Touch: Saving Ai | ✓

4

Trains are evil. I hate them. They're worse than crowded streets. You stand there in a metal box, pressed body-to-body with a bunch of sleepy, sweaty strangers, hoping that the lurch of the carriage as it stops, starts and leans when it turns doesn't make you stagger and fall down like dominoes. Add that to my 'gift from God' and...

Yeah, trains are evil.

On a normal day, I leave early enough to avoid the morning rush. If I don't, then the number of visions I see during that half-hour ride to school makes me want to puke. The only time that doesn't happen is when Ryo is with me. I don't know how he does it, but no matter how crowded it is, Ryo always manages to position us in a space that's up against the door or wall so that we're not surrounded by people. It's great. This way I can use him as a human shield and pretend that I'm not trapped in an aluminium box of death while I stare out the window.

It also meant that I had plenty of time to recognise Ai standing on the platform with Andrew as the train pulled up at her stop.

Two days, sixteen hours, eleven minutes.

I hate to admit it, but with all the kerfuffle on my way home yesterday, I'd completely and utterly forgotten about her. That aside, what was she doing with Andrew so early in the morning? I frowned, watching as they kissed each other goodbye.

Ryo leaned in over my shoulder. 'You're drooling on the glass, Rin-chan. Which guy are you looking at?'

The blond psychopath in the leather jacket. 'The guy standing with Ai over there.'

'Huh. So that's your type.'

'It's not like that. I saw them together yesterday. He's—' a murderer. I bit my tongue and changed the wording. 'He seems like bad news.'

Ryo squinted, framing his eyes with his hands as he pressed against the window to catch glimpse of the murderer in question before the train sped off. 'Bad news, huh? He does look familiar. Where do I— Ah.'

I looked up at him. '"Ah?"'

'That's Andrew.'

'Yes, I know that. Andrew who?'

'You know his name?'

'Just his first one. Hence the "who".'

'Interesting...'

'He told me.' Or Ai did. Whatever. 'How do you know him?'

'Stories. Rumours. I know some guys that have run in the same circles.'

'So he's a thug?' I knew it.

Ryo frowned. 'Is that what you call me and my friends behind our backs? Thugs?'

'That's what I call you to your face. Thugs. Low lives. Cretins.'

'Bet you used a thesaurus for that.'

'I'm amazed you even know what one is.'

'Rude. I study. More than a certain someone anyway.'

He nudged me.

I ignored him.

It was true.

'Still,' he mused, 'that can't be good. Wonder how they know each other. She doesn't seem like the type to... you know.'

No, I didn't know. 'Maybe you should ask her.'

'Ask her?' repeated Ryo, the slightest of cracks audible in his voice.

I smothered a smile. 'You told Ellery that you'd be her guide, remember?'

'She doesn't need a guide; her English is fine. And I'm...' His eyes wandered upwards as he rubbed the back of his neck. 'You know.'