Laughing. He’s laughing. So hard actually that he’s clutching his stomach and half bent over. I punched him in the shoulder.

“Ow.” He said mid-laugh. Rubbing his shoulder as he continues to laugh at me.

“Shu this isn’t funny. What am I going to do?” We’re up in his room and I’m pacing around the room wearing a hole in the floor.

“I. Cant. Believe. You. Like. You’re. Roommate.” Shu said between laughing. He’s now rolling on the floor. I picked up a pillow and chucked it at him.

“Shu! This isn’t funny! I’m going to be living with him. What do you suppose I’m going to do?” He slowly stopped laughing and started sitting up.

“Well. Did you ask for another room?”

“Yes. That’s a no go. The rooms are not interchangeable and you just have to deal what you have been given.” I mocked the grumpy guy I had spoken to about getting a new room.

“Oh, Mu this is priceless.”

“I need men’s clothes” Shu looked me over.

“So we will get you boy’s clothing.” Decision made, we headed out to buy me some new clothing; taking the school transportation, a small white bus, to the nearest town. We stopped at a small boutique and bought guys shirts, pants, and shoes. Then went over to a barber shop and had them fix my hair so it wasn’t so choppy and more like a shaggy guy cut. No one seemed to think that I wasn’t a boy, it was kind of weird and a little liberating. Mushu was a lot of help, showing me what to wear. “How do you feel?”

“Liberated.”

“I’m not surprised. Being an only child and a girl. Our family was very hard on you.” He would know he watched as my parents tried to make me into a porcelain doll. We got back to school around six and decided to head to the dining room after dropping off our stuff, to get dinner. Thankfully Chang wasn’t in the room when I got there so I didn’t have to worry about him seeing me pack my new boys clothing away. We hadn’t made it to the Dining hall earlier for lunch so when we went down for dinner it was our first time seeing it. Wooden tables were placed throughout the large beautiful room. The walls were a mix of gold and white and the floors were covered with a red carpet.

“There are so many people.” We walked around the room looking for an empty table.

“Ping. Hey, Ping.” I looked towards where my name was being called. Chang was waving at me and walking our way. “Hey Ping, do you and you’re friend want to come sit with us?”

“Ah… who’s us?”

“Some guy’s from each of our clubs.” I looked at Mushu and he shrugged his shoulders.

“Sure I guess.” We followed him and took seats at the large table.

“Ping this is Phoebus, Hiccup, John Rayan, Hercules, and Merida.” They each waved to me and smiled. I introduced Mushu and we started talking. Phoebus is a tall, muscular, blonde and has blue eyes. He’s funny and always seems to be smiling. Hiccup seems shy but likes to laugh, he’s tall and thin with shaggy brown hair and brown eyes. John and Hercules seem to be about the same size. John had brown hair and hazel eyes and Hercules is a red head with almost violet eyes. Merida’s beautiful with long curly fiery red hair and freckles that cover her nose. Deep green eyes and so spirited. The guys were telling me how she’s the queen of archery. I really liked everyone who was at the table and hoped to become good friends with them. Under the table, I grabbed Mushu’s hand and squeezed it. He ran his thumb over the back of my knuckles. He knows how worried I was about fitting in with the people here and now I think I won’t have any problems.