June 24, 2040, coffee and smoke

He belonged to a vanishing minority of smokers, which was a good thing, but right now this minority needed a cig.

Remembering Kareyoshi sure put a damper on the morning.

"They put him away. I believe he's still in some prison somewhere," Kyoko said and came up to stand beside him with both her hands on the railing.

"Just remembering is enough to..."

"Please Yukio!"

Yukio grimaced but held his peace. "You know," he said when he had calmed down again, "didn't it get strangely normal after that?"

Kyoko gazed out over the sea, but Yukio could see a smile playing on her lips. "Yes, strangely normal. Trust us to make normal a problem."

He couldn't remember. For Yukio his second year in high school was forever tainted by Kareyoshi, but the monster got removed just prior to Christmas. That left a full trimester of their junior year. "Were they good times?" Yukio asked while he furiously tried to remember what had happened back then.

Kyoko guffawed and kissed him full on his mouth. "Good times indeed. Great times for lovers of chaos."

Standing in the morning sun memories finally surfaced in Yukio's mind. Yeah, those were great times for anyone feeling that falling down a cliff was too sedate. But… there were just three months between Christmas and school's end. They couldn't possibly have…

"I know what you're thinking."

Yukio pulled the brakes on his train of thoughts and turned to face his wife. "Enlighten me!"

"You really don't remember?"

He shook his head. "Not a thing," he lied, and he knew she knew he lied. It didn't matter. Right now he was about to enjoy her version of what happened.

"Gods! And the only sane thing for us back then would have been to study, do well on our finals and enter our third year, but no, no we just had to… gods!"

Yukio waited for Kyoko to pick up the thread where she had left it off. He waited and enjoyed how the sun played in her hair.

"Yukio, really! Hatsumode, and the field trip. And..." she threw her hands to her face, "valentines! Now that was a mess best forgotten."

Now when she mentioned it Yukio remembered. 'Yeah, best forgotten.' "White day wasn't much better, or the finals," Yukio filled in.

"Or spring break for that matter. Gods what a disaster that was!"

With a grin Yukio allowed himself to be flooded by memories. Disasters all of them, but fun disasters.