Transition And Restart

They stayed the night . Yukio and Kyoko shared one room, and she and Urufu another . They didn"t sleep with each other, not even the way they had at the hotel . That was one of Urufu"s conditions . At least he didn"t demand that they separate their futons, and when morning came Noriko woke hugging Urufu through the linens .

Breakfast was a sombre affair with questions hanging in the air . Urufu spent most of it in silent conversation with his aunt who wasn"t his aunt, so Noriko didn"t get the time she wanted with him .

There would be other days . A lot of other days if she was to decide, and so she let him have the time he needed . She had promised him after all, even if they were a couple now . She intended to keep that promise . Reeling him in and caging him were two different things . He"d always need his own time, or she"d lose him forever .

Yukio and Kyoko were immersed in their own world of hopes and plans, and Noriko left them to it . Instead she looked out the windows at a landscape as alien to her as Urufu"s old world . Tokyo was Tokyo, a world of its own, and most of j.a.pan was nothing like it . In ways, she suspected, that faraway city where Urufu grew up would be less alien . At least it had to be a cityscape, even if on a much smaller scale .

"I wonder what Himekaizen is like now . It scares me to go back . "

Not all of them would . Far from . The four of them, she knew . For most of those admitted to Irishima High there was little reason to return to the school that had abandoned them though . To the madman .

Advertis.e.m.e.ntShe had her own reason – he spoke with his aunt, and her brother very much a similar one . Kyoko and Yukio were bound by ties of friendship, and they had each other . And Sato-sensei . "Urufu"s guardian scares me, but she"s on our side . " Not everything scary was bad . But her other friends? The other club members? Why when Irishima High was a much better school?

Noriko admitted she was an idiot, but she didn"t care . As long as she had Urufu she"d make do, and he needed her . He was still broken . Healing, but broken . That probably meant Kuri was broken as well . Part of her, Noriko suspected, never left that locked cla.s.sroom where a sixteen year old girl lay shuddering in tears she had brought on herself .

"I moved on, or so I thought . Kuri, why?" Suddenly Noriko couldn"t breathe . "Urufu, where did you leave part of your soul?" Because somewhere a sixteen year old boy lay whimpering in pain as well . Somewhere, but Noriko couldn"t even begin to guess where .

Accepting that he wasn"t her perfect hero had taken some time, but accepting just how deeply flawed he was would take some more . Older didn"t automatically mean better .

Somehow Noriko was happy she"d been left to her own devices . A bit of silence, a slice of strangeness and an ounce of pure joy around her was exactly what she needed to make any sense of the tumultuous last week . Sure, she"d been pushing hard for months, but everything fell in place the very last days, and despite planning for it she couldn"t cope in the end .

Not everything had gone as she planned . Definitely not the part where Kuri and Urufu shared their bodies with each other .

But .

In the end .
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He was hers .

A tinge of heat reached Noriko"s cheeks . "Does that make me his?" Because she had heard Kuri and him that night, and if Noriko was his, then one night . . . Noriko slammed a mental door on that line of thought . She refused to connect what she had heard with her fantasies about her own first time .

A few steps brought her to a strange outdoors that was still indoors .

"Most girls my age have already done it . " And another mental door had to be closed . She could worry about that later .

Noriko admired her surroundings . Originally designed to keep the cold out . Here it kept the heat out . A little wood, and a whole lot of gla.s.s . And sun shades . Just like at Himekaizen . Whoever once built this wanted a s.p.a.ce that defied any definition of what was indoors and what was outdoors .

"Construction? He can"t have been in construction . This is the work of an architect . "

Her grandfather on her mother"s side had been one as well . Cheating winter wasn"t all new to her, but she"d never seen anything on this scale in a home .

There was some kind of commotion behind her, and Noriko left the room to find out what it was all about .

"It"s too heavy for you . If you give us a ride I"ll take care of it . "

"Take care of what?" Noriko looked at Urufu, and then at the huge sack at his feet . "What"s that?"

"You sure . You look like a city boy . "

"Look, aunt, I"ve done this before, OK?"

"Urufu!" For being so bright he was surprisingly stupid sometimes .

"I guess you have, after all," their old host said . There was something awestruck in her eyes, and also something sad . "Fine, take it to the car and I"ll drive . "

"Yeah," Urufu said and hoisted the sack onto his shoulder .

"Urufu!"

Stringy muscles on his arm, neck and back hardened and relaxed in a show of gorgeous efficiency . For a moment he struggled under the weight, far more than half her own, but then he slid one foot to the side and made for the door .

"It"s heavier than I remembered," he said and turned his head over his free shoulder . "And I"m a bit skinnier now . " His entire body followed after his head . "But I"ll manage," Urufu added and shot her a grin void of any sorrow, hesitation or regret . For the first time in half a year he was just a mischievous boy playing a friendly prank on her . "Thank you, Noriko," he added, and her heart jumped .