Midsummer's day, 2040, noon

By noon even the most die-hard party-goers from the night before had woken up. A few nurtured a serious hangover, but youngsters these days normally didn't have to be told to avoid alcohol. For them that was the drink of old people, which made parenthood a lot easier.

Noriko's oldest, however had chosen to make an exception to that rule and apparently stole a bottle of strong liquor sometime during the night.

Christina watched him receive a verbal lashing of an epic scale from his mother. He deserved it, and it had to hurt twice as bad given his headache.

James, keep your kids in check! Because the real perpetrator had to be one of James' two kids. Around twenty both of them but with the sensibilities of high schoolers. Mix with an easygoing aura and it made for a bad combination.

Noriko, my friend, we grew apart in the end, didn't we? And yet Christina still considered Noriko one of her best friends. Throughout these last twenty five years they'd shared the most important moments, not all of them good, but important nonetheless. For very different reasons both were relatively young mothers, which was a mixed blessing to those kids.

Smiling Christina looked at the main reason why Noriko's son had chosen to drink himself into a stupor. Her daughter who stood on the hilltop looking down.

Sorry kiddo. I know you have a crush on her, but she's in love with someone else.

Noriko's son accepted the last of her scolding and threw Christina's daughter a sullen look. Then his face twisted into rage and when Christina turned she saw her daughter's boyfriend climbing up the hill.

It hurts, I know it does, but at least you have the blessing of your parents to love and hurt for all you're worth. Savour that freedom!

Chapter one (segment ten), 2016, December, Noriko

Wet sounds under her feet accompanied her walk from the train-station. Her brother, her very much not an idiot brother at the moment, walked a bit ahead of them leaving midget sister and tall model an opportunity to talk undisturbed.

These were the rainy days of Tokyo, and more so these were the rainy days of her heart. While she had all but buried her feelings for Urufu, Kuri had become an important friend, and watching the two of them breaking apart hurt more than Noriko had thought possible.

I don't understand you. I don't understand you. I don't understand you! How two people so obviously in deep love with each other could let what they shared slip though their fingers was beyond her.

“I can't say anything more. I gave Urufu a promise,” Noriko said and looked up at her friend.

“Coming to Japan this way, to a new life in a new world. I don't regret it. I never will,” Kuri said.

Are you really talking with me, or are you just thinking aloud?

“You see, there was never any promises. It's a transition and restart, but there's no guarantee I'll always be happy with it.”

“But...” Noriko began.

“Urufu is an adult,” Kuri interrupted. She made a pause to jump across a suspiciously dark pool of rainwater. “In many more ways than I am he's an adult who lived an adult life.”

“Go on,” Noriko said. Kuri would anyway, so there was no point in pretending this was a conversation. When Kuri was done emptying her soul she'd say so.

“I chased dreams in that other life, and I reached my goals one after another, but I never really grew up.” Kuri smiled and Noriko saw a perfect line of white teeth glimmering in the street lights. They looked just as alone as the rest of Kuri's face.

“What do you mean?”

“I never had to stop behaving like a spoiled teenager. Apart from marriage I got everything I pointed at. Sure I worked hard for it, but I never failed. Not once.”

The billion dollar empress. Yeah I can see how you became a force of nature, like Alexander the great.

“You didn't die,” Noriko said.

“Huh?”

“Sorry, I was thinking of something else.”

Kuri tugged her coat tighter around herself and burst out in laughter. “You're a morbid one. No I didn't die.”

Noriko felt a little ashamed that she had forced an end to Kuri's monologue, but she didn't really understand what the beautiful woman turned girl spoke about. Friend, you're my friend despite being older than my parents. That was the most important. Friend. Noriko's life hadn't been filled with those.

They turned left at a red light and followed Ryu along narrow streets leading to her home. Kuri would spend the night with them. Noriko's mother had already agreed, and it wasn't exactly like Kuri had anyone to ask permission from.

Thinking of home made the next question come natural. “What about your new place?”

By her side Kuri flinched, and Noriko guessed whatever came next would be a watered out lie.

“It's the kind of luxury I grew tired of many years ago.”

“Closer to school?” Noriko wondered and immediately regretted the inane question.

“I guess so. Not that it matters. I'll get a driver.”

I'm so sorry. Kuri, I'm so sorry for you!

“It's the kind of high security living only the very rich can afford.” Kuri's voice died a little with every word in that sentence.

Watching her friend so lifeless stabbed at something inside Noriko, and she understood just a little better what it meant to care for a friend. So they made sure Urufu will never get inside. I'm so sorry!

“They even offered a transfer to a private school for that kind of people.” Then Kuri's face lit up in a beautifully malicious grin. “That didn't fly though. It seems us arrivals attending Himekaizen isn't optional.”

No, you're no longer an empress. You gave that up for a chance at living, didn't you? Somehow Noriko grasped that such thoughts weren't for a child of sixteen, and somehow she grasped she had just lost a little bit of innocence.

“And I don't have to pay anything for it. They even quadrupled my salary.”

Didn't have to pay anything? You had to pay everything you idiot!

“I've never been paid so well for being betrayed. There's this magazine, Vogue, and they set me up for life.”

With that sentence Noriko knew Kuri had just put words to the lie.

“Is it worth it?” Noriko had to know. In a way it was a little like the kind of life expected of a daughter to her parents.

“No,” Kuri said, and for the first time since they left Stockholm Haven café her face radiated real happiness tinged with a large dose of love and pride. “No, I'd throw it away in a heartbeat. I already lived this life once, but I never had Ulf before. I'd even become a good Japanese wife and stay home if I could just keep him by my side.”

“Then why don't you?” Despite asking something that went against everything she believed in Noriko just couldn't let go. Frustration mounted in her, and just as she was about to continue Kuri sighed and voiced her answer.

“Because Ulf would throw me away in an instant. He'd never agree to me betraying myself. That's what I admire most about him.” Large eyes, blue even in the poor light of the night met Noriko's. “That's what makes me love him more than life itself. If he was anything less I'd love him less.”

“But you'd get to keep him.”

“And live a life of lies? No, I couldn't do that to him. I'll never play house with him. I'll have all of him or nothing at all.”

Chapter one (segment nine), 2016, December, Ulf

That was way too close.

With a sigh Ulf finished explaining the last problem and looked at the club members present. It seemed they hadn't caught up on his mistake. He guessed that as long as they believed the discrepancy between his real knowledge and his graded knowledge was a result of moving from Sweden to Japan he was safe.

They wouldn't understand anyway. Damn, most people involved in tertiary education won't for that matter.

Content before methods, and methods before context, or else the student would inevitably fail to create new contexts in which to try analysis. That was why he had forced the walking talking sessions onto the club.

And it had bloody better not be either the one or the other, Ulf thought as he walked over to a third whiteboard.

The Japanese education system excelled at content and pretty much nothing else. The Swedish counterpart lay at the opposite end on a scale of criminal incompetence with a stubborn focus on methods without any content to apply them on.

Even an idealised aggregate of the two lacked a systematic application of context, even though Ulf was bound to think Sweden was slightly better off. Those who gained understanding despite twelve years of sabotaged learning tended to have an easier time to apply knowledge and re-evaluate that very application compared to what he had experienced from cooperation with Japanese software developers.

“What are you thinking?” Noriko asked from nowhere, and Ulf became aware he had been caught up in a world of his own.

“I'm thinking I'll make you the best of the best,” he answered.

“Best of the best? In what sense?” Noriko wondered.

Ulf looked at his short friend who had just taken a break from running through some essential data on Japanese history. Essential for the upcoming exams that was. As far as he was concerned it was worse than a monkey see monkey do approach. There wasn't even any doing involved. The exam would test their ability to mimic high performance parrots.

“Knowledge, competence and experience,” Ulf said to give Noriko an answer. He knew he sounded cryptic, but the kids in the club needed to learn how to apply methods to their knowledge before anything else. Some of them already had, and come spring term he'd start giving them case studies to apply those methods on.

With a bit of luck the brightest of them would accuse him of being a first class moron when their second year started.

“You always have those easy three step solutions to everything,” Noriko said.

They're models. Verbalised abstractions, but you wouldn't understand. Not yet at least, but I count on you to call me moron soon.

From the whiteboard he had left he heard conversations in broken English, a broken English that was a vast improvement over the atrocity they had displayed half a year earlier.

I'll give you your results old goat, Ulf thought. Two percent overall for the midterms and I think we'll get closer to five after the finals.

Because he had promised Nakagawa improved test results that day when he was scolded for the locker room incident over half a year earlier. While a five percent improvement wasn't much the club members only had half a year to adapt to his alien views on learning.

I was never this absorbed in work before. Why is it so important now? Then Ulf admitted to himself that he was running from his impending doom, or at least the threat to him and Christina.

I love you, and but for all the crap happening to us I'd tell you in an instant. Still, she'd give up on her career if he told her, and he just couldn't do that to her.

Ulf threw a glance in her direction, filled his mind with her strength and beauty and turned his attention to Noriko again.

“In order to grow you need to know what you don't know,” he said.

Before she answered he looked at Christina again. I'm an idiot. At first I didn't tell you because of Maria, and now when my feelings finally are sorted out I still can't tell you.

Noriko looked as if she was about to voice her answer, but when she followed his eyes she closed her mouth again. Ulf could see how she looked at Christina, then at him and then at Christina again. In the end an expression of determination spread over Noriko's face and she tilted her head and stared directly into his eyes.

“Really? Are you two idiots, or what? She should have dragged those words out of you by now.”

Meeting her eyes Ulf just shook his head. “Don't tell her that!” he begged.

Noriko screwed her mouth into a frustrated smirk. “You are two of the most important people in my life. If you believe I'll allow the both of you to hurt each other like this then you're sadly mistaken.”

Damn, this is Noriko here. She'll do whatever she thinks needs doing. Ulf still remembered her confession when she dragged her brother into the scene, not to speak about the spectacle at the amusement park shortly after.

“We need to talk,” he said and grabbed her hand. “Now!”

Dragging her through the door only took moments, but it still wasn't fast enough to prevent someone from shouting.

“Wrong girl, man!” the voice called out, but he was already outside and continued through the main entrance to make certain they were outdoors before he said anything more.

Outside lamplights blinked miserably in a rain that never seemed to stop these days. It was just as bad as an especially awful December week in the Gothenburg he remembered from his former life. For a moment Ulf regretted that he hadn't brought an umbrella, but now it was too late for details like that.

I have to make her understand how adults think. And what great adults we are Christina. What an awful mess!

“Noriko,” he said and let go of her hand. “You really mustn't tell her. If Christina requests I say how much I love her I will, and if I do I'll destroy everything.”

Noriko stared back at him with incomprehension in her eyes.

“Look, if she quits her career for me she'll regret it for the rest of her life.” Noriko, I hate telling you how life works. You should stay a child for a little longer. But Christina was more important to him, and in the end he decided to force his friend to grow up a little in advance. “There's no way in hell the two of us will survive that in the long run. Please, please, please don't tell her!”

Chapter one (segment eight), 2016, December, Yukio

With final exams looming closer Yukio firmly pushed the scandal aside. Besides, apart from their English teacher most of the school staff had been surprisingly quiet about Urufu's and Kuri's rumoured night-time activities.

Now he sat in the inner room of the Stockholm Haven café which had been fully converted into their new club-room just in time for the cessation of all club activities in preparation of their exams.

Noriko sat together with Kuri going through math problems with the famous model turned slut. By their side Sango-chan and Kyoko ran through the same problems but at a distinctly higher pace and without Noriko's help.

“And this one?” Ryu asked from Yukio's right.

“Same. Look, if you replace the numbers with letters it's a lot easier to detect the pattern,” Urufu said.

“Pattern?” That was Nori-kun, and Yukio noted how another two club-members congregated around them to follow Urufu's explanation.

Now this is just hysterically funny, Yukio thought. Urufu the flunkie teaching math. But he's not really a flunkie is he? Didn't he have a college exam from engineering?

“Yes, by token substitution you'll be able to immediately identify equalities on both sides and remove them. Clears the real problem from excess data. See the pattern now?” Urufu said and crossed out almost a third of the information on the whiteboard.

Yukio watched him leave the white-board and walk over to the one where another group were struggling with English. Despite bombing that topic on his midterms virtually every club-member knew his English knowledge was superior to what any teacher at school could muster.

And I think you have a better grasp of Japanese history than I do by now. What kind of study monster are you?

Truth be told the only thing that kept Urufu from popping up on the wall was his written Japanese. By now Yukio recognised the difference when Urufu spoke about or listened to the material they had to study compared to when he was forced to rely on his reading skills.

And you're closing that gap as well. It's scary how much better you are at reading and writing now.

Kuri was the same. Even though she paled in comparison to Urufu her Japanese had improved by huge strides since summer. That realisation made Yukio a bit uncomfortable. He hadn't known how important the preferred language was for grading other subjects.

Would I look like an idiot if I had to go to school abroad? Or even Noriko? Yukio pushed the last thought away. Noriko failing exams was ludicrous. She was one of the best freshmen at Himekaizen after all with results that probably placed Todai within reach of her aspirations.

In the background he heard Urufu's strangely melodic explanation when he gave examples in Japanese for the English text they were analysing. Whenever he read a sentence aloud for the group to hear the correct pronunciation Kuri interrupted him with a laugh and read it twice. As far as Yukio understood she delivered one version in some kind of British English and then in American English.

Urufu grimaced but never protested. Instead he told his group they should listen to Kuri because her spoken English far surpassed his.

“How good is she?” Yukio shouted when he tired of Urufu belittling himself.

Everyone by the whiteboard turned, and Yukio saw Kuri glance at Urufu rather than the one to blame for the interruption.

“Depends,” Urufu said. “As for pronunciation she bulldozes right over me. There's no comparison.”

“Depends?” Kuri said to test the waters.

“Well, I'd guess your vocabulary is between half to two thirds of mine. What's your take?”

“Spoken, close to ten thousand words,” Kuri suggested and grinned.

“Damn! You're just as good as I suspected.”

“And you? Native level is around fifteen thousand.”

“Native college level, yeah. I'm above that average.”

Kuri's eyebrows shot up. “What kind of vocabulary do you have?”

“The tests couldn't measure above sixteen thousand, so I don't really know.”

Kuri palmed her face. “He killed the test. Why am I not surprised?”

“What tests?” Sango-chan asked.

Both Kuri and Yukio shot Urufu warning glares.

“There were some… ah...” Then Urufu must have caught up with the looks he got from the friends who knew about his first life. “Ah, there are proficiency tests, and I took a few before moving here,” he finished.

You took a few before moving here. Well that's one way of expressing it.

“You took a few tests at college level?”

You're not out of the woods yet. Think, think!

It was painfully visible how Urufu tried to come up with a plausible explanation, but in the end he lit up in a bright grin. “I like programming, and most of the literature is in English, so I needed to learn it to read the books.”

That had to suffice, and from what Urufu had said earlier it partially explained his knowledge of math.

“But you failed your midterms,” came a less than helpful comment from Nori-kun.

Urufu's face clouded over. “I didn't in Sweden,” he said in a subdued voice.

“Huh?” That was Nori-kun again.

“Guys,” Kuri said. “Here in Japan we're graded on how well we can express our English knowledge in Japanese, but neither Ulf nor I are Japanese. When we translate we usually translate from English to Swedish in our heads.”

And that's a lie, Yukio thought. You both told me you don't translate at all any longer. Then it struck him why Urufu had lived through such problems with his Japanese, and a moment later Yukio understood how Urufu's spoken Japanese had developed so insanely fast the last months. You've stopped translating Japanese as well!

With that line of thought something clicked inside his head. Suddenly Urufu's explanation of learning models made sense. 'Learn the rules, break the rules, write the rules' Urufu used to say when he tried to describe what he called analytic-synthetic learning or reverse triple loop learning.

Chapter one (segment seven), 2016, December, Kyoko

Kyoko pulled Kuri-chan aside as soon as they left their classroom for lunch.

“What are you going to do about it?”

Kuri-chan didn't answer but for a shrug.

Waiting for their classmates to disappear down the stairs Kyoko held on to Kuri-chan's blazer. “Please! Our class knows you're going out with Urufu, but the rest of the school?”

With irritation clearly showing in her face Kuri-chan shrugged again. “Ko-chan, most of the school knows,” she said.

That might be true. With Kuri-chan rising to national stardom the students at Himekaizen were bound to have heard that the photo model had her boyfriend in the other wing. Still, being caught by paparazzi when he left her apartment gave birth to all kinds of rumours, and what was worse, Kuri-chan didn't deny any of them. Rather she had a satisfied smile glued to her face mixed with an aura of absent-minded happiness whenever she spaced out.

“Let's have lunch,” Kyoko said and led her friend to the stairwell. “Cafeteria mystery food?” The question originated from an occasion early summer when Urufu loudly wondered which specific species of rodent made up most of whatever served as meat. Luckily enough he had done so in English, or the entire gang of friends would have been called to a disciplinary meeting.

They walked down the stairs, indoor shoes slapping against concrete, until they made their way to the main corridor feeding cafeteria, shoe-lockers and vending machines. Sometime during their descent Kuri-chan agreed to the extra mysterious food, and they voided the cafeteria in favour of the vending machines.

Given the taste of what those machines spewed out Kyoko felt rather certain rodents were too high class to make it into the menu, but it was cheaper and quicker than the cafeteria. More so now when Kyoko had made certain they'd arrive last of all students.

She defiled a few coins and received something more suitable to use as replacement PE shoes than eating. To her it mattered little as her stomach had always been a good substitute for a recycling unit of hazardous material. Kuri-chan was no better. Despite a life spent with enough money to run a small city her feeding habits were atrocious enough to make Kyoko grimace.

“Classroom?”

Kuri-chan nodded and they returned the same way they had come.

“Look,” Kuri-chan said, “I understand you're worried, but I'll fight for him some more.”

Some more? Those two words birthed a chill in Kyoko she hadn't expected. Kuri-chan and Urufu were invincible. They didn't lose to anyone.

“If they really manage to find a way to destroy our lives if we don't part ways...” Suddenly Kuri-chan's voice was the only thing that disturbed the rhythmic tapping of their shoes on the stairs. “If that days comes I'll break up and break down.”

How can you be that cold?

Kuri-chan must have noticed Kyoko's stiffness, because she stopped and pulled Kyoko around. “I'm prepared to live a very different life if I can share it with Ulf, but I can't drag him down with me. You understand that, don't you?”

What Kyoko saw in her friend's eyes was equal parts panic and desperation.

“Why, why would you give him up?”

A few seconds of silence followed when Kuri-chan's face shifted from love-sickness to wrath and back to love again. “Because he's the first I've loved more than myself.” Then she smirked. “Don't misunderstand me. I'm always first in my life, but that doesn't mean I love myself more than him.”

Kyoko felt incomprehension compete with anger in her. “I don't understand,” she said and turned away. A few resolute steps brought her up another half a flight before she stopped and looked down at her friend. “I don't understand, and I don't want to.”

Kuri-chan looked back before looking away. She rested her hands against the windowsill and leaned her forehead against the pane. Barely audible her voice came out, a hoarse whisper mixed with silent sobs. “Ulf gives meaning to my life. He fills it with colour. He's the best thing that has ever happened to me. When I wake up the first thing I think of is him and when I go to sleep I daydream about what we did together or what we could have done.”

How can you even think of letting someone like that go?

“I'm losing him to my job, and I'd lose him if I quite, because he'd never allow himself to let me become less than I could be.”

Something glittered on the sill and when Kyoko looked closer she saw droplets of tears spreading. Choking down her own tears she ran down the stairs to hug her friend.

“Kuri-chan, you're my best friend. Please let me help you in any way I can! I can't stand seeing you like this!”

Tall girl with golden hair never as much as moved, but Kyoko could feel her friend trying to hide the racking sobs that threatened to overtake her though their embrace. They stood like that for what felt like an eternity but probably was only a few seconds. Then Kuri-chan turned in Kyoko's arms and placed her hands on Kyoko's shoulders to push her away far enough for them to face each other.

“Then, as my best friend, please make me believe! Please help me pretend that I can keep Ulf by my side forever!”

You ask me of so little and so much more than I can ever give you. “Yes, of course I'll make Ulf stay with you forever,” she lied. It hurt more than she had expected, and yet Kyoko felt numb. “Ulf loves you, and if you tried to break up he'd know how much you loved him. He'd never give up on you,” she said. As the words left her mouth Kyoko realised it was the second lie she told in a row.

Chapter one (segment six), 2016, December, Ryu

Ryu carried another cardboard box into the inner room. With the help of his mother moving things from their club room at school had gone a lot faster.

The last time he fetched some books and white board markers he saw Yukio and Kyoko study for the coming finals, and as they were in more need to prepare themselves than he was he decided against asking for their help.

He put the box on the table and went for a toolbox that hid in a corner. Principal Nakagawa had made good on his promise to reimburse them for the whiteboards they had to abandon at school, but any assembly had to be done by the club members.

With the help of Kichirou-kun and Jirou-sempai he quickly fastened two large whiteboards to the walls where Urufu wanted them. Setting up the beamer took a little longer, but the audio system got installed a lot quicker than he had hoped. During the work James entered from time to time with coffee or help. He seemed to have a surprisingly extensive experience from this type of equipment.

Ryu gobbled down the last of his coffee and turned to Jirou-sempai before he rushed away to his girlfriend.

“Know when Urufu's expected?”

“Sorry. I'll check with Sango,” Jirou-sempai said and referred to the first year club member he dated. “I think he was here earlier.”

The backside of a blazer left the room and Ryu grimaced before he shot Kichirou-kun a glance. A repeat of the question didn't yield an answer that was any more useful.

Guess I'll have to call you then. Mail first though, if you answer it. You suck at that. Because Urufu did. He positively hated email on the phone and went on about how he didn't really like the Swedish messaging system all than much neither. All in all it was the feelings of an old person.

Now, however, getting in touch with him was a necessity. One of his old customers had been in contact with Ryu. With his father initially, but a phone call later Ryu took ownership of the contact. It seemed there was a need for some kind of validation and what the contact referred to as process re-factoring. Ryu wasn't entirely clear about what that meant, but then neither was the contact.

From the café proper Ryu suddenly heard a roar, and he left the inner room in a hurry to find out what the commotion was all about. When he squeezed himself out between counter and narrow door he saw a group of club members wielding smart-phones like weapons, and by another table three Irishima high students had turned to better listen in on those waving their phones.

“He did it?”

Who did what?

“Look, it says here he left in the morning, and there's even a photo.”

Ryu threw a cursory glance at the boy. Imai Seiichi, one of the last to join the club before Himekaizen got an entire new freshman class. He should have joined them at about the same time as Nao-sempai did.

“Who left in the morning?” Ryu asked.

“Look Ryu-kun! Says Urufu-kun spent the night with Kuritina-chan.”

Crap! Ryu forced a smile to his lips. Well that explains why those two have behaved to strange lately. A part of him cursed Urufu and another wished him good luck. Both groaned at the knowledge that Urufu and Kuri had made the news in the worst way possible.

“They've been a couple since May. Why the newsflash now?” Ryu said in what he suspected was a doomed attempt at downplaying the news value of the incident. You should have been more careful. This is going to be bad!

“But Kuritina-chan is like super famous now.” Sho-kun said and waved his own phone around over his head.

“Who's Kuritina-chan?” one of the Irishima high students asked.

Aw, shit!

“Kuritina-chan? Ah, the model Ageruman Kuritina,” Sho-kun helpfully explained.

“You know Ageruman-san?”

“Yeah, she's the club president.”

“Ageruman Kuritina is your club president?” a voice from across the room asked.

Hell no! Ryu groaned when a red blazer over green trousers rose from his seat.

“Yes, isn't it cool?”

“And she's in an improper relationship with the boy on this photo?”

“What the hell? They've been going out since before summer. Nothing improper about them.”

Thank you Sango-chan!

With the mood rapidly deteriorating James made a very visible show of taking orders at the tables together with the college student who worked part time here.

With final exams looming closer both Kyoko and Noriko had dropped out from their working schedule. Ryu suspected his sister would take up her work again during winter break.

“Guys, could you please keep your voices down about this?” Ryu said to the group who had started the uproar. “You wouldn't want to make more problems for Kuri-chan, would you?”

Seiichi-kun glared at the Red Rose student and nodded. “Sorry about that.”

Ryu smirked. Seiichi-kun was about as sorry as Sho-kun was, which was not sorry at all, but neither of the boys wanted Kuri-chan to get into trouble. Ryu wasn't so sure about what they thought about Urufu. Urufu didn't have the halo of stardom, so his reputation depended more on what he had done recently, and spending time at a hospital garnered pity rather than glory. The cultural festival was already a long time in the past.

But if you knew what kind of job he does you'd be awestruck. Ryu shook his head. That wasn't true. Most of the club members simply wouldn't be able to grasp what Urufu was doing for a living. There were stories for teenagers with a high school corporate magnate as the main lead. None of those stories said anything about the hard work and time needed to coach a stubborn company to change its way of doing things.

Reminds me I really need to call him. Two reasons why I have to now.

Chapter one (segment five), 2016, December, Yukio

Unlike before their midterms Yukio got together with Kyoko to study for the final exams a good two weeks in advance.

Sitting in the club room they had just finished an English session, which in line with Urufu's suggestion they held entirely in English, and now the room was eerily silent. First Yukio couldn't put his finger to it, but then he recalled how the club had been given written permission to run their activities at the Stockholm Haven café. Their club room was slated for being converted into a classroom come April.

At the moment fewer than half a dozen members lazed in the lounge area. Another five or so had left for a walking talking session, which only proved how far Urufu's stance on self organisation had penetrated the club.

Yukio turned his head and looked outside. Grey skies and rivulets of water on the window pane told their story of yet another rainy day. If the clothes worn by the students he saw crossing the gravel beneath him were an honest indicator it was a cold rainy day to boot.

“Yukio, what about this part,” Kyoko said in English and showed him a math problem.

He grinned at first but toned it down to a smile. “You're cute,” he responded in Japanese.

“Huh? Oh, sorry.”

“I think we can do the math in Japanese. I don't even know half the terms in English.”

She gave him a sheepish smile and nodded. “Yeah, and I love you too.”

It was easier these days. Yukio preferred it this way when expressions of affection and love came natural to them both. Somehow the world changing feelings from August had calmed down, but instead Kyoko had become his most important friend apart from being the girl he loved.

“They're not here had often as before,” Kyoko said after he pointed out the mistake that prevented her from solving the problem.

They. We don't even need names now, do we? “I guess so,” he said. “Urufu said he's helping her prepare the finals, but he's also doing a lot of work through those strange contacts of his.”

Kyoko's expression darkened, but Yukio knew her displeasure wasn't directed at him. “Same with Kuri-chan. She's spending almost all her free time modelling.” A tentative hand reached out across the table and Yukio took it in his. “I worry, you know.”

He did as well. Since he became an item with Kyoko the two of them gradually saw their responsibility towards their friends as a shared one. Especially after what happened during the cultural festival. Now they more or less agreed that the two old teenagers were children that needed taking care of.

“Is it just me, or does Kuri smile less often now?”

“She's unhappy,” Kyoko said. She turned her attention to the next problem and the two of them fell silent while they solved it each on their own. “She doesn't tell me, but I can see. I got to learn that expression during our year at middle school.”

Yukio looked up from his booklet and met Kyoko's gaze. “Kuri was unhappy during middle school?”

“Yeah, and no. In the beginning I think she was scared more than unhappy, but that was before I learned who she really was.”

Caressing Kyoko's fingers Yukio waited for her to continue. Sometimes she needed to say something in preparation of what she really wanted to say.

“I was… was…,” Kyoko started. “I was fat.”

Yukio looked at her She was still a bit chubby, but he liked that part of her. It made her adorably soft to hug, and he couldn't get enough of it. He was aware, however, that not everyone saw her in the same light as he did. Their loss. I get to keep her all for myself.

“When I lost weight some of the boys started looking at me, and there were a few girls who didn't like that.”

Were you bullied? You never told me.

The smile Yukio got was disarming, and he could feel how Kyoko had guessed what he was thinking. “It never got as far as bullying. Kuri-chan didn't like anyway though. That's how I got to learn what she looked like when she was unhappy.” All of a sudden Kyoko's face lit up in a wide grin. “She's a funny girl that way. It was like she didn't care when people said bad things about her, but no one was allowed to do the same to me. That was when I decided she was my best friend.”

I can see how she won your heart. Urufu's just the same. He has absolutely no concerns for himself. “I understand,” Yukio said and met her grin with one of his own.

“Urufu?”

Yukio nodded and laughed. Their two Swedish best friends who tried but always failed to become Japanese. Sometimes he wondered how hard they really tried. “And he's not proper.”

“Same with Kuri-chan. She's not a proper girl at all.”

And I believe they made us both better persons because of that. What was it Urufu called it? Ah, integrity. That's how he tried to explain the Swedish version of honour. Doing what was right even if it meant betraying your friends, because if you didn't stay true to yourself you didn't deserve to be called a friend in the first place.

“You know,” Yukio began, “I think they're trying to learn how to be teenagers again,” he said as realisation struck him. “It's like they're caught in between if you get what I mean.”

Kyoko closed her eyes the way she usually did when she was deep in thought. Then she opened them, tilted her head backwards and stared at the ceiling. “I think I understand. Does that mean they're fighting like adults now but are treated like kids?”

He hadn't thought about it that way. Could it be that Kuri and Urufu had stepped onto the turf of adults where everyone saw them as unruly teenagers? If that was so, could they ever hope to win?