Chapter 22: First Friend

<Shui Yu's Pov>

We got back home and trained till dinner. The teachers unexpectedly gave us homework. It was an online tutorial, so I easily finished and wrote notes down. It's what I've already learned, so it's useless to go to school for me. I might as well just occasionally go to class when I'm bored. And the military training class is required apparently, so I'll have to go to that. When it's not in session for that class, I'll probably just go around exploring the school.

But the school is definitely interesting. Besides the weirdly designed "bus" and the horrible arrangement of plants inside the glass dome, it was finely made. Even the architecture of the school was quite amazing and made out of very durable and expensive materials. It would definitely be great for a fortress during the apocalypse.

Although the school seems more normal than we presumed, it has three types of classes, the regular one, the military training session, and the Art classes. Some students come from prestigious crafting families and they take art classes. But even art classes are divided into grade and class. If you are good enough, you can get into A classes, such as us, we're all in #A.

For Art classes, students aren't required to take it, but it's recommended. The fashion, painting and dance class sounded interesting, so I planned to check them out. The military training classes would start during the second semester, so it was still several months away.

Besides those classes, I could just stay at home, train, get more information on the zombie meat, and rest or practice instruments at home. I also need to go find the jeweler old man, but I doubt he'd have a good impression of me if I randomly ran up to him and introduced myself.

I also need to travel abroad in a few weeks to buy some things from out of the country. They aren't illegal things, it's just buying some foreign snacks, clothes, and other souvenirs. Xiao Bing has gotten into something called cosplaying and wants original costumes from Japan, so I'm going to fly over there and buy some.

The others have to stay and diligently go to school. Although I'm the second child, I'm practically their guardian. And while I'm gone, I asked Xiao Bing's poison arts teacher to babysit them just in case for a couple of weeks. I still don't know what Xiao Bing's teacher is like, so I'd better pay my respects to her after I come back from the trip.

So, for the next 2 weeks or so, I only attended some classes. By some classes, I meant the fashion, painting and dance classes I wanted to check out. I only stayed for 1 class each in the courses and decided to join the clubs instead. For clubs, you didn't have to attend until the school athletics competition or school festival arrived. Going to club meetings were still highly recommended since it helped you improve your skill in that subject with all the professional help given by club advisors.

Currently, I had safely gotten off the hyperplane, short for Hypersonic Airplane, not the quantum theory kind, and arrived at the capital of Japan, Tokyo, to go to the hotel where I reserved my room.

The streets were very different from my country's. It was bright, colorful, loud, and just somehow comfortable. Everyone seemed to be with somebody and most chatting, laughing, or smiling. It was strange to see such a people-filled place that I could fit in right away. Nevertheless, it was a nice feeling.

After checking out my room, I pulled out several thousand from the bank account I had stored up for traveling expenses and turned them into Japanese Yen.

There were many stores, confectionary stores, hairstyling shops, and a bunch of other shops as well. I decided I could go have some sweets, so I bought some cotton candy along the way. Small children near the park were staring enviously as I held the huge cotton candy mound. So I gave them the caramel candy I kept in my pocket. Those pieces of candy were extremely expensive and it slightly pained my heart to see them chewed and cracked in their mouth. They should at least savor it a little... But their smiles were bright so it made me feel a little better. Then I warned them not to take things from strangers unless your parents were with you.

They asked me, "What about you, Onee-chan?"

I replied, "I don't count, besides you've already eaten my candy. Just be careful, and I'm not a girl. You should call me Onii-san."

Greedy eyes of the children still trailed after my cotton candy, so I helplessly gave it away. I wouldn't be able to eat with all those stares.

I went into the largest manga store in Tokyo and took out 18 sheets of paper, filled from front to back each. They were filled with the titles of manga that Xiao Bing wanted to buy but couldn't due to having to spend money to transfer them over, but Xiao Bing didn't want to waste money doing that. So she requested me to go get them myself. We had enough money to transfer them but she was stingy about the smallest and most random of things.

Xiao Bing could understand Japanese a little, but not to the point of fluently reading off the pages, so I was also thinking of hiring some of those people who draw manga, mangakas(?), and get them to edit it into Chinese. Hiring about 2,000 seems to be an ok amount, no?

I successfully found all the manga that Xiao Bing requested. Some weren't being sold, and I could only trace them on the internet. Xiao Bing had called me to ask some of her friends on a chat group if I couldn't find them all since some were doujinshi, something like fan-art comics. With the help of more than 5 million people in her chat group, I was able to acquire all of them.

And I hired the people in the chat group who made professional doujinshi to edit for me after I translated the manga. I never knew that my innocent little sister would read such perverted things like these and enjoyed it...

Only a couple of pages were given to each person, and they submitted it only a day later. I checked over the content, paid them generously, and thanked them before printing the pages out in a printing shop and applying glossy covers.

Now that my mission to get manga for Xiao Bing was settled, I would go out and look for cosplay costumes.

In our small family of 4, only I would allow Xiao Bing to play dress up with me. Ge and Xiao Lai didn't want to go along and only compromised when I bribed them with less training time.

I even made a room specially designed with different types of scenery as backgrounds. We'd hire Ge who would usually take the pictures for us, and Xiao Lai was sometimes in the photos and edited them later.

I bought outfits that would fit Xiao Bing and other outfits that she tried to draw out for me but then printed out pictures of. Xiao Bing couldn't draw or cook which was frustrating to her, but she could do anything besides feminine arts.

She fought pretty well these days and her speed was only a little away from reaching 30% of mine. And I eventually showed that I was a lot more powerful than them after I saw them slacking off at training during when I was out looking for zombie meat. I gave them a lesson that they would never forget...

And instead of getting sad that he wasn't the strongest, Ge was frustrated that he was still so weak. He still trains the hardest out of the 3 of them till today. Just his brute strength is enough to match 20% of mine.

Anyway, in a little less than about a month, I bought all the snacks, clothes, and manga that Xiao Bing wanted. For Xiao Lai, I bought him small robot gadgets that looked like spiders. Ge wanted some weapons, so I bought katana, throwing stars, and throwing knives from a renowned native master blacksmith.

When I returned to China with more than 10 large suitcases, all three were waiting for me at the airport. I think they grew a little taller. Xiao Lai is about to catch up to my height and will probably grow taller than me.

"Yu Ge! Did you buy everything I asked for?" asked Xiao Bing.

"Hey! Can't you welcome Yu Ge back first?" scolded Xiao Lai while chopping onto Xiao Bing's head.

"You messed up my hair!" angrily declared Xiao Bing.

"Xiao Yu, welcome back, are you tired?" asked the ever-so-gentle and caring Ge.

"En, I'm fine. Xiao Bing, Xiao Lai, don't argue. I brought you guys presents. Let's go home."

We returned to our mansion and I brought them their presents. Apparently, in the very old times, airports didn't allow weapons, now they freely allow it as long as we tell them beforehand. Life must have been very hard in the old times.

Xiao Bing was delighted that her manga had been translated already and Xiao Lai was satisfied with the crawling robots. Ge looked at his new weapons appreciatively and swung them around lightly but with force, testing them.

I went to sleep and woke late up in the morning. I didn't notice the others' presence, so they must've gone to school. From their scent, approximately, 4 hours and 28 minutes. I also noted that there was another scent that was fading, probably Xiao Bing's teacher, so I didn't pay any attention to it. I put on my uniform and proceeded to not doze off while running to school. The car was fast, it's true, but I needed to wake myself up fully and getting some exercise wouldn't hurt. Besides, the fastest car in this world goes for only 350 mph. With all the training I do and with the memories of how fast we had to run when hordes of zombies came, 350 mph wasn't much to me. My rebirth had added some physical prowess to me after all, and not even 1,000 mph was my top speed. And as you know, that is much faster than the speed of sound.

Military training classes were starting today. If not, I would have relaxed a little more in Japan and bought more souvenirs.

When I got to class, the classroom was empty and I only saw folded uniforms on the tables. Only my seat had a camouflage black uniform on it. I dressed up quickly and headed towards where sweat was smelling from. It stank, and since I have heightened senses, it's quite torturous for me.

When I got there, the instructor was making all the students in my grade, besides the ones who had opted out with points, laps.

The buff instructor noticed me and yelled at me, "You girl, even if you have skin so pale that it's almost blue, you must finish 30 laps today!"

I paused and pondered. This was blatantly angering me, wasn't it?

After tying my hair into a ponytail, I passed by the stupid instructor and quickly whispered into his ear, "Teacher, I'm a guy."

Without stopping for a second, I quickly ran, not to my limit, very slow, about 20 mph. Of course, I finished in less than 10 minutes.

Not even breaking a sweat, I received, well more like, took, a towel and water bottle from the stunned class president. Actually, I didn't know that we even had class presidents. It was only because he had on a special badge on his lapel that I found out.

It was such a nice thing for the school to give us snacks. They had prepared a basket of food right next to the bleachers. In our class, there were many who had yet to finish, this was because our class was the top class and the students' parents probably wanted their kids to show some leadership and become stronger while at it to protect themselves.

Not many students sat on the bleachers leisurely as this year, apparently, the parents decided to toughen up the kids since these rich kids could be targeted any time. Xiao Lai told me, and it looked to be true. Only some scrawny kids and arrogant looking students sat on the bleachers.

I went up to the highest spot on the bleachers and sat down with a loud thump. I retied my hair that had reached up to my back into a bun. What a day, already being hardworking~ I ate the plums I brought from the food basket and chewed on it silently with closed eyes.

Is this what the military training course was like? This was far too easy, I should earn some points and sip out on it. This also seemed to be too easy for my siblings, but unlike me, they enjoyed school so far. Xiao Lai had his Xingxing around, Ge became popular in his grade, and Xiao Bing was steadily making friends. Err, I still had to keep the promise about making friends. There was a loophole, I could make imaginary friends.

The bleachers that were made out of metal began to creak louder by the second as a presence was coming up towards my direction.

"Excuse me student, but I haven't seen you before, what class are you in? I've never seen anyone run as fast as you!" came a nice sounding voice. It seemed the person was really interested instead of trying to make connections.

"Who are you?" It might have come off as rude, but I really didn't know this guy. Should I have said it more politely? I didn't talk with other people besides my siblings so my social interactions were quite awkward.

"Oh, I was being rude, I'm sorry, I should have introduced myself first. My name is Mo Yun from class 10A." This person was very nice and polite, and I could instantly tell that this person was inexperienced in dealing with danger with his nervous tone after calming down from his previous excited state. I could just tell. Intuition is my strong point after all. It was what got me to live as long as I did during the apocalypse.

I opened my eyes. What a cute person! Very adorable, it made you want to pamper this soft-voiced person endlessly! The boy had on huge rimmed glasses that reflected the sunlight, making his glasses shine and not letting people see his large doe eyes. He really should get rid of them. He has soft, fluffy looking black hair that was unruly and soft pale skin, pale as mine, and such a cute nose and sweet looking lips! But unfortunately, his large rimmed glasses and overgrown hair covers his face! I could only see because he had crouched down and his hair came away from his face.

As a lover of beautiful things, this person was wonderful for me to admire.

"You're very cute!" was the first thing I muttered after seeing him.

"Ah?" he asked as if thinking he had heard wrong.

"I'm Shui Yu, nice to meet you," I gave a slight smile. A person like this was worth knowing.

"Ah, yes, nice to meet you too. I feel like I've heard your name before... What class are you in?"

"I'm in your class, 10A."

"Huh? How come I've never seen you before? Wait, y-you're Shui Yu?"

I stared at him confused by what he was asking, "Yes, why?"

"You really are Shui Yu! There's a rumor that you're the unlucky 2nd child of the Shui siblings! The people who saw you called you a sickly pale beauty compared to the other healthy Shui siblings, so we all thought that you were a weak girl! But you're quite good looking, and a boy..." Mo Yun's voice trailed off.

"Thank you," finally somebody who recognizes me as a man. This person really is good. He even called me handsome. It does really feel good to be complimented... Nobody has complimented me except for being smart, but since I'm mentally over 20, doesn't really make me feel happy.

"There were rumors about how the Shui siblings all trained so hard to protect their sick sister, and there were a lot of weird theories too. But it turns out that you're a boy and you're very strong!" Mo Yun exclaimed as if having found a solution.

"En. And I'm the one who trained them. I am much stronger than the others," I tried to prove myself.

"Wow! You guys are such lucky people to be so strong. I have hemophilia, arrhythmia, and a weak body so I can't participate in this class and can only watch. Ah, I wonder if I can grow tall enough~" Mo Yun complained.

I smiled and told him, "I can help you with basic exercises if you'd like. But in turn, you must be my friend."

"Ah, ok! Then I'll be your friend from today! What should I call you from now on? Yu Yu? Shui Shui? I think both sound nice!"

Mo Yun must be the friendliest person in the world! Already thinking of nicknames!

"You can call me whatever you'd like, I'll call you Yun from now on then."

"Hm, ok, then I'll call you Yu Yu from now on! And actually, you're my first friend, so please be patient with me if I do anything weird..." Yun bashfully lowered his voice volume in embarrassment.

"You're my first friend too, so please take care of me as well," I nodded and held out my hand.

"Oh!" And with a slap, Yun high-fived me. I was actually intending to shake his hand... but that doesn't matter right now, I've actually found a friend!