The first few months of her training were as tough as when she had first arrived at Jiaoshu's. Never did it stop, and she began to get used to being woken at strange hours by many different guards for one reason or another. Manchu accompanied her to the tattoo parlor where there was a brief ceremony held before the outline of her tiger was applied to her left shoulder. Much to her surprise, the tattoo hurt a good deal less than what she thought it would. That was until Manchu decided to give her a pat on the back, purposefully giving the freshly tattooed skin a smack.

Dee was happy when things settled into a somewhat predictable program. Now that she had listed duties to accomplish during the hours she was not on guard duty, studying, or working on any chores, she was able to pick her hobbies up again. For her work, she was being paid a small amount enough to allow her to purchase anything she might wish or need that was not already provided for her. Mostly what she now purchased was masses of games and puzzles.

In the years since leaving the orphanage, she had not lost her love of games. While they were not discouraged at Jiaoshu's, they had not always on hand, nor did she have the amount of time for them. Now she did, however, and she took her love back up the way a drowning person takes their first pure breath of air. She had long ago completed the few puzzle boxes and games that the house held.

There were days when she was free from any duty and she spent much of her time in the many game stores that were scattered around the city. Manchu would always tease her about the little trinkets she would return home with, hugging them to herself as if they were the most precious thing on the planet.

"The keep me entertained," she sniffed indignantly one night when she wasn't in the mood to be teased.

"Why don't you find yourself a boy to keep you entertained? You never seem interested in going out unless it's to have a soda with us. Don't you want someone in your life?"

Her mouth turned down in a frown as she looked at him. "You, out of anyone here, should not be telling me this. You don't even have a girlfriend! And besides, I'm just not...I'm not interested right now," she finished softly.

"Not interested? I see you looking at boys all the time! Have you never gone up to one and asked for him to take you out?"

A groan of exasperation met this question. "Manchu, listen. I just haven't met anyone that I could be interested in, ok? It's as simple as that." She gave a shrug. "You, you have the girls all vying for your attention. But look at me. I'm the white girl here. It shouldn't matter, but it seems to."

"Chun finds you attractive. He would take you out."

Rolling her eyes, Dee fell backwards on her bed. "Chun, Manchu? Chun is a nice guy, but he's only interested in me for one thing."

"How do you know this?"

"Please. I've been working guard duty with the guy and kicking his ass since we were twelve. Do you know why I was so rough on him when we sparred?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Manchu bit his bottom lip as he tried not to laugh. "He didn't, did he?"

"He always claimed that he thought he was grabbing my shoulders. These," she gestured to her breasts, "are not my shoulders. Nor are they any other part that is made for grappling during a fight."

The burst of laughter that came out of Manchu at that moment earned him a pillow in the face, knocking him onto the floor. He came up, red faced from laughing, yet signaling for a truce.

"What about when you go out in the city? Certainly other guys would notice you and want to take you out. Just because you live here doesn't mean that you can't date outside of this area."

"Ugh! They're just as bad everywhere, Ping! I can't take the leering, the wolf whistles, the constant shouts of 'Hey, baby! Wanna ride my rod?' and them making those offensive gestures!" She waved her hands in front of her face in disgust. "I will never stand for any man calling me 'baby' or 'babe' because he thinks it's charming!"

"What about 'girlie'?" Manchu asked, recalling the boys from the park.

Dee growled at that. Her hair seemed to stand on end as her teeth were bared and she punched a pillow. "Never! I refuse to let any man call me any silly name such as that! The ones that do that don't want a woman! They want a soft, defenseless little girl to take care of!"

"Whoa, calm down, Xiaohu. I think that before you go beating up every man for that, you should at least give him a warning. You know. To be fair. If he does care about you, he'll know that when you say you don't like that, you mean it."

"Hmph. And what about you? All these girls wanting to go out with you. Have you picked one yet?"

"No. I've taken a couple of them out, but they're all interested in the fact that I'm in the Triad. That's the trouble when all the girls you spend a lot of time around are also trying to get in." He frowned. "They all think that if they get close to me, they'll have a better chance at getting accepted."

"Oh, boy." She shook her head. "Well, perhaps we'll end up being the lone bachelor and bachelorette of this group."

"As grumpy as you've been lately, you'll turn out to be Po Sin," he teased. A glare from Dee quieted him. "Truce, truce! We have time ahead of ourselves. No hurry, right?"

"Right. But it certainly would be nice to be able to go to the movies and curl up with someone once in a while."

Chuckling, Manchu stood. "You're a hopeless romantic, you know that? Truly hopeless."

"Hey, there's a carnival going on the weekend before my birthday. Wanna go with me? I'll buy you a corndog!"

"Two. And a popcorn."

"Deal," Dee said with a smile.
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