Tetra Pact

Chapter 2

Asbjørn's friends had dragged him to Manchester, wanting to check out the hottest pub prior to officially starting the university term. Why they decided to get pissed the night before the first day, he couldn't understand. But he went with them nevertheless, and sipped his homemade green tea as he watched them chug pint after pint of English bitter.

Ha-rin held up her glass of white wine to Asbjørn's face. "I looked it up. Wine is gluten-free."

"Naturally," he corrected her. "They could've used it in the fining or aging process."

"Oh," she said, bringing the glass to her own lips. "Why not you ask them?"

"It's alright. I'm not too interested in getting intoxicated."

Crisanto downed his third pint of bitter. "Using big words again, Ben," he drawled drunkenly, waving his index finger in a circle. "Could you lay off your rubbish diet for once?"

Asbjørn glowered at his friend. "Call it a rubbish diet again and I'll leave you in Manchester."

"All right, all right. Don't get so worked up." Crisanto laid a hand on Asbjørn's shoulder, who shrugged it off brusquely.

Judy said sheepishly, "I'm sorry, mate. Bringing Crisanto to drink is always a bad idea."

Asbjørn gave her and her pint of beer a pointed look. "Drinking is always a bad idea."

"Not always, don't use such absolute terms," Ha-rin interjected.

Asbjørn pursed his lips and rolled his eyes towards the bar. "I'm going to sit there for a bit," he informed his friends.

Judy frowned, bewildered. "I thought you weren't going to ask."

"I'm not," he said. "I just want to get away from you people."

"Alright, suit yourself."

Asbjørn swiftly grabbed a seat at the bar, declining the bartender's service with a simple, "I don't drink." He spun around in his chair when he felt a movement next to him, and his eyes met a pair of striking blue ones. The young lady, who could not be more than five years his senior, raised her naturally arched eyebrows at him.

"Hey, darling. How are you?" she said, her accent strangely familiar.

"I'm good. What about you?"

"Oh, I'm great. Thank you for asking. Want a drink? I'll treat you."

As much as he was mesmerised by her charm, he held up his vacuum flask. "It's all right," he told her. "I've brought my own tea."

The corners of her lips raised a little more at his reply. She waved the bartender over and ordered a vodka soda, then glanced back at him. "True Englishman, aren't you?"

"Maybe."

She seemed to understand his response, and squinted at him carefully. "Come to think of it, you look a little... special. What's your name, love?"

He hesitated. "Asbjørn."

"Asbjørn?" she repeated, pronouncing it perfectly. "Fellow Scandinavian, huh?" she probed eagerly, launching into a stream of phrases he couldn't understand.

"I'm sorry, I -" He scratched the back of his neck shamefully. He hated having to expose his incompetency every time he introduced himself, wondering why he never used his Chinese name instead. "I'm half-Norwegian, but I don't speak it."

"Ah! It's all right," she exclaimed. She placed her hand before him. "I'm Rut, without the aitch. Swedish from head to toe."

Asbjørn nodded in amazement, noting her accent with greater clarity. "So... you're studying here?" he deduced.