After the disaster at the café any serious talking had to wait until evening. Well, evening came, with a conversation and all, and in the end Ryu managed to convince both girls to attend a birthday celebration. One out of two since both Yukio and Kyoko were adamant they’d have the other for themselves.

Ryu found no flaws in their reasoning. He’d be damned if he had to give up on celebrating Kuri, and Noriko’s pairing up with Urufu at least carried the advantage of brother and sister no longer needing to express how much twins they were during their shared celebration.

He also found it rather cute and amusing how Yukio and Kyoko handled their birthdays. With their respective days of celebration just one week apart they apparently saw it as one event in two parts. That was, Ryu mused, probably the only sane thing to do. For Yukio and Kyoko this was a month long insanity with Valentines, two birthdays, white day and end of school more or less evenly spread out. A week to catch your breath, if even that.

Now that first birthday was here, the one that Yukio and Kyoko decided was a combined celebration together with friends. For an occasion like this Ryu didn’t have to go far, and neither did his sister. The entire gang, strengthened by Hitomi, Tomasu and Jeniferu all sat in the Wakayama living room. Another six people were on their way here.

“You have everything you need?”

Ryu looked up. The question was superfluous at best, but during the last hellish year there had been few occasions for him to bring friends back home, and Ryu guessed his parents were worried. In the end he just nodded.

“Then I’ll have dinner with Tadao. Please don’t be too late.”

It wasn’t like they planned to run around late at night, but since that dinner meant an overnight stay at an onsen Ryu accepted that his mother didn’t want over a dozen teenagers to run rampant in the house all night long.

“Some of them are staying over,” he said. She already knew, but he wanted her to reaffirm that she did.

“We only have six extra futons, remember?”

That had to do as confirmation. “I know mom. Have a good time.”

She just smiled. “We always do.” There was something naughty in her voice, something he’d rather hear from a classmate than from his mother. “It’s been a while since we had an outing just the two of us.”

He definitely preferred something like that from a classmate. “Take care.”

“I will,” she said. She was halfway through the door when she turned and looked at him. “I won’t do anything you haven’t already done,” she added with a wide grin on her face. For a moment his mother’s face lit up like a mischievous devil, twenty years old rather than forty. Then she was outside, and Ryu wondered what kind of life she once led as a teenager.

“What was that about?” Noriko asked from her seat in the sofa.

Ryu frowned. “Dunno.”

By Noriko’s side Kuri and Urufu looked at each other and laughed.

“Bad girl!” Kuri said.

“Very bad,” Urufu agreed. “There’s a bad boy waiting for her,” he said.

“Look, that’s my mother you’re talking about,” Ryu protested.

Both Kuri and Urufu shook their heads.

“No,” Kuri said. “That’s a girl ten years younger than me. Damn she’s cool!”

“Grew into it?” Urufu said.

This time only Kuri shook her head. “Don’t think so. She probably dared everything I didn’t myself when I was fifteen. She’s a natural you know.”

“Mum's awesome,” Noriko broke in.

“Yeah, she is,” Kuri said. “She must have made a lot of enemies as a kid.”

“A lot of friends as well,” Urufu countered. “I don’t think being on her bad side would be good for your health.”

Noriko bent forward and poured some tea for herself. “Mum’s awesome,” she repeated with a happy smile on her face.

Ryu looked at his sister. They were twins. While outsiders always compared him with their parents, in truth Noriko inherited the invisible parts. Brains to begin with, but also the inner strength their mother really had and their father pretended he had.

The doorbell rang and Ryu hastened to it. Outside Ai waited with her best friend. Behind them four former Himekaizen students, all members of the club, lined up by the gate. They carried paper bags in their hands, and Ryu suspected Yukio and Kyoko would return home laden with presents.

Then Ryu noticed a surprise guest. Oh, been a while! A classmate from middle school, and one of Noriko’s few close friends from that time. What connection, if any, she had to Kyoko Ryu didn’t know, and Yukio, well Ryu didn’t even remember him from middle school despite sharing the same grade for three years.

Guess food will be enough for one more. Wonder what she’s doing here though. He invited all seven and waited for Noriko’s surprised outburst when she saw who had come to visit.

It didn’t happen. When the unannounced guest entered the living room Noriko just nodded, excused herself and followed the girl up the stairs to her room.

With a tinge of irritation Ryu shrugged it off. A boyfriend and girlfriend each meant brother and sister were no longer as close as he’d grown used to. Maybe it was as simple as a matter of age. He didn’t know.

“We’re having hotpot,” he announced after giving his sister another thought. “A lot of hotpot. Who’s helping me prepare it?”

Kuri smiled and raised her hand into the air like an elementary school kid.

“That’s one. One more,” Ryu said. Spending time alone with Kuri in the kitchen wasn’t time wasted, but she was an awful cook.

“Two more,” Jirou said.

Ryu looked for Sango by his side and she nodded. The couple followed him to the kitchen and with three and a half chefs they made short time of the ingredients. Preparations went even faster when Ai and friend unasked set the tables.

***

Ulf sulked a little when Noriko dragged a friend of hers away from the party and upstairs. Sure, they all infringed on what should have been some alone quality time for Yukio and Kyoko, but at least staying for the celebration was the decent thing to do.

As it was neither boyfriend nor girlfriend seemed to care, and dinner turned out to be a lot of laughs and embarrassing memories. While the real reason for the party hung over him like a shadow Ulf still noticed how most of them truly enjoyed the birthday party.

Evening grew deeper, turned into early night, and what had begun as a dinner was now an unordered gathering of a dozen teens around a couple of sofas in the living room. Food gave way to soda and tea, and right now the mood changed from silly to a little apprehensive.

“From the two of us,” Ai explained and pushed a small box across the table.

“You or me?” Yukio asked.

Kyoko didn’t answer. She just leaned forward and grabbed the gift. A few moments filled with paper ripping ended with a guffaw.

“That’s even worse that what we gave the twins!”

Ulf could only agree. Whatever the atrocity was it held no doubts about whether it was just poor taste or nuclear toxic. As it went back into its box Ulf sighed with relief for the untold lives spared in the neighbourhood.

“That was… intense,” Yukio offered.

Another round of guffaws spread around the table, and Ai returned a benign and triumphant smile. “Beat that!” she said.

Ulf could see what once made Ryu fall for the girl, even though he recalled a much more childish version of her from last year. But at least that wasn’t our fault, he thought and glanced at Kuri. The two of them hurt a lot of people, but from what Ryu told he and Ai managed that particular disaster without the help of anyone. The line of thought brought him back to the real reason they abducted Yukio and Kyoko. This one, though, is our fault, to a degree.

He met Kuri’s eyes, but she shook her head.

“Just thinking of how we messed up the lives for everyone,” he said in Swedish.

“Don’t you dare blaming yourself!” she responded in the same language.

From the corner of his eyes Ulf noted how Thomas reacted to words spoken in their shared language, but Ulf doubted he had understood the contents though the bedlam that resulted from opening one gift more atrocious that the other.

He shook his misgivings away and leaned backwards. In his backpack four presents lay waiting, or rather two presents. He rifled through the contents and picked up two card board envelopes. One each made their way to Yukio and Kyoko respectively.

“Stamped and signed,” Ulf said. “Have a look at them with your parents and do the same if you agree.”

“What’s that?” Jennifer wanted to know.

“Stamped and signed, he said. Contracts most probably,” Thomas suggested from her side.

Ulf looked at the couple. An invisible band of mutual attraction tied them together, and he hoped whatever came of their nightly talks would see it uncut.

“Contracts?”

“Part time jobs,” Ulf explained.

He was met by a stare of disbelief, and after a few moments of confusion Ulf realised seventeen year old kids didn’t normally hand out employment contracts. Well, Jennifer knew the truth. It couldn’t be helped.

“What kind of job?” Ai’s friend wondered.

Neither Yukio nor Kyoko had opened their envelopes. They gave each other a look and smiled.

“I’m making presentations and Yukio’s responsible for what goes into them,” Kyoko said.

Ulf gave her a grateful look. It was, he guessed, as close to the truth as possible. He couldn’t tell everyone how Yukio ruthlessly cut away anything that didn’t need to go into the finished material, and Ulf definitely knew he couldn’t tell anyone Yukio did so with a superb gut feeling that matched just about anyone Ulf had worked with the last thirty years. Last thirty years was another thing that didn’t go well together with seventeen years old kids.

“Yukio writes and you do the layout?”

Kyoko nodded.

“Sounds kind of boring.”

“Well, it’s a job,” Kyoko said, “and I get to work with my boyfriend, so that’s a plus.”

At that time Ryu returned from the kitchen loaded with a tray full of cups. He put it on the table and smiled. “Coffee and tea coming up,” he said.

Ulf sighed silently with relief. Ryu might not like him and Noriko being a couple, but when it came to easing up work Ryu never allowed personal feelings to interfere. He looked at Ryu returning to the kitchen and quickly dug up the real presents.

“One for you and one for you,” Ulf said and handed over two paper bags. He guessed he could have done a better job with wrapping, but he’d been in a hurry when he went shopping for birthday gifts.

Kyoko opened her bag and looked inside. “What’s… Oh, you shouldn’t…”

Ulf smiled. “I got them cheap to be honest.” That was a lie, but the price was cut by almost forty percent from what he was used to, so in that sense they were cheap.

Her hand came back from inside the bag with a box. “Thank you!” she said. They both knew he wouldn’t accept her refusal.

“Wow!”

“What?”

“Are they wireless,” Yukio asked.

Ulf nodded. “Bluetooth. “I’ve seen her struggling with that cord for too long.”

“Cheap, man, your sense of cheap is way off,” Yukio said and looked at the earbuds Kyoko had received. Then he dug into his own bag. “What the hell man!”

Ulf shrugged. “You never put that phone of yours away. I guessed a decent power bank could be useful.

“Decent power bank. Man, I could keep two tablets alive for a day with this monster.”

“I hope you like it.”

Yukio nodded. It was the kind of gift only he would love, and for once Ulf’s long experience with technology hadn’t been the deciding factor. His knowledge of picking the best one had been, but it was Kyoko who suggested that Yukio could do with some extra juice. Ulf guessed her request came after she began suspecting he’d go well beyond what was normally acceptable for a present between friends.

Ryu returned with beverages and Ulf leaned back in the sofa. Another half an hour would see half of them leave, and after that all that was left was the real reason for the party.