Noriko shook her head while she waited for Kuri to open the door. It was her first time here, and she regretfully accepted that she was a little curious. While she would have preferred to stay with Urufu in the Haven something in Christina’s voice told her that wasn’t really an option.

But why me and not Kyoko?

Suddenly the door clicked open and Christina’s voice called ‘please enter’ over a hidden intercom.

Noriko did as bidden and got inside.

Two pair of shoes waited for her in the hallway, and when Noriko looked into an enormous living room she saw Kuri waving.

“I’ll be outside for a while,” Christina said to whomever her guest was. Then she ran to Noriko and hugged her. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help her. Please forgive me!”

Her? “What’s going on?”

“It’s Jennifer. She’s in a bad shape, and I don’t think I’m the one she needs listening.”

No, no you didn’t! Now it was too late to back out. “You owe me for this!”

“I know,” Christina said, “but I could never understand her the way you could,” she whispered.

You insensitive bitch! Why would I want to relive that? “You owe me,” Noriko repeated.

Christina didn’t answer. She just opened the door and vanished into the lift.

Noriko clenched her fists and with worms crawling down her spine she forced her feet into the living room. When she entered it she saw Jennifer’s small body hunched in a chair by a large table in the next room.

Of course this flat comes with a separate dining room. Gods it’s huge!

“Jeniferu, it’s me,” she said into the silence.

No answer.

“Noriko,” Noriko added at a lack of anything meaningful to say. Of course Jeniferu would know. I didn’t know walking trough a room could take this long. But it didn’t have anything to do with the room. Two years. It takes two years to walk to that table.

Memories of what had almost happened filled her mingled with the knowledge that there was nothing almost for Jeniferu. Urufu saved me, but Tomasu never made it in time for you. Did that make Urufu better than Tomasu? Noriko didn’t think so, not if she was honest, but she also admitted she might have fallen in love with Urufu the first time just because he did save her.

“She left me. She didn’t want to talk with me.” The words petered out and Noriko heard how they were replaced by, first silent, but quickly wailing sobs.

I’ll never forgive you Kuri! But Noriko knew she would, even if it took a long time. Who told her about what happened to me? Ryu? But then Noriko remembered she herself had told both Principal Nakagawa and the entire student council last year.

She rushed to the table and sat down on a chair beside Jeniferu. “She’s scared,” Noriko heard herself say. She put her hands on the table. Right now she wasn’t certain if a hug would make the girl panic or not.

“She?”

Noriko threw Jeniferu a glance. Maybe they would talk after all, or Noriko talk, or Jeniferu; she didn’t know. “Kuri,” she said after a moment’s hesitation.

“Kuri’s scared? Of what?”

“Urufu was as well,” Noriko answered. In ways it was a lie, but she believed he was. She hadn’t asked yet. “They don’t know what it’s like.” Suddenly afraid of stealing Jeniferu’s fear Noriko added: “And neither do I, not really.”

“Then why did she leave you with me?” Jeniferu said and broke down again.

Good question, Noriko thought. Then she discarded it. Thinking like that was too close to the cynical freshman version of herself from over a year ago.

“Because,” Noriko began. She dared touching Jeniferu’s shoulder to get her attention. “In middle school some boys tried to rape me.”

That did get her attention. Jeniferu’s eyes were suddenly wide open and she stopped sobbing at once.

“Did they...”

“No,” Jeniferu’s experience was far worse than Noriko’s, “Urufu saved me, Urufu and my brother.” Which wasn’t entirely true. Ryu had been too far away to know she needed saving.

“I’ve been so afraid.” And Jeniferu’s eyebrows once again screwed up in a display of misery.

Noriko waited while Jeniferu cried and cried. Holding her seemed fine, and when Jeniferu turned her head and buried her face into Noriko’s shoulder she did the same. Fears she had forgotten surfaced and she joined Jeniferu in her wailing.

How much time passed before they stopped crying Noriko didn’t know, but certainly more than for any errand Kuri used as an excuse for leaving her flat.

“Dad wants me to talk with someone,” Jeniferu said when they had both run out of tears.

Noriko stood heating water for some tea and turned at the sound of Jeniferu’s voice.

“And you?”

Jeniferu shook her head. “Not with a stranger.”

A small cup with sugar made company on the tray where tea bags competed for space with two mugs and an equally small can of milk.

“A professional,” Noriko said carrying the set through the room. “Living room?”

Jeniferu nodded and rose from her chair. Brown hair, some of it still wet from tears bobbed around her face and failed in it’s attempt to hide her red eyes.

Wonder if I look the same.

Noriko put the tray on a low table by a sofa, the two pieces of furniture that tried to hide in the huge space. Now when she wasn’t occupied with her and Jeniferu’s shared fear she had time to see how the entire flat screamed of desolation.

“A professional,” Noriko repeated when Jeniferu joined her. “I believe you need one.” She looked around the empty room. “I believe Kuri needs one as well.”

“Do you mean Kuri...”

“No,” Noriko said and smiled for the first time since coming here. “For a different reason.”

***

“I need professional help?”

Yukio looked at Kuri. They were on their way back from lunch to yet another midterm exam.

“If Noriko says so, then you probably do,” Kyoko said from his other side.

“Ko-chan!”

“Yes, Kuri-chan, dear?”

Kyoko’s sugary sweet voice made Yukio cringe. He sped up and deliberately abandoned his girlfriend. When Kuri and Kyoko decided to swap blows with each other he never knew if they were serious or not.

“See you after school,” Yukio announced and made for his classroom. It wasn’t like he’d be able to share it with Kyoko for the exam anyway.

And you probably do, and Urufu as well, he thought a little later when he made the last preparations for the exam. Epic levels of idiocy were probably better handled by professionals than by friends. Still, by now both Kuri and Urufu seemed to have settled down in their respective new relationships, one famous throughout the school and the other kept a secret. Well, nominally a secret anyway.

Exams ate the rest of the day, and the day after that. They were, Yukio thought after the week had passed, strangely easier than he had expected. When he mentioned it to Kyoko she chalked it down to a combination of club activities and the brutal cramming that prepared them for the spring term finals at Irishima High a few months earlier.

He tried to get a second opinion from Noriko, but when Yukio called Saturday he learned she was away paying Jeniferu a visit.

With Kuri away for work, Ryu almost certainly waiting for her, and Urufu most likely training that martial arts of his, or cycling to training, Yukio decided to spend the day alone with Kyoko. Dates had been few and far between the last weeks anyway.

With most of the old gang out of reach he suggested a change of place as well. Thus it was Yukio found himself an early Saturday afternoon waiting at the entrance to Ueno Zoo at one side of the park.

The first person to approach him however wasn’t Kyoko but rather Tomasu and Hitomi.

“Funny seeing the two of your here,” Yukio greeted them.

“No coincidence,” Hitomi said. “Kyoko called me earlier.”

Strange. I thought we were going to have a date. Yukio forced a smile and nodded to Kyoko’s classmate and only second year club member who had returned to Himekaizen apart from the old group.

“Don’t worry, you’ll have your date eventually,” she continued. Hitomi had proven to be much less of an airhead than the girl who once joined the club. The short stunt at Irishima High had been good for her. At least in Yukio’s eyes.

“Is Jeniferu OK with this?” Yukio said. This time addressing Tomasu.

“It’s her request,” Hitomi answered rather than the boyfriend Yukio had just indirectly accused of cheating.

Tomasu fidgeted but chose to stare back across the park in the direction of the railway station.

“Jeniferu’s?” Yukio said and followed Tomasu’s eyes. No matter if they came by subway or train they’d enter the part from the same entrance.

Hitomi turned and looked behind her as well. “Yes. She’s with Noriko and Kyoko picked them up on her way here.”

An obscure application of Chinese whispers flashed through Yukio’s mind. “Jeniferu told Noriko to call Kyoko to ask you to bring Tomasu here and notify me of the change of plans?”

Hitomi smiled when she turned back to face him. “Yes, that would be an apt description.”

Yukio shook his head. If what Urufu taught him about single points of failure and sequential dependencies was correct those inbound were likely to end up in Stockholm if they even got moving at all.

They waited. From time to time Yukio picked up his smartphone to see if there was a message.

“Waited long?”

Yukio looked up. Urufu? Man, please make some sense of this!

“I dropped my bike by the pond,” Urufu said as if that explained anything. “The rest will be here soon. Noriko got the zoo mixed up with the park, or rather Noriko and Kyoko did.”

Yukio shot Hitomi a glance, but she only smiled in return.

“You’re telling me they’re waiting just across the...?” Yukio began, but then he saw Kyoko with Noriko and Jeniferu in tow walking from where he had once come himself.

“I called them on my way here,” Urufu said. “Haven’t been here for ages, and when Noriko sent me a message I wondered...”

“… if things hadn’t been garbled in the end?” Yukio filled in.

He stared at his best friend and they both guffawed.

“Something like that,” Urufu offered, and by that time Yukio’s stomach hurt a little, and the trio had made their way to them. Hitomi glared at him and Tomasu gave him a nonplussed stare.

“Sorry, Yukio, but Noriko said it was important.”

He hugged her. Some of Urufu’s influence had rubbed off, and Yukio didn’t care that they were in public. “Don’t worry. We planned being together all of us anyway.”

Kyoko loosened herself from his hug. “No, we’re having that date, but it’ll have to wait a little. Yukio, this is important,” Kyoko said and looked at Jeniferu. “Could you wait here with Urufu for a while? Please!”

Yukio smiled back. If Kyoko said it was important for her he’d wait for however long it took. “Mind if we grab a drink?”

Kyoko shook her head. “Message when we’re done?”

Yukio smiled again and nodded.

He looked after Kyoko as she headed in the direction of a large fountain together with the rest of the girls and a bewildered Tomasu who was unceremoniously dragged away as well.

“What’s up,” Yukio wondered aloud.

“Girls’ talk,” Urufu said and frowned. “I hope they can make it work.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I wanted to say I hope you never will, but I’m afraid you already do.”

Yukio stared at Urufu. Sometimes he could be infuriatingly cryptic.

Together the both of them went in search for a vending machine.