I don't think I ever did this for this fanfic, but this shizz ain't mine. Only Rin is :) Now you can continue.

And I apologize for the shortness, but I have some serious writer's block.

Chapter 4

Another wonderful, beautiful, sunny-dammit, I wanna go back to bed! Rin trudged through the gate of her new school with a gloomy aura surrounding her. She went in a straight line from the gates to the entrance to her shoe locker. Opening it, she took off her outdoor shoes and slipped her indoor ones on.

Closing the locker door, she paused, feeling that something was out of place. "Hello, Rin!" A cheery voice shouted at her from down the row of lockers. Rin blinked slowly and sighed. There was only one person she knew who could be so cheerful in the morning.

"Hi, Nana," Rin said through a yawn. She lazily turned to greet her smiling friend. She stared at the girl with a hint of jealousy, how could she be like this so early?

"What's the matter?" Nana asked, studying her friend's face. "Tired?"

"Yeah, how can you be so…" Rin waved a hand at her, leaving Nana to finish the sentence.

"Energetic?" She suggested. Rin nodded. "Oh, well, that's just how I am," Nana mused. The two started walking through the school to their classrooms. "You're a second year, right?" Nana asked.

Rin nodded again, "I'm in the same class as Araki, Mako and Oda." She swerved to one side to avoid a group of giggling girls coming the other way. After they had passed, she rejoined Nana.

"I thought they would put you back a grade because of the difference in schools."

She shrugged. "Dunno." They came to a stair way and Rin pointed up. "My class's up there." She and Nana waved goodbye to each other and she headed up the stairs to her classroom.

Halfway up, her phone began to ring and she pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the ID. It was Liz, who was calling; captain of the U-17 USA Women's National Team. She answered it. "Hello?"

"HI, QUEEN! HOW ARE YOU? I HAVEN'T HEARD FROM YOU IN FOREVER SO I THOUGHT THAT I'D CALL TO MAKE SURE YOU WERE STILL ALIVE!" Rin winced as soon as her captain's overly excited voice came through the speaker.

Holding the phone away from her ear, she replied in a much quieter voice, "I'm doing fine, Liz. I just haven't had a lot of time with settlin' in the new school and everything."

Thankfully, her captain seemed to have gotten the hint to lower the volume and when she spoke again, she did so in a regular tone. "That's great. I thought maybe you had fallen into the ocean and drowned, never to be found again." Snicker.

Rin rolled her eyes. "Yes, I am currently a ghost talking on a cell phone. Please, spare me." She stopped at the top of the stairs as she continued to talk with Liz.

"Oh, okay. Well, I just wanted to update you that we are going to have a tournament in Japan in a little over a month! So we get to see you again soon! And maybe you can play with us over there."

Rin stopped in the middle of the hallway and asked in disbelief, "What? Say again?"

There was an exaggerated sigh on the other side. "I said that the U-17 Women's National Team was going to Japan for the U-17 Women's World Cup. It's being hosted in Tokyo this year."

Rin nodded her head, even though they couldn't see each other. "Oh, right, I had forgotten that it was this year."

"What? How can you forget that when you came to the selection camp? Just how absent minded are you?!" Her best friend demanded.

Rin rolled her eyes. "Come on, you've known me since kindergarten, I'm really forgetful."

"Don't I know it," her friend grumbled.

Rin laughed and said, "Well, I'm about to go to class right now so I'll call you later, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, study hard, Queen." She heard her friend give a big yawn, considering it was near the middle of the night there.

"I'll try, see you, Liz." Rin said her goodbyes and hung up before slipping her phone back into her pocket. That cheered me up, she thought as she walked to class and slid open the door.

"You're late again, Ms. Faolin!" Her teacher yelled.

"Shit," she muttered.

Sorry for the slow updates, but school has been a bitch. But the first quarter has ended so I have some breathing room...for now.

I'll try to update more now that I actually have time.