wow - can't believe anyone is still keeping up with this account. Here's chapter two.


Ulrich raised his eyebrow as he tapped the glass again.

Yumi bit her lip and slowly, so slowly, opened the window. Ulrich casually slipped through the open window, his posture slack. Yumi's head changed channels, slowly rising into a panic, wondering if something happened - if she was too late -

"Everything is fine," Ulrich said, as if he read her mind. Yumi let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding, but her chest was still tight because Ulrich Stern was in her bedroom. Her parents were downstairs, Hiroki's bedroom was just across the hall. She wanted to wrap her fingers around Ulrich's wind pipe and tighten them, like a vice. He made her so -

"I brought you something."

Ulrich slipped off his backpack and unceremoniously sat on her bed, as if he belonged there. With a flourish, he procured a bottle of Whiskey and two glasses.

- so angry.

"You're drunk," Yumi's voice was flat, her hands instinctively disappeared into her pockets. This was becoming a habit, too. Yumi knew she should be worried, but she was more worried about how much she wanted to join him.

Ulrich poured the whiskey.

"I came to celebrate our engagement."

"I said we were dating," Yumi rolled her eyes, but took the glass from his outstretched hand.

"Yeah, but who knows …" Ulrich fixed his eyes on his glass. The whiskey rippled as his hand trembled. "Who knows when this fucking war will be over … we might have to pretend to like each other forever."

The last was most definitely a jab, but Yumi ignored it because that's what she was good at - ignoring his feelings, his subtext.

Yumi wanted to say something like, "I want us to go back to the way we were", but that sounded trite and also untrue. Yumi thought of William, who both wanted her and hated her.

"I think I broke something," Ulrich winced. Yumi nodded as he poured himself another shot.

"Me too," Yumi tipped the glass and let the whiskey fill her mouth. Like your heart, or my future, or this friendship.

Looking at the beautiful line of his jaw, Yumi was very glad that her parents were in the same house.

"Another?" Ulrich whispered.

"Yes."

He smiled, frank and a little delirious. "Okay."

Yumi's limbs were beginning to feel comfortably heavy.

"Thanks for coming," she licked her lips to retrieve an errant drop of Whiskey.

"Uh, yeah …" Ulrich noticed. "I wanted to talk to you before tomorrow … and the next day, and the days after that. You know, we don't get to talk anymore. I know you think you're not going to get into a good university but we both know that's a lie."

He poured them both another shot.

"So … what are you really worried about?"

Yumi smiled, languid, heady from the alcohol. When did Ulrich Stern become so wise and so perceptive? Or maybe all of this alcohol was making her too easy to predict, like an oncoming train veering off the rails.

"I don't know," Yumi sighed. You. "What if the war is … " The words tumbled away from her. "What if this war is the best of our lives? l mean, how insane does that sound?" Yumi raked her hands through her oil slicked hair. "What if after this … we all drift apart, and I never get to see you again, and I get into a really good school but then my life turns into this … it's … mediocre …"

Ulrich was silent. How could he have an answer? Feeling stupid, Yumi finally looked over to Ulrich only to discover that he was falling asleep. Did he hear anything she said? Probably not, and that was probably for the best.

Yumi threw her empty shot glass in his lap. This startled Ulrich enough to rouse him. "You really need to get out of here."

Ulrich moved slowly, checked his phone, it was almost sunrise.

"Yeah … "

Yumi moved to open the window, making sure no one was feeling particularly health conscious and was out for a run.

"I still think we should give this a shot."

Yumi froze, her buzz was already fading and this was not a conversation she wanted to have.

"Didn't we just talk about this?"

"Define talk," Ulrich's packed away the shot glasses and the whiskey. The zipper on his backpack was so fucking loud.

"You brought up the idea, I said it wasn't a good one, the conversation ended."

"You were right," Ulrich said, as he swung his legs out of the window. "We will drift apart … and we won't see each other for a long time, maybe never. And if you're okay with that then okay … I'm not … I'm not going to keep asking you, Yumi."

Shit, so he did hear her. His hands were fisted, he wasn't looking at her.

" — and if you don't want me, that's fine. I just … can you stop looking at me like you do all the fucking time?"

He jumped before Yumi could reply.

Yumi couldn't move, her pulse stuttered. She felt trapped by her own emotions and incapable of moving from where she stood.

By the time she had recovered and looked out of the window, Ulrich was already gone.


They didn't have any classes in common, since she was a year ahead, and Ulrich was absent during lunch.

"He's taking a test he missed," Odd supplied helpfully when Jeremie stared at where Ulrich usually sat.

Aelita sat between Jeremie and Odd, sketching a blueprint for something she was working on for a showcase. She looked utterly lax, content and oblivious.

"Oh no," Aelita said suddenly, her brow creasing. "I forgot my other notepad with all of my calculations in class…" She looked so worried, so utterly helpless. Jeremie fell for it immediately.

"Do you want me to go get it?"

"Absolutely," Aelita smiled. "Odd, it was that last class we had … can you show Jeremie which classroom?"

"Sure thing," Odd's gaze lingered on Aelita's face.

Jeremie and Odd left, in pursuit of a notepad that Yumi was sure didn't exist, and would keep them occupied for at least twenty minutes.

"So…" Aelita drawled. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

Yumi groaned, "Barely."

Aelita wiggled her eyebrows, "Did you break Ulrich, is that why he isn't here?"

"W-what! Aelita, no. Jeeze, sometimes I forget you came out of a computer but then you say things like that."

"Hey," Aelita shrugged. "If you were trapped in a digital world, you would have a lot of time on your hands too. So, enough deflecting … what happened?"

"Nothing," Yumi crossed her arms over her chest. "Ulrich showed up at my house last night, drunk, and then we both started drinking … He asked me why I wouldn't date him, again - "

"An excellent question we all ponder."

Yumi rolled her eyes. "… and then he said, 'I'm not going to wait for you … if you don't want to go out with me then stop looking at me like you do' or some shit like that. Ulrich Stern, of all people …"

"To be fair, he was probably thinking about that for a while. So what are you going to do about it?"

"Wait a minute," Yumi countered. "Don't try to lecture me about doing anything about anything until you work out that thing you have going on with Odd."

"What thing?" Aelita asked, innocently. "I can't control how other people feel about me … and neither can you. But lying to yourself about how you feel, that's something else."

"What's the point anyway? I'm about to graduate, all of the universities I'm looking at are far away from here, at least a three hour drive. After nearly dying on a weekly basis, a little high school fling isn't exactly high on my list of priorities."

"Okay," Aelita shrugged. "I just think you should consider that Ulrich isn't a plaything, and he's also stubborn, so this probably isn't going to work out the way you want it to."

At that moment, Sissi approached their table. Yumi raised an eyebrow, her hair was a startling shade of blonde.

"Where's Ulrich?"

"Oh, let me check," Aelita rifled through some pages in her notepad. "Oh wait, that's right, I'm not his secretary."

Yumi nearly choked on the apple she was eating.

Sissi narrowed her eyes at Aelita, obviously unsure how to respond. "… Well, if you see him, let him know I'm looking for him."

Yumi turned her attention to Aelita.

"Did something happened to you?"

"Look, I haven't slept in three days, we're no closer to cracking the barrier we found in Sector 5 and I haven't finished this design for my admissions essay. Jeremie keeps trying to convince me to do this summer internship with him at Yatedo, but Odd wants me to do this band summer camp … The only person worse at catching a hint than Sissi is —"

"Princess," Odd hollered as he ran towards the table. Jeremie looked puzzled, and trailed behind him. "Are you sure you left that notepad in our last class?"

"Hmm," Aelita lifted her pencil to her mouth, tapping twice. Odd was transfixed. "Now that you mention it … maybe I left it back at the dorm. Thanks for looking though!"

Yumi bit back a smile.


The rest of the day was uneventful. No alarms, no skipping classes to fight evil - just an instructor droning on and on.

Yumi's phone buzzed and the instructor looked in her direction auspiciously. Yumi tossed him a winning smile and the instructor turned away.

She took a moment to look at her notification. It was Ulrich.

"Hey"

She wrote back.

"How was the quiz?"

"It's better if you don't ask."

"So you're going to need a make up for the make up?"

"Ha, something like that."

Yumi paused, she didn't know what else to say. Ulrich beat her to it.

"So, I just wanted to say sorry about last night."

"Which part … the part where you brought me cheap whiskey or the part where you almost got me disowned. I only have 5 months left in that prison!"

Yumi was good at this, if Ulrich was going to give her the opportunity to pretend that everything was okay between them, shit, she was going to take it.

"No, I mean about showing up at your parents house in the middle of the night. I just want to let you know before you hear it from someone else …"

Yumi hesitated. This sounded suspiciously familiar.

"What did you want to tell me?"

The instructor passed by with a past assignment. Yumi looked at the grade stamped on the upper right corner of her paperwork and sighed. Her phone buzzed. Yumi's gaze darted to her phone, she could use a distraction from how she was going to explain this grade to her parents.

"After I left your house, I ran into Sissi on the way back to the dormitories. She asked me out and I said yes. So you don't have to worry about it anymore."

Yumi's phone slipped out of her hand.

What the fuck.