After claiming our luggages, Kris and I proceeded toward the greeting area. Apparently, someone was supposed to be here to meet up and show us to the school.

“Welcome to China, Kris Wu and Janice Ouyang!” was carefully written on a simple white poster, yet the handwriting was barely legible.

“Kris! Look! I think that guy is here for us!” I nudged Kris to look in the direction of the Chinese male who was holding the sign. He had a typical Asian haircut - brown hair with bangs, but his hair seemed so smooth and silky that I just wanted to pet him. Okay, that was a tad bit creepy. After staring at his hair for a while, I began to examine his face. Oh! He has a single dimple, just like me! What a coincidence. He was very good-looking and thin.

“Hey, I’m Kris, and she’s Janice. Did the school send you here to greet us?” Kris asked respectfully.

“Y-yes,” the boy nodded. “W-welcome to China! Uh…” he said awkwardly in broken English and scratched the back of his neck, “my name is Zhang Yixing.”

“You can speak to us in Mandarin,” I smiled at Yixing and then glared Kris, who smirked. Gosh, this jerk. He had better Mandarin than me, yet he spoke to Yixing in English just to flaunt his language skills. “You’re from Canada. No you have better English than some Chinese kid,” I hissed into Kris’s ear.

He grinned mischievously, “I’m sorry if I made you jealous with my beautiful language skills.”

I rolled my eyes as Yixing motioned for us to follow him to the taxi that was waiting outside the airport.

The school was not far from the airport, which was in the heart of the city, but due to the stereotypically-heavy traffic of Beijing, we ended up arriving at the school after forty dreadful minutes of sitting in the car.

There were two things of the city life  that I absolutely despised: heavy traffic and pollution that triggered my asthma; Beijing had them both. Oh great, just great. Good thing my doctor prescribed me two extra refills for my inhaler. Why was I risking my life to live in Beijing then? There were three reasons: I wanted to visit my relatives before going off to China, I wanted to have some fun before ending my high school career, and perhaps I wanted to pursue the minimal hope that I had for finding my childhood best friend.

Even if I had absolutely no chance of finding him, well, at least I had Kris here with me. People only need one best friend, right?

After arriving at the school, Kris and I each got our schedules. Apparently, to make the teachers’ lives easier, they put both of us in the same classes so they would not have to deal with American exchange students in multiple classes. Wait, why do we sound like such burdens? Oh well.

This school had small dorms for students who live far away and I applied for one when I applied for the transfer, but apparently someone canceled the application. But I didn’t...and neither did my parents...so who did?

“I’m sorry, Ms. Ouyang, it says here that the application for a dormitory room was cancelled,” Principal Pan explained regretfully.

“Wha-”

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