My disclaimers in the title. If you don't like what I write about, why are you reading it?
"Alright, listen up everybody, time for the daily announcements. There's a group of students coming here for a week for a week to look around and decide if they want to stay here. Now, I want everyone to be on their best behavior, no matter what!"
While it explained why they were here, Ulrich still didn't see the point in hanging around a bus top waiting for some people they didn't even know.
Yet here the gang was, Jeremie perched on the bench with his laptop strewn across his lap, Yumi peering over his shoulder at the complicated coding Ulrich could barley read. Aelita was on his other side, chattering about some computer nonsense Ulrich didn't bother trying to understand. Odd was sitting on the ground, leaning his back on the bench next to Aelita, telling some god awful joke. Ulrich himself was leaned against a nearby telephone pole, hands deep in his pockets as he watched the familiar scene.
He allowed a small smile to flicker across his face a moment, his entire body relaxing into the familiar rhythm it felt when around his friends, before sighing and asking once again that day.
"Why are we doing this exactly?"
Jeremie's eye twitched, and Ulrich knew he was annoying the young genius "I already told you, it's good to meet the people who may or may not be going here to find friends or enemies."
Ulrich didn't bother to remind them what happened the last time he made friends outside of the group. He knew he'd sound even less mature than he already was, and he didn't want to be compared to Odd.
The bus pulled up, and soon people around there age were walking by, paying no attention to the gang of kids sitting around the bench. A few girls stopped to admire Ulrich (for reasons he couldn't fathom) only to be warded off by a protective Yumi glare. He sent her a grateful smile, which she easily returned, causing his cheeks to flame and for him to jerk his head away. After allowing the other three people who were around them to chuckle, Ulrich said.
"We've come, we've seen. Can we go now?"
Jeremie sighed. While he knew Ulrich didn't like crowds, the brown-haired boy didn't have to be so persistent about leaving. "Alright Ulrich, let's go."
They all got up to go, Jeremie closing his computer as they went, and sent off for the school gates. Suddenly, a voice called out.
"Stern? Is that you?"
Ulrich stopped dead in his tracks. He didn't stop like one would when they had heard the voice of an old friend. Instead, it was like someone had pressed a knife to his throat. His whole posture stiffened into a coil, eyes widening in shock and small amount of fear.
He whipped around, surprising the others. Normally when someone he knew called him, he never reacted like that.
A tan, muscular boy with obviously dyed silver hair stood behind him with a look of shock plastered across his face. The boy wore a simple white shirt, jeans, and a cap. He wasn't much taller than Ulrich, yet he felt more imposing than the samurai did.
"Bradshaw? What are you doing here?" his voice was ice, and it was enough to make even Odd pause and listen. It was rare when Ulrich really was rude to someone, meaning this guy had done something to piss the boy off.
"I could say the same to you." Bradshaw's face quickly turned into an upturned smirk, and the others got the impression it was natural.
Ulrich's face was tense, and the gang was quickly becoming aware of the fact that they were in the middle of a personal battle they probably didn't want to be in.
Ulrich turned around once again, and started to stalk away "class is starting."
Jeremie checked his watch "uh, Ulrich, we've still got 15 min-"
"Class is starting soon." Ulrich interrupted, correcting himself as well "we should go. Now." Something in Ulrich's voice made dark chills go down there spines. They'd never seen Ulrich act like this, on or off Lyoko.
Bradshaw walked over to Ulrich and wrapped an arm around his shoulder, making Ulrich stiffen further. "Aw come'on, don't be like that." his voice was smug and self-important "maybe you could show me around?" he glanced at the others a moment "alone."
Ulrich opened his mouth to respond, and probably refuse, but a voices interrupted the conversation "hey, Chris! Come on man! Get over here!"
A quick glance up showed a group of boys shouting and waving their arms around rapidly.
Chris gave a small pout (obviously wanting to bother the shorter boy further) and started to walk away, glancing back long enough to call "we'll talk alone later Stern!" before going over to the group.
Ulrich didn't look back, and started to walk away once again, his body still tense.
After a few minutes, Odd finally got the courage to ask "who was that?"
"Someone I know."
Yumi snorted "obviously. Was he an old friend or something?"
"He's anything but." Ulrich snapped.
After a few more moments silence, Ulrich finally muttered "look, if I were you, I'd stay away from him. He's not a good guy." And with that, he walked away, further confusing his friends.
The rest of the day Ulrich spent pushing them away from Chris, making sure they never got more than a few words in before he pushed himself in and made and excuse to yank them away.
Yumi was the one to confront him "why are you doing this?"
He didn't look her in the eye "do what?"
She crossed her arms "don't lie. Why are you keeping us away from him?"
He tensed even further, before staring at his shoes "I told you. He's not a good person. I don't want him to make fun of you guys."
Jeremie, Odd, and Aelita were watching from Odd's bed in there room, more or less watching the argument like a cat with a ping pong ball. They'd all learned that getting in the way of an Ulrich and Yumi arguments was a bad idea.
Yumi finally lost her patience "and why are you so sure he's a bad guy!? How do I know you just are angry with him or something stupid like that!?"
Ulrich stopped dead and just looked at her a few moments, before stalking out the door, letting her get the last word in.
Yumi started after him "Ulrich wait!"
Odd grabbed her shoulder and shook his head when she looked at him "give him a little while, then we'll go looking for him."
They gave him three hours before they went looking for him. It wasn't hard to find him, due to his well known habit of going to a certain oak tree in the middle of the woods. They found him there, slumped against the trunk, snapping twigs nearby.
"Are you going to tell us?" Yumi demanded, and Ulrich sighed. He lifted his head so it was rested against the wood, his eyes closed.
"It's… hard to explain."
The group all sat down, Jeremie crossed legged, Odd spread out and leaning on his elbows, Yumi Japanese-style, and Aelita is meditating position, her hands cupped in her lap. The signal was clear, they weren't going anywhere.
"We've got plenty of time to kill."
Ulrich glared at the girl in front of him, but quickly looked away, obviously unsure "I don't know how to tell this story."
"Tell us the same way you told anyone else."
"I haven't told anyone."
A moment's pause "Oh."
Ulrich sighed once again, and closed his eyes as he gathered his thoughts. "I guess I should start by saying I'm bisexual. It's important in the story, believe me."
He glanced up, checking to see if they were bothered at all, and was surprised to see that none were. "I'm glad to see you don't mind. My old friends had a riot, laughing all the way at the thought of me going out with men as well as women."
Aelita frowned "they don't sound like friends."
"Dad wanted me to be friends with them." He answer was enough to quiet the girl, and he continued "they thought it would be hilarious to set me up on a gay blind date. I didn't like it, but they pretty much insisted. I got to the place, to find it was actually a guy I knew from school."
"I was ready to bail, but he took me out instead, we went to a dinner and all that stuff. Plain and simple. There wasn't anything really romantic about it, until he got me some alcohol."
"I'll admit it to you like I'll admit it to anyone who asks, I can't handle any form of alcohol, especially beer. But he ended up getting me really intoxicated, and everything else was blurry, but I remember enough to understand why I woke up next to him naked the next morning."
Yumi interrupted "you had sex with him!?"
Ulrich nodded "I wasn't happy about it, but I quickly grabbed my stuff and left. For a few weeks, nothing really happened, and I almost forgot what was happened, until the coach kicked me off the soccer team."
"When I asked him why, he answered 'I'm not about to deal with a gay boy on the team'. I went looking around, it turns out the jock had been set up on a dare and told the entire school I was gay. I listened to their crap for a long while, until I finally got into a fight with a couple of guys. Dad was ready to kill me."
"Then he had me transferred to Kadiac. And that's about it."
He glanced at everyone, and no one seemed very surprised. He was expected disgust, or possibly pity, not the normal looks he got whenever he told them a story about something he'd gone through, and he couldn't help but feel slightly thankful.
"Aright, I get all of that." Odd told him "so where does that guy factor in?"
"He's the guy I had sex with." He flushed at the word, and quickly looked away. God, he hadn't even told his dad about all of this, and now he was suddenly thrusting all of this on his friends. It was embarrassing to talk about, let alone inform them that a person they'd met earlier was someone he'd had intercourse with.
"So why does he want to talk to you alone?" Yumi felt her blood boil, but forced herself to keep calm. She could always go yell at Bradshaw later.
Ulrich shrugged his shoulder "I don't know, probably to blackmail me. "
He stood up and stretched, and they knew they weren't going to get any more info from him tonight "I just didn't want to bring you guys into this is all."
Odd quickly broke in "wait, wait, wait! i gotta ask. who was on top?"
Ulrich just looked at him "i'll leave that to your imagination" he stopped in thought a moment "actually, thats a bad idea. don't imagine it. but i'm still not telling you."
They all left, and when it was just Ulrich and Yumi alone, she said "um, Ulrich?" he turned to her "look, I just wanted to tell you… we may not have said it out loud, but none of us mind. Really."
Ulrich smiled at her "thanks Yumi. I needed that."
The next day the gang, minus Ulrich, sat at the bench, chattering idly. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Yumi spotted Chris walking in the middle of the courtyard, obviously looking for somebody.
Yumi stood up, ending all conversation, and walked straight up to the silver-haired boy, and slapped him. Hard.
"Hey!" Chris cried, bringing a hand to his slightly swelled check "what was that for!?"
"That" she hissed "was a warning. If you stay at Kadiac, we will make your life a living hell. A computer master, a practical joker, a computer genius, and I all want to make you wish you were never born. Stay. Away. From. Ulrich." She flipped her hair and walked away.
She sat back down at the picnic table they were gathered at, sighing in relief "I feel better now. He'll think twice before he comes here."
"Who will?"
They turned to a obviously confused Ulrich, a bag slung over his shoulder.
"Uh, nothing at all!" Yumi quickly told her, quickly giving a glance to Odd to distract hm.
Odd, noting the hint, quickly said "you know, I've officially got a new goal!"
"Oh yeah?" Jeremie asked, disinterested but pleasing the boy anyway "and what's that?"
"Get Ulrich drunk!" he cheered "I really want to see that!"
"Over my dead body." He grumbled, and everyone laughed, knowing it would be okay.
Ta-da. Hope you liked! If you didn't, then go away!