"There's something that's been bugging me," Yukio said when they had changed trains once and hopped into a taxi .

Kyoko s.h.i.+fted a little to give room to Noriko who had fallen asleep again . The last day sure had taken its toll on her small frame .

"About the entire affair with the four of them?"

Yukio turned to face her . She could see how deep in thought he was . Right now he was thinking aloud rather than talking with her .

"No . It's about the two different worlds thing . " Yukio fell silent again .

Kyoko waited for him to resume his train of thought . In the meanwhile she stared out the windows where small rice paddies were replaced by even smaller tea plantations . They were definitely heading into the mountains, and everything was smaller here . Well, apart from the mountains . Those might be ever present for most j.a.panese, but being a Tokyoite she had little reasons and even fewer occasions visiting them herself .

"The people who talked with Ryu," she heard Yukio's voice say . "It's the thing with a Swedish organisation that keeps bugging me . "

But the arrivals all came from Sweden . Or at least the Sweden in that other world . Kyoko didn't understand what her boyfriend was getting at .

"You see," Yukio continued as if he'd been reading her mind, "they pop up here in j.a.pan . People who have never existed in this world . "

"Yes?" Kyoko said .

He wasn't . Wasn't merely thinking aloud that was . She knew he wanted her to react to what he was saying from time to time .

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"So there's little reason for that Swedish section for whatever . "

"Why not?" Kyoko said . She could hear from his voice that he had reached the point where he was bouncing his thoughts with her .

"Urufu told me there had to be a Swedish organisation in that other world, because both he and Kuri got invites, so someone knew what was going to happen . "

That made sense . But a Swedish organisation in this world? Suddenly she felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the AC in the taxi hammering them with a freezing draught .

"So you arrived there as well?" Yukio said . "If there is a Swedish organisation in this world I'm pretty sure there are people vanis.h.i.+ng from this one and ending up in another . "

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"But that means there aren't just two worlds . "

Yukio nodded . "A chain of them I believe . I can't explain, but I'd call them upstream and downstream worlds . " He frowned . "I don't think it's possible to go back to the world Urufu came from from this one, so upstream . " Then he grinned, an expression he'd had the help from Urufu to master, and one that still melted Kyoko's heart . "That would make this one a downstream one . "

Under her arm Noriko s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably in her sleep, and Kyoko nudged a little away in her seat to make it a little more comfortable for her pet.i.te friend .

"And you think this one is an upstream one for another world?"

Yukio nodded . "I have to work on this idea with Urufu, but yeah, I believe so . "

"I wonder what it's like," Kyoko said as the taxi left what went for a main road up here and started climbing up streets so narrow meeting another car would have been impossible . 'Would I feel that creepy feeling of almost the same that Kuri-chan spoke about?'

"What what is like?" Noriko asked sleepily and freed herself from where she had nestled under Kyoko's arm .

"h.e.l.lo sleepyhead," Kyoko said . "We're almost there . "

"What what is like?" Noriko repeated .

Kyoko glanced at Yukio .

"The thing with two worlds and all that," he said .

"Urufu's old world?"

"Uhum . " Kyoko wanted to have this conversation together with Urufu, just like Yukio, so she chose to give Noriko the simpler answer .

The taxi came to a stop, and Yukio paid the driver .

"We're here?" Noriko said, and Kyoko smiled at how she turned her head in search of Urufu .

A short guffaw had them both look at Yukio .

"Almost," he said . "I don't know exactly where it is, but I have his mother's maiden name, so I thought we'd ask in the shop here," Yukio added and nodded at a small shop squeezed in between two houses .

Kyoko watched him go inside while she shouldered her backpack . Noriko did the same .

Looking around Kyoko noted how everything was small except the houses . Apparently, in a relative sense, there was more s.p.a.ce here, but also more money . Where she lived houses like these would have cost a fortune, or rather the plot they stood on . Housing in Tokyo was brutally expensive according to her parents .

They were also surrounded by a less oppressive heat . It was still hot, but no longer the brutal heat at the resort . The valley the sides of which the village climbed funnelled a weak breeze that refreshed the air, and Kyoko stood admiring the greenery further up the mountainsides together with her friend until Yukio came back out from the shop .

"Straight ahead and just across a public parking place . She said we couldn't miss it," Yukio added and nodded at the shop he had just left . "Anyone wants a snack? I couldn't just ask and not buy anything . "

"Which house?"

"Urufu once told me I'd know if I ever saw it, but that he didn't understand himself . The lady in the shop basically said the same thing . "

"He didn't understand it himself?" Noriko said .

Yukio shouldered his backpack and took the lead . "This was back before Himekaizen," he said over his shoulders . His safe and wonderful shoulders . "There was a time when it was important for him to tell me memories of his . "

Kyoko wondered where this was going, but for now she was content with listening to Yukio's voice . This was the voice of a boy who made best friends with Urufu . Not the disillusioned Yukio of recent . She preferred the Yukio who took pride in his friend . If for no other reason than because it reminded her of when she still took pride in Kuri-chan . I have to make up with her . Even if I can't forgive, at least we have to make up .

They rounded a corner and suddenly a small gravel parking place spread out before them .

'Oh G.o.ds!'

Across it old style j.a.panese houses competed for s.p.a.ce with more modern ones . All in what both Urufu and Kuri-chan had described as a faux European style . And then there was the exception . It shouted out it's foreignness, blared how it didn't belong here and in general made her wonder if the builders had taken leave of their brains .

It also spoke of a familiar world . One she had seen on pictures every day since Urufu filled their first club room with photos from Sweden .

'Yeah, I see how we couldn't possibly miss it . '

Yellow, standing panel, white corners and tiles a burned orange red colour that basically never roofed a j.a.panese home . Urufu must have grown up around houses like this one . As alien as it was to her, as much a definition of normality for the child he once was .

"Didn't you say his relatives were j.a.panese?"

Kyoko looked at Noriko . "Yes, they are . " Well, in as much as this family is related to him . He wasn't born in this world .

"Then, why?" Noriko said and pointed at the abomination across the gravel .

"I guess influences work both ways . Why don't you ask him?"

"Ask him? When . . . "

Kyoko grinned . On the street an open mouthed Urufu stood staring back at them . Even from this distance she could see how shame competed with joy in his eyes .

"Noriko, run to him! He's all yours now . "