Yumi had always gotten along with boys better. Growing up, she found herself never fitting in with the girls of her class. She'd rather play in the mud with the rowdy boys than sit around talking about nail polish with the girls. Which is why Yumi was understandably upset when her parents placed her at an all-girls boarding school after catching her roughhousing with one of her male friends. She screamed and cried all she could, but in the end there was nothing she could do.
The school itself wasn't that bad. Classes were challenging, the dorms weren't morbidly depressing…but the student body enraged Yumi. The majority of her classmates were vapid, weak, idiotically feminine girls who would cry if they broke a nail. And so, Yumi found herself spending most of her time alone. She went to class, exchanged pleasantries with her lab partners, maintained top grades, and was miserable.
Yumi's misery ended the day she pinned a dark haired German boy to a wrestling mat. Her parents had suggested she take an extracurricular, and Yumi had chosen pencak silat. It was aggressive, physically demanding, and the perfect outlet for all the anger and misery Yumi kept bottled up inside. The class was held at the local gym near her school. Barely ten minutes had gone by and Yumi already felt more alive than she had in months.
His name was Ulrich Stern. He was a year younger than her, he had been doing pencak silat for two years, and he was the biggest dork she had ever met. They started spending time together, going to coffee shops after class to sit and talk until the streetlights turned on. She liked him, and he liked her. But of course they weren't going to admit that to each other.
Within a month, Yumi knew everything about Ulrich. She knew how much he hated his dad, and how much he appreciated his roommate (no matter how many times he cursed the boy's name). She knew just how he liked his coffee, and why he had left his life in Germany behind so willingly. And she told him everything she could about herself. She told him about her parents, and how much she hated having to be around girls all the time. She ranted about her disgustingly vapid roommate, then admitted her hopes and dreams for the future.
Then one day, Ulrich didn't come to class. He began skipping random days, or leaving early. He stopped getting coffee with her. She confronted him, demanding answers. And so, Yumi was introduced to a world beyond her wildest dreams. Ulrich brought her to an abandoned factory and introduced her to his roommate and a new boy named Jeremy. She went to Lyoko and fought the demons there. And just like that, her life changed.
Yumi became a Lyoko warrior. She had friends, three wild boys who went on adventures with her and were always willing to rescue her from the drudgery of her school and the madness of the girls there. Even on days of peace, when she was not called to fight, Yumi would sneak into the boys' dorm to do homework with them while Jeremy worked on his computer. Of course, they had to hide Yumi under the bed whenever anyone came in, but the secrecy just made it more fun.
Then there was Aelita. Jeremy found her, and anyone with eyes could see it was love at first sight. Even though she was trapped in the computer, Aelita was always with them when they hung out in Jeremy's room. She was so far, and yet so close to their group. After almost a year of war with XANA, Aelita came to Earth. And a year after that, the supercomputer was shut down for good. The war was over.
As the months passed, the group fell out of their old habits. With Aelita at the girls school, Yumi now had a friend there. They still went to hang with the boys regularly, but it was a casual outing for fun instead of a desperate journey for companionship. When the new school year began, Aelita and Yumi became roommates. The girls found themselves spending more meaningful time together, wasting hours talking about the little things in life. Sometimes, in the darkest hours of the night, they would whisper secrets they had never admitted to anyone else. Yumi admitted the doubts she had about the quasi-relationship her and Ulrich had maintained. Aelita admitted to thinking Odd was cute.
High school changed their group. Afternoons of pranks and video games morphed into quiet evenings smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap wine. Saturday afternoon became a time to get homework done before the ensuing party of the night. Aelita pushed Yumi to wear a tank top instead of a turtleneck. Yumi got Aelita to wear black lipstick.
And then, they had boyfriends. They were going on double dates, and expected to make time to spend alone with their guys. Ulrich got jealous when Yumi wanted to flirt at parties. Jeremy cried when Aelita admitted that her love for him was based more on gratitude than actual attraction. Double dates became evenings of strain and stress. Aelita got drunk at a party and kissed Odd, and their group fell apart after Jeremy punched Odd to the ground on Monday. Ulrich was busy doing damage control, and asked the girls to stay away until he had managed to resolve the situation.
And so, Yumi found herself spending her evenings sitting on the dorm roof with Aelita, passing the last cigarette in the pack back and forth until it was stained with both of their lipstick colors. Aelita told Yumi the truth about the kisses she had given the boys, and Yumi swore to keep her secret.
Ulrich came to visit Yumi. He was quiet when Aelita was in the room, sitting in Yumi's desk chair and focusing on his phone while the girls did each other's makeup. Yumi found herself wishing Ulrich would leave so she could resolve the tension in the air. Then she wondered why she wanted Ulrich to leave instead of Aelita, the source of the trouble that broke their group.
They went to a club and danced till three in the morning. Ulrich drank more than he should have and gripped Yumi's hips harder than he should while grinding on her. Aelita danced on her own nearby, twisting and singing to the music wildly. Yumi watched her friend while Ulrich moved against her backside.
Friendships began to heal. Aelita made apologies, and the boys tried to forgive. The group became one again, and they regressed back into innocent nights of wine and cigarettes on cold windy rooftops. Ulrich kept Yumi's hand in his at all moments, while Jeremy and Odd kept Aelita trapped between them the entire night. Words were light and casual, but Yumi could sense the undertone of heated competition in everything Jeremy and Odd said to the rose haired girl. Aelita blushed nervously, and smiled gratefully when Yumi made an excuse for them to leave early.
Winter turned to spring. Aelita avoided the boys, and the blond boys who couldn't speak to each other for weeks suddenly banded together in their shared anger at the girl who had jilted them. Yumi came into the room one day to find Ulrich and Aelita yelling at each other, tears rolling down her cheeks as Ulrich called her a tease and a bitch in the same breath. He didn't know about all the nights Yumi had spent holding Aelita as she called herself those names and much worse. Yumi told him to leave, and the look of betrayal in his eyes shook her to her core.
The roof had become a sanctuary for the girls. The city was spread out before them, its lights twinkling in the darkness as white smoke clouded from their lips. When the quiet became too much, Yumi admitted that Aelita was the only girl she had ever managed to befriend. She revealed her annoyance with most girls, and the sense of belonging she always felt around boys. And when their cigarettes became burnt stubs that they threw to the ground below with resolve, Yumi whispered the reason she believed she got along with boys better. Aelita whispered that she felt the same way.
Yumi had never noticed her roommates before. In prior years, she had focused on avoiding the girls she lived with. They were ditzy, bashful, and always seemed to annoy her with their mere presence. Aelita was none of these things, and so Yumi had enjoyed living with her. They were casual in all their interactions, but maintained privacy when necessary. Yumi would be lying if she said she had never let her eyes wander where they shouldn't. And sometimes she wondered about the times she had seen Aelita glancing her way at seemingly random times.
Then one night, all hell broke loose. The boys broke into the dorm, drunk off their asses, loudly announcing their arrival as they marched through the halls. Every girl opened her door to catch a peek at the drama as Yumi and Aelita yelled at the boys to leave. Then the boys pushed their way into the room, and Aelita was being held by hands much stronger than hers, and Yumi was pushing them away to hold the terrified girl protectively against her chest. Ulrich seemed genuinely confused when Yumi told him to leave with the others, and Jeremy and Odd cursed colorfully as they were pushed out onto the street.
As soon as the door closed, the girls collapsed onto the floor. They leaned back against the door, chests heaving with panicked breaths as peace was slowly restored. The only sound was their breathing as Aelita leaned to rest her head on Yumi's shoulder. Their fingers had interlaced at some point, and stayed together until the insistent buzzing from Yumi's phone interrupted their short lived peace.
Yumi told Ulrich to give her time to think. A week passed with no dates, no good morning texts, no Ulrich in her life. Aelita kept her phone turned off, and Yumi did the same. The girls avoided speaking of the incident until a night's worth of wine loosened Aelita's tongue and words of gratitude and admiration flowed freely. Yumi had always thought of her desire to protect Aelita as a sisterly bond, but every moment she spent stealing glances at her roommate's form told her otherwise. When sharing a cigarette made Yumi think more about Aelita's lips than the cityscape before them, that was when Yumi felt the panic that had been growing for the past month settle into a decision of truth.
Ulrich called. They went to a coffee shop, just the two of them, and it felt like they were back in middle school. He was apologetic, and so was Yumi, but neither felt any surprise when they hugged goodbye. Walking back to the school she hated on a beautiful spring day, Yumi could only think of the girl waiting for her. And there she was, patiently waiting. Leaning against the trunk of a tree that had sprouted blossoms the same color as her hair. And suddenly, all Yumi wanted to do was kiss her. Just for a moment.
Instead, they spent the evening discussing the breakup and laughing about boys and their melodrama. The sun set before them. Aelita hollered in a celebration of freedom, and Yumi joined her before lying back to stare at the sky while her belly shook with laughter. Aelita lay next to her, and their hands joined without intention. It only took a moment for their lips to meet, but it was enough for the truth to be told.
It was a wordless love. Their bodies fell together more naturally than anything they had experienced before, and suddenly a shared cigarette was more a precursor to a kiss than anything else. A chilly night meant a shared blanket, while a sunny day meant a picnic blanket in the park and cool glasses of lemonade that could be tasted on each other's lips for hours afterwards. Ulrich may have suspected, but he knew better than to point out the obvious. Odd and Jeremy were too willing to write off anything they witnessed as a trick of the light or a side effect of too much wine.
Yumi had always hated girls. But now, she couldn't get enough of the girl before her. The softness of her hair, the hidden curves that became so firm in Yumi's hands, the stolen kisses that tasted of cigarettes and sweet candy. The night they pushed their beds together for more space and then the night after when they pushed them apart because being close was half the fun of sharing a bed.
Ulrich asked her what it was. And all she could say, while staring at her rose haired girl from across the room, was that it was love. And it was beautiful.