"Thank you for coming," Yixing shakes Sehun's hand. There is a girl beside him, well dressed in a denim skirt and semi formal shirt, smart and intelligent looking. 

"Jung Soojung, nice to meet you!" 

"I like her sense of style," Yifan mutters to Meili who raises an eyebrow at him. There isn't a particular need to mutter, he's speaking in Chinese.

"Ge, last month you thought that Choi Jinri girl was cute." 

"I'm so over Choi Jinri," he says, pushing Meili's luggage as it gets stuck. 

"Pft! When were you under her, ge?" Yifan chokes and then laughs, mildly proud of the comment.

"Did you cut your hair?" Sehun tilts his head slightly to one side, squints at her in the glaring sunlight and suddenly asks as they wait for the arrival of the airport bus. Meili blinks.

"Y-yeah…" 

"It looks nice," he smiles. "Was the flight good?" Meili can't help the smile that spreads itself across her face. 

"Thank you," she shyly mumbles, absently running a hand through her hair. "Yeah, it was cold though." 

"And don't mention the storm," grumbles Luhan darkly beside her. Sehun laughs.

She excuses herself to make a call home, leaving Luhan to talk to Sehun and notes with a smirk that Yifan is already chatting merrily with Soojung. 

"Dad? I finally made it!!" Meili's father laughs at the squeal. 

"Did you all get there?" 

"Nah dad, we kinda threw Luhan overboard halfway through… of course we're all here!!" 

"Just asking, keep us posted okay? Love you." 

"Love you too!" 

She hangs up, only to exchange a smile with Soojung who comments on the strangely hot weather and wonders how Meili still has her hoodie on.

"She's training to be a bouncer," nods Yixing sagely and it takes a while for Meili to explain to the two Koreans that she is in fact not. 

Slightly miffed by the lack of Jongin, at the airport, Meili boards the bus with the others after nearly an hour of waiting at the terminal. The attendant at the terminal had been pretty impressed with her Korean and chatted with her happily in the said language, earning 'I told you you're one of them' looks from Luhan. She grabs a seat next to her gege, with Luhan and Yixing in front of them, Song Qian and Jiayi to her left and Tao and Liyin in front of them. Yifan childishly claims the window seat and Meili is all but too glad to let him do so, knowing she would be asleep in a matter of time. For the time being Meili proceeds to flim everyone, with Yixing and Luhan being the most reluctant to say anything beyond a "hi" to the camera. 

Tao of course hogs the camera once more, while Song Qian snaps a picture of Meili's antics.

"Sehun-ssi is that peppero..?" Meili asks, loading her camera and staring at his hands with sparkling eyes. 

"Yeah, want some?" He hands the pack to her. "You can keep that." 

"Really?!" She beams at him as he nods. "Thank you!!" She turns to Yifan b with excitement. "Gege! Gege! Peppero~!! I got peppero!" Yifan rolls his eyes.

"Do you like it that much?" Says Soojung between laughs. Meili nods furiously.

"I love it!" 

"She's cute," Soojung says to Sehun in Korean. Meili hears Sehun respond in the affirmative with a laugh of his own and her ears turn warm in embarrassment but she still claps her palm and does a little dance as she opens the pack. 

"Do you know what you're supposed to do with a peppero? Too bad Jongin isn't here right."  Meili's eyes widen to the size of saucepans and then she promptly declares that her gege would be receiving none of the chocolate covered sticks that she had in her hand. Yifan steals a few anyway. Meili smacks him and then falls asleep on his shoulders while trying to identify various Hangul letters on the walls of buildings as the bus passes over the highway. 

There's a lot of dragging of luggage all over the campus of KYC, the youth hostel of massive proportions the Chinese members were to stay at. The meet Amber, the president of the Korean team and Yixing stoops to whisper,

"She reminds me of a cow…" 

"What the heck?! Prezzie! Don't be rude!" Meili hisses.

"I'm not being rude, I like cows," he nods seriously. "She looks so lost and harmless, totally a cow…" and Meili doesn't know what to do with him anymore. 

"We'll take you around," Amber offers once they find the right rooms after hours of roaming around and Meili looks at her and begins to thinks of Yixing's statement. I need to stop listening to the prezzie, she slaps herself mentally, I don't know what other weird things he'll have me thinking!

Liyin and Meili do a happy wiggle at the massive common baths, with the large hot water pools. The once again do a wiggle at the jell-o dessert at the end of their totally wiggle-worthy chicken meal, and finally the two girls head too their shared room to grab their wallets, having made plans with the others to roam around a bit. 

"It was nice of them to stay with us till dinner," Liyin remarks as she checks her reflection and bunches her hair up in her hands. "Up or down?" Meili pauses to ponder.

"Down, looks cuter." She sweeps a hand through her own bangs. "But Jongin…" she whines. 

"Aww," Liyin laughs and pats her shoulders. "You'll see—" a sharp knock sounds at the door. Liyin and Meili stare at each other before Meili opens the door. And finds no one. 

She steps out into the corridor, as the door to her room automatically closes behind her and stares down the long and empty hallway. She hears a loud conversation but can't locate the source.

"Excuse me," says a heavily accented voice beside Meili and she squeaks in surprise to find a tall, slightly heavily built girl looking down at her much smaller frame. "We just got here." 

"Huh?" Meili furrows her brows, wondering why this stranger was announcing herself. "Sorry I….?" 

"We're from Qingdao?" And it strikes Meili that they had been indeed expecting four more students— three girls and a boy. 

"Oh, hi," she says. "Did you guys just get here?" 

"Yeah! Jongin-ssi and Sunyoung-ssi just dropped us off." 

"Sunyoung-ssi and….?" Meili grits her teeth in disappointment.

"You know? Kim Jongin-ssi, they just left!" Meili doesn't like the overexcited voice and musters a fake grin in response. She hears the conversation once more emanating from the end of the hall and wonders if it's her imagination that makes it out to be Jongin's voice.

"Tell us if you need anything," she says and stalks off without waiting for a response. 

"The Qingdao peeps are here?" Liyin asks as they walk to the main gate. 

"Jongin and Sunyoung-ssi brought them here." 

"Aww, cheer up, we have tomorrow," Liyin pats her back. "Wow him then!" 

Meili rolls her eyes. Life is certainly very unfair. 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So I've decided that every time the Chinese members speak in their native, regional dialect so that no one else outside the group can understand them, I'll make the words bold and highlighted. Otherwise assume that they're all speaking in Korean or English unless it's mentioned.

R&R as always please ~ 

Xiexie :3