Chapter four (segment three), 2016, August, Christina

Christina turned on her toes and listened to the whirring as hundreds of photos were being taken. She knew that modern equipment really didn't sound like that, but she had asked for the effect to make her remember those early days when they wrapped up a day with silly shots using a motorised camera. Neither she nor the other models made any real effort to glide in and out of real poses, but rather played like buffoons.

Sometimes a lucky one got taken, and if the crew were really lucky they found it back at the studio.

“Wrap it?” the photographer asked, but it hadn't been a question. They more they played around the more work for very little gain they produced.

“Ageruman-san?”

She grinned at the model who has turned to her for confirmation. “Yeah, I think that's enough with the silly.” She beckoned for attention and the photographer looked up from his display.

“Yes?” This time it was a real question.

“Tonight is the last one for the club. Our field trip,” she added when he showed no understanding. “If you want I think I can convince the others to participate in some group shots for free. If you want something where you display the entire range.”

He stroked a stubbled chin. “Dunno. They're not pros.”

“Mmm.” Christina tilted her head. Just an idea. You could mix in the models I guess, but I can't promise they'll do it for free,” she laughed and pointed at the man closest to her.

“You know, I'll ask the producer. It's not a bad idea, and I guess you're doing the fireworks and all that kiddie stuff.” The photographer waved at the model she had singled out. “What about it? We're stuck here until tomorrow and I'll throw in some beer and barbecue if we have an OK?”

“Sounds more fun than spending the entire evening indoors,” the model agreed. “I'll ask the others.”

Christina waited for the crew to pack up and walk away. She wanted some time for herself, but in the end the photographer remained on the beach with her. She gave him a surprised look when he waved to the rest of the crew to have his gear carried away. When she gave him another look she wasn't as surprised any longer. It was the ace one.

“You know, I don't believe you just happened to have that idea,” he opened. “You've played a crapton of stunts on us that were a hell of a lot smarter than what our producer planned.”

And here it comes.

“What's the deal?” he asked in response of her silence. He looked out over the water and lit a cigarette. “You know way too much of my side of the camera,” he said and blew out a long string of smoke. “First I thought you were studio family, but you know the clothes as well. Now that takes a lot of years.” He fell silent, and she knew he was fishing for a response.

I'll hold out a bit longer. Want to know how much he's guessed. She said nothing and stared at the sand where it glimmered the few metres between land and sea where waves rolled up and back again.

She wasn't surprised that he took up the one-sided conversation again. “If I didn't know better I'd say you've been in the business for twenty or thirty years, maybe more, but that would be crazy, wouldn't it?”

That was far, far too close. With a few words he had pinned her entire previous professional life.

“Yeah, that would be crazy,” she said. I should have denied it flat out, but, oh well.

“There were some strange rumours, when I worked for Asahi Shimbun back in the days.” He drew deep, inhaled and exhaled. “Way back in the days.”

He's a bloody journalist? But he's with the big agency here, I'm sure of it. She had to put a stop to this, or learn more. In the end curiosity won. “What kind of rumours?”

“Me and a colleague followed a trail of strangeness that led us from Japan to Sweden. Real strange stuff.”

What the hell? “I don't understand,” she tried, but she knew that lie wouldn't float.

“Science fiction kind of strangeness. Nothing we could have published and kept our jobs. Hell, I wouldn't have believed it myself until I arrived back here.”

Despite the summer heat Christina felt something cold running up and down her back. She slowly turned to him. “What would you not believe, more exactly?”

He stared back at her. “Nothing a school girls would understand. Nothing a cute thing like you should believe.” He drew another lungful and waited for her response.

She decided to let him finish. Nothing he said should surprise her anyway, but she wanted how much he knew.

“But if a beautiful schoolgirl wouldn't believe it, maybe the Princess of Scandinavia would?”

Christina knew she was gaping, but it didn't matter. “You're from back there?”

He kept his stare locked on her. “I arrived here almost thirty years ago. It took me some time to recognise you. Must have been just after your breakthrough.”

Thirty years? I was in Paris then. No, the big one in Japan after I broke up with that creep. That's when I got my nickname. “How old are you?”

She received a grin in response. “Older than you, in both worlds. Forty three here and sixty nine in total.”

Her clothes were already dirty, and it wasn't as if they were really her clothes. She sat down in the sand grappling with what he had just said. “How many of us are there here?”

“I don't know,” he said. He remained standing, but she could smell his cigarette. “Quite a few I guess.” The smell grew fainter, and Christina could hear his receding footsteps. “I'm not going to make any trouble for you, but I would want to chat with you some other time.”

“Wait!”

“Yes?”

Christina rose to her knees and turned. “Why are you here? I mean in this town.”

The smile she got was both reassuring and sad. “I'm not here to spy on you if that's what you think. Honestly, I came for the shot.” He shrugged, and she could see he was far, far away in his thoughts. “Asahi Shimbun was in that other world. Sometimes I miss it, but here I'm a fashion photographer.” Then his face lit up in a naughty grin that made him much younger. “One of the damned best you'll find. Let's just say I have twice the experience if you get my meaning.”

She felt sad for him, but at the same time this was an opportunity she wasn't about to miss. “Let's say we'll have that chat, and let's say you know who I am. I want you on my permanent crew.”

That had him. “You're one cold-hearted bitch. But sure, if you can prove you didn't end up a mayfly back there.”

A challenge, but one she could match. “Ask my boyfriend.”

“Your boyfriend, what does he have to do… shit!”

“Yeah, shit. He can tell you just how big I made it there.”

“From what you told him?” the photographer probed.

Nice try, but you know what I mean. “He's my age, a bit older actually. As you were saying, let's assume he knew of me when you arrived here.” Christina rose to her full length and slid into the pose that had made once her name. “He followed my career a bit closer than most, both my careers.” And to close the conversation she became the billion dollar empress.

The former journalist blanched at Christina's sudden change. Then he recovered. “I see. Very well, I'll see what I can do.”

Chapter four (segment two), 2016, August, Kyoko

“Fireworks?”

“Found some, but it's not enough.” Yukio's face split up in a laugh. “Never enough of those,” he said and pointed up the street. “I saw a store back there earlier. See if they have some?”

Kyoko smile and took his hand. They were on shopping duty for the last evening at the resort. Despite Urufu's sudden retreat into himself and the unexpected work turning up the second day their field trip has been a resounding success this far. At least if she excluded the embarrassing event last night when the home-made brothers had made an attempt at peeping on the girls bathing.

It had been a failure until both Urufu and Kuri-chan appeared stark naked from the family bath wondering what was going on. After receiving what had to be the worst verbal bashing in their lives both Dai-kun and Hideo-kun declined an offer to learn proper sauna behaviour from Urufu and Kuri-chan.

“Yukio, did Ryu say anything?”

“About what?”

Don't play cute with me! “Yukio!” Kyoko said and pulled his hand.

“They were just talking all the time. Ryu said it was about as exciting as taking a bath at home, and then Urufu said 'good boy', and that was is.” Yukio shrugged, but he did blush a bit.

The Wakayamas hadn't declined that offer, but Noriko's recounting of sharing the family bath with her brother, Urufu and Kuri-chan had been just as boring. Should have joined them. Wonder if Yukio thinks the same?

“Oh, then I guess it wasn't that much to talk about,” she said instead of thinking too much about sharing a bath with him.

Yukio took a few steps and pulled her with him. “Seems the university tradition when they were students was sharing the sauna. I guess they're used to it.” This time he didn't blush when he shrugged.

“Funny people, Swedes,” Kyoko observed as they came close to the shop. “Wouldn't you say so,” she said when he didn't answer.

Pushing aside the curtains Yukio only gave her a thoughtful look. He waited for her to come inside. “I don't know about funny. There must be things we do that seem outlandish to them.”

Kyoko thought about that while they got help to locate what few fireworks were to be had. Are we strange to them? But they live here now. She hadn't heard Kuri-chan complain about Japan, but what if she silently disagreed. Maybe she was just too polite to say so.

They walked back with bags full. Even though they couldn't hold hands they still managed to steal kisses from time to time. To hell with proper behaviour. She wasn't about to compromise with her new-found happiness. Obviously they never went as far as Urufu and Kuri-chan had done that day by the pool. For once those two had a semblance of privacy rather than walking down a small town street, but Kyoko also didn't feel all that comfortable with getting so physical yet. Not that she wasn't curious, and again a picture of sharing last evening's bath with Yukio came to her mind.

“Sorry, what did I do?”

Kyoko realised she had pulled away from Yukio, and now she was blushing furiously. “Nothing, we didn't do anything!”

“We?” he asked and gave her one of those infuriatingly curious looks.

She made an effort to study one of the vending machines they passed, and after that she pretended that a microscopic town garden was the most interesting thing in the world.

“Girls!” he said and increased his steps.

Sorry, Yukio, but we're not talking about that now. Kyoko looked at his backside and tried to catch up with him. Ahead of them the street opened up to the seaside road feeding the town and the walkway on the other side of it. The afternoon sun glared down from over the mountains, but the worst of the August heat was gone.

On the beach she saw the club members playing in the water or lazily talking under the shade of parasols they had brought down from the hotel. Funny, I never missed that part very much when I couldn't have it, and now when I can I miss it even less. It felt strange looking at her schoolmates having the time of their lives and not needing to be part of it. Yukio, I love you. When I'm with you I don't need anything else. Even when you're grumpy, she added as an afterthought and ran to his side.

Her parents would disapprove. In their eyes anyone associated with divorce was a failure, but she didn't care. No that wasn't true. If she didn't then she would have told them by now, and she hadn't. She shook the thought away and brushed her hand against Yukio's.

“Sorry,” she said, “but there are things I'm not ready to talk about yet, OK?”

“Huh?” He looked at her over his shoulder and then he smiled. “Oh, I don't mind. I want to share everything with you, but only when you want to.”

Both of them must have realised what he just said at the same time, because they stopped dead in their tracks and stared at each other. Kyoko felt her face heat up and guessed she was turning just as red as him.

“I didn't mean it that way...”

Kyoko stared at her feet feeling strangely disappointed.

“Well, I didn't mean that I didn't mean, but I didn't...” His voice petered out into absolute embarrassment.

“What about...”

“… we don't...”

“… talk about it...”

“… right now?”

She dropped her bags at her feet and threw herself around his neck. It felt less awkward burying her face into his shoulder, and she wanted to be really close to him right now.

A lone bottle of tea rolled slowly down the street. She could hear its plastic thumping, but she didn't care. They could pick it up later. He smelled of sweat and a little of deodorant. He smelled like her Yukio, like what she imagined when fantasies of him came unbidden to her late at night when she needed her loneliness banished.

That thought surprised her. Loneliness. Only after she made friends with Kuri-chan did she realise she had spent all those earlier years feeling lonely, and now when she had Yukio she finally started to understand just how lonely.

“Yukio,” she murmured into his shirt, “don't ever let me go. Don't ever let me wake up one morning knowing you're no longer there.” The fear of being alone again grew stronger now that she knew what it was feeling loved. It didn't matter that it maybe was just a teenage fling; for her he was the most important being in the world. More important than Kuri-chan and even her parents. She clung tighter to him.

“I won't. Wherever you go I'll follow.”

It didn't matter if it was a promise he wouldn't be able to keep in the end. It didn't matter if she eventually would no longer want him to keep it. It only mattered that he had said it to her, right here and right now.

Chapter four (segment one), 2016, August, Ulf

With him at the helm yesterday's afternoon workshops had gone off without a hitch. Sure, some of the attendants showed some initial disdain at his apparent age, but he quickly put them out of any misconceptions.

Most of them were the same kind of over-aged middle management he remembered had held back much needed corporate change during his first life, but if you hit them hard enough over their heads with working solutions you peeled off the covers they hid behind. In at least one sense Ulf preferred Japanese upper management to the Swedish counterpart he was used to. When they decide to go for broke they were absolutely ruthless with their workforce, especially with their middle management.

He used that advantage just as ruthlessly and forced the entire assembly to climb the murderous uphill hiking path to the camping he had made certain hadn't been brought down to the hotel.

Up there he worked them to their bones, and when he finally allowed them to rest most were so tired they just crawled into their tents and fell asleep.

To their horror he had them carry all equipment down the same path earlier this morning, and it was a dishevelled bunch that took a well deserved bath in the hot springs.

Ulf left them there after he received a long email from Christina, had two bento boxes made for them each and sauntered down to the beach. Work was what he needed, and Christina. And she had written that he was needed down there.

He made it just in time to meet her on the walkway when she was ready for lunch and learned that Principal Nakagawa apparently had promised her something. They sat down with their legs dangling and arms hanging through the railings. Ulf had the pleasure of watching Christina light up with a grateful smile when he brought out their lunch.

“I've been so scared,” she said.

There wasn't much of an answer he could give her. He hugged her closer with one arm. “Sorry. I won't be like that again,” he murmured. He'd been in black despair once before, but when he finally crawled out of it after two weeks of the worst binge drinking he'd experienced since university days he never returned into his private hell. Well, apart from now, he recalled and for a moment he was back in the ghastly scene with policemen backing away and a frantic teenager waving a gun until he put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

“Ulf? Please, you promised!”

He shook himself out of it and pulled a sobbing Christina into his arms. “No, I'm not going there again.” Ulf watched waves rolling over sand and pulling back again. Just like Christina's breath slowed down to the rhythmic calm and love he had grown used to the last month. “I'm here with you. For as long as you want me.” He hugged her harder and held her until he heard her stomach growl.

She pulled herself free and looked shamefacedly at him. Flicking away hair that had tangled in her face she regained her composure. “What about that lunch?”

Ulf grinned and handed her a paper napkin. Not even a super model was an image of perfection with snot in her face.

Without further talk they dug in on their lunch. Eating made him remember how hungry he really was, and they kept at it in silence only broken by requests for the bottle of water they shared.

When Nakagawa arrived mid-lunch he was dressed for vacation. He had a man with him. Younger, maybe forty.

“Good day,” Nakagawa greeted them.

“And?” Ulf asked, nodding at the stranger.

“Mister Hammargren,” the stranger opened in passable English. “My name is Arata Onishi. Pleased to meet you. Arata is my first name and I'm fine using it.”

Ulf looked at Nakagawa for an explanation.

“Onishi-sensei, sorry, Arata is one of my medical experts. I've informed him about our earlier conversation, well Christina's and mine. A medical examination won't be needed.”

Ulf and Christina looked at each other. She blushed momentarily and Ulf gave Nakagawa a questioning look. “Medical examination?” he asked. He looked at Christina again, but she only nodded as if everything made sense.

“Yes, I'm quite certain,” Arata answered instead. “You see, those reactions you mentioned,” Christina blushed some more, “are natural for your age.”

“We're bloody fifty years old. With the experience to boot,” she growled, and Ulf had to smile. She had just copied one of his own expressions he used when he got upset.

“Your bodies aren't. I won't even agree to that you're fifty mentally.”

Christina looked up.

Arata turned his palms up as if he was reciting from a book. “You see, even though we prefer to think that we are in control of our thoughts, a lot of them result from biochemical reactions we can't control. Call it hormones if you like.”

Ulf nodded. He had enough of a scientists mind to grasp that hormones most likely only had a part in his problems the last year. But the layman explanation was sufficient. Now he understood what the conversation was about as well.

“You're telling me that we'll continue to behave like teenagers?” he asked, and this time he gave Christina a long look. No wonder it feels like a first love again.

“I'm trying to tell you that, to a certain degree you will behave like the teenagers you are, but with more memories and experience than normal.”

Damn, she's beautiful. I can't stop looking at you. “Please tell me more,” Ulf said and forced himself to do just that. He hated talking to someone's back just as much as anyone else, and he didn't intend to be impolite enough to force the doctor to do the same.

“For example, you'll be quicker to anger than before you arrived here. But you'll also have greater resources to use for cooling down,” Arata explained and looked at them both. He had that questioning look of someone talking to children, uncertain if it wasn't too hard to understand.

“How long,” Christina wondered.

“Can't say for certain. When you're thirty things should be like normal. But age related diseases will be pushed into the future.”

That was a relief. Apart from behaving like puppies in heat for a few more years they'd basically get to live another thirty or so extra years for free.

With that the topic died, but rather than walking back to the hotel both Nakagawa and Arata sat down on the walkway. Arata brought out two sun hats he had folded in a bag and gave one each to Ulf and Christina. “I'm a doctor after all,” he said as explanation.

Neither Ulf nor Christina answered, but Ulf sent the man a thankful thought as they finished their lunch in the baking sun.

Midsummer's eve, potatoes first

Ryu woke first. The sound of the kids turning up the music drove him from a drunken sleep to awareness in the evening cool. Half past nine and the sun had yet to set.

Amazing place. Would have visited Sweden long ago if I only knew about the summer light. He stretched and woke his sister. “Sis, seems dinner's over.”

She protested, but in the end she only wrapped her blanket tighter around herself and joined him in search for the others.

Down the slope, on the eastern side of the islet the kids, ranging from thirteen to over twenty had set up both music and link to Japan. Ryu idly wondered what friends they had there awake at this time in the morning, but maybe those linked just hadn't gone to sleep yet.

He saw how quite a few local youth had joined the event. For them it was probably just another opportunity for a party.

“Noriko, I doubt we're joining the link-up. If I recall Kuri said something about a barbecue on the backside.” He looked at his sister watching how another triplet of locals joined the dancing. “Let's see if we can find them.”

It only took them a couple of minutes. They climbed a few wooden stairs and ended up on a terrace where Urufu poured tin foil wrapped somethings onto a grill.

“What's burning?” Ryu joked.

Urufu turned and laughed. “Making baked potatoes. Potatoes first. The meat comes later.”

Noriko burst out laughing as well. “Potatoes. That's how you viewed them, isn't it?”

Urufu stopped laughing and looked serious for a moment. “I'm not that arrogant any longer.” He smirked. “But I guess I was. Yeah, back then the meat came later.”

Chapter three done

The last post concludes chapter three. I've uploaded the full chapter here, but as ususal I advice you to read those at Wattpad where I don't have the formatting issues I have here.

Ending chapter three leaves us midway into book two. Knowing where I'm at writing the story right now it seems unlikely book two will see much of school. I'll see how I make a decent handoff between book two and book three. After all that's a month or so in the future given my current publishing velocity, and editing issues makes it less than likely that I'll keep the current tempo up.

Chapter three (segment nine), 2016, August, Nakagawa

Maybe he had pushed the kids a bit too hard, especially those who were really the age they looked. Still, with the Red Rose situation brewing he couldn't afford doing anything else. A suicide was unexpected, even if he secretly was satisfied with the outcome. Rapists deserved death. It was that simple.

Nakagawa looked out through the window and saw how the fashion shots were wrapping up for lunch. Around him the dining hall filled up with their middle management guests and through the door opening to the lobby he could see how the Matsumoto kid ran up the stairs to the rooms. Yukio, was it? Yes, I think so.

The Wakayama twins went straight for his table with the sister giving her brother a bewildered look. You kids aren't supposed to sit here. Ah, my bad, you're not the kids right now, you're in charge of today's events. The brother apparently had a much keener sense of the social game than his sister.

He greeted the twins as they arrived. Today they were colleagues, not principal and students.

“Sensei.”

“Wakayama-san.” It felt strange to address a student as a peer.

Further back in the hall the Takeida girl stood searching for her friends among the tables with a forlorn expression in her face. Nakagawa rose and waved to her. “Matsumoto-san is upstairs on an errand,” he said to save her some face.

She turned and gave him a surprised look. Then she must have seen the twins seated at the table and hesitantly walked up to them.

“Ryu, have you seen Kuri-chan?” Takeida-san looked at Nakagawa after asking the question. “Sensei.”

To his right Ryu smiled and nodded. “She should be coming back from the beach soon enough. I had Yukio check up on Urufu.” Then he turned his head and looked Nakagawa straight in his face. “I'm out of tricks. If Yukio doesn't manage to get Urufu down here I don't know what we'll do.”

“That makes for an interesting dilemma, wouldn't you say,” Nakagawa said. There wasn't much else he could do. When duty called, and when friends were in trouble, Hamarugen-san would either rise to shoulder the burden, or he was so deeply traumatised by his experience that they'd have to call in experts.

A waiter came with their food and all four of them started to eat. It gave him some time to think about what had happened and give it some context.

And I can only wait and see. Ten years since Ashiga-san arrived and we failed so badly at bringing out his full potential. That was a sobering thought. Meddling was needed, but in Ashiga-san's case it had been the new arrivals who had made his make a stand. Infuriating as his pranks were Nakagawa still preferred to see his old student having a direction in his life once again.

“Is there anything I can do if we have a situation?” Nakagawa asked. He wouldn't be party to actively crashing Hamarugen-san's fledgling business if avoidable.

The Wakayama girl gave him a stare. “Sorry, sensei, but I doubt it,” she said between mouthfuls. “I don't know what your speciality is, but I doubt it involves proactive processing in an event driven environment. After all our educational system can hardly be called a complex ecosystem.”

Nakagawa stared at her. Hamarugen-san, what are you doing to our kids? Changing Japan, starting with this school, wasn't that what you were saying? “That's a novel standpoint,” he observed in lack of anything else to say.

At that time the Matsumoto kid arrived with a frown on his face. He went straight for their table without a semblance of hesitation.

“Yukio?” Takeida-san asked. She looked as if she couldn't decide whether to be happy to see her boyfriend again or worried about the message he brought.

“Sorry, but he's not coming down here.”

“What do we do now?” Takeida-san asked after sharing an exchange of looks with Matsumoto-san. “Where does he want us instead?”

What are they talking about? And they don't seem very worried.

Matsumoto-san shrugged. “He didn't say, but we can't use the dining-hall anyway. The rest of the bunch are coming down the mountain for late lunch, and after that I guess they're off for the beach.”

“Yukio, sit down and eat. I'll take care of it. As long as Urufu says he'll run the afternoon events I really don't care what he's planned.”

The Wakayama twins grinned, and Nakagawa saw how their worries ran off them. With the vigour of youth they started devouring their food, and there was very little conversation around the table after that.

He had another promise to take care of, one he had given to Ageruman-san. Thinking back on how Ashiga-san had developed over the years since his arrival her request made sense, even though Nakagawa was certain she had nothing to worry about. Still, hearing that from a medical expert would be the best way to feel secure.

With a sigh he rose from the table and went in search for Ashiga-san. He wanted someone he trusted to handle the local logistics before he took a taxi to the local airport.

With Hamarugen-san back in action and Ageruman-san never out of it he felt reassured the Red Rose situation could be contained at least until school started again. After that all bets were off and with one of this years arrivals experiencing personal hell in that rat hole Nakagawa could only hope that the problems could be resolved during autumn. After that it would be touch and go with him going into forced retirement.

But first he had that promise to keep. For the first time in over twenty years he was going to ask the enemy for help. They owed him anyway. They had as little interest as he with the direction things were taking at Red Rose, but they were just too involved with that school to afford getting involved with some dirty problem solving.

Chapter three (segment eight), 2016, August, Ryu

When the camera crew took at short break Ryu called for attention and had his groups walk past the set. He made a show of walking over to Kuri and exchange pleasantries. In reality he asked her how Urufu was doing, but that wasn't what it looked like.

As an added bonus he received a few murderous stares from the male models, especially after Kuri saw through his ploy and gave him a friendly hug in the Swedish fashion he still had problems getting accustomed to. Urufu was just as bad and usually hugged people left and right when greeting them.

He high fived Kuri and made off with two groups before Noriko came up to Kuri and repeated the process. She got no murderous stares though, but Ryu felt rather certain a few of the crew leered at his sister. He'd seen her get her fair share of looks in school, and compared to what the models here wore she could as well have been undressed.

“That's my friend and she's off limits!”

Kuri's voice confirmed his suspicions and he turned, prepared to interfere. There was no need. How do you manage to look down on someone half a head taller than you? The next sight caught him by surprise and he slapped a hand to his mouth to stop the laughter that was bubbling up. Way to go sis! And you're even shorter than Kuri is.

“Gentlemen, let's proceed to the next station,” he said to the members of his two groups who stood studying the silent exchange between the girls and the models. “On our way there I want you to find a solution to the last problem, but this time the setting is Normandy a generation after the invasion of England.”

“Normandy?”

“You have your tablets. Look it up! Noriko will help you with locating any specifics you believe are needed.”

Running a walking talking session was more fun then he would have believed, and Ryu began to understand why Urufu put so much effort into them. By now it was clear that the problems themselves held less importance than the process of solving them. The answers, right or wrong, mattered little.

“I have a question about late eleventh century banking in Europe,” one man said.

Grinning Ryu waved his sister to him and had her help that group.

The next step would be harder. Collecting and understanding process data was beyond him. Urufu always did that work, and Ryu had noticed how even Kuri sometimes was left flabbergasted. That guy sure knows his crap. I'll steal her from you but still keep you as my friend. How he would succeed with that was still an unknown, but solving social problems was what made him tick. In a sense he suspected he was a lot more similar to Urufu than he wanted to admit.

I'll need you after lunch. Kuri's busy so I guess I'll have Yukio get you down. Ryu kicked some sand into the air and silently cursed Principal Nakagawa.

Around him the middle managers were occupied with the problem he had invented and this time both Yukio and Kyoko were able to participate. They had done a thorough reading on medieval Europe when Urufu forced the club to compare Heian era Japan with Saxon England less than two weeks earlier.

Noriko shone as usual. That day she had left Urufu laughing curled up in a ball when she caught him in some kind of error where he painted himself into a corner. Exactly what was so funny about it Ryu never understood, but she had made a conclusion that had Urufu laughing helplessly while at the same time giving her a look filled with admiration.

I can see why you're in love with him, but he's wrong for you. Too old and too cynical. And that thought had Ryu reflecting on his own feelings for Kuri. But she's not cynical, just awfully cold sometimes.

He had to admit Urufu and Kuri made a good pair, but Nakagawa's latest brainchild only served to drive them further apart. Now, there's a cold man. We're just tools to him. But I think he cares for us in his own twisted way.

Feeling depressed he wondered how his parents had gotten involved so closely with the principal. They were alumni of Himekaizen, Ryu knew that much, but Nakagawa couldn't have been their principal back then.

Gods! I need a nice chat out with some of the girls. Karaoke would have been nice. Damn, they should be on their way down from the camping site by now. He wondered who had taken command now that none of the founders of the club were present.

Caught up in his thoughts he almost missed their next station. It was a simple thing with foldable chairs and tables. A few bags held large sheets of paper, post-its and marker pens in different colours.

“This will be the last task before lunch,” Yukio said to the questioning faces looking at Ryu for instructions.

Thanks Yukio. It felt good knowing he had his back covered. Wingman. I think I understand what sis meant when she told me you need one to shine.

Kyoko helped her boyfriend with setting up the tables, and Noriko quickly instructed the groups one by one.

“What's the point with this exercise?” For once it wasn't the old goat who had complained about just everything the entire morning, but the mid thirties something Kuri had warned him of.

Ryu bent over the man's shoulder and resorted to more or less quote Urufu. “Called retrospective. Basically four quadrants representing what worked, what didn't work, which processes should be used in the future and problems that need fixing.”

“And the purpose being?” the man said smiling. He didn't look malicious, just interested in a condescending way.

“It's a powerful tool for teams adhering to an ideal of continuous improvement. Primarily for processes,” Ryu said not knowing exactly what it meant. “If I'm unclear Noriko would be better for clarifying the underlying concept,” he continued and hoped it would be enough to let him off the hook.

She had heard him and came over. Sis, you're also covering for me. This gang is the best!

A short conversation between Noriko and the man told Ryu how much better she had grasped Urufu's teachings. Whenever it was a matter of knowledge she was brilliant in a way he would probably never become.

The time at the station ran to its end, and Ruy sighed with relief. Exhausted, he wouldn't have guessed how tiring it could be. The baking August heat didn't help neither, but the knew it also made the businessmen less alert in catching up on the errors he must have been guilty of the last three hours.

Now he only needed to get them all to the dining hall, and that should buy them another hour. After that it was a matter of make or break with Urufu either handling the afternoon or staying like a zombie. Zombie would be bad, very bad.