt peculiar pull upwards and she was about to freak out (no trunk pulls itself up to float midair, they just don't) when she realized that Retsu's nephew was, in fact, holding her trunk up. She let go of it quickly, in order to lessen the weight that he was holding, but the move was not very thoughtful, as the trunk was the only thing keeping her from falling. And fall she did, ungracefully plopping down, she ended in a messy pile on the ground. Boy standing directly above her, holding her luggage in air, raised his eyebrows in amused look and she could swear she even heard him giggle a bit.

"My, my, be careful Karin, we wouldn't want you to get hurt your very first day!" Said Retsu who just caught up to the couple of teenagers.
"I am sorry, I just, well, I .." Karin didn't really know what to say so she just hurriedly stood up and smoothed her clothes, faint blush of embarrassment and annoyance present on her pale cheeks. This is definitely not starting out the way she imagined.
"Ok, we have the girl, we have the bag, we can go home." said the boy and Retsu glared at him.

It was such a hustle, in Toshiro's point of view, at least. Why did they have to get an exchange student, again? Yeah, because Retsu is on the all-time biggest happy hype and he was not one to destroy his aunt's happiness. First thing, she could actually be pretty scary, and yea, he kinda liked her, being family and all. Well, but this was surely gonna be trouble. For God's sake, he didn't even know how to handle Rangiku half of the time and now there was a full time inhabitant of his house who was teenager, a very girl teenager. He grunted and a steady scowl appeared on his face. He looked to his right where the said girl was sitting, looking wide eyed as the rays of setting sun graced the endless prairies that were the transition between Denver up in Rockies and their hometown in the middle of nowhere, Kansas. It was quite usual sight for him, but for her, he supposed, it had to look kind of amazing. He did not even notice a small smile that crept up to his features as he watched the curious girl...

When Karin finally managed to unglue her sight from the window, she realized that the boy, Toshiro, was soundly asleep. She resisted the urge to laugh as she studied his sleeping face. He looked less intimidating when he was sleeping, she decided. His hair was so blond that it appeared white to her and his closed eyes were framed with freakishly long white eyelashes. He was tan and she could see that he had quite a nice built on top of being tall. 'Stop the drooling, you idiot, he is technically a family!' Karin scolded herself inwardly. 'Gotta avert attention, fast.'
"This country is really amazing, it is so huge!" Karin exclaimed softly in attempt to make a small-talk with Retsu – as she decided talking was surest way to keep her mind off certain napping guy.
"Oh, well, I suppose. It doesn't amaze me no more, you just get used to it after some time." Retsu said with faint smile as she looked at Karin in the rearview mirror, "but tell me, Karin, how is it different from back home? We got you here without even talking much, so tell me something about you."
And so Karin started describing – her family, her friends, her town and everything that come to her mind. She didn't even notice the scenery go by as they neared their destination.

Toshiro was dreaming. He was having a pleasant dream about country covered in forests, hills and lakes and he was sitting on the top of big white dragon flying over .. "Toshiro, ehm, please, Toshiro..." Now that voice definitely did not belong to his dream. He waved his hand in order to shoo the irritable distraction, but collided with something soft, a person, maybe? "Baka." Now this word was so not from his dream, what the hell was going on? He didn't have time to contemplate further as he felt somehow painful pinch to his arm.
"OUCH! What was that for Rangi.." he woke up with snap, stopping short in his attempt to maim his cousin when he realized that the person in front of him was in fact, not his cousin. He was staring into dark blue eyes of some random girl. 'What the? Ah, yea, the exchange girl'. "I am sorry, Retsu told me to wake you up – I didn't want to hurt you, you just wouldn't wake no matter what I did." she apologized and moved out of the car with lightning speed in obvious attempt to get out of his comfort zone. "Doesn't matter, he mumbled, "just thought you were someone else." But he noticed the words were probably lost on her, as she was already moving out of garage with her oversized trunk hopping unsteadily after her.

"What's wrong with that guy, didn't have to shout at me just for waking him up.." Karin muttered under her breath.
"Karin, is it you? Did you wake that sleepy head? Never mind him, he is always grumpy when he wakes up." sounded Retsu's voice from somewhere inside the house. Kitchen, maybe? And what in the world was 'grumpy' supposed to mean? Karin sighted. This was very different from home. But she would have to get used to it, the sooner, the better...

Hi there! I am glad to see some people actually followed my story (QwQ)

I made this chapter longer than usual, think of it as a double chapter :D and as usual I'd be glad to hear any suggestions or such *w*

There's not much to say to this chapter, maybe I should say that terms such as host brother/host mother/host family are commonly used for the people who are taking care of the exchange student (Retsu, Toshiro, etc.)

Oh, and also, if any of you had any ideas for the local school team and mascot names that'd be really awesome.

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