I sincerely apologize for the long wait to those of you who have been reading since before the deletion. Hopefully this chapter will start a new era of speedy updates. Sadly I wanted to write this story over the course of a year, but the days have slipped away from me. Therefore, time in the fic will not be reflecting time here. So holiday updates will not be around the actual holiday as I had hoped. Hopefully you guys will be able to deal with this, and I thank you for waiting so long.

So now, without further ado, China's chapter!

"Hey Leesy, it's time for lu-" Mari's head had just popped up over the side of my bed when a pillow deftly hit her face and down she went. I heard a thump and an "Ow!" and pretended to be asleep. "Leesy!" Mari scolded. "Hitting people is not nice! And you can't sleep all day!" When she got no response I heard her sigh and say, "I'm calling in reinforcements." And I heard her leave the room.

I sucked in my lower lip a bit, contemplating whether or not to apply my insane stubbornness today. See, most of the time I'm quite easygoing, but I can be extremely stubborn when I want to be. All my friends know this from experience, but Mari knows it best. The reason I refused to watch or read Harry Potter? For the sheer joy of picking on poor Mari ;)

Anyway, as I was thinking about this, I heard more than one set of footsteps arrive. "Alright Leesy," I heard Alex say. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."

"Meaning get yer butt down here or we're comin' up after ya!" This would be Zara.

I stretched, arching my back, and shifted so that my head was hanging upside-down over the side of my bed. In that fashion I looked at my friends, who appeared to be standing on carpeted ceiling, with what I'm sure were glazed-over eyes. "And I suppose you'll drag me out of bed, which is a loft bed, just like before, which was the top bunk of Mari's camper, and I'll land in a heap on the floor, again?"

"Something like that." Alex said with a grin.

"I tried to put the stool under your feet but you missed!" Zara exclaimed in self-defense.

I frowned exaggeratedly at her. "It was a tiny, light plastic footstool that slid out from beneath me!" I retorted.

"Well then you should have come down before I grabbed your leg and started to pull!" Zara countered and before I could stop her she booped my nose.

I snarled and tried to bite her finger, but since my neck was in a very uncomfortable position my attempt fell through and I ended up just surrendering. I'd save my iron will for another day.

"Where's Safi?" I asked as I climbed down my ladder.

"Downstairs making lunch." Alex yawned, so obviously haven't been awake for long, and said, "Yeah Mari, why do we need to be awake?"

"It's noon." Mari stated flatly. "The day's half over. You're not going to spend the rest of it sleeping."

"But I wanna sleeeeeeeeep!" I whined, clinging to Mari like a bratty two year old. I would've gone further with it but we were right at the stairs and I didn't wanna die so I stood up and walked down like the mature person I could be, and the scene that greeted us was something to behold.

Safi was standing in the kitchen making lunch like normal but across the bar sat a man with…a giant, knockoff Hello Kitty head.

Safi look up at us and smiled. "Hey guys!" she said cheerfully. "This is Shinatty-chan. Shinatty-chan, this is Marina, Alexandra, Zara and Adaliz." She pointed to each one of us in turn.

"Hello-aru." said Shinatty-chan in a rough guy's voice that I believe had a Chinese accent.

I think it's safe to say that none of us could be blamed for being frozen in shock. There was a man, with a cat head, in our house, sitting with Safi. We were pretty confused, and if this weirdo hadn't only been sitting there, I probably would've attacked him as an intruder.

"Um, Safi," Mari said, attempting to remain polite. "What is Mr. Shinatty-chan doing here?"

"Just chan." I mentioned under my breath.

"What was that Lees?" Zara asked, evidently hearing me.

I looked up, mildly surprised. "Well, it's just that 'chan' is an honorific, so the Mr. isn't needed…" Then I realized that I sounded like a Japanese-grammar-Nazi. "Shutting up."

"Anyway," Alex turned back to the strange guest. "What exactly are you doing here?"

"He came to deliver a message from China," Safi answered for Shinatty-chan. "He says he's going to be a bit late, and to go ahead and have lunch without him."

"Don't have to tell me twice!" Zara said, throwing open the fridge and chugging the pitcher of orange juice.

"Hey save some for the rest of us man!" I walked over and pretended to smack the bottom of the pitcher.

Zara stopped drinking and glared at me. "I'd kill you."

"You could try." I took the pitcher from her. "Now I have to sterilize this. You're gonna give us all-" I said the first thing that came to my mind, "-herpes." and immediately smacked my hand over my mouth.

Alex and Zara burst out laughing. "No herpes jokes!" Alex yelled. "That's not even how it works!"

I giggled, forcing the hotness in my face away. "Hey, Shinatty-chan!" Would you like some lunch?"

"No thank you-aru." said Mr. Cat Head as he stood up. "I should be going now."

"Well thank you for stopping by and letting us know." Mari said as she saw him to the door.

"Have a good day-aru." Shinatty-chan said as he left, rather quickly, and Mari shut the door.

After a second, she said, "I think we scared him."

"Why?" Safi asked. "It's not like we murdered anyone."

Zara snorthed. "Safi Lees made a herpes joke! I doubt they even have those in China."

"You never know," Alex said slyly, making us all laugh.

~~SHINATTY-CHAN TIME SKIP~~

Ban ban BANANANANANANANANANAR bop chi-bop bop BOW!" I scatted nonsense as I came back down the stairs, fully dressed with Safi in her panda hat with gloves at my side. It wasn't until we reached the bottom that the doorbell BING-BONG-ed. Mari opened the door.

"Ni hao," China said with a cheerful smile and a slight bow from the shoulders. "How are you today-aru?"

"We're doing fine, thank you." said the ever-polite Mari. "Won't you please come in?"

"I suppose for a moment," China said as he came in. "However, we should-PANDAAAAAAA!" he suddenly screamed, and in the next instant he rushed over and glomped Safi!

Our jaws dropped, our eyes went white, and we just kind of just stood there in shock as China nuzzled the surprised (UNDERSTATEMENT) Safi.

"I did not know that you had a panda too-aru!" China exclaimed, holding Safi out from him to get a better look. "She is so cute-AH!" he shouted in surprise when he realized that Safi was not, in fact, a panda. He snatched his hands away with a horrified look on his face at what he'd done. His face went red and he looked very flustered. "Ayia!Dao qian! Dao qianMissSafi! I did not realize that it was you-aru!"

Safi wobbled a bit from being suddenly let go, but she soon steadied herself. She was blushing madly, yet a shy smile still made its way onto her face. "It's okay China." she said softly without meeting his eyes. "I don't mind hugs."

SO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE! I thought, trying desperately to keep a giddy smile of in near-fangirl adoration off my face as I watched the two of their blushing faces. However, I kept the squeal inside as to not embarrass Safi any more.

Thankfully she had the situation under control. "Thank you for sending Shinatty-chan to come tell us you were coming."

China smiled. "Isn't he cute?" he said cheerfully.

"… Uh… Yeah…" my friends and I said. Except for Safi, who had seemed undisturbed by the cat-man. She didn't miss a beat.

"Were you going to say that we had better get going soon China?" she said sweetly. "Where are we going?"

"Oh yes!" China said, getting back on track. "It's such a beautiful morning day that I thought, even though it's midday now, maybe it would be fun for you girls to come and do some tai chi with me in the park!"

"Tai chi?" Zara asked. "Is that like yoga?"

China nodded. "It is in a way-aru. It is very relaxing. Come! Let us get going!" he gestured toward the door and we followed him out.

I won't bother to describe what I have before regarding our magical transportation to China, as I still didn't understand it, but soon enough, we were in a place that was undeniably Asian. However, for once there were not a lot of other people around. We were in a public garden so quite a few people were walking around, having lunch and stuff.

Wait a second. I stopped myself as I suddenly thought of something. "China, I have a question for you: If it was lunchtime at our house, in America, how the heck can it be lunchtime here, on the other side of the planet?!"

China looked confused. "Haven't you been told?" he asked. "Traveling with countries takes a bit of time travel-aru. When you leave a place at a certain time of day, you skip either forward or backward in time while traveling so that you arrive at precisely the same time at which you left in that new place. For example: if you left your home in America at about noon, and you were going to, say, Moscow, Russia," China shuddered a bit at this. "You would essentially skip ahead eight hours in time and arrive at about noon in Moscow."

"… Wow…" I said, putting my head against my hand. "That's not mind-boggling. Thank goodness if time travel has to exist, it's at least limited."

"I'm sure we'll get used to it," Mari placed a comforting hand on my shoulder, although she looked a bit befuddled by this phenomenon also.

However we were soon distracted from this reality by China, who was starting our tai chi lesson. "Right!" China said enthusiastically pounding his right fist into the palm of his left hand. "I shall be teaching the popular 24 Form Tai Chi Chuan! Its focus is to bring clearing of the mind and calmness-aru. I shall start with the first position. Please copy what I do and ask questions freely!" Facing us, China stood with his feet together and slowly bent his legs, putting his weight onto his right leg, and lifted his left knee and stepped out to the side so that his feet were shoulder-width apart. The he raised his forward-stretching arms level to a ninety-degree angle, and lowered his hands to his hips while lowering his body. "There!" he said. "Now you try."

"That's it?" Alex asked. "Pfft, this is gonna be easy!" And so we all tried it and Alex was right; it was easy… at first. It started out simple, but slowly and steadily, each move became much more difficult. While the movements were slow and not at all stressful on the body, sometimes keeping balance was hard. You know how when you're on a bike, the slower you go, the harder you have to work to keep balanced? It was like that in a way. But it wasn't until the Heel Kicks that anyone had any real trouble.

Safi was pretty much the only one who could come even remotely close to what China was doing, being in dance and yoga, and frankly more focused.

"Aaaah!" Zara was the first to go down, and when she fell she took out Alex too like a stack of dominoes. "Dangit Zara!"

"Whoa-oa, come ooooon, no!" That was the sound of Mari trying to straighten her outstretched leg. She too ended up on the ground.

I was stuck just trying to raise my foot high enough, but before it was very high I'd always wobble and put it back down. It looked like I was trying to step on something hot with only my right foot. "Nrg, get up there!" I ordered my foot. Oh sure. Balancing things on my head? No problem! Balancing myself on one foot? Not a chance. In an effort to get past my poor balance, I just sort of threw my leg up in the air. That worked for a second, but my inflexibility wouldn't allow my leg to straighten. I didn't stay there for long anyways. "Goin' down!" was what I said as I fell to the ground.

"Aiya!" is what China said every time someone fell. He was rushing around, trying to right whoever was wobbling, missing a good amount of the time because my friends and I were falling left and right. We kept a good attitude about it though, going so far as to try and make each other laugh.

"Hey guys I'm waterbending!" Mari said as she went through the motions while making 'woosh' sounds.

Safi giggled. "Who lit Toff on fire?"

"Love that show!" Zara exclaimed. Then, forgoing the tai chi routine, she shook her head quickly and opened her eyes wide. You could almost hear the weird music. "Drink cactus juice!" Zara acted as if she was holding something with her right hand, and waved the other one for effect. "It'll quench ya! Nothin'squenchier! It's the quenchiest!"

"It's a giant mushroom. MAYBE IT'S FRIENDLY!" I threw my hands in the air and did my best full body wave, then swayed exaggeratedly from side to side. "Friendly mushroom!Mushy giant friend!"

Alex fell on her face in anguish. "MOMO NOOOOO! You've killed us allllllll!" Then she got up on her knees and pointed accusingly at Zara. "It was YOU! You ratted me out!" Zara in turn covered her face and cried.

We were all on the ground laughing at that point, except for China, who was far beyond confused. "Are you all on drugs-aru?" he asked, his eyes wide. "Drugs are bad! They nearly ruined my country!"

"Calm yourself China," I giggled as my friends and I pulled each other up. "It's just America's attempt at anime."

"Though Sokka was pretty much high." Mari laughed.

"Hey Zara," Alex said suddenly, her foot in the air at another attempt to do the tai chi pose. When Zara turned to face her, Alex swung her leg and took Zara down. "Boom!" she said, breaking into a fit of laughter that was cut off when Zara tackled her at the knees, leaving the rest of us to pry the two apart.

"It's too early for this," I said during another giggle fit.

"I'm sorry China," Safi said, trying to hide her giggles as she lifted Alex and Zara to their feet. "They'll stay on track now, right guys?"

"Right." we giggled.

Yeah, we're liars.

China tried teaching us the next move, where you had to go down close to the ground with one leg outstretched and the other under you. As I was on my way down, my outstretched, inflexible leg began to hurt. I gritted my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut, trying desperately to hold my pose and muttering "Hold it hold it hold it hold it."

"Lees do you have to go to the bathroom?" Zara asked.

"Don't do it here!" Alex joined in.

This struck me as so funny that I lost my balance and fell over on my face. "You guys!" I complained, laughing as I picked myself up. "Don't make me laugh!"

Of course it became a game then: who could make who laugh by doing what. Poor China was trying to teach us while we were all providing slapstick humor, making faces (Zara's are killer funny), making pervy jokes (I'm looking at you Alex), while Mari and I were just about dyingfrom laughter.

Safi was somewhat amused by our antics, but was on China's side of focus and so she tried to get us back on track. This earned her a lot of "Yes mom"s in teasing response.

"Hey Lees! You're a ninja! You should be good at this!" Alex teased as I fell over once again.

"Ninjas are Japanese dipstick!" I laughed, though after that I'd add a 'ninja sound effect' to my movements every now and then.

"Tai chi is supposed to be a relaxing, mind-clearing experience." China sighed when we finished the whole routine.

Feeling guilty, I said, "We are relaxed!" I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply, exhaled, and tried not to quote 'Inner peace. Inner peace.' "See?" I said, continuing my deep breathing. "Completely relaxed-EEK!" I jumped and my eyes flew open when my side was poked. Already the culprit was laughing and I whirled to face her. "I'm gonna kill you Zara!" I yelled as I chased her around the park.

"Yes." Safi said from where she and everyone else stood, watching and laughing at us. "Completely relaxed."

~~NI HAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!~~

Thankfully China wasn't upset by our lack of focus. He simply shrugged it off (not literally, I guess they don't shrug in Asia) and said, "I am used to dealing with childish adults." with a smile. Then he took us to his house.

"Wok!" I couldn't help but exclaim when I saw the large round pan. "I love woks!"

"They are good for cooking and fighting as well!" China said cheerfully and got right to work, leaving me dumbfounded as to how a wok could be used as a weapon.

"What's this?" I heard Zara say in the next room, so I got over there quickly to see what was going on and possible prevent something from breaking.

Thankfully, all Zara was looking at was a round table with another, smaller, spinning table on top. Zara was repeatedly spinning the center part, looking a bit like a cat playing with a toy. "Why does it spin?" she said in fascination.

"It's a Chinese thing." Mari explained.

Alex eyed the table curiously. "Could it spin a person?" She and Zara looked at each other and suddenly Zara was helping Alex climb up on the table.

"No no NO!" Mari said as she grabbed Alex from behind and lifted her down. "We do not climb on other people's tables!"

"But Mari it's so spinny!" Alex whined.

"But Alex it's so rude" Mari crossed her arms.

"But spinny!"

"But rude!"

"Spinny!"

"Rude!"

"Spinnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"

"Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!"

"Both of you calm down!" Safi pushed the two apart.

"Yes mom."

I'm not your mother!" Safi told a now laughing Mari and Alex. Sighing with exasperation, Safi said, "I'm going to see if China needs any help in the kitchen." But before she could we heard a BANG and a lot of clattering in the next room.

So much for making sure nothing breaks.

"Holy crap China!" We heard Zara's voice coming from the room. "What's with all the bottles?"

"Zara," I said, stalking into the room. "You shouldn't snoop-... Whoa. That... is a lot of bottles."

Zara was found sitting on the floor, which was littered with loads of small, old bottles and an empty cabinet turned over on its side with the doors wide open. Think of The Emperor's New Groove, where the bottles where everywhere, except they weren't all filled with pink fluid, they didn't have the spiky thing on top, and the cabinet wasn't shaped like an owl. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what happened. Thankfully nothing had broken.

"China," Alex said as she, the rest of our friends, and the nation also entered. "...Are you a drug dealer?"

"They are not drugs-aru!" China said as he and Safi began picking up the bottles. "At least not that kind. No, these are medicines."

"How can you tell what they're for?"Mari asked, picking one up and examining it. "It doesn't have any labels." She picked up a few more and scanned each one in turn. "None of them do."

China, now holding numerous of the mysterious bottles, answered, "They're secret medicines."

"Secret medicines." I repeated flatly as Alex and Zara giggled.

"Yes." China continued simply. "Even I don't know what is in them..." He turned to me. "Would you like to buy some-aru?"

My friends sniggered behind me as I held up my hands and took a step back. "Uh, no thanks."

Just before China could launch into a sales pitch, the sound of a door slamming open made Mari jump a whole foot into the air.

"TEACHER!" two voices, one male and one female, shouted.

China's eyes widened and he groaned. "Why? Why now?" he asked no one in particular. "I'm in the back room! I told you two not to come by today!" he yelled in the direction of the shouts.

"But Teacher! We wanted to meet the human-girls-who-know-our-secret too!" the girl's voice complained down the hall, soon followed by the girl herself and then the guy.

The girl was a teenager who was a whole two inches shorter than Zara. Pink flowers were in her hair, which was long and brown, with a wild curly strand sticking out on the right side of her head. She wore wears a peach/bright pink-colored…oh what are they called… Oh! mandarin gown, with gold trim and long, flowing sleeves, and a long white skirt.

The guy had a face that somewhat looked like China's, with choppy dark brown hair that came down to his jaw and light brown eyes, which were bordered by thick eyebrows. Not as thick as England's but thicker than the average person's. He wore a burgundy jacket thing with black piping and oversized sleeves, and dark brown trousers.

When the girl noticed us, her face lit up in pleasant surprise. "Hello!" She said friendly, bowing to us the same way China had when he first greeted us. "My name is Taiwan, and this is Hong Kong!" She gestured to the other guy. When he didn't respond, she elbowed him in the ribs.

Hong Kong grunted upon impact. "It is, like, nice to meet you." He said blandly.

"Likewise." Safi said with a smile.

"Uwaaaaa! You are so cute! Just like the stuff at Japan's place!" Taiwan squealed and grabbed Safi's hands. Safi was pretty surprised, but she smiled back.

"Yes yes," China said impatiently. "You have said hello, now you can leave-aru."

"Hold on a second there, b******!" Taiwan said, definitely contradicting the 'teacher' title she'd just used, and marched right up to China. "Why are you so quick to get rid of us huh? You said so yourself, you need time to prepare dinner, so we are here to help!"

"Yes but I-" China tried, but he was interrupted again.

"For the meantime, well," Hong Kong said as he and Taiwan began ushering my friends and I out of the room. "We will be back in an hour or two."

Before China could protest again, Taiwan grabbed Zara and Alex's hands, who grabbed ours as they laughed, and ran us all down the hall and out the doors of China's house. Hong Kong said "YOLO!" completely without expression and followed at more of a walking pace.

"Did we just get kidnapped?" Alex laughed.

"Oh believe me," Taiwan said as she turned to us and grinned. "You do not want to be stuck in the kitchen with that stick in the mud anyways." She jutted her thumb back at the house.

"So what are we going to do?" Mari wondered.

Taiwan looked almost giddy with excitement. "Oh you will see," she said. "I am going to make you girls look so cute!"

~~INTRODUCING THE CHINESE PROVINCES THAT USED TO BE NATIONS-timeskip!~~

I'm not so sure about this, I thought to myself, pulling down on the sides of the skirt of my aqua dress anxiously. The five of us had been put into mandarin gowns, which were very pretty but also very form-fitting. It wasn't revealing or anything, although the slits on the sides went up a ways past one's knees. I already had a dislike of skirts, so that plus the slits had me unnecessarily tugging down on the sides constantly.

Safi must have seen uncertainty leaking through my face, for she said, "You look so nice Leesy!"

She's one to talk, I thought grudgingly. Taiwan was right; Safi looked adorable in her lilac dress.

Seeking escape, I looked over at Zara and Mari and laughed as they simultaneously tripped over the fronts of their skirts.

"I give up!" declared Zara as she flopped unceremoniously onto the ground in her lime green dress. "This is why I don't do skirts."

"Come on Zara you can do it!" Mari encouraged, actively contemplating how to lift the front of her purple-blue dress without raising the sides. "Just be glad we're not wearing heels."

"Says the person who needs them least but wears them anyway!"

Mari grinned cheekily at Zara before tripping again and failing epically. "How do you do it Alex?" she asked.

Alex gave a smirk, for she could walk around in her teal dress with ease. "Amateurs," she said as she tossed her hair fabulously, earning laughter from all of us.

That's when Hong Kong and Taiwan came in with ribbons, flowers and a brush.

"You all look so pretty!" Taiwan practically squealed, bouncing a bit in excitement.

"I still think we should have varied the colors a bit." Hong Kong said. "Come yellows and red would have been, like, nice."

"But they work!" Taiwan pointed out. "It's like an ocean-y color scheme, and it looks great!"

I could understand colors if they were art-related, but when Hong Kong and Taiwan got into an argument about how fashionably the colors complemented each other, I stopped listening because I don't get fashion.

Eventually Taiwan won and then she started doing up my friends' hair and I sat with them. I watched as the nation (yes I considered both Taiwan and Hong Kong nations) rolled my friends' hair into buns, tying them off with ribbons and adding flowers. It looked surprisingly really good, given that none of us have that naturally thick black hair that Asians possess.

A couple of times I caught myself running my fingers through the back of my pixie cut. I couldn't even remember what if felt like to have the weight of extra hair on the back of my head. It'd been a long time since I'd been able to do what normal girls do with their hair, such as put it in a ponytail or curl it, not that I'd ever spent much time on my hair anyways. I didn't miss having long hair, not really; short hair was so much easier. Still, I couldn't forget how good it felt to have someone play with my hair.

"Hey," Taiwan snapped me out of my current zone-out. "It is your turn!"

I blinked, surprised, and said, "Uh, you can't really do it up like normal."

"I know," Taiwan replied, her smile unwavering. "but I will make it work."

After a pause, I smiled back and came over so that Taiwan could work. She combed my messy hair straight and smooth, then tucked a flower behind my ear. Simple yes, but it worked well.

Hong Kong had my friends and I line up, then he and Taiwan looked us over, discussing last minute touches.

"Finished!" Taiwan declared when they finally decided that they were done. "Strike a pose!" She through her arm up in the air and beamed.

Without questioning, we all struck outrageous poses, and Hong Kong snapped a picture with his phone.

"Uh," I said, abandoning my epic airbender pose when I realized what had just happened. "That's not going on the internet, is it?"

"OMG of course it will not." Hong Kong answered as he put his phone away, but his face was so unreadable that I couldn't figure out if he was joking or not.

"Now off to show Teacher-B******!" Taiwan said excitedly.

"He had better like what we did." Hong Kong muttered. "Or I will be mad but not really but maybe I will be."

Zara laughed. "So does that mean you'll be mad or not?"

"Whatever." Hong Kong said. "We should, like, get going before it gets dark out."

"What?" Alex asked, looking outside. "But it's not even evening yet."

For the first time that day, I saw Hong Kong's expression change: not much, just a little bit of blush. "I… I do not like the dark."

"Okay, let's get going then." Safi said simply, leading the way so that Hong Kong didn't have to discuss the subject anymore, which made me smile.

China was nearly speechless with happiness when he opened the door and saw us. "Aiyaaaaaaaaaaaa!" he exclaimed, looking over us. "Kě'ài! Kě'ài! Nǐ hěn kě ài!" He took Safi's hands. "Nǐ hěn piào liang!"

Once the words had left his mouth, China's eyes widened and he blushed profusely, making me cock my head and wonder what he had said. "P-please come in-aru!" He stammered as he held the door open for me and my friends.

Traveling at the back of my pack, I noticed how China glaring at Taiwan and Hong Kong as they too came in, as Taiwan was giggling like a schoolgirl and Hong Kong smirked knowingly.

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaah," I heard a long pant, and turned to see Zara with her jaw dropped, a trail of drool dripping down.

"Zara stop being Soul-" I started, but when I saw the table I'm sure I looked a lot like Zara.

It was absolutely covered in rice, Chinese hot pot, hot and sour soup, Beijing roast duck, spicy tofu, almond tofu, noodles, soup dumplings, steamed dumplings, shrimp dumplings, pork dumplings, and more.

China came in, saw our faces and smiled. "Would you like to eat?" he asked.

We looked at him with wide eyes and nodded mechanically.

He sat us all down, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, who China had decided could stay due to their work with us. At each seat was bowl of rice, a pair of chopsticks, flat-bottomed soupspoon, and a little plate.

"Since you westerners eat so differently," China said as everyone was sitting. "Let me explain something: everyone eats from the same bowl, picking out foods with chopsticks and soup with your spoon. The little plate is for bones, not food. Be sure to eat all your rice and an equal amount of everything."

"Understood." I was just about to dig in when I noticed something. Both Zara and Mari were having issues with their chopsticks, holding them wrong, crossing them funkily, and utterly unable to pick up anything.

"You guys don't know how, do you?" I asked.

Both of them looked up at me, looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

"I've never tried!" Mari protested, so at least she had a legitimate excuse, except for the fact that that meant she'd never tried to eat Asian food with chopsticks which was completely unacceptable.

"I have tried," Zara laughed. "I'm sort of a lost cause."

So that of course meant that I had to teach them how to do it right.

"I'll show you. Look, you put one on the bottom between your first and middle fingers, like this, then hold other one with your thumb and your first and middle fingers, like this. No, no, move your fingers. There, put it there, then, yes, yes like that. Now move the top one. No, don't cross them, put them together. No, don't cross them, no!" I said, causing the two of them to break into fits of laughter.

"Crossy crossy crossy!" Mari said in a high voice, unable to bring the two ends together, as she laughed her face red.

"Try to pick something up." I said, looking over the table. I took out a dumpling, since it was larger and somewhat squishy.

Mari went first, her mouth wide in her persistent smile, laughing at herself as she dramatically opened her chopsticks and, slowly, enclosed them about the dumpling successfully.

"Yes!" she cried, but in her excitement she had jerked her hand up and lost her grip on the dumpling, which flew into the air. In slow motion, it fell straight for the bowl of soup, sure to make a large splash. We all reached for the dumpling, yelling "Noooooooooo!" in low voices, but all seemed lost.

With a sudden wizz something sharp flew through the air and snatched the dumpling out of sight. Just barely able to follow the flying projectile, I saw what turned out to be a chopstick embed itself into the wall like a dart, the dumpling having been skewered through the middle and now slid down the chopstick and stopped at the wall.

Everyone turned back to where the flying chopstick of doom had come from, and we saw Hong Kong standing in a follow-through position.

After a pause of surprise and amazement, we all broke into cheers and applause.

"Dude that was so cool!" Zara exclaimed. "You're like the Kung Fu Panda!"

Hong Kong gave her a funny look, the he actually gave a small smile. "Thank you." he said with a bow.

"Maybe we should leave the chopstick-ing to the professionals." Alex said with a grin.

"We'll bring the food to you." Safi said, picking up some food and setting it in Mari's rice bowl. "And put it in here."

"That is actually a Chinese custom-aru." China put in. "To show someone that you care about them, you may put food in their bowl." To demonstrate, he took a noodle and put into Safi's bowl.

"… Feed me!" Zara demanded, opening her mouth and tipping her head back like a baby bird. Alex laughed and responded by dropping some duck into the gaping hole.

I laughed and then turned to filling my own mouth. The food was absolutely ambrosial, and I had no trouble sedating my growling stomach. But I did have a bit of trouble with the rice. Have you ever tried to eat rice with chopsticks? It's darn near impossible, and I'd never finish it all if I had to eat grain by grain. "China! Tell me your ancient Chinese secret to eating rice with chopsticks!"

"Like this." China lifted the rice bowl to his mouth and shoveled in the rice in a way that would be considered very rude in the West, but definitely effective. He set down his bowl, swallowed and looked at me.

"… Oh yes!" I exclaimed. "I've always wanted to do this!" I lifted the bowl to my mouth and pushed the delicious fired rice in eagerly. When I'd had my fill, I swallowed and put the bowl back down. "It's so much easier."

"Kind of messy, isn't it?" Mari asked.

"Yes," Taiwan answered. "but it shows your satisfaction with the food and therefore is good manners."

Zara set down the rice she'd just shoveled into her bottomless pit. "I love Chinese manners." she sighed happily.

That reminded me of something, so I reached across the table and dipped my spoon into the soup. "Hey China," I said. "Isn't it true that it's also polite to slurp?"

"Yes, that is correct."

I took the chance to slurp up my soup, something I hadn't been able to do in a while. "Mm, so good."

The rest of the meal was equally good, and it's safe to say that everyone else agreed; China had made a lot of food, but quite a bit of it was gone by the time we were slowing down with fullness. Zara showed this by letting out a huge, very ladylike belch.

"Zara!" Safi scolded while the rest of us laughed.

"Pfft, nice push man!" I complimented Zara, who did not look the least bit ashamed.

"L-Leesy!" Mari gasped between bouts of laughter. "Don't encourage her!"

"Actually," Hong Kong said. "The Chinese consider burping, like, polite."

"That's good," Ales said. "cuz-" She was interrupted by a large burp of her own.

As we laughed at that, china stood up from his chair.

"Where are you going China?" Mari asked.

"To get dessert-aru." China explained with a smile. "Those with sweet tooths will love it, and those who prefer a salty taste will also love it!" After leaving the room for a minute, he came back in with a bowl of orange pudding-like stuff.

"What's that?" I asked, though from the way Safi's eyes widened at the fruit smell of it, I had a pretty good idea of what it was.

China set the bowl down on the table, then answered, "Mango pudding."

The next thing we knew, Safi ha nearly glomped China off his feet.

"I think China's officially won Safi over." Alex chuckled, making Zara make a pervy face and me and Mari shushed them while laughing.

"What-what is this for-aru?" China asked, blushing madly.

As if just now recovering from the initial mango-shock and realizing what she'd done, she let china go. Backing up a few steps, she tried to compose herself, but she was blushing just as much as China.

"She looooooooves mangos." Zara explained. "It's like her favorite food ever!"

"Well, then," China smiled at Safi through his blushing. "I expect that you'll enjoy it, Miss Safi."

Safi nodded wordlessly, and for once didn't protest as China pulled out her seat for her.

~~CUTENESS OVERLOAD-timeskip~~

"You must be swift as a coursing river! (We are men!)/With all the force of a great typhoon! (We are men!)/With all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moooooooooooooon!" My friends and I finished out rendition of 'I'll Make a Man Out of You' for China as he finished walking us home.

China smiled at our antics. "You five are very good at singing-aru." he complimented.

"Thank you." Safi said softly as we walked up to our house.

The Asian country stood at our doorstep as we all filed inside. "Thank you for spending the day with me." he said. "I enjoyed spending time with you." Was it my imagination, or did his eyes flit towards Safi?

"No thank you!" Mari replied. "We had a really good time, and the food was amazing!"

China smiled. "You are very welcome." His eyebrows shot up in realization. "Oh! I almost forgot-aru!" Reaching into one of his large sleeves (Had he kept it in there the whole time?!) and pulled out a box and handed it to us. "I made these for you."

Alex took it and opened the box. "Omigosh!" she exclaimed, holding up what appeared to be a panda-shaped cookie. "They're panda cookies!"

My friends and I all crowded around her to get a taste, and they were very good!

"Fank oo hina!" Zara attempted to thank him through a mouthful of cookie.

"You are very welcome." China said with a smile. "Now, I believe it is time for me to be getting back to my home. I still have Taiwan and Hong Kong to take care of. But I hope to see you again soon." Okay, he was totally looking at Safi this time. Bowing, he said, "Zài jiàn." and left.

"Bye!" we called after him before closing the door. After a moment's pause, Zara and I looked at each other and smiled.

"It's time." She said.

"It is." I responded.

Breaking into a run, we sprinted for the stairs, yelling "GET THIS DRESS OFFA ME!"