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"I'm walking on a deep darkness
Look at the hidden truth over there."
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"I hope you'll enjoy studying here, Ms. Kazama." Mrs. Han smiled at her.
Tomi decided to go settle in the school's dorm sooner. Once she arrived Mrs. Han, the director of the dorm, gave her a tour of the girl's dormitory and the school's main building.
Mrs. Han said to reach her via e-mail regarding concerns about the dorm. She gave Tomi her business card before she left, and Tomi said goodbye.
Tomi waited for her footsteps on the staircase to slowly fade away before unlocking her assigned bedroom.
NPS was located on top of a hill on the outskirts of Seoul. It was pretty troublesome to get here, since there isn't any public transportation going to NPS. She had to hire a cab which had cost her more than what she could afford.
The school was enormous. They have multiple dojo's and other martial arts training halls inside the main building, which Tomi couldn't wait to train in one of them. There are smaller modern buildings like the main building, around it. Outside, there were gardens, parks, and courtyards.
It wasn't a surprise for Tomi. They basically have everything in here. Tomi could only imagine how much people actually pay to study here.
As for the dormitories, it was located at the very back of the school ground, behind the garden. In the girls' dorm, there were 12 floors according to the 12 grades in the school. Since Tomi was a second year in high school, she got to live on the eleventh floor.
Tomi was overwhelmed when she got into her room. It was bigger than her whole apartment unit. She had everything in there, wardrobe, vanity table, study table with a laptop, a small couch with a coffee table, and even her own private washroom.
She spotted her luggage next to her queen-sized bed and decided to unpack.
She stopped in her tracks when she heard someone cleared their throat behind her. She realized she forgot to close the door. Biting her lip in frustration, she turned around ready to greet whoever it was.
The girl had long, dark, wavy hair that fell down to her hips. Her eyes were big and her lips were plumped red. She looked like a living doll. She had her arms folded on her chest and was leaning her side to the doorframe.
"Oh— Hi. I thought no one would be in the dorms." Tomi let out a dry chuckle. "Since, you know... school is not starting until three more days."
"You're right. But the international students would." The girl let out a friendly smile.
Oh, she's an international student. Cool. Tomi forgot that they have students from overseas attending NPS.
"I like to be back extra early, just to get myself adjusted better." She walked into Tomi's room, arms still folded. "I'm Yuqi. Song Yuqi." She emphasized her family name.
Tomi was quite confused as people would normally offer a handshake when they introduce themselves for the first time, but she just went along with it. "I'm Satomi. But my friends call me Tomi."
"Just Satomi?" Yuqi's eyebrow perked up. "What's your family name? Not that I care about what your family does..."
"Oh, my... family is a no one." Tomi chuckled awkwardly. "My mother works in a beauty salon and my dad passed away when I was still a baby."
Yuqi seemed quite taken back by what she'd just said. She stared at her for a while, lost of words. Then she flicked her fingers and breathed in, "aahh, you're the scholarship winner."
Tomi smiled and looked away from her.
"What style do you practice?"
"Sorry?"
"Your fighting style."
Then it made sense to her, "it's quite hard... to explain. My style doesn't particularly belong to anything. Not even a mixed martial arts. Well, I am influenced by a lot of styles—"
"You're a freestyler?" Yuqi raised her eyebrow at Tomi.
"Yes... I am."
"Well, you must be pretty good. They never picked a freestyler to win before. There is not even any in NPS." Yuqi snickered. "Where'd you learn how to fight? Mother?"
"From... videos, books,— street fights—"
"You're a self-taught freestyle street fighter??" Yuqi said it like she'd just heard of that for the very first time. "Interesting."
"Why? Is there something wrong with that?"
Yuqi pressed her lips, "everything." She simply said. "So I assume you don't know about the written and unwritten rules of the school, correct?"
"Why yes—"
"For the written rules," Yuqi walked pass Tomi to the study table and eyed Tomi's luggage. "Well you can read it yourself where it is written." She stretched her lips into a thin line. "For the unwritten rule—" she eyed Tomi. "—you don't want to be clubless here."
"What happens if I'm clubless?"
Yuqi smirked but looked away from Tomi, eyes wandering on the ceiling, like she was trying to explain it as best as she could. "No one is gonna back you up."
"What do you mean?"
"If you don't belong anywhere... people are going to..."
"What? They're gonna beat me up or something?" Tomi tried to help her.
"I wouldn't say it blatantly like that," she let out an awkward chuckle. "But I guess that's how you put it in a way. Think of it like a... group. The bigger your group, the more achievements you have, the more successful you are. If you're just by yourself, no one's going to back you up if something is threatening you, you'll be done for quicker." She shrugged. "That's how it is in the real world too. The strongest, and those who have more numbers, are on top."
"So you're saying if I am not in a club I will get beaten up because no one will back me up?"
Yuqi shrugged. "Yeah," she walked away from the study table to near the door. "Also there are tag battles in our ranked matches, so you will need allies to participate. Usually if you want to team up with students outside your club, you or your club have to have a certain reputation and if not, no one will want to team up with you. And if that happens you can't get promoted to higher ranks. But that is not my job to explain what they are."
Tomi blinked, trying to make sense of the school's culture. "What club you're in?"
"Wingchun," Yuqi smirked, and sounded like she took pride being in the Wingchun Club.
Tomi knew Wingchun. One of the most graceful styles in Chinese martial arts (wushu). Focused on quick strong punches and tight defense. It was one of many styles Tomi wished she could practice. One of her favorites.
"Ji Changmin is our club leader, and he's really nice. You can try applying for our club." Yuqi smirked.
Although Yuqi seemed welcoming and was really nice to her by telling her all of this, she couldn't decide to trust her completely yet. She hasn't met anyone besides Yuqi here, everything she'd said might not be the truth. Even when it seems like it was.
Yuqi excused herself and let her be to unpack and to adjust here. After thanking Yuqi, she closed her door shut and locked it. Finally relieved she was alone.
~
Tomi didn't know what to do so she went to the school main building to check out the training halls. She had the main building's floor plan in her hands and tried her best to navigate herself. The inside of the building was breathtaking. The hallways were illuminated by natural lighting from the sun that came through the tall windows. As it was nearing sunset, she could watch the sunset from where she was walking.
She finally arrived on the floor where the training halls were. She stopped in front of a door that has a No. 1 sign hanging. She pushed open the door to reveal a hall that she hadn't expected.
The design of the hall completely changed. In contrast to the modern school building, the training hall was in shades of earthy tone with a lot of wooden interiors. There was a big Japanese sign saying "Nakamoto-ryu Kenka Karate", meaning "Nakamoto style fighting Karate".
The dojo was breathtakingly beautiful, Tomi had to stop and admire it. After she felt satisfied, she went to the next training halls.
Karate Club. Wuxing Club, the five animals style. Wingchun Club, she remembered it was Yuqi's club. Bajiquan Club, Baguazhang Club, Xin Yi Quan Club.
Her heart fell when he heard someone whining, and she found a guy on the floor curling while holding his leg in pain.
"Oh God, hi, do you need help?" Tomi quickly rushed to the guy in the middle of the training hall of Xin Yi Quan Club.
The guy didn't answer. He seemed too focused on enduring his pain. Tomi looked around for a first aid kit and found a large box. She rushed to find an ice pack, and when she found it she placed it on the guy's ankle.
He grabbed her wrist with his left arm, fully wrapped with a bandage, as a reflex to the pain. A sudden weird feeling rose inside of her. As soon as his hand made contact, she felt a sudden rush of strong energy.
She didn't like the feeling. The energy wasn't friendly, she felt it wanted to hurt people.
"It helps with the pain," Tomi tried to distract herself from the weird energy.
The guy watched and studied her face before replying, "I know." His breathing becoming more more stable. "Thank you."
When he released his grip on her, the feeling was vanished.
Though Tomi was much smaller in figure, she still managed to help the guy got off the stage and they sat on the side of the room.
"It doesn't look that bad," she said as she examined his ankle. "Do you want to compress it so the swelling stops—"
"No, no need. It's fine." He said and the corner of his lips curled up slightly. "You seem to know a lot. Experience?"
"Well, I do gymnastics. These things happen once in a while." Tomi smiled. "I sometimes go too far with practice too. You should take it easy from now on." She pointed at his ankle.
"Right." The guy blinked. "Are you new here? I've never seen you around. First year?"
Tomi caught his eyes, and she immediately looked back on his ankle. "No, second year." She corrected. "And yes I just got here."
"Welcome to NPS."
Tomi's eyes landed on the white bandage wrapping the guy's entire left hand again. Why was it wrapped? It was too early to ask him about it, they just met. Though she couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't an injury underneath that bandage.
She caught his name that was sewn into his training uniform. P. SEONGHWA.
"Tomi." She smiled at him and offered her hand.
The guy took her hand but didn't introduce himself back, "'you in a club yet?" Was all he said.
She thought people here have a weird way of introducing themselves. Or not introducing themselves. "No, I'm not. I'm still deciding." She answered.
"Deciding? What do you mean? What style do you practice?" The guy furrowed his eyebrows at her.
"I'm... I'm a freestyler." She admitted with a small voice.
"You're the scholarship winner," He pointed out. "Yuqi told everyone she met you yesterday. Not that I wanted to know, she just informed it to everyone."
Yuqi told everyone? She wondered what else Yuqi had said about her.
"Oh she did?" Tomi let out a dry chuckle. She stood up, "well, I better get going then. Nice to meet you. Take care."
After biding each other goodbyes, Tomi went to the next room.
She wished she wouldn't bump into anyone else. Not when everyone's just going to point out that she is the scholarship winner like it's a shame.
The next training hall she opened belonged to the Taekwondo Club. She also loved Taekwondo's moves, and might consider to join them. Next was Tiger Club, which she guessed was Hung Kuen, also known as Hung Ga. Then Muay Thai Club, where they had a boxing ring instead of a decorated flat surface like the rest of the training hall.
She thought she's reached the last training hall of the 10 clubs in NPS, but there was another room at the end of the hallway. The last training hall was different from the others. Though the biggest and most beautifully designed was the Nakamoto-ryu Club dojo, the rest were pretty big and were designed neatly pleasing to the eyes too. But the last training hall was much smaller and seemed old. There were few thin cracks on the wooden surface and the walls. The hall was a bit dusty, and instead of a printed wooden signage, the name of the club was simply written on a long paper with a black marker,
이 스타일 전통 무예
Which means Lee Style Traditional Martial Arts.
Tomi thought maybe this was a class, not a club. But she'd never heard of a Lee Style Traditional Martial Arts. Yuqi also said NPS only has 10 clubs. If this was a club, this would be the eleventh.
Now the question is, which club should she sign up for? And more importantly, how would she get in?
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A/N:
In case if anyone was wondering, Tomi's fighting style is similar to Lili in the game (Tekken). Lili's fighting style incorporates gymnastic moves, and is self-taught. It isn't a real martial art.
Later in the story it will be explained why Tomi fights with that style, not Kazama-ryu.
CHEERS!