𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐱𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦

CHAPTER ONE

"Ladies and gentlemen, our flight from Narita International Airport to Los Angeles will be landing shortly." The flight attendant spoke into the intercom.

I woke up to the sound of her announcement, sitting up from my seat and looked out the window, sigh. Today is the start of my last year in high school as a senior, and what better way to spend my whole 365 days? You might not guessed it but, I along with a couple of my friends have decided to participate in an exchange program.

The details of this program was pretty simple, leave home and study abroad in America for a year. Although I do already miss my family back in Japan-- even though I've only been 12 hours away from them-- I just hope this trip was worth it in the end.

Oh shoot, I forgot to introduce myself-- heh, oops. 

Hi! My name is Takahashi Himari. I'm 17, turning 18 tomorrow, yay for me I guess, and I'm from Osaka, Japan. I have two younger siblings, Hikaru-- 10 year old little brother, and Haruka-- 8 year old little sister. 

God I just miss those little rats. I'm keeping a reminder to give them lots of pinches when I go back home. 

"Himari! Ready to go?" I see one of my best friends, Kaori, approach me with an excited grin on her face. I nodded my head at her before taking by bags and walking out of the plane. 

We met up with the rest of the group who were waiting for us at the baggage reclaim area. There were six of us in total. Tobi-- also my best friend, Jin-neesan-- my cousin who is only three months older than me, and lastly Sasori-san-- Kaori's older brother and Tobi's mate.

Yes, his mate. If you don't know, in this world soulmates exists-- and so do other supernatural creatures like werewolves, vampires, shapeshifters...and...other stuff that I don't really remember. 

Kaori and Sasori are vampires, Tobi is half blood vampire and warlock. Then there's me and Jin-neesan who are shapeshifters. Well actually neesan is a shapeshifter...I don't know what I am. 

You see all shapeshifters have a spirit animal to which they mainly shift into, and whenever they turned into that animal, their powers are enhanced by 25%. 

I can turn into any animal I want, but I just don't feel that enhancement like everyone else. Eh, it's no big deal though, what matters is that I still have the ability to shapeshift. 

"We got your bags for you," Tobi approached us and handed me my red luggage. "Arigato, Tobi," I said, "anytime," he responded with a cheeky grin. 

"We all set?" Sasori appeared behind Tobi and wrapped an arm around his mate, "all set," Jin-neesan said as she stood beside me.

"Alright, I see that everyone is here," our teacher, Ito-sensei, said, " We'll be heading down to terminal 3 where our private van is already waiting for us, everyone understand?" "HAI!" we all responded in unison. 

Actually there is more students from our school who'll be participating in this program as well, but they took a different flight and would be arriving a little later, heh sucks to be them. 

As we all started to make our way towards the exit, I can see Kaori bouncing in her steps with a wide grin. She notices my stare before speaking up, "can you believe it, we're actually here in America. This is gonna be so fun!" she squealed causing Sasori to grimace a little.

"Kaori can you lower it down a little, you're attracting unwanted attention towards us," he said. "Aww sure big bro......SIKE!" She screamed in his ear causing her older brother to twitch in annoyance.

"Why am I related to this nuisance," he grumbled jokingly making Tobi and neesan giggle. I just smiled with amusement at the two siblings who continued to bicker.