Benjamin lies on his bed, still incapable to accept what has happened today. Heavy breaths, the sounds of making dinner emitting from the kitchen, and the wind outside his room are the only things he can hear.

He turns to his left side, facing the wall. Benjamin calms down for a moment, attempting to nap after a long day. However, all the thoughts about having to depart from his home in a few hours keep him wide awake. He curls up in his blanket with a racing heartbeat.

This is making me nuts. Why can't everyone just mind their business? I never wanted to spend a year in Japan! Who do they think I am? Some sort of outgoing brat who socializes every moment they can? My Japanese linguistic skill should get me through with ease. I probably shouldn't do much, either way, so nobody bothers me. The fewer people interact with me, the more I can focus on getting this program to an end quickly.

Completely bored out of his mind, he flips back and grabs his phone. Benjamin sees a mountain of unanswered phone calls from his friends. More than a dozen from Simon and a couple more text messages from Juliane. He takes a deep sigh. With all the tumult going around, be can't be bothered to answer them right now. He places his phone back on his left side and covers himself under the blanket again.

The sun went over the horizon and the evening sets. A couple of suitcases stand next to Benjamin's bed. They are full of german snacks and video games, essentially the things he either can't get in Japan or things he felt the need to bring with him.

The checklist he has been provided with lies on his nightstand to his right. He hasn't looked at it since Mrs. Schulz gave it to him. Although it would provide him with the necessary information to breeze through his year in Japan, looking at it now would only increase his frustration.

After a while, Benjamin removes the blanket from himself and opens his eyes.

"Sure took you a while, dumbass," says Simon as he stands over Benjamin's face with a disappointed look. The whole group of Emre, Juliane, and Simon stand in his room.

"Argh! Wh-What are you doing here?" Benjamin jumps up from his bed and nearly hits his head on the wall behind him.

"We had to come over after we read the school's news board."

"Jesus, you scared the crap out of me! Have you guys ever heard of the word privacy? It's a great word that you should get into your thick heads!" He says as he points toward his friends' heads. Emre shakes his head and looks at Benjamin with a frowning expression.

Juliane plumbs herself straight to the ground and promptly takes a book out of the bookshelf. She can be distant at times, the group knows this and yet the three boys are astounded every time she decided to come with them. She skims through the pages of a book named "Dreaming Out Loud." Juliane is a fast reader, the best of the whole class, but people are unsure at times if she is actually reading or just pretending to avoid speaking to people.

"We did call you over a dozen times. However, it seems you had better things to do, like sinking yourself into that bed," says Emre.

"Oh I'm sorry, but I just found out I'll be spending a whole year in Japan! I'm sorry if I'm emotionally not available."

"Look, I'm sure this came unexpected. And we don't expect you to be over the moon about it. But don't you think you're overrreacting?"

Benjamin lets himself fall onto his bed again. He lets out a deep sigh and rubs his eyes.

Emre looks around the room and finds an open package of sweets. His eyes widened and he grabbed it and asked Benjamin: "Dude, can I have some of these?" It's common for Emre to waltz into Benjamin's house and grabs anything that has "food" written on it. The group often jokes about Emre only thinking with his stomach and not with his head.

"Sure, knock yourself out...I mean that literally, please knock yourself out," says Benjamin while hugging his pillow. Emre stops before putting the first candy into his mouth. He slowly places the package back in its original place.

"Someone's having a bad day," says Emre.

"Tell me about it," Benjamin responds, still hugging his pillow. He gradually turns to his friends and stares at them with dead-tired eyes.

Simon walks up to Benjamin's bed and sits on it directly next to his legs.

"Either way, you can't change what's done. You're going overseas and studying at a new high school. The only thing you can do is go with the flow," says Simon.

Benjamin rolls his eyes and says: "Oh don't give me that." The last thing he needs to hear is how someone tells him to "go with the flow." Another sentence that he thinks is overrated.

A pause occurs, and after a while, Juliane grabs the checklist that lies on the nightstand.

"I heard they gave you exchange students a checklist. Why don't we take a look what you gotta acomplish in a year..."

Emre, Simon, and Juliane sit together on Benjamin's bed. But he angles himself to face the wall again.

"Alright, the first one is 'Try a new Japanese dish.' This should be easy for you, just walk into any restaurant," says Juliane.

This would be indeed a child's play. It doesn't specify a Japanese dish, so anything should be fine. Japan has a variety of meals to offer. In that case, Benjamin could just walk to the nearest convenience store and grab something. Although after a long thinking process, he doubts that the school would let him off that easy by just purchasing a pre-cooked meal from a nearby convenience store. Benjamin seems to have to be a bit more outgoing than he usually is in order to achieve the task.

"What? One of your tasks is simply eating? How are you not enjoying this?" Emre grabs Benjamin by the collar. One could say that Emre starts to think with his stomach again. By the clueless expression on his face, he doesn't exactly understand the question. How can he? When food is involved, the only human on this planet who knows the topic like the back of his hand is Emre. The brown eyes of his practically turn into two little hamburgers.

Emre points at a different task and raises his voice: "Dude look at this, 'Spend time with the locals.' Are you gonna be a babysitter or something?"

Benjamin looks at Emre with a bewildered expression.

"How did you come to that conclusion?"

"Well, I don't know- Maybe they'll try to get you to babysit some kid to get to know how the japanese youth works?"

"That's incredibly stupid," he says and faces the wall again. The thought of him having to babysit some random Japanese kid was completely out of his mind. Although he does have some cousins from his maternal side, they have all already grown up or are the same age as he is. He never dealt with kids before, and quite frankly he doesn't want to. Benjamin doesn't have any younger siblings, so he wouldn't even have a reference point as to how to babysit a child. He quickly dismisses the thought, thinking he can just spend time with the neighbors. This would be far more achievable and not as annoying as a little kid.

Someone is knocking at the door. It is Frederic. He stands in front of the door with a mountain of documents regarding the new high school Benjamin is supposed to attend. He spent over an hour trying to get as much data as possible that would hopefully aid Benjamin. Benjamin lets him inside and is greeted by the group with waving hands.

"I have gathered the nessesary information about the new your high school."

Benjamin sits up from his long cycle of turning himself to the wall and looks at Frederic. He scooches in between Emre and Juliane and grabs the checklist. Both look at him as he throws the list under the bed. Benjamin doesn't address the situation much and proceeds to tell Frederic to hand over the documents.

"Let's see what we have here...The name of my new high school: Tatsuya High School. Not very special I guess."

"Look at the school uniforms! They kinda look nice," says Juliane as she points to a picture of the Tatsuya High School's uniform. Both boys and girls wear red suits, with the boys having yellow-withe striped ties and the girls ribbons.

Benjamin makes an irritated facial expression as his eyes come in contact with the shots of the uniform. He has never worn a uniform in his life and now he has to.

Rheingard Private School lets their student wear whatever they want in correspondence with their motto "express and be yourself." Benjamin calls it bragging but the school has high hopes that this will teach the students to become the best version of themselves. Every time he thinks back about the enrollment day when he got to Rheingard and heard that motto for the first time, he almost wants to puke.

They all look through the different information about Benjamin's new high school while cracking jokes and trying to get him to like his new environment. However, their efforts are in vain, as he dismisses and refuses to find any joy in the exchange program.

"You're hopeless. I mean, c'mon! Don't you think you'll enjoy your time over there at least a little?"

"No," snaps Benjamin back at Simon's face. His face says anything but joy. Simon crosses his arms and closes his eyes. After some thinking, he stands up and turns to Benjamin.

"Are you really going to weasel your way through the entire year by just trying to finish the checklist as quickly as you can, without having fun or gain new experience from it?"

Benjamin points with his finger at him and looks at him as smug as a raffle winner.

"Precisely," he says.

"Tch, if you think that's going to work then be my guest. But if I were you, I'd have so much fun and try to live a little."

"Look, if you're going to lecture me on how to get this checklist done, why don't you put your ideas in my 'Idea Box' in the corner," says Benjamin as he points into a corner of his room.

"B-But that's a trash can," replies Emre confused.

"I know."

Suddenly, a message pops up on Benjamin's desktop. All of them glance over to his messy desk.

"An email? From whom?"

"What does it matter?" says Benjamin. He tries to walk out of his room but not before looking back one more time at Simon, who strolls over to his desk. Simon walks up to his computer and clicks the email open. Benjamin doesn't intervene much and thinks nothing of the email he just received.

"It's an email from your assigned student," says Simon.