Out of all 14 buildings, the dining hall was the only one they weren't given a full tour of. On the outside, it looked like every other building, intricate and with a heavy European and Roman influenced design.
So when they entered and noticed rows and rows of shoes, they were confused, didn't they wear shoes in European restaurants? Maybe it was for cleanliness.
How wrong she was.
The moment she and her team stepped into the dining hall, it was if she had returned to her home continent of Asia. Although there weren't any paper walls, the detail put into the dining hall screamed Eastern Asia.
The floors were made with wood, and the seating consisted of pillows instead of chairs. For lighting, they used paper lanterns and warm yellow bulbs instead of the standard LED lights.
Tables were arranged in long, rectangular rows, side to side, in total, there 18 tables with 50 seats on each side. There were an extra fifty seats, which she assumed was for any staff members that may wish to join them.
Three other teams were already inside chatting among themselves, not caring that they had just entered.
In an upper-classmen point of view, the seniors should take the lead and pick their seats, but their seniors were a bit out of it.
. . . .
Flashback #1
Long Ao*singing*: We're gonna get married~~~~
Wenshi: You wish.
Marong: Like hell!
Seven other seniors: Long Ao and Wenshi sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,
Chang Bo Ye (one of the seniors; female): First comes love~
Wong Hueyun(female): Then comes marriage~
Everybody: Then comes a baby in a baby carriage~~~~!
. . . .
Flashback #2
Duan Xuefei: Who wants to be my wing woman and help me get a boyfriend?
Her brothers Duan Shen and Duan Tian: We do!
Xuefei: You two aren't even female!
Kang Xi Tang (male): You can put makeup on them like you used to
Xuefei: You have no say in this matter! You're supposed to be my future boyfriend! They'll kill you if they find out, not helpful at all!
Hueyun: Stupid, you said that right in front of your brothers! Now they know who your future husband is!
Xi Tang: I like you too, Feifei! Let's get married!
Xuefei: I do!
Huang Feifei (Fourth-year female): Did someone say my name?
. . . .
They really held a fake wedding as you would during recess time in kindergarten. In case you were wondering.
And so, the responsibility was given to the fourth-years, who graciously passed the opportunity to them. They then offered the choice to the second years, who later allowed the first years to run about and pick their seats.
Just like that, they found themselves sitting the closest to the dessert bar, not that she was complaining, just the sight of the piles of sugary delights was making her drool, of course, she couldn't show that face to her classmates, it would totally ruin her image.
While Yaorui was busy concealing her inner desires, Hu Angli was struggling not to laugh out loud at his best friend's "hidden," desires.
Hu Angli sat the farthest from the center-right next to Yaorui on the border between his team and another. While their group sat packed together near the end, that didn't stop the first years from firing question after question at the three Li siblings.
"Li Aishi, can you help me with my watch? I don't know how to work its functions,"
"Li Yaorui, can you give us a few study tips? Or maybe life tips as well,"
"Senior Li, I always thought that you were serious and scary, but today you shattered your image,"
"That's because all of your fifth-year seniors here are 5 year-olds with 12 years of experience," Long Ao puffed his chest with pride while the other fifth-years applauded at his expert answer.
"Hey, you hear that? That means when we get old, and our children call us grandpas and grandmas, we can just say we're five-year-olds with lots of experience! Young forever!"
According to their tour guide demon, only 8 different groups have arrived so far, including them. The rest of the teams were expected to show up in the next three days.
Meaning that in the next few days, the school would become busy with all the different teams arriving from all over the world. They'll probably run into a few groups in the shopping district tomorrow. The team wanted to get a better look at things and purchase some food and groceries for the coming days.
The day after, they were planning to have another go at the school to familiarize themselves more. Preferably, without sweat running down their foreheads.
While the team debated on what to do in the coming days, another team entered through the foyer. It was a western group, you could tell by the number of blonds and brunettes in the group. They wore bright red uniforms, and travelled in a disorderly manner, they walked in clumps rather than lines like they did.
The team moved to sit at the other half of their table.
All of a sudden, she was glad that she accepted Angli's insistence to sit at the end instead of her.
She glanced at both Jiexu and Angli to see if they were uncomfortable and noticed that they had yet to notice. Instead, the two were engaging in a cryptic conversation regarding...cars?
They were honestly speaking jibberish using car brands in random orders, for example:
Jiexu: Jaguar Ford Chevrolet Acura!
Angli: Audi Buick Acura Tesla, Audi Ford Mercedes Cadillac!
Jiexu: Bugatti!
Their new tablemates looked at the pair the same way the rest of her team looked at them.
It didn't take too long for them to notice the attention they had received, but when reality had hit them, it was already too late, they had ruined their image completely.
But that wasn't exactly a bad thing, that would cause the other teams to underestimate them. That was a good thing...right?
Before anything got weirder, both Angli and Jiexu stood up and left for the dessert bar. The next thing she and Gebao knew, a pile of meat, vegetables, seasoning, and sauces were stacked in front of them along with two boilers with pots of soup inside.
"Dinner is served!" They announced in unison.
Gebao clapped her hands excitedly and exclaimed with pride, "HOT POT!"
The moment their team realized what was for dinner, they immediately raced over, intending to be first in line for the best hot pot ingredients.
The other teams made their way towards the long line slowly but surely when they saw that both Angli and Jiexu had returned safely with piles of food. Soon the air was filled with steam and the delicious smell of hot pot. By then, all eight teams had filed into the dining hall dressed in their new uniforms and gadgets.
For some odd reason, all the countries seemed to be fond of sitting close together.
The first three teams that had arrived before them were sitting side to side and back to back while the other four sat by them. There was also that high chance of her overthinking the situation.
A few of the other teams asked them for pointers on eating hot pot after smelling the aroma surrounding them.
By a few, she meant Australia, the team that they were sitting with.
Mainly it was Angli and Jiexu answering the questions since both her and Gebao were busy trying to fit everything in mouths and watching their pots.
"How about this mushroom, it is ready yet?" A guy sitting diagonal to Angli asked.
Angli bent over and used an extra pair of chopsticks specifically for picking at ingredients to check, "Give it about two more minutes."
"The shrimp paste should be ready by now," She threw in. Her English was laced with a British accent.
The guy's hot pot buddy reached for the shrimp paste and blew on it before throwing it into his mouth.
"This is great!" The guy looked at her with bright eyes, "You should try some," He said to his buddy.
"The mushrooms should be good too,"
"I wish I had a boyfriend like hers," She heard a girl from the Australian side say.
Assuming she was talking about Gebao and Jiexu, she turned a blind eye and continued on with the newly placed glass noodles in her bowl.
"They're even wearing matching everything,"
"I didn't notice that before, I should've gone with the black wire ones as well, the gold blends too much into my face."
She didn't expect anything less from the doting couple, Gebao and Jiexu seemed to be perfectly synchronized with each other.
But didn't they go with the rose gold glasses?
She glanced up at them to confirm her doubts. If they were wearing rose gold, then who were the two girls talking about?
She glanced down the table then behind her to find any clues and saw no couples wearing matching glasses.
Plus, very few people had glasses on because of the steam.
"You know they were talking about you and Angli, right?" Gebao looked at her with a mischievous smile.
"But it's so obvious that we're just friends,"
While she was speaking her mind, her eyes unconsciously travelled to Angli's face to confirm the claim. And just as her friend had stated, on his face was a matching pair of black wire glasses.
The next thing she knew, her best friend's face was right up in her's with a smirk on his face.
"What? Were you captivated by my amazing looks?" The grin on his face grew bigger by each passing second.
"That's odd, I was thinking the same exact thing about you, after all, it would explain your choice of matching accessories, no?"
"How do we know that it wasn't you copying me?"
"Because I picked my items before you did,"
"Well then, it looks like I've been caught," He flashed a bigger smile before stuffing a piece of lamb into her mouth.
"Well then, it looks like I've been caught," She mimicked her friend once his back turned away from her, causing Gebao and the two boys from the other team to laugh.
"Since we haven't introduced ourselves yet," the boy diagonal from Angli spoke, "My name is Conner, and his name is Sam, short for Samuel,"