237 Chapter three, 2017, old and new: 7 (1/2)

With only a few days left until the short third school term Ryu returned to his senses after over a week's worth of luxury spent with Ai-chan.

He liked her enough to disregard everything that happened around him when he was together with her, even though he admitted that his prior crush on Kuri had been deeper.

Hence it was a rude awakening when he noticed that his sister was far too polite and silent for being her usual midget sized ball of opinionated energy. It wasn't until he asked her to join him for a double date with Ai-chan and Nao-sempai that he understood something was wrong.

”What do you mean he isn't answering,” Ryu asked as they walked out of the Shibuya station to pick up Ai-chan. Noriko had spent both local train and subway in sullen silence, and by now Ryu was thoroughly tired of her attitude. He hadn't done anything wrong.

Faced with a direct question she couldn't ignore it, and he watched her screwing a smile to her face before she replied. ”He's in Kyoto. With Kuri.”

'He's what?' Ryu wondered if he should poke some more or wait until Noriko continued of her own volition. In the end he settled for the latter as he saw Ai-chan waving at him from a bench close to the statue.

”Nao got caught up with whatever punishment Kuri received for spending Christmas with Urufu,” Noriko said, something that Ryu barely registered when Ai-chan rose and hugged him.

When Noriko and Ai-chan greeted each other Ryu took a look at his surroundings. Even though it was a clear day, January was as stingy with its warmth as usual. A lousy two degrees barely kept things above freezing, and anything even resembling a gust of wind blew right through his coat and chilled his bones. For once he wished he had one of Urufu's atrocious jackets.

'Is it colder where you used to live?' Ryu doubted the polar bears, but Sweden was pretty far north. Maybe like in Hokkaido, which meant freezing your butt off.

”Ryu, I heard rumours, are they true?”

'Rumours?' ”There are a lot of rumours about me,” Ryu said and grinned.

Ai-chan gave him a playful box on his arms. ”Not about you, stupid!” She smiled and laughed. ”I heard some people from your school got caught up in gang violence.”

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'Huh?' ”No, not that I know of. Noriko, you?” He didn't exactly expect her to answer. It wasn't like his sister followed the rumour mill; she was just a bit too studious for that.

A sudden tug at his jacket made him turn around. Noriko stared at him with worried eyes. ”Ryu, I was about to say. Thing is, none of them are answering.”

'Them' could only mean one out of two things. Urufu and Kuri, or all four of their closest friends. ”Kyoko or Yukio said anything?” Ryu asked to narrow down the options.