Exiting the classroom, Eyre turned to her friends.

"You three head to the cafeteria without me, I have something to deal with first."

Yarra and Simpson nodded before they walked away with Gibson as Eyre turned and looked around the hallway, looking for any teachers. With the hallway clear of any teachers, she began to follow the short brown-haired kid from her previous class. Turning a corner, she found the student with his back turned; the hallway, while bustling with activity, was not crowded at all, allowing Eyre to easily catch up to him. Tapping him on the shoulder, the boy turned around to see who it was. Eyre slammed him against the wall and pinned him there with her hand on his shoulder. She then stepped on his foot using the heel of her shoe, causing the boy to momentarily squeal out in pain before being silenced by her hand covering his mouth. Eyre leaned her head next to the boy's ear and whispered.

"Mock me and my friend's English and accent again and next time I won't be so friendly."

Pulling her head back with an innocent smile on her face, she tipped her head slightly to silently ask the boy if he understood, to which he replied with a nervous and terrified nod. She could hear the murmurs of curious onlookers in the corridor behind her, just loud enough for her to hear snatches of the murmurs. With her threat properly conveyed, Eyre took her hand off the boy's shoulder and her heel off his foot, and let him go, before looking around the corridor, silencing any murmurs with a single glance. The hallway was silent with all eyes on her, so she tied her hair back with a clip in her pocket and walked away towards the cafeteria, ignoring their gazes. She knew that if the boy even had a spine, she would be in trouble, but she did not care. It felt refreshing teaching someone a valuable life lesson, regardless of whether it was within the rules of the school or not.

Arriving in the cafeteria, she looked around for her friends, and to her surprise, could see them conversing with Alex and his friends, and, more surprising than all, in English. Getting some fish and chips from the canteen, she sat down next to them.

"What Suzu-chan like when here?" Gibson asked Alex, who tried to answer back in Japanese so the three Japanese girls would understand.

"She, like younger sister, always nagging me," Alex responded, eliciting giggles and fascination from the three. "Always in trouble, looks for action."

Upon hearing this, Eyre leaned across the table, as if she was going to choke Alex with her bare hands. "Stop making things up!" she yelled, both angrily and jokingly. "You're just trying to embarrass me."

Her sudden outburst attracted the attention of Alex's friends, who asked him what was going on. She locked eyes with Alex, giving him a deathly glare, a sight that would shock most people into breaking, but Alex had known her for too long for it to be effective on him, and he just laughed.

"Oh, dear Susie, this is what I mean when I say you're adorable when you're angry," Alex said jokingly that only made Eyre recoil and blush even more, her face as red as a tomato. "And it makes you flustered too, that's cute."

"Shut up you idiot!" Eyre shouted, now flustered.

"That's no way to speak to your 'big bro'," Alex retorted, clearly making fun of Eyre, which only made her more mad and flustered.

"You're not my older brother!"

"Then what did you write on all those birthday cards?" replied Alex sarcastically.

"You still have those?" Eyre asked.

"Mom made me keep all of them when you left," Alex answered. "Home felt more lonely with you gone."

"Aww, that's cute," Eyre replied, unintentionally patronising Alex. Noticing it, she changed her tone of voice. "Truth be told, I wasn't very happy either, when we went back to Japan."

Alex turned to Gibson and the others again. "In junior school, she was easy to make mad and that made her cute," he said in Japanese, earning the ire of Eyre again.

"Looks like nothing has changed," Simpson responded. They received a death stare from Eyre which only made them laugh even more. Alex's friends leaned closer to him while Eyre was distracted by threatening Gibson, Simpson, and Yarra.

"What was that all about?" Connor asked quietly so as to not attract her attention.

"They were asking me what Susie was like in primary school," Alex replied.

"What was she like?" Jack asked.

"Childish, like a younger sister," Alex answered. "Always nagging me, always getting into trouble, always looking for a fight or any sort of action."

"Come on," complained Eyre. "How many more people are you gonna tell?"

"As many until you stop getting flustered, Susie," Alex replied, snarking.

"Stop calling me that!"

"What? Susie?"

"Yeah!"

"Or what, Susie?" Alex teased, causing Eyre to fluster even more and lean across the table to punch Alex, but he avoided with grace, predicting her actions. He continued to dance around Eyre's attempts, continuing to tease her. Suddenly, she could hear her friends behind her.

"Susie-chan," Simpson said in a cute voice, mocking what she was hearing from Alex.

"Oh no, not you too," Eyre complained, briefly stopping trying to hit Alex to refocus her attention.

"Sank yuu Alex-kun teach us Susie-chan," Gibson said thankfully, as she continued to tease Eyre.

"No problems," Alex replied. "You won't believe how easy it is to anger her."

With her trigger word revealed to all, lunchtime continued with rounds of endless teasing while Eyre could do nothing but become even more flustered, attempting to throw arms, avoided by others with grace who could predict her moves easily. Even Jack and Connor, who did not know her as well as the others, joined in, and whose unfamiliarity with her landed them a handful of blows from the angry and flustered girl.

Perhaps it was because of this, Eyre sighed a breath of relief when the bell signalling the end of lunchtime rang. The constant rounds of teasing had finally come to a temporary end with the beginning of the next class, and she looked forward to the quiet and silence that it would entail. Of course, she knew that it would only be a temporary respite from the ritual of teasing that her friends would dance to from now on, but even that short amount was enough for her.

It was a science class, and she could feel the events of the day catching up to her. Perhaps it was because of the subject, or perhaps it was simply that a lot had happened already, but she found herself zoned out for much of the class. Time passed quickly, and her boundless energy began to run out. She could see the same with her friends, all looking bored or daydreaming, paying no attention to the class at hand. She noticed that the subject taught in the class was thermodynamics, and perhaps it was because she had already learnt the content before, or simply that she was tired that she found no interest in participating in the class or even paying attention. She could not think about science, only plotting her revenge against her cousin and thinking about the dinner invitation that he had offered her and her friends. She began to plan on how to get there in the first place, her mind acting like clockwork, considering all the variables.

As her mind continued to drift, she was brought back to reality by the piercing ringing of the final school bell, the commotion in the classroom as students got up to leave. Grabbing her books, she slowly exited the room, head resting against the books in her arms, almost falling asleep standing up. Walking out of the building and into the school gardens on her way to the dormitory, she heard her name called out behind her.

"Susie?"

Eyre turned around, and on the steps behind her was a short girl with long brown hair tied up into a bun, wearing thin-rimmed glasses. Next to her was Alex, his bag hanging off his back.

"Caroline?"

"Whose that?" Yarra asked.

"Friend from primary school," Eyre replied.

Caroline ran down the steps and leapt at Eyre, hugging her and almost toppling her over.

"Why didn't you tell me you were back?" she asked while dusting Eyre's uniform down. "I only knew when Alex told me."

"I didn't even know you went here."

"Fair enough, we didn't really keep in contact when you left," Caroline replied. She looked behind Eyre and saw her friends watching in curiosity. Waving towards them, she composed herself.

"Konnichiwa, I'm Caroline, Susie's primary school friend."

"You speak Japanese?" Simpson asked curiously. She received a nod from the brown-haired girl.

"Yup, my mom's Japanese and my dad's Chinese."

"Nice to meet you," Gibson said. "Haven't met any hāfus."

"Isn't Victoria one?" Eyre commented.

"Oh yeah, sometimes I forget that," Gibson replied.

"Hāfu?" Caroline asked, not recognising the word.

"Half Japanese," Eyre explained. "Also please don't call me Susie anymore." A faint blush appeared on her face. "Especially to them."

"Why not?" Caroline asked, half curious and half teasing. "You loved it when people called you that in primary school."

"That was like over six years ago," complained Eyre.

"Don't care, still the same cheeky girl you were in fourth grade," Caroline continued to tease. She looked behind Eyre. "Ey you three, did you know she used to be in my dance class?"

"Suzu in a dance class?" Yarra commented. "I couldn't have imagined that."

"I can," Simpson said.

"I hate you, Caroline," Eyre said, angry and flustered.

"I can speak Japanese, you can't stop me," Caroline continued to tease. Eyre put her books down, and reached behind her head, slowly untying her ribbon. Caroline instinctively knew what that meant and evaded Eyre's strokes when she leapt forwards to silence her with the ribbon. Continuing to dodge Eyre's attacks, she could hear Alex calling out to her.

"Hey Carol," he shouted to get her attention. "You wanna come to my house tonight? Now that Eyre's here, my mom was wondering if you wanted to come too."

"Sounds nice," Caroline replied. "I'm looking forward to it, tell your mom I said hi."

"I'm catching the train home, you coming?"

"Yeah."

"Wait," Eyre said, having stopped chasing her friend. "Let us get back to the dorms and change before you leave."

"Sure." Caroline shrugged. "Never seen the inside of the dorms before."

Picking up her books, they all walked towards the dorm. Entering the building and going up two flights of stairs, she took out her keypass and opened the door to their room. Once Yarra, Gibson, and Simpson entered, she followed, waved and smiled at Caroline and Alex, and slammed the door shut.

Putting her books into the provided bookshelf, and her pencil case back into her bag, she took her casual clothes out of the bag that she had stuffed them into, and began to change. She had a thought of what to wear; she was meeting someone she had not seen in years, and so chose casual but not too casual attire, picking out a short t-shirt and a jumper dress to go on top. Looking around, she picked up her purse and hung it on her shoulders, and put her phone inside. As she was about to leave, she felt a tapping on her shoulder. It was Yarra, who had similarly changed into more comfortable clothes.

"Vicky invited Gibson and me to meet her family," Yarra asked. "You good with us not coming to dinner?"

"Oh yeah, shouldn't be a problem," Eyre replied. She looked at Simpson. "Did she not invite you as well?"

"Oh, she did," Simpson responded, "but I'm interested in meeting Alex's family and learning more about you."

Eyre gave her a thumbs up, before turning to Yarra and Gibson again. "You two good with getting to her house?"

"She said she's gonna meet us outside the school," Gibson responded.

Now Eyre could see everyone was changed and ready and opened the door to a bored Caroline and Alex. With everyone back together, they left the dormitory and headed towards the entrance of the school, walking through the admin building. As soon as they exited the building, they could see a girl with messy blond hair and a black ribbon tying part of it together.

"Hey Vicky," Yarra said as she and Gibson rushed ahead.

"Who's that?" Caroline asked.

"School friend," Eyre replied.

"Doesn't look very Japanese."

"She's the other hāfu they were talking about earlier."

Victoria turned to face Caroline and Alex.

"Hey, don't think we've met before," she said, surprising both Australians. "I'm Christine, you can call me Victoria."

"Hey Christine," Caroline said.

"Nice to meet you," Alex replied. "Why Victoria?"

"Long story," she replied, without elaborating. "It was nice meeting you, although we probably should get going."

"Make sure they stay safe," Eyre commented out loud. "We're here for another six days."

Victoria gave her a mocking salute, before walking away with Yarra and Gibson. With her now gone, Eyre was left with Simpson, as well as Alex, and Caroline. Caroline and Alex suddenly turned and started walking away towards the train station, and Eyre and Simpson noticed and caught up. They made their way to an intersection and Alex hit the button, waiting for the light to turn green.

"This place is so big," Simpson commented, looking around at the endless skyscrapers and the bustling streets.

"Really?" Caroline responded. "I'd thought this place would look small to you."

"Why?"

"Well, isn't Tokyo like several times bigger?"

"Probably, I've never been there, only been in Tottori," Simpson replied. "Very small city, much smaller than Melbourne."

"Hey Alex," Eyre said cautiously. "Are you sure we're going the right way? I saw a bus and a tram stop earlier."

"Trust me, Susie, you do not want to be catching either at this hour; the train is our best bet."

Walking down the street, they found themselves facing some gardens in the middle of the busy city, with a subway entrance right next to it. Crossing the road, they entered the subway and were greeted by several gates. Grabbing her travel pass, she went over to a machine to put more money onto it, while Caroline and Alex went through the gates having scanned their cards. Seeing Simpson's confused face, she grabbed Simpson's card from her and put more money onto it, explaining how the system works, before handing it back. Now, both scanned their cards at the gates and went through while Caroline and Alex watched them, and the four of them walked down the subway platforms.

Author's notes

Thank you to Rosy for helping proofreading the chapter. I hope to get some regular updates, but no guarentees.