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Alex sighed. She was carrying a bag full of clothing. The darn dorm administration had promised that the washing machines would be fixed by now. But no. No. Obviously not. Nothing was fixed. And obviously nobody could reach anyone from admin either. So, here she was. Carrying her dirty laundry over to the campus laundromat at half-past ten in a Sunday night.She was grumbling to herself. Maybe she should have reconsidered the entire “living on her own” thing. She had a car. Technically she could commute to campus. It just would be a fucking nightmare, given how crowded the roads usually were. If the traffic was not bad as it was, time to commute would be like forty minutes. Not ideal, but workable. But with traffic it was like an hour and a half at the very least. Though some rumors said, that people got lost in the San Francisco traffic for days.At least the laundromat was open, and empty. Well, mostly empty. There was one guy sitting in a corner, working on a laptop.Alex just shot him a passing glance, before putting her dirty laundry into the machine.Normally she would have waited till the next afternoon. But for one, she was out of bras. And secondly, her favorite shirt had been dirty for six days, and this was not an acceptable way of being. She got one of those coins to start the machine, before filling the laundry deterrent into the proper compartment.She closed the door of the washing machine and started it. Then she went over to one of those super cheap plastic chairs, sitting down.She got out the book she had brought along for the waiting time. One of those fantasy YA things that her sister had not been shutting up about for weeks. So Alex had borrowed it. She started reading, sitting there in silence. The room was filled with the cold artificial light, and the humming of the machines.Only when a somewhat high-pitched voice started talking, did she look up.The voice spoke a language she did not understand, but something told her, that it was not the voice of the dude sitting there.She looked around and found, that indeed the guy was not alone. He was accompanied by a thing that looked surprisingly like a strangely colored teddy bear with oversized ears. It was in a very light, almost minty green. And other than she must have unconsciously thought when she had seen it before it was alive.The thing was hanging from the guy’s shoulder and talking to him, making him answer rather grumbly.The guy was East Asian by the look of it. Japanese, maybe? Though his skin was a bit darker. The language sounded like Japanese though, at least based on Alex’s limited knowledge that was based entirely on the few anime she had consumed in her life.She knew, however, what that little teddy bear had to be. And she could not help her curiosity. “Is that a Digimon?”The dude seemed to be a bit surprised to be addressed by her. He turned his head, staring at her. His hair was black, and his eyes were rather dark as well. He hesitated. “Uhm…” He paused. “Yes. A Digimon.” He spoke with a heavy accent, telling her that he was not quite used to speaking the English language.“Cool,” she said. “I rarely ever have seen one. You know. Not so many Tamers in the US and such.”“Uhm…” He was hesitant.The little teddy bear Digimon said something to him. Again, Alex did not understand. She assumed the Digimon did not speak English at all.He sighed at the comment from what had to be his partner. “I am Jian. This is Terriermon.”Alex put the bookmark into the pages of the book. She smiled. “Nice to meet you. Jian.” She tried to pronounce the name right, though she was not sure she succeeded. “My name is Alex.”He nodded, hesitating again.She looked at the Digimon. “He does not look like a terrier though.”The dude needed a moment to make sense of her words. Then he looked at the Digimon. “I guess… Uhm. I guess he does not look like a dog, no.”The humming from the two running washing machines was quite noticeable now. Again there was silence between them.“You are a student from abroad?” Alex asked.“Yes. It is…” He muttered a word in another language, seemingly trying to remember how to say it in English. “It is clear?”“You mean obvious,” she corrected.“Obvi…”“Obvious,” she said.“Obvious.” His pronunciation was still not the best.She nodded. “I guess it is obvious, yeah. You only recently got here, eh?”“Two weeks,” he replied.“Ah. But you are going to study?”He nodded simply.“What?”“Computer science,” he replied.“Oh, cool. Then we will have some classes in common I think. I am in Data Science.”He paused, then nodded. “I see.”Again silence fell between them.Admittedly, Alex could not quite help her curiosity. Yes, the curiosity was mainly peaked because of the tiny teddy bear accompanying him, but she could not help it still. “Are you on campus?”He frowned. “How do you mean?”“Are you in a dorm on campus? I mean, do you stay here?”He nodded. “Yes. I am.”“Cool. If you only got here recently, do you want a tour?”The dude, Jian, she guessed, paused. “A tour? Now?”She laughed. “No. I mean, some of these days. It is a big campus, right? So, like… I guess if you are still learning English, you might get turned around easily.”He paused again. “I… Yes. I guess. I took… Uhm. I took the tour. The official one. I know many places.” He almost phrased it like a question.“But I bet you do not know the places where you can get the best ice cream and the cheapest groceries, eh?”He blinked. “What?”She needed a moment to realize that she had been speaking too fast. “You need to know where to get the best ice cream,” she said slowly. “And the cheapest groceries.”He was frowning still. “Why do I need to know best ice cream?”However, the little teddy bear on his shoulder sure seemed to have an opinion. The giant ears lifted. “Ice cream?” it asked in a very heavy accent.Alex could not help but chuckle. “Yes, Ice cream.”This prompted the creature to let loose a whole barrage of words onto his unsuspecting Tamer. Alex did not understand a word – at least not other than “ice cream” and “Jian”.“I think someone has an opinion,” she noted.The dude gave a deep sigh. “He loves sweet food. He eats a lot.”“Must be expensive,” she noted.Jian nodded slowly. “It is. Especially here. Sweets are very expensive. No?”“They are,” she replied. “Which is why you need to know the places where you can get the cheap groceries.” She grinned at him.Again the teddy-like Digimon was talking to the guy, and while Alex did not understand many of the words it was using, she could make out that the little guy was begging clearly. So maybe the Digimon was food motivated.In the end, Jian just sighed. He said something to the Digimon, before turning to Alex. “That would be very helpful. Thank you.”“No problem.” She hesitated. “Which dorm are you in?”He paused again. “Wilbur. I think.”“Ah, cool. Which house exactly?”He shook his head. “I am not sure. Sorry. This is new. Home I was not in dorm. I lived with family.”“Home is where?” she dared to ask, not wanting to be too curious.“Japan. Tokyo.”“Oh. Cool. I heard so much about Tokyo!” She chuckled. “My brother would love this. He loves anime, you know? He always talks about wanting to go to uni in Japan.”Jian nodded slowly. “You have brother?”“I have a brother and a sister. Both younger than me. So I am the first out of home.”He nodded again.“Do you have siblings?”Another pause. “Siblings?”“Brother or sister?”“Ah.” He thought about it for a moment, probably trying to find the right words. “One brother. Two sisters. My brother is oldest. Then one sister. Then me. Then my younger sister.”“Three siblings?”Another nod.“Wow. I always heard that in Japan people do not have a lot of kids. That must have been crowded at home.”“My father. He is from China. When he grew up. People were not allowed many kids.”Alex remembered reading about something like that. Yeah. Two child policy or something along those lines, right? “Ah. China did not allow more than two kids at a time?”“Yes,” he said. “So, he wanted a lot of children. He told me.”“But he lives in Japan now?”“Yes,” Jian replied. “He studied here, too. When he was younger. Now I go here.”“Ah. Another nepotism baby then.” She chuckled. “Just like me. Kinda. My dad went here, too. But he studied law. Not computer science.”Now Jian just looked at her. “Could you repeat? Slower?”“Oh. Sorry. You are a second generation too. My father also went to Stanford. But he studied law. I am studying computers and stuff.”“Ah.” He needed a moment to make sense of her words. “My father. He also studied computers. You know Professor McCoy?”“Which one?” Alex asked.“The one who has grey hair now.”“Ah, McCoy Senior. Yeah, I know him. He is like royalty in the Computer Science department.” She laughed about this. “I had a class on Ethics in Data Science with him last year.”“My father was friend with him. When he went here.”“Oh. Cool. Then you can help me get good grades with McCoy?”“What?”She laughed again. “No, nothing. I got good grades either way.”Something started to peep now. One of the washing machines clearly had finished the cycle.“I think that is yours,” she said.He looked around, before nodding. “Yeah.” He went over to the washing machine, getting the wet laundry out and putting it into a dryer. While he was working, the Digimon that was with him – Terriermon was it, right? – was sitting in the plastic chair he had been sitting in before. The little guy was watching her.She could not help but think that the tiny thing was kinda adorable. She waved over at Terriermon and Terriermon waved back.Then she remembered something. She got out her mobile phone. When Jian was coming back from the dryer she showed it to him. “Add your number. So I can give you the proper tour.”He looked at the phone, but then understood. He took out his own phone, probably to look up his own number. Given that he had just come here, he probably had not memorized his American number. But he entered it.When he handed her the phone back, she looked at the new entry. Now she finally realized how his name was spelled. J-I-A-N. “Your name is Chinese?”“Yes,” he said. “Because of my father. Jianliang is my full name.”“Jia…” she tried to repeat it, but stumbled over her own words.“Jianliang.”“Jian-lian?”For the first time this evening something like a smile showed up on his face. “Almost,” he said.“I am afraid I am one of those Americans who is really bad with any foreign names. I know a bit of Spanish, but that’s it.”“That’s fine. I am not sure I can say your name right. Aleksu?”Again she was chuckling. “Eh, close enough.” Then she nodded at his phone. “You want my number, too?”