146 Chapter one, 2016, the value of friends: 7 (1/2)

It was abusing her position, but with so little time left she had no choice. A call to the old goat secured the approval of involving Uniclo in the fashion show. Christina didn't tell him she'd call her agency as well. He didn't need to know that.

That was her second planned phone call, but before she could make it her phone rang.

Amaya? ”Christina here.”

”Hello, there's something I need to talk with you about.”

'What's up now? I don't like that voice.' ”Yes? I'm a bit busy right now.”

”I'll make it short. Could you please not invite Urufu over to your place anymore?”

'What the fuck!' ”Eh, I don't understand.” Christina felt panic rising in her. 'She's supposed to be on our side.'

”I'd really prefer if you broke up with him, but I understand you wouldn't listen to that anyway. So I'm placing a curfew on Urufu instead.”

Christina stared at her phone. The call was off. She had punched it off without thinking. 'We have so little time together already, and now this. Why? Why would you want to hurt us this way?'

Tears came to her eyes. They did so easily, and they would as long as she was still a teen if she could believe that doctor whom Nakagawa had brought to the beach. There was little reason to believe anything else. She had been something of a cry-baby when she was a teenager the first time.

Still, that call had been blunt to the degree of idiocy. A frontal assault like that was guaranteed to be met by resistance, so why hadn't Amaya been slyer instead of behaving like a pre-teen bully?

It was an important question, but it was one Christina just didn't have the time to handle right now. Later she'd talk with Ko-chan and maybe cry a little more, but now she needed to get a fashion show running from scratch with only hours to play with.

Then her phone rang again. 'Unknown number?' ”Ageruman Kuritina,” she said in the Japanese way.

”My name is Alice Kerringer. I'm calling from Uniclo concerning our autumn launch,” a voice said in English.

”Yes?”

”We're going live today. We've been in contact with your agency, but they told us to call you directly. We're interested in an event, but as you're still a high school student we got the impression there might be some scheduling issues.”

For the second time in a day Christina stared at her phone. 'Now that's what I call superb timing.' ”Yes, but I was just about to call you about a problem we have.” She sat down on the floor uncaring that her skirt would probably be stained from her doing so.

”Yes?” Now it was the other side's turn to ask that question.

”Ms Kerringer, our cultural festival is about to start, and some jerks destroyed our props for a fashion show.”

”Yes?” Christina could hear the rise in interest through the phone.