Noriko left the
hospital feeling more down than she had expected. While she didn't
visit Urufu every day like Yukio and Kuri she still went to see her
friend often enough to notice how much better he made her feel after
a visit.
Should be the
other way around, she
thought.
She couldn't
exactly pinpoint why she felt depressed. Maybe because they were wrapped up in their midterm exams and Urufu couldn't attend them.
“What's on your
mind?” Nao wondered.
Noriko shook her
head and grasped his hand just a little tighter. “Thank you for
understanding,” she said rather than answering his question.
He smiled down at
her. “Don't worry. I know you still have feelings for him, and he's
a good guy at that.”
Do I?
Noriko wasn't certain any longer. Urufu being hurt made her angry,
but thinking of him didn't fill her stomach with butterflies the way
seeing Nao did.
They made it to
the bus stop and climbed the first one heading downtown. When they
got off she noticed how those they met smiled at them.
Huh? What's so
funny? Then it struck her
they were still holding hands. The photo model with his midget
girlfriend. Yeah I guess
it could look funny.
She tugged Nao's
hand closer to herself and felt strangely happy that she had
something else than Urufu to worry about. Do
we really look that comical?
She guessed they did. She just a bit over a metre and a half and him
at closer to a hundred and ninety.
“Notice the
smiles?” Noriko asked at last.
“Uhum. They're
hiding their jealousy,” Nao said.
'They' being
the girls I guess, Noriko
thought glumly.
“The girls as
well,” Nao said, deliberately twisting his comforting words into a
self-conscious joke.
“You, you,
you!” She couldn't but stop and give him a light box in his
stomach. Then Noriko grinned and hugged him. “Thanks for making me
laugh! Thanks for making me feel loved!”
“But you make
it so easy,” Nao replied without a moment of hesitation.
You say all
the right things, and you do all the right things as well.
“You make me blush,” Noriko said and dug her face into his shirt.
Nao held her
tight and combed through her hair with long, slender fingers. “You
know, I'm worried as well.”
The words made
her step apart from him. Doing so she saw how public their display
was just outside a subway station, but she didn't care.
“Worried about
what? They said he'll recover fully.”
“Ah, not about
that,” Nao said and laughed. “He'll miss out on a full month.
What about his midterms?”
Noriko choked
down a reply. She couldn't tell Nao that Principal Nakagawa
guaranteed Urufu's private tutoring. More precisely she couldn't tell
Nao Principal Nakagawa did the tutoring in person, and of all things
she could never tell Nao that Urufu probably didn't need any tutoring
apart from written Japanese in the first place.
I keep secrets
from my own boyfriend. Makes me a role model girlfriend I guess,
Noriko thought and smirked.
“When do you
think he'll be discharged?” she asked, more to switch topic than
anything else.
“I know as
little as you do. A week, maybe two if how he acts when we visit is
any indication,” Nao suggested.
“That's
November,” Noriko said. “I feel bad for him.”
“He'll make a
full recovery. Let's be happy about that.”
As usual Nao
focussed on the most important, but in this case he didn't have all
the information needed. He didn't know that Kuri was on a vengeance
rampage, and Noriko made sure he didn't have a clue about how she had
agreed to help Kuri when the dirty affair blew up in the face of the
Red Rose board of directors. And Kuri had promised that if would blow
up nastier than anything they had ever experienced before.
Noriko sighed
silently. Promises were just promises, or that's how the real world
usually turned out, but with Kuri… With Kuri you barely had time
for a snarky comment before she delivered on her promise and then
some.
What was it
you said again? Don't mistake me for the empress of Japan. Think of
Caligula or Nero instead.
Noriko shivered at the memory. What made you say something awful like
that?
Until lately it
had never occurred to Noriko that Kuri maybe was loved, or at least
desired by many, but that she all too often loathed herself.
“You're
silent,” Nao said, stating the obvious.
Noriko turned and
dragged him in the direction of a café. “Sorry.”
“It's my
treat,” he said.
She didn't bother
protesting. He could afford it, as could she. Eating out barely made
a dent in their respective wallets, and she had long since learned to
be careful when going out with her friends. With Nao, however, she
didn't have to.
“You know,”
she said when they came indoors, “it feels like we're just waiting
for something to happen.” It was as close as she could afford
telling him something big was coming down on them all.
“6:1 to get
their students back?” Nao said.
Noriko knew he
was referring more to the other two victims of the car accident than
to Urufu. Both were slated for discharge within a few days.
“Two coffee and
two vanilla ice cream,” Noriko said to the waitress and made
certain she returned out of earshot. “No, I'm thinking of how
uneasy 9:1 is,” Noriko said as if she had heard rumours about that
class. Well, the students in 9:1 should be uneasy given that they
were involved in covert warfare with their hated, old school.
“9:1, you say.
I don't hear anything apart from what's said in the club, and with
midterms nothing much happens there.”
“No other
rumours?” Noriko asked.
“Sorry, but
they're freshmen all of them. It's not like we juniors talk a lot
about you.” Nao made a grimace in an attempt to show her that he
meant no offence.
We have to
change that. Kuri wants the rumours to spread out of control.
“Oh, I didn't know. So you only talk about Kuri?”
Nao blanched.
“It's not that bad, but there are not all that many freshmen who
are well known among us.
With a sweet
smile that made her stomach crawl Noriko looked at her boyfriend. “I
see. Well I guess it can't be helped,” she lied.
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