101 Chapter three, 2016, field trip revised: 8 (1/2)
When the camera crew took at short break Ryu called for attention and had his groups walk past the set. He made a show of sauntering over to Kuri and exchange pleasantries. In reality he asked her how Urufu was doing, but that wasn't what it looked like.
As an added bonus he received a few murderous stares from the male models, especially after Kuri saw through his ploy and gave him a friendly hug in the Swedish fashion he still had problems getting accustomed to. Urufu was just as bad and usually hugged people left and right when greeting them.
Ryu high fived Kuri and made off with two groups before Noriko came up to Kuri and repeated the process. She got no murderous stares though, but Ryu felt rather certain a few of the crew leered at his sister. He'd seen her get her fair share of looks in school, and compared to what the models here wore she could as well have been undressed.
”That's my friend and she's off limits!”
Kuri's voice confirmed his suspicions and he turned, prepared to interfere. There was no need. 'How do you manage to look down on someone half a head taller than you?' The next sight caught him by surprise, and he slapped a hand to his mouth to stop the laughter that was bubbling up. His larger than life midget sister copied Kuri's stance. 'Way to go sis! And you're even shorter than Kuri is.'
”Gentlemen, let's proceed to the next station,” he said to the members of his two groups who stood studying the silent exchange between the girls and the models. ”On our way there I want you to find a solution to the last problem, but this time the setting is Normandy a generation after the invasion of England.”
”Normandy?”
”You have your tablets. Look it up! Noriko will help you with locating any specifics you believe are needed.”
Running a walking talking session was more fun than he would have believed, and Ryu began to understand why Urufu put so much effort into them. By now it was clear that the problems themselves held less importance than the process of solving them. The answers, right or wrong, mattered little.
”I have a question about late eleventh century banking in Europe,” one man said.
Grinning Ryu waved his sister to him and had her help that group.
The next step would be harder. Collecting and understanding process data was beyond him. Urufu always did that work, and Ryu had noticed how even Kuri sometimes was left flabbergasted. 'You sure know your crap. I'll steal her from you but still keep you as my friend.' How he would succeed with that was still an unknown, but solving social problems was what made him tick. In a sense he suspected he was a lot more similar to Urufu than he wanted to admit.
'I'll need you after lunch. Kuri's busy so I guess I'll have Yukio get you down from our room.' Ryu kicked some sand into the air and silently cursed Principal Nakagawa.
Around him the middle managers were occupied with the problem he had invented and this time both Yukio and Kyoko were able to participate. They had done a thorough reading on medieval Europe when Urufu forced the club to compare Heian era Japan with Saxon England less than two weeks earlier.
Noriko shone as usual. That day she had left Urufu laughing curled up in a ball when she caught him in some kind of error where he painted himself into a corner. Exactly what was so funny about it Ryu never understood, but she had made a conclusion that had Urufu laughing helplessly while at the same time giving her a look filled with admiration.
'I can see why you're in love with him, but he's wrong for you. Too old and too cynical.' And that thought had Ryu reflecting on his own feelings for Kuri. 'But she's not cynical, just awfully cold sometimes.'