Birthday, first his, and now, a week later, hers.

Kyoko wondered what Yukio had planned for them. Unlike his birthday this was a school day, so they only had a few hours, with exams coming up and all. Of their freshman year only remnants remained.

She looked across the classroom to the desk, second row from the door and one seat from the front, where Kuri-chan sat since their last seating change. While her best friend had regained some of her composure, Kyoko saw how all life had gone out of her.

It hurt. It hurt watching her best friend hurt.

“Kyoko, hello, Earth calling.”

She flinched and looked up at the face speaking to her. “Oh, Noriko, sorry. Yes?”

Behind Noriko Ryu stood smiling at them both. “I'll leave it to sis.”

“When was the last time you didn't?” Noriko retorted.

You two. You are always so bright. Kyoko looked at Kuri-chan's backside. And so were you. Please Kuri-chan, come back to us!

“Happy birthday!” Noriko said and reached out with both hands. A small paper bag with nothing inside.

“OK, thank you,” Noriko said and accepted the gift. She quickly looked inside. It wasn't empty after all. An envelope lay inside, together with a chewing gum.

“For school break,” Ryu explained. “We asked your parents, and they agreed, both of your parents.”

Now what on Earth did you two come up with? “Should I open?”

“Actually, no. Open it together with Yukio when you're alone,” Noriko said and smiled mischievously.

OK, now I'm really curious. Kyoko said nothing but returned Noriko's smile with a nod.

Self-study home-room ended, and Kyoko grabbed her bag. On her way out she paused by Kuri-chan to see if she wanted company, but she just shook her head with those lifeless eyes of hers.

I want to help, but you're not allowing me. “OK, see you tomorrow,” Kyoko said and left. More like I'll get to watch you sit by your desk avoiding everyone for another day.

Her best friend, but now more a modelling machine than anything else. Kuri-chan worked and studied and did very little else.

On her way down the stairs Kyoko's phone spat out the default signal.

Unknown caller?

She stopped briefly between two floors, and looking out the windows she picked up her phone and took the call.

“Takeida Kyoko.”

“We'll get you good this time.” A male voice.

And the call was closed.

Kyoko stared at her phone. What she felt wasn't what she had expected. Fuck you! Kyoko, language! Fuck language!

She returned up half a floor and took the long corridor to the left wing.

Sick of this. I'm so sick of this shit! To her surprise that thought made her grin, and by the time she entered the left wing stairwell she was laughing. It had a slightly hysterical ring to it, but she still didn't feel the paralysing fear that would have come naturally to her just half a year earlier.

Kyoko climbed the stairs and beelined directly for 6:1. If they wanted to give her the evil eye she'd just glare back at them. She entered and didn't even bother with walking to his desk.

“Urufu, I just got a phone-call from someone who didn't think my one knife-wound was enough.”

Any glares sent her way when she entered vanished immediately.

“You and Yukio, come with me. I'll have your company to the haven.”

Both boys stared at her in incomprehension, but before they had the chance to respond, half a dozen other boys rose from their seats. One of them bowed.

“Takeida-san, you'll have ours as well.”

Kyoko was too angry to be surprised. “You know we're talking the kind of people who start waving guns?”

That made three girls rise and join the boys as well. A fourth tried to pull one of them back into her seat, but she shook herself lose and gave her friend an angry scowl. “She's a girl. It's wrong using weapons on girls.”

But it's fine gunning down boys? Are you for real?

Dysfunctional brain or not, Kyoko felt a wave of gratitude stream though her.

“Kyoko, this is no laughing matter. Called the police?” Urufu said. Always the sensible of them when he wasn't busy playing the insensitive moron.

Kyoko shook her head. “Caller unknown.”

“Caller unknown, my arse. That's just caller id not being sent to your unit. Phone company has it, or they couldn't deliver the call in the first place.”

Urufu, really! Speak Japanese! “Non geek here. You were saying?” She smiled at Yukio, who stared at her with open admiration in his eyes and slapped Urufu's back with one hand.

“Man, hear her? That's my girl.”

“Yukio, you join her to the café. Guys, I'll take you up on that promise. Please stay with her until I arrive.” Then Urufu looked at her, and there was something in his eyes that did make her afraid. “I'll handle this,” he said. It came out more a growl than anything else.

Shit! But I wanted him angry. Careful what you wish for, Kyoko, it might come true.

The first to join her was Yukio, and he quickly slipped his hand into hers. Then he leaned closer. “Happy birthday,” he whispered in her ear. “No matter what happened, happy birthday.”

They filed out of the classroom, and Kyoko could see how some of the students already had phones glued to the sides of their faces. When they reached the shoe lockers there were over a dozen of them.

Easy way to play heroes, I guess, Kyoko thought. This time what surprised her was how callous she had become. You're the best, she added in her mind to make up for her earlier cold assessment.

“Isn't she friends with that model?” one of the girls asked.

“Matsumoto-san's girlfriend,” another voice answered in a defensive tone, and for the first time since Kuri-chan broke up with Urufu, Kyoko felt she had regained a little of her reputation in 6:1. It warmed some.

Urufu, don't do anything stupid!

***

“They're leaking braincells, if they had any to begin with.”

“I'll take it from here. An open threat, at least, we're allowed to act on,” Amaya said from the other end of the line.

Ulf pulled the cord to his hands free to make sure the mic didn't fall outside his coat. “Yes. Thank you Amaya.” He didn't ask how far she had gone in her own manhunt. That topic was taboo.

Damn, had forgotten how early spring comes here. This was definitely something that was better in Japan than Sweden.

“Urufu, you stay out of this from now on, hear me?”

“Yes Amaya. I'm not going after armed crazies.” Should have thought about that last summer. Damn, what a moron I was. “Don't worry.”

“You always make me worry,” Amaya said. At the end of that sentence her voice warmed up somewhat. “I know you're over fifty, but you're still the son I never had.”

He had long since stopped thinking of her as his daughter. His mother? No, but Amaya was still his senior in ways he could never understand. Almost ten years spent watching Japan's underbelly gave her a view of society he just didn't have. With that realisation came a respect he had shamefully enough not given her for over a year.

I've been so bloody full of myself. And look where it brought me. Lost it all in the end. He firmly shoved that whiny thought back into a recess of his mind. Not all. I still have my friends.

But he was breaking apart. He knew that. Working just as hard as Christina only gave him so many hours of sanity and no more. Spring break. I'll heal during spring break. That was less than three weeks away, and exams should occupy his mind before that.

After he finished his call he returned to his books. These days Ulf pushed the speed at which he learned written Japanese. A few months more, and the results should be obvious. Or they already were. He read books for middle schoolers without much problems now and had already started on more mainstream fiction.

At the moment he went through English, or rather he went through their Japanese translations, most of which Kareyoshi-sensei had got correct. As far as Ulf was concerned, 'most' wasn't good enough for a teacher, but if he wanted to boost his grades he had to answer in the wrong way that his teacher preferred.

Fuck this place! But with the old goat preparing for his retirement, incompetence was acceptable as long as it went hand in hand with authority.

Oh well, next principal is bound to rein the moron in, or else it'll show in the central exams. At least club hours were enough to rectify the worst of Kareyoshi's insanities. Which also was why Ulf prepared a lesson in history making use of all vocabulary and grammar constructions expected to be tested during the upcoming exams.

Yukio and Kyoko should show up any moment, and Ulf needed Kyoko, what promised to be professional layout a few years down the line.

Ulf lined up a few parallels between English and Japanese history. Both nations firmly locked onto islands helped; similarities followed along geographical reasons, and there were enough strange contrasts to merit a conversation as well.

Flipping between pages he gave a thankful thought to his sixteen year old eyes surpassing the fifty year old ones he got used to. Now he could run four minimalistic screens, swapping between them with his finger-tops and with but a flick of thumb and middle finger he zoomed in on a part that needed changing. Amateurs used their index finger for that; it was needed to switch screens.

While bluetooth still sucked, mostly due to Neanderthal interfaces, it still was the preferred way to access secondary speakers.

Some downloads and digital violence a few months earlier allowed Ulf to push data over bluetooth and HDMI simultaneously. Sure, the Seattle produced operating system tried to convince him otherwise, but in the end it was only a matter of the size of the digital sledgehammer applied. Anyone who didn't give up when faced with Slackware Linux the first time learned that the hard way. Ulf's first time had been pre commercial Internet.

The sound of bells chiming trickled through the door had him look up from his laptop, and Ulf grinned when Yukio and Kyoko arrived. He had a little something to tell them before he put them to work.

“Yukio, hand me your phone! And Kyoko's.”

Two frowning faces gave him their phones.

Ulf quickly downloaded his last gift from Amaya.

“OK, this is a piece of new digital candy for the both of you. In fact I've installed on my unit as well, and I'm having Amaya lean on Christina as well.”

“What does it do?” Kyoko asked and cut to the chase.

“Punch it like this during a phone call and you'll have the Hammer of God descending on the other side,” Ulf said and showed. He didn't say it also immediately tried to crack its way into the offending phone. I never knew they had that kind of software installed in the stations.

Something rather insidious interfaced as the legit phone-operator before handing traffic over to legit channels. A lot easier to do with the phone-company actively assisting with the installation. That part Amaya knew nothing of. Ulf used her name without asking first.

Bastards! Kyoko and Yukio are my friends! He'd screw the suckers over so badly they'd want a new one when he was done. A promise to Amaya to stay out of it all was worth so much and no more.

“Get back to me from time to time to get upgrades,” Ulf said. At least partially true. To get updated databases installed was the real reason.

Whenever that phone went online he got more data, and every phone number, Line-address, email-address, well, pretty much everything it contacted on a list he had made. And everything those points contacted, and those contacted in turn. Ulf had a data analysing tool trimmed according to his specifications. Anything even remotely circular contact-wise got snooped permanently. Whatever circles of friends, relatives and contacts that arsehole had were subject to brutal and extremely illegal surveillance.

Don't fuck with someone who was there from the start!