Chapter six (segment six), twenty four years earlier, July, Yukio

As summer heated up, so did school. They were uncomfortably close to finals now but the murdering heat made it difficult to concentrate during classes.

Over a week had passed since that peculiar evening at the café. Urufu was absent the next Friday as well but at least this time Kuri-chan hadn't left in anger.

We're growing closer by the day. All six of us are dropping the honorifics from time to time now. Just Kuri-chan (Kuri, Kuritina?) and Kyoko who stick to those between them.

Yukio waved at Noriko as she left the cafeteria and looked for where they sat. Well at least you made it clear I don't get to be that friendly with Ryu and leave you on the outside when it comes to dropping the honorifics.

And Ryu came after her, happily chatting with Kyoko while at the same time trying to juggle with the atrocities he had forced the vendor machines to vomit out. He failed, and what looked suspiciously like a sub filled with yakisoba fell to the ground. Suspiciously, because the baker needed to suffer from a hangover to produce that… thing that substituted for real bread. Whatever ailments the cook creating what passed for yakisoba suffered from, that was something Yukio preferred not knowing.

Ryu picked up his wrapped… could it actually be called lunch? Yukio wasn't certain. There should have been laws against it.

Kyoko laughed and went ahead.

“Kuri and Urufu?” Ryu asked from where he stood wiping dirt from his… food.

“Prep, just as I told them,” Yukio answered. He scowled. “In the best of worlds they'll even believe I spoke the truth when I said the club members wanted them prepared for our activities.”

“In the best of worlds they're snogging,” Kyoko countered. That was a surprisingly blunt and improper statement coming from her but Yukio had seen her trying out a wilder side the last weeks. He liked it. She was more alive this way.

Noriko apparently wasn't as used to it as Yukio. At least not if he was to guess from the burst of tea that left her mouth.

“I stand corrected,” he said. You can correct me any way you want. “Snogging, making out, kissing, whatever. As long as they spend some time alone, together.”

“I don't know about 'whatever',” Kyoko said. “That could be bad.” At least she had the decency to blush at that.

“What's bad about making babies?” Ryu suggested.

“Ryu! Idiot bro!”

“Ryu, really!”

“Man, that's awful!” Yukio exclaimed just as he realised that all three of them had reacted in the same way. “It's Urufu we're speaking about,” he needed a way to defuse the situation, “and knowing him they're probably actually preparing club activities.”

“No!” Kyoko said. “I hate that! Kuri-chan loves him. She needs to feel loved back.”

Yukio looked at Kyoko. You really care that much for your friend. “I'll sneak a look. I left them by the pool. They had their bags open.”

Kyoko groaned.

Four teenagers left their food by their seats and hugged the left wing wall. Slowly they reached for the corner from where they could see the pool.

“Shush!”

“Don't push!”

“I can't see!”

Yukio peered around the corner. He could see Urufu and Kuri. They were snogging. And then some.

“I think we can take our lunch to the club room,” he said.

“And tell our members that the president and vice president are currently occupied,” Ryu filled in.

“With the last, ah, touches to their preparation of our activities,” Noriko snorted pointedly.

“And snogging,” Kyoko finished.

“Kyoko! Idiot girl!”

“Kyoko, really!”

“Man, that's awful!” Yukio laughed, not giving a damn that Kyoko very much wasn't a man at all.