Transition and Restart, book two: The Billion Dollar Empress

Chapter six, 2016, summer's end, part five

There were rumours about their club. A few months earlier those rumours would have been about 3:1, but Noriko didn't care.

Urufu ran the planning for both of their events until Kuri returned to school a few days later. Kyoko and Yukio were still absent though. An accident they were told by their teacher, but in Urufu's eyes Noriko could read that something disgusting had happened. Especially as he refused to return her glances.

It didn't take a genius to understand it was all connected to his war with Red Rose. That scared her, but worse it hurt. It hurt that he didn't trust her, and it hurt that the boy she still loved didn't want to look at her even as a friend.

Planning and working with the cultural festival was supposed to be fun, but with Urufu at the helm it turned into work. He was efficient, and the club members got a lot more individual responsibility than the members of any other club, but it wasn't fun. Not once did his face flash into that wolfish grin that made her heart lurch.

Whenever she wondered if she wasn't imagining things she only had to watch Urufu's face reflected in Ryu's to know it wasn't just a bad dream. Her brother knew something, but he refused to share with her, and In Yukio's absence he turned into Urufu's wingman without a single thought of his own status.

Idiot bro, I don't want to see you grow into a man this way, she once thought, and she even started to miss his inane antics. The brother she had learned to love to hate rapidly vanished and was replaced by someone harder, and with nowhere to turn Noriko silently assumed Kyoko's duty as Kuri's wingman.

It wasn't lost on anyone in the club.

Where Noriko had assumed summer's break to be the end of something, the start of their autumn term signalled a more important end. One she refused to accept. When they started school in April she behaved like the most mature of the six of them, but now she wondered if she wasn't the only child remaining.

A few days later she overheard a whispered conversation between Kuri and Urufu and learned how Kuri had been attacked at her own home. Knowing that four of the six of them were being dragged back into her old nightmare made her sick with fear.

Then a final insanity occurred that made her force the issue. There were transfers. A small class of transfers. Three weeks into the term class 9:1 suddenly came into existence. Twenty five new students; all from Red Rose Academy. Another ten were rumoured to still be in the process of transferring.

Still, there were rumours about their club. Of the transferees half a dozen immediately applied for membership and were accepted within minutes after Kuri entered their club room. Not a single one was of Japanese origin and all of them wore silent faces telling tales of a school they despised.

With close to thirty members in the club Noriko finally had a reason to go to the student council. Formally to apply for an increased budget, but in reality she was hell-bent on finding out what was going on.

She stormed into the office and was surprised to find the entire student council there in a conversation with Principal Nakagawa and a third year student she only vaguely recognised.

"We'll increase security, but you'll have to report any outsiders on school grounds," Nakagawa-sensei said to the student council president.

"Yes sensei."

Principal Nakagawa looked in Noriko's direction as the door slid shut behind her. "I'm aware that... Girl, we knock before we enter. Oh, it's you."

There were several more pairs of eyes turned in her direction now.

"Did you need anything?" the council president asked.