'That was way too close . '

With a sigh Ulf finished explaining the last problem and looked at the club members present . It seemed they hadn't caught up on his mistake . He guessed that as long as they believed the discrepancy between his real knowledge and his graded knowledge was a result of moving from Sweden to j.a.pan, he was safe .

They wouldn't understand anyway . 'd.a.m.n, most people involved in tertiary education won't for that matter . '

Content before methods, and methods before context, or else the student would inevitably fail to create new contexts in which to try a.n.a.lysis . That was why he had forced the walking talking sessions onto the club .

'And it had b.l.o.o.d.y better not be either the one or the other,' Ulf thought as he walked over to a third whiteboard .

The j.a.panese education system excelled at content and pretty much nothing else . The Swedish counterpart lay at the opposite end on a scale of criminal incompetence, with a stubborn focus on methods without any content to apply them on .

Even an idealised aggregate of the two lacked a systematic application of context, even though Ulf believed Sweden was slightly better off . Those who gained understanding despite twelve years of sabotaged learning tended to have an easier time to apply knowledge and re-evaluate that very application . At least compared to what he had experienced from cooperation with j.a.panese software developers .

"What are you thinking?" Noriko asked from nowhere, and Ulf became aware he had been caught up in a world of his own .

"I'm thinking I'll make you the best of the best," he answered .

"Best of the best? In what sense?" Noriko wondered .

Ulf looked at his short friend, who had just taken a break from running through some essential data on j.a.panese history . Essential for the upcoming exams that was . As far as he was concerned it was worse than a monkey see monkey do approach . There wasn't even any doing involved . The exam would test their ability to mimic high performance parrots .

"Knowledge, competence and experience," Ulf said to give Noriko an answer . He knew he sounded cryptic, but the kids in the club needed to learn how to apply methods to their knowledge before anything else . Some of them already had, and come spring term he'd start giving them case studies to apply those methods on .

With a bit of luck the brightest of them would accuse him of being a first cla.s.s moron when their second year started .

"You always have those easy three step solutions to everything," Noriko said .

'They're models . Verbalised abstractions, but you wouldn't understand . ' Not yet at least, but I count on you to call me moron soon .

From the whiteboard he had left he heard conversations in broken English, a broken English that was a vast improvement over the atrocity they had displayed half a year earlier .

'I'll give you your results old goat,' Ulf thought . 'Two percent overall for the midterms and I think we'll get closer to five after the finals . '

Because he had promised Nakagawa improved test results that day, when he was scolded for the locker room incident over half a year earlier . While a five percent improvement wasn't much the club members only had half a year to adapt to his alien views on learning .

' was never this absorbed in work before . Why is it so important now?' Then Ulf admitted to himself that he was running from his impending doom, or at least the threat to him and Christina .

'I love you, and but for all the c.r.a.p happening to us I'd tell you in an instant . ' Still, she'd give up on her career if he told her, and he just couldn't do that to her .

Ulf threw a glance in her direction, filled his mind with her strength and beauty and turned his attention to Noriko again .

"In order to grow you need to know what you don't know," he said .

Before she answered he looked at Christina again . 'I'm an idiot . At first I didn't tell you because of Maria, and now when my feelings finally are sorted out I still can't tell you . '

Noriko looked as if she was about to voice her answer, but when she followed his eyes she closed her mouth again . Ulf could see how she looked at Christina, then at him and then at Christina again . In the end an expression of determination spread over Noriko's face, and she tilted her head and stared directly into his eyes .

"Really? Are you two idiots, or what? She should have dragged those words out of you by now . "

Meeting her eyes Ulf just shook his head . "Don't tell her that!" he begged .

Noriko screwed her mouth into a frustrated smirk . "You are two of the most important people in my life . If you believe I'll allow the both of you to hurt each other like this, then you're sadly mistaken . "

'd.a.m.n, this is Noriko here . She'll do whatever she thinks needs doing . ' Ulf still remembered her confession when she dragged her brother into the scene, not to speak about the spectacle at the amus.e.m.e.nt park shortly after .

"We need to talk," he said and grabbed her hand . "Now!"

Dragging her through the door only took moments, but it still wasn't fast enough to prevent someone from shouting .

"Wrong girl, man!" the voice called out, but he was already outside, and he continued through the main entrance to make certain they were outdoors before he said anything more .

Outside lamplights blinked miserably in a rain that never seemed to stop these days . It was just as bad as an especially awful December week in the Gothenburg he remembered from his former life . For a moment Ulf regretted that he hadn't brought an umbrella, but now it was too late for details like that .

'I have to make her understand how adults think . And what great adults we are Christina . What an awful mess!'

"Noriko," he said and let go of her hand . "You really mustn't tell her . If Christina requests I say how much I love her I will, and if I do I'll destroy everything . "

Noriko stared back at him with incomprehension in her eyes .

"Look, if she quits her career for me, she'll regret it for the rest of her life . " 'Noriko, I hate telling you how life works . You should stay a child for a little longer . ' But Christina was more important to him, and in the end he decided to force his friend to grow up a little in advance . "There's no way in h.e.l.l the two of us will survive that in the long run . Please, please, please don't tell her!"