In the end Kyoko failed to spend very much of the morning together with Yukio. She was needed for handling the incoming supplies, and Urufu wanted Yukio for something else.

Kyoko oversaw offloading the fourth car returning with supplies. More like guarded the boxes dropped by the service gates while two students from 9:1 carried a box each to the plaza.

The car had already left with two of their club members inside. Kondo-sensei drove.

Still early in the morning maybe a few hundred guests were inside. A decision taken by Urufu. He hoped to fill their stomachs and preferably bore them enough to leave before the real invasion started.

There was plenty of time until the official opening hour, and the early guests probably walked between stalls only partly operational or inside the school where most of the events had yet to start up.

“Welcome to the Himekaizen cultural festival,” she greeted half a dozen arrivals and let them inside. She wore a security armband for the duration of her stay by the gates. When all the boxes were collected she'd return to their club room and hand it to Noriko.

“Welcome to the Himekaizen cultural festival.” Another group of guests passed the gates.

She leaned outside and looked down the street.

“Noriko?” she said after pushing the button to her radio.

“Noriko here.”

“Kyoko here. I need the service gates manned. Guests arriving. Over.”

Her radio squelched for a few seconds before the response arrived. “How many?” Silence. “Damn this machine! Over.”

Kyoko had anticipated that question and already stood in the middle of the street. “I see some fifty or sixty coming my way right now. Over.”

Noriko remained silent from her end to the radio conversation. “I'll send down three guys.” The radio silenced before blaring alive again. “Over and out.”

Noriko, learn to use the radio already! Oh well. I wonder what it's like by the main gates now.

She stepped inside the gates and greeted another dozen guests while she watched the outdoor café behind her open for business.

The promised guys arrived, and Noriko had even remembered to have one of them ask for the armband Kyoko wore.

Shortly afterwards several students arrived and carried the remaining boxes inside, and Kyoko left the gates. For the second time that day she passed the bike stand, and for the second time that day she threw them an embarrassed look.

Not my proudest moment. Sorry Yukio.

She wanted him by her side, but over the radio she heard him trying to make another of Urufu's pipe dreams come true.

Through the main gates a mix of guests and Himekaizen students arrived, the latter throwing surprised looks at the guests already inside before they hurried to whatever station they had planned to open half an hour later.

Kyoko saw the council president, Tamura-sempai was it? standing inside the gates greeting an ever increasing stream of new guests.

Over the radio someone requested more people with security armbands to the front gates, and Kyoko heard Noriko promise the prompt arrival of another three students from 9:1.

We can't keep this up on our own. Where's the festival planning committee? She walked to the front gates. For two reasons. Firstly because there had to be two students greeting arriving guests with the numbers arriving, but Kyoko also wanted to study the girl who had a crush on her boyfriend.

What she saw gave her even less reasons to worry than Yukio nurtured before. A flimsy girl who needed reassurance to take the lead, even if that reassurance came from a girl two years her junior.

She was vain, but then most girls were. Kyoko herself wasn't above the need to look good in the eyes of others, 'others' usually meaning Yukio, and Kuri-chan even made her money out of it.

Kyoko greeted another half a dozen guests.

A month earlier she thought that Noriko differed from the rest of them when it came to vanity, but since she started dating Nao-sempai, even the hyperactive midget spent her time facing a mirror from time to time.

Another half a dozen, then two couples, then two groups of four friends each. The council president was equally busy greeting arrivals, and from what Kyoko saw greeting any more would soon become both impossible and stupid.

It was time to request more people to the gates. “Noriko?”

Kyoko backed inside the gates waiting for an answer.

“Noriko here.”

“Kyoko here. Front gates is becoming a queue just like yesterday. Over.”

“We haven't even really opened yet… Eh… Over.”

You're not supposed to make spoken reflections over the radio. “I'll leave the gate to our council president, but she'll need two more boys with armbands. Over.” Kyoko grinned at her walkie talkie.

“OK. Over.”

“Over and out.” Kyoko said and ended the conversation. A little bit strange how Noriko stuttered with the radio. She was by a wide margin the fastest learner Kyoko knew, but handling the radios correctly seemed to be beyond her.

The fastest learner, because Urufu didn't count. He just knew a lot, but it was the accumulated knowledge gained over half a century. She couldn't tell if it was a lot or not compared to other old people. Probably was, but she didn't know that. How did you define 'a lot' when you were in your fifties? She couldn't even ask her parents, because they were younger than him as well.

Kyoko shook her head and left the gates. Time to check out the plaza and see if anyone there needed a break. Both Urufu and Ryu said you had to be there in person, because those who needed rest seldom said so over the radios, and those who did all too often didn't need the demanded break.

She walked between booths hastily manned by students surprised to see how guests already filled up the school grounds before opening hours. Most were readying their stalls, and a few had even managed to start cooking.

Their own stalls and most of the grills prepared food more suitable for a late breakfast than the cuisine they had planned for from the start. That in turn probably meant most of the girls were tied up preparing food there.

When she arrived she saw that she could scratch 'probably'. She donned an apron and went to work.

***

“What do you mean all the girls are down at the plaza?” Ulf asked. “What about the boys?” He didn't want the answer, because he knew it the moment he asked the question.

“You wanted breakfast for the guests. We didn't plan for it so I sent down everyone who could prepare it,” Noriko said and looked up from her laptop.

Outside the windows he saw the pool, since a few weeks drained of all water and left in dry desolation. Memories from summer, especially one which he shared with Christina, played in his mind. Was that really only three months ago?

“Look, Noriko you did nothing wrong,” he said. “It's just that some things here make me so frustrated.”

She looked back at him, and her eyes showed no awareness why he should feel frustration. Not her fault, he decided. Just me who can't wrap my mind around the gender differences here.

There was no time changing that during the last day of their festival. For the moment he needed to accept that here cooking was a woman's chore. Accept. He didn't have to like it.

“I apologise for being so curt. You've done a fantastic job. Keep it up.” He went for the door when he recalled one of his own rules. “You all have. It's a pleasure working with people like you,” he said to the others in the room, including council treasurer and a couple of students from the planning committee.

It wasn't entirely true, but sometimes well timed flattery did wonders, and he needed miracles to pull them through the day.

One hour, maybe two before hell hits us. Ulf pulled the door shut behind him and walked down the corridor. By the stairwell he turned and made it into the main building corridor.

He knocked on the door to the main teacher room. There wasn't any teacher he needed to talk to right now, but their windows faced the main courtyard and he wanted to know what the queue looked like.

A few of the teaching staff looked at him when he was let inside, but by now they were used to him coming here just to walk to the windows with a laptop in his hand.

“Jirou?”

“Jirou here, you should call Kyoko. Out.”

Ulf followed the main street with his eyes until it ended by the gates. “Kyoko?”

“Kyoko here.”

“Ulf here, you'll have your first batch incoming soon. Over.”

“Understood. We're ready. Over.”

“Good work. Tell the rest I'm proud of you. Over and out.”

He looked at the stalls on both of sides of the main street. Too many of them took orders where the students manning them shook their heads and pointed in the direction of the plaza. It didn't worry him yet, but there were more than a hundred guests queuing by the gates and through the tree line bordering the school grounds he saw people walking in small groups or couples as they were redirected to the service gates.

Ulf turned and faced the teachers present. A full hour earlier than I had hoped, but it can't be helped. “Excuse me, but may I have a bit of your time?”

“Yes?”

He could only hope the old goat had prepared them for the question he was about to ask. “How many of you have your cars here and some spare time to give us?”

His next insane request would go to Ryu.

***

'I need the prince of Himekaizen.' What kind of request is that? Ryu shook his head in amusement. You really don't know what makes girls tick Urufu. Right now you're the king of Himekaizen, and the senior girls probably think you're more interesting than I am anyway.

He wasn't sure how he knew, but he did. Urufu's personality, and how he handled the festival was certain to attract more than a few third years. They were preparing to leave high school life behind them, and to a degree they acted in a more adult way than they would as first and second years in university. At least if what his father said was true.

That only means I have to become a more grown up prince. A strange thought, and one he wouldn't have made just half a year earlier. Am I growing up as well?

The way Urufu and Kuri impacted his life scared him, but he acknowledged that they did. Easy for them. They have their wingmen after all. Then he accepted why that thought lacked dignity. They earned their wingmen. Sometimes I wish I could be more like Yukio, or Kyoko for that matter.

Ryu turned left after the vending machines and walked almost to the end of the corridor. From here on it was mostly a matter of knocking on doors. Urufu wanted a dozen third year girls to do two shopping rounds each. He would get them, or Ryu wasn't worthy of being called prince of Himekaizen.