126 Chapter six, 2016, summers end: 1 (1/2)
The first call came around ten in the evening, and after the third Yukio convinced his mother to drive him to Kuri's apartment.
For a while he thought of calling Kyoko, but her parents would most likely have gone ballistic if he tried a stunt like that.
Traffic was bad with a lot of people in their twenties driving to parties celebrating that summer was about to end. A lot of university students flocked the streets as well. All in all it took his mother the better part of half an hour to get there. Eleven pm.
It was still warm in the air, so the shuddering couldn't be because he was freezing.
Yukio heard the sounds of walking feet above him. 'So he's outside her door.' Yukio ran up the stairs and found his friend where he had guessed. He grabbed Urufu's shoulders and stared into a rabid face. ”What's wrong, man?”
”She's not here. She doesn't take calls and she doesn't reply to emails. I don't know where she's gone. Amaya's coming. She's a police and there has to be something she can do.”
Yukio let the flood of words roll over him. Urufu was frantic, and he probably didn't even know he was talking constantly.
”Man, calm down. Mom's here and Sato-sensei is coming. We'll be fine,” he said. Truth be told he didn't have a clue what the emergency was about. Kuri was out. She had flipped her phone off and thus she couldn't be reached. End of problem. Both Urufu and Kuri were grown-ups anyway. They just looked like high schoolers.
But then crap with Urufu seldom was that easy.
Yukio looked down the stairs. His mother stood there looking back up. She pointed towards a line of vending machines and Yukio nodded. Then she vanished out of sight, and Yukio sat down beside his friend. There wasn't much else to do.
From outside the railings he could hear the muted metallic thumps of cans dropping to the bottom of a machine. Shortly afterwards his mother came up with some canned coffee. When she looked at him Yukio just shook his head. There wasn't anything more she could do, and she walked back down again. A bit later a thin line of white in the dark rose above the railings. He smelled the cigarettes she smoked whenever she felt awkward or nervous.
Urufu remained strangely silent throughout all this. When he was done with his first outburst it was as if he didn't have anything more to say, and a silent Urufu wasn't anything Yukio was prepared to handle. It was outright unnatural.
The sound of an engine saved Yukio from his problem. He rose and leaned over the railing. Just as he had hoped Sato-sensei opened the door and stepped out of her car. He saw her and his mother exchange a few words and then he heard Urufu's guardian make her way up the stairs.
”What's going on kids?”