Always there

Chapter 20: Christmas Eve gift

“See ya!” Hiroki said as his parents pulled out of the driveway. They were going out to do some last-minute Christmas shopping, leaving Ulrich and Yumi to baby-sit Hiroki. It wasn’t that he wasn’t old enough to watch himself for a few hours, he could, but there were two reasons that they couldn’t leave him home alone right now; One- they knew he would go looking for the presents they had hidden throughout the house, and two- they had caught Hiroki and Millie ‘in the act’ a couple of weeks earlier.

So they went inside and sat down for a while, watching cartoons. When Hiroki got up to go the bathroom Ulrich walked into his and Yumi’s room and came out with a wrapped box.

“Merry Christmas.” Ulrich said, handing her the box. Yumi took it with a smile.

“Couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” she asked.

“I needed to give it to you when we were alone.” Ulrich said as Yumi opened it. It was a small book with ‘Property of Ulrich Stern’ written in pen on the cover. Yumi’s smile turned to a look of stunned surprised.

“Ulrich, is this your….your….diary?” she asked. Ulrich nodded.

“I don’t think I need to keep any secrets from you anymore.” He said. Yumi sniffed and wiped a few tears from her eyes.

“This is….the best gift…I’ve ever…” she was cut off by a kiss from Ulrich.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An hour or so later, Ulrich and Hiroki left to go visit their friends at Kadic. Yumi opted to stay home. Once they were gone she turned off the TV and laid down on the couch and opened Ulrich’s diary. It was dated on her first day at Kadic….

-Dear Diary. This is a little awkward for me, I’ve never written my thoughts down before. But I couldn’t keep this bottled up. I just saw the most beautiful girl in the damn world today. She has beautiful black hair and eyes that…I don’t know how to describe it. Shine? Glow?-

She smiled as she read it. There seemed to be no pattern to how he wrote. Some weeks he seemed to write every day, some times it was once a month.

-Today my new roommate, Odd, and a computer nerd, Jeremy, and that girl, who’s name I learned is Yumi Ishiyama, went to another world called Lyoko. We swore never to talk about it, or write about it, so this will be my only reference to it.-

Some of the entries were several pages long; discussing in detail some of Xana’s attacks without referring to Lyoko or the supercomputer in any way. Only talking about how ‘the birds were being aggressive’ or ‘the students seemed to become mindless zombies’. Other entries were extremely short.

-Yumi gave me a kiss today.-

Entries like that were accompanied by underlines and stars and were often highlighted.

It was the entries that occurred later, as sex became a subject in all kids’ minds, which began to get her riled up. There were at least a dozen pages where Ulrich would describe, in vivid detail what he wanted to do to Yumi and have Yumi do to him. Some made her smile, some made her blush, and some made her pull her hand out of her pants. One entry caught her attention in particular;

-Dear Diary. It’s the middle of the night. I just woke up from a very...exciting dream. Yumi and I were taking a shower in the girl’s locker room and Aelita walked in. After saying ‘high’ and undressing at her locker as if nothing was out of the ordinary, she joined us! Ah crap, I’m hard again. I’m going to head down to the Hole and then go back to bed.-

It was the last entry. A week before he moved into her house. Yumi closed it and held it to her chest, reeling in all of the new things she knew about Ulrich. She went into her room and pulled up a corner of the carpet and reached under the loose floorboard there and pulled out her own diary. She would give it to Ulrich tonight. She slid it under her pillow and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.

“Hey Yumi.”

“Hey Aelita. What are you doing?”

“Just getting ready to go to the mall. I’ve got to buy a few more gifts.”

“Did you get Ulrich a gift yet?” Yumi asked.

“Not yet, why?” Aelita said.

“Because I know a present we can both give him. Listen to this…” Yumi read the passage from Ulrich’s Diary concerning Aelita. “Think we could set something up?”

“Sounds hot!” Aelita said enthusiastically.

“By the way, how’s the whole Odd or Jeremie thing going?” Yumi asked.

“Well, Jeremy is getting suspicious now after he caught Odd returning a pair of my panties. Now Odd’s a little less enthusiastic about our whole set up. But I’ve got a plan I’m working on. Hey, how are you doing? I haven’t seen you since Christmas break started.”

“I’m fine.” Yumi said, “The morning sicknesses are a thing of the past. My breasts are starting to swell; especially pleasing for Ulrich, and my stomach is showing now. Does anyone at school know I’m pregnant yet?”

“Nope. Everyone thinks you’re just getting a little fat.” Aelita said, “Watch out for Tamiya, she’s pushing Millie to try and do a story on your sudden weight-gain.”

“Heh heh.” Yumi laughed, “Well, I’ve got to go. See you tomorrow.”

“Bye bye.” Aelita said.
Ret