In the end Noriko got her fair share of Christmas carols. She even got to listen to them together with Urufu. They didn’t go to Asakusa as Kyoko had suggested, but rather Urufu brought her to an amusement park an hour’s ride or so away from the city centres of Tokyo.

Something about a memory, he said, but when they arrived he just stood gaping at the insanity. Noriko had nothing against illuminations, but this was taking it a little too far. About a galaxy too far or so.

The entire park was lit up like a fairy tale version of fantasy land, but the sheer amount of coloured lamps dispelled any remaining magic.

A little bemused she shared the first half of their date with him surrounded by people and illumination competing for winning this year’s prize for outstanding vulgarity. Urufu was, as usual, a close runner up with strange taste in clothes.

They were already on the train back from bling hell when Noriko both voiced those thoughts in her head and immediately regretted them.

She nudged closer to him as if to apologise by means of sheer proximity. He stood, one hand firmly gripping a support and the other protectively on her shoulder to prevent her from falling whenever the train took a curve. In ways he always stood firm, and Noriko guessed that was what first attracted her to him – that he always took a stance and stood by it until convinced he was wrong. Now, that was the second thing with him that attracted her; that he admitted when he was wrong.

Just like he had done now. When their date at the theme park promised to become a disappointing disaster he simply suggested they leave and leave it to him to find something else to do.

It probably wouldn’t involve a restaurant, since those were booked full weeks earlier, but she trusted him to come up with something.

They left the train at Shinjuku and Urufu dragged her to the circle line and shortly afterwards Noriko found herself at the grand Shibuya intersection.

What’s he up to now? she wondered as she was dragged inside a shop. A bag with winter’s clothing later, one she had refused he pay for, she once again found herself on a train but none the wiser.

They left at another station, Urufu quickly bought something in a rather strange shop, or rather a lot of somethings which all made their way into his backpack. His eye-destroying backpack. After that they were bound for Shinjuku once again and a long walk later, one he prepared by forcing he to change shoes, Noriko grinned as she recognised the park in front of them.

“Urufu, you’re cute, but you should have checked first,” she said. Let’s see him wriggle out of this one.

“What? Oh, oh shit!”

Opening hours weren’t the same in December as in summer, and Noriko watched in fascination how Urufu’s face turned sour and thoughtful with just a few seconds in between.

“Train,” he said and dragged her back in the direction of the station.

Any other girl would have kicked your shins and left you by now, Noriko thought. She didn’t. Albeit a disaster this date turned out to be a rather merry one. With the kind of company her parents kept around them fancy restaurants never made it into her wish list. Whatever Urufu had planned, he’d done so for her, and she was curious about how he’d manage to make up for the illuminations she honestly hadn’t wanted to see in the first place.

Not that she would tell him.

When they left the train at Harajuku she had her answer. Yoyogi park didn’t have opening hours the way Shinjuku Gyoen did.

They left they cityscape behind them and entered under bare trees making a futile attempt at hiding the overcast sky. Winter left the park mostly empty, and Noriko swallowed the laugh that bubbled up inside her when Urufu beelined straight for a table with two benches.

No, he isn’t!

He was.

The strange things he had bought was some kind of outdoor kitchen, and the hissing sound of burning gas was soon accompanied by water bubbling.

In the meantime all the winter’s clothing he had forced her to buy came to good use. He even pulled out a foldable cushion he must have hidden away in his backpack. It was flat and not very soft, but it did keep the cold away.

Soon a small feast appeared on the table, but before that Noriko enjoyed the luxury of something sweet and hot to drink that Urufu prepared for her.

Among the crazy assortment of food and drink a Christmas cake suddenly appeared, and Noriko couldn’t suppress her laughter. It ran out of her together with feelings of happiness and love, and she didn’t stop until Urufu kissed her.

“Merry Christmas,” he said.

“Merry… oh. Is that for me?”

“Of course. I couldn’t really forget your Christmas present, now, could I?”

Noriko put her cup of warm luxury away and unwrapped her present with some apprehension. Urufu had expensive tastes, too expensive in her opinion.

I wonder. An oblong paper box lay on the table and hid its contents from her. He didn’t!

He did.

She burst out in laughter once again. “Urufu, I love you. I really really love you.” Noriko guffawed, but she allowed herself to fully enjoy being caressed by the thick scarf she wrapped around her neck. I don’t even want to know what he paid for this. It lay on her shoulders, snuggled in between coat and neck and protected her from the winter afternoon. He knew I’m cold. She felt herself warm up inside as if he had embraced her, and when she met his eyes Noriko suspected her feelings for him could be read like an open book.

“It was Yukio’s suggestion,” Urufu admitted.

Of course it was! This time Noriko made no attempt at stopping her laughter. She was warm, and in love, and Urufu was just as stupid as dear to her.

“Urufu you idiot, I love you.”

He blushed a little and smiled back. “I love you as well.”

***

“Why here?”

“Because I love winter,” Kuri said.

Ryu shook his head. Going to Odori Park was excessive just to celebrate Christmas. Or rather flying from Tokyo to Sapporo was. To top it off it was freezing cold, literally so. The snow he had expected, though, was absent.

“This is winter?” he had to ask.

At his side Kuri shook her head. She grimaced a little. “Well, it’s not too uncommon you’ll have to wait until January for the snow back home.”

‘Home’ wasn’t Tokyo. Ryu knew that. At least not right now. For him snow was something you visited, but the way her eyes dimmed when they landed in a bare landscape told him she must have grown up with white winters.

“Back then,” he began, “how did you spend Christmas?”

She smiled and gave him a peck of a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks for asking.” She brightened and he could see the child she had once been. “Before modelling, with my family. Just like everyone else.” Then something sad covered her eyes. “After my nomadic life began, well anywhere I guess. I tried to get home whenever possible though.”

Taking a few steps more in silence Ryu watched the madness around him. Kuri certainly had picked a place as sickly illuminated as any of the more well known Christmas dating spots in Tokyo. He guessed girls liked it. With the possible exception of his sister of course, but then she hadn’t really begun behaving like a girl until last year.

She was with Nao then. And that turned out just splendidly, didn’t it? Ryu swore silently and looked ahead. He’d promised himself he’d leave his sister alone as much as possible lest Kuri walked away from him. Yukio’s and Kyoko’s mad gamble had paid off. Hats off for them. After his anger subsided Ryu admitted he admired their bravery.

“You don’t really celebrate Christmas that way here, do you?” Kuri sad, but her voice held a quality to it that revealed she was still in that other world.

Ryu looked up and glanced at her. “No,” he admitted. “It’s mostly a dating event for couples, well and small kids receive presents.”

“Did you get any?” she replied at once, and the teasing giggle that followed made him smile. She was back once again.

“Prince of Himekaizen here. Princes don’t get to act like kids.” His own words rang false. He had, behaved like a kid that was, and deep inside he knew he still was. The only difference from earlier was he wasn’t entirely certain why he disliked Noriko’s and Urufu’s relationship so much.

She turned down Yukio three times during their last year at middle school, but Ryu was certain he wouldn’t have reacted this way had Noriko chosen otherwise.

The part about her boyfriend being a foreigner was something Ryu had already rejected; he didn’t care about it when it came to Kuri after all. In fact he no longer noticed anything but how much he cared for her. The same went for the age difference, or at least mostly so, because Ryu suspected Urufu saw something in Noriko he himself couldn’t see, and maybe the resentment lay there.

“It’s a lot more gaudy than what I remember from home,” Kuri said. She was still giggling, but she became serious again. “There’s a lot that’s different from home.”

If she was back in this reality then that reality included the hell they had been through the last year. “I wonder what the next one will be like,” Ryu said and pretended to be interested in the knick-knacks sold in one stall.

Kuri hugged his arm closer to herself and made a show of taking a more active interest in tackiness on display. “The next principal?” she asked between a poorly painted earthenware mug and a glass that failed utterly at looking like crystal. “We’ll have this one,” she added to his horror and chose a pair of the mugs.

Unbidden an image of the mugs being used in her luxury flat came to his mind, and he shuddered. He was part of that picture.

Ryu stared at the woman by his side, because she very much was a woman. This time he did notice her foreignness. The kind of clothing she wore, almost white, including a fluffy something covering her golden hair, would have looked awful on anyone born here. Kuri, however, looked like a princess supervising this illusion as if it was only natural for her.

“Yes,” he said. “The next principal.”

The princess smirked and shrugged. “I don’t know. Normal I hope.”

Normal? Yes, I can see why you’d want normal. Ryu let go of her arm so she could sign something a fan put under her nose. From the start since they entered the park she had been bugged by fans, and only the discreet intervention of her body guards allowed them a semblance of a date for two.

Ryu didn’t mind, but he felt a little sorry for Kuri. He might be the Prince of Himekaizen, but with the madman Kareyoshi at the helm there had been precious little time to be a prince of anything. He still had the chance to vanish into the shadows whenever the need became pressing. As for Kuri, the only shadows she ever saw were those she cast herself.

Is it worth it? Or is this the only life you know?

With one fan a happier person and an autograph richer Ryu took the chance to move closer to his girlfriend. They managed to walk another two stalls before the next group of fans were allowed near them.

One of the girls hunting for Kuri’s signature shot Ryu a shy smile, and he reflexively returned it with a trademarked one of his own. From the corner of his eye he saw how Kuri lit up in a thoroughly professional smile.

Christmas carols from different speakers mixed and competed for attention, Kuri handed out Christmas presents in the form of autographs, and the two of them pretended to enjoy a date for two with preying cameras noticing everything they did.

Tomorrow some of those cameras would make someone famous for an entire day. Tomorrow Ryu would help Kuri look like a high school girl living out her winter break. Tomorrow Kuri’s normal life would continue with cameras, fans and body guards.