Noriko left the hospital feeling more down than she had expected. While she didn't visit Urufu every day like Yukio and Kuri she still went to see her friend often enough to notice how much better he made her feel after a visit.

Should be the other way around, she thought.

She couldn't exactly pinpoint why she felt depressed. Maybe because they were wrapped up in their midterm exams and Urufu couldn't attend them.

“What's on your mind?” Nao wondered.

Noriko shook her head and grasped his hand just a little tighter. “Thank you for understanding,” she said rather than answering his question.

He smiled down at her. “Don't worry. I know you still have feelings for him, and he's a good guy at that.”

Do I? Noriko wasn't certain any longer. Urufu being hurt made her angry, but thinking of him didn't fill her stomach with butterflies the way seeing Nao did.

They made it to the bus stop and climbed the first one heading down-town. When they got off she noticed how those they met smiled at them.

Huh? What's so funny? Then it struck her they were still holding hands. The photo model with his midget girlfriend. Yeah I guess it could look funny.

She tugged Nao's hand closer to herself and felt strangely happy that she had something else than Urufu to worry about. Do we really look that comical? She guessed they did. She just a bit over a metre and a half and him at closer to a hundred and ninety.

“Notice the smiles?” Noriko asked at last.

“Uhum. They're hiding their jealousy,” Nao said.

'They' being the girls I guess, Noriko thought glumly.

“The girls as well,” Nao said, deliberately twisting his comforting words into a self-conscious joke.

“You, you, you!” She couldn't but stop and give him a light box in his stomach. Then Noriko grinned and hugged him. “Thanks for making me laugh! Thanks for making me feel loved!”

“But you make it so easy,” Nao replied without a moment of hesitation.

You say all the right things, and you do all the right things as well. “You make me blush,” Noriko said and dug her face into his shirt.

Nao held her tight and combed through her hair with long, slender fingers. “You know, I'm worried as well.”

The words made her step away from him. Doing so she saw how public their display was just outside a subway station, but she didn't care.

“Worried about what? They said he'll recover fully.”

“Ah, not about that,” Nao said and laughed. “He'll miss out on a full month. What about his midterms?”

Noriko choked down a reply. She couldn't tell Nao that Principal Nakagawa guaranteed Urufu's private tutoring. More precisely she couldn't tell Nao Principal Nakagawa did the tutoring in person, and of all things she could never tell Nao that Urufu probably didn't need any tutoring apart from written Japanese in the first place.

I keep secrets from my own boyfriend. Makes me a role model girlfriend I guess, Noriko thought and smirked. “When do you think he'll be discharged?” she asked, more to change the topic than anything else.

“I know as little as you do. A week, maybe two if how he acts when we visit is any indication,” Nao suggested.

“That's November,” Noriko said. “I feel bad for him.”

“He'll make a full recovery. Let's be happy about that.”

As usual Nao focussed on the most important, but in this case he didn't have all the information needed. He didn't know that Kuri was on a vengeance rampage, and Noriko made sure he didn't have a clue about how she had agreed to help Kuri when the dirty affair blew up in the face of the Red Rose board of directors. And Kuri had promised that if would blow up nastier than anything they had ever experienced before.

Noriko sighed silently. Promises were just promises, or that's how the real world usually turned out, but with Kuri… With Kuri you barely had time for a snarky comment before she delivered on her promise and then some.

What was it you said again? Don't mistake me for the empress of Japan. Think of Caligula or Nero instead. Noriko shivered at the memory. What made you say something awful like that?

Until lately it had never occurred to Noriko that Kuri maybe was loved, or at least desired by many, but that she all too often loathed herself.

“You're silent,” Nao said, stating the obvious.

Noriko turned and dragged him in the direction of a café. “Sorry.”

“It's my treat,” he said.

She didn't bother protesting. He could afford it, as could she. Eating out barely made a dent in their respective wallets, and she had long since learned to be careful when going out with her friends. With Nao, however, she didn't have to.

“You know,” she said when they came indoors, “it feels like we're just waiting for something to happen.” It was as close as she could afford telling him something big was coming down on them all.

“6:1 to get their students back?” Nao said.

Noriko knew he was referring more to the two other victims of the car accident than to Urufu. Both were slated for discharge within a few days.

“Two coffee and two vanilla ice cream,” Noriko said to the waitress and made certain she returned out of earshot. “No, I'm thinking of how uneasy 9:1 is,” Noriko said as if she had heard rumours about that class. Well, the students in 9:1 should be uneasy given that they were involved in covert warfare with their hated, old school.

“9:1, you say. I don't hear anything apart from what's said in the club, and with midterms coming nothing much happens there.”

“No other rumours?” Noriko asked.

“Sorry, but they're freshmen all of them. It's not like we juniors talk a lot about you.” Nao made a grimace in an attempt to show her that he meant no offence.

We have to change that. Kuri wants the rumours to spread out of control. “Oh, I didn't know. So you only talk about Kuri?”

Nao blanched. “It's not that bad, but there are not all that many freshmen who are well known among us.

With a sweet smile that made her stomach crawl Noriko looked at her boyfriend. “I see. Well I guess it can't be helped,” she lied.

***

A feeling of impending doom clung to the school when Ryu arrived the first Monday after their midterm exams.

With exams over and done with the main dish on the rumour mill menu ought to have been the student council elections.

However, what most students spoke about was a disgusting rumour about Red Rose Academy and systematic rapes with racist overtones. It was the kind of rumour that needed to be quelled immediately, and Ryu was here to douse the flames with petrol. In case the rumours blew out of all proportions Principal Nakagawa had promised to step in and add dynamite to the fire.

After changing shoes by his locker Ryu walked past the wall where the top fifty students from each year were soon to be posted together with their results and headed for the stairwell to his wing.

He rushed to his classroom and during each and every break he joined the subdued conversations he heard and said all the wrong things. Before lunch was over the entire first year floor of the right wing rumbled with barely suppressed indignation.

Just prior to class he checked his mailbox for more instructions from Kuri. There were none and he decided to move on his own. One email later he had suggested he'd honour his promise to attend a goukon. If he was honest with himself he had nothing against meeting Ai-chan again, and it was with a tinge of a bad conscience he planned to use her for spreading the rumours to Irishima high.

Like most of his classmates he went through the motions of attending class. This close to the exams most were more interested in the results than any topics covered by their teachers, and it seemed the teachers understood as well. Homeroom mostly consisted of self-studying. Planning their participation in the annual marathon race took up a fair chunk as well. After that club hours, which he used to spread the rumours even further.

The next morning irritated conversations about Red Rose ran between the shoe lockers, and later the same day, in the cafeteria.

When it was time for club hours he made his excuses to Kuri and told her what he had planned for his karaoke session with a few guys and girls from Irishima high.

Ryu left school and headed for the same karaoke bar they used to celebrate their cultural festival a few weeks earlier. Had he been given a choice he'd have preferred to meet at the Stockholm Haven café, but for this kind of occasion a sterile karaoke room was the norm.

Ai-chan stood waiting for him inside the doors despite Ryu being close to half an hour early.

“Wakayama-san,” she greeted him.

Ryu shot her an exaggerated look of irritation. “Hasegawa-san, what a pleasant surprise,” he said and bowed formally.

Ai-chan blanched and took a step backwards. “Why so awkward?”

“How would I know Hasegawa-san? I'm at a loss for words Hasegawa-san.”

“Stop it!”

“If you stop being so stiff I'll do so as well. OK Ai-chan?”

She blushed and stammered. “Fine, whatever!”

“My name being?”

“Waka… Ryu-kun.”

“Good. Now, why so early?”

Ai-chan took the opportunity to study her shoes and didn't answer, which made Ryu grin a little. When it came to reading the signals in the boy meets girl game he was an expert. It made him never having had a girlfriend doubly amusing, Ryu mused.

“Waiting for someone?” Ryu teased.

“I'm waiting for you,” Ai-chan responded, and her eyes filled with determination. “If you didn't get that I'm interested in you then you're denser than I thought.”

That bravado! I like it. But you really are rather nervous right now, aren't you? “No I got that message loud and clear during our festival,” he said and smiled. “You know, according to a friend I shouldn't be able to understand that for another half a year or so.

“Sounds like your friend knows her shoujo manga,” Ai-chan said and grinned widely.

Ah, seems that joke helped with her nervousness. “It's a he, but otherwise you're correct.”

Ai-chan smirked and looked up at him. “So, you tricked me into a confession. What about you?”

“I'm interested,” Ryu admitted. “Would you go out with me?”

She nodded and smiled, but Ryu could see how she grabbed the counter behind her for support. Behind the counter a clerk grinned and gave him a thumbs up sign, and Ryu realised their conversation had been heard by everyone there.

“Ai-chan, we have an audience,” he said with what he hoped was a subdued voice.

She looked around and flared red in an instant.

“Idiot!”

Ryu listened to her outburst, but her expression conflicted with what she had just said.

“I guess I am,” he answered and took a step closer to her. “Feeling embarrassed?”

“Idiot!”

“I am. Feeling embarrassed that is. With all the people staring at us.”

“Idiot!”

He wasn't, really. Experience from years spent surrounded by adoring girls made him more or less immune to the discomfort that had Ai-chan's face all in flames. Getting his first girlfriend was a novel experience though.

“I didn't hear your reply,” he said as teasingly as he could.

“Reply?”

“Your reply to where I say: I like you. Please go out with me!”

That line kept her face adorably coloured like a tomato and she stuttered what almost sounded like a positive reply. Around them guests arriving or leaving the place stood and gasped or grinned. A few girls giggled loudly and Ryu felt what a spectacular show he ran for his small audience.

“I can't hear you. Could you please repeat that?”

“Idiot!”

“Sorry, was that a yes or a no?”

“Idiot!” Ai-chan stared at her feet again. “Yes, please take good care of me.”

Ryu grinned and bent forward for a last tease. The topics during their stay here would be grimmer, so he wanted to extend the fun for as long as possible. “Ai-chan, why should I attend the goukon in the first place?”