On the way to the train station, Tomo stopped by a small bookshop and picked up a slender mint-green paperback – she already had the hardcover, of course, but the paperback had come out while she was in France. Once she'd gotten her ticket and settled in on the train – it wouldn't be a long ride – she checked out the string of quotes on the back.

Praise for Sleeping In: Six Stories

"Supremely bizarre." - Asahi Shimbun

"Dreamy, lyrical." - Mainichi Daily News

"One of the most creative new voices in science fiction… Wait, is this even supposed to be science fiction?" - Osaka Globe

Tomo flipped through the book. Good font, cover design wasn't bad, and they'd incorporated the prize nomination on the front cover in a tasteful manner. Of course, she didn't need to read the actual book. She'd watched the book take form in college, on her roommate's computer screen; she'd been one of the informal editors – they all had, e-mailing chunks of the text back and forth with praise and suggestions; and she'd been right in the front at the author's first reading and book-signing, yelling at the top of her lungs till Kagura slugged her shoulder hard, and Yomi threatened to put her in a chokehold.

And despite spending so much time with the six stories in the book…

…she still didn't know how Osaka's mind worked.

"Oh, hi, Tomo," Osaka said. She'd answered the door of her little apartment in a sundress and the penguin slippers Chiyo had mailed them all for Christmas last year. She hadn't changed a bit. Same hair, same cheerfully distracted expression. Although Tomo did expect her to be a LITTLE surprised that she'd just arrived unannounced from France. "Nice jumpsuit. Were ya skiing before you got here?"

"Uh… no. It's summer. How the heck are you?" She frowned. "Yomi called you, didn't she?"

"Yep," Osaka said. "Come on in, I've got lemonade all ready. It's pink," she added.

"Pink is good," Tomo said, and sat in one of Osaka's polka-dotted overstuffed chairs. "The paperback turned out really nice, I thought."

"Ya got one!" Osaka said, delighted. "Want me to sign it?" After handing Tomo the pink lemonade, she pulled out a pen, took the book – and frowned. "What should I sign?"

"Uh. Your name. That's kind of how it works. And you ought to add something personal, like 'To Tomo, without whom I couldn't have written a single word because she is just so inspiring.'"

"I mean, it's weird. All my friends call me Osaka, but not my parents, which makes sense 'cause they're from Osaka too and then they'd hafta call themselves Osaka, and that'd be really confusing," she speculated. "So it's still weird signing 'Ayumu Kasuga' in all my books. Like the people who read my book aren't my friends."

"Um. They're not," Tomo said. The lemonade was good. Also very pink. "They're just people who read your book."

Osaka gave her a look. That was a new look. Her usual space-cadet gaze was starting to get layers to it. We're adults. What's with that? Tomo thought, not for the first time that day.

"If they read it, they kind of are my friends," Osaka said. "I dunno, it's just sort of like that." She signed, To Tomo, for giving me ideas. Osaka.

"Sooo…." Tomo decided she was going to hastily change the subject, before she was forced to be sincere twice in one day. "What did Yomi tell you?"

"She said Interpol put ya in charge of some spy sort of thing. She told me all about it, but I can't remember all the details."

"Does that girl just not know the meaning of the word 'classified'?" Tomo grumbled. "Okay, what else did she say?"

"She said there was some sort of weird plan about getting all six of us from high school involved."

"Yeah, and what else?"

"She said it was a really stupid plan," Osaka said cheerfully. "She said it was one of the dumbest things you've come up with in a long time. She said she didn't know why Interpol was putting up with it."

"Oh, so that's what she said," Tomo said, darkly. She'd half a mind to go back to Yomi's building and set off the sprinklers on the fifteenth floor. "Anything else I should know about?"

"She said she was gonna do it," Osaka said. "So I'm gonna do it too." Her brow knit. "So what are we doing?"

Notes:

I was going to have Tomo go get Kagura and Sakaki too in this chapter, but I'm stuck on writing their parts, so Osaka has this chapter all to herself. Osaka being a writer has a lot to do with her creative nature; yes, it does have something to do with other authors on here making her a writer, which really works; but mostly it's because she's my favorite character, so I gave her my dream job. :)