76 Chapter one, 2016, crescendo: 4 (1/2)

”Thank you Amaya!” Ulf said. Sometimes his legal guardian was just the best. Right now was one of those times.

Last day the club met their visitors from Sweden and showed them around some parts of central Tokyo, and today they'd bring them to Shibuya.

'Sunday. Today is the day for Christina's mad stunt.' Thinking of her made his stomach contract. Christina Agerman. If anyone in Tokyo could pull it off it would be her, but still. 'If I'm this nervous how mustn't she feel right now?'

Through the windows Ulf saw the congested traffic and normally he would have preferred taking his bike into central Tokyo but Amaya didn't even have a bike. At least her car was equipped with a good AC.

She drove expertly and knew almost all short-cuts from her job as a police. They didn't talk much and Ulf was beginning to enjoy the silence when she turned to him with a question.

”Urufu, this girl of yours. Do you love her?”

Ulf looked at Amaya. 'I think too much before I answer a question, and she's just about the only one who knows I'm not preparing a lie while I'm thinking.' ”I love her. It scares the hell out of me but I really love her.”

”Much?”

Ulf laughed. It was a hollow laugh, mirthless. 'Christina, my heart hurts the first time I see you in a day. I feel like my lungs will explode when I first hear your voice. My body isn't large enough to make room for what I feel, and I'm drowning in you. When we part at evenings I just want to hold on to you so you don't disappear. The days we don't meet I'm lost.'

”Urufu?”

”Yeah,” Ulf answered. He could hear how hoarse his voice was. ”Yes, very much.”

Amaya frowned and took a corner. ”For your sake I hope she loves you back. You're a difficult one to live with.”

”I'm sorry. I'm grateful you took me in despite the way I behaved when we met,” Ulf said. 'I hurt you, and you still cared for me even before you believed I was who I am.'

”Urufu!”

”Yes Amaya?”

She wheeled the car to a revolver style parking house and hit the brakes. ”One day you need to give voice to your feelings.” Amaya opened her door, left the car and waited for him to show his head over the roof. ”You talk a lot about rational things but you never talk enough about emotions. You have to or you'll lose everything,” she said after he popped up his head.

The car slid inside its box and was winched inside the belly of the parking house. Ulf watched it vanish. ”I don't like to talk about my feelings. Words can't be unsaid and I feel vulnerable,” he admitted. Amaya was probably the only one he could talk about everything with. 'I am really grateful to you. You made me a home in this world.'

She studied him with one of those intense stares of hers.

'Bloody mind-reader, but that's why I trust you so much. You've never abused your ability to read me.' ”Yes Amaya?”

”It's mother dear,” she said.