Just as she picked up her phone from the table Noriko noticed someone heading for their table. She looked up. "Yukio?"
After a moments hesitation he smiled. "Yes, that would be me," he said.
"How did you know?"
Across the table Urufu turned and looked over his shoulder. "I'll be damned. Yukio the sleuth."
"Even a moron like me could guess you'd go sulking here man," Yukio retorted.
"Only a moron like me would have a date with his rival's sister in a shabby place like this."
"A date?"
"A date?" Noriko echoed.
"Don't you people call everything when two people meet away from home a date?"
Noriko saw Yukio's smirk before he opened up a broadside. "Cut it with that crap about 'you people'! You're part of us now."
'Friends, they really are best friends.' She admired Yukio's courage to bite back at the older man. 'Kyoko, you sure got yourself a good boyfriend.'
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Urufu growled, but he grinned when he turned around and grabbed his cup of coffee. "Just like old times," he added. This time the smile reached all the way to his eyes.
'I haven't seen that grin of yours for so long.' Thinking of the reason why Urufu never smiled with joy these days reminded Noriko of Nao, and a hard lump formed in her throat. She almost managed to keep her tears down.
"I had it repaired," Urufu said just as Yukio sat down beside her.
'Had it repaired? Oh, my phone.' "You didn't have to."
"I wanted to."
"It's not like I couldn't afford to myself."
"Exactly why I wanted to."
"Comedy duo, much?" Yukio interrupted.
"But he really didn't..." Noriko started. She stopped and slapped her hand to her mouth when Urufu threw up his hands in mock exasperation and grinned widely, and this time his smile twinkled in his eyes as well.
Noriko's heart almost stopped.
"I give," he said.
'I remember now. It's been almost two years.'
"You're cute when you blush, you know that?"
"Say what again?" Then she felt her face heat up. 'No way! He can still make me feel this way?'
"Don't flirt with her like that. Nao could get grumpy."
The fuzzy feeling in her stomach was immediately replaced by a burning pain in her chest, and Noriko saw Urufu's eyes throw daggers at Yukio. All the heat that just made her blush left her at once.
The mood around the table dropped to just above freezing point.
"We don't talk about that person here," Urufu said. His voice held an edge to it that made Noriko flinch, and she suspected Yukio must feel like he was being bulldozed over.
She waived at a waitress just to force a change to the table. Besides, she hadn't had time to order anything yet.
'And you read my messages, or did Kuri tell you?' That was unfair. Kuri wouldn't. But then who? Noriko threw a glance to her right. Yukio's face was an open book to be read. 'Kyoko, of course.'
"I'll have black tea and this cake," Noriko said to the arriving waitress and put her finger on the menu. She hoped it landed on a cake, because she hadn't really looked at it.
Hidden by her bangs Urufu ordered something as well. She couldn't see him, but she heard him rummaging through the plastic menus and slap his finger onto a few items.
"One coffee," came Yukio's voice from her right.
Noriko pretended to study her menu despite having ordered already.
Around the table silence covered all of them like a wet blanket. Noriko realised she had to be the one who broke it.
"You know it's bad to read other peoples' phones," Noriko said and regretted her words as soon as they came out of her mouth.
Urufu stared down at the table. "I apologise. I thought it was something important..."
'Something important? What do you call Nao cheating on me?' "You idiot!"
Tact really wasn't Urufu's main strength, or at least not when he didn't need to think before he spoke, which usually only happened with customers present.
Noriko studied Urufu's face to see how he planned to get out of the situation. Even though Nao's betrayal hurt, her cynical curiosity never fully left her.
"I didn't mean it that way," Urufu began.
'No, he won't,' she thought.
"I wondered if someone had been hurt or something," he continued.
'Insert foot in mouth. You're hopeless!'
"Man! Listen to what you're saying!" Yukio said just as Urufu's face told Noriko the meaning of his words finally made its way to his brain.
'And I once fell in love with this guy. Wonder who the real idiot is.' She shook her head and forced a smile to her face. "No wonder Kuri dumped you," Noriko said. This time she just almost regretted her words. What Urufu had said was beyond the pale. "You should take social interaction 101 for a change."
She rose from her seat, picked up her bag and dropped a few coins on the table. "Thanks for the phone. I appreciate it."
She left the table and a dumbfounded Urufu behind her. Yukio's stunned face made her feel a little sorry for him, but if he chose friends like Urufu he deserved feeling like an arse.
"Noriko, sorry. I didn't..."
"Man, drop it! Sometimes you're just so damned clumsy."
'Yeah, friends. Urufu, I envy you a friend like that.' Walking down the stairs Noriko admitted the one she really envied was Kyoko. 'You got the best boyfriend of all of us, you know that?'
She left the mall and walked down the street in the direction of a train station. Behind her Urufu's bike glimmered in the rapidly darkening evening as it caught the last light of the sun.
'Sheesh, what an idiot.' Her anger made her forget about Nao for a while, and reluctantly she sent Urufu a thought of thanks. 'Did you do that on purpose? No, I think you're just that stupid.' Suddenly angry mirth filled her, and Noriko grinned despite everything.
Noriko's sudden departure the day before hardly came as a surprise. Yukio telling him he was the superhero among morons, however, did.
Ulf wasn't certain when his best friend grew that kind of backbone, but he noticed how Yukio had matured since they met.
'I behaved like an arse back then.' Well, it couldn't be helped. At the time, when he realised how clumsily his words came out, Ulf decided to make it worse. Anything to get Noriko's mind back on track again. He'd spent two weeks on a bike because his didn't in time. Part of it never would he suspected. 'Idiot, you're an idiot.'
Ulf felt the gravel crunch under his loafers. He'd spent club hours at school together with his new English teacher. She was good enough to understand the difference between syntactic and semantic precision, and running an academic level conversation with her was a pleasure.
He helped her create education material that went far beyond the poor joke that served as a substitute for anything useful. The material at school made it clear to him the students weren't supposed to learn English in the first place – they were supposed to take exams without ever understanding the language.
His teacher in turn pointed out the worst of his mistakes in his attempts at learning Japanese efficiently.
Two linguists, which made two more than the moron who held the principal's office now.
He had part of that co-produced material in his school bag. It should come in handy during the upcoming session. One of the companies that bought his services had adapted far enough to start grasping the real meaning behind proactive responsive processes. Which meant he needed Yukio and Kyoko.
'Cause you just don't have a clue about how good you've become.' Especially Yukio was a marvel.
A truth.
Kyoko probably was pretty good as well.
A half truth.
Ulf's competences didn't include visual user design, which meant he wasn't qualified to say whether she was good or not. He just knew his customers loved her representations of his models, which probably meant she was good after all.
Halfway across the school yard he almost, just almost, admitted he'd chosen this specific job because Ryu's natural leadership wasn't needed, and hence Ulf didn't have to spend time around Christina's new boyfriend.
'Damn, am I a kid, or what?' But jealousy wasn't rational, and he was very much jealous. Seeing them together made him want to puke.
When Ulf reached the bike stands he remembered that he left his bike outside the old mall. With him avoiding club hours as much as possible he'd taken up habits of old, and those included walking to school from the mall. 'Habits from before I met her.'
That was a quarter of an hour on foot. Yukio and Kyoko would be waiting for him in the café.
He left school, walked beneath the sakura and followed the road. Soon he came to the stretch that led to Irishima High, and sure enough he met the occasional students from there on their way home.
This year they didn't give him strange looks and giggles, but then this year he didn't pretend to be a member of geek squad. Returning to that persona was alluring, but it wouldn't work now. Too many knew him.
A sudden gust of wind guided him to the low wall where he got drenched together with Yukio last summer, and wasn't it somewhere around here they met Ai the first time? Ulf briefly wondered what had happened to her. Some of the club members said she showed up at the Haven together with her friends occasionally.
Then he got to the last corner and saw the mall ahead. That sight, walking on foot, brought more memories to him. There had been a time, after he found the Stockholm Haven café, but before they finally abandoned the one in the mall, which mean there had been a time when Christina spent time here as well.
Ulf grimaced at the thought. He'd been too busy with a manhunt to give her the attention she needed, and deserved. With a smirk he corrected that thought a little. He'd been too afraid of falling in love with her, even though he already had by that time.
'I really am an idiot, am I not?' He sighed. 'Well, I pushed her into a corner, and she broke up.' Any healthy person would.
Should he have told her he loved her? Probably. He never waited over half a year doing so with any other girl, or in Maria's case, woman. Christina's as well, if he was to be honest. And while being honest; he never left wife and kids behind before neither.
His feet brought him to the bike, and he quickly checked it for any damage, but here in Japan vandalism was all but unthinkable, and the bike was as shiny clean as when he left it in the morning.
Thinning traffic signalled the end of evening rush hour, and Ulf shouldered his bag and went inside.
The stairs he'd climbed so many times last year took him to the second floor. Yukio waved from their old table, and Ulf waved back. Then he did his usual, stupid semi circle walk towards the counter, but even though Yukio shook his head none of the waitresses showed any sign of recognition.
'New staff, I guess.'
They had little more than an hour before they needed to leave for a nearby office building. That should be enough time to put the finishing touches to his presentation, especially given Yukio's scary ability to ruthlessly cut away everything non-essential.
"Ready when you are," Kyoko greeted him.
As if by magic a waitress materialised by the table, and Ulf placed his usual order. Yukio and Kyoko were already halfway through theirs.
Ulf was about to dig up a laptop when his phone suddenly danced around in his pocket. A little bit dumbfounded Ulf grabbed it and looked at the screen.
'Christina?'
She hadn't called even once since she broke up with him, and Ulf wondered what could possibly be the reason for a call now. His heart beat furiously when he took the call. No matter how grown up he was childish fantasies and wishful dreams played in his mind.
"Ulf Hammargren," he said, and cursed himself for being so formal.
Christina's call amounted to one sentence only. Ulf listened to it, said bye and killed the call. Then he looked up and met Yukio's and Kyoko's quizzical looks.
'I have to tell them.' "Guys, we have a problem."
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