147 Chapter one, 2016, the value of friends: 8 (1/2)
Ryu's delivery had been beyond expectations. Not only was the fight between 5:2 and 3:1 resolved, but they had gained another ten students from 9:1, and with that Ulf's remaining staffing problems dissolved.
He smiled remembering Ryu's heads up. Apparently a girl in their middle school with amazingly poor taste in boys had nurtured a crush on him before he was expelled. It was a little flattering, and he wasn't above feeling his self-esteem rising a bit.
Maybe Christina wouldn't think it was as fun, even though he trusted her to be mature enough to laugh it away in the end.
Probably.
They hadn't been able to share all that much time together since the night he spent in her apartment. By any normal standards they should have been lovers by now, but that night they only slept together just as they had done at the resort her grandfather ran together with his wife.
There was no mistaking why she called him over, but when he got there he was just too emotionally drained to do anything, and in a way he valued her closeness more than sex.
Ulf rehashed that evening as he had done several times by now. They slept together and nothing else but was that what she wanted? Had she wanted more, and if so was she angry with him now?
'Gah, I'll just ask her when we meet. No point in worrying on my own.' This was one occasion where fifty was much better than sixteen. Knowing that in order to avoid misunderstandings actually talking things over was a perfectly acceptable solution.
When he had been sixteen, the first time, talking something specific over hadn't been the main problem. Talking with a girl at all was. He spent his two first years in high school with his tongue perpetually glued to the back of his mouth whenever a girl approached too close.
Third year less so after a second year took a fancy to him and tired of waiting. She made him her boyfriend with all the finesse and subtlety of a stereotypical caveman. She crowned her whirlwind campaign by kicking in the door to his classroom mid lecture, declaring she had come for her boyfriend and frenched him before he had a chance to rise from his chair.
Ulf grinned at the memory. It only lasted a little over a year, but before they grew apart she had reshaped him into a very different person.
His first. There was something about firsts.
”Hamarugen-san?”
He shook the memories away and turned to look for whoever had spoken to him.
”Hamarugen-san?”
A junior from the liberal arts section, but which class he couldn't tell. ”Sorry, I spaced out a bit, what can I help you with?”
”We're the Latin seafood stall.”
Ulf dug up his phone and made a search. ”The grill?”
”Yeah. There's a problem. We wondered if we could extend the barbecue instead. We could use the stall for sales only.”
'There's no way they came up with this on their own. They're not club members so no one told them to think independently.' ”Who told you to ask me?”
The junior pointed over his shoulder with a thumb. Behind him Ulf saw Christina talking frantically into her headset while still making time to wave at him.
”Fine, we'll do so. Get your grills out of the booth and set it up at one end of the two lines.” Ulf drew a quick sketch on the ground with the two lines of grills and where he wanted the last two set up at one end. ”Got it?”
He received a nod in return, and the junior returned to make the changes.
'Christina. I should have known. But Ryu's getting damn good at this as well, so it could have been him.' Ulf started walking towards Christina. If nothing else he could get a hug and a kiss from her before they were swamped with more work.
He made it halfway to her.
”Hamarugen-san?”