Note: Useful tip: if you think a renovation project will take two weeks to complete, double that estimate. And then expect it to run over still. Anyway, here is the newest chapter, sorry for the short delay in getting it posted.
16. She never liked Emily.
Yumi meets Emily when they are twelve. She arrives at Kadic mid-year and is seated a row away from her. Yumi doesn't really pay attention to the other girl, to be honest. She was quiet and kept to herself, and just like everyone else in her school, she struggled pronouncing Yumi's name.
Try as she might, she really can't remember much about Emily that first semester.
. . … . .
"You know Emily Leduc, right?"
Yumi lifts her eyes, studies Ulrich calmly. He's not exactly avoiding her gaze, but he's not meeting it either. She frowns and sets her math book aside. "We're in the same grade," she says.
"Are you two friends?"
"Why do you want to know, Ulrich?"
He shrugs, and now his gaze slides past her. "Never mind," he mumbles. Odd calls his name from across the courtyard. She waits until he's walked away to join the other boy before she turns. Emily is sitting on the low wall by the library, legs folded and head bent over a novel.
. . … . .
Sometimes, when she looks back on it, she tries to figure out what it is exactly that she doesn't like about the other girl.
Emily is quiet, but so is Yumi. Neither belong to large social groups, as far as Yumi can tell. Those first twelve months of acquaintance Emily was friends with Tania Grandjean and Anais Fiquet while Yumi hung out with Shannon Abele and still sent multi-page letters back home to Hina and Kaito. She had never really understood homesick until that first year in France.
Emily is more artistically inclined than Yumi is. They share history and an art class. Emily takes the seat in back, next to one of the large windows. The sunlight slants through and the radiator doesn't reach. Yumi doesn't really know anyone else in that class, Shannon took chorus instead and Mathias gives her the creeps, so she sits across from Emily. The girl is talented in an effortless, absent minded way.
Yumi feels eyes on her and looks up to find Emily peering at her still life drawing. She smothers the initial reaction of covering it and lets her look. Emily flashes her a small, tentative smile. "It's good," she says. "If you work on the shadowing more, it'll look more three-dimensional. I can show you?"
"It's fine, thanks," Yumi mutters. She looks between the fruit bowl on the table between them and her own drawing. They dart over to Emily's own richly detailed drawing, colors vibrant and shadows deep. She imagines she could pluck the apple off Emily's page and eat it. "I've got it."
Emily sits back in her chair, studies her for a moment, then shrugs. "Okay," she says.
. . … . .
Odd likes to tease that Yumi is jealous of Emily, that's why they never got along. "After all," he points out late one afternoon, "we all know Sissi's not even a blip on Ulrich's radar. But Emily's cute and doesn't screech."
"Emily's fine. Ulrich can date whoever he wants."
"Yeah?" Odd asks, eyeing her curiously. He tilts his head to the side, glancing between her and where Ulrich is talking to Emily on the library stairs. "I wonder if you say that enough you'll start to believe it."
. . … . .
Yumi learns about Emily's quick temper midway through their year together. It isn't in art class, instead it's in history. Yumi had been tuning out, doodling cherry blossoms and expressionless eyes in the margins of the notes she's supposed to be taking. Shannon chatters next to her, planning the project they're actually supposed to be working on. Yumi hums agreement in the appropriate parts and lets Shannon take the lead.
It isn't that she doesn't care about civil rights movements, it's just that they're all talk and little change.
The explosion comes ten minutes before the bell rings. Yumi still isn't sure what started it, even all these years later. One minute the class was studiously working on their group presentations. The next, Emily and Priscilla break from furious whispers to a heated argument.
Yumi's pen stills as she watches the drama unfold. Emily slams her books onto the desktop, both girls ignore Monsieur Fumet's attempts to restore order. "Stop overreacting, Em. Mon dieu, it's not like it matters," Priscilla snaps.
Emily knocks her chair over as she storms from the room. Her shoulder bag catches Yumi in the arm, dashes her pen over the only pair of passable eyes she had doodled. She rubs her sore arm and glares at the door Emily slams behind her.
Too much drama, she thinks, disgruntled.
. . … . .
She finds Ulrich and Emily on the football field, lounging on the bleachers. Ulrich is stretched out on one of the risers, Emily sitting one higher, pen between her teeth and notebook on her knees. Emily is the first to notice her, eyes lifting and watching as Yumi crosses the rain-damp grass.
Ulrich is still talking, voice quietly carrying in the still air. Yumi keeps her eyes on them, face expressionless. She watches Emily set the pen on the notebook. Ulrich turns to see what's caught the other girl's eyes and his gaze catches Yumi's. He sits up, offers her a small smile.
"You didn't answer your phone," she comments, coming to a stop at the foot of the bleachers. She keeps her voice light, curious. Her eyes dart between Ulrich and Emily. "I thought we were going to practice?"
"Sorry, I lost track of time," Ulrich replies. He smiles at Emily and she returns it, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "Later, Em?" He grabs his bag and hops down the bleachers effortlessly, tilts his head curiously at Yumi. "Come on, we should still have enough sunlight to get in a few rounds, yeah?"
Yumi isn't jealous, no matter what Odd believes, because she and Ulrich are friends. She made sure of it.
. . … . .
She had tried to explain it, once, to Aelita. How it wasn't Emily she disliked. She didn't really think about Emily too much, honestly. It wasn't like they were enemies or arch-nemesis or whatever videogame or superhero analogy the boys liked to use. That was ridiculous. Sissi was the enemy and XANA was the arch-nemesis, clearly.
Emily was just…Emily.
The only time she really thought about the girl was when they were in each other's presence.
"Why does this bother you so much?" Aelita had asked, head tilted to the side quizzically.
Yumi had sunk down on the bed next to her, dragged a hand through her hair, and stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stars Aelita had stuck to her ceiling. "I don't know. It doesn't, not really."
"Is it because you're jealous?" Aelita had sighed at the blank look Yumi shot her. "Odd says you like Ulrich, but he spends a lot of time with Emily too. Are you jealous that they're getting closer?"
"What? No!" Yumi had shaken her head. "Ulrich can be friends with whoever he wants. I just, I don't like people thinking that's the reason I don't like her."
"Then why don't you like her?"
And that was the question Yumi couldn't answer. Emily was Emily wasn't an answer. Everything circled back to jealousy, and she wasn't. She wasn't.
"She has a temper," Yumi had said, finally.
Aelita had laughed, flopped back on the bed, and bumped shoulders with Yumi companionably. "Yeah? So do you."
. . … . .
The thing is, she isn't jealous of Emily Leduc. Not of her artistic talent, Yumi knows where her own talents lie and she's never had the patience for art. She's not jealous of her quiet confidence either because she knows her own strengths. And anyway, Emily has never put her down or acted like she was better than anyone else.
She isn't jealous of Emily's relationship with Ulrich either. That would be like being jealous of Ulrich spending time with Odd or Aelita or Jeremie. She knows she isn't jealous of Emily and Ulrich because she disliked Emily long before Ulrich entered the picture.
Jeremie stares at her, bleary eyed, over the cup of coffee in front of him as she explains everything. She isn't eloquent, it's far too late at night to be eloquent, but she is comprehensible which is a plus. They're sitting in the factory while Jeremie runs maintenance or surveillance or whatever on the supercomputer.
"Yumi," Jeremie interrupts. She meets his eyes and he gives her a lopsided smile. "Not everyone gets along with everyone they meet. You're entitled not to like someone."
"Yeah, but I should at least know why I don't like her. Even if it's just so I can stop Odd and his stupid rumors."
Jeremie nods, sips at his coffee, and clicks a few keys. "Do you want to know my guess?"
Yumi stretches her legs out and leans her head back against the supercomputer console. "Sure, why not?"
"I think you and Emily are very similar in a lot of ways. And," he continues when she opens her mouth to protest, "I think one of those similarities rubs you the wrong way. That you see something you don't like about you in her. And that's why you don't get along."
"We get along, it's not like she's Sissi."
"Yumi," he groans. "You know what I mean. Think about it."
She does, legs pulled up and chin resting on her folded knees. She listens to his occasional clicks and muttered tech-talk, and she really does think about it.
. . … . .
Emily and she are both quiet, more prone to observing the world than actively engaging it. While Yumi was forced into her observer role by language barriers and being the new kid, Emily's take on it seems effortless. She is comfortable observing others while Yumi spent her first year wishing desperately to be back with the friends she'd left behind in Japan.
Emily is competent in what she does, and she doesn't worry about making mistakes. Yumi has watched her in art class, sketching lines, erasing, blurring, starting over. The whole time with that far-away look on her face, not hiding her work from others who pass by and stop to watch for a few moments. Yumi has never developed that carefree attitude, the same one that Odd has when he gets in the zone with his painting or music. Even when she's doing martial arts each move is calculated, planned out. A careful back-and-forth with her sparring partner. There is no room for mistakes, for casual observance.
Emily's temper is explosive, but unlike Yumi's, it's a slow-burn. It takes a lot to get Emily to lash out, whereas Yumi can feel anger simmering in her veins even when she's happy. A constant thrum and bubble that leaves her on edge, anxious, and looking around for an impending attack. Sometimes she wonders if it's a side-effect of always being prepared for XANA, or if it's genetic. Do her parents have this same thrum under their skin?
Emily is friends with Ulrich, just like Yumi is. It's just like she told Jeremie, just like she's argued with Odd, like she's explained to Aelita: she can't be mad at Ulrich for having friends. But, she realizes, it is different. The five of them share a bond, they talk about XANA and strategize attacks, and goof off to keep their sanity in-tact. Emily doesn't have that, she and Ulrich have a friendship built solely on normal, everyday life. Because they chose to be friends. Like she and Shannon chose to be friends. She isn't jealous of Emily, not really, she's just sad that Emily can have that and she can't.
. . … . .
She and Emily have always been similar, since Yumi first started at Kadic midway through her twelfth year. Sometimes, Yumi wonders what would have happened if she had come to Kadic sooner, or if she had never joined the boys in fighting XANA. Would she and Emily have become friends? Would she feel more of Emily's calm, collected confidence herself?
She never liked Emily, and it wasn't because she was jealous of her relationship with Ulrich – no matter what Odd said. She never liked Emily, but she also never really gave her too much thought either. They are too similar and too different at the same time. And sometimes, when she catches Emily's eye across the room or courtyard or cafeteria, she has a feeling the other girl feels the same way.