With him at the helm yesterday's afternoon workshops went off without a hitch. Sure, some of the attendants showed some initial disdain at his apparent age, but Ulf quickly put them out of any misconceptions.

Most of them were the same kind of over-aged middle management he remembered holding back much needed corporate change during his first life, but if you hit them hard enough over their heads with working solutions you peeled off the covers they hid behind.

In at least one sense Ulf preferred Japanese upper management to their Swedish counterpart he was used to. When they decide to go for broke they were absolutely ruthless with their workforce, especially with their middle management.

He used that advantage just as ruthlessly and forced the entire assembly to climb the murderous uphill hiking path to the camping he made certain hadn't been disassembled and brought down to the hotel.

Up there he worked them to their bones, and when he finally allowed them to rest most were so tired they just crawled into their tents and fell asleep.

To their horror he had them carry all equipment down the same path earlier this morning, and it was a dishevelled bunch that took a well-deserved bath in the hot springs.

Ulf left them there after he received a long email from Christina, had two bento boxes made for them each and sauntered down to the beach. Work was what he needed, and Christina. And she had written that he was needed down there.

He made it just in time to meet her on the walkway separating beach from road when she was ready for lunch, and learned that Principal Nakagawa apparently had promised her something. They sat down with their legs dangling and arms hanging through the railings. Ulf had the pleasure of watching Christina light up with a grateful smile when he brought out their lunch.

“I've been so scared,” she said.

There wasn't much of an answer he could give her. He hugged her closer with one arm. “Sorry. I won't be like that again,” he murmured.

He'd been in black despair once before, but when he finally crawled out of the bottle after two weeks of the worst binge drinking since his university days he never returned into his private hell. Well, apart from now, he recalled, and for a moment he was back in the ghastly scene with policemen backing away and a frantic teenager waving a gun until he put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

“Ulf? Please, you promised!”

He shook himself out of it and pulled a sobbing Christina into his arms. “No, I'm not going there again.” Ulf watched waves rolling over sand and pulling back again. Just like Christina's breath slowed down to the rhythmic calm and love he had grown used to the last month. “I'm here with you. For as long as you want me.” He hugged her harder and held her until he heard her stomach growl.

She pulled herself free and looked shamefacedly at him. Flicking away hair that had tangled in her face she regained her composure. “What about that lunch?”

Ulf grinned and handed her a paper napkin. Not even a super model was an image of perfection with snot in her face.

Without further talk they dug in on their lunch. Eating made him remember how hungry he really was, and they kept at it in silence only broken by requests for the bottle of water they shared.

When Nakagawa arrived mid-lunch he was dressed for vacation. He had a man with him. Younger, maybe forty.

“Good day,” Nakagawa greeted them.

“And?” Ulf asked, nodding at the stranger.

“Mister Hammargren,” the stranger opened in passable English. “My name is Arata Onishi. Pleased to meet you. Arata is my first name and I'm fine using it.”

Ulf looked at Nakagawa for an explanation.

“Onishi-sensei, sorry, Arata is one of my medical experts. I've informed him about our earlier conversation, well Christina's and mine. A medical examination won't be needed.”

Ulf and Christina looked at each other. She blushed momentarily and Ulf gave Nakagawa a questioning look. “Medical examination?” he asked. He looked at Christina again, but she only nodded as if everything made sense.

“Yes, I'm quite certain,” Arata answered instead. “You see, those reactions you mentioned,” Christina blushed some more, “are natural for your age.”

“We're bloody fifty years old. With the experience to boot,” she growled, and Ulf had to smile. She had just copied one of his own expressions he used when he got upset.

“Your bodies aren't. I won't even agree that you're fifty mentally.”

Christina looked up.

Arata turned his palms up as if he was reciting from a book. “You see, even though we prefer to think that we are in control of our thoughts, a lot of them result from biochemical reactions we can't control. Your brains aren't fully developed yet. Call it hormones if you will.”

Ulf nodded. He had enough of a scientists mind to grasp that hormones most likely only had a part in his problems the last year. But the layman explanation was sufficient. Now he understood what the conversation was about as well.

“You're telling me that we'll continue to behave like teenagers?” he asked, and this time he gave Christina a long look. No wonder it feels like a first love again.

“I'm trying to tell you that, to a certain degree you will behave like the teenagers you are, but with more memories and experience than normal.”

Damn, she's beautiful. I can't stop looking at you. “Please tell me more,” Ulf said and forced himself to look at the man instead of Christina. He hated talking to someone's back just as much as anyone else, and he didn't intend to be impolite enough to have the doctor do that.

“For example, you'll be quicker to anger than before you arrived here. But you'll also have greater resources to use for cooling down,” Arata explained and looked at them both. He had that questioning look of someone talking to children, uncertain if it wasn't too hard to understand.

“How long,” Christina wondered.

“Can't say for certain. When you're past twenty things should be like normal. But age related diseases will be pushed into the future.”

That was a relief. Apart from behaving like puppies in heat for a few more years, they'd basically get to live another thirty or so extra years for free.

With that the topic died, but rather than walking back to the hotel both Nakagawa and Arata sat down on the walkway. Arata brought out two sun hats he had folded in a bag and gave one each to Ulf and Christina. “I'm a doctor after all,” he said as an explanation.

Neither Ulf nor Christina answered, but Ulf sent the man a thankful thought as they finished their lunch in the baking sun.

So we're really high schoolers after all. At least to a degree, he though and looked at the sea. Reminds me, what are the other kids up to?

***

“Fireworks?” Kyoko wondered. Guess that's to be expected if we're at the beach.

“Found some, but it's not enough.” Yukio's face split up in a laugh. “Never enough of those,” he said and pointed up the street. “I saw a store back there earlier. See if they have some?”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Kyoko smiled and took his hand. They were on shopping duty for the last evening at the resort. Despite Urufu's sudden retreat into himself and the unexpected work turning up the second day their field trip had been a resounding success this far. At least if she excluded the embarrassing event last night when the home-made brothers made an attempt at peeping on the girls bathing.

It had been a failure until both Urufu and Kuri-chan appeared stark naked from the family bath wondering what was going on. After receiving what had to be the worst verbal bashing in their lives both Dai-kun and Hideo-kun declined an offer to learn proper sauna behaviour from Urufu and Kuri-chan.

“Yukio, did Ryu say anything?”

“About what?”

Don't play cute with me! “Yukio!” Kyoko said and pulled his hand.

“They were just talking all the time. Ryu said it was about as exciting as taking a bath at home, and then Urufu said 'good boy', and that was is.” Yukio shrugged, but he did blush a bit.

The Wakayamas hadn't declined that offer, but Noriko's recounting of sharing the family bath with her brother, Urufu and Kuri-chan had been just as boring. Should have joined them. Wonder if Yukio thinks the same?

“Oh, then I guess it wasn't that much to talk about,” she said instead of thinking too much about sharing a bath with him.

Yukio took a few steps and pulled her with him. “Seems the university tradition when they were students was sharing the sauna. I guess they're used to it.” This time he didn't blush when he shrugged.

“Funny people, Swedes,” Kyoko observed as they came close to the shop. “Wouldn't you say so,” she said when he didn't answer.

Pushing aside the curtains Yukio only gave her a thoughtful look. He waited for her to come inside. “I don't know about funny. There must be things we do that seem outlandish to them.”

Kyoko thought about that while they got help to locate what few fireworks were to be had. Are we strange to them? But they live here now. She hadn't heard Kuri-chan complain about Japan, but what if she silently disagreed. Maybe she was just too polite to say so.

They walked back with bags full. Even though they couldn't hold hands they still managed to steal kisses from time to time. To hell with proper behaviour. She wasn't about to compromise with her new-found happiness. Obviously they never went as far as Urufu and Kuri-chan had done that day by the pool. For once those two had a semblance of privacy rather than walking down a small town street, but Kyoko also didn't feel all that comfortable with getting so physical yet. Not that she wasn't curious, and again a picture of sharing last evening's bath with Yukio came to her mind.

“Sorry, what did I do?”

Kyoko realised she had pulled away from Yukio, and now she was blushing furiously. “Nothing, we didn't do anything!”

“We?” he asked and gave her one of those infuriatingly curious looks.

She made an effort to study one of the vending machines they passed, and after that she pretended that a microscopic town garden was the most interesting thing in the world.

“Girls!” he said and increased his steps.

Sorry, Yukio, but we're not talking about that now. Kyoko looked at his backside and tried to catch up with him. Ahead of them the street opened up to the seaside road feeding the town and the walkway on the other side of it. The afternoon sun glared down from over the mountains, but the worst of the August heat was gone.

On the beach she saw club members playing in the water or lazily talking under the shade of parasols they had brought down from the hotel. Funny, I never missed that part very much when I couldn't have it, and now when I can I miss it even less. It felt strange looking at her schoolmates having the time of their lives and not needing to be part of it. Yukio, I love you. When I'm with you I don't need anything else. Even when you're grumpy, she added as an afterthought and ran to his side.

Her parents would disapprove. In their eyes anyone associated with divorce was a failure, but she didn't care. No that wasn't true. If she didn't then she would have told them by now, and she hadn't. She shook the thought away and brushed her hand against Yukio's.

“Sorry,” she said, “but there are things I'm not ready to talk about yet, OK?”

“Huh?” He looked at her over his shoulder and then he smiled. “Oh, I don't mind. I want to share everything with you, but only when you want to.”

Both of them must have realised what he just said at the same time, because they stopped dead in their tracks and stared at each other. Kyoko felt her face heat up and guessed she was turning just as red as him.

“I didn't mean it that way...”

Kyoko stared at her feet feeling strangely disappointed.

“Well, I didn't mean that I didn't mean, but I didn't...” His voice petered out into absolute embarrassment.

“What about...”

“… we don't...”

“… talk about it...”

“… right now?”

She dropped her bags at her feet and threw herself around his neck. It felt less awkward burying her face into his shoulder, and she wanted to be really close to him right now.

A lone bottle of tea rolled slowly down the street. She could hear its plastic thumping, but she didn't care. They could pick it up later. He smelled of sweat and a little of deodorant. He smelled like her Yukio, like what she imagined when fantasies of him came unbidden to her late at night when she needed her loneliness banished.

That thought surprised her. Loneliness. Only after she made friends with Kuri-chan did she realise she had spent all those earlier years feeling lonely, and now when she had Yukio she finally started to understand just how lonely.

“Yukio,” she murmured into his shirt, “don't ever let me go. Don't ever let me wake up one morning knowing you're no longer there.” The fear of being alone again grew stronger now that she knew what it was feeling loved. It didn't matter that it maybe was just a teenage fling; for her he was the most important being in the world. More important than Kuri-chan and even her parents. She clung tighter to him.

“I won't. Wherever you go I'll follow.”

It didn't matter if it was a promise he wouldn't be able to keep in the end. It didn't matter if she eventually would no longer want him to keep it. It only mattered that he had said it to her, right here and right now.

Kuri-chan, what does love mean to you? Does it feel different with all that experience of yours?