11 Chapter one, 2016, school start: 7 (2/2)

It was, Yukio thought, kind of funny that they had found their routine studying here once a week, every Friday, while they still went to different schools, if you could call Urufu-kun's institution a school to begin with. Those occasions had also served as a lesson in contrasts to Yukio. Urufu-kun wasn't all that good at learning the important parts for exams, and his poor Japanese didn't help either. He was however a master when it came to place things in context. Another of them grown up things, Yukio guessed. Anyway, Urufu-kun always wasted a lot of time trying to understand stuff rather than just learning them the right way. And it showed in their grades.

”Don't you think they'll ask questions if the club has this much money?”

”We could get funded by the council,” Urufu-kun suggested.

”If we're accepted it's because we'll be dirt cheap to maintain. We'll get next to no funding.”

Urufu-kun nodded. ”Then we'll just use my seed money carefully then.”

”A quarter of a million yen. Seed money. You're crazy, you know that?” Yukio shook his head.

”Talking about stuff that belongs in the beginning. I have to decide if we contact Ryu or Christina first. You still plan on contacting Kyoko?”

'Oh, he's in work mode. All business and no polish.' ”I'll talk with Takeida-san,” just saying those words made his heart jump a little, ”and set up that meeting of yours with Ageruman-san.” Yukio glanced at his friend. ”Why Wakayama-san all of a sudden?”

Urufu-kun sighed. ”Because since Ryu, sorry, that Wakayama kid, took an interest in Christina...”

He still refuses to call her by anything but her first name.

”… I don't think I can get her aboard without Wakayama in her wake.”

That made sense. Urufu-kun was just as sensitive to changing moods among the students as he was himself. Well, whenever he wasn't a blind moron oblivious to anything that happened around him. That fortunately didn't happen all that often any more. ”But we start with Ageruman-san?”

”Yes, yes. I have to decide if Wakayama is a disturbance that needs handling or not.”

Yukio stared at his friend. ”Man, that sounded, eh, a little cold.”

”Sorry if that didn't come out right.” Urufu-kun looked up from the charters and met Yukio's eyes. ”Work mode here. Not seeing him as a good guy or a bad one. He's just another stakeholder, and I don't know if he's a primary or a secondary.” He looked down at the charters again.

”And please translate that to Japanese for the rest of us,” Yukio growled. Urufu-kun's last sentence hadn't made sense at all despite being delivered in easy enough Japanese.

Urufu-kun looked up, and Yukio could see in his eyes how he dropped out of work mode. ”Let's see the club as a product in development.” Urufu-kun had opened his smart phone to help him convey whatever corporate theory he was about to lecture Yukio about.

He took another sip of coffee, and Yukio drank some of his second soda. ”Whenever the development of something gets complex you'll make a project of it. Anyone who's potentially affected by, along with those who could potentially affect, the project are called stakeholders.”

It was one of those times when the older man behind the boyish face shone through. Yukio nodded to show Urufu-kun that he followed his explanation this far.

”Depending on how important to the project those stakeholders are, or how much they're likely to be impacted by the project, you classify them into primary, secondary, etc.”

Urufu-kun flashed the display of his smart phone for Yukio to see. The translation made sense, even if a lot of the Japanese words were unclear even for him as a native.

”So, the student council and our sponsor would be primary?” Yukio tried.

Urufu-kun grimaced. ”Members would be primaries, along with the sponsor, I guess. Council? Let's make them secondaries, even if they can pull the plug on the entire project.”

”Because they're not directly involved?”

”There's hope for you yet!” Urufu-kun said and smiled.

Yukio smiled back. He didn't fully understand why the club was so important for Urufu-kun, but it was enough that it was that important. He would help make that dream come true, and besides it gave him a reason to contact Takeida-san.

”Training tomorrow?” Yukio asked, referring to their weekly bouts. It was another of their weekly routines, and asking about it gave him an excuse to change the subject. Corporate theory wasn't all that fun.

”Uhum, yes. Gym during break.”

”I'll pick you up here then. What about Sunday?” Yukio said happy that his friend agreed to the sudden change of topic.

”Sunday? Dojo. Four hours plus biking.”

”Is that enough?”

”No,” Urufu-kun answered, ”not really. Proper training once a week keeps my skills up to date, but I won't develop.”

”I thought you would sound more disappointed.”

Urufu-kun smiled. ”I never had time to train two styles anyway. It's enough to keep myself both soft and hard. After all I grew too old for competition so I kind of lost interest in that kind of training.”

'It's so easy to forget he's really fifty years old.' ”I never asked. How much time does it take?”

”Oh.” Urufu-kun's eyes showed that he was lost in memories. ”Twenty hours a week, but it wasn't all karate. Anyway, I didn't pick up aikido until after I dropped competitive karate, and I wasn't all that good to begin with. Nidan when the really good ones with my training years were sandan.”

Yukio shook his head. ”Didn't you say you won a lot?”

”Yeah, but that's only because I was tall for my weight and quick. When I'm fully grown I'll be 181 or 182 with the weight of a midget.”

Yukio laughed. ”Midget? Care to define that?”

Urufu-kun grimaced. ”Sorry about that. But the average Japanese is kind of short in Sweden. I'm just about average back home.”

An entire population of walking towers. No wonder they needed all that space.

”Why did you stop competing?”

”Hello, fifty years old over here. I'd get smashed. Besides my work took too much time. I took up aikido because there were no competitions.”

”So you dropped karate.”

”More or less. A friend was a trainer in a dojo, so we met a couple of times a month. Nothing serious.”

It was time to finish their planning. ”So, what about field trips?” Yukio asked and changed the topic once again.

As darkness fell they sketched out activities for the club, a rough communication plan for how to keep in touch with their Swedish counterpart along with some ideas for how Urufu-kun should coach Ageruman-san to make the initial contact to begin with.

It all looked very grown up, and Yukio wondered if Urufu-kun wasn't having all too much fun overdoing the set-up of a simple school club.

Urufu-kun absent-mindedly plugged bill after bill into the cup where the stack with receipts grew as they ordered more and more beverages. While in work mode he handled money like it was really just pieces of paper, and Yukio was once again reminded that Urufu-kun came from a very different world.

It was quite a while later, when he was studying mathematics, and Urufu-kun had opened up his books on grade and middle school Japanese, that he looked out the window. Below them he saw Takeida-san walking back home from her cram school. Tired from using too many formulas he rested his eyes and mind on her back until she vanished out of sight.

'Cute. Even from a distance, in the lamplights, she's beautiful.' He looked at Urufu-kun from the corner of his eyes. No, he hadn't noticed how Yukio's mind had wandered elsewhere. Weekend now. 'Monday I get to see her again.'