Terminology/Vocabulary Index (Will differ each part in this story):

Shìjiè de Yánsè -世界的颜色; Means ‘World Colors’. The name of Miss Song and her husband’s travel journal.

Schnitzel Holstein – A schnitzel (fried entrée) topped with a fried egg, onions, and capers. The meat can be either veal, pork, turkey, or chicken. This is a specialty of Berlin.

Beef Sauerbraten – A roast (usually of beef or venison) that has been marinated for 3 to 4 days in a marinade of vinegar, wine, vegetables, and various spices. Marinating the meet acts as a tenderizer, resulting in tender, soft, juicy meat.

Guten Appetit – German for ‘Enjoy your meal’.

Sihk Faahn - 食飯; Romanized Cantonese for ‘Eat’ or ‘Eat Well’.

The blonde boy Mrs. Song had trusted Hyerim with led them on board an inner city subway. Hyerim rubbed her knees with her hands, warming them from the cold. She wished she’d worn pants under her uniform skirt. Yi Fan seemed comfortable in his uniform trousers and sweater.

“Basically, we get in small pairs like this and go looking for places in Guangzhou where you can experience different cultures. Mostly, that consists of food. Restaurants and tea shops and such. We go try out places we find and record our experience, along with photos. And then we put the information together for Mrs. Song and her husband’s travel journal.”

Yi Fan’s voice hummed with the subway. It was deep and hollow, comforting some of Hyerim’s doubts. Mrs. Song had sent her off with Yi Fan her very first day of the club, with close to no explanation of what she would be doing. But Yi Fan had a lulling voice and calm demeanor, that made her a little less aware of the February weather, and a little more aware of the adventure. The blonde boy seemed to know what he was doing well enough, at least as of now.

“Mrs. Song and her husband? They produce a travel journal?”

“Yep. Her husband is a pretty big journalist. He and Mrs. Song run and edit this travel journal, Shìjiè de Yánsè, and Mr. Khun works as an editor for another journal that Mrs. Song sometimes helps out with, too. They do some pretty cool things. And the club members get free copies of their journals.”

The details piqued Hyerim’s interest. The excitement tingled with each word of her Mandarin. Maybe her mother’s suggestion hadn’t been so terrible after all.

“They’re like, a journalist family. That’s really cool. Mr. Khun? Is that Mrs. Song’s husband? Is he not Chinese?”

“He’s Thai. That’s not really his name, but no one can pronounce it so we just call him that.”

Hyerim laughed. Yi Fan’s expression softened, until he joined in with a small laugh of his own. His gums tinted pink above his upper teeth. “You’ll probably meet him soon. He’s pretty active with the club, since we’re basically his worker bees.”

They got off at Shiqiao, a good forty minutes after. Hyerim followed Yi Fan through reserved, town streets. Elementary kids having just finished school were walking home in groups. Some of the little girls pointed at Yi Fan, whispering. His towering height and nest of blonde hair made him stand out, almost like a European foreigner.

Hyerim couldn’t decide if she wanted to bring up the topic she’d been so stuck on since last night, with this blonde giant. The word foreigner still stuck to her brain, as perplexing as ever. She wanted him to explain, wanted him to point out the foreignness in her. She almost pointed out the fact that with his noticeable physical appearance, he was clearly the more foreigner-like of the two. But she didn’t. Because they stepped into a dark brick building, the scent of heavy alcohol sweeping her senses. Dimly scattered bulbs replaced the subtle February afternoon sun.

“Wait… Are we at the right place?” Hyerim crinkled her nose, breathing with .

“Hello~? Welcome! Will you be eating at a table, or would you like seats at the bar?” A tall, Caucasian woman whose head reached Yi Fan’s eyes asked them, in heavily accented Mandarin.

“Umm, a table, please?”

Hyerim shot her gaze toward Yi Fan. The boy had switched to English. Flowing accent, boyish tone.

“Oh yes! A table! Please come this way!” The woman’s pale green eyes lit up. Her English was thick and blocky; Hyerim guessed her accent was either German or Russian. Regardless of heritage for the moment, it was clear that the waitress preferred blocky English over confusing Mandarin.

The woman led them to a neat table against a side wall of the restaurant. Hyerim’s mouth gaped at the European setting. The walls were impressively slick and wooden, tiny strings of lights perched on top of carved wooden knobs near the ceiling. The drink bar looked just like the ones Hyerim had seen in European movies. Torso sized wooden barrels, marked with German labels, lined one side of the back counter. A shelf stretched to the ceiling on the other side, full with bottles Hyerim couldn’t count. Glistening glasses winked at Hyerim. The bartender, a bulky Caucasian man with a puffy beard, actually did wink at Hyerim.

The waitress handed Hyerim and Yi Fan two menus, smiling brightly. Apart from them, the only customers were a group consisting of three Caucasian men and one woman at a long, back table.

“Pardon me, ma’am. My friend and I are actually here for a school related activity. We’re part of an International club at our school, and we visit unique cultural locations in Guangzhou, recording our cultural experiences with our personal accounts and photos. We publish a collection of these experiences in a city travel journal. Would you mind if we took some photos of the restaurant and the food?”

Hyerim gawked at Yi Fan’s English, cherry-topped with his genuinely polite smile. The Caucasian woman responded almost immediately.

“Of course, of course! We’re very honored that you chose our restaurant as one of the cultural places to visit! Please, please, take all the pictures you need! But first, I will be glad to take your orders.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you so much.”

Yi Fan turned toward Hyerim, his winning smile still activated, catching her by surprise. “Do you need some time with the menu?”

He had asked in Mandarin. Hyerim stared at his sharp eyes, his bushy, linear eyebrows.

The menu had the most basic Mandarin words Hyerim could possibly think of using to describe the ingredients of each dish. Under the Mandarin descriptions, Hyerim found a version of the food descriptions and their ingredients in much better, much more savory English.

Before her response left her lips, Hyerim had to suppress a laugh.

“Only because I have no idea what German food is like.” Hyerim said, her English leaving her tongue with satisfactory flow. “This is a German restaurant, yes?” She asked the waitress.

“Yes!” The waitress beamed at Hyerim.

Yi Fan raised one of his bushy eyebrows.

“Could we get some recommendations, for some more well-known German dishes?” Hyerim addressed the waitress.

The woman vigorously recommended almost every detail of both Hyerim and Yi Fan’s orders. Hyerim ended up ordering a fried chicken dish topped with fried egg, onions, and capers, and Yi Fan got a type of marinated beef dish, served with German style potato cakes. The waitress collected the menus and returned in a flash with water glasses. The corners of Hyerim’s lips wouldn’t settle down, the smallest tinge of a floating aura that she was actually in Germany, making her giddy.

“Your English is a lot better than mine.” Yi Fan said after a sip of water.

Hyerim found herself speechless again. She grabbed her water glass awkwardly, studying the dark eyebrows below the blonde boy’s forehead. He was handsome, strikingly in Asian standards. The blonde nest on his head could easily confuse for at least some European blood. That didn’t make even more sense in Hyerim’s mind. That someone with a mixture of cultural bloods, could pick her out as a foreigner.

He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her answer. After much contemplation, she decided Mandarin would be the best language to use.

“Okay, I’ve had enough of this. It’s about time we start bringing out the cultural background thing.” Hyerim leaned back in her wooden seat, arms crossed.  She wondered if her tone had been harsher than intentional. But she hadn’t been able to shake the small worry that the boy had been deriding her from the beginning.

“Cultural background thing?” Yi Fan ran his hand through his hair, a crooked smile forming on his lips. “Oh, you mean, the English?”

Hyerim sighed. “And more details about what kinds of members belong to the International Club would be appreciated, starting with yourself, if you could. It was my first day at the new school, and now I’m here, in, like… German China.”

Yi Fan’s laugh rumbled as deep as his voice, echoing against the wooden walls surrounding them.

“I was born here in Guangzhou. My mom is Taiwanese and my dad’s Chinese. We moved and lived in Canada for about 5 years when I was eleven. So those are my languages – Mandarin, Cantonese, English. Culturally, I consider myself just Chinese. As you can tell, my English is just street school kid. That’s what Canada was for me. And now, here I am, back in Guangzhou. Okay, your turn.”

Hyerim opened to argue that he hadn’t finished with her first point. But she bit it back, letting Yi Fan’s honesty sink in. They’d just met today, after all.

“I’m… Korean. Both my parents are, and I was born there. We moved to China when I was five. We moved around everywhere… and lived in Hong Kong for most of my middle school, until we moved here to Guangzhou. I went to a Canadian International School in Hong Kong, where we had to learn and use English… that’s why I have that. So I speak the same languages as you do, plus Korean. But China is… home. I only visit Korea once in a while.”

Yi Fan played with his fingers. Suddenly, Hyerim felt heat tinting her cheeks. This wasn’t how making friends was supposed to go. Pouring out biographies in scatter-worded paragraphs. And what made Hyerim blush even more, was Yi Fan’s quiet acceptance. Of her.

He smiled, crookedly. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it back, upper teeth showing, then disappearing.

“I was wondering…” Hyerim’s Mandarin seemed to trail off down . “When you used the word ‘foreigner’ yesterday…”

The German waitress glided toward them, arms laden.

“Schnitzel Holstein for the Miss, and Beef Sauerbraten for the young Sir! Guten Appetit!”

Before her plate touched the wooden table top, Hyerim’s mouth began watering. The smells caressed her and forced her stomach to become hungry. The scent of Hyerim’s food, mixed and mingled with an equally enticing scent of Yi Fan’s order, jumbled all the languages Hyerim knew in her brain.

“Wow. Wow.”

Yi Fan raised his Canon DSLR, lining his right eye with the miniature lens. Pulling the camera away, he clicked some buttons and turned gears, Hyerim peering at his practiced hands quietly. The camera raised again, emitting harsh snapping sounds. Yi Fan leaned forward dramatically to capture details of Hyerim’s Schnitzel. Hyerim watched as he caught utensils, napkins, and condiments labeled in German through his lens.

“Smile.”

Hyerim raised her eyebrows, pointing at herself. She didn’t have any makeup on. She was in her school uniform. Her hair tumbled down her shoulders.

“I wanna get you posing with your food. It’s photographic record that we actually did experience the restaurant firsthand.”

Yi Fan’s camera lens stared at Hyerim, dark glass reflecting a small, deformed version of her. Without argument, Hyerim leaned slightly toward her plate, smiling gently.

“Thanks.”

Hyerim felt heat rushing her cheeks again. Or maybe it had never left. “Do you want me to take one of you with your order too?”

The gleam of defense in Yi Fan’s eyes warned Hyerim of his answer.

“No, not today. Maybe I can teach you how to use my camera next time. If you’re okay with that.”

Hyerim didn’t know where to look. The food in front of her sang to her to reach for it. She wished she had some prior knowledge of multi-functional DSLR cameras, but she didn’t.

She gave a nod, stealing glances at the fancy Canon Rebel, its logo set in the strap around Yi Fan’s neck. His large hands pulled the strap over his neck, placing the camera lightly at the edge of the table against the wall. Its polish stood out like Yi Fan.

“Sihk faahn?”

Yi Fan’s Cantonese suited his deep, full voice, more so than the Mandarin and English she had heard him speak. Hyerim smiled, her stomach tugging her hand to grab her fork.

“Sihk faahn.”

Yi Fan dug into his marinated beef dish. The smell overpowered Hyerim. She delicately cut into her Schnitzel, taking a quiet, expectant bite, the Cantonese washing down with the new German flavor.

“How is it?”

Hyerim blinked. They had both asked each other at once. Both in Mandarin. Hyerim held back a chuckle, watching Yi Fan swallow.

“Before we start talking about how amazing this food is, about the foreigner thing. I meant it, like what we are now. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. It’s because I could see it in you, Hui-Lin, how you were like me. How you weren’t just… you know, tied down to one culture. You had different experiences behind your eyes, and you knew different languages, and each of their uniqueness.”

He spoke while his hands cut into his meat. Then, to Hyerim’s surprise, his fork moved the meat piece to Hyerim’s plate. Hyerim stared at the contrast between the small, dark beef piece Yi Fan had given her, and her own, golden brown chicken.

When Hyerim looked up, Yi Fan’s distinct, sharp eyes startled her. His thick eyebrows curved. His lips didn’t curve along, but Hyerim could see a sincere sort of warmth in his own, unique expression.

“Try it. It might just be to die for.”

Grabbing her knife, Hyerim beamed.

“And that’s also your indirect way of asking for a bite of mine too, right?”

Yi Fan reached for his water, letting out a clear laugh. After Hyerim passed a bit of her meat to Yi Fan’s plate, she tasted the beef, tongue tingling.

Sounds of admiration escaped Hyerim’s lips before she could help it. The nearly universal mannerism of not speaking when one’s mouth was full, left Hyerim. She blinked blissfully, thanking her mother for the forced joining of the club. And meeting Yi Fan. Who, snickering at Hyerim’s overjoyed brightness, scooped food into his mouth at a mechanic speed.

By the time the new German tastes filled Hyerim to the brink, she'd grown to enjoy even the floating scent of alcohol in the restaurant.

If not for the Mandarin she and Yi Fan exchanged, Hyerim would have been convinced that she had traveled to Germany for a few hours. And the pleasure in her stomach doubled, knowing that Yi Fan had exactly the same experience of the German-China that she did. The purpose of the International club made sense. And the word foreigner started making sense.

[Personal A/N:]

My sister and I just made this:

Our very own, hand-designed (burned) EXO's 1st Full Album XOXO (Kiss & Hug)!!!

To have until our pre-ordered albums come in~ (It's going to be another two to three weeks T.T)

As always, Thank you so so much for reading :)