Wow. Much better reception than the preview. I'm glad that people are already starting to like this story. Thank you so much to my reviewers, Lucifer Dragonlordh, Momochan77, Gungith, and the lovely queenglitch. I'm glad you like my newest character and the little R.A.R.E. stage I'm setting.

As for queenglitch, comparing my writing to Rick Riordan was possibly the highest compliment I've ever received on this website. I'm a little humbled… and I want to thank you for being so supportive of all my writing.

Disclaimer: There is, I believe, one character in this chapter that I don't own, but the rest of it should be mine. Please be respectful of that fact.


R.A.R.E. Central Base

Exact Location: Classified

Dorm Room 1822-A

9:54


Aaaaalright then, let's just pick this thing back up...

Um, hey. Sorry, uh, about the way I spoke to y'all in my last log. I was in a really bad mood which I hope you can understand, but that doesn't absolve me of being… y'know, a bitch. I know that the people cataloging these recordings aren't to blame for this mission or the jackass who requested me. Your jobs are very important to ensure I don't go off the deep end and I do my job and I shouldn't have been so snippy.

But I'm gonna keep up with the exposition.

So for the past three hours I've been buried up to my neck in books and the precious, precious internet in preparation for being shipped off in a few days. The last time I was in Japan was a little over six months now, but I still want to brush up on the culture and language while I can. The last thing I want is to look like an ignorant tourist while trying to find salt at the grocery store.

Oh? Are you curious as to why I'm going to Japan when I am a painfully obvious white girl? I'm so glad you asked!

Your nationality doesn't mean jack-shit around here, to put it bluntly. Where you go for missions is entirely up to your strengths in languages and/or cultures. Only know English? There are plenty, I repeat, plenty of American, Canadian, and U.K. missions for you to go on and so on and so forth. I know a number of agents who stick primarily to their own countries, if not to just blend in then for comfort's sake. But that's not typically the norm around here. Many of us choose to go elsewhere. Travel bug, perhaps?

Generally, an agent studies for about three years on the language and culture of their main focus area and progressively learns to immerse themselves into the country for extended periods of time while working on a detail-oriented job at the same time. Things like typical cuisines, beliefs, laws, living arrangements, and anything else that helps us to fit in and do our job efficiently is an important part of the job. It definitely helps that we have agents from all over the world who we can ask for extra information if we require it. Most agents only study for one prime area and occasionally a secondary one. There really isn't any time to add on a third area considering how full our schedules typically are.

Of course, most agents don't actually go to the country by themselves until they have a decent grasp on the language. Unless you're me. Apparently.

I had only started learning Japanese as a third language because I thought it would be cool to talk shit around my brother and drive him up the wall. But instead it made me the only agent off duty who fit the undercover requirements and had even a basic understanding of the language when a sudden job came through. That's partially why I'm so sour around the Ootori's. It didn't help that Akito Ootori was possibly the most pretentious person I could've had as a tutor.

And then I was shot at. I'm a little sensitive about how I was shot too, have you noticed?

How's the time wasting? Still good? Alright.

Oh! Almost forgot... accents! You can't live in such a diverse organization without picking up a few tricks, am I right? For example, I've got my Scottish, London, Boston, and French accents down in both English and Japanese, plus a little German tilt for English. It's pretty entertaining when new recruits come in and they try to guess someone's nationality. Jensen has been mistaken for Canadian five times now and he looks so damn proud of himself every time someone brings it up. I mean, considering he only goes to France and Canada nowadays, I'm surprised he hasn't just swapped to speaking French all the time. Oh?

Speaking of, someone's knocking on the side door. Excuuuuuuse me!


Livia dropped the recorder onto the bedspread beside her. She took one last look at the page covered with kanji symbols before flipping the book shut and shouting, "It's open!"

From her vantage point, facing the room from her bed, she could see four doors. The two on the wall to her right were the closet and bathroom doors, the one to her left led out into Hallway 18, and the one directly across from her was connected to Dorm room 1822-B. That last one was the door that opened at her beckoning.

"Jensen?" A head of platinum blonde hair poked through the opening. "Êtes-vous ici?"

Livia shook her head, offering a small smile to the girl looking around the room. "He's not here, Zara. He's probably still getting lunch."

The girl groaned, dropping her head against the doorframe. "He promised to critique my weapon packing!"

"Are you two going on a mission soon?"

"No. But I want his opinion. He knew! Idiot!"

"How about I send him over once he gets back?"

"Kick him for me, too?"

"Can do," Livia promised as the door was shut again. She picked the recorder up once again.


Actually, that is an excellent segway into some more time-wasting topics! I probably won't have time for these once I'm actually on my mission, so I gotta put them in now while I still can! You understand, right?

To start, my room. Think of a college residence hall... a good one, mind you. Two people per room, and each comes with two beds usually in a bunk bed arrangement, two desks, two dressers, a single closet, and a bathroom with all the basic necessities. You can add more furniture the longer you live there, but that's the starter pack. Oh, and once you're a solo-agent like me? You don't move rooms. Unless it's, like, for a serious situation or something.

For me and Jensen, we've slotted the bunk bed into the back right corner of the room with the two dressers lining the rest of the wall past the foot of the bed. Following that direction around the walls of the room we have a bookshelf framed by the desks, a mini-fridge/microwave combo, and even a two person couch and a low coffee table. There's also a fluffy rug that takes up most of the floor. It's a painful bright green color but the last time I attempted to replace it Jensen threatened to glue me to my bed.

Speaking of my bed, I have the bottom bunk. Jensen claimed the 'taller person' card when we first were assigned to the room and I didn't bother fighting him for it. It comes back to bite him whenever he comes back from a particularly grueling training session anyways. He usually ends up curled up on the hideous carpet until he can haul himself up the ladder again. Maybe that's why he's so attached to it?

Wait... I haven't even talked about Jensen in detail yet, have I? Whoops!

Okay, to start off, Jensen is my roommate...obviously. He's pretty cool, as roommates-slash-BFFs-slash-training partners-slash-practically siblings go. His family and mine came into R.A.R.E. around the same time so we were placed next to each other in the children's dorms. The six of us clicked pretty quickly after that.

Let's count them down, shall we? We'll start with my little brother, Connor William Trasic. He's two years younger than I am, and thankfully has yet to show signs of my smartass mouth. We get along well, considering other siblings. According to everyone else, he apparently adores me and I'd jump over the moon for him.

Yeah, right.

Kidding. I love my brother. He's all I have left. Besides, he's not completely annoying. Whenever he comes to my room, if I'm talking to someone Connor comes up behind them and starts either mocking them, twirling around like a ballerina, or making stupid faces at me until I bust out laughing. That makes up for him forgetting to shut my bedroom door when he leaves.

He's a good kid.

I should probably mention that we look nothing alike. We have the same dark brown hair and green eyes, but that's it. And even then his are more hazel than green. He takes more after our mother while I more follow my dad's side of the family. Still, the Aleshire's don't look much alike either. That's Matthew, Jensen, Nathan, and little Jocelyn.

Matthew is the oldest and is five years my elder. He's already retired from R.A.R.E, having left after 138 completed missions with only 3 fuck ups, which is kind of an impressive record. Something Jensen is trying his damndest to beat.

Now, Jensen is only one year older than me, and his birthday is literally the day after mine so we're technically the same age for about 9 hours until he jumps onto my back and shouts in my ear that he's older than me again. Which... is kinda a quick way of explaining the guy's personality. He's a dirty blond like his older brother and wears glasses over his grey/blue eyes. Oh, and he's tall. Very tall. He and Matt tower over me by more than a head. He's a complete sass pants and a dork and there are people in Denmark probably having nightmares about him right now.

It's probably obvious to you now why we're best friends.

Nathan, on the other hand, is Connor's BFF. The two get along pretty well. They share hats, their passion for music, inside jokes, and the tendency to exit their sparring practices with busted lips and multiple bruises. Still, the two boys look more related to each other than they do with their actual family members.

Which brings me to Jocelyn. She was only 4 when the Aleshires joined R.A.R.E., so she's still a youngin'. Still in training... but now with a reputation for hurdling knives into objects near people's heads, torsos, or hands if they annoy her in any way. Girl's got some major throwing accuracy, which makes me beyond proud since she looks like a miniature copy of myself. Our hair, eyes, faces... damn, if Nathan and I were to say we'd been pranking everyone and he was a Trasic while I was an Aleshire, everyone would believe us.

I've mentioned before that the six of us are basically siblings, and I wasn't joking. We look out for each other and even manage to correlate vacations outside of the compound. Mostly to either Disney World, where Matt now works, or with retired agents we're also super close with. That's not something every R.A.R.E. agent can say they have.

Aaaand that's all the time I have for being a sap, so let's jump back to the room I share with Jensen.

R.A.R.E. rooms don't have a CoEd/No CoEd rule at all. Two boys, two girls, boy and girl, Nonbinary, Transgender, they don't give a flying fuck. What matters to them is who are you going to live with effectively. Or, at the very least, not murder in their sleep.

Here's the process:

If you come in when you're too young to start training, you stay in bunk rooms with the other young children. Go to class, study languages if you want, visit siblings... the works. When you're at least eight years old, you start physical training, since you can't go on missions until you're at least thirteen and have had five years of training.

Once you're approved to go out on missions, you're assigned a supervisor to go on "dual-missions" with. A supervisor is any one of our solo mission agents who has been approved by the Council for the role, and they basically act as a mentor to teach the trainee about how to properly execute missions. Once you're assigned to each other, the trainee is placed in the room attached to their supervisor's.

See, us solo-mission people get to pick our roommates first, so when the Council make supervisor/trainee pairings, they try to match up the personalities of the two trainees who are going to have to live together as well as fit them with their actual supervisor. The hardest choice definitely comes from choosing that second trainee, and I don't envy the Council one bit for having to make it.

I don't have a trainee yet, but I've been meaning to submit my name to the registry. I meet all the qualifications and I've helped Connor, Nathan, and Jocelyn with their training more times than I can count, so I know I'd be good with a trainee.

Oh... um, when I come back and put my name in, if you could not use these logs against my case? That'd be great? Even if you're kinda mad, we do all have a purpose to not let out personal lives affect the workplace! Right? Ehe... eheh... I'm so screwed, aren't I?

Welp, nothing I can do about it now.

So, where was I? Oh, trainees. The girl who came in here a little while ago is Jensen's trainee, Zara Thomas. She's from France, and since that's the country she's decided to focus on she was paired up with Jensen, who's a Canada and France Prime. I believe they've decided to pose as brother and sister on their future missions.

Zara and I get along pretty well, too, I suppose. But she's made me promise to let her know when I sign up as a supervisor. She currently has that whole room to herself, and if my situation changes she's gonna need to do some serious rearranging.

Sigh... I remember when I was a trainee. Jensen and I were roomies way back when, too. What were the odds? And after that we just decided to keep at it and-

Hey, Jensen.


Livia's roommate had entered without knocking, expression already tired despite the hour. He didn't respond to Livia's greeting, slowly plodding his way across the room before falling face first onto the small couch. Standing at around 6'4", he had to bend his knees to fit lengthwise on the cushion. If you were to ask the girl watching, the position just made him look more pitiful.

The brunette crossed her legs casually. "So... how was lunch?"

He groaned in response.

"Did you miss out on the grilled cheese sandwiches again?"

"Mmhm."

"Did you finally get Peyton's number?"

"Uuaaaahhhgggh."

"I'll take that as a no." Livia took a sip from the water glass resting on the shelf attached to the head of her bed. "By the way, Zara's pissed at you."

Finally Jensen turned over onto his side. "Damn it. I forgot I was going to check her packing. She's so anal about maximum spacing."

"I don't doubt it, but is she worse than Sam is the real question."

"Ugh! It's not even a question! Sam would adopt her in a heartbeat if they ever met." Getting up from the futon, he lunged for Livia's bunk, missed, but remained where he was with his upper half sprawled out on the blanket and his legs on the floor. "Can we talk about something else, please?"

"Like what?"

"Like… oh, I saw Nathan at the fruit bar just before I left. I thought you guys were going to be in the training rooms all day? What happened?"

"I got called in."

Jensen's head jerked up in shock, all traces of exhaustion vanished. "Wait... Director's office? You're joking, right? You just got back from Scotland, like, yesterday! How can you already have another assignment? Good God, I think they actually want to kill you off!"

"Well, they're off to a good start." She shrugged. "It's not actually their fault. The guy asked for me personally. I protected one of his son's four years ago, and I guess I made a good impression. Which means I need to look 'presentable' or some shit tomorrow morning at 6 am."

Her best friend scoffed and rolled onto his back. "That'll be interesting. At least I've got the namesake to be attractive."

"You were named after your great-grandfather and Jensen Ackles could look better than you even if he'd just clawed his way out of a train wreck."

"Ouch... but point taken. So, where are you flying off to this time?"

"Japan. Where else?"

Tilting his head, Jensen attempted to read the cover of the book in her lap upside-down. "Geez, sometimes I think you love that country more than you love this place."

"I'm not telling you any different."

"But you were born an American! Red, White, and Blue runs through your veins!"

"Shut up, you're not pure either. You've been planning to live in the land of the Moose since you got here."

"As did you til they shipped you off to Japan."

"True. But changing the subject, how'd stalking our barista go?"

The boy's face darkened to a nice shade of pink and he stood up quickly. "It's not stalking! There's a difference between stalking and liking both coffee and the boy who just so happens to serve said coffee."

"Riiiiight. And I suppose it's just coincidence that you forgo your 'usual' coffee when-"

"Jensen! You are back!"

Zara quickly bust into the room, her face both exasperated and relieved. Livia smiled and flicked a wave. "I was just about to send him over, sweetie."

"Mhm. Jensen, you promised me, menteur!"

"I didn't lie, young lady, I was just running a little late."

"Staring at Peyton like some harceleur does not count, vieil homme."

Livia began cracking up at her friend's affronted face. "It's true, Jensen! Why not, I don't know, ask him out instead of staring at him like a creep every day?"

"Fuck you, Livia."

"I don't think I'm your type."

Offering both middle fingers towards the brunette, Jensen was physically dragged out of one room and into the next by the petite blonde. Livia merely smiled and waved until the door shut loudly behind them. Sighing, she cast her gaze between the recorder and the pile of books she had yet to go through. With a louder sigh -more of a groan really- she picked the silver recorder up off the blanket and held it to her face.


I think I'm gonna be at this for a while. End log.


This is another build-up/information chapter. The next one should start getting into the story itself, so I hope you're still interested in this story by then.

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See you next chapter!