222 Chapter two, 2016, just another Christmas: 3 (2/2)

”Nothing. Just gonna miss the old place,” Ulf said and hoped he sounded sincere enough for Yukio to buy the lie.

They walked down the stairs to the entrance floor and were joined by second and third years heading for the gym. A stiff thousand students inside the gym was cramming it, but it was doable. Ulf wondered how they planned to solve that problem come April, but they must have done so many years ago when all thirty six classrooms were in use.

'Three more months until I've done my second stunt as a first year high school student.' He shrugged and slapped Yukio's back to remove those kinds of thoughts. Real first years didn't think about April just prior to winter break. Real first years only thought of the break ahead of them.

”Man!”

”Hurry up kiddo. We're running late.”

”Yeah yeah, whatever, baldy,” Yukio said, but his grin belied the insult.

Soon they were hugging the school building, and freezing, now when the unseasonal rain finally had abated, and the temperature dropped to more proper and miserable levels.

More or less any other day he'd change in the boys' locker room and walk out the other side of it before going to the gym, which cut the distance to almost nothing. Now the entire school was heading there, and both locker rooms were off limits.

Ulf wrapped his arms around himself when a sudden gust of wind told him they'd rounded the left wing and were heading towards the football field.

”Man,” Yukio began, ”did you ever find out why the Red Rose bastards jumped you?”

”No,” Ulf answered. Because there probably wasn't an easy answer. By now he was certain it really had nothing to do with Red Rose, or at least nothing to do with the corporate part of Red Rose. ”Friends of friends I guess,” he continued.

Both boys walked almost sideways to avoid the worst of the wind, but it did little to prevent Ulf from freezing his arse off.

”Friends of friends?”

”Yeah, even bastards have friends you know.”

”I don't get you, man,” Yukio said. The words came out a bit whiny, but Ulf chose to attribute that to the bone-chilling wind rather than any dissatisfaction with his explanation.

”We put the guys who attacked Noriko through hell, remember?”

Yukio nodded.

'You'd better. You helped carry two of them away. And as far as those people are concerned I'm responsible for that suicide.' ”I believe it was as simple as revenge. They just wanted to beat the crap out of me.”

Anything else didn't make any sense. Ganging up on an arrival was inviting disaster. Ulf couldn't see anyone creating a covert organisation for handling the likes of him and Christina, and then just accept when their investment was sent to hospital.

'But there sure are people who hate us now. I'm afraid we haven't seen all the crap hitting the fan yet.' Which was the bad thing. He could handle crap, and if he was honest with himself, so could Christina. It was just that he wanted to protect her. Her needing protection or not just didn't come into the picture. 'I guess that makes me a chauvinist pig. Then so be it. I love her, I want to see her happy. If that's old fashioned then I'll refuse to become modern.'