Ulrich Feldmeier

Utz hardly remembers his older brother, Elias. They were very far apart in age. Elias was maybe 19 or 20 in Utz's earliest memories. He was angry a lot and mean and then he was gone.

No one ever really talked about what went on back then and Utz never really asked. He grew up with just him and his mom. Every few holidays or so, Elias might call home. But he slowly became a distant memory.

His father had died early on before he could remember him and when Utz was 10 they moved closer to the city center of Frankfurt.

He gained friends quickly and soon had a tightly knit friend group around him. They would go out together to bars and concerts and shops. Utz felt like he had found himself.

For his 14th birthday, his mom let him get his ears pierced. A love was discovered. Utz later met his girlfriend at a piercing studio. Hannah was 17. A second love was discovered.

Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to last. They dated for seven months before Hannah broke up with him. Utz was crushed. He moped for days locked up in his room and even when he came out there was a fog around him. Utz spent months in a dull sadness over the relationship.

But then, during lunch at school, Utz saw a blond kid smoking by himself at one of the benches. He was in love again immediately, much to his friends dismay. Utz asked to share the bench and the kid, Rodolf, didn't seem to mind. He made a point to stick close to Rodolf after that, hoping to at least find a friend in him.

Christof noticed Utz's disgusting sappy pining and dragged him aside after class. He practically twisted Utz's arm to get him to ask Rodolf out. "I don't THINK he likes you like that. I KNOW he does. How can you not see the way he blushes everytime you speak to him? He's almost worse than you. Just ask the damn man on a date."

And so he did, shaking and stumbling through the whole question. But Christof was right and he did say yes. Utz took Rodolf to all kinds of places, determined to get him to stay. This was better than Hannah. Everything about Rodolf was absolutely perfect.

Sometimes though, he would show up at night, covered in bruises and ask to stay for an hour or two. He always spent the night. Utz never asked and Rodolf never told, but they both knew. Utz's mom offered to take him in, but he declined politely.

But during their last year of school, it got even worse. Bruises got more frequent and nights were more often spent together than alone. Finally it seemed Rodolf had had enough. During that afternoon, while his mother was out, they moved his things into Utz's room.

Everything kind of fell into place with that and Utz knew this was what he wanted life to be.

Utz and Rodolf each got jobs and a small house after schooling. Their schedules stopped lining up as much for a few years, but they would always make sure to take a weekend off to drink and smoke and watch movies together. Things smoothed out for them both quite a bit after school.

Rodolf's slow progression of schizophrenia caused its own issues. There were some fights born mostly out of fear from both parties. But all it ever took was a day or so of space to cool down and things were bright and colourful again.