“Jolin? Why does Rainie live in the dorm?”

We sat in the cafeteria and drank smoothies.

“Don’t know. I think she always has. Like, her parents died or disowned her or something, and then she was kind of adopted by the organization,” Jolin answered.

There was silent for some time, and I think we both sat in deep thoughts.

“Another thing I’ve wondered,” I took the word again, “is; who are Z3 and Z4?”

“Our two strongest female Soldiers. But I’ve not had the pleasure to meet them, unfortunately. Why do you ask?” she smiled.

“Well, let’s sum up; Z5, Z6, Z7, Z8 and Z20 were killed. Z19 and Janosch – Y13 – were put to endless sleep but then woken up. I know that Master Na is like, the boss, and Z2 is Aaron’s father. I was just wondering, since BB tends to go after our top Coders.”

“You have a good memory.”

“I’m good at writing lists.” I pulled out a small notebook from my pocket. The first night in the dorm, I had decided to write everything I knew down. Just to create some comprehensive view.

“Oh. I never thought of that.” Jolin took the notebook and looked through it. “I can help you gather the missing details.”

“That was just what I was hoping for; I don’t have that much to do while staying here. Those nurses won’t let me stay in the hospital for more than half an hour per visit.” We exchanged understanding smiles.

“Then let’s go training?” Jolin suggested.

“Uhm… I just saw that Z11 [A/N: Jiro] was using the duel hall with those two other guys, so maybe we should wait…”

“No, then we should hurry up! It’s been too long since I last saw Jiro!” Jolin smirked and dragged me along.

Aaron was feeling much better, and the doctor had been as gracious as to let him walk around the dorms with me.

I think it had been a good experience for him to be the weak, vulnerable one; he was in a much lighter mood than usual, and we had nearly reached the point where I could teach him to joke around – a thing he wasn’t really good at.

The only mood crasher was whenever his father came to visit him, and I was forced to leave. They had long conversations, and Aaron’s mood went down by a mile whenever it happened. Not only his father, actually, as many other top Coders came to speak to him about serious stuff. It was like only I saw Aaron’s relieved expression as soon as they left.

“I’d wish they’d leave me alone. Don’t they realize my brain needs to recuperate too?” he said in an annoyed tone.

“Should I leave you then?” I asked.

“Never!” He grabbed my arm tightly like he was afraid I’d disappear.

“Take it easy, I was just joking,” I laughed.

“…Oh.” But he didn’t let go of my arm.

It was now Friday night, and I couldn’t believe how fast the week had gone by. This afternoon I had had the pleasure to totally beat up Jiro in a battle in front of Jolin, Rainie, Selina, Hebe, Ella, Chun, Calvin and Master Na. Quite a big audience. We had made some kind of duel-tournament for fun, with Master Na as judge. Rainie had literally wiped away all of us, but I was quite satisfied with my 2^nd place.

Just when I was about to take a shower in my dorm room, I realized I had forgotten my bag. I used the tunnel system to get back to the duel hall. I would actually praise myself and say that I was getting quite good at using it.

When I reached the hall, I heard voices inside. It sounded like the group I had just left, but I thought they had left too.

When I opened the door, they immediately stopped talking. I looked wondering at them.

“What are you guys doing here? I thought you’d left,” I said. They skewered to each other.

“We just had to discuss something before going home. Here, you forgot your bag,” Jolin quickly excused, gave my bag to me and dragged me back to the dorm, leaving the rest of the group in the hall.

“What were you discussing?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing. We’re just planning to host an all-organization duel tournament; just like the one we had today, but with all our Coders. Then we could part it in categories, and…”

She kept talking until we reached my room, where she said goodnight and left. To be honest, I didn’t believe they were talking about duels.

“Aaron? What do people come and talk to you about?” I was sitting on his hospital bed and playing with his hair while he was reading. Without looking at him, I could sense that he stopped to think.

“You know, just… everyday stuff. There are always a lot of small issues we need to take care of. Remember the fire in the supermarket yesterday? Two of our Coders had duelled with three from another organization, not very serious, but it ended badly. We just have to solve problems like these.”

I looked down.

“I feel that something’s wrong, and everyone knows it except me,” I sighed.

“Don’t speculate that much about it.”

“Please. It has been many months since I was a little girl who didn’t care about anything except my secret crush and that my friends got wasted every weekend. I need to know what’s happening.” I flexed my jaw muscles and looked out of the window.

Aaron caressed my cheek.

“I think I’ll be ready to leave the hospital ward tomorrow, but I’ll still have to live in the dorm. My father demands me to,” he said.

“I was actually thinking of going home this afternoon, but I didn’t know if I could leave you yet,” I looked asking at him.

“I think it’ll be okay. You have to see your parents, of course. But you’ll come over here every day, right?” His eyes begged me to answer positively, so I did.

Just when I had packed my stuff, someone knocked on my door. I shouted for them to come in, and Hebe stuck her head inside.

“Hey! Are you going home already?” She sat down on the bed in the room. I nodded.

“Yeah, I bet my parents are worrying about me. At least my friends cover up for me,” I smiled while closing my suitcase.

“Oh… Okay then. But hey, you have to visit us every day, right?”

“I’ve already promised that to like, three different persons. Of course I will. I also have to attend the duel tournament next week, right?”

“Yeah, of course. Well, have a safe trip home, I think I’ll try to find Selina and Ella…”

“Mom! Dad! I’m home!”

“Finally, honey! We’ve missed you so much!”

And the next thing I knew was that both of my parents bear-hugged me at the same time.

“Dad! I can’t breath…”

“Sorry, sweetheart.”

They let go of me, and called someone to take my luggage to my room.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were going on vacation? We got a shock when Mr. Tang [A/N: Danson, if somebody didn’t know ^^,] suddenly showed up on our doorstep,” my mom started to nag. I smiled.

“He suddenly invited me to go on the trip, so I didn’t know earlier either.” I hated to lie, but sometimes I had to.

“Well, as long as you’re home…” My mom hugged me again, but then looked seriously at me.

“Honey, we have to talk about something.”

“What?”

“Your marriage.”

“Oh… Well, uhm. The thing is, that…”

“Alien told us everything,” my father broke in. I looked surprised at him.

“Everything?” I was getting a bit nervous. “Exactly how much?”

“That you two broke up, and why. Xiao Jie, it’s not good to go that quickly from one boyfriend to another.” My mom made me sit down in a chair in the living room before she and my dad sat down in the sofa.

“I…” I didn’t know what to say.

“You know how we like Alien, and it was really sad to see him heartbroken,” my father added. I looked down.

“I-it’s not that I don’t like Alien, it’s just that… he’s more of a friend, and… It’s really hard to explain.” I bit my lower lip.

“You’ve been so distant lately, dear. What’s going on? Who’s your new boyfriend? Is it him who’s dragging you away from us?” My mother looked worried at me.

“No. I mean, kind of yes, but not really. His name is Aaron, he goes to my school…”

“Oh, if it’s Aaron Yan, then we know him,” my father suddenly said.

“…You do?”

“Yes. But if it’s him, then I think we need a serious talk.”

But before he could start his serious talk, that I was scared almost to death by, my phone rang. I excused myself and went out of the room before picking up.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Oh, Danson! Thanks for all of your help,” I smiled even though he couldn’t see it.

“I hear you’ve come home. Shouldn’t we meet up soon?” he asked.

“Of course. But… I’m a bit busy right now.”

“It’s okay, just meet me in the park whenever you’re free. I’ll wait.”

“I think it’s going to take a pretty long time…”

“That’s okay, just take your time, it doesn’t matter. See you,” he jollily said, and hung up. I wondered why my friends were such weirdoes.

It was nearly all dark when I finally left the house to meet up with Danson. I wiped the last tear away from my cheek before putting on my hat and gloves. It was getting colder, and the trees had almost no leaves left. I had a feeling it was going to be a really cold winter.

Danson was waiting at the entrance of the park, and I ran the last distance.

“Hey girl. Why are you crying?” he immediately asked me.

“I’m not.”

“Then why are you eyes red?” He looked worried at me.

“Oh… well… the cold weather always makes my skin so dry. It’s nothing.”

“No, just a bad excuse. But if you don’t want to talk about it, then I won’t ask. The thing I called you here for is something completely different – I have to tell you…”

My phone again showed its inconvenient habit of starting to ring at the most important moments. I picked it up, very annoyed.

“Who is it now?” I asked harshly.

“Gui Gui, they’re calling everyone to the head quarter. Something bad has happened, really bad I think. Be here in ten minutes.” Jolin hung up before I could manage to say anything.

I looked at Danson with a pitiful expression.

“Sorry, I have to leave, something important came up. We have to meet up later, okay?”

“No, wait, it’s really important, it’s about Alien and S-…”

“Bye!” Right at the moment, I felt that I couldn’t care less about Alien’s doings.

I ran as fast as I could through the park, as I only had ten minutes to reach the head quarter.

What could have happened? Was it something about Aaron…?

“Even!”

“Ella! What’s happening? Jolin just told me to…”

“Come on!” Ella grabbed my arm and led me to a tunnel, and in no time we had reached the conference room. I suddenly remembered the first time I stood in this hall – and all the things that had happened since…

The room was totally stuffed with people, but Ella dragged me through the crowd to the back of the room, where we found eight persons we knew very well, including one that I immediately ran forward to hug.

At least Aaron wasn’t hurt.

While I kissed him in relief, Ella took part in the others’ heated discussion.

“…happened? Why isn’t Master Na here?”

“Maybe they’ll speak to us soon…”

I let go of Aaron, grabbed his hand and asked him the same question.

“Why isn’t Master Na here?”

“I can’t find my father either. I wonder what’s happened…?”

The same moment, a strong voice drowned out all the noise.

“Attention, please!” It sounded like it came from speakers, except I couldn’t see any.

The crowd quieted down immediately, and we looked up at a man who stood on the table in the middle of the room. I soon recognized him as… Jack.

“Attention, all Soldiers. I have some very important pieces of information.

First of all, a lot of Soldiers have been promoted to a higher Code. The lists will be hung up everywhere in the head quarter. But most importantly, we have some new top Coders:

First, Aaron Yan is now known as Z5, while Rainie Yang will be known as Z6.”

I dropped my jaw, and so did Aaron. He squeezed my hand a bit tighter. Rainie just smiled in a very mysterious way.

“Next are Even Wu as Z7, Ella Chen as Z8, Jiro Wang as Z9 and Hebe Tian as Z10. You can read the rest of the list on your own…”

I seriously felt like I was going to faint, even though I had passed that stage in life.

Z7? How. The. Hell?!

A top ten?

But more importantly; why all these promotions? What had happened?”

Jack gave me the answer:

“The reason for these promotions is first of all that the previous holders of these titles have been murdered, second that we need a strong circle of commanders; the thing is, we’re going to fight. A war will break out soon.”

***

Uhm… I won’t comment on how long it took me to update, cuz it’s just embarrassing >.<

Instead, I’ll comment on how great my readers are, and how nice they are at writing comments <3 They all make my day(s) so much brighter, and are always very heart-warming and encouraging to read :3 I love you guys!

Ooooo, a lot of GuiLun here. Like, compared to normal at least xD

What are all these things that are happening? What did Gui Gui talk with her parents about – that made her cry?

What did Danson want to tell her?

And now a war is coming up. I found the first part of this chap pretty boring, so I thought like; “Okay, I have to start something wicked now! 8D.” I, uhm, hope the chap was good enough to make up for the long wait :/

Yay! It’s Christmas Eve soon :D ! In Denmark, we celebrate Christmas Eve far more than Christmas Day. We get the gifts in the evening too ^^,

Last year I wrote a (GuiLun) fanfic like a Christmas calendar, and I just thought I’d promote it a bit due to this holiday season. On Winglin it’s /ChristmasDream, and you can find it on Asianfanfics too (“A Christmas Dream”). Winglin is being a cheese-sausage and won’t let me open the front page, which is the reason why I’m only uploading this chap on Asianfanfics -.-‘

Anyways, please comment&subscribe, I’m happy for every single piece of response :]

And thank you all for reading! It really means a lot <3

- Blitz