Chapter one, 2018, Hatsumode, segment five

Noriko waved to Kuri as soon as the golden hair was visible above the stairs. With a smirk she noted how more than a few men turned and stared at the two girls leaving the stairs. Either of them commanded attention, but tall goddess in creamy white and the very definition of Japanese beauty in a gorgeous kimono side by side was more than most men ever saw in a day.

Thank all gods I never tried winning Urufu in a competition of looks! It wouldn’t have been a competition, Noriko admitted. She was petite and cute, but against that kind of opposition ‘cute’ didn’t even give you a place in the starting field.

Once again Noriko was reminded of how lucky she had been. The sheer stupidity shared by Kuri and Urufu paved the road for her. How two people so obviously in love with each other ever arrived at the conclusion that breaking up was a good idea evaded her. Well, she didn’t complain. Urufu’s love was hers now. At least Noriko felt moderately secure it was. As far as she knew he didn’t lie outright, and he said he loved her.

“Noriko!” Kuri called out. “How’s your date with Urufu?” A gleam of joyous malice shone from her eyes.

“Better now.”

Hitomi shot them both a glare. “What are the two of you up to now?” she asked. She must have seen the glee shared by Kuri and Noriko both.

“I don’t see my boyfriend,” Kuri said.

Noriko snorted and looked down. She even covered her mouth with one hand. While she never was as obsessed with what was proper as Kyoko when they got to learn each other, a cackling guffaw in public was still too much. “He had to wash his hands,” Noriko said. This time she didn’t entirely manage to stifle that cackle.

Kuri offered her both a smile and a questioning look. “And that is bad exactly why?”

Noriko told her.

“No, you didn’t!”

For a moment Noriko had to make certain Kuri wasn’t angry. Leaving her idiot bro behind whenever he needed to visit the toilets, while great fun, was sabotaging Kuri’s date. Still, Kuri looked more amused than angry. “Sure did,” Noriko chanced.

Kuri walked the remaining steps between them and gathered Noriko up in an embrace. “I want to be with Ryu just as much as you want to be with Urufu,” she whispered in Noriko’s ear. “If my boyfriend needs a lesson then by all means teach him one.”

What’s with the ‘my boyfriend’? “You know, sometime he’s an idiot, but he still has a name you know.”

Kuri grinned. “Looking at you just now I wondered,” she said and took a place in a queue to the closest stall.

Noriko glanced at what they sold and frowned. “You sure about that?” Dark sauce and creamy white clothing probably didn’t agree with each other in a crowded place like this.

“About what?”

“That food.”

With a smile Kuri fished up a small napkin box from her handbag. “Always be prepared,” she grinned.

“Mind lending me some of those?” Hitomi said and took her place beside Kuri in the queue.

Noriko shook her head but joined them anyway. Takoyaki and cold weather definitely agreed with each other, and it was part of going to a festival of any kind.

While they waited for their turn the others joined as well, and Noriko exchanged some friendly insults with Kyoko and Yukio. She nestled closer to Urufu who had chosen to stand behind her and opened the zipper to his eye catching jacket. It wasn’t eye catching in a good way, but it was warm, and he was warm, and she felt safe with her back pressed against him with his arms loosely around her.

“Noriko,” Kyoko suddenly said and woke Noriko from her private world of momentary bliss, “shouldn’t we call your brother.”

“Mmm,” Noriko answered and slowly shook her head. She could feel her hair rubbing against Urufu’s chest. “No service,” she added without checking her phone. She added a grin to be on the safe side. Talking things out with Urufu and Hitomi convinced her the hurtful show in her classroom just before Christmas had been a brutal but somewhat effective way to hammer a message through Ryu’s thick skull. That still didn’t mean Noriko felt entirely certain Kyoko had done it all for her benefit.

“Lots of people here.” That was Yukio coming to her rescue. “Hard to get on a network.”

“Huh? I’m connected. Do you want me to call...” Urufu began behind her.

“You’re disconnected,” Yukio interrupted him. “No signal at all, man. Got it?”

“But look, I’m… Hey give me back my phone!”

“Look, out of battery. These gadgets just give up in crowds,” Yukio said and gave the phone back to Urufu. Noriko saw the black screen flashing by and guffawed. Yukio, sometimes you’re just awesomely cool!

“Dammit! Why did you shut it off?”

“Out of battery.”

“Hell it is! I have a power bank and there’s no way...”

“He said: Out. Of. Battery.” Kuri’s voice didn’t exactly invite to an applied study in relativism.

“But I… OK I get it. Out of battery. How stupid of me.”

Noriko turned in his arms and hugged him. “You’re not stupid. Just a case of bad memory.”

“Yeah, whatever. How long am I going to be out of battery?”

“Until we tell you your, what did you call it, power bank works again.” Kuri’s smile was sweet and deadly. “Now this girl needs to go wash her hands. Hitomi, feeling dirty as well?”

Hitomi nodded, and with their hands full of food both girls expertly navigated the crowd in the direction of the restrooms closest to the shrine.

Noriko smirked, and then the voice of her idiot bro told her he had found them.

“Kyoko, Yukio, I got…” He met Noriko’s eyes. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he said.

“No problem, man. We’ll stay around for a bit longer anyway.”

Noriko sent Yukio a thankful thought for pretending nothing was out of the ordinary.

“Uhum, guys. I don’t see Kuri. Know where she is?”

“Ladies stuff,” Jeniferu offered. She and Tomasu had joined them just before Urufu’s phone… went out of battery.

“Ladies stuff?”

“Washing her hands,” Jeniferu explained.

“Ah, maybe I should wait for her. Where did she go?”

Jeniferu pointed her fingers at the restrooms closest to the stairs.

Chapter one, 2018, Hatsumode, segment four

Not funny you two!

Ryu grimaced. At least he knew what shrine they were supposed to visit.

He spent the better part of a half hour searching for his sister and Urufu after he was done in the men’s restroom. Twenty minutes it took before he was struck by understanding and made for the next train.

Not funny at all!

He kept swearing silently and downed the last of his coke before discarding the bottle in a recycling can.

The train arrived with a thunder and he entered. A little less than ten minutes later he left and stretched put his legs to make up for some of the time he had lost. Walking at a brisk pace was something he was better at than his sister. Her short legs simply didn’t allow her to keep up any tempo at all.

Sometimes Ryu wondered how Urufu could stand her snail’s pace when the two of them were together. That made Ryu recall the part about the two of them together, and his thoughts soured again. It wasn’t as if he disliked Urufu, not really. In fact Ryu considered him one of his best friends, but him and sis together. Well, it just wasn’t right.

Ryu also knew he needed to be more subtle about his disruptions in the future. That Yukio and Kyoko would follow up on their threat he didn’t doubt in the least. That would be bad, but not fatal. Kuri dropping him like a hot potato, however, would be. There was also, Ryu understood, the risk of Noriko, with the help of their mother, cutting all ties with him as well. He couldn’t chance breaking up their family, because family was all the home he knew.

He swung back and forth to the rhythm of the train, and as they closed in on their destination the number of kimono gradually increased just to suddenly vacate the train all at once; Ryu one of of them but sans the kimono. Their family might be old money, but he wasn’t enough of an Edo era remnant to wear a kimono of his own.

He followed the sea of people all walking in one direction, and when the crowd split up Ryu just followed the greatest concentration of traditional Japanese clothing. He overtook most of them and caught up with the ones ahead.

The street he walked slowly sloped uphill, and he soon got warm and a little sweaty, which wasn’t anything a vending machine couldn’t help. A can of coke later he felt ready to defeat the slope at a good pace.

Ahead of him the shrine area loomed, and a last push up the brutal stairs had him in a crowded place flanked by stalls, and somewhere here the others were bound to be. If only his phone could connect to the network he’d find them in no time at all. As it was he had to search for them the old fashioned way.

Searching for friends was thirsty work, but some amazake and a cup of hot tea solved that problem. Worse was that he had no luck finding his friends. He walked from stall to stall, and once he even waited by the shrine to see if anyone he knew would show up to offer their prayers.

In the end he gave up looking for the dead giveaway tall blond in the crowd. Had Kuri been here he’d have seen her by this time. Or rather, when his phone finally connected to the network he promptly called her.

“Christina,” she answered with the muted sound of a driving car in the background.

“Where are you?” Ryu wondered.

“Driving.”

You don’t say. He shook his head. “I’m at the shrine now.”

“Could you please tell the others we’re a little late.”

We? Ryu looked around. He couldn’t. “I seem to have misplaced them,” he tried.

“Misplaced?” There was something off with Kuri’s voice. Ryu could have sworn he heard muffled laughter.

“They aren’t near enough for me to tell them,” he said instead of explaining what had happened.

This time he was certain he heard a guffaw.

“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes or so. Would you wait for me?”

Would he wait for her? She was his girlfriend. Of course he would. He nodded until he realised she could hardly hear him nodding in the phone. “Sure.”

“You’re a sweetie,” Kuri said and closed the call.

Ryu stared at the phone. She still hadn’t explained the part about ‘we’, but he guessed he’d know soon enough.

A cold wind reminded him that fifteen minutes standing still would be fifteen very uncomfortable minutes, so he shuffled in the direction of the nearest stall serving amazake. On his way he managed to buy something warm to eat as well. It went down his stomach in no time at all, and Ryu swore a little as he glanced at the long queue where he had just bought his food.

He had just managed to buy and drink his amazake when he finally recognised Urufu and Tomasu chatting with each other a bit away. With hurried steps Ryu closed in on them, and when he caught up he saw his sister sharing a conversation with Jeniferu. Yet another stall away Yukio showed Kyoko something; a prospective gift most likely if Ryu guessed right.

“Sis!”

There was no reaction.

“Noriko!”

This time there was one. “Ryu, you took your time.”

Urufu turned his back to him, and so did Tomasu. Ryu swore both were grinning.

I got caught up,” Ryu said in an attempt to salvage a little of his pride.

“Caught up?”

“Well,” thinking of what had happened combined with the biting cold and the warm amazake he had just drunk suggested a pressing need. It wasn’t just a mug of amazake Ryu realised. “Guys, please wait for me!”

There was a queue, but it wasn’t horribly wrong, and Ryu soon came back, a lighter and relieved man.

Not funny you guys! Not funny at all!

Chapter one, 2018, Hatsumode, segment three

Kyoko grinned and pulled at Yukio’s hand. “We’re early, and she might be late. Wait?”

Yukio shook his head. “Let’s see if they’re already up by the shrine. Man, I’m freezing my butt off.”

While Kyoko wasn’t entirely convinced, there was the chance that Kuri-chan had opted to climb the stairs and wait for them with something to eat or drink in her hands. Looking up the stairs Kyoko observed how they’d be over and done with the harsh climbing once up there. If worst came to worst they could always send Kuri-chan a call. The last thought made her mind up, and Kyoko followed Yukio up to the shrine.

There were quite a few stalls there. Nothing like the main temples and shrines, but still enough to make everything look festive. January second also meant there were a lot of people on their first visit for the year, and a lot of people meant that when Kyoko finally remembered to call Kuri-chan she found out much too late that her phone had next to no signal.

I’ll call her in a moment, Kyoko thought when Yukio offered her some amazake. Then the warmth of the drink and Yukio being close to her made that moment into two, and a hot bite of Yukio’s food took another several moments. Before she knew it half an hour had passed since they were supposed to meet.

“Kyoko! Kuri!” Yukio said just as she frantically dug for her phone in her pockets.

Where? Kyoko looked around, but she didn’t see nothing like the unmistakable blond sunshine anywhere.

“No, I mean she should be here,” Yukio said.

Kyoko’s phone still refused to connect to any network. “No, we should have been there,” she responded and pointed in the direction of the stairs.

Yukio had the decency to look ashamed when he grabbed his phone and made the call. Apparently he had better luck with his connection. He glued the phone to the side of his face and stared into the air.

No! Kyoko shook her head when she noticed how he just continued staring into the skies without talking. Kuri-chan’s phone is out. Kyoko grimaced when Yukio finally gave up and gave his phone an angry glare.

“Message her so she knows we tried?” Kyoko said.

She didn’t need to. Yukio’s fingers already stabbed furiously into his screen.

At a lack for anything else to do Kyoko stared at the crowd around them. Hatsumode made itself reminded in the clothing. While she and Yukio wore normal clothes there were a lot of kimonos here, and it being hatsumode several men wore them as well.

“Sent,” Yukio said and turned her attention to him again. “Urufu and Noriko are here as well, together with Ryu,” he added.

Kyoko grimaced again. Well, they were supposed to celebrate together this time, so she couldn’t really complain about Ryu coming with his sister rather than his girlfriend. She just didn’t have to be happy about it. Noriko and Urufu didn’t get anywhere near enough alone time.

Yukio must have noticed that grimace, because he suddenly hugged her. “They’ll be fine,” he said, and Kyoko understood that ‘they’ meant Noriko and Urufu. “I still want to get in touch with Kuri though.”

Just as he said that Kyoko saw Tomasu and Jeniferu in the crowd and waved to them.

“Haven’t seen you since Christmas, how are you doing,” Kyoko said, but she hoped Jeniferu wouldn’t answer how she really felt.

Jeniferu’s face split up in a smile that almost reached her eyes. “It’s super! I never got to do this last year.”

I don’t know if you’re pretending to have fun or if you’re trying to. It really didn’t matter, did it. If fun was the game of the day… “Heard anything from Noriko?” Kyoko said.

Tomasu looked at Jeniferu, and she looked back at him. Then both of them broke down in laughter. This time her grin reached all the way to her eyes.

What?

“Yep, she’s not in the toilet.”

“She’s not what?”

Jeniferu struck the back of her hand to her forehead and stared skywards. “How thoughtless of us! How could we possibly forget...” and she bent double laughing again.

Around them people stared at the two wheezing teenagers.

“Seems Christina called her, and, and, and...” Tomasu said between laughing fits.

“So Noriko got real pissed off when her bro didn’t leave ahead to meet Christina.” Jeniferu stood straight again and wiped hair from her face.

“And I don’t know exactly what happened, because I spoke with Ulf about it, and he just went: bloody idiot, suits you you dickhead, why don’t you spend all of hatsumode there, and so on.”

Kyoko stared at both of them. They stood hugging each other, more for support than to show any affection, because both still shook with silent mirth. It’s good to see that smile on you again. I’ve missed it. Whatever happened it was worth it.

Yukio must have used the comedy stunt to buy drinks, because Kyoko felt his arm on hers, and then a bottle showed up in her hand. He promptly gave Jeniferu and Tomasu one each, twisted the plastic cap off his own, pushed the glass marble back into the bottle and emptied his Ramune in one go.

“I never learned how to open one of these,” Tomasu said when he was alone with an unopened bottle in his hand and both Kyoko and Jeniferu greedily followed Yukio’s example.

When Yukio tried to help him Jeniferu growled. “My boyfriend,” she said and pushed Yukio’s hands aside. She gave Tomasu a good stare and took the bottle from his hand. Very slowly she removed the plastic so he could see, popped the centre of the cap out and demonstratively placed it on top of the marble. “Thomas, you do the pushing.”

His face lit up. “Ah, that’s why the damn cap is there!” With a huge grin he pressed, and when the marble dropped into the bottle he grinned as if he had just invented the wheel. “Super, Jennifer!”

“OK, that’s the bribe. Now spill it, man. What about that toilet?”

“Oh,” Tomasu said, “Noriko’s not in it,” he added helpfully.

“The three of them arrived at some station earlier, and Ryu had pressing needs...” Jeniferu began.

“and we expect Noriko and Ulf to show up here any minute now,” Tomasu filled in.

“Eh, man, what about Ryu?” Yukio asked, but by then Kyoko had already doubled over in laughter of her own.

“They left him inside?” she guessed.

Chapter one, 2018, Hatsumode, segment two

Pre-packaged convenience store lunch in a luxury flat made it feel more like home. It would have felt even more like home if Ryu had stayed the night, but he wanted to escort his sister to the shrine, something that told Christina how he still failed badly in the department of allowing Noriko to live her own life.

Just to give him a little hell Christina sent Noriko and Ulf a message each with a heads up. Now it was up to them how to use it.

Christina loved Ryu. That wasn’t the same as blithely allowing him to behave like an arse, and Noriko had fought hard to get together with Ulf. Even when Christina still was jealous of the midget she always admired the little ball of endless energy. You deserve him.

They deserved each other. Ulf was all too often an insensitive buffoon, and Noriko had a personality eminently suited to handle that side of him; probably because she was an insensitive buffoon herself. Which was, Christina silently admitted to herself, only part of the truth. Noriko had ghosts of her own.

Christina grimaced and finished her make-up. After that clothes were a quick business. She had long since discarded the idea of going in a kimono. That garment wasn’t meant for someone with her looks. Instead she settled for a variant of what she had worn during the Christmas date with Ryu. White and cream coloured with a splash of blue. Very few could wear that since you needed a very distinct kind of blue eyes to hold the composition together. She was one of those few. A luxurious mass of golden hair helped.

For most anyone else thinking those thoughts was bragging or at least wistful thinking, but being the Princess of Scandinavia had been her job for over ten years, and after that she created her own empire of beauty. So she knew how she looked, and right now she wanted to look her best for Ryu without going full battledress.

My body’s eighteen this year. The time for being a beautiful girl was coming to an end. Now fifteen long years of being one of the most beautiful women on the planet lay ahead of her. Just as it had done all those years earlier in the upstream world.

She took the lift down, waved her body guard to her side, and together they left the building. For once she sought out the car with the pair of body guards Vogue assigned to her. There were times for being rebellious, but this was not one of them. Hatsumode was very much a public occasion, and going without very visible body guards was tantamount to attracting accident to happen. She had her share of fanatic stalkers; it came with her job.

The car took them to where she had previously agreed to meet up with Noriko. She left it with one body guard still at the wheel and walked to where she expected to find Ryu all alone.

He wasn’t, there at all, and neither was Noriko. Oops, guess I’ll have to call him and see where he followed his sister. She decided to make that call as quickly a possible. Standing all alone in her outfit attracted far too much attention, body guards or no body guards.

Out of service? Christina wasn’t too surprised. They days around New Year saw the network pushed to capacity.

Then the next problem arrived. Christina saw Hitomi walk up on her, just as much without an escort, and to Christina’s consternation in an absolutely gorgeous kimono. Right here and now Hitomi was competition, which didn’t bother Christina at all. Right here and now they were two supremely beautiful women all alone but for the body guards who still decided between being discrete or behaving like bullying muscle.

“Kuri? I expected Noriko.”

Damn! Ryu, or in worst case Nao, would have come in handy now. At least anyone of those two would have taken the worst heat off them.

“I’m trying to call Ryu, but there’s no answer.”

Hitomi gave her a calculating stare. “Both Noriko and Urufu failing to arrive in time? What did you do?”

“Nothing much,” Christina answered.

A sudden gust of wind crept inside he coat. It might look luxuriously warm, but in reality it was only designed to make her look hot in more ways than one. Clothes that actually did keep the cold out usually didn’t look fantastic on the wearer; Ulf was a shining example.

“Kyoko?”

Ah, but Ko-chan said she’d come later. With Yukio I guess. “Oh, they’ll arrive in half an hour or so,” Christina said.

Hitomi smirked. “Half a century’s worth of experience suggesting two dressed up girls stay here waiting alone for half an hour?” The grin turned into a grimace. “Did you leave you brains in that other world?”

A bit further away people were already aiming phones at them. Both body guards outside the car looked uncomfortable and made themselves very visible. Staying here below the stairs to the shrine was no longer an option.

“Up for a ride?” Christina said and nodded at the car.

Hitomi tilted her head. “Not really, but anything is better than being ogled here.” She flipped her handbag into her hand and strode away in the direction of the closest body guard.

Mutely Christina followed. Not the best way to start the day. She caught up with Hitomi. Guess we’ll drive around a little while I call the others.

They reached the car and got inside. Both body guards joined them and with a silent whirring the car left the shrine. Watching the stairs grow smaller and smaller Christina fished for her phone. Ko-chan was priority. Ulf and Noriko were elsewhere, most probably with Ryu in tow.

No service? She glared at her phone and shot Hitomi a questioning stare. The girl opened her own handbag and dug into it. After a short while she wielded a phone with a triumphant smile on her face. Then it darkened.

“No service.”

Chapter one, 2018, Hatsumode, segment one

“Aren’t we supposed to visit a shrine together?” Kuri asked.

Ryu looked up from the bed they shared. From the bed they shared with all their clothes on. Kuri sat tailor-fashion dead centre in the bed, golden hair cascading down her shoulders and with those deep blue eyes measuring him. Ryu had draped himself diagonally across it with his head hanging outside. The last being the reason he needed to look up to face her.

“Hatsumode? Why not?”

Urufu had worked them to the bones ever since their respective Christmas dates. Well not Kuri; she did the working all by herself as usual.

January the first. They spent New Year’s Eve at his home with Kuri visiting. Celebrating the new year at a shrine would have been the normal thing to do, but gruelling hours of working during the first half of their winter break made certain they were fast asleep long before midnight.

“I could call Ko-chan,” Kuri suggested.

Ryu grumbled a little. Things were good between him and the couple once again, but he still hadn’t fully come to grips with them being able to bite as well as bark.

“Or don’t you want me to?” she added.

Do I not want you to? That wasn’t really the question, was it? Telling Kuri not to ask her best friend out was something he needed to be careful with. If he wanted to spend some time alone with his girlfriend, well that wasn’t a problem. If he wanted to avoid Kyoko; that was an entirely different beast. “No Hatsumode with friends sounds fine,” Ryu decided. “Why not give sis and Urufu a call as well?” He could just as well be magnanimous.

“Sounds fun. I missed out last year.”

You were working last year. With Nao to boot. “So, all six of us?”

“All nine,” Kuri corrected him.

“Nine?” Ah, of course. “But Tomasu and Jeniferu only makes eight.”

Kuri smiled. “Noriko mentioned inviting Hitomi for hatsumode.”

Noriko mentioned? You mean Urufu, don’t you? Or maybe it had been sis after all. Urufu and Kuri weren’t on the best terms with each other any longer. The drawn out war with Kareyoshi took its toll in the end. “Sure, six or nine, what’s the difference?”

“Later today or tomorrow?”

Girls liked to dress up. Kuri just did it with supersonic speed because of who she was. It wouldn’t be fair to the others. “Tomorrow. That way it won’t feel as rushed.” That way her body guards won’t scream bloody murder.

Kuri stretched like a cat and Ryu admired how her body curved in all kinds of alluring ways. Hers was a special kind of beauty, which only made sense considering her part time work. Your average school girl didn’t work as a model, or in Kuri’s case a rising super star. It still sometimes befuddled him walking by her side with her face plastered to bill boards all around them.

He slid down on the floor. His sister making good friends with Kuri eventually led to Kuri standing on the receiving end of Noriko’s endless nagging. By now it finally showed. The flat that was Kuri’s home slowly started to resemble a home. Sure, parts of it was still too sterile, but at least it didn’t look abandoned like it had done when he first came here. Back then she referred to it as her golden cage.

The oversized bedroom they sat in very much looked like where a young woman slept, not to speak of the bathroom attached to it. As he glanced through the door opening Ryu felt a smile come to his lips. The living room no longer tried competing with the school gym for having the cleanest floor. That was definitely Noriko’s doing, or rather her insisting on bringing friends over whenever she visited Kuri. Groups of friends needed somewhere to sit, and in the end odd pieces of furniture slowly found their way there.

There was a kitchen which even sported plates and glasses for more than one person these days; including a pair of cups that would look horribly out of place no matter where they were placed. Those were a terrifying memory of their Christmas date.

The sound of Kuri’s voice reached him through his thoughts, and pushing with both hands against the floor Ryu rose to his feet and looked at Kuri as she spoke in her phone.

Ah, she began with Kyoko. I guess it’s a twofer. Calling Yukio wouldn’t be needed. If you spoke with one of them you spoke with them both.

Ryu left the room. His thoughts right now weren’t entirely truthful. Kyoko was Kuri’s best friend. They’d chit chat about absolutely nothing for at least half an hour. He could as well spend that time shopping for something to eat, and there was a convenience store nearby.

On his way out he grabbed his coat and slowly buttoned it up in the lift. He threw the guard a glance, nodded at Kuri’s personal body guard, wrapped his scarf around his neck and walked through the sliding doors.

While warmer than Sapporo, this still couldn’t be called warm. Ryu tugged his coat closer to him as he hugged the walls by the pavement in an attempt to get a little cover from the wind. Another two freezing blocks got him to the convenience store and Ryu greedily snuck into the warmth.

He stayed a little longer than planned, absently leafing through the magazines by the window, to get some warmth back into his body. Coat was all good and well, but by now Ryu regretted not having donned the sweater he left with Kuri.

It couldn’t be helped. He put back the last magazine, grabbed the pre-packaged lunch boxes and sauntered over to the counter where a girl in her early twenties had stood sending him disapproving glances while he went through one magazine after another.

Just because he could, Ryu sent her one of his most devastating smiles and got the expected reaction in return. He paid, she stammered and Ryu was on his way back to Kuri.

June 24, 2040, on the wooden deck

Ryu wondered what the sounds of laughter was all about and climbed the hill side to find out.

When he reached the house he heard gales of laughter from the wooden deck. Shaking his head the turned around a corner and peeked.

It was Yukio with a cigarette in his hand and Kyoko cradling a cup of tea, and she was laughing so hard some of it spilled.

I wonder what’s so funny. Ryu allowed himself to be seen.

They didn’t even notice. Yukio and Kyoko laughed so hard they had to cling to each other for support. By now over half of that tea lay on the wooden deck.

“What’s up,” Ryu asked. He was less interested in the answer than giving them a heads up they weren’t alone any longer.

“Ryu! Great! Kyoko’s going on about hatsumode.”

Ryu stared at Yukio. “Hatsumode? That’s half a year away.”

“No, not now. I mean then. Second year.”

Second year? What are they… “I’m out of here,” Ryu said when he remembered.

“Oh no, you’re staying. You never told us all the details.”

“And we really want to know what happened in your end,” Kyoko filled in.

There’s a reason I never told you, Ryu thought frantically. There had to be a way of getting out of this. “Nothing special,” he tried weakly. “I mean nothing worth remembering,” he added. That was true in a way. Hatsumode during their junior high school year was very much worth forgetting.

Prologue, 1993

And she had done it again. Wakayama Tadao stared at the love of his life with eyes and chest full of admiration. Then he met the eyes of the teacher in pursuit of Natsumi.

“You little… stop her!”

Fat chance. Tadao grinned at them both.

Natsumi high fived him when she passed at full speed in the school corridor, and Tadao had just as much reason to get caught as his girlfriend. Second floor wasn’t worth the effort of stairs, so barely looking down he vaulted out the window, somersaulted once and rolled on the ground below.

Above him the teacher’s head popped out through the window Tadao had just left. A balding head. A head that bellowed things Tadao was certain a teacher wasn’t supposed to utter.

“Moron!”

That wasn’t the teacher. That was Mitsuo shouting his displeasure with Tadao’s gymnastic abilities.

Good thing he made it out of the classroom ahead of us, Tadao thought and laughed.

“You want to get us grounded?”

Of course they’d get grounded. That was part of the game after all, and sneaking out of course. Nothing that didn’t include bars could keep Tadao inside if he wanted out, but he had to admit that Mitsuo lacked a little in that department.

Natsumi didn’t. She didn’t lack in any department. The difference in physical strength she more than made up for with one insanely daring plan after another, and it wasn’t just for show. He felt how she lived her life to the fullest whenever they shared a bed.

“Mitsuo, we’re out of here!”

“We’ll get caught, you idiot!”

“Get your bike! Natsumi’s fetching a ladder.”

Tadao ran for the bike stands, and poor Mitsuo couldn’t do much more than follow in his steps.

“Ladder?” Mitsuo asked breathlessly when they arrived.

“Just get your bike! You’ll find out,” Tadao said and grabbed both his and Natsumi’s bikes. They probably had less than half a minute.

They sprinted across the gravel in the direction of the gates. Behind him Mitsuo gasped for breath. Good thing you’re tired, or you’d understand. Damn, he’s going to hate me for this, Tadao thought and grinned.

“No way in hell! You didn’t!” Mitsuo wheezed.

Ah, he found out. Can’t be helped. Tadao rushed up the ladder Natsumi had left like a ramp from the ground to atop the gate. He still carried a bike in each arm.

“Catch!”

Natsumi obediently caught first one bike and then the next.

“Mitsuo, your bike, quick!”

Behind them teachers came rushing out on the school yard. You’re too late!

Tadao had to help Mitsuo across the gate, but with Natsumi ready to catch both a third bike as well as their best friend things went as planned.

“Don’t you dare!”

Tadao didn’t pay the roaring teacher much attention.

“Now my heroes, history is best learned where it occurred. Today we’re going to Kamakura.” He straddled his bike, and waited for Natsumi and Mitsuo to do the same.

When a teacher finally got the gate open they were already half a block away. Another day turned into a field trip, another magic high school day and another day he spent with the woman he loved above anything else and the best friend anyone could ever hope for.

Life was wonderful, living was wonderful, and anything wonderful was worth exploring. What did it matter if they built a less than stellar reputation with the staff back at Himekaizen?

June 24, 2040, coffee and smoke

He belonged to a vanishing minority of smokers, which was a good thing, but right now this minority needed a cig.

Remembering Kareyoshi sure put a damper on the morning.

“They put him away. I believe he’s still in some prison somewhere,” Kyoko said and came up to stand beside him with both her hands on the railing.

“Just remembering is enough to...”

“Please Yukio!”

Yukio grimaced but held his peace. “You know,” he said when he had calmed down again, “didn’t it get strangely normal after that?”

Kyoko gazed out over the sea, but Yukio could see a smile playing on her lips. “Yes, strangely normal. Trust us to make normal a problem.”

He couldn’t remember. For Yukio his second year in high school was forever tainted by Kareyoshi, but the monster got removed just prior to Christmas. That left a full trimester of their junior year. “Were they good times?” Yukio asked while he furiously tried to remember what had happened back then.

Kyoko guffawed and kissed him full on his mouth. “Good times indeed. Great times for lovers of chaos.”

Standing in the morning sun memories finally surfaced in Yukio’s mind. Yeah, those were great times for anyone feeling that falling down a cliff was too sedate. But… there were just three months between Christmas and school’s end. They couldn’t possibly have…

“I know what you’re thinking.”

Yukio pulled the brakes on his train of thoughts and turned to face his wife. “Enlighten me!”

“You really don’t remember?”

He shook his head. “Not a thing,” he lied, and he knew she knew he lied. It didn’t matter. Right now he was about to enjoy her version of what happened.

“Gods! And the only sane thing for us back then would have been to study, do well on our finals and enter our third year, but no, no we just had to… gods!”

Yukio waited for Kyoko to pick up the thread where she had left it off. He waited and enjoyed how the sun played in her hair.

“Yukio, really! Hatsumode, and the field trip. And...” she threw her hands to her face, “valentines! Now that was a mess best forgotten.”

Now when she mentioned it Yukio remembered. Yeah, best forgotten. “White day wasn’t much better, or the finals,” Yukio filled in.

“Or spring break for that matter. Gods what a disaster that was!”

With a grin Yukio allowed himself to be flooded by memories. Disasters all of them, but fun disasters.

Epilogue, 2017

"Defused?"

“Defused,” Hasegawa Mamoru acknowledged. “He’s being put away permanently.”

“But why alive?”

Mamoru didn’t have the real answer to that question, but he had one answer. “It was an explicit request from Sano-san on the Japanese side.”

“And the mopping up?”

“The rest are being rounded up as well,” Mamoru said in confirmation. “They’ll stay alive as well. Same request,” he added.

He almost had to shout the words. The waterhole they visited might be targetted at people in their forties and older, but it still poured out music at a volume more suited for those in their twenties.

The outdoors cityscape of Gothenburg might be silent in a way Tokyo never was, but indoors was a very different matter. Apart from that Gothenburg was strangely similar to Tokyo. An abysmal winter, wetter here than at home, but still the same kind of windy almost winter that drowned the city lights in dreary darkness. Illuminations all over the city mitigated it somewhat, but Mamoru grimaced at the thought of staying here late January when they were all taken down. Sweden was dark in winter.

At least the speakers blaring out foreign music, foreign for him at least, made certain they could speak undisturbed.

“You look like you would have preferred seeing them dead,” the other man said.

Mamoru clenched his fists under the table. “I have a daughter in another school in that area. Thinking it might have been my little Ai...” The cold smile he was rewarded with made Mamoru regret he ever got involved with this organisation.

“There never was any risk. Your daughter is Japanese.”

If being Japanese is the reason Ai-chan was never raped then my own pride in being Japanese just crashed. He chose not to respond, but a feeling of distaste lingered in his mind. “And the outcome?” Mamoru asked. He was genuinely interested, but it was also an excuse to change the topic.

The other man shrugged. It was a thoroughly western expression, which made sense since he was just as tall, blond and blue eyed as any stereotype of the concept of Swedish would want you to believe. “We’ll see. We’re sending to their eighties, or at least we believe we do.”

That was further back than I thought. Mamoru pretended the information didn’t surprise him. “So our readings are from the fifties?” he suggested.

“Probably. It’s a double blind. We don’t know exactly which year in the... What did your contacts call it? Yes, upstream world we’re sending to. We sure as hell make certain they don’t know which year we’re sending from.”

That made sense. “And it’s the same with the… ah… downstream world?”

“Probably. I mean, if we’re sending a bit over thirty years into their past, then it just makes sense we’re receiving from some thirty years ahead in the downstream future. We get hints about what kind of people they want transited and we deliver.”

We deliver. What a disgusting way to put it. “Why?” He could just as well ask that all important question.

“Economic and technological trends some ten to twenty years ahead. It keeps both Sweden and Japan afloat of the rest of the world.” The advertisement for a Swedish male grimaced. “Well, if the idiots over there could get their collective heads out of their arses Japan would be on top as well.”

“There have been major mishaps in Sweden as well. At least if I remember my history books,” Mamoru tried.

Half a beer later the other man smirked and showed Mamoru a toothy grin. “He have our share of idiots here as well. We get the information from downstream; doesn’t mean people in power always listen to it.”

“Why removing Kareyoshi? Pigs worse than him have been allowed to stay in power.” Mamoru said and changed the subject. He could just as well gain some more clues to the riddle.

“Because those in power upstream suffer from the same kind of decency as we do. The last time we allowed things to deteriorate like this they plugged the bottle for fifteen years.”

“Fifteen?” Mamoru was certain one of the arrivals was in his mid twenties objectively. He sipped his own beer and let his eyes wander over the rustic tackiness that served as decoration around them.

“Ashiga James was an accident. He was never supposed to transit.”

So that’s what happened. They’re not fully in control of the transits. But…

“Yes, we have accidents here as well. Or rather we believe those have to occur. Some of the people who should transit probably never get identified. Call it fate, or karma. Whatever.”

The interruption was brutal, but it told Mamoru just about everything he didn’t want to know. Some people got caught in transition as accidents, but most were manipulated into leaving the world they knew for another, and the man on he other side of the table, with a beer in his hand, still dared talking about decency.

Chapter six, 2017, Christmas carols, segment ten

“Why here?”

“Because I love winter,” Kuri said.

Ryu shook his head. Going to Odori Park was excessive just to celebrate Christmas. Or rather flying from Tokyo to Sapporo was. To top it off it was freezing cold, literally so. The snow he had expected, though, was absent.

“This is winter?” he had to ask.

At his side Kuri shook her head. She grimaced a little. “Well, it’s not too uncommon you’ll have to wait until January for the snow back home.”

‘Home’ wasn’t Tokyo. Ryu knew that. At least not right now. For him snow was something you visited, but the way her eyes dimmed when they landed in a bare landscape told him she must have grown up with white winters.

“Back then,” he began, “how did you spend Christmas?”

She smiled and gave him a peck of a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks for asking.” She brightened and he could see the child she had once been. “Before modelling, with my family. Just like everyone else.” Then something sad covered her eyes. “After my nomadic life began, well anywhere I guess. I tried to get home whenever possible though.”

Taking a few steps more in silence Ryu watched the madness around him. Kuri certainly had picked a place as sickly illuminated as any of the more well known Christmas dating spots in Tokyo. He guessed girls liked it. With the possible exception of his sister of course, but then she hadn’t really begun behaving like a girl until last year.

She was with Nao then. And that turned out just splendidly, didn’t it? Ryu swore silently and looked ahead. He’d promised himself he’d leave his sister alone as much as possible lest Kuri walked away from him. Yukio’s and Kyoko’s mad gamble had paid off. Hats off for them. After his anger subsided Ryu admitted he admired their bravery.

“You don’t really celebrate Christmas that way here, do you?” Kuri sad, but her voice held a quality to it that revealed she was still in that other world.

Ryu looked up and glanced at her. “No,” he admitted. “It’s mostly a dating event for couples, well and small kids receive presents.”

“Did you get any?” she replied at once, and the teasing giggle that followed made him smile. She was back once again.

“Prince of Himekaizen here. Princes don’t get to act like kids.” His own words rang false. He had, behaved like a kid that was, and deep inside he knew he still was. The only difference from earlier was he wasn’t entirely certain why he disliked Noriko’s and Urufu’s relationship so much.

She turned down Yukio three times during their last year at middle school, but Ryu was certain he wouldn’t have reacted this way had Noriko chosen otherwise.

The part about her boyfriend being a foreigner was something Ryu had already rejected; he didn’t care about it when it came to Kuri after all. In fact he no longer noticed anything but how much he cared for her. The same went for the age difference, or at least mostly so, because Ryu suspected Urufu saw something in Noriko he himself couldn’t see, and maybe the resentment lay there.

“It’s a lot more gaudy than what I remember from home,” Kuri said. She was still giggling, but she became serious again. “There’s a lot that’s different from home.”

If she was back in this reality then that reality included the hell they had been through the last year. “I wonder what the next one will be like,” Ryu said and pretended to be interested in the knick-knacks sold in one stall.

Kuri hugged his arm closer to herself and made a show of taking a more active interest in tackiness on display. “The next principal?” she asked between a poorly painted earthenware mug and a glass that failed utterly at looking like crystal. “We’ll have this one,” she added to his horror and chose a pair of the mugs.

Unbidden an image of the mugs being used in her luxury flat came to his mind, and he shuddered. He was part of that picture.

Ryu stared at the woman by his side, because she very much was a woman. This time he did notice her foreignness. The kind of clothing she wore, almost white, including a fluffy something covering her golden hair, would have looked awful on anyone born here. Kuri, however, looked like a princess supervising this illusion as if it was only natural for her.

“Yes,” he said. “The next principal.”

The princess smirked and shrugged. “I don’t know. Normal I hope.”

Normal? Yes, I can see why you’d want normal. Ryu let go of her arm so she could sign something a fan put under her nose. From the start since they entered the park she had been bugged by fans, and only the discreet intervention of her body guards allowed them a semblance of a date for two.

Ryu didn’t mind, but he felt a little sorry for Kuri. He might be the Prince of Himekaizen, but with the madman Kareyoshi at the helm there had been precious little time to be a prince of anything. He still had the chance to vanish into the shadows whenever the need became pressing. As for Kuri, the only shadows she ever saw were those she cast herself.

Is it worth it? Or is this the only life you know?

With one fan a happier person and an autograph richer Ryu took the chance to move closer to his girlfriend. They managed to walk another two stalls before the next group of fans were allowed near them.

One of the girls hunting for Kuri’s signature shot Ryu a shy smile, and he reflexively returned it with a trademarked one of his own. From the corner of his eye he saw how Kuri lit up in a thoroughly professional smile.

Christmas carols from different speakers mixed and competed for attention, Kuri handed out Christmas presents in the form of autographs, and the two of them pretended to enjoy a date for two with preying cameras noticing everything they did.

Tomorrow some of those cameras would make someone famous for an entire day. Tomorrow Ryu would help Kuri look like a high school girl living out her winter break. Tomorrow Kuri’s normal life would continue with cameras, fans and body guards.

Chapter six, 2017, Christmas carols, segment nine

In the end Noriko got her fair share of Christmas carols. She even got to listen to them together with Urufu. They didn’t go to Asakusa as Kyoko had suggested, but rather Urufu brought her to an amusement park an hour’s ride or so away from the city centres of Tokyo.

Something about a memory, he said, but when they arrived he just stood gaping at the insanity. Noriko had nothing against illuminations, but this was taking it a little too far. About a galaxy too far or so.

The entire park was lit up like a fairy tale version of fantasy land, but the sheer amount of coloured lamps dispelled any remaining magic.

A little bemused she shared the first half of their date with him surrounded by people and illumination competing for winning this year’s prize for outstanding vulgarity. Urufu was, as usual, a close runner up with strange taste in clothes.

They were already on the train back from bling hell when Noriko both voiced those thoughts in her head and immediately regretted them.

She nudged closer to him as if to apologise by means of sheer proximity. He stood, one hand firmly gripping a support and the other protectively on her shoulder to prevent her from falling whenever the train took a curve. In ways he always stood firm, and Noriko guessed that was what first attracted her to him – that he always took a stance and stood by it until convinced he was wrong. Now, that was the second thing with him that attracted her; that he admitted when he was wrong.

Just like he had done now. When their date at the theme park promised to become a disappointing disaster he simply suggested they leave and leave it to him to find something else to do.

It probably wouldn’t involve a restaurant, since those were booked full weeks earlier, but she trusted him to come up with something.

They left the train at Shinjuku and Urufu dragged her to the circle line and shortly afterwards Noriko found herself at the grand Shibuya intersection.

What’s he up to now? she wondered as she was dragged inside a shop. A bag with winter’s clothing later, one she had refused he pay for, she once again found herself on a train but none the wiser.

They left at another station, Urufu quickly bought something in a rather strange shop, or rather a lot of somethings which all made their way into his backpack. His eye-destroying backpack. After that they were bound for Shinjuku once again and a long walk later, one he prepared by forcing he to change shoes, Noriko grinned as she recognised the park in front of them.

“Urufu, you’re cute, but you should have checked first,” she said. Let’s see him wriggle out of this one.

“What? Oh, oh shit!”

Opening hours weren’t the same in December as in summer, and Noriko watched in fascination how Urufu’s face turned sour and thoughtful with just a few seconds in between.

“Train,” he said and dragged her back in the direction of the station.

Any other girl would have kicked your shins and left you by now, Noriko thought. She didn’t. Albeit a disaster this date turned out to be a rather merry one. With the kind of company her parents kept around them fancy restaurants never made it into her wish list. Whatever Urufu had planned, he’d done so for her, and she was curious about how he’d manage to make up for the illuminations she honestly hadn’t wanted to see in the first place.

Not that she would tell him.

When they left the train at Harajuku she had her answer. Yoyogi park didn’t have opening hours the way Shinjuku Gyoen did.

They left they cityscape behind them and entered under bare trees making a futile attempt at hiding the overcast sky. Winter left the park mostly empty, and Noriko swallowed the laugh that bubbled up inside her when Urufu beelined straight for a table with two benches.

No, he isn’t!

He was.

The strange things he had bought was some kind of outdoor kitchen, and the hissing sound of burning gas was soon accompanied by water bubbling.

In the meantime all the winter’s clothing he had forced her to buy came to good use. He even pulled out a foldable cushion he must have hidden away in his backpack. It was flat and not very soft, but it did keep the cold away.

Soon a small feast appeared on the table, but before that Noriko enjoyed the luxury of something sweet and hot to drink that Urufu prepared for her.

Among the crazy assortment of food and drink a Christmas cake suddenly appeared, and Noriko couldn’t suppress her laughter. It ran out of her together with feelings of happiness and love, and she didn’t stop until Urufu kissed her.

“Merry Christmas,” he said.

“Merry… oh. Is that for me?”

“Of course. I couldn’t really forget your Christmas present, now, could I?”

Noriko put her cup of warm luxury away and unwrapped her present with some apprehension. Urufu had expensive tastes, too expensive in her opinion.

I wonder. An oblong paper box lay on the table and hid its contents from her. He didn’t!

He did.

She burst out in laughter once again. “Urufu, I love you. I really really love you.” Noriko guffawed, but she allowed herself to fully enjoy being caressed by the thick scarf she wrapped around her neck. I don’t even want to know what he paid for this. It lay on her shoulders, snuggled in between coat and neck and protected her from the winter afternoon. He knew I’m cold. She felt herself warm up inside as if he had embraced her, and when she met his eyes Noriko suspected her feelings for him could be read like an open book.

“It was Yukio’s suggestion,” Urufu admitted.

Of course it was! This time Noriko made no attempt at stopping her laughter. She was warm, and in love, and Urufu was just as stupid as dear to her.

“Urufu you idiot, I love you.”

He blushed a little and smiled back. “I love you as well.”