“Aren't you going dating on Christmas?”

“As in going out? Why?”

Yukio stared at him. “Lover's day, you know?”

“Huh?”

“Christmas eve. One of the number one dating days in the year.”

“It is?”

He received yet another stare.

“Well, unless you've been living under a rock you'd have known that.”

“Now when you mention it. No, I haven't been living under a rock. Christmas is family in Sweden. You don't go out.” Ulf thought about it for a moment. “OK, I don't know about youngsters these days, but for me Christmas is a day you spend at home with those most important to you. You can ask Christina. I think she'll say the same thing.”

Ulf thought about it. Japan wasn't a nation with a Christian background. Christmas and Easter came with traditions back home. If they were celebrated here at all they had to be purely commercial events. Kind of like Halloween in Sweden. Besides he'd spent last Christmas cooped up in that juvenile delinquent institution they sent him to after he got expelled from Red Rose Hell.

And no, he didn't intend to spend Christmas out. Christina had already agreed to spend it with him and Amaya. First she said something about staying home, but Christmas alone was just too sad a thought for him to accept. So he nagged until she caved in.

Yukio looked back at him from across the table. Soon they'd leave their soon to be former club room and walk down the stairs and to the gym for the year's end ceremony, and after that two weeks of winter break.

Former? By now most of what they needed had been moved to Stockholm Haven café, and the room looked pretty much like any other classroom in the school. Apart from the table and the sofa that didn't make the move; three wall mounted whiteboards looked horribly out of place as well. Ulf guessed someone would clean those out during the break.

“What about you?” he asked in return.

“Kyoko,” Yukio said as if that explained everything.

Ulf rose from his seat and beckoned to his friend to do the same. “I guess this is it,” he said and left for the door.

“We made a lot of memories in here,” Yukio said.

The sound of the door sliding shut behind them signalled the end of something. And a new beginning? Well, they certainly had experienced a lot in the room they left. “Yeah,” Ulf said at a lack of words. “The best hangout for second term.”

“Man, what's with that depressing voice?”

Depressed. I guess it shows, but it's not about the club. Ulf forced a smile to his lips. Not going to burden you with my problems. Have a great holiday!

“Nothing. Just gonna miss the old place,” Ulf said and hoped he sounded sincere enough for Yukio to buy the lie.

They walked down the stairs to the entrance floor and were joined by second and third years heading for the gym. A stiff thousand students inside the gym was cramming it, but it was doable. Ulf wondered how they planned to solve that problem come April, but they must have done so many years ago when all thirty six classrooms were in use.

Three more months until I've done my second stunt as a first year high school student. He shrugged and slapped Yukio's back to remove those kinds of thoughts. Real first years didn't think about April just prior to winter break. Real first years only thought of the break ahead of them.

“Man!”

“Hurry up kiddo. We're running late.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever, baldy,” Yukio said, but his grin belied the insult.

Soon they were hugging the school building, and freezing, now when the unseasonal rain finally had abated, and the temperature dropped to more proper and miserable levels.

More or less any other day he'd change in the boys' locker room and walk out the other side of it before going to the gym, which cut the distance to almost nothing. Now the entire school was heading there, and both locker rooms were off limits.

Ulf wrapped his arms around himself when a sudden gust of wind told him they'd rounded the left wing and were heading towards the football field.

“Man,” Yukio began, “did you ever find out why the Red Rose bastards jumped you?”

“No,” Ulf answered. Because there probably wasn't an easy answer. By now he was certain it really had nothing to do with Red Rose, or at least nothing to do with the corporate part of Red Rose. “Friends of friends I guess,” he continued.

Both boys walked almost sideways to avoid the worst of the wind, but it did little to prevent Ulf from freezing his arse off.

“Friends of friends?”

“Yeah, even bastards have friends you know.”

“I don't get you, man,” Yukio said. The words came out a bit whiny, but Ulf chose to attribute that to the bone-chilling wind rather than any dissatisfaction with his explanation.

“We put the guys who attacked Noriko through hell, remember?”

Yukio nodded.

You'd better. You helped carry two of them away. And as far as those people are concerned I'm responsible for that suicide. “I believe it was as simple as revenge. They just wanted to beat the crap out of me.”

Anything else didn't make any sense. Ganging up on an arrival was inviting disaster. Ulf couldn't see anyone creating a covert organisation for handling the likes of him and Christina, and then just accept when their investment was sent to hospital.

But there sure are people who hate us now. I'm afraid we haven't seen all the crap hitting the fan yet. Which was the bad thing. He could handle crap, and if he was honest with himself, so could Christina. It was just that he wanted to protect her. Her needing protection or not just didn't come into the picture. I guess that makes me a chauvinist pig. Then so be it. I love her, I want to see her happy. If that's old fashioned then I'll refuse to become modern.

***

Yukio recalled how Urufu had fallen silent from just before they joined the year's end ceremony. He'd stayed silent throughout all of it, and when they waved goodbye afterwards Urufu only grunted something that you needed to be a good friend to understand that it was actually a greeting and not an insult.

It put a damper on his planned date with Kyoko. Both his dates with her. After their part time hours at the Stockholm Haven café they'd slowly make their way home and stop at the old mall. A mini date of sorts. The real one was Christmas Eve, and he'd already bought her gift.

I know you said not to, but I did anyway. A knitted scarf, and it had been just as expensive as Kyoko had feared, but Yukio didn't care. She said she had plenty of them, but he'd only seen her wearing the atrocity that didn't even serve as a worn out rug.

He dropped off yet another order at a table and returned for more. By now the cheerful booing and wolf whistles had subsided, and both he and Kyoko were busy moving a never ending stream of orders from counter to tables.

Today their club celebrated the end of their second term, and combined that event with a singles party for club members and their friends. With a bit of luck a few of them wouldn't have to join similar parties on Christmas Eve or Christmas day.

As the only couple present, both he and Kyoko had about heard it all by now, usually accompanied by boos and whistles, but he decided it was well worth it. Mainly because Kyoko shone like a sun and threw him a joyful glance whenever someone laughingly showed their displeasure with boyfriend and girlfriend working together at a singles party.

“Last order?” Kyoko shouted from a nearby table when Yukio picked up yet another tray from the counter.

“Last order,” James confirmed from the opening to the kitchen.

Yukio looked up and met the eyes of his employer. Ashiga James, and after a long time of demands from his side, finally just 'James' even to Yukio and Kyoko. Getting used to call a ten year older person by his first name had taken a toll on them both.

James was also the third arrival Yukio knew of, even though he suspected there were more of them, and that both Urufu and Kuri knew more than they had told him.

“Kyoko, corners first and then change. I'll clean out the tables before I change.”

She nodded back at him and went for one of the trays James placed on the counter.

With his hands full Yukio went for the table closest to the entrance, placed the items ordered on the table and filled his tray with used mugs and plates.

After another two runs he was done, and from there on he concentrated on removing used kitchenware from the café proper. Inside the kitchen James for once had a part timer doing the dishes, and the poor sod would have to prove his mettle for another two evenings.

“Kyoko, ready?” Yukio said as he grabbed his coat after receiving James' go ahead to finish for the day.

She smiled back and shouldered her bag, and together they left the café to the jeering of their club members inside.

“Home or detour?” Kyoko wondered when they had walked a block.

She had changed since he got to know her. These days Kyoko wasn't afraid to come with a suggestion. At least Yukio believed she had changed, but if he was honest with himself he didn't know if this was a side of her she just hadn't shown him earlier.

“Home,” he answered. Don't want to push my luck. We have a date scheduled for tomorrow. Which meant they had a date Kyoko's parents had accepted. Yukio didn't know for certain what would happen to it should Kyoko come home too late.

“Sure, walk me home?”

“Uhum.”

Yukio hadn't planned anything else. He'd collect the bike he used by the mall, Urufu-style, and walk it all the way to her home. Then he'd ride it home just as they had agreed to with Principal Nakagawa.

“Mail me tomorrow?” Kyoko said as they passed the school and began the route he and Urufu usually took the few days they still returned via the mall.

And they've become fewer. Either he's with Kuri, even if that happens depressingly seldom, or I'm with Kyoko.

“Yeah, I will,” Yukio said, but his thoughts weren't into the answer. Thinking of Urufu Yukio suddenly wondered how his friend had planned to make his date with Kuri come true. A dark car with tinted windows drove her to and from school almost every day.

“Worried about Kuri-chan and Urufu?” Kyoko wondered by his side.

You know how that just makes me love you even more? That mind-reading ability of yours?

“Uhum.”

“Kuri-chan told me she'll be picked up by Urufu and Sato-sensei tomorrow.”

Someone who can pass as his mother. Yeah, should help some. Somehow Kyoko's words lifted one small burden from him, and he grabbed her left hand and squeezed.

“Thank you. Thank you for thinking of both our friends.”

“'He's your important friend', was what you were thinking? Well, stop it! Urufu's my friend as well.”

Yukio bowed his head and took a few steps. Scolded by his girlfriend. Yeah, Kyoko definitely had changed since they first met.

“Uhum, same with Kuri,” he said, but that wasn't entirely true. He respected her, but there was something cold to the tall, Swedish beauty that made him keep his distance. Kuri wasn't really someone he'd have made friends with in the first place, hadn't it been for Urufu, and in difference from Urufu her lifelong experience shone through most of the time. She didn't even pretend to be a teenage kid.

“I'm glad you think of her as a friend,” Kyoko's voice said from his right.

The words made him feel a little ashamed, but he still couldn't help how he felt about Urufu's girlfriend.