“Aren’t we supposed to visit a shrine together?” Kuri asked.

Ryu looked up from the bed they shared. From the bed they shared with all their clothes on. Kuri sat tailor-fashion dead centre in the bed, golden hair cascading down her shoulders and with those deep blue eyes measuring him. Ryu had draped himself diagonally across it with his head hanging outside. The last being the reason he needed to look up to face her.

“Hatsumode? Why not?”

Urufu had worked them to the bones ever since their respective Christmas dates. Well not Kuri; she did the working all by herself as usual.

January the first. They spent New Year’s Eve at his home with Kuri visiting. Celebrating the new year at a shrine would have been the normal thing to do, but gruelling hours of working during the first half of their winter break made certain they were fast asleep long before midnight.

“I could call Ko-chan,” Kuri suggested.

Ryu grumbled a little. Things were good between him and the couple once again, but he still hadn’t fully come to grips with them being able to bite as well as bark.

“Or don’t you want me to?” she added.

Do I not want you to? That wasn’t really the question, was it? Telling Kuri not to ask her best friend out was something he needed to be careful with. If he wanted to spend some time alone with his girlfriend, well that wasn’t a problem. If he wanted to avoid Kyoko; that was an entirely different beast. “No Hatsumode with friends sounds fine,” Ryu decided. “Why not give sis and Urufu a call as well?” He could just as well be magnanimous.

“Sounds fun. I missed out last year.”

You were working last year. With Nao to boot. “So, all six of us?”

“All nine,” Kuri corrected him.

“Nine?” Ah, of course. “But Tomasu and Jeniferu only makes eight.”

Kuri smiled. “Noriko mentioned inviting Hitomi for hatsumode.”

Noriko mentioned? You mean Urufu, don’t you? Or maybe it had been sis after all. Urufu and Kuri weren’t on the best terms with each other any longer. The drawn out war with Kareyoshi took its toll in the end. “Sure, six or nine, what’s the difference?”

“Later today or tomorrow?”

Girls liked to dress up. Kuri just did it with supersonic speed because of who she was. It wouldn’t be fair to the others. “Tomorrow. That way it won’t feel as rushed.” That way her body guards won’t scream bloody murder.

Kuri stretched like a cat and Ryu admired how her body curved in all kinds of alluring ways. Hers was a special kind of beauty, which only made sense considering her part time work. Your average school girl didn’t work as a model, or in Kuri’s case a rising super star. It still sometimes befuddled him walking by her side with her face plastered to bill boards all around them.

He slid down on the floor. His sister making good friends with Kuri eventually led to Kuri standing on the receiving end of Noriko’s endless nagging. By now it finally showed. The flat that was Kuri’s home slowly started to resemble a home. Sure, parts of it was still too sterile, but at least it didn’t look abandoned like it had done when he first came here. Back then she referred to it as her golden cage.

The oversized bedroom they sat in very much looked like where a young woman slept, not to speak of the bathroom attached to it. As he glanced through the door opening Ryu felt a smile come to his lips. The living room no longer tried competing with the school gym for having the cleanest floor. That was definitely Noriko’s doing, or rather her insisting on bringing friends over whenever she visited Kuri. Groups of friends needed somewhere to sit, and in the end odd pieces of furniture slowly found their way there.

There was a kitchen which even sported plates and glasses for more than one person these days; including a pair of cups that would look horribly out of place no matter where they were placed. Those were a terrifying memory of their Christmas date.

The sound of Kuri’s voice reached him through his thoughts, and pushing with both hands against the floor Ryu rose to his feet and looked at Kuri as she spoke in her phone.

Ah, she began with Kyoko. I guess it’s a twofer. Calling Yukio wouldn’t be needed. If you spoke with one of them you spoke with them both.

Ryu left the room. His thoughts right now weren’t entirely truthful. Kyoko was Kuri’s best friend. They’d chit chat about absolutely nothing for at least half an hour. He could as well spend that time shopping for something to eat, and there was a convenience store nearby.

On his way out he grabbed his coat and slowly buttoned it up in the lift. He threw the guard a glance, nodded at Kuri’s personal body guard, wrapped his scarf around his neck and walked through the sliding doors.

While warmer than Sapporo, this still couldn’t be called warm. Ryu tugged his coat closer to him as he hugged the walls by the pavement in an attempt to get a little cover from the wind. Another two freezing blocks got him to the convenience store and Ryu greedily snuck into the warmth.

He stayed a little longer than planned, absently leafing through the magazines by the window, to get some warmth back into his body. Coat was all good and well, but by now Ryu regretted not having donned the sweater he left with Kuri.

It couldn’t be helped. He put back the last magazine, grabbed the pre-packaged lunch boxes and sauntered over to the counter where a girl in her early twenties had stood sending him disapproving glances while he went through one magazine after another.

Just because he could, Ryu sent her one of his most devastating smiles and got the expected reaction in return. He paid, she stammered and Ryu was on his way back to Kuri.

***

Pre-packaged convenience store lunch in a luxury flat made it feel more like home. It would have felt even more like home if Ryu had stayed the night, but he wanted to escort his sister to the shrine, something that told Christina how he still failed badly in the department of allowing Noriko to live her own life.

Just to give him a little hell Christina sent Noriko and Ulf a message each with a heads up. Now it was up to them how to use it.

Christina loved Ryu. That wasn’t the same as blithely allowing him to behave like an arse, and Noriko had fought hard to get together with Ulf. Even when Christina still was jealous of the midget she always admired the little ball of endless energy. You deserve him.

They deserved each other. Ulf was all too often an insensitive buffoon, and Noriko had a personality eminently suited to handle that side of him; probably because she was an insensitive buffoon herself. Which was, Christina silently admitted to herself, only part of the truth. Noriko had ghosts of her own.

Christina grimaced and finished her make-up. After that clothes were a quick business. She had long since discarded the idea of going in a kimono. That garment wasn’t meant for someone with her looks. Instead she settled for a variant of what she had worn during the Christmas date with Ryu. White and cream coloured with a splash of blue. Very few could wear that since you needed a very distinct kind of blue eyes to hold the composition together. She was one of those few. A luxurious mass of golden hair helped.

For most anyone else thinking those thoughts was bragging or at least wistful thinking, but being the Princess of Scandinavia had been her job for over ten years, and after that she created her own empire of beauty. So she knew how she looked, and right now she wanted to look her best for Ryu without going full battledress.

My body’s eighteen this year. The time for being a beautiful girl was coming to an end. Now fifteen long years of being one of the most beautiful women on the planet lay ahead of her. Just as it had done all those years earlier in the upstream world.

She took the lift down, waved her body guard to her side, and together they left the building. For once she sought out the car with the pair of body guards Vogue assigned to her. There were times for being rebellious, but this was not one of them. Hatsumode was very much a public occasion, and going without very visible body guards was tantamount to attracting accident to happen. She had her share of fanatic stalkers; it came with her job.

The car took them to where she had previously agreed to meet up with Noriko. She left it with one body guard still at the wheel and walked to where she expected to find Ryu all alone.

He wasn’t, there at all, and neither was Noriko. Oops, guess I’ll have to call him and see where he followed his sister. She decided to make that call as quickly a possible. Standing all alone in her outfit attracted far too much attention, body guards or no body guards.

Out of service? Christina wasn’t too surprised. They days around New Year saw the network pushed to capacity.

Then the next problem arrived. Christina saw Hitomi walk up on her, just as much without an escort, and to Christina’s consternation in an absolutely gorgeous kimono. Right here and now Hitomi was competition, which didn’t bother Christina at all. Right here and now they were two supremely beautiful women all alone but for the body guards who still decided between being discrete or behaving like bullying muscle.

“Kuri? I expected Noriko.”

Damn! Ryu, or in worst case Nao, would have come in handy now. At least anyone of those two would have taken the worst heat off them.

“I’m trying to call Ryu, but there’s no answer.”

Hitomi gave her a calculating stare. “Both Noriko and Urufu failing to arrive in time? What did you do?”

“Nothing much,” Christina answered.

A sudden gust of wind crept inside he coat. It might look luxuriously warm, but in reality it was only designed to make her look hot in more ways than one. Clothes that actually did keep the cold out usually didn’t look fantastic on the wearer; Ulf was a shining example.

“Kyoko?”

Ah, but Ko-chan said she’d come later. With Yukio I guess. “Oh, they’ll arrive in half an hour or so,” Christina said.

Hitomi smirked. “Half a century’s worth of experience suggesting two dressed up girls stay here waiting alone for half an hour?” The grin turned into a grimace. “Did you leave you brains in that other world?”

A bit further away people were already aiming phones at them. Both body guards outside the car looked uncomfortable and made themselves very visible. Staying here below the stairs to the shrine was no longer an option.

“Up for a ride?” Christina said and nodded at the car.

Hitomi tilted her head. “Not really, but anything is better than being ogled here.” She flipped her handbag into her hand and strode away in the direction of the closest body guard.

Mutely Christina followed. Not the best way to start the day. She caught up with Hitomi. Guess we’ll drive around a little while I call the others.

They reached the car and got inside. Both body guards joined them and with a silent whirring the car left the shrine. Watching the stairs grow smaller and smaller Christina fished for her phone. Ko-chan was priority. Ulf and Noriko were elsewhere, most probably with Ryu in tow.

No service? She glared at her phone and shot Hitomi a questioning stare. The girl opened her own handbag and dug into it. After a short while she wielded a phone with a triumphant smile on her face. Then it darkened.

“No service.”