Code Lyoko: The New Girl (BK 1)

Chapter 39

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Yumi had a plan in mind.

And it was a good plan.

She just needed to get everyone on board with it.

On Yumi's day off, she spent half of it engaging in as many family-bonding moments as possible without making it seemed forced or unusual, and the other half was used to come up with a solid plan to get the group out of Saphire's comfort zone as soon as possible. Yumi was only supposed to take the morning off to have breakfast with her parents, but then sitting there at the table with her sweet-faced mother and her charming father, and yes, even annoying-at-times Hiroki, Yumi realized she didn't have much time left with them.

In less than ten months, Yumi would be moving into her new university dorm. It would be her first time living on her own miles away from her parents, and knowing her parents, they'd want her to live her best life. Kadic Academy wasn't cheap but her father was willing to work hard to provide his kids with a good future, and Yumi would need to repay them back at some point by continuing the cycle: a university degree, a career, her own place, and then a growing family of her own. Yumi wouldn't have it any other way.

Instead of asking to take the day off, because she knew her parents would never allow her to skip a day of school, Yumi had planned ahead and notified her parents that it was a field trip day and suddenly, she wasn't feeling very well, so it was better if she stayed home than go out and infect the other students with whatever bug was messing with her system. Yumi felt bad about lying to her caring parents, but it gave her a chance to remember what it felt like to eat together, talk freely together, and just remember good times.

Everything was going great until her mother brought up Saphire during lunchtime.

"Yumi, you should bring the new girl in town, Saphire, over for dinner one of these days. She was wonderful the last time we met."

Yumi tried not to visibly cringe at her mother saying "new girl". She knew technically, Saphire was the new girl, but Yumi hated hearing it out loud; it had become Saphire's personal brand, somehow.

"Oh, uh," Yumi stirred her breakfast around as she worked up a good excuse as to why she absolutely couldn't do that. "we're not really that close, Mom. I don't know if she'd be comfortable coming over again."

"Really?" Hiroki piped up from the other side of the table. "Because I see Saphire hanging out with Odd and Ulrich all the time. And if you hang out with them and she's hanging out with them, then wouldn't you say you're all hanging out together?"

Yumi hid her annoyed face behind a glass of water. Hiroki wasn't wrong though. Just having the whole group surrounding Saphire at all times looked suspicious. She was new and could make friends with anyone or no one, but somehow Saphire was able to become such fast friends with a group of students who mostly kept to themselves and always had somewhere to be. That was the way the rest of the school spoke of the group. Yumi had heard so herself. How suspicious must it be to have the new foreign kid embedded into the group from her very first day?

Yumi needed to make sure there was no one talking about them. Or about Saphire. Or about Saphire's weird behavior. Or about any strange affinity she might have with the group.

"Is there something you're not telling us, Yumi?" Her mother gave her a look so concerned, she almost blurted out the truth, or at least part of it.

"No. It's just...she has other friends, too. It's not like we're around each other all the time. She's a year younger and she's still trying to accumulate to the new world, I mean, school she's in." She hoped the explanation was good enough for her parents to believe. "But, I'll run the invitation by her and get back to you on what she says."