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Jerry's POV

The little blonde girl runs ahead of us, as we follow her to where she says Jack is.

We round the corner. The second I see Jack talking to his new friends, I stop short. And it's not just because I'm surprised the meatbag made some friends.

"We've been replaced." I mutter. I didn't think it would hurt so much, but it does.

"What do you mean, Jer?" Kim asks, confused, as the four of us walk towards Jack. He still hasn't noticed us, instead, he's too busy laughing.

"Don't you see, guys? Not to be racist or anything, but look at his friends." I say.

"Huh? What about them?" Eddie wonders.

"Look. He's got a blonde, which is Kim. A latina, which is me. A redhead, that's you, Milton. And he's got an African-American, which is you, Eddie."(I promise I'm not being racist. And I just noticed this when I read the last chapter. I was like, oh, wait. Jack's new friends have at least one physical feature to match one of Jack's old friends. So I decided to include it.)

"Holy Christmas Nuts!" Milton gasps. "You're right, Jerry!"

"He really did replace us."

"I don't believe it."

"How could he?" This last one is from Kim, who's got a tear running down her cheek. Rudy notices.

"Hey, Kim, don't be sad. You guys could never be replaced. But what's even better? He didn't find a replacement for me!" Rudy claps his hands. "I'm irreplaceable."

Everyone just rolls their eyes.

Jack's POV

Sam and Luke are really cool. I think the six of us are going to become really close friends. They kind of remind me of Milton and Eddie, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Elodie comes running back up to us, her light blonde hair windblown, and her grey eyes sparkling.

"Oh, hey, Elle." I say, smirking. I know she hates being called that, but I really can't resist.

"I told you! Don't call me Elle!" She glares at me.

"Okay, I'm sorry, Elodie."

She huffs.

"Anyways, why'd the headmaster call you in?" I ask her. She grins.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Tell meee." I whine. I see that Lauren's grinning like mad, too. Okay, what's going on here?

"Okay, fine. Turn around, Jack."

I turn around and gasp in astonishment.

Standing right there behind me, are pretty much the last people I expected to see. Not the last people I want to see, mind you, but the last people I thought I would see here at the Academy.

Kim, Eddie, Jerry, Milton, and Rudy.

I jump up, excited. "No way! How'd you guys get here?"

Rudy runs to me and hugs me tight, and Jerry, Eddie and Milton follow his lead. Reluctantly, Kim hugs me, too.

"It's so awesome to see you guys!" I say.

"We missed you a lot, Jack." Milton says.

"I missed you guys too."

"Umm…. Hello?" Sam says, waving.

"Oh, sorry. Sam, Luke, Elodie, and Lauren, this is Milton, Eddie, Kim, Jerry, and Rudy. They're from Seaford, my hometown."

They all exchange greetings, and it looks like Jerry and Lauren are talking to each other in Spanish. I chuckle to myself. They look pretty cute together.

I feel a light tap on my arm. I look over my shoulder, and am instantly enveloped in a hug.

"I missed you so much, Jack." Kim murmurs.

"Missed you too." I smile at her, and tuck a strand of her hair that escaped from her braid behind her ear.

"So, how's life been?" She asks, letting go of me.

"It's all right. See, I made some friends. But it's just not the same without you guys. It's so awesome to have you here. How come you didn't tell me you were coming?" I ask.

"We wanted to surprise you." She says. "And, see, I told you you'd make friends. To think, you were scared you wouldn't, at first."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Hey, do you wanna go check out the world-class waffle bar?" I suggest.

"Yeah!" She says.

"Guys, we're gonna go get a waffle." I call over my shoulder as we start walking.

"Oooh, wait, I'm coming!" Eddie says.

"Me too!" Elodie yells.

"I want one!" Rudy cries.

"I guess I'm coming. You in, Jerry?" Lauren says.

"All right!"

Milton and Luke follow behind, as we all head to the dining hall.

Kim's POV

Jack piles his waffle high with chocolate and marshmallows, while I stick to the blueberries and strawberries. We all head outside to eat.

I think Jack's new friends are nice enough, but I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Jack tells us all about his life here in Japan. I have to admit, it isn't as glamorous as I thought it would be, coming to a top-notch karate school. Like Jack says, it's just like normal school, only with a lot of hard training afterwards.

Rudy was right, Jack hasn't changed at all. I had nothing to worry about. I was scared that when we came to see him, he would be too good for us, or something. But he's not like that. He's the same old Jack, only with new friends and more karate skills.

Half an hour of laughing and catching up later, Jack and his new friends have to go leave for their weekly activity.

"What's a weekly activity?" Jerry asks.

"Oh, it's basically this.. get together where all the kids who are the same age gather on a Saturday and do group training sessions. It doesn't matter what kind of martial arts you do. Sometimes, we even play games." Lauren explains to him.

"Hey, actually, do you guys want to come? I'm sure the sensei who's supervising tonight will let you participate." Elodie offers.

"Oh, that sounds like fun. I'm in." Jerry says.

"Me too!" I add.

"Let's go kick some butt!" Rudy grins.

"You guys gonna join us?" Jack asks Eddie and Milton.

"Sure, we've got nothing else to do." Milton says, and Eddie nods.

"Okay, we typically meet in the large courtyard. Follow me." Elodie stands up and walks away.

Eight minutes later…

"Red." The Japanese sensei barks at a small boy. The boy runs over to the left side of the courtyard.

When we arrived at the activity, the sensei greeted us and told us that only black belts going into tenth grade are allowed to participate in this certain activity. That means that Eddie, Rudy, Milton, and Jerry can't participate, so they ran off to get more waffles.

The sensei gathered all the kids together and explained that tonight, the activity would be Capture the Flag. The students cheered.

"You're gonna love this, Kim." Elodie had told me.

So, right now, the sensei is dividing everyone into two teams- the red, and the blue. The red team is wearing red belts around their black gis, and the blue team is picking up blue belts from a pile at the end of the courtyard.

"Blue!" He barks at me. "Red!" He tells Jack. "Blue!" to Elodie. "Red!" Lauren runs to the left side of the courtyard.

Elodie and I each pick up a a belt from the pile. I tie it securely around the black gi that I'm borrowing from Lauren. She's a little taller than me, but it'll do for now.

Elodie leads me over to a large and impressive-looking rack of weapons leaning against the wall.

"Okay, so you're supposed to pick one weapon from this rack. None of them can actually cause permanent damage, but they will be useful for getting to the flag." Elodie glances over the rack of weapons, then picks up a small, silver dagger with an intricate handle.

"Wait. What's Capture the Flag and why do we need weapons?" I ask.

"Oh, sorry, I was supposed to explain that to you, but I forgot." She apologizes and takes a deep breath. "So, Capture the Flag is pretty much a game where each team has a flag that's the team color. Both teams hide their flag somewhere where the other team will have trouble finding or getting hold of it. The boundaries- well, there are none. Just stay inside the school, and you're not allowed to go into dorm areas, stores, the post office, or any other offices, for that mater.

Usually, there's a group of kids guarding the flag, too. Anyone who's not guarding the flag is supposed to look for the flag. When someone finds the flag, usually that's when most of the fighting starts. That's what the weapons are for.

Once you've been knocked to the ground or been touched on the torso by a sword, knife, paintball gun, or water gun, you're deemed 'dead' and you're out of the game. The first five people out of the game have kitchen duty for a month, so you really don't want to be out first.

So, basically, if we're not guarding the flag, our job is to look for and capture the red team's flag. Got it?" She looks at me. I nod, and pick up a sword, weighing it in my hand. A few months ago, Rudy gave us a sword-fighting crash course. The stuff he taught me will probably come in handy now.

"Students!" A voice booms. It's the sensei. "Please gather around. The game is beginning."

"We'd better go." Elodie glances over at the crowd of kids already growing at the middle of the courtyard. "I think they're starting."

We join the Blue Team's huddle. As soon as a pretty Japanese girl spots me, she yells, "New girl. What's your name?"

"I'm Kim." I say.

"Okay, guys," She looks pointedly at two boys who are quietly bickering, "since you two can't decide who will be team captain, I'm nominating blondie over here. Does anyone object?" Her gaze sweeps over everyone. "No? Okay." She looks at me. "You're the team captain. Go get the flag." She points at the sensei, who's patiently holding a red flag in his left hand, and a blue flag in his right hand.

"O-okay." I walk over to the sensei, who hands me the flag, without a word. "Thanks." I smile at him, and he smiles back. I head over to my team, carrying the heavy flag.

"Umm, hi, what's your name?" I ask the girl who nominated me for captain.

"Oh, hi, Kim. I'm Ayaka. Nice to meet you." She shakes my hand.

"Okay, Ayaka, I sort of don't know how to do this whole team captain thing. Would you mind telling me how it works?" I ask, crossing my fingers that she'll say yes.

"Sure. So, as team captain, you assign people to guard the flag, and you also have the last say in where the flag is hidden. Oh, and you also play rock-paper-scissors with the other team captain to hide the flag first. That's pretty much it."

"Oh, okay, I can handle that. Thanks."

"Not a problem."

"Jack! Jack!" Jack!" I hear chanting from the red team. I turn around and watch as Jack takes the flag from the sensei. I gulp. I think Jack's the red team's captain. I plan on winning, but it's going to be a little harder if I'm up against Jack. And I don't just mean rock paper scissors, although he's always been able to read my next moves well.

I wait for him to go back to his team, but he doesn't. That's when I realize everyone's watching me, waiting for me to step up and go against Jack for the right to hide the flag first.

Alright, let's get this over with. Rock, paper, paper. I look over at Jack's hands. Rock! Yes, I won!

My team gathers around me, and we run off into the darkening streets in search of a good place to hide the flag.

Jack's POV

I hang the flag over the entrance to the basement. As far as I know, not a lot of people know the Academy even has a basement, so this seems like a pretty good place to hide the flag.

I twirl the long metal bo staff in my hands. This'll be fun.

I felt like I haven't been including much action in this story yet, so I decided to include a game of Capture the Flag (stolen from Percy Jackson and the Olympians). I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please review! I'll be giving out sneak peeks for the next chapter if you review haha! Thanks for reading!

Also, if you have IG, I just got an account. Come follow me at lovelifeandwatermelons! Thanks : )

I begin work on the sequel to The Story of Us today. It's tentatively named Everything Has Changed. Eeep! So excited! Haha!

xoxo, lovelifeandwatermelons