Being in America was a learning experience, Nijimura decided, especially when your best friend was a too-pretty-for-his-own-good busybody who loved nothing more than getting into fights. As if feeling the weight of Nijimura's glare, Himuro turned around – still smiling like he didn't have a care in the world.

"Ready?" Himuro mouthed. Nijimura didn't even bother feeling depressed over the fact that he could lip-read Himuro perfectly. This was his life now. Nijimura nodded once, then followed him in as Himuro kicked down the door to the unused classroom.

There were some panicked shouts and then one high-pitched scream as Himuro ploughed his way through the delinquents. Nijimura, meanwhile, made sure to complete his part of the plan and tip the entire table with its unidentifiable beakers and bags over until everything was all over the floor.

Across the room, Himuro had herded the group of five witless criminals into a clump by the window. He was speaking quickly, still too quickly at points for Nijimura to understand everything, but he managed to make out 'drug', 'freshmen' and 'my fist in your face'; proof that his English skills really were getting better.

Nijimura moved over to help when Himuro broke out the zip ties, and soon enough the entire gang was tied up and cowering timidly. The whole thing only took them about ten minutes, leaving them plenty of time to be out of the school and two streets over by the time Nijimura started hearing sirens ring out in the dead of the night in the direction they had just left.

Taking off the heavy mask and biker gloves now that they were finally far enough to be safe, Nijimura took a deep breath and asked, "You sure it's okay to just leave it like that?"

"It's fine," Himuro said lightly, receiving Nijimura's mask and gloves and shoving it into his backpack with his own. "The gloves and mask mean no one will know it was us. And those cowards are too scared of retribution from the gang they work for to say anything."

Nijimura shook his head. "You realise it's pretty suspicious that you got them to believe you're sent by their gang to rough them up just like that right?"

"Your faith in me is heart-warming." Himuro smirked at Nijimura playfully. It said something about their friendship that Himuro was comfortable with making that kind of comeback in the face of Nijimura's distrust. Mostly it said that Nijimura had left all his survival instincts in Japan.

"What is wrong with America," Nijimura whined. "In Japan, mysterious lights that change colours in an unused classroom mean your school has at least one proper one out of the Seven Wonders, not drugs!"

Himuro blinked. "Seven Wonders?"

"Yeah, like that movie we saw," Nijimura said. "With the school and the bloody handprints and the moving bust of the principal."

"Right!" Himuro grinned. "Japan sure has interesting urban legends. All we have are gang initiation headlight flashes."

Nijimura sighed. Then started slightly as Himuro clapped him heavily on the shoulder. "You can't say you didn't enjoy our adventure tonight. I know you had fun investigating the cause of the lights; though I had no idea that you wanted to investigate it because of an urban legend."

"The investigating part wasn't so bad," Nijimura admitted, then scowled. "But it'd have been nice to get a result that wasn't drugs. Or gangs."

"Maybe next time," Himuro said consolingly. "But at least these bastards won't be dealing drugs to the freshmen anymore."

Nijimura sighed again. But didn't dispute the 'next time'. What was the point?

I translated nanafushigi as Seven Wonders, which is a type of Japanese urban legend about seven (and it's always seven) mysterious happenings in a particular school. Also, I'm sure it's not always drugs, even in America. It's just drugs this time.