As we walked towards the pub she slipped her hand into mine. She didn’t say anything so neither did I but I felt like singing. She had just made me happier than I had been for a long time and I knew then that even when I had analysed her action and possible motives to death, her simple act would still remain clear, distinct and irrefutable. Perhaps she held my hand as great and platonic friends often do. Maybe, just maybe (but God I hoped so) she had started to feel even a glimmer of what I feel for her. But then I consider that it might just be because her hand is cold. Then I realise she has pockets to protect her svelte fingers from the driving coastal winds and I curse myself for my unstoppable analysis. My unending search for the truth of every situation demands such introspection, to give me the security of indubitable knowledge. But how can I know that I am right. Surely the more I search for the truth the further I take myself from it. Perhaps a subjective approach can only ever be but that, an individual’s view of existence. Perhaps the greatest truths are found without looking. For whatever reason, she is holding my hand and I love her. "My God," I thought to myself in a moment of supreme clarity , "I don't half talk some bollocks."

As we rounded the corner by the small library my attention was snapped away from such romantic considerations. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I sensed a change in the air, a smell of bamboo and lavender oil, and a noise of a shadow approaching. Sophia must have sensed my agitation as she looked sideways up towards my face and squeezed my hand. I looked down and was about to speak when I caught the movement in the corner of my eye. Instead I pushed my hand onto Sophie’s chest with power and just had time to see her quizzical expression and raised eyebrows as she disappeared into the library’s alcove. As I turned back towards the movement my right hand darted up across my face to catch the blade that was mere inches from my nose. I heard another in the air and so dropped to one knee throwing the knife back in the direction it had come from and rolled backwards. The second knife stuck fast into the doorframe of the library behind me and I heard Sophia’s intake of breath. I heard the knife I had thrown hit the wall and clatter to the cobbles. Of all the times to be attacked by a jealous ninja bitch. I was mightily riled by this interruption to my potential love life and immediately decided that Fuji would not see the morning.