“And that’s how it is,” Jirou said.

Well that explains why Christina’s gone on a crusade, Ulf thought.

“Urufu, I planned to come back as well, promise.” Then Jirou first looked down and after that glanced at the door to the café proper. “I want to stay with Sango, but I’m too afraid about what would happen to her if she transferred back. I guess I’m not as strong as you.”

Ulf couldn’t answer that. He was enough of a dinosaur to understand why you would want to protect your girl. His own egalitarian ideals be damned. When it came to hurting girls he was just as old fashioned as the morons he despised. In his world hurting boys simply wasn’t as bad. He knew he was wrong in thinking so, but he just didn’t care.

“So we’re staying at Irishima High. I’m sorry.”

Despite fuming with rage Ulf grinned. He couldn’t but feel pride from seeing how what he taught rubbed off. “So you called her and you both got your parents onboard?”

“All six of us,” Jirou said. “I think the rest wanted to stay anyway.”

“Six?”

Jirou grinned. “Sakura and Nori as well.”

That made four.

“Midori and Ando.”

Ulf didn’t know those two had planned to return as well. Two? “When did...”

That bought him a laugh. “Just after midterms. They kept it a secret. But really Urufu! You must have noticed her new hairdo.”

He hadn’t.

“I’d hate being your girlfriend,” Jirou said and smirked.

“I apologise.”

“It’s not me you should be apologising to,” Jirou said. He looked down and keyed some more notes for club activities into his laptop. “You know, you’re strange somehow. At times you’re just like the hero of last year’s cultural festival, and then suddenly you’re so socially inept I’m astonished.”

Ulf rose from his chair. The conversation was turning into a direction he didn’t like. “It’s just girls,” he said. “I really don’t get them, even if I pretend I do,” he added.

Pushing the narrow door open Ulf left Jirou and the dangerous topic behind him. There was no way explaining the discrepancies between his experience and the way he looked now. At least understanding girls was a hole in his abilities, a constant since his first days as a high school student, and Ulf hoped that awkwardness was enough to keep up the facade.

Ulf barely made it halfway to the counter before he walked into Sango. Literally. She reeled from the impact and fell backwards just to land on her behind on the other side of the counter.

“Sorry,” he said.

She blushed red. “No it’s my fault.”

“Your fault?”

“Sango, stop eavesdropping,” Ulf heard from the inner room.

Eavesdropping?

Suddenly the entire café opened up in laughter, and Ulf stared nonplussed at the grinning faces by the table.

Oh!

“Fine, I’ll believe the part about girls,” Jirou’s said, and Ulf could hear that it was strangely broken as if the guy tried choking down a guffaw.

Huh?

“Moron,” Sango said, rose, brushed off her skirt and pushed her way past him and vanished into the inner room.

“Moron,” James whispered in a voice that was certain to carry through the entrance and to the street outside.

What did I do now?

“Moron-sama.”

Ulf searched the tables for the voice. Back in the corner he saw its owner sharing a table with Kyoko and Hitomi.

If Noriko called him moron-sama he must have made some kind of mistake. Ulf made a mental note to ask her about it when he escorted her back home. Girls crushing on him he was able to read, and girls playing games of power were no problem, but all too often their everyday thoughts and reactions were beyond him.

He nodded at James’ silent question for his order and made his way between the tables.

The club was, he noted, as large as ever before, but only nine members wore the Himekaizen uniform, and officially they weren’t even members since the student council disbanded the club. Or rather Kareyoshi disbanded the club.

Halfway to where Noriko sat Ulf heard the bell above the entrance jingle and even before the door closed again an angry voice reached him.

“Hamarugen-san, what’s the meaning of this?”

Meaning of what? This was slowly turning into one of his idiot days. He turned and met the glare of a senior in a Himekaizen uniform. “How may I be of help, sempai?” Ulf said with as deliberate as excessive formality.

The senior briskly walked between tables and faced Ulf. “What kind of stunt did you pull with the student council?”

Huh? Yes, definitely an idiot day. With a sigh of regret Ulf sat down by the closest table. Sharing some time with Noriko would have to wait. He opened his palm and invited the senior to share his table, and as by silent agreement both of them waited for James to arrive, first with Ulf’s order and a little later a cup of Earl Gray.

During the shared silence Ulf glanced at a stack of papers the senior held in his right hand. The reason for the outrage was probably to be found there.

“So,” Ulf began after they both had their first sip of hot beverage, “could you please fill me in in what way I overstepped this time?”

He got another glare in return.

“Hamarugen-san, we both know you ran the show last year, so when the current student council breaks all tradition it’s clear you’re the one behind it.”

Now Ulf really wanted to know what he had done. “Please enlighten me,” he said. Whatever it was he was certain Kareyoshi or his goons were behind it.

For the first time the stare Ulf got held surprise rather than anger. “Look,” the senior said and placed the stack of paper on the table, “every class and club got tasks assigned for the cultural festival. No voting, no suggesting, just an order to do as we’re told.”

“Kareyoshi you little fuck, why don’t you just go die in the gutter?” Ulf growled.

He stared at eyes widening. He grabbed the papers and as he read irritation grew into anger and wrath.

***

“Did you get the last ones?”

Yukio grimaced and shook his head. Jeniferu had made collecting data about anything concerning the freshmen a breeze. With most of their friends juniors the second years were covered as well, but a lot of seniors still resented them.

“Can’t be helped then,” Kyoko said. “We’ve still got six of their classes and most of the clubs.”

“And?” Yukio looked at his girlfriend, but he already knew, or at least guessed the answer.

Kyoko smirked. “It’s as Urufu said. Traditional Japanese food. Displays about Japan and even a couple of old plays. Nothing foreign will be part of the cultural festival.”

Noriko’s hand grabbed his shoulder and Yukio felt Urufu’s girlfriend shaking with laughter. When he turned around he saw how her other hand grabbed Kyoko’s just as tightly.

“What is it?” he wondered when she wouldn’t stop.

Finger dug deeper into his shoulder. “Urufu, you wonderful moron!”

“Huh?”

Noriko’s laughter subsided into a wide grin. “Kareyoshi’s just as ignorant of history as Urufu said. Look here!” she said, let go of his shoulder and bent between him and Kyoko. When she reached the table she placed her hand on the section for food stalls.

Yukio looked at where Noriko pointed. “And?”

“Yukio, really!” Noriko giggled and stabbed her index finger at two stalls. “Ramen and tempura.”

That ramen was a rather recent introduction from the mainland was hardly unknown, but tempura? Still, it wasn’t exactly enough to warrant Noriko’s level of hilarity. “What else?”

Noriko squeezed herself between them, but when Kyoko shot her an angry glare she backed away and returned to the other side of the table. “Sorry,” she said.

Kyoko nodded consent and it was as if the girls had never clashed at all just moments earlier.

Noriko spread out the papers and showed entry after entry where Kareyoshi’s ideas of a pure Japan showcased something imported.

“He’s so clueless it’s funny.” Then Noriko’s face grew sombre. “And now for the not so funny part.” She opened her bag and dropped another paper onto the table.

Yukio read it and shook his head. “Morons!”

That outburst had James turn his head from behind the counter. Yukio used it as an opportunity to order another round. Something hot this time. Autumn came early this year and the asthmatic air-conditioner no longer had any problems keeping the temperature at check.

“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Kyoko noted when she was finished reading the single page Noriko had added. “Micromanagement is bound to fail, but I’m not surprised.”

“They really never took note of Urufu at all, did they?”

Yukio looked at Noriko. She might be starstruck but she wasn’t an idiot. “I don’t think they could understand. Took us long enough, and we see him almost every day.”

“But still. The student council assigning individual tasks?”

“That’s just Kareyoshi being so scared of losing control he’s shitting his pants.”

Around them club members laughed at the vulgar outburst – the freshmen not until Irishima High’s vice principal guffawed. Yukio wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.

Then the older man rose from his chair, pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and walked to their table.

“May I inquire about what merited such an, eh, spirited remark earlier?” he said when he arrived at their table.

Yukio watched as Noriko wordlessly handed over a stack of pages. Vice Principal Noguchi, because in difference from Kareyoshi he did deserve both titles and honorifics, read them in silence and smirked when he came to the end.

“Funny,” he began, “I thought they called us uptight as Irishima High.” Then his eyes got a sharper touch to them when he met Yukio’s stare. “Your comment on this, young man?”

Yukio dared smiling a little. Closer to two years with Urufu had built confidence he didn’t know was there to begin with. “As long as the context merely stays complicated it should work just fine,” Yukio said.

Vice Principal Noguchi scowled, but Yukio wasn’t taken aback.

“That’s also the main danger, sensei. They’re likely to be lulled into an illusion of safety and for that reason becoming less able to handle what Urufu so fondly calls ‘incoming shit from the left’.”

“Incoming shit?”

“From the left, sensei.” Yukio smiled. “That’s when complicated becomes complex. In this case it’s likely to occur shortly after we open for the public.”

I would happen earlier. Small things. Unimportant things. Things on a scale the student council could handle by burning excess energy that would be needed later. Still it wasn’t the main problem.

“Sensei, we can handle a boring cultural festival, but I’m worried there are only shards left of the meaning behind having one.”

“To promote cooperation and initiative,” Noguchi-sensei said.

“Well, this year we’ll be doing what we’re ordered to do, and taking initiative most certainly isn’t that.”

“I wonder,” Noguchi-sensei said, “why you transferred back.”

“Couldn’t leave Urufu all alone, could I?” Yukio sipped some of his lukewarm tea. That wasn’t entirely true. “Because it’s so much fun being around him, even when it isn’t. Because he makes me grow.”

“Because they are our friends,” Kyoko said.

“Because we love them,” Noriko added.

In her case the word love held a slightly different meaning. The couple still hadn’t gone public with their relationship. Not after someone kicked Noriko down the stairs just after the new trimester started. As for his own relationship with Kyoko, well the armed guards were back. Urufu’s guardian just loved sticking a thumb into Kareyoshi’s eyes, and twist.

“Now this is funny,” Noriko said.

Yukio brought his mind out of his thoughts. “What is?”

“This. It specifically says every class is assigned logistics duties throughout the entire festival.”

Yukio shrugged. “We had to last year as well.”

“But it wasn’t made explicit like this.” Noriko looked at them. “Something stinks.”