June 24, 2040, the last smoke

The three of them had long since left the wooden deck, leaving Yukio alone with a cup of strong coffee he made for himself after declining to join them for a walk around the island.

Above him he saw a blue sky dotted with small clouds yielding to a sun burning surprisingly strongly despite modest temperatures.

He wanted this moment alone. In difference from Urufu Yukio planned to put a stop to a dirty habit rather than have a healthier life sprung on him. One of his pockets held a packet of cigarettes. There were only two left – he had counted them this morning. Buying more offered no problems, but Yukio decided to give his body a heads up before he was subjected to Japanese strict laws about minors and smoking.

'There was another thing as well, or rather several small ones. Stories, some fun and some just insane, brought back memories from their last trimester as second years. Two months filled with shenanigans came as a welcome respite after the hell Kareyoshi put them through. That still didn’t mean he only had fond memories of that winter and early spring.

Yukio pulled out the package and put flame to a cigarette he expertly fished out with his lips. He’d smoke them both back to back just to remind himself just how superbly bad a habit he’d picked up during his university years.

Urufu, you used to burn through a full packet of this shit daily, didn’t you? Yukio didn’t even want to think about what that did to your body after a few decades. He felt guilty about his own two lasting a week. They dug a hole in both lungs and wallet despite being far less dangerous to the former since some ten years. Pricing became prohibitive though. Eight packets a month was over five percent of his income.

So, there was one more thing, he pondered. His and Kyoko’s birthdays, but something else as well. Ah, yes. It all dragged out. That’s why I didn’t remember.

He quickly finished, first one and then the last cigarette. Coffee accompanied them while he tried to recall in what order everything had happened, or if that even mattered.

June 24, 2040, absent friends

Kyoko grinned at the memories. The mirth had died down a little, but the four of them remained on the wooden deck.

“Just Noriko and Urufu missing,” she said to no one in particular.

Kuri-chan spat out her tea.

What?

“Don’t do that!” Ryu said and carefully let go of his own beverage after he had secured it onto a table.

Do what?

“Kyoko, that was hysterically funny right now,” Yukio added.

OK what button did I just push?

“Again?” Kuri-chan suggested.

This just has to be something about that field trip. What did I forget?

Yukio grinned open mouthed. “Nah, nothing as bad this time.”

“Hard to top that one,” Ryu suggested.

Kuri-chan and Ryu laughed in agreement. “Ko-chan, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?” the former said.

“Forgotten what? If you’re thinking Kyoto I spent most of it with Yukio you know.”

“Ko-chan!”

She ransacked her memory, but nothing came up. They spent most of that trip on endless trips from one site to another. With teachers present there wasn’t much time to get lost, well unless you weren’t the rapidly rising star of fashion fame and just so happened to get dragged into an unplanned photo shoot.

Blinking away the sun Kyoko dug a little further in her memories. So one of the free days, but those they spent scattered all over the city, so someone getting lost wouldn’t be noticed until curfew at the hotel.

“Kyoko, really!” This time it was Yukio who frowned and admonished her.

If Yukio remembers then I ought as well. Something crawled around in her head and called for attention. Let’s see. There was that day Kuri-chan stormed out, and she came back alone. The something gave Kyoko an ironic wave. Alone? If I recall that I must have expected her to come back with someone in tow. Then the memory finally flared alive. Oh dear! Noriko’s glorious time in the limelight. How could I possibly have forgotten?

June 24, 2040, a mug of tea

Christina listened to the laughter once again. It came from above, so she guessed they were on the wooden deck. Since she wanted a little something between a breakfast and a lunch, joining whoever was responsible for the mirth seemed like a good idea.

She climbed the wooden stairs hugging the hillside until she reached the flat top where house and attached outdoor facilities were located, among them the wooden deck from where shorter bursts of laughter could still be heard.

I wonder what’s going on. Peering around the corner Christina only found Yukio, Ko-chan and Ryu. The married couple both hung on the railings shaking with laughter, and Ryu just stood there with arms hanging by his side. How did he end up on the receiving end?

Christina smirked and made herself visible. “What’s the joke?” she asked.

Ko-chan smiled back and grabbed Yukio with her free hand. “Ryu just made us remember something.”

“Funny ha ha,” he said. Still, something twinkled in his eyes, and Christina suspected he wasn’t anywhere as angry as his sulking demeanour suggested.

She shrugged and walked inside through great glassed doors thrown wide open. The day promised a little heat and almost no clouds at all. The glaring sun that had accompanied her up the stairs still lingered in her eyes, and her walk to the kitchen felt much darker than it really was.

Hot water in a mug, a bag of tea and one slice of lemon later she returned the way she came. The short time indoors was enough for her eyes to adjust, but as soon as she entered the planking outside sunny brightness forced her to squint. When she had readjusted once more Christina gave the dark blue sea a long gaze before she turned her attention to the three stooges.

“So, what was that all about earlier?”

Ko-chan and Yukio both gave her smug smiles in return, and Ryu, he still sulked.

“Come on, let me in on the funny, will you?” Christina said when none of the three offered to break the silence. She waited for anyone of them to answer while she stretched and bathed in warm sunlight.

“Toilet adventures,” Ko-chan finally said.

Christina dragged a chair and a small table to the railings and sat down. “The Kyoto field trip?” Rather than waiting for an answer she lifted her mug of tea from the deck and placed it on the table.

“Kyoto field trip?” This time it was Yukio who spoke. “No we meant what happened...”

“But there was a toilet incident in Kyoto, wasn’t there?” Ryu interrupted.

Why are you so keen on… Oh, hatsumode. Yeah, that was bad. “Yes, second or third day during our second year field trip to Kansai,” Christina said. She still felt a little guilty about what Ryu had been put through. The least she could do was to help him out a little now.

She listened to seagulls screeching and tried to remember what had happened. While toilets certainly had played a major part during hatsumode as far as Ryu was concerned, Christina only vaguely recalled some students she really didn’t know who missed a bus and got scolded later. So why do did I remember Kyoto when toilets were brought up. She shook her head. Nothing came to her.

“Kuri-chan, you missed out on almost half the trip,” Ko-chan said.

I did? Christina squinted against the sun and met Ko-chan’s stare. “I forgot.”

“How could you forget,” Ryu said. “It was your fault those kids missed the bus.”

It was? Gods! It was.

June 24, 2040, on the wooden deck

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 24, 2040, coffee and smoke

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

Remembering Kareyoshi sure put a damper on the morning.

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

“Just remembering is enough to...”

“Please Yukio!”

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

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

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

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

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

“I know what you’re thinking.”

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

“You really don’t remember?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 24, 2040, second breakfast

Yukio smiled at his wife and deliberately brought her a little less food than she needed – if she hadn’t already eaten before he woke up. He pretended he didn’t know, and she pretended she didn’t know he knew.

“The rest will be here soon,” he said after he found a chair beside her.

“Not across the table?” Kyoko giggled. “We’re in Sweden after all.”

Yukio grinned. Getting to know Urufu and Kuri had given them all an insight in the small details that differed between cultures. Stupid details that made people raise an eyebrow if the didn’t understand. This was one of them, and one he didn’t plan to adapt.

“Swedes are just wrong about that part,” he said. “It’s not a business meeting.”

Kyoko leaned into him in agreement. “But I saw her playing with hands,” she said.

“Kuri? Yeah, I guess. Urufu once said flirting involved a lot of footwork as well.”

In response Kyoko lifted a leg and draped it over his knee. “Works just fine this way as well,” she said and kicked out with her foot. “Besides it’s more comfortable this way.”

A quarter of a century with her hadn’t made Kyoko any less attractive in Yukio’s eyes. He leaned over and kissed her.

“It’s finally over, the six of us. Are you scared?” Kyoko suddenly said.

Yukio pulled back his face so he could see her eyes. Apprehension played in them, but no fear. “No, not really,” he said. “A little sad,” he added after a few seconds of thought.

“Do you regret it?”

Yukio shook his head. “Things come to an end. It’s just natural, and for us it’s a new beginning.”

“A transition and restart,” Kyoko said and laughed. “That’s so Urufu to coin an expression like that.”

Yukio leaned his head to the side in confusion. “I don’t think he did actually, but I think he was the one who cemented it as one.” He shook off the last of his morning drowsiness from his neck. Above them the day promised to be sunny and almost warm.

“He did a lot of cementing, didn’t he?” Kyoko’s voice suggested.

Yukio stopped studying the few clouds he could find. “What do you mean?”

“Just thinking of Kareyoshi.”

“The pig! I hope he’s still alive and rotting.”

June 24, 2040, breakfast thoughts

Kyoko looked down the slope to where her two best friends sat chatting by the water line.

Took you long enough.

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t spoken before, but they hadn’t spoken about those things. Still, as far as Kyoko could recall they had stayed friends despite all. Friends with things unspoken between them, but friends still.

She left her friends by the water, climbed the hillside and crossed the veranda to the kitchen.

With the kids still sleeping and all the local guests gone both house and garden seemed larger than before. It was, Kyoko decided, that a place needed people milling around to seem small.

She quickly made tea and gathered some of yesterday’s leftovers for an impromptu breakfast. Or rather an impromptu first breakfast. Yukio might be first in her heart, but sometimes she wanted to be alone. She’d wake him up in time for a second morning meal, and he’d know it was her second, and he’d pretend he didn’t know; and she’d love him all the more for that.

I became an adult believing you were all so strong, but maybe the strong ones were the two of us. Kyoko grimaced a little. That wasn’t entirely honest. Maybe because we were allowed to be the teenagers we were. Urufu and Kuri-chan hadn’t been, and as for Ryu and Noriko, well they got dragged into the world of adults in a way Kyoko and Yukio avoided. It hurt us and it gave us gifts, but I guess we could step aside and watch it from the outside.

Suddenly grateful for everything Kyoko sat down in a chair and enjoyed some time by herself. This time as an adult by choice.

June 24, 2040, second apology

Mornings were cold in Sweden. Summer or not didn’t matter at all.

Noriko smiled and stretched her feet. They reached all the way into the sea, and she wiggled her toes underwater.

Behind her Kyoko and Kuri had run a silent conversation, and now Noriko could hear footsteps coming closer.

So many memories surfacing again. Guess she wants to share another one with me. They were friends. Strained friends, but friends still. If this strange vacation could mend what had been broken Noriko would welcome it.

The footsteps reached her, and Noriko watched Kuri take a seat on the rock beside her. Long legs touched the surface and went under.

“Noriko, I owe you an apology.”

You owe me more than one. “Sorry?” Noriko said and pretended she had no idea what was going on.

“To be honest this is just one of several,” Kuri said and agreed with what Noriko had just thought. “I’m sorry I slept with Ulf that time. Or rather I’m sorry I hurt you doing so.”

So it was about the end of their second summer.

“I wasn’t ashamed at that time, and I apologise for that as well. Especially since you decided to help me later.”

Noriko shook her head. Her memories of what what had happened might a be a little shaky now, but she was certain the anger and pain faded long before those two girls were assaulted.

More importantly, without Kuri she’d never have won Urufu over.

“It’s fine,” Noriko said. “I don’t think there’s all that much to apologise for, but I’m grateful you did anyway.”

And yet Kuri really hadn’t understood at all. A girl in love sleeping with the boy she wanted wasn’t a reason for an apology, but Kuri had dragged Urufu into an ugly game with human lives. Noriko didn’t know if she could forgive Kuri for that even if an apology came, because Noriko didn’t know if she could forgive herself.

June 24, 2040, apology

Kyoko looked up when she heard foot steps closing in. Kuri-chan; she still recognised the distinctive sound of shoes touching ground. The sound of a professional, and the sound of a profession that eventually bled into the very essence of Kuri-chan.

“Got something you want to say?” Kyoko said.

Kuri-chan sat down beside her. “It’s about the third summer,” she began.

Kyoko nodded. “Noriko’s on the way here with some tea. Let’s wait for her.”

Kuri-chan shook her head. “I owe her a separate apology. This one is for you.”

Kyoko hugged her knees and waited. Third summer, the second one in Himekaizen, hadn’t been the best of summer vacations for any of them.

“I’m sorry I led Ulf on the way I did despite being together with Ryu.”

But from a friend that made no sense at all. But from a friend.

“Yukio and I didn’t really care,” Kyoko said. “We took Urufu’s and Noriko’s side, and I’m not going to apologise for that.”

A thin shimmer behind her spoke of yet another absurdly early Swedish morning coming to life. It would continue to do so for hours in the same, lazy way evenings took forever to become night. This was nothing like Japan at all. Even nature was different.

Kuri-chan draped a blanket across her back. “It’ll get colder still,” she said after tugging it in across Kyoko’s shoulders. “I know,” she said and sat back. “Ulf told me. Still owe you an apology though.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t give you one back then. An apology for the lack of one.”

Her face, still beautiful like an angel’s despite her reaching 40, turned, and Kyoko silently sat facing Kuri-chan like she had so often during the years their friendship remained unbroken. It wasn’t any longer, had been both broken and mended somehow; yet Kuri-chan remained her most important friend.

“I’ll accept that apology,” Kyoko said. “Thank you.”

Kuri-chan rose. “I’ll go find Noriko now.”

Because that apology has to be the real thing. Kuri-chan, you’re a much better friend than you think. Kyoko turned and stared after the receding back of what was, despite everything, the best friend she had ever had.

June 24, 2040, oceans of darkness

Christina shuddered when she heard footsteps further up the hill. She didn’t want anyone to see her crying. Especially not Ryu or Ulf.

She led a good life now, blessed with the childbirth she never experienced in her first life, and with far more love than she deserved.

While she had been an adult reborn, and not naive enough to believe you could experience love without hurting anyone, she most definitely had crossed a line of common decency.

And eventually I hurt them both, and Noriko a well. Come to think about it. She probably hurt Yukio and Ko-chan as well. Ko-chan. The one person she never grew used to call by her first name. Her best friend. And now she’s going away forever.

Because that was everything this trip was about. Coming together for some of them, but a parting for all of them. In a couple of days Ko-chan and Yukio would leave this world just like she herself had left hers a quarter of a century earlier.

I never apologised, or did I? She couldn’t remember what had happened after. Most of the last week of summer that year only held oceans of darkness in her memories.

Doesn’t matter. There was no way an apology could have gotten through anyway.

June 24, 2040, smoking in the dark

There was a night here. It wasn’t long, and it really wasn’t dark enough to merit being called night.

Urufu said it was a filthy habit, but Yukio had seen him smoke occasionally. Apparently he was a heavy smoker reformed.

Reformed. Only you would use an expression like that, Urufu. Transitioning into this world and a body that had yet to taste a cigarette.

In a few days Yukio would do the same. He and Kyoko.

What will it feel like? He drew a lungful and watched the tip of his cigarette grow brighter. With a flick of his finger he twisted ash from it and stared into the night.

A little closer to the shore someone spoke silently. Yukio strained his ears to hear better. Eavesdropping didn’t make him feel ashamed at all. Not any longer.

A few days more. After that almost everyone he knew would be gone. Or rather he would be gone.

Those aren’t words. Not even in Swedish. Then he understood what he was listening to. Someone sobbing.

One of the kids drinking too much? Yukio killed his cigarette and began walking down the hill to find out.

Halfway to the sobbing sounds he stopped in his tracks. It was Kuri. Well, he guessed she counted as one of the kids drinking too much. So you’re remembering what you did? What you both did. Because that was the problem. Both of them. Urufu and Kuri. So much effort spent scarring each other in an attempt to protect the other. And so many others hurt because of that.

Urufu might be his best friend still, but Yukio refused to place all blame on Kuri. For being so brilliant both had behaved like first class idiots.

Why, you two? Why make it so difficult? The question brought his thoughts to Kyoko. What’s so hard about falling in love with a wonderful girl and then stick to her no matter what?

Midsummer’s day, 2040, midnight

Midsummer’s day grew to a close, and while the last two days had mostly been filled with memories experienced and memories shared, some beautiful, some horrible and some just nostalgic, these very two days laid themselves to rest among other memories.

Christina grimaced.

We were so young back then. Even I were much younger than I understood at that time. Experiencing a second youth had been much more than going through the motions. She had been young once again, young and unprepared for the new life ahead of her. So many mistakes, so many regrets. Ulf, I hurt you so much. How could you ever forgive me? Did you ever really forgive me?

There would be reasons to remember again soon. Three more days. That was all they had. After that some of the would be gone, would transit to the downstream world. Not all of them. At least not now, and Christina suspected a few would live and die in this world by choice.

To become a teenager again sounded less appealing the older you got. To accept that you wouldn’t be treated like an adult, to actually partially regress into adolescence.

Better now, sure. Much better now when the dirty infighting was gone, if it was gone in the downstream world as well. That was the risk with transiting. You didn’t know exactly what that world would be like. Almost the same as this one, just like this one was almost the same as the one she left quarter of a century earlier. But there were differences, differences that tore her life apart because she tried to grab control over it.

Christina stared into the night sky and glittering stars. They shimmered through tears welling up in her eyes.

Ulf, even if you can’t for real, please pretend you’ll forgive me! U-kun, I wish I could call you that again.

She choked down feelings of misery. I lost the right to feel sadness back then.

Christina looked back at choices she had made. Some made her proud, some surprised, and the one she recalled most clearly right now, just disgusted with herself.

How could you ever fall in love with someone like me?

Midsummer’s day, 2040, memories

The music booming from below the hillside carried scattered memories from Christina’s teens. Both of them, and all mixed together.

First she couldn’t understand why she’d mix up memories from more than thirty years apart, but then as the remembered just how ancient some of the music was, things fell in place. There were songs from a time before the idea of a life with fashion ever entered her mind, and most of them she shared with Ulf, even though she hadn’t known about him at that time. That came later, as did her reintroduction to old, and usually pretty awful, music.

Still, something nagged at her mind, and it wasn’t until an especially atrocious melody reached her that she remembered how the last weeks of the first trimester during that awful year brought smiles and grins to them all. It hadn’t been Ulf’s doing, but rather Noriko’s and the strange bunch of visitors’ who stayed with them that summer.

Noriko, I owe you an apology, and more than a little gratitude. Christina ended that thought as she turned on her heels and started walking in search of her friend. You were the best rival I could ever have wished for.

Less than a minute she found Noriko chatting with Kyoko, and Christina felt a wide grin splitting her face open. “Noriko, Ko-chan, do you remember...”

Midsummer’s day, 2040, party preparations

“No, this isn’t tradition. Well, for me it is, but it’s not something everyone here does.”

Ulf had to shout the words, because the kids had turned up the volume, and at least one of them was an expert in knowing exactly how far you could push the old sound system.

Who the hell? It’s at least fifteen years out of date.

Just as he was about to turn to Yukio to see if he had heard the answer another voice broke through the bedlam.

“Satellites by that rock and one by the tree! Secondary sub by the tree as well!”

Amaya?

“For you? From when you were young the first time?” Yukio’s voice cut through the music just as well as Amaya’s had done.

Ulf nodded. Midsummer had been a full weekend party during his years at Chalmers. The main party was the Saturday one. Everyone just got too drunk during Midsummer’s Eve.

That’s what, almost sixty years ago. I doubt it’s still like that now. Damn, I’m getting ancient.

Living two lives did strange things to your sense of time. Forty here, when by all rights he should be close to eighty.

Then the speakers blasted away something from before his first time at high school.

Damn! That’s old. Wonder if I had even become a teenager when that one hit the lists. Ulf grinned at Yukio who stood shaking his head.

“What’s this crap?”

“Old crap,” Ulf said, “old even for me.” But secretly he loved the music. There were memories mixed in with it.

Further down the mountainside Amaya and the oldest of her kids finished preparing the evening’s bedlam. Somewhere close James was bound to be busy preparing the food. Not the kind of semi formal dinner of yesterday, in as much as the drunken madness that was a Midsummer’s Eve’s party could be called formal, but probably something more scattered, with tables spread out all over the garden.

It’s good to see you all together again. Not like their first year during high school. They got estranged during that awful first second year trimester. Noriko, we owe you big time, and I’m not even certain the others know how hard you worked for the rest of us.

Midsummer’s day, 2040, wet feet

Noriko found the only stretch of beach that felt like one. A miniscule bay, only a few metres wide with sand under her feet. She let her toes dig down, grabbed her skirt with her hands and waded into the water.

It felt cool against her feet, and salt water splashed onto her legs when a small motorboat raced by and left its wake spreading onto the shore.

Back in Japan the thought wouldn’t even have occurred to her, going into the sea at temperatures like these, but this was summer in Sweden. Another week or two, and the temperature would reach what she considered summer herself, even though it was a far cry from the murderous Tokyo heat during July and August.

Then, again, back in Japan she did things that never occurred to her before she did them. Her friendship with Kyoko and Kuri shaped her, and so did watching Yukio grow as a man. But in the end, falling in love with Urufu for the third time made her grow in ways she hadn’t thought possible.

She had to, the third time she knew about his background. Mentally he was already a man when she was merely the high schooler they both looked like.

Noriko sighed and allowed the water to lap her thighs. The hem of her skirt was long since gone wet, so she simply let it go and allowed it to float like a deflated balloon on the waves.

Most improper, as Kyoko once would have said. She seldom did these days. In truth hadn’t since the spring term of their second year.

Noriko clenched her fists and hid them in the water. With her current understanding of people it no longer surprised her why the conflict erupted into open warfare the way it did.

With a second sigh she returned onto the beach. She wrung most of the water from her soaked skirts and went in search of Urufu and Kuri. She had to ask them if they thought of it the same way.

Midsummer’s day, 2040, sunbathing

Ryu rolled over on his side. A flimsy blanket did little to alleviate the harshness on bedrock under him.

Why do these people do this to themselves? But there were stranger things to Swedes than lying down on stone and saying it felt good.

A cool wind drew salt to his nostrils, and Ryu was once again reminded of how what they called summer in this strange, northern country, felt more like late April than any decent summer. At least it didn’t rain incessantly like June in Japan, and there wasn’t as much as a trace of the oppressive heat starting in July.

And then there is those infinitely long evenings. But that still lay several hours away.

While the sun didn’t burn as mercilessly as back home, the relative cool made it easy to forget that it was still there. It could give him bad burns, especially this close to the sea.

Just in case Ryu smeared some more sunscreen on arms and legs. He did his stomach and chest as well, but reaching his back was difficult, and Ryu looked around for someone to help him.

Seems I’m alone. Kind of like he had been at the start of their second year. Surrounded by people and yet alone.

He smirked when he remembered. Sis, you idiot, and you tried to keep it a secret as well. He had been so angry, but really, he never had the right to begin with.

Going with the flow felt good right now. Someone else did the organising, in as much as any was needed. It had felt good back then as well, but that time his help had been needed.

Shit, I was so full of myself. Too late to apologise now. But damn, I really owe them big time.

All of a sudden he felt ashamed of what he had done quarter of a century earlier, or rather what he hadn’t done.

Midsummer’s day, 2040, coffee

Noriko poured some more coffee for herself. For once she didn’t care to ask if anyone else wanted some. The taste was nothing like what James had spoiled her with, but it still offered the kick that tea simply couldn’t deliver.

I’m becoming less Japanese for every year, she thought. Still she held no regrets. At least not concerning that part. It wasn’t as if she didn’t care about Japan; that was still home, but a home that grew more and more distant. In a way she suspected the Japan she knew no longer existed, but for a dream and memories mixed together.

With another gulp she corrected that thought. It’s still there. It hasn’t been that many years.

Noriko smirked and basked in the weak sun the people here called summer. If she was to be honest with herself the reason she was here right now could be traced back almost another two years before the nightmare she had in mind.

She poured down some more of the traditional, weak coffee Swedes drank in stupendous volumes. Slightly bitter, with a tinge of sour, and too cool for her taste. Coffee should be creamy and thick, and hot, just shy of burning.

When did things start to break down? she thought. Ah, after Nao. Noriko recalled the tall model. A year older than her. She had been so very much in love with him, but then he betrayed her, and she hadn’t even been the one to chase after him in the beginning.

But we were breaking apart before that, she remembered. I just didn’t see it, and to be honest, neither did he.

Being cheated on, in the end wasn’t the worst. Watching a wedge being driven in between her friends had been. Kareyoshi, I hope you burn in whatever hell they found for you!

In the end she came to respect and adapt the Swedish way of holding a grudge and exact revenge. A never ending grudge, the absolute refusal to forgive until your opponent had been utterly destroyed, and most often not even then.

Cool, like their coffee.

Urufu, was it you who helped me, or was it me who helped you? It didn’t matter. The result would have been the same anyway.

Noriko grimaced, looked at the sea broken by islets and gulped down the last of her coffee.

Midsummer's day, 2040, grilling

“When did your parents transit?”

Noriko turned to Yukio. She had studied him and Kyoko. Had studied them since high school as an example of how some couples get it right from the start. Just like her parents.

“Ten years ago,” Noriko said and turned a slab of meat on the grill. “To help Nakagawa out.”

“You're staking a lot on him arriving and building himself a position of power.”

Noriko shrugged. “And you? You're transiting yourself. We don't even know if it works.”

“It works, Urufu said it does. We have the signals. Sure, their future and cryptic like hell, but signals anyway.”

That was trusting the Swedish branch of the transitioning foundation a lot. Noriko knew why Urufu did, but she had never been able to trust anything that blindly.

After turning the slab once more she decided it was good to eat. She took it on a plate and went to find a place where she could be alone. Transitions and arrivals as an everyday topic for their dinner talk. It had been years since.

And you say they'll be even more open about it in the downstream world. I hope you're right.

Because before trust came betrayal. Always betrayal.

Prologue, 1991

“Sano Mitsuo, at your service.”

Masuda Natsumi stared at the boy who had been assigned as her desk neighbour. He talks like an old man!

There was something strange about his way of speaking as well. As if he had relearned Japanese after living abroad.

At her other side she had the silent Wakayama Tadao. A shy boy who just didn't understand how gorgeous he looked. Thankfully he was shy enough not to take much notice of the looks the other girls gave him.

I'll reel him in good. Bright, honest to a fault and with a little devil grinning in his eyes whenever he smiled. What else was there to want? Nothing, not since she had laid her eyes on him when her parents moved from Sapporo to Tokyo last year and she transferred into his ninth grade class.

He never rejected her advances, but neither did he agree to date her. Well, at least he knew she had a crush on him, and he still wanted to be friends with her. You can't leave an opening like that, you know. I'll have you mine!

What Natsumi wanted she got. Luckily for her parents she wasn't a greedy girl, but whenever she set her mind to something she got the results she wanted in the end. It didn't always come easy, and it didn't always take only a short time, but in the end.

“Excuse me, but could you please help out an old man here?”

The strange kid again. And he called himself an old man! “Sure, if you tell me how old you are.”

“Let's see. That would be seventy one this year,” he answered without batting an eye.

If you plan to play it like that. “Sure grandpa.”

“And here I was so worried about youth today. Seems my worries were unfounded.” He grinned. A predatory grin, and suddenly Natsumi didn't like the joke any longer. Her instincts screamed: Danger!

“Was there anything you needed help with?” That was Tadao-kun's voice. Secretly just 'Tadao' in her mind.

Natsumi gratefully threw him a glance when he came to her help. Whenever things threatened to get ugly he simply forgot to be shy and acted on his own sense of honour.

“Another polite kid. I'm so fortunate today.”

“Kid? I'm oldest in the class.”

“I'm afraid you might just be mistaken. By fifty five years or so, if I may add.”

“You may not,” Tadao-kun said, and his voice grew something steely into it.

How could I not fall for you? Tadao, you dummy. Just give up and be my boyfriend, will you?

“You're perfectly right. Age isn't a right. It just is,” Sano-san said and met Tadao-kun's eyes.

Why does he keep up that creepy joke? It isn't funny any longer.

Sano-san and Tadao-kun locked themselves in a staring match. In the end Tadao-kun lost and gave Natsumi an embarrassed look.

He tried. He tried for me. Now or never. “Tadao, I love you.” She had told him she was interested before, implied she wanted a relationship with him, but she had never confessed outright like this.

Surprised shouts from the desks around them told her her confession hadn't gone undetected.

“Then please be my girlfriend,” he said.

“My my,” Sano-san commented.

Natsumi didn't care. Her chest swelled with joy. Finally! I'll even forgive you for being creepy, Sano-san.

One meeting. One that defined their lives. On such circumstances are friends for life made.

Midsummer's day, 2040, second dinner

Urufu fired up the grills with Kyoko watching and Yukio helping. Talking about having children made her remember the reason she and Yukio would transit in a few days.

Unfortunately she also recalled the events that followed. Urufu and Kuri-chan breaking up, the chaos between Ai-chan, Ryu and Kuri-chan during and after spring break. Her own fears when they had a gorilla in a costume tagging along whenever they left school.

Noriko, how Noriko alone had tried to keep it all together, and how she eventually failed in the end. Urufu's absence and return, and over everything else, the shadow of a man whom she only knew of as Yukio's English teacher until everything changed.

Second year in high school was supposed to be the spring of youth. Sure, a stereotype, but still.

Second year in high school had started like anything but.

Kyoko squirmed uncomfortably when the memories took her back. Only by anchoring her sight on Yukio's back did she regain the feeling of trust and safety he always gave her.

Her Yukio.

Her lovely Yukio.