It'd been two days since Katherine and Chip had each received their letters, and he had been acting more weird than ever. He seemed to have random mood swings as one minute, he would be laughing, but the next, he would be snarling and irritable.

Until today, Katherine decided to sit down at her cousin Ming's lunch table, and Chip followed, in one of his bad moods. It was a plan Katherine had.

Ming was adopted as well, and after Katherine breached the subject through text messages under the table, Ming tried giving Chip words of encouragement, and repeated the theory that he was from somewhere unsafe, as she herself had been given up from China. Chip seemed to be very interested in this and continued to ask her questions about it. Katherine was honestly relieved about his mood change. It meant that he could be rational about this.

Katherine heard whispering and laughing as some people passed their table, and she was sure that it was her girl friends giggling and gossiping about her possibly dating Chip, and she was fine with that. She had no interest in him at all, and she was sure he felt the same way, so it didn't really matter.

"Did you just find out you were adopted?" asked Ming, drawing Katherine back into the conversation.

"Yeah," sighed Chip, "My parents neglected to tell me for thirteen years of my life."

Ming grimaced in sympathy. "I never understood the thought process behind keeping it hidden," she said. "My parents were straight up with me- well, neither of them are Chinese, so it was pretty obvious, but still."

"I happen to look very similar to my parents," said Chip. "That's what so frustrating- if my dad hadn't finally fessed up, I would have never even thought that I was…"

"Adopted," finished Ming, and Chip begrudgingly nodded.

"I don't like look like my parents either," Katherine offered, "My mom's got brown hair, and my dad's got curly black hair and a pointy nose. Jonah got Mom's hair and Dad's nose."

At this, Ming snorted. "You're right about that, Kath- Reina's got Ma's pale red hair. Must pass in the Reynolds family."

"Reina's not adopted?" asked Chip in confusion. "I thought you both were?"

"No, no," said Ming, waving a hand. "Reina's my ma's- Olivia's- biological daughter. It was, like, that artificial thing. You know what I'm talking about?"

"Yeah, okay," said Chip, nodding. "I get it." He seemed to be less on edge. Ming was rather good at getting people to chill out.

Just then, the bell rang.

"Time for Math," sighed Ming, standing up and picking up her lunch bag. She always brought lunch from home. "The bane of my existence."

Katherine giggled behind her hand, standing up as well. Chip had already started to take his own lunch try back to the lunch line, and before Katherine could leave, Ming quickly pulled on her arm to get her attention.

"Dang," she said, "He is having a rough time. I feel bad for him. Finding out you don't even know who you're related to…" She trailed off.

Katherine sighed. "As you can see, it's affected him pretty bad. I wasn't able to get through to him, so I asked you for help."

Ming nodded in understanding. "Why'd his parents just tell him now, though?" she questioned. Katherine mentally blanched. That's what she'd been afraid of.

"Oh, I don't know," lied Katherine. She wasn't quite sure why she didn't tell the truth… but something about the letters seemed way too private. And something told Katherine not to mention it to her.

"Huh," said Ming, shaking her head. "Well, I hope everything goes well for him."

"Ming!" called Anthony Solbers, a blonde chubby boy whom Ming was good friends with. He seemed to be waiting for her by the door to the hallway. Ming waved at Katherine goodbye.

"Me too, Ming," murmured Katherine, as Ming went over to join her friends. "Me too."

a/n: so this was just a little snippet of how things are going to play out differently in this au! i want to have the side characters be more present in the stories, so there's going to be a lot of "interludes" like this that take place in between the main chapters. oh, and in case you're wondering- reina's just a random name i made up. she's not an actual character. you'll see a lot of those.

also i want to say that my update schedule will prolly be every other friday... hopefully i can keep up w that