It was August 24th, 1992, and it was an unseasonably cold morning. Bridgette Legard-Stern was getting ready for a caesarian section. “Are you ready?” Her husband Ulrich asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” she said. The doctors informed Mr. Stern that he needed to leave as they were about to begin the operation.

A few hours later, he was brought back in. His wife was holding a small little boy. “What shall his name be?” A doctor asked.

“Ulrich Stern,” the child’s father said proudly. “Ulrich Stern, Jr.”

Ulrich Stern, Sr. had a lot of ideas for his new son. His own father had emigrated from Germany to France with nothing except a pregnant wife and two small suitcases of possessions to flee the Nazi regime. They then had to live in Nazi-controlled France on a war-torn continent. He never managed to live the life he truly wanted to, and even Ulrich Sr. himself grew up in a poor home and had to educate himself. He had worked his way to the top, and wanted his son to reach the top as well. As Ulrich Sr. saw it, his son had inherited a lot of potential, and he wanted to make sure that his son used every drop of it.

Mrs. Stern, on the other hand, didn’t have such astronomical expectations for her son. Like most mothers, she simply wanted her son to be happy and safe. She had always loved children, and she thought she was very good at keeping them happy and safe. She ran the day care center at the building where Mr. Stern worked- he was the Vice President of Marketing for the Renault auto company.

Because his parents were often busy, Mrs. Stern often took her son to the daycare where she worked. As he grew, she noticed two things. One, Ulrich was usually a solitary child, he didn’t often play with the others. Unless of course, it was soccer, which was the second thing Mrs. Stern noticed about Ulrich- he simply could not get enough soccer. He absolutely loved the sport, and Mr. Stern saw potential.

To milk Ulrich’s penchant for soccer as much as possible, Ulrich Senior had him enrolled in peewee soccer teams before he started school, he hired “soccer tutors” and demanded that Ulrich play no less than two hours of soccer per day. Naturally, like any 5 year old would, Ulrich began to grow bored with the sport. So Ulrich Senior sat Ulrich Junior down and had a little chat.

“Listen, son. I know you might feel like you’ve been run a little ragged with all this soccer, but it is very important,” he said. “You have to realize how important it is.”

“But it’s supposed to be fun, dad! Soccer is supposed to be about fun,” Ulrich said.

“There are more important things in life than fun, Ulrich. And for you, soccer is one of them. It is your gift, Ulrich, and you shouldn’t waste it, you should use it as best you can,” Mr. Stern said. “It isn’t going to be easy, but if you do it right you can end up as the biggest soccer star on the planet.”

“I don’t wanna play soccer as a job, or for forever! It’s supposed to be something to do for fun. Or esker… exer… exercise,” said Ulrich, struggling on the last word.

“And you need to practice your language skills, too. You won’t succeed in life if you can’t speak. You need to focus more Ulrich. You need to work as hard as you can on everything. You need to reach the top, because if you don’t seize your opportunities now, you’ll lose them forever.”

“Am I supposed to be perfect?” Ulrich asked angrily. “I’m five! You can’t expect everything out of me!”

Mr. Stern’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what your mother says…”

“I hear you and mommy arguing about me at night. And I think mommy is right,” Ulrich said.

“Yes, well mommy didn’t have to educate herself, or grow up in a poor house, or claw her way up the ladder. Mommy doesn’t know what it means to have to work her way up. And I want to make sure that you don’t waste. You need to work now so you can live better tomorrow. And to answer your question, son, you need to be as close to perfect as any mortal can get, and you need to stay there forever.”

After that little chat, Ulrich Junior was never close with his father. In fact, as Ulrich entered school, the rift between the Ulrichs got even wider, as Ulrich was pressured to do as good as possible in sports and academics. By the time Ulrich had entered first grade, he was even more antisocial then before as he focused every bit of his attention on his work and his soccer. He had the highest grades in the class and was better at soccer than the fifth graders, but he had literally no friends. And this was the topic of one of Mr. and Mrs. Stern’s nighttime arguments.

“I’m worried about Ulrich. He’s so… antisocial,” said Bridgette.

“He doesn’t need to socialize and yap away his education,” said Mr. Stern. “He’s doing absolutely fine.”

“Is he? I never hear you tell him so,” said Mrs. Stern.

“He should get all the satisfaction he needs from knowing he is doing the best he can. That’s the way I was raised,” said Mr. Stern.

“Yes, Ulrich, but have you considered that your son isn’t you? You share a name, yes, but Ulrich isn’t growing up in a disadvantaged household. I thought you worked as hard as you did so your son wouldn’t have to. Think about it, Ulrich, was your childhood happy?” Mrs. Stern said as she changed into her nightgown.

“No, it wasn’t a happy childhood. But he has his soccer, I’m sure he’s just fine. And I am pushing Ulrich hard so he-” began Ulrich Senior.

“Reaches the top, yes, you have said this several times. But have you paid attention to your son at all recently? He has no friends, he never smiles, and he never plays soccer unless he has to. You’ve sucked all the fun out of something he used to love! Don’t you get it? He’s not pushing himself to ‘reach the top’, he’s pushing himself so that you’ll be happy with him for once and he can go back to being a normal child!” Mrs. Stern said. “I am absolutely sick of watching you ruin our son’s life, Ulrich!”

“I am not ruining our son’s life! I am making sure he doesn’t ruin it! And I think that trying to make me proud is a fine motivation,” said Mr. Stern.

“All you see in Ulrich is… is… I don’t know what your skewed mind sees. But you are treating him like some mindless zombie instead of a little boy! I… I can’t stand it anymore. I want a divorce,” said Mrs. Stern, crossing her arms and turning her back to Ulrich Senior.

“No!” Ulrich Junior shouted from behind the bedroom door.

Mr. and Mrs. Stern both turned. Ulrich had been standing by the cracked-open door the whole time. He walked into the room and said again “No! Don’t get a divorce!”

“You… should be in bed,” Ulrich Senior said.

Mrs. Stern glared at her husband. “You just don’t get it.” She walked over to her son, kneeled down, and gave him a big hug. “Oh, Ulrich, you poor thing. I’m so sorry you had to hear all that,” she said.

“Don’t get a divorce,” Ulrich said. “Because if you do… I won’t have you around to make it better when Dad does something.”

Mr. Stern almost blew a gasket. “Go to bed,” he managed to say.

Mrs. Stern looked at her husband, tears rolling down her face. “You… you are disgusting. You don’t even know how to be a father, do you? I am not going to divorce you, Ulrich Jonas Stern, Senior, and this is why. No matter how unhappy I get, no matter if you have any number of affairs, I am never going to leave this marriage until death do us part, because if I leave, Ulrich is never going to have any happiness in his life. As God as my witness, Ulrich, I will be there at every turn, at every move you make, to reverse it should you put our son on track to a horrible life. I will not let you ruin our son’s life.”

Ulrich Senior let up a little bit on his son after that night. Though he was still expected to get the highest grades and do the best in sports, he was allowed to go about it with his own methods instead of his father’s methods, and that seemed to help. He even made a few friends. However, there was one person he knew that he wished would simply go away- Sissi Delmas.

They had met the year before, on their first day of kindergarten. Sissi had dressed up very nicely for her first day. Ulrich was the first to talk to her. “Hi! I’m Ulrich Stern. I like your hair.” Sissi giggled, and then she had punched him in the face. Ulrich burst into tears and Sissi had to sit in the corner. From that point onwards, Ulrich Stern, Jr. did not want anything to do with Elisabeth Delmas.

However, she simply would not leave him alone. And now that he was star soccer player, and beginning to socialize with people, Sissi demanded to be a part of his inner circle of friends. Ulrich wouldn’t have it. He was a little too polite to outright tell her to go away, but he wasn’t beyond such tricks as having to use the bathroom every time Sissi was around- the one place no girl could ever go.

A few years passed, and the Ulrichs seemed to have finally reached some sort of unofficial agreement with each other. Ulrich Junior would do the best he could, but Ulrich Senior wouldn’t push him beyond his limits. Though they rarely actually spoke to one another, they had a good system worked out. And Mrs. Stern was happy that her son was finally happy, which was what she had wanted all along. However, she herself wasn’t very happy.

She, by her own will, was stuck in a marriage that she no longer wanted. She had become the kind of mother who always had to do some kind of housework. She was always cooking or always cleaning or always doing something in the house to distract herself. She eventually left her job to be a homemaker, and devoted herself to her house. She wasn’t happy unless there was some kind of menial housework to do, because it was something that she could do that she knew her husband would never even attempt. The upside was that the Sterns had the cleanest house in the neighborhood, and there was always a very good meal on the table, but the downside was that she had become very stressed.

There came a day, when Ulrich was in the third grade, when there was no housework to be done. For possibly the first time in human history, there was a house that was literally clean everywhere. There was absolutely nothing to clean, nothing to wash, nothing to rearrange. And it happened to be the day that no one was hungry. Mrs. Stern had nothing to do. So, needless to say, she was a little… on edge.

“Ulrich! How was the game today? Did you win? What was the score? Tell me all about it, a play-by-play. And how was school? Did you eat a good lunch? Are you still hungry? I’ll make you something,” she said.

“Er, no mom, I’m good. We won, it was five to three I think. And I didn’t really pay much attention to all the plays,” Ulrich said with a chuckle.

“And how’s that little girlfriend of yours? How is she? Is she doing good?” Mrs. Stern was talking rather fast. Mr. Stern instantly looked away from the television in the other room at the mention of “girlfriend”.

Ulrich grimaced. “Who, Sissi? Yuck, no way. I can’t stand her, she’s so annoying.”

“Good,” said Mr. Stern. “You don’t need a girlfriend. Girls are trouble.”

Mrs. Stern, who was vigorously scrubbing a clean plate, turned towards her husband. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I was just telling the boy that girls can distract you from the bigger picture,” explained Mr. Stern.

“So is that what I am, Ulrich? A distraction? I’ve tried so hard to make this work and to you I’m nothing but a distraction?”

Mr. Stern walked over to his wife, his face six inches away from hers. “Listen here, Bridgette. You need to calm down. I’m tired of having to deal with a crazy woman. Although the house does look nice, I think you need to settle.”

“Settle? What, am I too wild for you? Because I don’t bow to you and kiss the ground you walk on and don’t wear skimpy little outfits like your secretary, I need to settle?” Mrs. Stern said, speaking quickly, and her voice high pitched.

“Are you calling me… unfaithful? You shut up,” said Mr. Stern, and he slapped his wife on the face. And in that moment, the agreement between the two Ulrichs was completely destroyed.

“You hit her! You hit mom!” Ulrich shouted. “You disgusting… you… you…” Ulrich was too enraged to even speak. “I am ashamed to share a name with you,” he said, going to his bedroom.

From that moment onward, Ulrich hated his father. For three years, his hatred of his father grew and grew. And at the same time, he pushed himself and pushed himself to do what his father wanted of him, so perhaps his father would leave him alone. He again slipped into an antisocial state and made few more friends, and lost most of the ones he had. He even managed to almost lose Sissi.

He was brooding on the bench in the park at Kadic, which had been “his place” since he had started there that year, and Sissi walked up. “Ulrich! Hello!” She shouted, waving. “Ulrich sweetie! I… found these flowers lying around, and I thought you’d like them! Bring some color to all that green you wear.

Ulrich sneezed a few times, his eyes watering. “Get those things away from me! I’m allergic! My gosh, can’t you leave me alone! You are the most annoying person I have ever met! Your father isn’t like this, so what the heck is wrong with your mother?”

Sissi dropped the flowers and burst into tears. “My m-mother is dead! B-but nothing was ever wrong w-with her!” She ran away, bawling.

All eyes were on Ulrich, who looked very surprised. All he managed to say was “Uh… sorry?” Sissi wasn’t at school for the next week, but not because of what Ulrich had said- Sissi’s brother had been killed by a car. However, something good happened during the week without Sissi. Her name was Yumi Ishiyama.

Ulrich really liked this Yumi girl. She had moved from Japan and didn’t know a lot of English. Ulrich offered to teach her some. He wanted to get to know Yumi, and spend as much time with her as he could. However, Yumi was very shy, and so was Ulrich. It was a year until he managed to ask her to take Penack Silat classes with him.

And so, on October 9th, the two met in Kadic’s gymnasium to take martial arts classes with Jim.

You know the rest of the story.