269 Chapter six, 2017, spring break: 6 (1/2)

It was a desperate plan, but she was trapped if she didn't do anything. No way in hell she'd let the pigs decide who had access to her body next. So Christina found herself with a problem she couldn't solve.

Until she saw Ryu with his girlfriend. She looked like she had cried her heart out, and for a moment Christina boiled with anger at whatever Ryu had done to the poor girl. Ai-chan was too lovable to hurt like that.

In the end Christina decided to spy on the pair.

She never got close enough to hear anything, but from what she saw they tried to resolve some kind of crisis. She smiled when she saw their embrace, but a spike of pain shot through her immediately after. 'Should have been me and Ulf. Ulf, where are you?'

Then, to her huge surprise, Ryu left Ai-chan and walked back. Christina saw the girl staring after him with an expression of longing and abandonment in her face. Then she broke down in tears and vanished under the bridge.

'What the hell just happened? Ryu, you bastard! I'll wring you dry.' But his face combined with his words told her another story when they sat over a table with overpriced food. It was at that moment her plan came to her.

”Would you like to date me?”

The two of them hurting for someone they still loved. It would make it all so much easier to explain.

”What?” Ryu said after he wiped a dumbfounded grin off his face.

”I said, would you want to be my boyfriend?”

”What the hell? OK, I'm off.” He grabbed his jacket and left the table.

Christina calmly collected her own and followed him. Her plan was harebrained enough it might just work. She caught up with him just as he entered the elevator.

”Let me explain,” she said on the way down. ”It's not what it sounds like. Well, it is, but still not.”

He didn't try to run away from her, so she made him company to the station. Ryu walked a few steps ahead of her, but she could still imagine his stony face. An honest boy. That was the part of him Christina liked most. He made a good friend to both Yukio and Ulf.

Again, thinking of Ulf bled a razor of pain through her. He would always hurt in her mind.

”Ryu,” she said as they swiped their wallets over the receptor at the turn stile. ”I'll always love Ulf.”

That had him stop temporarily.

”Make no mistakes about that. Ulf is the only man I could love fully.”

Ryu slowed down enough to make her come up by his side.

”My employer thinks I'm some kind of property they can have and sell as they wish. Now they're trying to force a boyfriend on me.”

For the first time since she dropped the bomb Ryu's face softened a little. ”I'm listening.”