CHAPTER FOUR

"This is exactly what I was talking about. When Ulrich finds out where you are we're both dead," Odd justified to Yumi, still standing in the kitchen while Yumi sat at the table.

"But he doesn't know I'm here," Yumi protested.

"We both know it's just a matter of time," he said in defense, going to sit next to her in the other chair. "He won't find you in this home where I'm sending you. They have no known address so he won't find it. I know you want to stay here and believe me, I don't want you to go either but it's the only choice right now."

"But why can't I stay here knowing you'll protect me from him? You're an officer and he can't do anything to you," she said, looking down at the floor.

"He's a sick bastard Yumi! If he did all of this to you then think of what he could do to me. Yes I'm a police officer but I can't do anything to him without any proof of conviction."

"How do you know this?"

"Even if you testify against him in a court room, you can't use those wounds as proof of abuse. One, they'll be healed by the time it would reach a courtroom and two, no jury will believe someone who stutters and begs as well as someone who can play the mask as well as Ulrich can."

"When did we talk about bringing him to court? I was talking about shooting his ass to hell."

Odd pounded his fists on the table and bent his head down towards it before saying, "It's not that simple. I can only shoot someone who poses a threat to me or if he runs from the law. I can avoid threats and death just as well as you can by going to that home."

Yumi held back her tears. She ran away from Ulrich to come find Odd and in less than twenty-four hours he was trying pushing her out the door.

Odd looked up at her confused and distraught face. He felt bad but it was the only thing he could do. After Ulrich and her got married, he got it through his head that he would never be able to be with her. He didn't want to fall for her again and then in the end lose her all over again. It was hard enough the first time watching her walk down the aisle to Ulrich and then years later see her crawling to his door because Ulrich stopped loving and caring for her.

"Yumi, I know it seems like I don't want you here but don't start believing that," Odd said in a softer tone, taking his hand and placing it delicately over hers. "I want you to stay here because it gets lonely without someone here but it's what's best for you. You'll get the protection and the care you truly need and deserve right now."

"But what will happen after that? Will you still be here for me when I get out or will you have forgotten me?" Yumi asked him, starting to cry.

"I won't forget you but I can't promise I won't be with someone. But that's all we can be is friends," he answered her question.

"OK," she said. "OK I'll go."

"Thank you."

Odd embraced her again and kissed her forehead softly.

"So when do you think Ulrich will find out that I was here?" Yumi asked him, clearing her tears.

"Ulrich may be tricky but he isn't that smart. If he was he would have realized that you could get out of that window long ago," Odd replied to her, her upper arms in his hands. "So if he does figure it out, you'll be long gone and safe."

"I hope so. I really do."

Yumi was still confused about why Odd was acting so differently around her now than when they were back in school. It was some kind of reverse psychology that made him immune to her attention but when he liked her, she was immune to his attention. It wasn't something that could be easily explained and then it would be all done in three seconds. This would take a lot longer to figure out but she didn't think a week would be enough time. But Odd didn't want both their lives to be at risk by living together so there was no way to argue her way out of this one.

Then an odd thought came to her.

"Am I falling for Odd?" Yumi though to herself as Odd got up to prepare food for them. "All of a sudden it seems as if he's the one for me but we've been only friends since we had first met. If something like this was going to happen then it would have happened by now."

Yumi turned to look at Odd who now had his shirt off and folded neatly on one of the counters. His forearms were big and muscular but they weren't huge and oversized. His chest was perfectly toned with a small but visible six pack.

Odd turned to look at her and noticed that her eyes were already fixed on him. She felt a blush creep over her cheeks and she turned her head to avoid his gaze just as she had done for Ulrich so many times.

Odd just laughed and said, "I'm sorry Yumi. I should have warned you first. I'm normally always cooking with my shirt off because since I come home late to eat I don't feel like changing just yet. Not until bed. But no one likes staining their clothes so I just take it off for cooking."

"OK it's official. I now have a crush on Odd. My best friend since school," Yumi concluded in her mind.

"Yumi?" Odd asked, confused at her silence.

She looked at him and asked, "Yeah?"

"You weren't talking so I thought you were looking into the future or something," he said to her.

"Oh. It was nothing. I was just a little stunned was all.

"That'll pass. Trust me. You'll get more adjusted to it. I promise."

Yumi nodded and continued to stare at the floor even when he turned back to cooking.

Eventually she turned to look at him again. They started talking, asking questions and laughing. And sure enough, he was right. She got over the awkwardness and it was as if he never took off his shirt. It was just like his skin was his shirt and he was just wearing a sweater when he put on a real shirt.

Odd was going through cupboards, looking for pots and pans, stirring spoons, plates and silverware. He left the china cabinet alone except for a dish towel so Yumi thought the entire set of china was just for show.

When Odd finished using a dish, he placed it in the sink. One side of the sink was filled with cold water for the burning hot dishes and the other side was empty for the already cooled dishes.

Odd was so neat and well organized it was hard to tell when he stopped doing one thing and started on another. His movements were quick and precise; flawless. It could have been the fact that Yumi was so absorbed in the conversation that she hadn't even noticed when he moved.

Strangely enough, Yumi was completely comfortable and felt as if Ulrich wasn't a part of her life and that he never was. She kind of liked it.

Odd came to the table with two plates but left again and came back with another of the chairs and placed it on his other side. He grabbed a third plate and sat down in his spot, looking at Yumi.

"Is everything all right?" Odd asked when Yumi stared at the third plate and nothing else.

"I was just wondering who was going to be eating with us since we're the only two in this house," Yumi replied, trying not to think the worst.

Just then the doorbell rang.

"I'll be right back," Odd said, getting up to answer the door.

Yumi sat still and looked at the ground, trying to think of who it would be and why Odd didn't tell her someone else was joining them.

Odd returned, minutes later, with a girl. Yumi looked at her and examined her.

The girl had mid-back length blonde hair with her bangs pulled back in a clip. She was skinny but didn't look like she was anorexic. Her attire was a blue mini skirt and her shirt was a button-down blouse. The design was elegant and elaborate as well as beautiful. She had a light tan and the brilliance of her hair showed all the more because of it. Her calves were elegantly and perfectly toned as well as her thighs and waist and hips. Her eyes were a brilliant blue that looked like they came from the sky and could reflect the sun itself. She also had little spots of light brown freckles, and her smile was simply amazing, completed with dimples.

She was almost perfect.

"Yumi, this is Cadence, my fiancé," Odd introduced. "And Cadence, this is my friend, Yumi."

Yumi felt in-superior to Cadence and she fell into a stage of awkwardness again for she was still wearing Odd's clothes and in front of his fiancé. She didn't know what to do or how to act because she was heartbroken as well as fearful that Cadence would leave Odd from the wrong impression.

"Hello, Yumi. It's so nice to meet you," Cadence said, her voice floating majestically as if it were made of only air and music.

"Hello," Yumi said in return, her voice cracking. "It's nice to meet you, too."

Cadence continued to smile but something else flashed in her eyes that Odd couldn't see.

Odd pulled out the chair for Cadence and then pushed it back in for her after she had sat down. He then took his place between the two of them.

Conversation was seldom and only started when Cadence did something cute or spilled something on accident. Everything she did was cute to Odd and it got quite old and annoying, but Yumi dealt with it and tried to avoid their conversations as much as possible unless they were directing a question to her, or were asking her for her opinion. Most of the time it was her opinion of Cadence, or of what Cadence was wearing, or of something that had to be related to Cadence.

Half an hour after dinner had started, Yumi had finished and Odd and Cadence were still only centered on one another. Cadence didn't even seem to take notice that Yumi was in his clothes and if she did take notice, she was hiding it well.

Yumi pushed her chair out from under the table and got up, bringing her plate to the sink and rinsing it off to be nice. What Odd had made was delicious but the taste for it left when they wouldn't shut up about Cadence. She began to leave the room before she stopped and turned to face odd.

"I'm going to get in the shower and then come down to go to bed," Yumi informed them.

Odd turned to face her and said, "Until you're gone I'm sleeping on the couch. You get my room and my bed and don't complain about it."

Yumi nodded but wasn't happy at the thought of having his bed when he was engaged to Cadence. It was preposterous and wrong but she learned not to argue with authority or higher power. Ulrich and gotten that through her head when they got married.

When Yumi reached the top of the staircase, she heard the scraping of chairs in the kitchen and she knew Odd and Cadence had gotten up and were ready to do something. Instead of letting it bother her further, she went into Odd's room and closed the door behind her. She made her way to his dresser and pulled out another pair of his boxers and then headed to the closet to pick out a shirt. She looked through the ones with cartoons on them but finally settled for one with Pluto, Mickey Mouse's dog, on the front and the Warner Bros. logo on the back.

Yumi entered the luscious bathroom and closed that door as well. She quickly undressed and tossed the clothes off to the side and placed the clean ones on the counter next to the sink. Her image in the big vanity mirror showed the truth as to why Odd didn't feel the same about her. She turned from side to side and revealed many other wounds that were inflicted by Ulrich that she never showed Odd.

There was a big, gruesome bruise that was black and blue and green and very swollen. It was located right above her left hip bone and just brushing against it made it sting like the night Ulrich had given it to her by hitting her with a steel baseball bat. Up above the bruise towards her armpit was a small gash. This was where Ulrich had stabbed her when he tripped and fell against her. The most horrible, gut-twisting wound she had was a long, thick scar that went from her left pelvic hip-line to under her right breast.

She had gotten this the night of their first anniversary when he had come home drunk as always. He had bought a bottle of rum and was drinking it on his way home though it wasn't Ulrich who did it. It was, in fact, her fault because when he came home he started shouting at nothing and to escape him she had crawled in a little place in the wall he didn't know about at first. She had wedged in the space as far as she could go but she hadn't seen the piece of metal sticking out of the duct work so when she tried to turn around, it sliced her front side.

Yumi had screamed after she felt a sharp, searing pain and when Ulrich had found her, he had been generous enough to pull her out and clean the wound but only for a while.

The very next day he had sealed up that space but he didn't work on the window.

Yumi braced her arms over her upper half, feeling her nipples get harder from the cold of the bathroom. She turned away from the mirror and went to the glittering shower and pressed a button to open the glass door. The plaster and the design of the layers in the shower were a bit rough but smooth against her feet. She stepped up to the top most section where the manual water setting knobs were. To get it to start automatically, she would have had to start it from on the outside on the control panel on the door with the open and close buttons.

Yumi turned the hot and cold handles and got the water to flow nice and easy. When it was just the temperature she wanted it set at, she eased under the warm water and tilted her head up towards the water. Her eyes were closed but it felt as if her eyes were being cleansed as well as her body. She straightened her head again and opened her eyes, rinsing her dirty hair under the running water, watching as bits of dried blood dropped down and emptied into the drain. Dirt turned into murky water as it washed out of her hair and fingernails.

The shampoo and conditioner were found close by so she grabbed the shampoo and worked it into a lather throughout her hair. After she rinsed out the shampoo her hands reached for the conditioner and worked the clumpy mixture into her snarls and snags and worked them loose. Both the shampoo and conditioner smelled of lilies. Instead of rinsing out the conditioner right away like she had the shampoo, she let it sit in while she used the body wash to cleanse the rest of her body. Once she was completely clean, she rinsed out the conditioner and stepped down to the bottom step and pushed open the door, stepping out, closing it, and then turning off the water by the push of a button.

Yumi grabbed the nearest towel on the towel rack and began to dry herself off, careful of the now infected bite wound on her neck. Once she was all dry, she grabbed the boxers and shirt and slipped them both on almost instantaneously. She grabbed the brush and began working that through all the knots which came out surprisingly smoothly but it could be because of the bristles of the brush which were made of dried and starched horse hair.

Once she was completely done, she examined herself in the mirror and grabbed the dirty clothes, leaving the bathroom and turning off the lights.

Yumi threw them aside in a pile of other dirty clothes and opened the bedroom door and stepped into the dark hallway. She heard the TV on low downstairs and the arguing voices of Odd and Cadence. She was curious so she tip-towed halfway down the staircase and sat in between the railings, listening to them.

"Because she's wearing your clothes, she's sleeping in your bed. She's even staying here for a week. Would anyone trust you?" Cadence yelled furiously.

"I don't believe what I'm hearing. We've been together for over a year and you still don't trust me? This is pathetic, Cadence."

"What?" she asked in disbelief. "This is pathetic? You're the one sharing your home with someone other than your fiancé!"

"Yumi is a friend and nothing more! We've been friends since middle school and she came to me for help! My other so-called friend got married to her and he abused her! I'm not letting her go on the streets! I found her a secretive home and she'll be out of here in a week."

Odd was furious by the sound of his voice. Yumi had never heard him shout like that before.

"It doesn't matter! Anything between you and her could happen. Either she goes or I do."

There was silence from the two for a long time. Yumi didn't want Odd to leave his fiancé and she didn't want Cadence to leave Odd because of her.

The silence was long and dreadful but she hoped Odd would choose Cadence but then where would Yumi go?

Finally Odd spoke.

"I choose her. If you can't accept the fact that I won't leave a friend in need on the street then you're not worth my time," Odd said.

"Alright. Fine. Goodbye, Odd," Cadence replied.

She didn't sound in the least bit heartbroken about it.

Yumi heard Cadence walking out of the living room and soon she saw her walking into the hallway, hearing her angry footsteps echoing on the hard wood flooring. The door slammed closed and a minute after that, she heard a car start and speed off down the road into the night.

Yumi was happy and yet at the same time disappointed. Cadence was obnoxious, yes, and self-centered but Odd loved her and Yumi couldn't help but feel it was all her fault.

She got up and headed back up the stairs to Odd's room. She closed the door behind her and walked over to the bed, laying down on the plush bed and resting her head on the pillow.

It took Yumi a long time to fall asleep with thoughts of the fight between Odd and Cadence on her mind but eventually she fell asleep.