“Where did he go?”

Kyoko looked at Yukio. Hurt. Kuri-chan had hurt him, and so had Urufu.

“Who cares?”

“Yukio!” She loved him. That didn’t mean she couldn’t admonish him. “I care, and so do you.” And so does Noriko. Noriko, I’m so sorry.

They needed to find Noriko, and she needed to convince both her and Yukio to go searching for Urufu. Or rather, she needed to convince Yukio to lead them to wherever Urufu was, because she was certain Yukio knew.

Outdoors was a baking oven despite August running towards its end. That baking oven cooked Kuri-chan and a Ryu who was as smugly satisfied today as he’d been ragingly angry yesterday.

You idiot! Idiots! Both of you. Cause they were. Best friend be damned. Kuri-chan was still her best friend, but this time she really pushed that friendship to its limits. How could you?

“Does it change anything?” Yukio asked.

Kyoko grabbed his hand and forced him through the entrance and into the blazing sun. It was like walking into a wall of heat. Despite lying almost at the very edge of the ocean not a single gust of wind reached the resort.

“I have to help Noriko. She deserves better.”

“And if she doesn’t want to be helped?”

She definitely wouldn’t want to be helped, but she needed to. Kyoko had already made her mind up. Memories of Kuri-chan’s panicked look when the four of them returned a day late from Ise lingered in Kyoko’s mind.

Idiot! You broke up with him. You don’t have the right to be jealous any longer. But she had been. And she had done something about it. I wonder if you’ll even keep his friendship after this? Because Kuri-chan hadn’t tried to get together with Urufu again. Kyoko was sure about that.

“I’m ashamed of being his friend.”

“Yukio! Never say that again! Besides, he didn’t...”

“He could have said no!” Yukio interrupted. His voice rose to a growl. Then a glimmer of fear reached his eyes.

Oh no! You don’t get to be scared of me. You have every right to be angry. “Yukio, I understand. I know you’re not angry at me.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...”

“I understand.” Kyoko hugged him close despite the heat. “I understand.”

“Our pockets?” Yukio suddenly asked, and Kyoko loved him all the more for how he dared change his mind when needed.

Despite the worry she felt in her heart Kyoko grinned. “Noriko will pay for her share.”

Yesterday Urufu paid their salaries. For being teenagers they were loaded. Half a million yen shared between them ought to suffice for hunting down Urufu wherever he had gone.

“Then let’s go fetch her.” Yukio finally nodded, and Kyoko almost jumped out of his arms and rushed indoors. She had already prepared three daypacks and she didn’t intend to give Yukio the chance to change his mind back again.

They needed to find Noriko quickly. They had to find her before the sight of Kuri-chan and her brother filled her with disgust, and if Kyoko knew Noriko right, self hatred.

“Yukio, follow me!”

Kyoko didn’t wait for an answer but dragged her boyfriend after her as soon as he was done attaching the small backpack to his back. One of her own on her back, one in her hand and Yukio in the other she ran to the beach despite the heat. Halfway there she had ordered the taxi thanks to a headset dangling precariously from one ear, and less than a minute later she found Noriko.

Kyoko waved at the girl, but Noriko’s eyes were fixed at the shoot where Kyoko knew both Kuri-chan and Ryu were to be found. Kuri-chan because of work, and Ryu, well Ryu because he finally cemented his relationship with his girlfriend since a few months.

“Noriko!”

That finally drew her attention, and she looked back. This time she even waved back.

“Over here, Noriko!”

Their friend stood up in momentary confusion and pointed at herself. Kyoko nodded and beckoned her to her.

“What’s going on?” Noriko said when they were close enough to talk. Her voice was subdued, just like her entire being was subdued since a day.

“We’re going to have a long talk with Urufu,” Kyoko said.

It hurt to see how mentioning his name brought even more sadness and pain to Noriko’s eyes.

“If you want to slap him I’ll help pin him down,” Kyoko promised.

“He just vanished.”

Behind them Yukio coughed to get their attention. Both girls turned their heads to hear what he had to say.

“He didn’t just vanish. He’s visiting family, or something.” Yukio’s eyebrows twisted together at his insane statement. “His family from that other world. Anyway, I know where he is.”

“Huh?”

Kyoko stared at Noriko rather than her boyfriend. For once the girl looked stunned with confusion. Not a trace of sadness was to be seen on a face that was busy showing exactly how flabbergasted Yukio’s words had made her. Yukio, you’re my hero. I love you!

“Look. In that other world he had relatives here. That’s where he got his looks from. OK?”

That kind of made sense. If he was a half then the other half by definition had to have roots here in Japan, even if it was a Japan in another world. Almost the same. The worlds are almost the same. He always says that.

By her side Noriko’s face had taken on a bit of determination, and inside of her Kyoko shouted with joy at watching that new expression.

“We’re going to him, and this time we’re making sure you get him.” Noriko wondered how she could be so certain. “He’s fond of you. More than fond given what he agreed to in Ise.” Because, if Urufu really didn’t have any interest in Noriko at all, then Kyoko was certain he’d either have bedded her for real or simply refused to share the bed in the first place.

“You think so?” And at once Noriko’s face reverted to the misery that had been plastered to it for a day.

“Look, Noriko,” Yukio said. He stared down at his feet when he spoke, as if he didn’t dare face their friend. “Urufu’s been hurting like hell. I don’t think what he did was a beginning.”

“But he slept with her!”

For the next minute or so Kyoko just held the sobbing girl in her arms. Despite Yukio’s clumsy words Kyoko understood he only meant well, and maybe Noriko needed to be reminded of what had happened to move on.

Still staring at his feet Yukio waited until Noriko’s sobs had subsided before he dared speak again. “You know, I think that was his way of ending it. I believe they said good bye.”

For a while Yukio’s words only resulted in silence.

“What makes you think that?”

Kyoko glanced at Yukio over Noriko’s shoulder. You’d better get it right this time.

“You saw your brother today.”

“Yes?”

“I believe something had to break first.”

“Huh?”

“They’ve been together all this time with nothing happening.”

“Yes?”

“Would you agree Ryu and Kuri are finally together for real now?”

Kyoko could feel some of the tension in Noriko’s body go away.

“Ah. But if she tries to...”

“She won’t,” Kyoko said. Now when she understood what Yukio had been aiming at it suddenly made sense. “They’re not getting back together again.” Half a year. The idiots needed half a year to break up.

“Then, if what you say is right, Urufu’s really free for the taking?”

Relief at Noriko’s words filled Kyoko. That’s my girl! “Let’s go hunt him down for you, shall we?"

***

“There’s something that’s been bugging me,” Yukio said when they had changed trains once and hopped into a taxi.

Kyoko shifted a little to give room to Noriko who had fallen asleep again. The last day sure had taken its toll on her small frame.

“About the entire affair with the four of them?”

Yukio turned to face her. She could see how deep in thought he was. Right now he was thinking aloud rather than talking with her.

“No. It’s about the two different worlds thing.” Yukio fell silent again.

Kyoko waited for him to resume his train of thought. In the meanwhile she stared out the windows where small rice paddies were replaced by even smaller tea plantations. They were definitely heading into the mountains, and everything was smaller here. Well, apart from the mountains. Those might be ever present for most Japanese, but being a Tokyoite she had little reasons and even fewer occasions visiting them herself.

“The people who talked with Ryu,” she heard Yukio’s voice say. “It’s the thing with a Swedish organisation that keeps bugging me.”

But the arrivals all came from Sweden. Or at least the Sweden in that other world. Kyoko didn’t understand what her boyfriend was getting at.

“You see,” Yukio continued as if he’d been reading her mind, “they pop up here in Japan. People who have never existed in this world.”

“Yes?” Kyoko said.

He wasn’t. Wasn’t merely thinking aloud that was. She knew he wanted her to react to what he was saying from time to time.

“So there’s little reason for that Swedish section for whatever.”

“Why not?” Kyoko said. She could hear from his voice that he had reached the point where he was bouncing his thoughts with her.

“Urufu told me there had to be a Swedish organisation in that other world, because both he and Kuri got invites, so someone knew what was going to happen.”

That made sense. But a Swedish organisation in this world? Suddenly she felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the AC in the taxi hammering them with a freezing draught.

“So you arrived there as well?” Yukio said. “If there is a Swedish organisation in this world I’m pretty sure there are people vanishing from this one and ending up in another.”

“But that means there aren’t just two worlds.”

Yukio nodded. “A chain of them I believe. I can’t explain, but I’d call them upstream and downstream worlds.” He frowned. “I don’t think it’s possible to go back to the world Urufu came from from this one, so upstream.” Then he grinned, an expression he’d had the help from Urufu to master, and one that still melted Kyoko’s heart. “That would make this one a downstream one.”

Under her arm Noriko shifted uncomfortably in her sleep, and Kyoko nudged a little away in her seat to make it a little more comfortable for her petite friend.

“And you think this one is an upstream one for another world?”

Yukio nodded. “I have to work on this idea with Urufu, but yeah, I believe so.”

“I wonder what it’s like,” Kyoko said as the taxi left what went for a main road up here and started climbing up streets so narrow meeting another car would have been impossible. Would I feel that creepy feeling of almost the same that Kuri-chan spoke about?

“What what is like?” Noriko asked sleepily and freed herself from where she had nestled under Kyoko’s arm.

“Hello sleepyhead,” Kyoko said. “We’re almost there.”

“What what is like?” Noriko repeated.

Kyoko glanced at Yukio.

“The thing with two worlds and all that,” he said.

“Urufu’s old world?”

“Uhum.” Kyoko wanted to have this conversation together with Urufu, just like Yukio, so she chose to give Noriko the simpler answer.

The taxi came to a stop, and Yukio paid the driver.

“We’re here?” Noriko said, and Kyoko smiled at how she turned her head in search of Urufu.

A short guffaw had them both look at Yukio.

“Almost,” he said. “I don’t know exactly where it is, but I have his mother’s maiden name, so I thought we’d ask in the shop here,” Yukio added and nodded at a small shop squeezed in between two houses.

Kyoko watched him go inside while she shouldered her backpack. Noriko did the same.

Looking around Kyoko noted how everything was small except the houses. Apparently, in a relative sense, there was more space here, but also more money. Where she lived houses like these would have cost a fortune, or rather the plot they stood on. Housing in Tokyo was brutally expensive according to her parents.

They were also surrounded by a less oppressive heat. It was still hot, but no longer the brutal heat at the resort. The valley the sides of which the village climbed funnelled a weak breeze that refreshed the air, and Kyoko stood admiring the greenery further up the mountainsides together with her friend until Yukio came back out from the shop.

“Straight ahead and just across a public parking place. She said we couldn’t miss it,” Yukio added and nodded at the shop he had just left. “Anyone wants a snack? I couldn’t just ask and not buy anything.”

“Which house?”

“Urufu once told me I’d know if I ever saw it, but that he didn’t understand himself. The lady in the shop basically said the same thing.”

“He didn’t understand it himself?” Noriko said.

Yukio shouldered his backpack and took the lead. “This was back before Himekaizen,” he said over his shoulders. His safe and wonderful shoulders. “There was a time when it was important for him to tell me memories of his.”

Kyoko wondered where this was going, but for now she was content with listening to Yukio’s voice. This was the voice of a boy who made best friends with Urufu. Not the disillusioned Yukio of recent. She preferred the Yukio who took pride in his friend. If for no other reason then because it reminded her of when she still took pride in Kuri-chan. I have to make up with her. Even if I can’t forgive, at least we have to make up.

They rounded a corner and suddenly a small gravel parking place spread out before them.

Oh gods!

Across it old style Japanese houses competed for space with more modern ones. All in what both Urufu and Kuri-chan had described as a faux European style. And then there was the exception. It shouted out it’s foreignness, blared how it didn’t belong here and in general made her wonder if the builders had taken leave of their brains.

It also spoke of a familiar world. One she had seen on pictures every days since Urufu filled their first club room with photos from Sweden.

Yeah, I see how we couldn’t possibly miss it.

Yellow, standing panel, white corners and tiles a burned orange red colour that basically never roofed a Japanese home. Urufu must have grown up around houses like this one. As alien as it was to her, as much a definition of normality for the child he once was.

“Didn’t you say his relatives were Japanese?”

Kyoko looked at Noriko. “Yes, they are.” Well, in as much as this family is related to him. He wasn’t born in this world.

“Then, why?” Noriko said and pointed at the abomination across the gravel.

“I guess influences work both ways. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Ask him? When...”

Kyoko grinned. On the street an open mouthed Urufu stood staring back at them. Even from this distance she could see how shame competed with joy in his eyes.

“Noriko, run to him! He’s all yours now.”