Chapter four, 2017, petty revenge: 9

Ulf stared at the list.

'Fuck!'

He knew his goal had been nothing but petty revenge, but failing it still hurt.

Third. Noriko second and the same guy who'd made some kind of unholy reservation with the gods of the list first. Just as he'd been on every exam session since their first mid terms as freshmen.

That first spot had been his goal ever since he started to senselessly cram like the rest of the students. Sure, third would still create an uproar, but, well, it wasn't the same thing.

Ulf growled silently. It wasn't just that he failed to get the first place. Given his opinion about himself and his capacity at studying when he really made an effort, the result in Japanese came as an ugly surprise.

And the day had begun so well. Waking up to the sound of his phone calling and Noriko's voice from it a few moments later. A Noriko who not once admonished him for giving in to Ryu's request he'd spend his afternoon biking around with Christina last Sunday.

Which he did, and while doing so realised he'd become friends with the woman he still loved. And he'd listened and he'd talked, and he'd laughed with joy at realising how her feelings for Ryu had grown into something that carried weight for the future. The joy, though, vaporised when he heard how Jennifer's brutal bantering in the corridors was nothing but a shell that hid her broken core.

Still, the day had begun so well. A broken Jennifer wasn't anything he could mend, and Ulf made it a point not to put too much energy into something he couldn't affect. Comments about him being a cold hearted bastard be damned – he couldn't affect those neither.

Now his promise to Noriko to share an after school date tasted sour in his mouth. He'd planned to celebrate with her, and if he was honest with himself, to tease her a little, but with her grabbing second place hers were the rights of gloating. Not that that mattered much. Her mind went places he could barely grasp, and if he got stuck in her shadow he'd just feel that much more pride in her.

But 85. It wasn't as if 85 was a poor result by any means, given that Japanese very much was a foreign language for him, but he'd poured in long hours. The difference between 85 and the 95 he aimed for was momentous. As in at least another year's worth of serious studying.

Ulf growled again. Now he was stuck with handling the inevitable uproar for making such a visible spot on the list after never having made the top fifty at all before. And all for a performance that lay far behind what he had hoped for.

'Bloody hell, it's high school level!' The result sullied his two academic degrees, especially as one of them was language studies, and English sharing a Germanic heritage with his Swedish be damned. Learning Japanese was merely more difficult and he was still supposed to be a linguist of sorts.

'But we didn't really learn English at university, did we? That part was over and done with after high school.' And it was. University English was learning about the English language, and Himekaizen was very much a high school, albeit a Japanese one.

He fled up the stairs to his classroom. Soon he'd be mobbed by classmates who wondered how he popped up from nowhere to a top position among the second years in the science track.

Ulf tapped his fingers against his desk. He'd prepared himself for that part. Soon both Noriko and Ryu would bug him as well, and they had different reasons to wonder what he had done. Solid reasons, but Ulf didn't care any longer, and for that reason he hadn't prepared for the onslaught from his friends.

After a while his classroom slowly filled up, but there was still a lot of time left of their lunch break. Given the decent weather and all Ulf normally only expected to see those who ate their lunch in the classroom here by now, but there were almost a dozen more present.

He looked up and met questioning eyes. He couldn't do much more than shrug in response, and that created even more questions since it wasn't a gesture universally used here.

With a sigh he dug up a book from his bag and pretended to study, which was exceptionally stupid since they had just received their mid term results. Ulf shook his head at his own ineptitude at subterfuge, and admitting it brought an involuntary smile to his lips.

'Well, 3:1 was last year's rumours, and the club. This year I guess anything goes.' And that was a bloody awful thought, because the part with anything goes included the atrocity the two girls had to live through.

Ulf wiped the smile off his lips and pretended to study again. Concentrating took an effort, because that result in Japanese still plagued his mind.

Then there was some commotion by the doors, and Ulf looked up.

Well known as the faces were they still didn't belong in his classroom. Most of them not even to this wing. He met Noriko's eyes and felt embarrassment crawling all around inside himself. There was little left to do but studying his own shoes.