Tokyo dressed for Christmas and
Himekaizen for finals. Clubs shut down for the year with the very
much unofficial Himekaizen Cultural Exchange Club as a glaring
exception.
And glaring was
also what Kareyoshi did most of these days.
Ryu didn’t like
it, but letting one of the rapists off the hook did result in
Kareyoshi losing the support of men in power.
“It’s
politics,” Urufu had said with distaste in his voice, and while
their relationship had gone sour ever since Noriko became an item
with him, in this case they agreed.
Ryu even asked
his father for an opinion, but he fidgeted, and Ryu could see how
uncomfortable he was with the idea of making exceptions to
principles. His mother’s reaction was very different though.
“Can you win?”
she wanted to know, and when Ryu said they might she just told him to
win. By now Ryu started to understand that in many ways she was far
more ruthless than his father.
In the end they
decided to win, and as Christmas decorations went up all over the
city so did Kareyoshi’s stocks go down. The problem was that he
proved to be too stupid to understand how precarious his situation
had become. So he kept glaring, and the members of the club kept
goading him.
All in all, Ryu
thought, it was the worst case of a lose lose situation he had ever
lived through.
Right now he sat
in the inner room to the Haven café and did what he should have done
for a week – he studied. Even Kuri had gotten the week free from
work. Final exams were final exams after all, and for once he shared
his time with her doing school things and wearing school clothes.
There had been preciously little of that during the autumn that was
about to end.
The room was
crowded as usual. Gakuran, sailor uniforms and blazers mixed freely
with the blazers in a clear minority. Students walked between café
and inner room, and Ryu observed how the Irishima High students had
become used to the informal atmosphere during the second term.
As always the
Irishima High vice principal took his chair at one end of the large
table.
Urufu occupied
one whiteboard and Noriko another. In difference from more ordinary
weeks they didn’t walk between whiteboards but stayed by one, and
therefore stayed focussed on one subject.
All in all the
café seemed more subdued with most students silently cramming for
all they were worth. Only the occasional question to Urufu or Noriko
broke the silence.
It pained Ryu a
little to admit it, but with Urufu by her side Noriko’s academic
capacity rushed ahead in leaps so great Ryu had trouble understanding
what was happening.
Two more days, a
short weekend, and then finals were upon them. He intended to do the
most of those two days.
With a guilty
look across the table Ryu dove back into his books. He shook off the
discomfort of seeing Ai’s expression whenever Kuri’s hand
caressed him. By now it was a different kind of discomfort. His love
for Kuri was stable, but he still hoped Ai would find her own
happiness soon.
Subject by
subject he kept cramming, and as the evening grew later the world
around called for his attention. It began as occasional voices, but
when it became a steady stream of conversations Ryu realised most of
those present had given up studying for the day.
He stretched,
threw Kuri a quick hug and received one in return. For once she had
been as busy studying as he.
“You OK?” he
asked and looked at her books.
Kuri nodded and
smiled. “Yes. I’m able to read the books by myself now.”
Her achievement
filled him with pride, or at least happiness for her sake. And it was
an achievement. It meant her Japanese was better than his English
even when it came to reading.
“And?” Ryu
asked.
“And what?”
“The finals,”
he said, “what do you think?”
She leaned her
head to the side, a very Japanese expression she had learned as a
model. “Top hundred, but I won’t make the list.”
Top hundred was a
lot better than he had expected. Somewhere, deep in his mind, an ugly
thought lurked. That Kuri was all beauty and no brains. Ryu slammed
down on it whenever he became aware of his prejudices, but it kept
popping up, rearing its ugly head and reminded him of how he could
eventually be wrong about his refusal to accept Urufu and Noriko
being a pair.
“And you?”
Kuri asked in return.
Ryu grabbed her
hand and rather than squeeze he allowed his fingers to embrace hers.
“The list,” he said. “High thirty I suppose. My best result
yet.”
It felt strange
being able to make these kind of educated guesses, but as much a he
might dislike Urufu, Ryu still admitted that the man in a boy’s
body pushed them all to reach higher, achieve more and succeed better
than what was humanly possible.
The secret, Ryu
sullenly accepted, was that Urufu was trapped in the body of a
teenager, or else none of the students here would have listened to
him the way they did.
He threw a
worried glance in Kuri’s direction.
“Thinking of
Ulf much?” she asked.
Ryu blushed.
“You know,”
Kuri teased, “thinking of my ex as your rival is fine, but
thinking of him as mine isn’t.”
Did he really
admire Urufu that much, despite feelings of dislike? Maybe, Urufu had
changed his life after all.
Ryu wrenched
those thoughts aside and faced Kuri. “I love you, and only you.”
He gave what he had just said a moment’s thought, and then he took
her hands in a firm grip. “I’ve never felt this way before. It’s
not a crush any longer. I love how you make me feel loved, and I love
how you make me trust you.”
They spent their
nights together whenever her schedule allowed, and he knew her in
ways he had never known anyone else. Still, the way she blushed and
averted her eyes took him by surprise.
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