185 Chapter five, 2016, days of waiting: 2 (1/2)

After he kissed Kyoko goodbye outside her house Yukio went in search for a convenience store before heading home.

Urufu's black eyes when told about the car accident still haunted Yukio.

'As if he thinks it was his fault,' Yukio mused. 'Damn it man! Stop trying to carry every burden yourself!' Yukio growled and muttered a few choice curses. 'Don't you see that you're insulting your own friends if you don't share some of the shit with us?'

Because friendship didn't care about over thirty years difference in age. Friends should help to their capacity, and they should be allowed to do so.

Yukio listened to his footsteps in the darkness as he walked between islands of light under the street lamps. From time to time a car overtook him and flooded the street ahead of him with white brightness until it passed him and waved goodbye with red rear lights.

Some ten minutes later he came up to a dimly lit parking place where a few cars waited for their owners who were inside the convenience store. He entered and took a right turn to get to the newspaper stand. A magazine and a bottle of water later he stood making a choice between future microwave victims. Eventually Yukio grabbed something that made a good effort at pretending to be curry on rice.

'Kyoko would yell at me for declining dinner at her place.' But the truth was her parents made him feel uneasy. While it seemed Kyoko's mother more or less had accepted her daughter's new boyfriend it was all too clear her father hadn't.

Yukio whistled tunelessly, held on to his booty and made for the cashier. A couple of thousand yen poorer and with a plastic bag holding too much for a snack but too little for dinner he lined up his feet in the direction of his home and started walking.

”Next week,” Urufu had said, but Yukio thought that was unlikely. Five broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and both lungs punctured didn't sound like something that healed in two weeks. If Urufu was let out of the hospital while it was still October he would be lucky. At least that was what Yukio believed, but he wasn't a doctor.

It didn't take all that long to reach the apartment block where he lived during the week with his mother. His father's flat was out of the question this late in the evening. Yukio climbed the stairs hugging the wall and walked to his door. He could have knocked for his mother to open, but it felt better to use his keys so as not to disturb her unnecessarily.

”I'm home,” he called when he came indoors.

”Welcome home,” his mother answered and let him know she was in their small living room.

Yukio went to the kitchenette and put his meal in the microwave. Three minutes would be enough, and it gave him time to drop the water into the fridge and put his magazine in the room where he slept.

”Any news on your friend?” his mother asked from where she sat in a sofa watching TV.

”Nothing much. He thinks he'll be discharged next week. I think he's too optimistic.”

His mother rose from her seat.

”Have I ever said I'm sorry we put you through Red Rose academy?”

Yukio shook his head. ”It's OK. You couldn't know. I'm sure it looked like a good school.”

”Mm, it did.”