Transition And Restart 197 Chapter Six, 2016, Three Schools: 3

"You're silent."

Ai-chan's voice made Ryu look up from his bag. She was cute and likely to become a real beauty a few years down the line. But it wasn't her looks that caught his interest. Not that looks didn't matter. For him they definitely did, but having grown up with Noriko he doubted he could ever settle for someone docile.

"I thought if I'm silent like now and you talk like you usually do then on average we'll be, well, average."

The insult earned him a fist and a glare. Neither was entirely playful, but nor were they in earnest.

"You mean if you continue to make an effort looking good you don't have the mental resources to speak at the same time?"

'Guess I deserved that one.' "You're the one who ordered me to look good," Ryu said. "My poor mind can't grasp why."

Ai-chan grabbed his ears in her hands and pulled his face to hers and gave him an almost kiss. Only their noses touched.

"I haven't told my friends about you, even if they suspect by now, and you need the goukons I arrange to spread those rumours of yours."

'So you noticed, didn't you?' But he didn't really care. As long as Ai-chan was the only one who understood what he was playing at he felt safe. While he didn't know her all that well yet, he still didn't believe she was the kind who'd betray him unless he gave her reasons to. Those reasons being two-timing her or dumping her, which could have been a concern hadn't he been truly interested in her.

"Why this place?" Ryu asked to change the subject.

Ai-chan sat down on a stool by the windows and looked out. Behind them the clerk answered questions about prices from another group of teenagers, and Ryu waited for them to vanish inside the building before he joined his girlfriend.

"Didn't you recognise their uniforms?"

Ryu shook his head. Apart from a few extreme elite schools he only knew the uniforms from Himekaizen and Iris.h.i.+ma.

"Shees.h.!.+" Ai-chan sighed and palmed her face in an exaggerated expression of despair. "Why do I even try? You want to sink Red Rose Academy, and you don't even know their uniforms?"

'c.r.a.p! I guess I should have known better.' There had been something tugging at his mind, but since the cultural festival occurred early October just about every school switched from summer to winter uniforms just days earlier. There simply was no way to get used to the winter uniforms from other schools in so few days. 'But d.a.m.n it! I went to the middle school. I have mush for brains today.'

Ryu looked at Ai-chan and took her hands in his. "Sorry. I usually only see the Iris.h.i.+ma High and Himekaizen uniforms on my train," Ryu said. That wasn't entirely true, but the other uniforms belonged to schools too far away to be anything but reminders that some students covered indecent distances when commuting to and from school. To and from some of those elite schools he knew about.

He knew he should have remembered the Red Rose uniform from the a.s.sault on his sister, but that had been during his last year in middle school and the middle school and high school uniforms were different. Besides that happened in September with the a.s.sociated summer uniforms worn to boot.

"You know, I don't have any friends from Red Rose, but..."

The tension in Ai-chan's hands grew, and Ryu could feel her fingers squeezing his. 'She's doing this for me, but she's unhappy about it.'

"Yes?" he said.

He kept his gaze on her eyes in an attempt to make her look at him, but she continued staring at their hands and played with his fingers.

"It doesn't seem right," Ai-chan said after a while. Suddenly she looked up, but she still averted her eyes and pretended to watch the pa.s.sers-by on the street outside. "Someone did something awful to you. I can understand that, but why would you go after the entire school?"

'She's in love with me, and she's hurting herself for my sake.' Ryu lifted her hands and kissed the fingertips. "It's not that easy," he said and joined in her pretence of watching people strolling down the pavement.

"Make me understand. Please!"

"There were teachers involved, and even if we can't prove it I know the princ.i.p.al looked the other way."

Her gasp told him she wanted to believe, but that what he had just said sounded too fantastic to be true.

"My friend, Urufu, has some pictures," Ryu continued. "They wouldn't mean anything to you, but for all real victims they're all the proof we need." 'Because you wouldn't believe they sent a goon to attack Kuri last term, and they attacked Urufu during the festival.'

Ryu still wasn't entirely certain that last attack was sanctioned by Red Rose. It stank of pure revenge, and the sheer idiocy of a.s.saulting someone when you were dressed in your school uniform more or less invalidated the idea of a conspiracy.

"I appreciate what you're doing for me," he said, "but don't do anything dangerous. This is our fight."

Ai-chan turned her face to him. A glimmer of sudden determination ran over her eyes when she faced him. "I want to be closer to you. If someone hurt you I'll hurt them back."

There was a reason she had piqued his interest in the first place, and Ryu admitted to himself that her boyish reaction to a fight attracted him.

"I'm not after the students at Red Rose h.e.l.l," he said. "If anything I want to save them from that quagmire." He let his lips play over her fingers again and enjoyed how she blushed at the touch.

"What… what do you mean?" The look in her eyes told him she no longer thought of the war between the two schools, nor that he was bringing in Iris.h.i.+ma High on their side as well.

"We're taking Red Rose down," he said. Before he let go of his plans and enjoyed the evening with her she had to understand that he was serious. If she decided to leave him as a result, then so be it.