Kaya yawned as she approached her locker the next Monday morning, her ears still ringing from the school bell, which she could have sworn was louder than usual.

Rana's locker, which was usually bulging, was suspiciously hollow sounding when Kaya accidentally banged it with her elbow, and Rana was nowhere to be seen. She wasn't on holiday, Kaya would've remembered if Rana had told her if she was going somewhere. Odd... She shrugged, grabbed her maths and tech books and made her way to homeroom.

Kaya bowed to her teacher before sitting alone at her desk. Rana wasn't in her class, so she didn't have anyone to sit with. Actually, Rana wasn't in any of her classes. Kaya was in the lowest class, while Rana was in the highest. Kaya's desk had a small anonymous conversation written on it from other classes, which she would repetitively read whenever she was bored.

Hi

Morning

It's the afternoon, dummy

No, it's 9 am

Whatever

What class do u have?

English

I got maths

I got religion

Same

Cool

Lol

Whoops the teacher saw me writing

Haha!

Not funny, I got a detention

Kaya snorted and got out her iBook. That last response was a new one. She was just about to begin a new chapter when her teacher, Sensei Amano, stood. Some students looked up, most not entirely paying attention.

"We have a new student today with us," the sensei said.

"Her name is Heidi Jones, and she's an exchange student from Europe."

Students began buzzing to each other as a slim, nervous-looking girl with sandy blonde hair and green eyes approached the front of the classroom.

"She knows little Japanese, so please help her during class. Kaya san, Heidi is in your classes, could you help her in these first few weeks?"

Kaya was surprised.

"Sure...?" she said, uncertain.

Sensei Amano gestured to Kaya, and 'Heidi' went down and nervously sat next to her. Now that she was closer, Kaya could see her in clearer detail. She had mild acne, and her teeth wore light blue braces. She had a small spray of orange freckles on her nose. Other than that, she was quite "friendly" looking. Even the tiny smile that she would let slip occasionally would be warm. And one thing's for sure: she definitely wasn't modified.

Kaya probably should've been jumping for joy, but for some reason, she felt uneasy. She would exchange small glances with Heidi but nothing more. She even was fighting the temptation to shuffle her chair a little further away from her, and she had no idea why.

The bell rang, which made both girls jump. Kaya watched carefully as Heidi opened her planner and tried to decipher the Japanese script. When she couldn't, she looked up at Kaya and gestured to her planner. What does it say?

Kaya glanced at it and saw she was in almost all her classes.

"Follow me," she said, standing.

Heidi cocked her head.

Kaya sighed. With her hands, she gestured 'standing up and walking out the door'. Heidi nodded and grabbed her things, making her way to the door behind Kaya.

The two girls were the first to make it to maths. Students walking past would give Heidi funny looks- she definitely stood out amongst a school of Japanese pupils. He eyes were so wide, and her hair looked so naturally light! Kaya could hear whispers from some of the girls passing by. Some were even sniggering. Kaya shuffled further away from this foreign girl, pretending to be fascinated by her book.

The next hour was interesting, nonetheless. Kaya got hardly any work done. She spent most of the lesson trying to explain the Kanji number system to the new girl. Wouldn't she have thought to learn the language first before she decided to live here?

Mostly Kaya was trying to show her the numbers by counting on her fingers, which got difficult when the questions asked: "five hundred and forty-two divided by eighty". Heidi would smile and try to laugh it off when they both realised that she was never going to understand what Kaya was saying. Kaya would try to, too, though it was hard to ignore the giggles from surrounding students, who had already finished their work and were passing notes right under the oblivious teacher's nose.

Kaya felt as though she were waiting days for the bell to ring.

The next subject was English, which every Japanese student was required to learn. Kaya was terrible at it, and so she couldn't help but feel downright insulted when Heidi impressed the class with her accent and her ability to decipher long sentences. Kaya thought that English was honestly a ridiculous language. Why spell enough "e-n-o-u-g-h" and not "e-n-u-f-f"? Their number's made no sense, either. They were too short. Forty-two should be "402" instead of "42". It gave Kaya a headache.

The next bell that rang let Kaya know it was recess. She stood and grabbed her things swiftly before rushing out the door, poor Heidi having to jog to keep up. She was asking Kaya something in her language, but Kaya didn't understand a word, so she just kept walking.

At recess, Kaya found Rana in her usual spot. She'd "accidentally" left Heidi at the lockers, but she will find her. Eventually... Probably not...

"Hi, Rana," she said, sitting down.

"Hey!" came the reply. "They made me move lockers today. A new kid must be here."

"Yeah... " Kaya said. "Her name was weird... something like "Hay-doo... or Hie-die..."

Rana laughed.

"I haven't heard any name like that before, and I know almost everyone at Tokyo high!"

"She's an exchange student,"

"Ooo! Where from?"

Kaya shrugged.

"Dunno," she said, "I think Europe..."

Rana sniggered.

"What does she look like?"

"Um... oh, she's over there!" Kaya said, pointing to the blonde haired girl reading under a tree, chewing a sandwich,

Rana and her friend Asako giggled.

"She's got braces!" Asako said, pointing.

Kaya licked her teeth. She had braces in year five...

"She looks so weird!" Rana laughed. "Look at her eyes!"

"Yup..." Kaya vaguely agreed.

"Well, let's go talk to her, shall we?" Rana said.

"Oh, er, you can go ahead, I'll just be here-"

"Naw, come on, Kaya! We need you to introduce us!" Rana said grabbing her elbow and dragging Kaya along. The girls approached Heidi.

"Hello!" Rana said.

Heidi didn't look up.

"Uh, helloooo? Anyone home?" Rana bent down and waved her hand in front of Heidi's face. Heidi, surprised, looked up. Rana stood again, dusting off her skirt.

"Now, that's more like it. So rude," Rana remarked, shaking her head. Asako nodded in agreement. Kaya shuffled about awkwardly.

"What's your name?"

Heidi gave them a confused look and said something in her language.

Rana rolled her eyes dramatically.

"Your name!" she pointed to herself. "Rana! Me, Rana!"

Heidi gave her a look as if she finally understood. She pointed to herself.

"Heidi," she said.

"Well, now we're getting somewhere!"

"Slow, isn't she?" Asako giggled.

"Um, yeah. She should've, um, learnt some stuff before she moved here," Kaya tried to remark.

"I know, right?" Rana sniggered, nudging Kaya's arm as if to say good one! Kaya felt herself beam. Then she felt shocked. Wait, what? I feel good? But aren't I being mean? Oh, 'course you're not! Doing the wrong thing doesn't right! Yeah... well, she should have learnt at least a bit of the language before she came... It's her fault.

Heidi was giving them all a funny look. She couldn't tell what they were saying, but she knew whatever it was, it wasn't friendly.

Rana opened her mouth again, ready to let the comments fly, but the bell rang out, drowning her next words in noise. All she could do was give a smile sickeningly sweet, turn on her heel with a flick of her vivid red hair and walk off. Saved by the bell Kaya thought as she followed the other girls off, taking a sneak over her shoulder to see Heidi, expressionless, closing her book and walking off to her locker.

* * *

"Ow! Kaya san, please be gentler, it hurts!" Tenshi whimpered as Kaya wiped disinfectant on Tenshi's bleeding knee at the train station. Kaya had tripped over her two left feet and stumbled onto Tenshi, who grazed her knee.

"Hold still, Tenshi," Kaya said as she rubbed the dirt off her knee. All she could think about is how her mum was going to kill her. She would lose her marbles every time something remotely bad happened to Tenshi, but when Kaya's clumsiness was responsible for it? Big trouble.

The train pulled up to the station as Kaya helped Princess Tenshi aboard.

"Back seat, please!" she demanded with a smile. Kaya rolled her eyes, leading her sister to the back seat before walking forward and sitting fourseats away from her, pulling out her ibook and plonking herself on the seat.

"Kaya san, come sit with me! We could have the back seat all to ourselves!" Tenshi exclaimed excitedly.

"Tenshi, I'm not in the mood,"

"Aw, pleaaaassseee?"

Kaya sighed. As much as she wasn't in the mood to sit next to Tenshi, she was even less in the mood to have her nagging her to move the entire trip. She stood and dragged herself over to where Tenshi was sitting, sitting down and shuffling over and away from her as far as possible.

Tenshi didn't get the hint. She left her bag on the floor as slid herself over to Kaya.

"Hello!" she said perkily. Kaya looked the other way.

"Hi," she said.

"So, Kaya san, how was school?"

"The usual... " Kaya said, although her day had been anything but normal.

Tenshi was silent for a few moments. Then she whispered;

"Kaya san, aren't you going to ask me how my day was?"

"Oh, um," No, she thought, lifting her water bottle to her lips to drink. "How was your day...?"

"Oh, wonderful, thank you!" Tenshi beamed. "I made a new friend!"

"Cool-"

"His name is Haru!"

Kaya swallowed her water before she could spray it out.

"That's dad's name-"

"I know! That's what I told him! He thought it was funny. Then we started talking. Oh, and guess what?"

Kaya sighed again

"What, Tenshi,"

"He has a sister called Kaya, too!"

"Oh, um. Cool..."

"Except she's his younger sister. Imagine if I were your big sister and you were my little sister! That'd be funny!" Tenshi giggled.

Kaya shivered. That would not be funny. To have Tenshi to be older than her and a perfect, modified alien? No. Way.

The train screeched to a stop and Kaya looked out the window. It was their stop. Kaya groaned, hoping her sister wouldn't mention the grazed knee...