Noriko stapled a pamphlet to yet another billboard. With the headship leaning heavily on the student council Urufu-kun's and Kuri-chan's meting the council had been a mere formality.

“Join the Himekaizen Cultural Exchange Club,” the pamphlet read. “President Ageruman Kuritina welcomes you to taste high school life in exotic Sweden.” After that the current members were named along with what position they held in the club. At the bottom, prominently displayed, she found her idiot brother. “Club Mascot,” was printed in bold letters beside his name.

They would get their new members. Noriko knew that. With her brother backing the tragic and beautiful heroine there was no stopping them.

The teachers hadn't taken any action when the bullying of Kuri-chan started, and none when it escalated. When it finally culminated in a physical assault and the exceptionally public aftermath it was already much too late to put the lid back on.

Kuri-chan could ask the principal to bring stars down for her, and he would only ask how many she wanted.

And I wouldn't care, but you're taking my star from me. That was, Noriko had to admit to herself, not entirely true. To claim ownership of her star she should at least confess first. And confessing wasn't her strongest subject.

Sure, she had turned Yu-kun down in middle school, and that creepy Takemoto, but that wasn't the same as doing the confessing.

Anything else and I could just have studied harder. But this? Noriko shook her head and went for the next billboard. Her feet tapped gently on the floor. Tapped lonely on the floor. There were almost no students in the corridors during club hours.

I'm so small, and she's so, large? No, that's not it. She's bright like the sun. Nothing can shine beside her. Life just wasn't fair. But Noriko hadn't been truthful. Ryu could shine almost as brightly as Kuri-chan. Would he help me? I don't think so. He doesn't seem to care much for Urufu-kun.

She arrived and brought out her stapler.

“Is that tomorrow?” she heard a question behind her when she had fastened the pamphlet to the billboard.

“Yes, Thursday and Friday at five, and Saturday at two,” she answered.

“Is it true that Wakayama-san is a member?”

“Yes.” Why ask for club activities when you can ask for my moronic brother instead?

“Awesome!”

Sometimes I wonder if they used two different entrance exams for this school. Noriko stared at the girl. It was their school uniform. She must have passed the exam.

Himekaizen Cultural Exchange. Right! It's going to be exchange all-right, but 'culture' will have just about nothing to with what's going to be exchanged.

Noriko bagged her stapler. That was the last pamphlet, and she could go back to their club room. Why did I suggest I join the dating central? As a bean counter to boot. She pouted. At least I get to be near him.

Noriko started climbing the right wing stairs. Tap, tap, tap, went her feet. Dok, dok, dok, went her heart. I'm lost, went the thoughts in her head.

She left the stairwell at the third floor and turned left into the endless corridor that connected the right and left wings. Among all the doors there was one with a sign that still read: “Sengoku Cultural Studies.”

When she arrived she was met by minor chaos.

“What do you mean it's too late for the sister club?” That was Ryu.

“Cause they're all but finished. School's out in a month,” Urufu-kun answered.

“No, school began a month ago!”

“Christina please help me get through to them here! Gods why did I have to end up in a place where school starts halfway through the spring term?”

“Ryu-kun, please listen to me,” Kuri-chan suggested.

Sure enough, he went meek as a lamb in seconds. That's my brother for you. He's mind-controlled by that girl. Why? He never changed because of a girl before!

“Yes, Ageruman-san.”

“Kuri-chan, please,” she said. “We're on a first name basis in the club.”

“Why is that?” Kyoko-chan asked.

Noriko looked at her. Then she turned to Kuri-chan. The answer was actually interesting.

“Look, it's a cultural exchange club with Sweden at the other end, OK?”

“Yes.”

“The only time you'd use the last name addressing someone is if you're old, old, old people. As in ancient.”

“Or if you're in uniform,” Urufu-kun said helpfully and discovered the school uniform he had worn for a month. “Eh, we don't use school uniforms,” he added equally helpfully.

“He's trying to say if you're in the police force or in the military. That kind of uniform,” Kuri-chan said. “Anyway, normal people back home only use the first name, even to strangers.”

“That's not proper, Kyoko-chan protested.”

“That's proper in Sweden.”

Noriko took a chair and sat down. The room was still in a funny no man's land between clubs. Strange how unfamiliar some people still were with western naming conventions, she thought. Not that you should use them in Japan, but you could at least be aware of them.

“Kuri-chan, I think you'll have to explain the part with the school year, Noriko suggested.”

While she waited for Kuri-chan to formulate an answer Noriko studied the walls were pictures of medieval Japan competed for space with colour-prints of an exotic, forested landscape with no mountains but lakes everywhere.

“Ah, yes,” Kuri-chan finally began. “In most of the world school starts late summer or early autumn. OK? It's beautiful and romantic and whatever the way you start school in April here, but it's not exactly an international standard.”

“Strange people,” Kyoko said.

“OK, fine, the rest of the world is strange and everyone on this island is normal. I heard that a lot back home as well.” Kuri-chan rolled her eyes. For a short moment Noriko felt something like sympathy for her. Then she recalled that Kuri-chan was monopolising Urufu-kun's attention.

“Sweden has,” Urufu-kun filled in, “a two semester school year. The first starts in late August and ends just prior to Christmas. Pretty much like the second term here. The second starts early January and ends early June. Summer break is two and a half months long.”

“Two and a half?”

That got them. Let them chew on that for a while. They're morons in Sweden for allowing students to forget all about school during summer, but you kids should at least have studied in what way they're morons if you plan to join this club!

“Urufu-kun, when do you think we'll have a sister club to communicate with?” Noriko asked.

Urufu-kun looked at Kuri-chan. Then they both nodded. “Officially? Mid-September.”

That's ages ahead! “And unofficially?”

“About three days from now,” Kuri-chan guessed. Urufu-kun nodded back at her.

“Three days?”

“A week, tops. They haven't had any chance to plan this, so it'll take a few days to get it all set up.”

Noriko froze. That was plain boasting. “And if they were prepared?”

“Tomorrow. It's Sweden we're talking about after all.”

“Eh?”

“I've formed and organised a twenty members club over a lunch. It's no big deal. We're good at self-organising,” Kuri-chan said.

“Prove it!” Ryu said suddenly.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

“Yeah, prove it!”

Kuri-chan looked at Urufu-kun.

“Sure,” he said. “It's around nine in the morning there.” He fished up his phone. After he fingered it for a while he tapped in a long phone-number.

He's faking it!

The club room had gone almost silent. Only Kuri-chan moved around. She was powering up a laptop. Yet another of those foreign brands. What's wrong with a Japanese computer?

Urufu-kun said something incomprehensible into his phone. After a while Noriko realised that he must be speaking in his native language. Then he lit up and gave Kuri-chan instructions in the same language.

The screen suddenly showed a strange face. Middle aged and heavily bearded.

“Hi, do you mind if we speak English? My friends here can't understand Swedish.”

Delay.

“No problem,” the beard answered. “My colleague is fetching a union representative. She's running some copies and should be here soon.”

It was English with a peculiar sing song accent.

Then another blond teacher showed up on the screen, and behind her Noriko could see the outlines of long, black hair.

“Are you Skyping us from Japan? That's so cool!”

No way! The black hair had spoken Japanese.

“That was… unexpected,” Kuri-chan said. Then she turned on her biggest smile and faced the laptop. “Did you get the part about a cultural exchange club?”

“Yes, we'd love to. Himekaizen, you said?”

“Yes, you heard of it?”

“Sorry, can't say I have.”

By now Noriko had gotten used to the delays and was staring spellbound at the unreal conversation. Shouldn't those two change places with each other?

She shook her head. She had been lost in her own thoughts and only woke up because Kuri-chan sounded agitated all of a sudden.

“Wonderful! Then we'll arrange some kind of mutual schedule. And your students are welcome to email us during summer. We'll be at school for most of it anyway.”

“Bye then.” Kuri-chan, closed the laptop.

What, what just happened?

Urufu-kun high fived Yu-kun, and then, out of nowhere, he hugged Kuri-chan.

“What just happened?” Noriko repeated aloud.

“Urufu-kun just got his sister club,” Kuri-chan beamed. “That was faster than I had hoped.”

“That was a hell of a lot faster,” Urufu-kun admitted. “But, damn this feels good!”

Four shell-shocked faces exchanged shell-shocked looks.

***

“Urufu, that company you set up in my name, it's been bleeding a lot of money lately. Care to explain?”

Ulf looked up. He'd been expecting this.

“Well, you know...” He moved away from his tiny desk in the small living room that doubled as his bedroom during nights. “… high school is expensive what with new friends and going out, and new clothes and all.” The last part, at least, was true. And Amaya had gotten used to his… selective… taste.

And his books. One, small, bookshelf was hers. The two full height ones were his. One was half filled with books from kindergarten to grade school. He had just recently started to add fiction targeted at middle schoolers to it. The other, well the other was a poor attempt to rebuild his small library from a previous life. All those titles were in English, and most of them would have had a normal middle schooler grasping for their meaning, Brit or American wouldn't have mattered.

“Half a million yen expensive?” Amaya's voice recalled him to reality.

Should he be defensive or tell her, mostly, the truth? He decided on the latter. “I can't stop dreaming about finding a way back home.” He smiled at her with what he hoped was a suitably guilty look before he lied: “There are people out there with ways of retrieving data. They cost a lot of money, and I don't want you too involved.”

“Because I'm a police?”

“Yeah.”

“Because I'm a police I know that 'a lot of money' starts at five million yen rather than a half. What are you up to?”

Well, that apparently didn't fly. “We're starting a school club. I'm feeding it a lot of money. Buying laptops and such,” he answered more truthfully. He conveniently avoided telling her about the surveillance and other security measures he paid for in cash. She would dig further, which was why he had started using Yukio for laundering money that was actually honestly earned. He also kept the fact that he received over half of his earnings in cash to himself.

A new topic seemed in order, and he ransacked his memory for one that would catch her interest.

“Amaya, heard the latest?”

His legal guardian looked back at him. She was sloppily dressed as always with her hair partially tied up in a ponytail. He guessed spending the entire day in a uniform took its toll. Especially as the police probably didn't show as much leeway as high school when it came to innovative changes to the intended design.

“No, dear, you haven't told me. Pass me the Kikkoman, will you?”

Ulf slid a bottle with soy sauce to her and opened up on his own food.

“Christina has promised to show me the city. Next Sunday.”

Amaya arched her brows at him. “That's the tall one? The Swedish girl?”

Ulf nodded.

“Little one is going on his first date,” Amaya teased. They were back to acting out the illusion that he was merely a high school kid at home.

“Date?” This topic suddenly travelled paths he hadn't intended.

She gave him a long stare. He must have shown more than he intended.

“You do know that it counts as a date, don't you?”

Ulf shook his head. Christina had used that word, and then a long list of must dos had flown out of her mouth.

“Oh dear!” He could see how Amaya stopped pretending to be his mother. “Urufu, listen here. There are a few things you should be aware of. She's Swedish like you, but girls are girls everywhere.”

Ulf couldn't remember that being true from his high school years, but then to be honest those belonged to the ancient 80s. And for various reasons he hadn't exactly been the girls' first choice back then. Extreme shyness when it came to girls popped up as one reason.

“Look, I went out with a fair amount of women during and after university,” he tried and changed the topic a little bit.

She took a bite of her sashimi, chewed thoughtfully and swallowed.

“University,” she said. “Like after curfews, tobacco rules, alcohol rules and first sex?”

She didn't have to be that frank about it. Ulf felt colour rise to his cheeks. He didn't remember blushing this easily since he attended high school the first time.

“Don't worry, I'm not taking you to bed. Now, my little brat,” She really did love to call him a brat whenever he grew too much of an attitude in her presence. “mom's gonna write you a list, and you'll learn it by heart.”

“Yes mom,” Ulf said glumly. There was no point in protesting any longer. He had blithely walked right into it, and there was no way out any longer.

Amaya leaned back and grabbed pen and paper. “This is the list,” she said and made place for it on the table. She began scribbling.

“Amaya!”

“That's 'mother dear' for you.”

“Am...” The look she gave him could have turned their sashimi into fried rice with fish. “Mother dear, I… I...” He really didn't want to admit this. He gave up on his pride. “I can't read that.”

“You don't have to. You're going to learn it by heart, remember?”

Usually she was adorable, but right now she had turned into someone he could easily believe making arrests. “Yes, mother dear.”

In the end he learned the list by heart. Humiliatingly enough it was much easier than he had thought. It was, bullet for bullet, a match to Christina's list.