That was close.

Fooling Christina and Noriko both was harder than he had expected. Playing the buffoon with Noriko might work, but Ulf needed to make certain Christina got the message that he’d never be her toy.

How he’d react should she make it explicit she wanted them to become an item again he didn’t know. Cave in most likely. He still loved her after all, but her way of flaunting Ryu in his face made it easier to keep a distance.

He gobbled up breakfast as quickly as possible. A trip to Ise seemed like a good way to get his thoughts elsewhere. With a slightly astonished Noriko in tow Ulf made his way outdoors where he grabbed hold of Yukio and Kyoko just as unceremoniously.

Within minutes all of them shared a taxi. He in the front seat, much to Noriko’s chagrin, and her seated in the middle in the back seat. That went a long way to tell Ulf how much Yukio and Kyoko had grown together. The ever present need for physical closeness had faded, but from the way they spoke with each other, always giving verbal room for Noriko, showed an unseen bond between minds which had grown just that much stronger.

I’m happy for you. Half a life ago I would have envied you. Ulf smirked and stared at road ahead. He still did. A little at least. Theirs was not the sensational love between adults become children again, and neither was it the tabloid version Christina shared with Ryu now. Yukio and Kyoko could enjoy what they shared without gawking people interfering with it time and time again.

With a sigh and another smirk Ulf turned his attention ahead just as the taxi took the last curve and parked at the small town train station.

Less than half an hour’s wait the four of them rode a train in silence. It wasn’t an awkward silence, nor an angry one. Yukio and Kyoko allowed themselves to become the children they really were and sat on their knees with faces glued to the windows and heads together. It was, Ulf decided, an amazingly cute picture of a young couple in love.

A discrete shutter sound told him Noriko shared his sentiment, and when he turned his head he was met by an exaggerated gesture to keep silent. Not that it was needed. Yukio and Kyoko were immersed in their own world of two. In any other company what they did would have been very rude, but Ulf genuinely enjoyed watching the two of them shining with calm happiness.

A small hand grabbed his, and he was reminded that there was one more here who wanted her part of that feeling.

“Noriko?” he said and glanced at her.

Her other hand forced him to meet her gaze straight on. “Today you’re mine, so pay me some attention will you?”

He had kind of given her that promise. Sure, mostly to keep her lovestruck nagging at bay, but still. If he didn’t honour his part of the deal he was an arse.

Giving Noriko her due he noticed that she had dressed up for the occasion, or at least dressed up as much as a wardrobe in a luggage allowed. Shorts accompanied by heels looked strange to him, but here it was just a natural combination. A part of the doll cute dress code for adolescent girls and young women. Ulf didn’t really agree with it, but Christina had made it abundantly clear that when it came to fashion his opinions were worth less than zero.

A pink top with something fluffy sewn on that served no function at all apart from being decoration completed her outfit. It was summer after all.

In contrast his own khaki shorts and shorts sleeved, likewise khaki shirt probably made him look like a foreign bum with poor taste in clothes.

A toothy smile told him Noriko knew what he was thinking.

“That bad?” he asked.

“Your clothes? Yeah, they suck,” she said and the smile turned into a wide grin of approval.

“I don’t understand.”

“This way I won’t have any competition. When Kuri picks your clothes you’re… you know, don’t you?”

“Know what?” Ulf decided to play dense. He’d never be the kind of girl magnet that Ryu was, but whenever Christina chose his clothes people turned their heads after them, and Ulf was honest enough to understand that all gawks weren’t for her. She had loved showing him off, or rather showing her acute sense of fashion off.

Noriko poked his forehead. “Attention!”

“Yes?”

“You’re good looking enough to make me feel uneasy.”

“Says who?”

“Says the sister of the prince of Himekaizen.”

There was that of course. “Why uneasy?”

Noriko fidgeted and looked down at her hand. The other still held his. “At first I fell for your looks. I’m a little ashamed of that.”

“My looks?”

“My very own avenging hero with that delinquent style.”

Oh! She’s thinking of middle school. “At first?” he said to avoid the subject. He still fumed at the memories.

“Then I fell for the geeky you. I know, I have the worst taste in men.”

Well, that hadn’t lasted for too long. When he became a couple with Christina he gave that disguise up. Ulf nodded at Noriko’s words. There wasn’t much he could add.

“But it was the real you. The you who fell in love with Kuri. That’s the you who made me love you.”

The conversation had taken a turn for the worse. Ulf decided against saying anything, but in keeping his silence he had let Noriko keep the hand she had taken in hers.

He leaned back in his seat and watched flashes of summer passing by as the train rode on.

Sometime later Noriko fell asleep against his shoulder, and against his better judgement he allowed her to nestle under his arm.

***

Urufu was a born leader. At least that was what Yukio had once believed. Now he suspected that was too simple an explanation. Grown into a leader during longs years of adulthood was more likely.

“You know, about Urufu,” Yukio started as they stood in the cramped ryokan reception.

Like most non tourists he would have preferred a western style hotel, but Urufu paid, and Urufu preferred the old fashioned futon, hard and uncomfortable as it was. Or at least he said he did.

Kyoko met Yukio’s stare and smiled. He saw how she knew what he was going to say, but out of respect she didn’t interrupt him this time, and he loved her all the more for it.

“He’s rather socially awkward for being, well...”

“Uhum,” Kyoko said.

“You know, for being Urufu.”

Kyoko’s smiled widened into a grin.

“He’s a little, how should I put it, disjointed,” Yukio tried.

Black hair swirled around her face as she tilted her head backwards and nodded. She had let it grow since winter.

She let her tongue play over her lips and gave him an encouraging smile. He took the opportunity and stole a short kiss.

“You noticed as well?” she said after they separated.

He nodded. “Partly, I think, because I’m growing up.”

“We’re getting older. A year now.”

They were. A year older together. Together. He tasted the word in his mind and decided he liked it very much. He liked most everything with Kyoko.

As he glanced past her face he saw Noriko and Urufu carrying what little luggage they had from the taxi and up the stairs. Yukio booked the rooms, but it was still Urufu’s money. Or at least Yukio pretended he booked the extra room, because both rooms were booked since yesterday.

How Urufu believed that Kyoko suddenly ‘discovered’ a typhoon was about to hit Ise early evening was beyond Yukio. In difference from manga you didn’t get caught by surprise since all typhoons were announced days in advance. Well, unless you were Urufu and blithely ignored watching weather reports in August, which bordered on idiocy if you lived in Japan.

Yukio made certain Urufu and Noriko vanished up the stairs. “Disjointed from reality,” he said and continued his earlier line of thought.

“Sometimes, only sometimes,” Kyoko said. “Sometimes he really does pay attention. Like whenever someone feels hurt or is in need.”

“Sometimes, huh. Unless he’s involved himself. Then he turns blind.”

Kyoko’s smile turned into a smirk. “Kuri-chan is my best friend, but she’s still an idiot.”

“Urufu’s mine, and he’s a moron as well,” Yukio agreed.

“I’m going to root for Noriko. It doesn’t matter that Kuri-chan is my most important friend. I’m sick and tired of watching those two hurt each other.”

Yukio didn’t say anything. Instead he nodded, by now secure Kyoko read him correctly agreeing with her from his expression.

“You think she’ll fall in love with Ryu?” Because that would pretty much solve everything by ending the entire situation.

“I think she already has. At least a little,” Kyoko said. “Ryu’s not the school prince for nothing, and I think he has the kind of personality Kuri-chan needs now.”

Yukio took Kyoko’s hand and nudged her in the direction of the stairs.

Two rooms rather than the one large one Urufu wanted. There weren’t any large rooms free. A lie and a truth. Yesterday there had been, when Yukio booked two rooms. No longer though. Not with the typhoon inbound and train services down for security reasons.

Ise was a hotspot for tourists from all over the world. Tourists, in difference from Urufu, didn’t live in Japan. Quite a few of them had been caught off guard, just like Kuri’s grandfather had told them would happen when the three of them planned the deception.

He was, just as Yukio and Kyoko, dead tired of watching Urufu tearing apart his granddaughter’s heart, with her pouring petrol on the flames to make absolutely certain whatever they once shared burned to cinders.

And yet they both failed. Even an idiot when it came to romance like Yukio could see that. Every glance Urufu shot her, every time Yukio caught her staring after Urufu’s back, every time the two of them exchanged words, or looks, or smiles. Every damn time the love they felt for each other shone through enough to blind everyone around them.

It was painful to watch. It was also obvious enough for anyone to suspect that Kuri and Ryu being an item was a scam. It was, both Yukio and Kyoko had decided, time for their best friends to move on. It didn’t matter if that love couldn’t be entirely quenched. As it was now they were ripping each other apart.

So Noriko got enlisted, and rather unsurprisingly she giddily agreed to play the victim. Anything to haul Urufu in.

“She’s the best part of the two of them,” Kyoko suddenly said halfway up the stairs.

Yukio stared at her back. Mind reader! He didn’t care. If Kyoko read his mind or just guessed. As long as she was right it was fine. “I hope she knows what she’s heading into.”

“She does. That’s what makes Noriko the best of them.”

Them. Urufu and Kuri. It was a shame that Noriko should be the best for the both of them.

“I hope Ryu makes the best of the opportunity,” Yukio said.

Because, just like Urufu had been duped to stay the night with Noriko, Ryu and Kuri were alone back at the resort, and her grandfather made just as certain he behaved like the idiot Urufu was, and got caught in Nagoya with no way to head south to the resort.

In other words transparent enough for anyone with at least a partially working brain to see through.

But then you could always trust Urufu and Kuri to lack even that much when it came to understand these things.