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 she 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 quit, 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 through 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 of me so little and so much more than I can ever give you. “Yes, of course I'll make Ulf stay with you forever,” Kyoko lied. It hurt more than she had expected, and yet she 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.

***

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 flunky teaching math. But he's not really a flunky 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.