Kyoko stared at Ryu’s expression when he heard his sister’s cold answer. So they’re still at it. They obviously were. She herself hadn’t forgiven Ryu. It was only Yukio’s insistence that kept her from helping Noriko with whatever mischief she had on her mind.

Right now mischief wasn’t on her mind however. Yukio’s adoring attempt to tie her ominous fortune slip to a branch higher than he could reach was. It was after all the very branch the taller Tomasu had promised Jeniferu, but since she received a mildly positive one she decided to keep it.

“Man, give me a hand, will you?”

She shot Yukio a smile. Try as he will tip toeing wasn’t enough, but it was the attempt that counted. She looked as Urufu sauntered over to them and helped Yukio tie the offending slip to the branch.

“I’m so uncool,” Yukio said and gave her a sheepish smile.

Kyoko ignored some girls giggling and pointing fingers at Yukio. “Where did it end up?” she asked.

“Did what end up?”

“My slip.”

He looked up at the branch and nodded at where Urufu had tied the piece of paper.

“What did you want to happen?”

Yukio smiled.

Kyoko smiled back at him. “An uncool guy would still be trying instead of making it happen,” she said.

He didn’t reply, but he did take her head in his hands and planted a kiss on her forehead.

He’s the best man I’ve ever met, Kyoko thought. As an afterthought she glared at the girls who had dared making fun of her Yukio. That brought a grin from him.

“You made me cool, Urufu.”

“He made Thomas cool as well,” Jeniferu said out of nowhere. She fidgeted a little. “But he was already cool to begin with.”

Kyoko looked at her. A shimmer of envy reached her eyes, but it was clear Jeniferu meant nothing bad with it. She’s envious of me? Kyoko glanced at Urufu and Noriko who had followed him to the tree. Jeniferu paid them no attention at all. In the midst of a mild confusion Kyoko decided Jeniferu had every reason to be. After all Yukio had done for her Kyoko felt safe in the world of two they had created for themselves. He even found us a small chance for a world of more than two. Yukio’s love bridged worlds. What more could she ask for?

Jeniferu’s reaction said something more as well. She must have seen how Noriko and Urufu yet had to share that platform of absolute trust. They might look like a perfect couple, difference in height be damned, but they still had a bit to go. Most of it, Kyoko thought, was Noriko’s fault. Urufu would never abandon her, but sometimes a flicker in Noriko’s expression showed how she yet had to believe that.

“We done here?” Urufu asked.

“What do you people normally do on Hatsumode?” Jeniferu replied.

Urufu grinned. “Don’t ask me. As someone Japanese.” He turned and gave them nonplussed stares when everyone fell silent and glared at him.

“Man, do you know just how funny that was?”

“What?”

Urufu’s perplexed face drew a smile to Kyoko’s lips, and she walked right up to him and stared into his eyes. “What my boyfriend here was saying is that you look Japanese and spoke Japanese, so why shouldn’t you be able to answer the question?” Or rather, given the absurd studying you’ve done you’re probably able to give us a historic recount of Hatsumode the last five hundred years or so. She didn’t say the last part loud. He wouldn’t understand anyway.

“Hey, looking Japanese and speaking Japanese...”

“Is a damned good start,” Tomasu interrupted him. “Wouldn’t you agree. Now just be kind to the kids and spill it.”

She had spent a year and a half with Urufu and Kuri, and over half a year with Tomasu. It didn’t matter. Listening to her junior telling Urufu to care for the kids still felt wrong. Professor in Japanese, was it?

“You do the spilling instead. With your academic merits and all,” Urufu said and answered her silent question.

Tomasu grinned. “I believe we already came to the conclusion I read about things instead of doing them.”

“He wasn’t here then,” Yukio protested when Urufu’s eyes widened in honest surprise. “So, man, what do we do?”

“We spend a night alone in a crowd and wonder what the hell happened,” Urufu said.

Noriko yanked his arm and gave him a furious glare. “That wasn’t her fault, and you know it!”

Her fault? Oh, last year. Kuri never showed up. “I think we’ve done just about everything we’re supposed to do,” Kyoko said. Now was a good time to take some of the heat away from Urufu.

Around them the crowd shifted a little. Families and the old were all on their way out. In their place groups like their own arrived, some of them high school students, but more and more university students. It really was time to leave.

“Should we wait for everyone to come here first?” Ryu said.

Kyoko nodded. She really wanted to say something nasty about finding him a public toilet instead, but Yukio had asked her to tone it down. “Yes, sounds like a good plan.”

She watched Yukio and Urufu walk away to buy a last something to eat and long before they returned Kuri-chan and Hitomi joined them after having done their prayers. Kyoko waved and got waved back at in return.

“Ko-chan, where’s Yukio?”

Kyoko nodded in the direction the two boys had vanished. “Shopping,” she explained.

Kuri-chan’s head turned as she looked where Kyoko pointed. Her hair billowed out and caught in the wind. A golden halo surrounded the goddess in wintry white and Kyoko grinned. Watch and despair, Ryu.

Beside Kuri-chan Hitomi just shook her head and smirked. She made a small gesture as if to cover her ears when gasps and admiring shouts reached them from those who had seen the spectacle.

Ryu, while not despairing, stared at his girlfriend with a stupefied look on his face. Of the Prince of Himekaizen there was nothing left; just a lovestruck boy.

“Christina, you look stunning.”

Urufu?

“Did you rehearse or was that natural?”

You loved her once. There’s no need to be that mean.

To Kyoko’s surprise Kuri-chan just lit up in a childish and happy grin that detracted quite a lot from her looks but added all the life Kyoko wanted to see in her best friend’s face.

“Of course I rehearsed,” she said, “and you gave me all the time I needed.”

Urufu waved with some sticks of food he had in his hands. “Took me some time to get. What’s more in store for me?”

Kuri-chan’s grin grew wider. “Don’t you wish to know?”

***

Noriko looked at Kuri and hoped it wasn’t a glare. Urufu’s bantering with his former girlfriend still made her feel uneasy. It was something very close to jealousy, but Noriko hoped she hadn’t gone all the way there.

She hooked her arm around Urufu’s, but that just forced him to have his hanging down by his side, and right now she wanted to feel him hugging her. No, that wasn’t it. Right now she wanted him to show how she belonged to him, because that meant he belonged to her. It didn’t make a lot of sense, and Noriko knew it went contrary to everything Urufu believed in, but she didn’t care.

She slipped her hand out of his arm and threw it around his waist. To her huge satisfaction he moved the arm she had just freed up and placed it around her shoulder, allowing her to snuggle closer.

Ryu frowned at her and she stuck her tongue out at him. Childish or not; who cared? He’s mine! Nothing you do will make me leave his side. She glared back at her brother.

She felt how Urufu looked down at her head. “Something’s up?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Cute.” His head came down and suddenly his nose dug into her hair. “And you smell good.”

Try as she did, from time to time, to coerce him into her bed she still wasn’t used to him being so physically close. Noriko quickly found herself with absolutely no need for a muffler to warm her in the waning January day.

“It’s embarrassing,” she mumbled.

“Want me to stop?” his voice said just by her ear, and she felt lips touching it.

If anything she blushed even harder, but when she felt his head rise again she quickly threw her free arm around it and pulled him down. “No, please stay!”

He obliged, and Noriko turned in his one handed embrace and threw both arms around him. Feeling this close was a luxury she experienced far too seldom. When she finally let go of him the rest of the gang had vanished to leave them both a modicum of privacy. Even her idiot brother had made them company.

“Where did they go?” she wondered.

“Parking lot, I guess,” Urufu said. He took her hand and pulled hesitantly. “Join them?”

She might not want to, but Noriko understood their friends would wait for them. To gather once again after they left the shrine maybe didn’t make much sense, but it was a thing friends did. She allowed herself to be pulled through the crowd, passing between stalls and people until they finally made it to the steep stairs.

Walking down them she let go of Urufu’s hand and used the railing. They met people going up, and behind her she heard others going down just like she was. This year’s hatsumode was about to end for her. In difference from last year it promised to be a good memory and a promise of a better year ahead of them.

Of course it’ll be a better year. Last had been hell. Well, with one exception, and he walked by her side.

Below the stairs the street split in two. Whoever once decided the location for the shrine wanted it at a crossroads of sorts. One of the streets hugging the hill the shrine was located on emptied into a parking lot, and Noriko assumed that was where they were headed. She took the lead, but only a few steps further ahead on the pavement Urufu caught up with her just as she passed beneath a low branch jutting out from the hillside.

“I enjoyed hatsumode this year,” he said and mirrored her thoughts.

Noriko decided to keep her silence. She might have taken him from Kuri, but the tall girl still remained a dear friend of hers, and Kuri was very, very important to Urufu. In ways, Noriko knew, Kuri had made it possible for her to become a couple with Urufu. Kuri’s sacrifice. Noriko didn’t intend to forget that.

When they arrived at the parking lot Ryu was already gone, and so was Kuri. When she looked again Noriko noticed that Tomasu and Yukio were gone a well.

“What’s going on?” Noriko asked and looked around her.

“Toilet,” Kyoko said.

Noriko shook her head. “Look, you’re taking the joke too far.”

Jeniferu shook her head and giggled together with Kyoko and Hitomi. “Different joke,” Jeniferu said.

Different joke? Noriko frantically searched her surrounding for whatever the morons had come up with this time. At the far end of the parking lot she found the public toilets in question. By it Kuri’s bodyguards stood stone faced and very pointedly didn’t look at Tomasu who was working on something together with Yukio.

“Guys, they aren’t really...” Noriko began when she slowly understood what was going on. “Kuri’s going to have a fit.”

“Inside.” Hitomi said.

“Inside?”

“She knows what’s going to happen. She’s inside with Ryu.”

That explained why the body guards didn’t do anything. Noriko threw Hitomi a glare anyway. Then she stared at Kyoko. “You should know better!”

Kyoko just returned a huge grin. “Fun, isn’t it?”

Noriko shook her head. “Really! Grow up!”

“Noriko,” Yukio shouted as he and Tomasu returned, “keys.” With that he lobbed two padlock keys to her.

What the hell! With a grin on her face Noriko stared at the small building. Then she weighed the keys in her hand.

***

At least her mom laughed hysterically when Noriko explained why Ryu hadn’t followed her home, but the same couldn’t be said of her father.

“Threw them away? That’s very bad of you,” her mother had said before she collapsed in laughing fit. That was when Noriko came home a few minutes earlier.

Her mother was still giggling when Noriko’s father came down the stairs with car keys in his hand.

He growled as he went to the garage for his toolbox. On his way there he turned once and glared at them. “Not funny you two. Not funny at all!”