408 Chapter six, 2017, Christmas carols: 7

And with that Kareyoshi was gone. With the same vigour as media had been suppressed just a few months earlier they were invited, or rather forced to arrive en masse when police escorted him out of the school on the last day before winter break. He didn't even get to make his speech. Not even the circus around Kuri when she rose to fame had attracted this much attention.

Yukio grinned and growled at the same time; with the face of a predator Kuri had told him with a grim smile on her face.

For him it was almost unreal. Just like it would have been unreal for him if anyone had said that he'd get used to living under a yoke.

He walked with Kyoko by his side, and this time they just passed the Haven. A train was what he had in mind.

"Happy now?" Kyoko asked.

He wasn't, so he shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it. Right now I just want to spend Christmas with my girlfriend."

She said nothing. Her hand hugging his was enough.

He could feel how she accepted his need to leave it all behind him. A later day would come when he needed to talk about it, and Yukio somehow understood a day would also come when Kyoko cried in his arms. Somewhere, hidden in a recess of his mind he harboured a suspicion that day also carried the first real test of their relationship.

But not today. Today they'd walk hand in hand listening to Christmas carols in a city that didn't really celebrate Christmas in the first place. That was enough for him. A dating event suited him perfectly.

As they placed foot ahead of foot in the almost winter that was Tokyo he turned his head from time to time. They weren't there. No car, no body guards, no one staring after them from the shadows to make certain they were safe.

'Ten years, and you chose to repeat it all. I wonder what's going on in your head.' He shook away any more worries about Kuri. She was a grown up.

"Asakusa?"

"For Christmas?" Kyoko threw him a glance that told him she wasn't entirely convinced.

"Urufu said there's some kind of European market near the Cloudspear."

"Doubt we can afford the entrance."

Yukio smiled. "I'm no good with that kind of heights. Wasn't planning to go up in that tower."

"All the six hundred metres up," Kyoko teased.

He was having none of it. "I doubt the observatory is much more than four hundred metres up."

"Oh, that's nothing."

Yukio grinned. "Market's on the ground. Ground is good."

She looked at him and smiled. Then her face turned thoughtful. "That day, ages ago, when we visited the theme-park?"

He had to search his mind a little before he recalled the madness when they were still freshmen. When Kyoko's unsaid question became clear he blushed a little. "Yeah. I wanted to look cool for the girl I liked. If you didn't notice anything I guess I managed."

She shook her head. "I love you, but sometimes you're just stupid. Well, it's not like I'm longing for ferris wheel rides." She yanked his hand. "Yukio, promise me you tell me next time you feel uncomfortable! There are two of us. Don't make yourself feel bad just to make me happy!"

'How could I possibly not have fallen in love with you?' "I promise."

Shoulder length hair catching the wind from time to time, facial bones a little more distinct now than half a year earlier, but still with her generous forms where it counted despite having lost a little weight. Looking at her gorgeous eyes Yukio wondered if she had ever been as beautiful as now.

"I must have been a very good boy during my last incarnation," Yukio said and laughed.

"Huh?"

"To deserve you in this one."

She didn't answer. On the pavement, with people busy around them she just stopped and threw her arms around him.

'Bliss!' Yukio allowed himself to be immersed in pure bliss for the first time in months. There were no worries, no tomorrow; just the two of them behaving very improperly and people looking at them when they passed on either side.

It wasn't until a cold tendril of wind caressed his neck that Yukio reminded himself that standing still outdoors might not be the best of ideas.

"Station?" he asked.

She nodded.

He led her to the train station they very seldom used. There was one closer to where they lived, but today they walked to the one closest to school.

Old housing quickly gave way to more modern buildings clustering the station, and they were inside. After they flashed their passes a few stairs brought them outdoors again, but it was only a five minute wait before they could board a train headed for a city core.

"Circle line?" Yukio wondered as they sat down.

He grinned. "We'll have to take the subway at Ueno anyway."

Kyoko pretended to growl and gave him a knock on his head. "For an entire station. Not the same thing."

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"We could take the bus."

That earned him another knock. Urufu would have won that race by bike. Going by bus through Tokyo was tedious at best, and Yukio wasn't even certain how to do it in the first place. Rails didn't move, so trains couldn't exactly change routes from one day to the next.