Chapter two (segment nine), 2016, October, Noriko

“I don't care if you'll have problems later. Nakagawa promised he'd cover your back and now you'd better man up!”

“Why do you always trust the old goat?” Urufu was visibly sulking.

Noriko didn't care. She didn't even long for him any longer and that reduced him to a useful tool. The most important tool on two legs on the school grounds. “Shut up and make it work! If you want me in your fan club you'd damn better deserve it.”

The student council treasurer sat across the desks and watched them with stunned incomprehension.

“You certain you can't provide the funding?” Urufu asked him again. Another poor attempt at crawling out of the trap Noriko just sprung on him.

The treasurer finally found air enough to speak. “Three million yen? Are you crazy? Where the hell do you expect me to get that kind of money on short notice?”

“Fuck!” Urufu said.

“Language!” Noriko said and glared at him. She needed him to back down. “Look, you can dock my pay if it doesn't work out,” she suggested, and with that Urufu's secret was out in the open.

“Screw you!”

Thank all gods I mostly fell out of love with you earlier! That wasn't entirely true, but most of her feelings lay elsewhere now. “Thank you but no thank you. Nao maybe, but it's too early yet.” I'm unfair, but it can't be helped. You'd work me over the same way. “Make it happen!”

What she demanded of Urufu was beyond the pale, and she'd have what she needed or she'd see the festival crumble within a few hours. She locked eyes with him.

“Bah! No wonder I pay you two the most,” he said and admitted defeat.

“Pay?” the council treasurer said from his chair.

“Shut up!” both Noriko and Urufu said in unison.

“Fine! Get me someone with a motorcycle and an extra helmet. I'll need coordinates as well.”

Noriko sank back in her seat. She'd apologise later. “I love you, you know. Not the way I love Nao, but still. I'll get your ride.” She would. One of the thugs in 9:1 rode one.

She wasn't supposed to know, but he adored everything Wakayama from the moment they stood their ground against the bullying at Red Rose Hell. Since last night Urufu was included in his hero worship, because Noriko told him why Urufu was expelled.

“What's going on?” the treasurer asked and broke Noriko's memories.

She threw him a dark look. “If the student council can't fund the cultural festival Hamarugen-sama will do so in your stead.” Urufu deserved that much at least. She forced him to put his company on the line based on pure speculation. In return she could at least refer to him with the utmost respect.

She dug up her smart phone and dialled a number. The call took less than twenty seconds. On pure speculation, but you knew you could fund it if things went south, didn't you? Four cars with students unable to pay for the supplies they were ordered to buy had already hit the road. Urufu has some serious catching up to do, and she hoped the thug knew his bike.

“Big words coming from you. Where the hell did you arrive at three million yen?” It seemed the treasurer didn't intend to give up.

“You really don't know?” You can't be that clueless, can you?

“Know what?”

He could, and when she thought about it maybe clueless was too harsh. “Our friend, Ageruman-san,” she chose the polite reference, because he probably wouldn't know who Kuri was, “is a part time model.”

“And?”

Noriko turned her computer to him so he could watch the videos. Kuri's face was plastered to every major billboard around Tokyo since the day before.

Noriko hardly listened to Urufu leaving the room. Instead she slammed both hands to her desk. “Now listen closely. Best case, absolutely best case, we estimate five thousand guests here tomorrow.”

He stared back at her with his face pale and lifeless. The numbers simply didn't agree with him. She could as well kill any remaining hopes of understanding he had.

“Worst case we'll have upwards to twenty thousand people trying to get in. There's no way in hell we can handle that.”

“Where did you get those numbers,” he asked and repeated his prior question in a new way.

She couldn't tell him. Those weren't merely estimates from their friend Kuri; those were from the billion dollar empress. Noriko had absolutely no reason to doubt over thirty years' worth of professional experience from the fashion industry, but she couldn't tell him. Sixteen year old girls didn't have that kind of experience.

“It's a wild guess,” she lied and tried to make it sound like she admitted that she had no clue. Twelve to fifteen thousand, unless something unexpected happens, Kuri had said. Eight thousand and not a soul more, Urufu had responded when asked about how many guests the school could handle with the help of a shoehorn.

We're so screwed! She growled and when the treasurer winced she shook her hands. She wasn't angry with him. She had forced Urufu to empty his accounts, but that only covered supplies for five thousand guests.

I'll bleed Kuri dry as well and it still won't be enough. She already had. One million yen, Kuri's entire fortune, transferred to Urufu half an hour earlier. He didn't know yet. He also didn't know she held lingering feelings for him despite going out with Nao. Enough to join him in the madness.

“Excuse me, I need to make a call.” Noriko rose and left the room.

In the corridor outside she dialled another contact and waited for the answer.

“Dad, I need access to my university funds.”

Chapter two (segment eight), 2016, October, Yukio

Yukio felt a tinge of irritation when the council president followed him like an obedient dog all the way to the food plaza.

Urufu had come up with another harebrained idea, but by now Yukio accepted how well they worked. The theme was try and play, and it hooked a couple of hundred parents and younger siblings. Anything that got people away from the planned events and stalls was a blessing.

He owed the kendo club big time, but they promised half an hour with Kuri and a camera would be payment enough. Nothing naughty the club president promised. Yukio wondered about that, and he still had to break the news to a Kuri he gifted to the club without telling her first. Urufu would have his head for it as well.

With a grin splitting his face Yukio saw grade school kids trying out kendo gear much too large for them. They looked happy, and Urufu only told him to solve the problem, so he did. He'd stand his ground if Urufu protested later. Hell even if Kuri did.

But there was the case of his current problem. Score a goal. The Watabe twins quickly convinced him having grade schoolers playing goalkeeper was a horrible idea. So instead they convinced both goalkeepers in the soccer club to spend two hours each defending against penalty kicks.

Problem being the food plaza was laid out on the soccer field, which was the reason Yukio walked here with the student council president trailing him.

It didn't take a genius to understand she suffered a severe case of being smitten. Even one as inept at the boy meet girl game as him understood.

At least it's me. It'll pass. Crap! If it was Urufu she'd stay in a state of love at first sight, like forever. A vivid image of Urufu with Kuri by his side and the council president desperately tugging at the back of his shirt passed Yukio's mind, and he couldn't help laughing at it.

He cackled with glee until his stomach hurt. People around him stared and whispered, and for once the president gave him some extra space.

On his radio he heard voices from time to time as islands of small crisis flared alive only to be extinguished by Urufu either promising help in a soothing voice or barking harsh orders in the language of an over-educated drill sergeant.

When he returned to the food plaza kids were already lining up for penalty kicks. There was enough space by one goal not to interfere with those eating, not even after they accommodated one of Kuri's few suggestions over the radio – an international style picnic.

Yukio glanced at the grassy slope where they used to watch soccer training. It served as a delimiter between those above and those below with the occasional stubborn couple eating their food lying down in the middle.

Like watching sakura in the park, he thought. But it's autumn now.

From where six dozen blankets had arrived he could only guess at, but his suspicions went to Kuri. Any magic concerning cloth had to be her doing.

She's our president, but for this festival in name only. This is Urufu's show.

“You're silent.”

Ah, the other president. “Sorry, just thinking.” He gave her a smile. There was little reason to be rude, even if she was a pain. Now that's a novel thought. With Kyoko by my side I can suddenly act like normal around girls. Funny that. Now when I'm not even interested any longer.

“What happens now?” the president asked.

“You know, that's my line,” Yukio said and laughed. But he didn't care to keep up the pretence of who ran the show. “We're filling the gym right now. Principal Nakagawa negotiated with one of the TV crews and they're moving their bus inside the gates.”

That was today's lifesaving brilliance from Kuri. Well, given her background he shouldn't be too surprised. One of the buses was equipped with exterior led screens and loudspeakers, and the crew agreed to display live footage from the gymnasium throughout the day. At the moment they moved it into a position where it could be seen and heard without being in the way.

Jirou-sempai came over to him from the line of grills he oversaw. From the line of grills he was never supposed to oversee in the first place, Yukio corrected himself. The former president of the Sengoku club made the utmost to fill the position he was pressed into after madness descended on Himekaizen, and he did a very good job at it. Yukio took a mental note to make certain the second year was properly thanked later for shouldering the responsibility of the entire plaza.

“Have you had any rest?” Yukio asked.

“It's fine,” Jirou-sempai answered, which obviously wasn't true at all. Fine job or not, the guy was worn thin.

“President, how would you like to stand in for him?” Yukio asked the girl by his side.

She offered him a frown in return. “I don't know anything about this area.”

“But you do, you gave it a green light after all,” Yukio tried, but he harboured little hope she'd take the bait. “I'll help out for some time, but I need to run an errand later,” he said. “Please,” he added.

She looked at him and then at Jirou-sempai. Somehow she must have noticed how tired the second year was, because she nodded even though her shoulders slumped.

“Thanks!” Yukio didn't need to fake any gratitude. It was genuine, especially when he saw the relieved smile his club member gave their council president.

“An hour?” he asked?

“Make it two,” the president offered. She shot Yukio a questioning glance as if asking for praise.

“I'm in your debt,” he said. Damn, we need the council to regain their confidence before tomorrow. There's no way the club can handle all of it another day. He sighed. Especially not tomorrow.

“Urufu?” he called into his walkie talkie. He needed some confirmation.

“Urufu here.”

“Yukio here. What's the turnout today? Over.”

“Is the president there? Over.”

Yukio looked at her back and slowed his steps further. There was something Urufu didn't want her to know just yet. “I'm alone. Over,” he lied. As long as she didn't hear their conversation that statement was true enough.

“Three and a half today. About double the expected. Never more than two and a half at the same time though. My guess. Over.”

No wonder the school crawled with guests. They were already at their limits. He had to ask the dreaded question. “Tomorrow? Over.”

His radio stayed silent just a little too long. “Hard to say. We could run the numbers together. Over and out.”

Yukio stared at his silent unit. Maybe an alternate universe existed where Urufu needed his help to run numbers, but this one most certainly wasn't it. Holy crap! That bad?

With a sinking feeling he joined the president before she got too suspicious.

The smell of food filled his nostrils and he was suddenly ravenously hungry. With a pang of guilt he tugged at her sleeve. “Let's have lunch.”

Any other day before he met Kyoko the smile he received would have made him giddy with happiness.

Chapter two (segment seven), 2016, October, Kyoko

With a firm push she turned her walkie talkie off. Kyoko desperately needed the rest. An hour after the opening well over two thousand guests crammed the school grounds. Several stalls were already running dry, and only Urufu's desperate gamble kept most of them supplied.

She sank to the floor in a tired heap and listened to the pandemonium from the office area turned festival headquarters. While the official festival planning room and student council room still operated as formal planning centres, the students there were swamped beyond capacity from before the cultural festival even opened.

Weary beyond belief she rose to her feet and struggled to the desks occupied by a few club members, two students from the festival planning committee and the student council treasurer.

“Noriko, how can I help?” she asked and slumped into a chair.

“Rest, please just rest,” her friend said. “You've been fantastic. I understand Yukio better now.” The smile in Noriko's face spoke of respect, and for once Kyoko felt she deserved it.

Kyoko watched Noriko send another email before she continued reading a seeming-less endless number of unread ones on her screen. With her right hand she jotted down notes on a piece of paper, moved it to the keyboard and opened up a document and changed something in it. After that she composed yet another email and sent it.

How can you keep all of it in your head? My larger than life midget sister, isn't that what Ryu calls you?

For each email sent the treasurer made a quick call only making certain who was to execute the instructions in it. An expression of awe played on his face whenever he stole a glance at Noriko.

“What are you guys really?” he asked during a brief lull in the madness.

Kyoko shot him a tired smile. “We're part of the club management,” she teased. “I'm the secretary and Noriko is our treasurer,” she continued knowing well that wasn't what he really had asked.

“Treasurer, huh?” he said instead. It made sense in a way. They shared that position.

Noriko flashed him a grin between emails “Talking about money,” she said, “we're unable to provide more funding at the moment. I need your help.”

“Huh?” That question pulled him back to the operational reality. “Funding?”

“Yeah, stupid, we're out of money. I need council funding to secure the continued flow of supplies,” Noriko said and frowned.

The treasurer sat upright. “You paid from the club funds? How much?”

Noriko sighed and pushed her laptop aside.

Kyoko couldn't help but giggle when she saw her friend stare at the ceiling while waving her fingers in the air like a Showa era elementary school kid. Learned the abacus did you?

“Three hundred, eh, make that four hundred thousand yen. Anyway, we're bled dry.”

“What?”

“I know. And we can't recirculate the money paid at the stalls either. Way too many coins.” Noriko grinned. “We'll get it all back later anyway, but I can't wait until the banks open.”

The treasurer stared at her, but Kyoko noticed how Noriko read the same email over and over again. Kyoko rose from her chair and walked behind her friend. Absentmindedly she started massaging tired shoulders while looking out the window.

A bit inside the back entrance another piece of Urufu's black magic grew into existence. An unplanned outdoor café with the capacity to handle over one hundred guests, staffed by third years he had managed to scrounge up from gods knew where.

How he thought up the concept and made it reality while handling security patrols, their own food plaza and taking overall control of the cultural festival when the student council organisation crumbled was beyond her. Then she noticed one clue.

Among the third years manning the impromptu café a few club members walked around directing students two years their seniors as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Yukio was among them, her Yukio, and a third year always by his side year she didn't recognise at first. A girl with gorgeous waist long black hair.

Kyoko felt a brief sense of panic running through her until the identity of the girl finally found a match in her brain. What's the council president doing there?

“How much?”

The voice from inside the room tugged at her attention and she turned, still massaging Noriko's shoulders.

“How much, Wakayama-san?”

Kyoko looked down over Noriko's head and saw the email she had read so many times. And gasped.

Chapter two (segment six), 2016, October, Yukio

“I'm not that good at estimating numbers, but at least five hundred by now. Over.”

Beside him the student council president instructed the last arrivals of students wearing security armbands. Yukio looked at the six already by the gates. He hoped it would be enough.

“I'm on my way to the principal's office. Should be able to get a useful estimate from there. Over and out.” Urufu's voice sounded excited and tired at the same time.

Yukio sent a grateful thought of thanks to his friend. The council president lost control of the festival from before it opened. Any teenage student would, but Urufu wasn't a teenager, was he?

“Urufu?” Kyoko's voice said from the loudspeaker.

“Urufu here. What's your status? Over.”

“Kyoko here. I'm mailing their phone numbers to you. Two of them are away in Kondo-sensei's car. Sato-sensei called and said she's here soon. Over.”

Yukio listened to the conversation on the open channel while he stared at the growing mob waiting outside the gates. She sounds so grown up. My Kyoko!

“Superb Kyoko. Send the numbers to Noriko as well. She'll take it from there. Over and out.”

The praise made Yukio blush a little, even if it was praise from his friend to Kyoko. Then he turned his attention to the gates again. During the short time another fifty or sixty guests had been let through. Any normal school day would have allowed them inside by the hundreds, but on a normal day those gates opened up to a flat expanse covered by gravel. Now stalls limited mobility to narrow streets.

“Yukio?”

Yukio winced at the sudden call of his name, but he quickly regained his composure and pushed the button. “Yukio here.”

“Ulf here. Send a security detail outside and redirect people to the service gates. Over.”

Security detail? Oh! We don't have enough people for that, unless... “President, follow me!” He grabbed the stunned president by her hands and started dragging her outside. “Man, you're impossible, but I'll handle it. Over and out.” Damn, she'll have me pay for this later.

With his senior in tow he negotiated his way through the gates. Yukio registered how her hand was soft and small and warm in his, and how it felt very different from Kyoko's.

He hoped Urufu had arranged staffing of the back gates, but given the monstrous organisational capacity of his friend there were probably already students there setting up a second entrance to the festival.

“Noriko?”

“Noriko here,” the loudspeaker blared.

“Ulf here. We have an estimated fifteen hundred guests here, and I see hundreds more coming on the streets. Over.”

That's a lot of guests. Isn't it family and alumni only today?

“Fifteen hundred? Sorry... Noriko here. Hang on a moment. Eh… Over.”

Yukio grinned at the uncertainty in her voice. So she can't handle everything on the fly after all. Good to know that she's human. Even though he did feel some satisfaction at that thought most of him filled with affection. No matter what she was one of his best friends.

He made it across the street and stood to attention with the president by his side. “Honoured guests. I have the Himekaizen Academy student council president at my side. We have opened another entrance. Please allow her to instruct you."

As he had hoped the cue he gave her was enough for her to become their president again, and after she shot him an uncertain but grateful smile she took command.

Chapter two (segment five), 2016, October, Kyoko

“Kyoko, over here!”

She stopped dead in her tracks and looked over her shoulder. That had been Urufu's voice, but with an edge to it she had never heard before.

“Get four guys from 9:1 to the back gates! I need their cell phone numbers as well. Amaya's on her way and Kondo-sensei is already waiting there. I'll instruct you later.”

Kyoko watched Urufu's vanishing back and felt the unfamiliar weight of the communications device he had slapped into her hand. Thinking back she had heard him sounding something similar to this during their extended stay at the holiday resort, but only similar. His voice this time carried a tone of absolute command that had to be obeyed immediately.

She made her way back up the stairs and went for Himekaizen's newest addition to its number of classrooms. If Urufu had such a desperate need of four students by the back gates he would receive them there.

When the door slid open she looked inside and recognised a few faces who helped out with patrolling the school the previous night. While that night made her all fuzzy and warm inside now wasn't the time to linger on those memories.

“You, you, you and you, follow me!”

The good thing with the students recently transferred from Red Rose was that they always obeyed without asking. The bad thing, that they obeyed without asking. It scared her a little.

Chapter two (segment four), 2016, October, Noriko

Suddenly the door to their club room flew open with a bang. The sudden noise had Noriko swirl in her seat.

Urufu came dashing inside with the student council treasurer behind him.

“Noriko, we have a problem. You,” he pointed at the treasurer, “sit here and take Noriko's com unit.” Urufu grinned at her. “Getting exiting now, so let's see what you're made of,” he said to her.

She pushed her walkie talkie across the desks and looked back at him. “What's going on?” she asked, barely noticing the treasurer taking his seat and frantically emptying his school bag on his desk.

Urufu reached down and fingered the walkie talkie she had before her until moments earlier. “You had it turned off, so I guess you didn't hear.”

“Hear what?” Across the desk the treasurer lined up an array of pens and paper.

“He'll fill you in. We're setting up an HQ here. I have to run.” And with those words Urufu grabbed a walkie talkie from the rack and was out of the club room.

“What on earth?”

Chapter two (segment three), 2016, October, Yukio

Yukio stared at the gates. We've got problems.

He unclipped the walkie talkie from his belt and brought it to his face. “Urufu?”

“Ulf here.”

“Yukio here. There are two buses with television teams at the gates, and they're brining gear inside the school grounds.” He stared once more. That's the least of our problems.

“Local media, I guess. Let them inside, or better, have the student council do it. It's their show anyway. Over.”

The voice from the loudspeaker carried with it Urufu's very personal version of being a moron. “Man, turn on your brains. They're here right now and I don't have the time to run to the council room.” He remembered Urufu's instructions on radio communications. “Over,” he added.

The loudspeaker blared to life again. A static crackle, silence and more crackle. “… this piece of crap work?” a female voice said. And then some more crackle. “… push this button when you speak.” That voice was male. Then there was silence and after that even more crackle.

“You, the guy before. I'll get down to you.” Once again the voice was female.

The guy before glared at his walkie talkie. What the hell? “Yukio here. Please identify yourself when you speak. Over.” The guy before, my arse!

“This is the student council president speaking. Where are you?” the female voice said.

Yukio watched the students closest to him stare from their stall. Or at least some of them did. Most wore scared looks and had their eyes glued to the gates.

“Yukio here. I'm at the gates. President, how many guests do we usually have for the festival? Over.” This can't be good.