Entrance ceremonies were supposed to be framed by a reasonably cute pink colour, and this year it was. Every stupid attribute promising a glorious new start beckoned to the new students with promises of a wonderful future.

A pity Wakayama Noriko wasn't a new student.

She entered the Himekaizen school grounds a junior. A second year, starting the best of her three high school years; the freshmen admiring them and the seniors envying them. The spring of her youth, and all that.

Then, given such an auspicious event, why was her stomach a hard knot of uncontrollable fear?

Urufu gone missing, Kuri a shallow shadow of her former self, and worst of all, she pretended to go out with Ryu.

What happened to Ai-chan? Ryu, you bastard. Did you hurt a girl deliberately?

Yukio and Kyoko were late, also deliberately. Sato-sensei, Urufu's guardian, created a huge ruckus when she forced the school to accept an armed escort to follow the pair to and from school.

The reason, the reason made Noriko want to throw up in fear.

How the bloody hell did we end up this way? How, how, how did Kareyoshi become principal?

Around her fellow schoolmates milled around, a third of them all shiny and new, and the rest in their worn beige blazer and black trousers or skirt. None showed any sign of Noriko's kind of fear, because for the rest of them Kareyoshi was only a dull English teacher best known for having a private war with the Japanese guy in 6:1 who wasn't Japanese after all.

She tried to pretend she was just nervous for the same reason as the rest of the second years. That she only wondered which class she had been assigned to, or rather which classmates.

Noriko walked over to the billboards where the second year classes were divided in two sections. One for sciences and one for liberal arts. That selection each student did themselves.

Which of the four classes in each section, or from this year, which of the five classes, since Himekaizen and Irishima had cannibalised Red Rose. Ten classes in each year. Two more than when she started a year ago, and two less than what her parents had experienced when they were students here.

She looked up at the science section. 1:2 – 5:2. After reading the class list for 1:2 she reread it again.

What the hell?

Wakayama Ryu was there, but no Wakayama Noriko. Searching again she noticed that Hamarugen Urufu was missing as well.

Did they split me out?

She found herself in 2:2, and Urufu in 3:2.

No way, you bastards! You didn't! They did. Ageruman Kuritina was in 6:2, Takeida Kyoko in 7:2 and Matsumoto Yukio in 8:2. When she looked closer she saw that the club members in The Himekaizen Cultural Exchange club had been spread evenly among the classes, and every single couple in the club split between two classes. Why? That's just hurtful!

The coming two years with none of her best friends in her class. Bastards!

Fuming with rage she punched a contact she never thought she'd call in her life.

“Nakagawa speaking.”

“This is Wakayama Noriko, you might be familiar with me.”

A moment of silence. “Ah, certainly Wakayama-san. How may I be of assistance?”

Noriko went a bit away from the students looking at the billboards. A lot of them were talking in loud, disappointed voices. So they broke up other groups of friends as well?

“Did you know about the class assignments for us juniors?”

“Yes, most certainly. I wrote them together with your home room teachers.”

“Why, you fuck!” Noriko was so angry she didn't care she had just called her old principal something that could have her expelled.

“Young lady that's no...”

“Why the hell...”

“Shut up!”

That voice was enough to make Noriko obey.

“Before you continue your cursing, please tell me what's wrong, Wakayama-san.”

The sudden politeness, with just a pitch of anger had Noriko calm herself down. She did as Nakagawa-sensei had asked.

“But for all demon spawned fucking piss rats in hell! The arsehole can just go die in a cesspool!”

OK, that was more than I expected, Noriko thought as she held her phone away from her ear. She had no doubts at all the cussing was directed at someone else.

“Nakagawa-sensei?”

By now some of the shouts from under the billboards were outright angry. Some of the sterner parts of the teaching staff came walking from the school entrance, and Noriko chose to back away to the gates. Whatever had happened was deliberate, and she didn't plan to be caught up any more than needed in the repercussions.

“Wakayama-san, do you have time after school?”

OK, he's not involved. “Inner room?”

“Ah, yes, that will be fine. At six?”

Noriko confirmed the time and closed the call. Has to be Kareyoshi's dirty work.

She walked directly to the entrance to avoid the confusion when the teachers broke up the angry mob under the billboards. On her way there she saw scared freshmen looking at the spectacle.

Your first day as high schoolers. I hope you enjoy it. Because Noriko wasn't going to.

With her fear somewhat calmed, doused in anger as it was, she quickly dropped her indoor shoes in her new locker and returned outdoors.

On her way to the gym she passed four lines ending in a member of the student council welcoming the freshmen and giving each one a pamphlet with the basic Himekaizen information. Nothing that couldn't be found on the school website. Noriko had received hers a year ago.

She rounded the left wing, followed the wall and came up to the pool area. From there she walked to the gym and lined up to get inside. This year she planned to listen to the canned clichés. Maybe there was a threat or two hidden in the principal's speech.

Given what Urufu said about their new principal, he couldn't find his own arse in the dark, and if he really was a king among morons, then he was all too likely to spew out one idiocy after another.

***

Ryu hadn't heard anything as disgusting since the entrance ceremonies at Red Rose Hell. At the other hand, in that school he heard it all three years.

Principal Kareyoshi was every bit the bigoted moron Urufu said he was. Less than half the speech concerned welcoming the new students and warning them to spend too much time not studying. That part was a given. The rest, well the rest was all about Japanese purity and the dangers of foreign influences diluting it. All in all a piece of first class nationalistic drivel with racist undertones.

Ryu looked at the faces around him during the speech. What he saw both scared him and gave him hope. Most of the students stared at the principal with disbelief in their eyes. Ryu sighed and afforded himself a thin smile. Well, this isn't Red Rose. I don't think the parents here are as easily bought.

After the speech he walked to his classroom. Right wing, just like last year, but on the second floor. To his displeasure he wouldn't have any of his friends with him, but he chalked that down to poor luck from his side.

During lunch break he planned to complain to the rest of them, and then laugh it all away as he usually did.

Come lunch he didn't. Thoroughly pissed off he marched off with Kuri glued to his arm. While he wasn't entirely comfortable with her show-off, mostly because of the murderous looks his sister sent him, he needed to vent his anger with someone who could give him a more mature angle to the situation.

“What, you're alone in your class as well?” he asked when they got away to the soccer field and had some privacy.

Kuri nodded. “Not too surprised. It's blatant enough to be the work of an idiot. I wonder if the other students will stand for it.”

He chewed her words mentally while enjoying the first promises of late spring in the air. With sakura bathing the school in a shower of peach-coloured dreams it was hard to stay angry for long. Then he felt Kuri tug at his arm, and he realised he had stayed silent for too long.

Ryu grimaced. “You mean breaking apart the couples in school?” he said, referring to what his sister had told them. “I wouldn't be too sure. Relationships during high school are frowned upon more than you think.”

“Your loss. Well, mine as well, now that I live in Japan.”

He looked at her face. This close he noticed for the first time how Kuri’s eyes were just a little off from the typical European. Just a reminder that her grandfather was from Japan, and one like her and Urufu, something his parents tried to keep a secret and both Ryu and Noriko pretended they didn’t know.

“Sweden's different?” he said to break the silence and give himself an opportunity to look at the beauty who called herself his girlfriend.

“Yeah, at least when I was a school kid. Has to be now as well I guess. It's just part of growing up after all.” Kuri’s face showed no signs of mischief, which probably meant she truly thought of it as part of everyday life.

“What about our situation? I mean, it's not like the two of us would attend the same class after all.” Just as the words left him Ryu regretted the way he said that.

“You mean with me being a liberal arts idiot and you a sciences star?”

He looked at her to see if she had really become angry or not, but her face was blank, and he couldn't read any emotions in it.

“I apologise. I didn't mean it that way.”

Then she smiled. “I know. Just be careful with what you say. People will misunderstand, some even deliberately.” This time mischief did glimmer in her eyes.

A sudden wind blew life in her hair, and staring at the golden halo surrounding her smiling face Ryu was once again reminded of her almost otherworldly beauty. He looked down at his shoes. “Yeah, I didn't think.”

“We're second years now. A lot of people know us, and the freshmen will look at us.”

What do you mean? Oh. “As a couple?”

The grin he got in return was a little condescending, but also filled with support. “Dummy, yes, that as well. You're always so visible that you don't really need me to be seen, and you know that.”

Ryu didn't get what Kuri was after. If it wasn't the surprising new couple, then what? “Enlighten me,” he said. He had wanted to talk things over with an adult he could trust after all.

“This isn't middle school. From what you've told me the second years are the most visible, with the most famous seniors only some kind of distant heroes.”

Ryu nodded. Not that he really, knew, but that was the rumour.

“Well, it wasn't true last year. We stole that place in the spotlight. Even Nao chose to hang with us.”

OK, that makes sense I guess.

“This year there'll be third years who resent us. You're famous all over the school. They'll be waiting for you to do a mistake, and me as well.”

“I don't care. Let them!”

Kuri sighed. “Look Ryu, you're cute and all, but sometimes you're just a kid. Listen to me! Even if you get away with it, dirt's gonna stick to the rest of us.” Then she lit up in a self-conscious smile. “Fine, not on me. I'm just as famous, but to people I care for.”

Sure, I'll be careful. “And about the part of us being a couple?”

“That part?” She grimaced. “I guess we'll have to make a public show about it one way or another. Don't worry, I'll play the evil bitch.” Then she smirked. “Comes natural to me after all.”

Why are you doing this to yourself? “I disagree,” Ryu said. Kuri sacrificed one part of her life to keep another, and she had done so knowing the results. Hardly a bitch. Then he realised he’d been unclear about what which of her two statements he just replied to. “I’m fine with the public show. I’ve been one for the last four years anyway.”

She gave him an approving look. “Sometimes you’re colder than you look, you know. Doesn’t suit you.” She dug her fingers into her hair and let it billow out in the wind. “I’m the cynical one of us. Hell, when I was your age I still stared at the world with childish eyes and believed life would be wonderful.”

Kuri’s eyes looked right through him, into a far distance where Ryu couldn’t follow. I wonder if Urufu can go with you there, Ryu thought. Probably not, but maybe the older friend could understand what Kuri saw in her mind. I don’t think that’s a world I can ever touch, no matter how old I get. Ryu made up a resolve never to stop Urufu and Kuri from sharing that world. Their memories, their past lives.

Careful Ryu, if you ever fall in love with her, you’ll still never be everything in her life. A sobering thought, and another one that was beyond his years. Growing up like this sucks, he thought and bowed to his girlfriend.

“Thank you for your advice. I’ll leave you to your part of the show,” he said when he saw Kyoko coming for them with a small train of seniors tailing her.