194 Midsummer's day, 2040, breakfas

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"Think they'll be surprised?"

Yukio groaned silently. Surprised wasn't exactly the word that came to mind. "Man, you have a way with words," he said instead of answering the question.

Ryu grinned impishly and poured himself another cup of coffee, or whatever substituted for coffee here. Swedes drank their traditional coffee from large mugs poorly suited to the black gold, and as a result it was weak and strangely sour.

Swallowing another mouthful of the swill Yukio decided he had enough. Tea, he'd have tea instead. For some reason there was an abundance of flavoured tea which surprised him.

'Land of coffee, and you drink horse piss, but I'd be hard pressed to find as many variants of tea back home.' He grinned. 'Strange people. You're strange all of you.'

"They shouldn't be," Yukio said. "We've given them enough hints to guess what's about to happen."

With a nod Ryu leaned back in his chair. "Some people are rather dense. Remember the fallout with Red Rose?"

He was right. Some people were really, really dense. It still surprised Yukio how far their adversaries had allowed things to go south before they reacted. Looking back he was grateful for that incompetence. At the time he'd looked up on Urufu and Kuri like some kind of divine beings, but in reality they'd been badly out-gunned from the start.

"Yeah, I remember. No way I'd help them with something like that today."

"Them? If I recall Kuri did most of the damage." Yukio saw Ryu look around to make sure Urufu didn't overhear them. "Urufu was livid when he found out."

With a sigh Yukio admitted that Ryu was right. Still, in the end Urufu helped his girlfriend inflict as much damage as possible unto what had transformed from a bad memory to an enemy.

"I'm happy it's all behind us," Yukio said and rose to make some tea.@@