Free Shadow by Amanda Sun

backward on the chair in front of me, her shoulder-length hair pulled up in a messy bun. “And they don’t want to get attached in case we all cry when you leave.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    “But I heard you’re permanent. Is that true?”
    Maybe? No—I couldn’t think like that. I just had to survive until I could go home. This world was too foreign for me. Mom was right to stick to home soil.
    “For now,” I said.
    The girl raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. She smiled. “I’m Watabe Yuki,” she said, using her last name first.
    “Katie Greene,” I said. “Wait, I mean, Greene Katie? From Albany. Well, New York.”
    “You can call me Yuki.” She smiled. “That’s more what you’re used to anyway, right? And I’ll call you Katie. You don’t have to reverse your name. We don’t expect you to.”
    “Okay,” I said. She spoke slowly, making sure I understood her.
    “Suzuki-sensei asked me to help you get settled into class,” she said, and my heart fell. So she was only being nice because she had to be. But then she waved a hand back and forth.
    “ Chigau yo ,” she backtracked. “I didn’t mean it like that.” She switched to English. “Someday I want to be a famous designer and live in New York. So let’s be good friends, okay? Then I can speak English better and we can help each other.”
    She spoke well already, but I nodded as she grinned.
    “ Ohayo !” yelled a boy as he entered the room. Yuki turned her head and then pushed herself upright, the chair legs squeaking against the floor.
    “Tan-kun!”
    “Ohhhh, Yuki-chan!” Tan-kun shouted, striding toward her. He pushed his black-rimmed glasses up with the back of his hand as he approached. His hair stuck up in short, spiky angles, and he was tall and skinny, his smile broad and confident. “So you’re in this homeroom, too? Yokatta ne! Thank god. I feel so shy on my first day!”
    Somehow I doubted that was true. It was hard to follow all the slang they used, but I was pleased to understand fragments at least. They chatted and laughed for a minute before Yuki remembered my existence.
    “This is Tanaka Ichirou,” she said, waving her hand up and down like he was a prize on a daytime TV show.
    “Hi Tan-kun,” I said, and they exchanged a worried glance.
    “Um,” Yuki said quietly, leaning toward my ear. “You don’t really know each other yet. Maybe ‘Tanaka’ for now, okay? It’s more polite.”
    My face blazed red and the humiliation stung. “Oh god. I’m so sorry.”
    “ Heiki , heiki ,” Tanaka smiled. “No problem.”
    “Don’t worry, we’ll help you.” Yuki grinned. “And Tan-kun, this is Katie Greene from New York.”
    “Oh!” he said, waving a hand in the air. “New York? Like with the Statue of Liberty and Central Park and everything?”
    “Uh, not exactly. I’m just from the state—from Albany.”
    “Ah.” His face fell.
    Wow. Ten minutes in and I’m a disappointment already .
    “Tanaka and I went to the same junior high,” Yuki said. “We took the entrance exam for this senior high school together.”
    “And of course I scored higher.” He grinned.
    Yuki smacked his arm. “You did not!”
    “Jealous!”
    They flailed at each other as I sat awkwardly watching them. Yuki was sweet, but Tanaka was so loud. He spoke rapidly with a lot of slang, and I found him harder to understand than Yuki. I hoped Diane was right about the learning curve, because I needed fluency to kick in right...now.
    Damn. Nothing.
    A chime trilled in the speaker above us, and a moment later Suzuki-sensei walked in. Everyone scurried to their desks, the room falling silent.
    “Good morning,” he barked. “Welcome to Suntaba. I’m your homeroom teacher, Suzuki Kentaro.” He turned his back to us and scrawled the kanji for his name on the board. I grabbed my pen and scribbled the name in the corner of my notebook so I wouldn’t forget the kanji. “I also teach math, so we’ll be together for that class.