Three days earlier he had spent a fantastic day together with Kyoko. From morning to late evening, and even her father had sent them away with a smile when Yukio came to pick her up. That blessing alone kept her grinning like a happy fool for half the day.

Yukio remembered how he spent more money on one date than he usually spent over an entire month, but with his New Year's gift within sight he could afford it.

The only shadow on their date was Kyoko's grumbling when he gave her the cashmere scarf, but as Yukio had guessed she stopped grumbling the moment she felt it around her neck.

He in turn frowned when he received a pair of gloves that must have bankrupted her, but damn they felt good on his frozen hands.

At the moment both of them were busy working off their debt to Urufu, because Yukio felt he'd be damned if he'd allow his best friend to buy him clothes, even if Yukio knew he really didn't need the set of high class, elegant casuals he had received a day earlier.

Neither did Kyoko, but glancing at her when she distributed the fourth set of documents to half a dozen men in business suits, Yukio had to agree that she looked stunning.

“Gentlemen, before we welcome our guests; that would be your employees and your customers, let's start by answering a few 'why' questions.”

Yukio looked at Urufu who had fired up the beamer. He was the only one of the three of them who wore a business suit. If Yukio remembered correctly it was the insanely expensive one Kuri had ordered for him during their summer break.

Makes sense, Yukio thought. I could never wear anything like that. He wasn't as certain about Kyoko, but Urufu had been adamant that he'd never dress her up like an old style company secretary. Yukio wasn't sure what Urufu meant by that, but he was happy to see Kyoko in clothes she could use on dates as well.

“Urufu, the new slides are up. Kyoko cleaned up the charts for you,” Yukio said and nodded at his girlfriend when he spoke the last words.

Urufu didn't say anything, but he gave Kyoko a thumbs up and prepared the slides.

A tap on his shoulder made Yukio turn, and he remembered the man beckoning him from the first session Urufu ran after rumours about his half a year in an institution for juvenile delinquents leaked onto the net.

“Yes?” Yukio asked.

“What's the difference here?”

Yukio looked at where the man pointed and tried to remember what Urufu had said. “Let me see. Vanilla agile is mostly based on the idea to deliver more value early, whereas lean software development focusses on removing waste.” Ah yes, I even understood this one. “Basically it's an aggressive viewpoint contrasted against a defensive one,” he said.

To a certain degree Yukio wondered how something Urufu had managed to teach the gang in less than half a year could be so horribly difficult for adult professionals to grasp. Maybe Urufu was right when he said it was simply too easy to understand.

The businessman stared at Yukio as if he had been some kind of ghost, and earlier it would have made him feel uncomfortable. This group, however, was one they had seen several times since the chaotic days during summer break.

They seemed to have gotten used to the young staff, and Urufu and team no longer thought twice about running the sessions.

“You know you're a lucky one, kid,” the businessman suddenly said out of nowhere.

Huh? “Pardon me?”

There was something pained in the expression of the man. “Japan's changing. I'm one of those who can see how we need to adapt to those changes.”

“Yes?” Yukio didn't say anything else, because it was clear there would be more to come.

“You won't need adapting. You'll be one of those who lead that change. I envy you.” The last words came as the businessman turned and threw Urufu a long and thoughtful glance.

You don't know half of it. James said Urufu's unchanging. He might lead the change, but unless he adapts he'll break under it himself. The thought surprised Yukio. He knew it to be right, but he couldn't understand from where it had come. Am I growing up?

“I have a good teacher,” he said instead, because that was probably what the man in front of him wanted to hear.

Around the conference table those seated adjusted their chairs when Urufu coughed, and the two who had stood around a small table laden with sparkling water and fruit quickly grabbed a bite each and returned to their chairs.

That was their signal. Both Yukio and Kyoko bowed and left the room. As the work on whatever case Urufu had chosen progressed, Yukio needed to process the data with the help of Kyoko, who had proven to be far more meticulous than he was. On top of that Kyoko knew how to make it all come to life with her sketchpad.

An ugly part of him resented that her abilities already had overtaken his. It made him feel like the least important of them, but Urufu promised that he valued Yukio's special talent just as much. That talent was yet unknown to him, and sometimes Yukio wondered if Urufu just tried to be kind.

“Something for me yet?” Kyoko asked from her laptop.

Yukio firmly shoved his thoughts away and sent her the highlights. “Uhum, here.”

“Thanks. Eh, Yukio, why did you remove the organisation chart?”

He looked at his screen. “They're setting up the new process Urufu talked about earlier.”

“Won't they need an organisation for that?”

Damn, did I do something wrong? Yukio took a second look at his screen. Hell no! “That just has to be backwards. If they do it in a new way they'll have to restaff anyway. If we leave it out they'll create new teams based on the process.”

“Huh?”

Something itched inside of him. “Let's put it this way Kyoko. If we send the old chart back, won't they try to plug a square hole with a round peg?”

Kyoko looked back at him with big eyes. “OK, I'll use your data.”

Damn, I wish Ryu was here, or even better, his father.

***

Wakayama Tadao looked at Natsumi when she let loose another barrage at Mitsuo.

There's no stopping you when you're like this. Then he smiled. I guess that's why I fell in love with you.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Love or not. He still felt a bit bad for their friend who got caught in the crossfire.

Both their kids, Noriko and Ryu, were out skiing, or more accurately, Ryu was out snowboarding with his girlfriend, while Noriko stumbled around in the children's slope alone.

Tadao grimaced. Noriko's boyfriend hadn't shown up because he got swamped with some kind of model job back in Tokyo. That was the reason his Noriko was all alone, since she had inherited Tadao's acrobatic skills, which were all but non-existent.

Ryu, however, got his from his mother, and she had been like a frenzied monkey during their high school years. My beautiful monkey, Tadao thought and smiled at his wife.

“I know you said you'll stay out of it, but I'll have none of it. I need those one hundred years of experience you have, and I'll have them, or else your wife is moving in with us come January.”

Give up Mitsuo. You married Natsumi's best friend so you had it coming sooner or later. Because if Natsumi placed one phone-call his wife would leave that onsen back at Ise and get right back to Tokyo, and there just wasn't anything Mitsuo could do about it.

A light snowfall obscured the view of the mountainside, but it was nowhere dense enough to prevent Tadao from seeing the kids in the slope closest to the hotel. One of them had to be Noriko, probably one of those sitting on their butts.

Well, it was time to come to the rescue, and in so doing to betray his best friend.

“Love, go easy on him. We're supposed to celebrate hatsumode together in a few days.”

“We are?” Mitsuo said, and from the look in his face Tadao saw a glimmer of recognition.

“Yes. Three or four of us. What would you prefer?”

“You bastard!” Mitsuo said as the trap closed around him. “I need our place staffed over New Year's. Three, three of us.”

“Isn't that wonderful?” Natsumi said and gave Mitsuo a cheerfully false smile.

Poor sod. Your fault to begin with. You taught us manipulation when we were kids. Which was the one area where Tadao had caught up faster than his girlfriend. She was just too gleefully open with whatever she did. So of course she trapped him and married him. Not that he had ever been hard to trap to begin with, he knew that, and he didn't regret a single day they had shared together.

“You could at least tell me why,” Mitsuo said.

Tadao saw how his wife looked around to make sure no-one was within earshot.

“Some moron had the two arrivals targeted.”

Mitsuo sighed and bowed his head. “I know that, but I know it had nothing to do with the factions, so not good enough.”

It was his time to nail the coffin shut. Tadao swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm tea and turned to his friend. “It does now.” Hot damn! What did they use instead of tea?

“What?”

“The kids brought that Red Rose asylum down pretty much on their own,” Tadao said. He licked the inside of his mouth to get rid of some of the awful taste. “Sure, they got some help from Nakagawa, but your granddaughter turned out to be a monster when she got angry enough.”

“I would expect nothing less. She's my family after all,” Mitsuo said, and Tadao could see how proud he was of the girl.

He sighed and made the mistake of drinking some more of the swill. It was just as disgusting as before. “Someone pulled rank. They got a member of the diet involved. It was all I could do to save Hamarugen-san's company.”

A flash on anger flared alive in Mitsuo's eyes and vanished. “OK, I accepted him as her boyfriend, but he'd better run his own business. What's it to me?”

“You met him, didn't you?”

“Sure, so what?”

“Would you picture him as someone who'd crawl around begging for help?”

Mitsuo grimaced. “No, he's way too arrogant for that.”

“Well he did. While they dragged his company down, he was pleading for me to help your Tina.” For the first time Tadao felt irritation at his friend's stubbornness. “If you're not willing to help Natsumi, you'd damn better be prepared to help the man who was willing to sacrifice his future for your granddaughter!”

It was like watching someone turn on a switch. Mitsuo's face froze into an absolutely neutral expression. You had to have known him for years to know how he expressed rage.

“You're going to tell me everything that happened. And by everything I mean everything, got it?”

Tadao flinched but nodded. Across the table Natsumi did the same. When Mitsuo looked this way he was scary, but only the two of hem knew exactly how scary he really became. And they needed that hidden demon.

“I promise,” Natsumi said. “We both do. You can trust us.”

“What do you want,” Mitsuo growled.

Tadao felt something cold crawl down his spine, and from Natsumi's eyes he knew she felt the same.

“I want that diet member destroyed. I want every remnant of the lunatics behind Red Rose permanently disgraced...” Tadao began.

“I want you to side with us,” Natsumi interrupted. “The other faction is going down, and you'll help us pull them into the abyss.”

You always had a flare for the theatrical. I must have caught some of it, Tadao added in his mind and grinned.

“You won't like what you'll see. I did some things during my previous life that I'm not very proud of,” Mitsuo said, and Tadao saw something in his friend's face that belonged to another man from a very different time.

Tadao understood part of it, and right now he needed that part of his friend. “We'll have your back, like we always did. We're your friends.”

A little bit of life left Mitsuo's eyes. “I hope you will still be when we're finished. With your help I'm going to hurt a lot of people.”

Even though he had requested it, Tadao still shivered despite the foyer being anything but cold. “I understand,” he said and met his wife's eyes.

“No you don't,” Mitsuo said. “When we're done you will. It will haunt you for the rest of your lives.”