Winter break ended and the short third trimester began. For the second years it came with both a period of enjoyment and a lot of worries. Exams were a lot more important than they had been last year, but long before those the last week of January promised a small adventure with friends.

One long week in the Kansai area. Osaka and Kyoto were on the itinerary, which probably meant a short visit to Kobe and Nara both. These weren’t places unknown to Christina. She had visited both of the larger cities several times during her previous life, and the hatsumode she never got to spend with Ulf turned into a shoot in Kyoto.

She fidgeted as she packed the last pieces of clothes into a large bag. Most of it was empty, but the section with her clothes bulged in protest of being abused. The empty sections were for new clothes and souvenirs. Her fidgeting however wasn’t the result of a protest. While she had visited the cities before she had never done so together with someone she wanted to share the experience with, and that made her nervous.

Ryu might still be a boy barely growing into manhood, but he was her boy. Lingering feelings for Ulf didn’t change that she had fallen in love with the prince charming of their school. Not because he was prince charming; that was just a part of him, but because he’d been there caring for her when she had no right to expect being cared for.

I always thought I’d make this trip with Ulf. But she hadn’t. Not really. They were falling apart before they even slept together. That first summer when he broke down after watching a suicide held both the beginning and end of that love. In the end she couldn’t compete with the memories of the wife he lost to that other world.

I hope you make the most of it, Christina thought and smirked. A little jealousy always accompanied the moments she saw Noriko and Ulf share together, but these days it was a healthy kind of jealousy, or at least as healthy as was possible. Ulf’s first woman in this world was doomed, and Christina had been that woman. The second only had to compete with that first one.

Only. Damn, Noriko, you make me proud of all strong women out there! Because Christina knew perfectly well what kind of competition she represented herself, and Noriko had bulldozed right through it with all of her a metre and a half. Yeah, my kind of girl! Jealousy be damned. If anyone deserved Ulf it was Noriko. The question was if Ulf deserved her.

The smirk spread into a thin smile, and after that a happy grin. Christina had long since stopped fidgeting, and now she shouldered her bag and left her luxury flat. A home these days. Another thing she had Ryu to thank for. Occasionally they spent their nights here, and Ryu’s parents both knew and accepted it. Ryu, however, didn’t accept that she treated it like a hotel room, and piece by piece it took the form of a home.

The lift dropped her at the entrance floor, she waved at the uniformed guard sitting behind the reception desk and left through sliding doors with her personal body guard in tow. Outside the pair Vogue assigned to her waited, as always, in a car, and the four of them rode, not to Tokyo station, but to the Shin Yokohama one.

While an obvious detour it was also a lot less obvious. She’d take the Shinkansen from a station that was less likely to be swamped with journalists who knew exactly when the Himekaizen second years departed for their field trip east. That thought brought a growl to Christina’s face. Journalists stalking the students because of the sensational foreign model was one thing.

Damn, if they only stalked me. I’m used to it. Another eight students were shuttled to that station as well. The old gang plus Hitomi. Friends of a girl raped didn’t make journalists drool. Friends of the raped daughter of a US ambassador did. The backlash of that disgusting story hadn’t died down. If anything it blew up again when Kareyoshi was incarcerated.

She leaned back in her seat and caught some sleep. Sleeping on the go was a superb Japanese habit Christina had adapted to as quickly as possible.

Her body guard tapped her shoulder when they had arrived, and she left the car and grabbed her bag from the trunk. It hung from her shoulder as she entered the station, not her body guard’s. He wouldn’t be of much use if burdened by her luggage.

Inside the gang waited. One person left it and met her. Ryu. Always Ryu who showed how he cared. It warmed inside of her, and it told her she had been right to move on when her heart broke from her own actions. Thank you Ryu for loving me! Thank you Ulf for letting me go!

Ryu hugged her and moved her bag to his own shoulder. He made it look like it just happened to slide over to him, but she could feel how he snaked under it when he hugged her.

In difference from Ulf Ryu truly was a natural athlete. Christina wondered if he had inherited it from his mother. She always seemed so much more lively compared to his father. The thought of the serious man rolling around on the ground like a cat made her giggle, and she shot Ryu an apologetic smile when he gave her a nonplussed stare.

“What did I do?” he asked.

“Oh, you didn’t,” Christina said. “Maybe your father did.”

“Huh?”

She threw an arm around him and followed him back to their friends. “Nothing. Just forget it,” she said.

Ryu’s eyes widened in slight annoyance, but she noticed how he decided not to pursue the matter.

Christina grinned and threw Hitomi a glance. “Isn’t it time we found you someone?” she said in an attempt to get a reaction out of the always calm beauty.

“I don’t think so,” came the curt reply.

“How so,” Christina said. If she had started it she could as well push the provocation a little. Right now she felt an unexplained need to be a little mean.

The girl lit up in a stunning and surprisingly malicious grin. “I don’t think Ryu would like it very much.”

Huh? What? What!

***

Kyoto station was something to stare at. Where the super capital of Japan offered catacombs the former capital joined the competition with a fantastic view of an indoor skyline.

Kyoko smiled and followed the long line of second year students out of the station area to where buses stood ready to shuttle them to their hotel. Them and half of all second year students in Japan it felt like. Late January saw more than one school running their school trips even though Kyoko knew it was more common that the new third years began their school year that way.

The buses took them through strangely straight streets compared to Tokyo’s eternal maze. Then they left the orderly grid and shortly afterwards they arrived at a large but rundown hotel complex.

She barely had time to find Yukio for a short moment of hands hugging before her class was herded to elevators and up three floors.

Kyoko entered the room she shared with five other girls, four of them almost but not really friends and the fifth Hitomi, and she was most definitely a friend by now. A few minutes was more than enough to dump luggage and switching into something that didn’t smell of three hours worth of travelling.

She even had time for a quick shower in between, and feeling like someone who could coerce a hug from Yukio without feeling ashamed she took a lift to the dining hall. He already waited for her there with arms inviting her to step inside his embrace. A few students giggled and grinned at their show of affection, but Kyoko didn’t care. Being close to Yukio was far more important than a snide remark or two.

“You heard the new principal’s joining us?”

Kyoko turned in the direction of the voice. She hadn’t heard.

“He wanted to inspect his troops.”

“’Troops’, yeah, can you believe that. Like some old Showa era commander.” The girl who had said that laughed, and Kyoko watched a couple of seniors beeline for the queue while they continued the conversation that had piqued Kyoko’s interest.

Yukio tugged at her arm and shrugging off the news Kyoko followed him to join the queue. Her hand in his she joined it and mentally shrugged off the snide remarks and disapproving glares from one of their teachers. By now Kyoko had made peace with the repercussions of declaring her and Yukio’s nocturnal activities in front of Noriko’s class late December. If anything, being the pervert couple was a reason for envy rather than scorn.

“What’s he like,” she asked Yukio. Their new principal was shrouded in mystery, and most of the rumours clinging to her and Yukio had faded in favour of guess work pertaining to Kareyoshi’s successor.

“Dunno.” Yukio made it to the tables where food and plates waited for them. “Short they say.”

Short? Kyoko loaded a plate and some food onto a tray. Being a shorty hardly qualified as a mystery. She smirked, filled her plate, grabbed a glass and went to fetch something to drink. Shortly afterwards she joined her boyfriend. One benefit of being one half of the perverted couple was that no one complained when they sat together despite belonging to different classes.

“Card games tonight?”

Kyoko looked up at the voice behind her. It belonged to Hitomi who quickly took the place by Yukio’s other side. For outsiders it must look like Kyoko had gained some unwanted competition for Yukio’s attention, but Kyoko welcomed the presence of the beautiful girl. Next to Kuri-chan and Noriko she had quickly become Kyoko’s best friend.

“Saw him?” Yukio asked as soon as Hitomi sat down.

Kyoko looked up as if their new principal had suddenly popped into existence by their table.

“Saw him,” Hitomi confirmed. “The rumours are true.”

OK, give a little more! “Yes?” Kyoko said and hoped her irritation didn’t show in her voice.

Hitomi just smiled. Then she blinked and opened her mouth. “Short. If he’s a hundred and sixty I’d be surprised.”

That was short indeed. Urufu and Kuri-chan aside, that still counted as a shorty in Japan.

“Still makes me uncomfortable,” Hitomi added between two bites. Since she became of of the closer friends she had discarded just about any trappings of being a princess. “He reminds me of my dad.”

Behaving like your dad is bad? Knowing about Hitomi’s family was one thing, but experiencing her coldness towards them first hand was another.

Hitomi gulped down her tea before saying anything more. “He’s not a bad person the way dad is, but he still gives me the shivers. Dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Yukio’s voice cut in. “How?”

“Look, the creepy guy from down there is bad like my dad, but in difference from dad he’s dangerous all by himself.”

The creepy guy from down there had to be the friend of Noriko’s parents. Kyoko could understand why anyone would label him as dangerous. Urufu had said he came from a very different Japan, and by different he didn’t mean the upstream world. A long time ago this had been a much more violent society. Kyoko grimaced. A long time ago. That depended on whom you asked. Maybe eighty years wasn’t all that much time for some.

“Why does she go for someone like him?”

Hitomi growled and Yukio joined her. Kyoko just shook her head at the comment from two tables away.

“Maybe because she has a good eye for men,” a loud response came from yet another table away.

That brought a smile to Kyoko’s lips. After a year and a half with Yukio she wasn’t all that much concerned by competition, but anyone badmouthing Yukio still ired her. For that very reason praise filled her with warmth. Besides, if Hitomi had indeed decided to make a pass at Yukio it did indeed mean she had a good eye for men. They didn’t come any better than Yukio.

Then, suddenly, Hitomi rose and turned in the direction of whoever had voiced that last comment. “I wouldn’t stand a chance,” she said loud enough for anyone to hear.

Kyoko stared at Hitomi and felt heat flaring up in her face as she blushed from neck to hair line.