Yukio looked up when he saw his friend enter the café. Their café in their mall. Somewhere on the street a floor below them Urufu-kun's bike was safely locked to a stand, and they had a couple of hours available. Club hours for most of Himekaizen's student body, and he was meeting Urufu-kun to plan how that would become reality for them as well.

“Over here,” Yukio mouthed and waved his friend over, palm down.

Urufu-kun nodded in affirmation, took his usual wide half circle in the direction of the counter before he shook his head and walked to Yukio's table.

“Sorry. Never learn.”

Yukio grinned. “Half a year and you still try to order at the counter.”

At that moment a waitress arrived to further accentuate how wrong Urufu-kun had been. As she, or one of her colleagues, had done last time they were here, and the time before that, and… By now Urufu-kun's navigational mishap was part of the weekly routine, and the girls just waited for him to see his errors before they went to their table.

Urufu-kun smiled sheepishly in response. As he had done last time, etc., etc. Yukio wasn't certain that their weekly game really was a matter of bad memory from Urufu-kun's part, or if it was a joke that he allowed to be played out on him.

It was time for the standard excuse.

“They don't wait tables at cafés back home.”

And there it was delivered. It was as if Urufu-kun just had to point out minor differences between Sweden and Japan. That habit of his had been first interesting, then irritating but by now Yukio felt a strange gratitude. He was being made aware of how what looked like obvious truths weren't truths for everyone. How others played things differently. Not better, or worse. Just differently. Palm down, dammit! he thought, and laughed.

Urufu-kun stared at him from the other side of the table and shrugged his shoulders in incomprehension.

The waitress returned with Urufu-kun's order. One coffee, one awful piece of strawberry cake and one bottle of French mineral water. The same order as last week, and, and…

“Can you funnel some funds?” Urufu-kun asked after the waitress had left their table.

Yukio nodded and accepted the two 500 yen coins he was offered. It would take less than an hour to spread the money across the accounts he had set up, so 1000 yen was a rather stiff fee. Still, Urufu-kun insisted that a job well done should be rewarded in kind. 'Keep friendship and business apart,' he used to say. Yukio wasn't entirely clear what was meant by that, but he had accepted that when they made the money transactions they were partners and not friends. It was important to Urufu-kun, and thus it was important to Yukio.

“How much?” Yukio asked when the coins were followed by a 5000 yen bill. That was a first.

“I need a bit over a million yen moved.”

Yukio coughed up the tea he had just started sipping. “You what?” He stared at his friend. Where had he come up with that kind of money?

“And I'll need plastic. In your name I'm afraid.”

Yukio looked around them to make sure none of the waitresses could hear what they were talking about. He tried to remember what Urufu-kun had taught him the last half a year. “I want security.”

Urufu-kun smiled. “Good laddie. How about a hundred thousand deposit and a monthly five thousand rental fee?”

“OK? Yes. Is that good?” Yukio added as an afterthought.

The smile turned into a grin. “You're really not supposed to ask that question to the other end of the transaction, but yes, it's good. In fact 60 thousand yen a year is highway robbery, but I'll expect your maintaining the accounts as part of the service, so it evens out.”

Five hours a month then. Yukio could do this as a part time job just as well as something else, and he felt a whole lot more confident that Urufu-kun would pay up than some of the employers he had been in contact with earlier.

“Eh, just shady, or outright...”

“Neither,” Urufu-kun said. “Apart from the plastic at least. The money is mine. I just dislike having that kind of money in cash.”

Yukio nodded. Somewhere in his mind he knew that it was a lot of money, but not more than his parents were paid over a couple of months. It was however a disturbingly large amount for a fifteen year old kid. Then again Urufu-kun wasn't really fifteen, was he?

“How?” Yukio wondered. Urufu-kun still looked fifteen, so where had he gotten that kind of money?

“Part time job.”

“You made a million yen from your part time job?”

“No, I made five million yen from my part time job.”

That was… unexpected.

Yukio found himself gaping in astonishment. “What kind of job makes you that kind of money?”

“Corporate management consulting kind of job makes that kind of money. If you look fifteen, and are alone. Really should have been ten times as much, but then you need a high profile company backing you.”

Even though Yukio understood the words he heard he still didn't understand what Urufu-kun was saying. “Grown up thing?”

“Grown up thing,” Urufu-kun affirmed. “But you're too old to fail understanding all of it.”

“Eh?” Yukio fished up the papers on their planned club while he waited for Urufu-kun to explain.

“You pay more for brand name products.”

“Yes?” Yukio admitted. “Because they're better.” He placed the papers on their table.

“No,” Urufu-kun shook his head. “Because they're branded. You just believe they're better. Sometimes they are, but that's not part of the question.”

What his friend said did make sense in a way. Now Yukio was supposed to prove he had a brain of his own. “And this consulting of yours can have a brand name?” he tried.

“Good. Correct.” Urufu-kun smiled. “There's a whole lot more to it as well, but you've understood the important basics. The perceived truth is the only truth. Now, let's have a look at our baby.”

Yukio pulled out the suggested charter, the official one, and then he placed the real one beside it. “This one takes into account that teaching staff and parent organisation will be an active part of the Swedish club and,” he moved his hand to the official charter, “this one keeps up the illusion that the club is independently run by the club members with only a minor influence from student council and teaching staff.”

“Good. School doesn't need to know that there's no way in hell the student council would be given the kind of power where they can pull the plug on a club in Sweden.”

“And that students aren't entrusted to run their own club,” Yukio retorted.

“Not really true, but if they're going to hoist the name of their school on a flag, yes you're correct,” Urufu-kun admitted. “World champions in non-profit clubs. That's Sweden for you, but the vast bulk of those clubs are independent, or members of some kind of national umbrella.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing important. Just saying if there are twenty clubs for watching butterflies in summer chances are there's a national central organisation for butterfly viewing. We're kind of funny that way.”

Yukio shook off the strange impression of a people who felt the need to organise everything up to a national level. “And this is the charter for our own club. We only need one.”

Urufu-kun finished the last of his coffee. He had long since downed both mineral water and cake, and looked up to order his usual extra cup of coffee. The waitress was already at their table. She had seen Urufu-kun empty his cup. The usual way, as he had done last time, etc., etc.

“Agreed. That account, by the way,” he added and pointed at one item on the list of accounts he had asked Yukio to set up, “will be used for the club.”

Yukio took the chance to get himself an extra soda while he looked at the numbers. He had more cash on himself than usual anyway, and with the planning ahead of them they were likely to remain here for longer than normal. Unless Urufu-kun wanted to cut down on the time they spent studying, something he had never done before.

It was, Yukio thought, kind of funny that they had found their routine studying here once a week every Friday while they still went to different schools. Those occasions had also served as a lesson in contrasts to Yukio. Urufu-kun wasn't all that good at learning the important parts for exams, and his poor Japanese didn't help either. He was however a master when it came to place things in context. Another of them grown up things, Yukio guessed. Anyway, Urufu-kun always wasted a lot of time trying to understand stuff rather than just learning them the right way. And it showed in their grades.

“Don't you think they'll ask questions if the club has this much money?”

“We could get funded by the council,” Urufu-kun suggested.

“If we're accepted it's because we'll be dirt cheap to maintain. We'll get next to no funding.”

Urufu-kun nodded. “Then we'll just use my seed money carefully then.”

“A quarter of a million yen. Seed money. You're crazy, you know that?” Yukio shook his head.

“Talking about stuff that belongs in the beginning. I have to decide if we contact Ryu or Christina first. You still plan on contacting Kyoko?”

Oh, he's in work mode. All business and no polish. “I'll talk with Takeida-san,” just saying those words made his heart jump a little, “and set up that meeting of yours with Ageruman-san.” Yukio glanced at his friend. “Why Wakayama-san all of a sudden?”

Urufu-kun sighed. “Because since Ryu, sorry, that Wakayama kid, took an interest in Christina...”

He still refuses to call her by anything but her first name.

“… I don't think I can get her aboard without Wakayama in her wake.”

That made sense. Urufu-kun was just as sensitive to changing moods among the students as he was himself. Well, whenever he wasn't a blind moron oblivious to anything that happened around him. That fortunately didn't happen all that often any more. “But we start with Ageruman-san?”

“Yes, yes. I have to decide if Wakayama is a disturbance that needs handling or not.”

Yukio stared at his friend. “Man that sounded, eh, a little cold.”

“Sorry if that didn't come out right.” Urufu-kun looked up from the charters and met Yukio's eyes. “Work mode here. Not seeing him as a good guy or a bad one. He's just another stakeholder, and I don't know if he's a primary or a secondary.” He looked down at the charters again.

“And please translate that to Japanese for the rest of us,” Yukio growled. Urufu-kun's last sentence hadn't made sense at all despite being delivered in easy enough Japanese.

Urufu-kun looked up, and Yukio could see in his eyes how he dropped out of work mode. “Let's see the club as a product in development.” Urufu-kun had opened his smart phone to help him convey whatever corporate theory he was about to lecture Yukio about.

He took another sip of coffee, and Yukio drank some of his second soda. “Whenever the development of something gets complex you'll make a project of it. Anyone who's potentially affected by, along with those who could potentially affect, the project are called stakeholders.”

It was one of those times when the older man behind the boyish face shone through. Yukio nodded to show Urufu-kun that he followed his explanation this far.

“Depending on how important to the project those stakeholders are, or how much they're likely to be impacted by the project, you classify them into primary, secondary, etc.”

Urufu-kun flashed the display of his smart phone for Yukio to see. The translation made sense, even if a lot of the Japanese words were unclear even for him as a native.

“So, the student council and our sponsor would be primary?” Yukio tried.

Urufu-kun grimaced. “Members would be primaries, along with the sponsor, I guess. Council? Let's make them secondaries, even if they can pull the plug on the entire project.”

“Because they're not directly involved?”

“There's hope for you yet!” Urufu-kun said and smiled.

Yukio smiled back. He didn't fully understand why the club was so important for Urufu-kun, but it was enough that it was that important. He would help make that dream come true, and besides it gave him a reason to contact Takeida-san.

“Training tomorrow?” Yukio asked, referring to their weekly bouts. It was another of their weekly routines, and asking about it gave him an excuse to change the subject. Corporate theory wasn't all that fun.

“Uhum, yes. Gym during break.”

“I'll pick you up here then. What about Sunday?” Yukio said happy that his friend agreed to the sudden change of topic.

“Sunday? Dojo. Four hours plus biking.”

“Is that enough?”

“No,” Urufu-kun answered, “not really. Proper training once a week keeps my skills up to date, but I won't develop.”

“I thought you would sound more disappointed.”

Urufu-kun smiled. “I never had time to train two styles anyway. It's enough to keep myself both soft and hard. After all I grew too old for competition so I kind of lost interest in that kind of training.”

It's so easy to forget he's really fifty years old. “I never asked. How much time does it take?”

“Oh.” Urufu-kun's eyes showed that he was lost in memories. “Twenty hours a week, but it wasn't all karate. Anyway, I didn't pick up aikido until after I dropped competitive karate, and I wasn't all that good to begin with. Nidan when the really good ones with my training years were sandan.”

Yukio shook his head. “Didn't you say you won a lot?”

“Yeah, but that's only because I was tall for my weight and quick. When I'm fully grown I'll be 181 or 182 with the weight of a midget.”

Yukio laughed. “Midget? Care to define that?”

Urufu-kun grimaced. “Sorry about that. But the average Japanese is kind of short in Sweden. I'm just about average back home.”

An entire population of walking towers. No wonder they needed all that space.

“Why did you stop competing?”

“Hello, fifty years old over here. I'd get smashed. Besides my work took too much time. I took up aikido because there were no competitions.”

“So you dropped karate.”

“More or less. A friend was a trainer in a dojo, so we met a couple of times a month. Nothing serious.”

It was time to finish their planning. “So, what about field trips?” Yukio asked and changed the topic once again.

As darkness fell they sketched out activities for the club, a rough communication plan for how to keep in touch with their Swedish counterpart along with some ideas for how Urufu-kun should coach Ageruman-san to make the initial contact to begin with.

It all looked very grown up, and Yukio wondered if Urufu-kun wasn't having all too much fun overdoing the set-up of a simple school club.

Urufu-kun absent-mindedly plugged bill after bill into the cup where the stack with receipts grew as they ordered more and more beverages. While in work mode he handled money like it was really just pieces of paper, and Yukio was once again reminded that Urufu-kun came from a very different world.

It was quite a while later, when he was studying mathematics and Urufu-kun had opened up his books on grade and middle school Japanese that he looked out the window. Below them he saw Takeida-san walking back home from her cram school. Tired from using too many formulas he rested his eyes and mind on her back until she vanished out of sight.

Cute. Even from a distance, in the lamplights, she's beautiful. He looked at Urufu-kun from the corner of his eyes. No, he hadn't noticed how Yukio's mind had wandered elsewhere. Weekend now. Monday I get to see her again.

***

Second fiddle. Cram school was the only place where she was just Takeida Kyoko. Otherwise she was an accessory. Friend, or even best friend. That was how she was normally seen.

In the beginning she had been happy to be associated with Kuri-chan. Part of the exotic glory spilled over to her. Two outsiders befriending each other. Later she resented it a little. To play second fiddle and be part of someone else’s life rather than making her own.

But in the end Kuri-chan was just too good a friend. As they got to know each other better Kyoko's strengths came to light even if no one else saw them, and Kuri-chan displayed quite an impressive array of faults of her own. Even if no one else saw those.

In the eyes of the masses Kuri-chan was a goddess. Flawless.

Yesterday Kyoko had been on her own, walking home from cram school in a slight drizzle when the sight of a ridiculously expensive bike locked all alone to a stand caught her attention. It wasn't the first time she saw it. Usually it stood out among its company when she was on her way to cram school, but that evening it was still there all alone in the rain.

She never stopped or anything, but she did look up and through the windows to the café located on the second floor of the old fashioned mall. And she saw blazers from their school. For a moment she entertained the idea of entering the café just to find out whom they belonged to, but that bordered on stalking, and in the end she just passed below those windows.

Today when she brought a bag with supplies to the soccer club she once again saw a pair of blazers separated from their owners.

It's funny how your mind sometimes plays pranks with you, and on this occasion hers did, and on this occasion it happened to be true. Kyoko decided that those two blazers were the ones she had seen yesterday, and for that reason alone she had to find out.

The kendo club was on lunch break, but the sound of voices in training still reached her from inside the gymnasium. So she sneaked away to the opening to see if the two piles of clothes outside it had anything to do with what was happening inside.

Two boys, freshmen if the clothes outside the gym told the truth, were training. If that could be called training. A small loudspeaker with what looked like a smart phone on top of it spewed out foreign music, and they were… dancing?

“No, no, no!” the taller of them laughed.

Kyoko sat down beside the door not knowing if it was OK to eavesdrop on the boys or not.

“If I do it like this?” the other answered and flailed around like a helicopter on its terminal way down to its doom.

What on earth are they doing?

The tall one sat down on the floor and hugged his stomach. He was literally roaring with laughter.

“Sure,” he shouted, “you'll get the girl.” Then he slammed a fist to the floor and laughed again. Tears of mirth ran from his eyes. “You'll get her because you just downed her partner. Victory by attrition!”

There was, Kyoko thought, something odd with his accent. As if he had learned Japanese rather than grown up with the language. But apart from his oddly coloured hair he looked Japanese. She knew she ought to walk away from here, but something drew her to the two boys and their antics.

His accomplice in what passed for dancing sat down on the floor as well and poked his friend in the chest. “No good?”

“Plenty good. You'll have no rivals if you knock them all out.” The taller of the two grinned back, a wolfish, mischievous grin.

Wow! That smile. I want one from you as well! She had seen him somewhere. She was certain of it, but which class?

“Yu-kun, we have ten minutes. Best get out of here before they return.” The tall one rose to his feet, and before he faced the opening on his way out Kyoko hid behind the doors and walked to the soccer field.

Who are you? And that smile, please make it mine!

When she arrived at the field the Watabe twins were already playing, and even Ryu-kun had been given a place in their team. The soccer club wanted the Watabes, and the rest of them were merely accepted as tag-alongs. Well, Kuri-chan excepted of course. They'd want her as a mascot. Anyone would want her as a mascot.

“Ko-chan, here!” Speaking of which, a pair of arms semaphoring in the very opposite way of what was proper, ladylike behaviour told her where she was supposed to go. As if anyone could have missed the blond flagpole rising above the other girls.

“Hi,” Kyoko said when she was close enough not to have to shout her greeting. “How's training?”

Kuri-chan swept over the field with her hands. “Fine, fine. The Watabes are fantastic, and Ryu-kun should have a place on the team as well.”

“He doesn't?”

Kyoko looked at where Ryu-kun had taken advantage of how the opponents paid too much attention to the older Watabe. The younger brother grinned wildly and lobbed a pass over the heads of badly positioned defenders.

Nicely done! Even I can see how you got them fooled.

A Ryu-kun alone with the goalkeeper was too much even for defenders concentrating on Watabe the older, and they turned and ran for him. Seemingly scared of the attention Ryu-kun kicked the ball into nowhere.

Oh, my bad, maybe not nowhere after all, Kyoko thought when she saw where the ball was going.

The older Watabe had already made a run for it. At top speed he met the rolling ball, picked it up with his left foot, rounded the goalkeeper and lazily rolled the ball into the net.

“And that is called paying attention to the game,” Kuri-chan said.

“If he's that good, why isn't he invited to the team?”

“Has to join the club first, but even then. Seniors don't like him too much.”

“Eh, why not?”

“Seniors' girlfriends like him too much.”

That was Kuri-chan for you. She was right of course, but you really, really didn't say those things aloud. Around them girls turned their heads and blushed. If you could at least keep your voice down! Half of them are the girlfriends you just spoke about.

“Hey, kendo club finished already?”

Kyoko turned to see what Kuri-chan was looking at. Oh! “No, those two just happen to come from the gym.”

The two friends Kyoko watched earlier had apparently washed off their sweat outdoors, because their hair were dripping water. The taller of them walked with a strange hunchbacked posture, far from how he had looked in the gym hall. Beside him his shorter companion looked outright striking.

Strange, I could have sworn the big guy was the most handsome.

“Cute shorty. Your type, Kyoko?”

“Eh, not really. I preferred the tall one. Earlier at least.”

Kuri-chan gave her a strange look. “Preferred? Earlier?”

“He looked good in the gym,” Kyoko tried weakly. That didn't come out right.

“You got strange taste in men. Isn't he the geek from 6:1?”

Kyoko stared at Kuri-chan. “You know him?”

“I try to keep track of anyone who stands out. Part of the job being me.”

Part of the job… In the world of Ageruman Kuritina that probably made sense. Kyoko was suddenly reminded of how her Kuri-chan only existed for a few of them. To most she was an object of admiration, desire and resentment. It was all too easy to forget that, and Kuri-chan probably couldn't afford doing so.

“6:1, you say. Come Monday they'll take the field during lunch break. They have PE before us,” Kyoko noted in what she hoped sounded like an offhanded way.

“I know. You should take a better look at the shorty. He's more your type.”

And you're not supposed to say that. Like I can't decide on my own, or like someone is out of my reach. If I didn't know you so well I'd be hurt. But Kuri-chan almost never meant anything bad. She just spoke what she thought, and sometimes she didn't even bother with the thinking.

Behind them the training match had ended, and the players were already on their way to the girls. Of them Kuri-chan and Kyoko were probably the only ones who looked in the other direction at the two companions locked in friendly banter and outrageous laughter. As for the rest of the girls, well Ryu-kun had already started sharing his experience from the game with them.

Maybe not all of them. From the corner of her eye Kyoko saw Noriko-chan staring after the vanishing companions.

How long have you been looking at them? Blushing? I thought you weren't interested in guys. And it had to be those two. Kyoko turned her head and looked more closely at Noriko-chan. You're way too short for me to stand in your shadow. Kuri-chan can have your brother for all I care, but I get to make the first pick between those two.