AN : This is the new version of the chapter 2 so if you read the next chapter some stuff might be weird. The same goes for someone who would by any chance restart the fan fic. With this said enjoy!

Emiko fell from the bed as she tried to turn off the alarm but she found herself on the wrong side of the bed and fell on the ground. She climbed back on as it seemed like the shortest path to cut the annoying noise off, while doing this, Emiko also found the switch and turned the lights on. However their intensity totally blinded her which caused her to fall back on the bed, after a moment she managed to open her eyes just to stare blankly at the London poster in front of her. It sure wasn't an easy thing to wake up when suffering from jet lag, a few seconds later Emiko recalled everything and was finally ready to kick the day off.

"I wish you a good first day at school, may you behave yourself well. No I mean seriously, enjoy it as much as possible." Emiko had mixed feelings about her mother's text, it was as comforting as it was scary but Ran probably just meant that she should remember where she was while trying to have fun. At least that's what the girl decided it would mean to her.

Emiko came out whistling after a mid temper shower, ready for a Japanese breakfast. Eri was rather amused by her granddaughter's behaviour, she really brought a new atmosphere in the house, something lively and she loved it. It was rejuvenating, as if her own daughter had finally come back, yet it was Emiko and not Ran. The feeling was still great, they finally got to know each other and be part of the same family, Emiko wondered why it took them so long though. This mood quickly wore off when she faced her breakfast: rice, miso soup and banana. Emiko thought about her good old marmalade and mumbled a "wonder what the Queen would think about it..." which went unnoticed.

"If you want something else I can always get it for you tomorrow" Eri gently proposed, her head tilted, checking on Emiko's chop sticks ability but she was brushed off by a "that's fine". That kind of breakfast was enjoyable as she got to share it with Eri plus she didn't have to cook for herself for once, not that her mother was already gone by breakfast time but just because Ran wasn't willing to cook at home. "Alright it's time to go to work" said Emiko's grandmother gathering her documents, she didn't receive any answer but a panic look from Emiko. "Don't worry, Kogoro is going to go with you. You will be just fine. I have prepared you a bento, have a good day." A smile and a kiss on her forehead and she was gone, Emiko changed into her Japanese uniform and took a minute to share a selfie on social medias that she had promised her friends.

Kogoro and Emiko walked towards the high school, they stayed silent for most of the way walking side by side. Emiko could feel a distance between them, although he had good reasons to not talk to her he also seemed to never look at her which bothered her a lot. She thought that he had waited for that moment as much as she did. They were family and she started to wonder if he was blaming her for something the same way she had been blaming herself for a long time. She had been staring at him, holding back for a long time when he very fortunately broke the silence.

"I am sorry" he stuttered. She stood still and looked at her grandfather forcing him to stop "my... my English is bad, very bad. Sorry."

Hearing that she finally relaxed and even admitted "So is my Japanese, right?" With things cleared out of the way, she wrapped an arm around one of his and they walked quietly together. Conversation was unnecessary as long as they understood each other, still Emiko was really embarrassed when they walked in the Teitan high school together, the students gaze on them was almost unbearable but she held onto his arm. The hallway was huge, filled with shiny trophies from Teitan past glories. However, Emiko didn't get the chance to take a look at the showcase as they went directly to the headmaster office, the man was near retirement, he had almost lost all of his hair and what remained on his skull was grey. Mr Arai invited them in his office after shaking both the student and the grandfather's hand, the headmaster started as soon as they sat a sort of speech in a really fast Japanese making the British girl wonder if he even knew she was a foreigner. Mr Arai kept his flow of words or rather sound while giving her tons of papers, he seemed to have asked her something as he stopped and was now staring at her. Emiko gave an SOS look to Kogoro who seemed to have drifted away from the man's talk, still he came to her rescue and after exchanging a few words with the headmaster he led her out of the office.

Kogoro gave her the block of papers and started speaking while Emiko put it inside her bag "You go to class 17 B, it's up. You have English" he lent her another page this time with handwritten kanji "it is for the teacher".

She took the note off him and said "English, huh? I'll see what I can do!" Emiko struggled a while to find the stairs, she didn't dare to ask directions and just wandered around. On her way to the 17 B classroom she tried to decode the note which made her almost trip, she had no idea of what was written on there, just looking at it made her realize how hard it will be just trying to follow the lessons. It was going to be a funny year for sure...Once she found the classroom she did hesitate for a minute or two but had no other choice than knocking on the door, surprisingly she didn't get any answer, when she was about to knock again the back of her hand almost met the face of a woman in her 30's. Fortunately she stopped just in time, Miss Tanaka made her bangs fly away from her forehead in a sigh of relief.

"Oh dear oh dear" said the English teacher facing what seemed to be yet another late student. Emiko was about to say something, she should have excused herself and Miss Tanaka's English was not far from the mark, so incomprehension wasn't really an excuse there. But still the teenager went silent, her voice turned off she just gave her the kanji note. A smile illuminated the teacher's face who made way for Emiko to enter, everyone in the room was totally ready and silent, no one reacted to the intrusion though and the teacher whispered instructions remained also unnoticed. Miss Tanaka closed the door and walked all the way to the back of the classroom leaving Emiko alone in front of her new classmates.

"Alright everyone, it looks like we have a newcomer in the class, so we will have her introduce herself." Emiko felt her whole body tense as she waited for the teacher to end her sentence, of course she had expected such an entrance but still she wasn't mentally ready. However she thanked god for letting her do that in English, a hand clap and she was set.

"Ermm good morning everyone. My name is Mouri Emiko and I am 16 years old. I am from London" A shiver went through the class as her mask of local was uncovered. "I've always lived there so it's my first time here in Japan, therefore my Japanese is really really bad. Ermm and I think that's it for now." Emiko took a quick look around the room and except the teacher they all looked pretty confused. Miss Tanaka then started to say something in Japanese, seemed like she was first talking to the class and then focused on one particular student, the boy suddenly grabbed his stuff and headed to an empty seat in the back of the room with a pissed look on his face.

"Mouri-san, Matsuo-kun will be in charge of you during your time here so whenever you need something just go and ask him." Said the teacher pointing at Kioshi Matsuo, a 16-year-old student, he wasn't tall but wasn't small either, he had thin features and what could potentially be a nice smile but was too pissed to show it off. Emiko felt sorry for being a burden and sat on Kioshi's former seat, she looked backwards at him sending a silent excuse but only received a long sigh back. Throughout the English class she judged the level to be better than what she expected but also that Matsuo-kun seemed to be the favourite student of Miss Tanaka which might explained how he got "in charge" of her, or maybe it was because of the note she brought.

Directly at the end of the class a group of 5 to 6 student gathered around her table, they were mostly girls. They all seemed very impatient and curious. They had probably asked her 5 different questions in Japanese before she managed to clear the situation. When she told them that she didn't really speak any Japanese despair could be read on their face and this was international enough to be understood. Right after that, they all went back to their respective seats as another teacher entered the class.

She really had a hard time listening to the lessons, it was boring to not understand a thing when you're usually a good student, but then the only thing she really understood was the numbers during the mathematic lesson. It was that kind of day when she was just trying to set everything up, she got her new school books, tried to memorize as many faces as possible. There was no point in listening for now, instead of that she tried to get valuable information on her classmates such as who is who, who is what and more importantly, who is with who.

Like most girls Emiko liked gossips and she had a feeling that this year she would have to get them by herself. She quickly spotted a group of girls sitting on the right hand side, filling the whole rank there with what seemed to be the leading girl at the end of the line. That sounds about right that friends would sit near each other if possible which meant that she was probably in the middle of a group since everybody had to move around to get her a seat. Another quick look around, she suspected the guy behind her who looked to be nothing special but also the girl on her left who was glancing back quite often to be at least good friends. What was surprising perhaps was that the girl on her right seemed to be looking back at the exact same guy. The rest of the seats were filled with smaller groups and various pairs but nothing too important in Emiko's opinion, she let out a desperate sigh looking at her blank page. People were taking notes so fast in kanji while she could only write her name that way 栄美子 and still it might have taken her way too long to do that.

Emiko's first lunch made it clear, absolutely no one wanted to sit next to her and she had to walk around for 10 minutes just to find an empty seat. A quick look around and she could see where all her classmates were sitting, all of them seemed to be in the same zone, all of them except one person. She made her neck stiff by looking around to find the boy who had been picked to help her. He was in fact hidden by his group of friends, about 7 students all males and they seemed to be older than him as well. All together they looked like a club or some kind of team. Suddenly she noticed their look on her and that included Matsuo-kun as well, , as a result she immediately looked down at her bento. It was still untouched and with five minutes left she didn't manage to eat half of it. The British girl had no idea of how her new compatriots managed such a feat.

Nevertheless, when classes were done for the day, and the bell had rung one final time everyone jumped off the chairs with most of their stuff already back in their bag, so did Emiko with a large smirk on her face. It seemed like some things were the same beyond borders. It was then that she realized that she had no idea of the homework she was supposed to do for the next day and that was what Kioshi was supposed to help her with.

"Matsuo-kun, wait for me!" she called him when he was about to pass the door before everyone else.

Kioshi sighed and went back inside the room "Yes?" he said raising an eyebrow.

"Again I'm sorry to bother you but I didn't quite get our homework... Could you give me a hand with that?"

Rather than answering he sat on top of the table and got his agenda out of his bag. Emiko assumed that it was his way to say, "Yes sure", "No problem at all", "My pleasure", even though there was no way he'd speak like that. Very conveniently the list of homework was pretty short and they could soon walk to their lockers and much to her surprise Kioshi was waiting for her at the exit, his bicycle next to him.

"What direction is your place?"

"This way... I think" she said pointing at the direction.

"Guess I'll walk you home then" he awkwardly winked at her.

"You're sure that you don't have to catch up with your friends, because I don't want to be too much of a burden to you".

"It's fine my house is this way too, moreover if I have to be in charge of you It's better to do it properly, right?" Kioshi said finally showing that he indeed had a nice smile.

"Yes, indeed... By the way, where did you learn to speak English like that?"

"Oh well, my parents travel a lot and when possible they take me along."

"Have you ever been in the UK?"

"Yes..."

The classmates walked all the way to the Mouri agency trying to smile, to joke, doing all the small talk that was necessary. In the end that first day at the Teitan high school was almost successful, well class was pretty terrible but at least she felt like she had found someone who she could hopefully count on. They already said "bye" when Emiko realized that she had forgotten to ask him important information.

"Matsuo-kun, wait!"

"Yes?"

"Déjà vu..." she said mumbling slightly

"What?"

"No nothing... I simply forgot to ask you your phone number and also at what name should I enter it?"

"Kioshi Matsuo" he announced himself proudly.

"Nice I think I got it. Kioshi, should I call you that way?" she asked once the number was in her mobile phone.

"Actually no, that'd be rude" he said while jumping on his bike. "I really have to go now, see you tomorrow Mouri-san" he waved at her.

She still had a lot to learn about the Japanese ways. Emiko checked the time on her watch: 4 pm. She rushed upstairs climbing the stairs two by two, she headed directly to her room without checking if Kogoro was in his study. It was about 10 am in London so there was a chance that her mother would still be home, Emiko was quite excited and logged in on Skype. After a rather annoying and long update, Skype was finally on and she immediately called her mother. Ran almost missed the call and nearly broke her chair while rushing.

"Hey sweetheart, it's so good to see you."

"Mom, I'm happy to see you too. Where you in a rush? You look out of breath."

"I ran for the call... How was your day?"

"It was an okay day, I mean I was late, I stole some guy's seat, the same guy got in charge of me and besides that, I didn't understand a word of what the teachers were saying. Oh, and they all look at me as if I were an alien, hopefully it's temporary. Fortunately I don't have too much work at home for now and... I think that's pretty much it."

"Is it going alright with your grandparents?"

"Yes they are really nice, Kogoro isn't very talkative but he really is caring and Eri is making up for him. She's really cool too but should I mention that her bento tasted weird."

Ran started to laugh really hard before commenting "Now you know why I became a chef!"

"So that's the explanation, I see... Oh oh oh mom have you noticed?"

"Noticed what?"

Emiko carried the laptop and turned around "I am sleeping in your room, your parents left it untouched, how cool is that?"

"Cool..." Answered a nervous Ran, she hoped that her daughter would take her anxiety for shared excitement.

Emiko put the laptop back on the desk, making the desk picture fall. She quickly placed it back on the right of the desk, Emiko took a second to contemplate it. This was the perfect opportunity to ask her mother who was the green jacket man. She was indeed about to ask her but something else on the screen caught her attention, she should have seen it immediately but was too excited by the room tour. Still it was there...

"Mom, sorry to ask you this but... Did you have a visitor when I called?"

Ran blurted an objection and denied what was obvious "Why do you say that?"

"Well it's a simple fact. I know fashion changes very quickly but still I'm pretty sure the jacket hanging on your doorknob is a men one."