10 Let's Go Through High School Again!

Andrea and Khalil were seated inside a pavilion in a garden. The former was calmly sipping her cup of tea while the latter was playing games in his phone.

"Are you sure you asked him to come here?" asked Andrea.

"I did. He's probably going to take some time. New Zealand's not his jurisdiction after all."

"Right."

The two had been waiting for Fariso, the grim reaper who helped them last time. It had been a few days since they faked Andrea's death, and the two had been staying in New Zealand since then.

A few minutes later, the grim reaper finally appeared and took the vacant seat.

"Everything's okay now. Just make sure you don't slip." Fariso reminded them.

"Thank you Fariso." replied Andrea. "Thank Thanatos for me too. I know how hard it is to convince a god of death to cover up something."

"I shall relay your words to my master." Fariso emptied his cup of tea and finally stood up. "I should go. I still have souls to reap."

They said their goodbyes and Fariso left. Khalil finally put his phone down and gave Andrea a manila envelope.

"Details of your identity." he said. "I already talked to a friend of mine and he agreed to let you use his name and family. You will be known as Li Xueyue, your first name means snow moon by the way. I remembered you telling me that you were born on the full moon of a winter solstice, so there. Your English name is Andrea Li."

"Wait, new identity?"

"You will be the illegitimate daughter of Li Weixian, a wealthy businessman in mainland China."

Andrea was reading the documents as he talked.

"Khalil, I faked my death so my family won't get involved with my troubles and now I'm going to be a part of another family? Are you kidding me?"

"You need a background you know."

"I can just be an orphan." she reasoned.

"Your majesty, if we wipe out your entire past and it remains super clean, that will be more suspicious. Humans are efficient that way."

"Really?" Khalil only nodded. "But-"

"Don't worry the Li Family is not a simple family either. Do you really think a family backed by a demon is normal and simple? Why do you think I chose them to be your family in the first place?" he gave her a wink. "Anyway, the premise will be that you have been living in New Zealand all this time to hide you from your father's family, but your mother died so he had to take you back to China."

"Hmm… That's fine I guess. So I can just say I'm not close to him since he was never really around."

"Yep!"

"By the way, can you change the age?"

"Ha? Why? I mean, you're eleven."

She sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Do you really think I want to go through the torturous years of high school again?"

"What do you mean?" Khalil asked in return, a little confused. But his expression morphed to disbelief when he realized something. "Wait, you want to skip high school?"

"What do you think?"

"Why?" he asked, and Andrea couldn't help but notice that he sounded really devastated at the news.

"What do you mean why? I already went through high school once, and the studies I underwent in my training to become a fox immortal were both enough already." she answered.

"But… but high school is the best years of one's life!"

"Why would you even think that?" Andrea was getting suspicious. "Wait Little Six, be honest with me, how many times have you been to high school?"

"Why… why would you suddenly ask that?" she only gave him a stern look. "Fine! Quite a few times in different countries."

Andrea only shook her head in disbelief.

"Auntie…"

She mused at the name Khalil called her. She remembered that he would only call him that when he was trying to be cute and was asking for a favor.

"Why do want me to go through high school again?"

"Well… you said you're not sure what profession you want right? Do you really want to head straight to university with that mindset?" he asked.

"Who said I was going to university?"

"That's not the point. Anyway, in high school you will have time to think about what you want and at the same time make friends and enjoy your life!" Andrea froze at his words. "You told me before back in Vastia, you told me your reason why you always do what you want and never to regret it."

Andrea then did a trip to her memory lane. A few hundred years after adopting Khalil, the young demon asked her why she was fond of scheming in the shadows and was very care-free of her life despite being the most powerful in the demon realm…

"Also, you always tell me to be careful of my surroundings but never forget to have fun. I just don't get it."

"Because I know how it feels to be caged." her gaze seemed distant, as if recalling a very distant memory. "I know how it feels when somebody else makes the choices for you and you have no other choice but to follow it. I know how hard it is to always trudge the path as if one wrong move and something could explode."

She patted the head of Khalil who was only listening to her.

"When I was still human, I never really enjoyed my childhood. Even my high school days were boring since I was always studying."

"You were once human?"

"That's not the case here Khalil. But anyway, always remember to have fun, okay?"

"Okay."

Andrea's thoughts were interrupted when she heard Khalil call her name.

"Yeah?"

"So Auntie, I want you to enjoy your high school years this time."

She couldn't help but smile. Back in Vastia, she had always groomed Khalil as her heir. She had refused to get married after all. She made sure he was a good leader in his own way but he had always reminded him to not be a leader that would drown on his work and would forget the beauty of enjoying the small things.

"Fine." she decided. "But you're going through it with me."

Khalil nodded immediately. Andrea visualized energy surrounded her and transformed her body to that of a fifteen to sixteen year old teenage girl. When she snapped her fingers, she had already changed into a teenager. Her black wavy hair reached her waist, her lightly tanned skin turned fair and her big round eyes turned smaller to fit the Chinese setting. She also placed a teardrop mole on her right eye and a bony tooth on the upper front-left side of her gums; features she had always liked. Her hazel eyes and the dimple on her right cheek remained though, and so did the crimson fox birthmark she had on her upper right abdomen.

"What do you think?" she asked the young demon who was staring at her with an open mouth. "Khalil?"

"Yeah? Ah, you look good. Beautiful too. I can't believe you can do that. Wait, are you sure your body is human?"

Andrea was wondering about that too.