He took a few minutes to observe the room. It was a bit loud outside, Uchi running around getting ready. He was doing well in his architecture schooling and was working full time at a design firm. Sawada wasn't quite sure how he managed it, but the Uchi of high school had really dedicated himself to his profession. He took a slow breath and put his bag beside the mat Uchi had set aside for him. Uchi's place was a little nicer than Kuma's, larger living area, a storage room, and a higher-level floor. Sawada still felt like he was imposing. After staying at Kuma's for nearly a month and a half, he knew it was time to move.

He was also beginning to feel like a temporary position would be a wise idea until he was in school. He was surviving on the money he had made, but was starting to run out. The first entrance exam he had taken was only a prerequisite and fail safe. Keio had its own individual exam in a few weeks, and it would turn fairly pointless if he didn't have enough money to take it. He looked out the window and thought briefly about the day. He was going to have a few hours to himself. Uchi was just about ready to leave, and though he planned to see Natsumi in the afternoon, he had no other plans.

"Sawada?" Uchi knocked on the door. Sawada slid open the door. Uchi looked like a true salary man. "Could you do me a favor and clean up the house a little bit?" He asked extremely politely. "I have some company coming over today and I completely forgot."

Sawada shrugged his shoulders and nodded. Even though Uchi was managing his life fairly well his house still looked like a wreck most of the time. "What should I do with stuff I don't know what to do with?"

Uchi was in the entryway putting on his shoes already. He paused. Looking thoughtfully into the air. "I guess just put it in my room. No one should need to go in there tonight."

Must be a business meeting. Sawada waved as Uchi went dashing out the door. He took a few minutes to look around the living area. It was littered with papers, a few dishes, and a surprising amount of clothes. He had planned on helping him, it was the least he could do since he was occupying a room.

He gathered up all the papers, whatever they were, and stacked them on the counter in his kitchen. There were a lot of architectural plans that he set aside for Uchi, just in case. The trash he collected into the wastebasket before he tackled the clothes scattered about. After a good half hour of tidying up, Uchi's apartment looked almost as neat as he had kept his in high school. He finished putting away the last book from the table, and looked around at his job.

It looked presentable for Uchi, and Sawada retreated to his room. Uchi had put a few things in there for him. In truth, he was surprised how kind everyone was being to him. He sat down on his mat, opening up his backpack. From inside he pulled out his journal. Most of the pages had been filled. Instead of taking his pen out, he looked through the pages again. Ever since he got back, the entries were mostly about the people he hadn't seen in 4 years. Most of his high school friends had stopped by at one point or another to say hi. They were helping Kuma to support him. No one had said anything, but that was the only way Kuma could've afforded it. And he could guess that the same thing would happen here at Uchi's. Maybe that just meant he needed to get on his feet sooner. Sawada had been on his own for 7 years, he really didn't know how to feel about others supporting him. But he couldn't lie, there was a strange sense of appreciation for the extent they went to hide it from him. He wouldn't accept if they offered forwardly.

Maybe that was more of a reason than any other to get a job. He lay down, resting his head off the pillow. The old him would have jumped ship the moment he figured out others were providing like that for him. Maybe that was something Kumiko had changed. It wasn't so bad to depend on friends sometimes. He rolled over and stared at the wall. It was shortly before noon, and his sister finished class at 2. After a few minutes he decided it was a good idea to go. He wasn't completely sure how long it would take to get there, but noon traffic in Tokyo wasn't exactly smooth sailing. Pushing himself back up, he pulled on a clean shirt, the sweatshirt Kuma had given him, tried to fix his hair, and grabbed his wallet. He had gotten used to leaving his backpack behind.

The trains seemed less crowded today, although that was entirely relative since he still had to be shoved inside the car. It amazed Sawada how no one seemed to look at anyone else. He had fallen back into the habit as well. Directly in front of him was a man with short hair in a suit. But Sawada wouldn't remember that as soon as he got off the train. There were more important things to think about.

His stop involved a subway change, and a bus ride. He paid close attention to the stops as they went by, trying not to get pushed far from the doors by other passengers. It was something of an obstacle course to get off on the correct stop if one wound up halfway between the doors. His first stop approached, and the crowd of people seemed to part perfectly for him to squeeze out easily. The rest of his journey was about as easy.

As he stepped of the bus, he glanced up at the skyscraper that housed the main schools. His sister's dorm was about a few blocks away. He checked the time and was happy to find it was very close to the end of his sisters' classes. She had told him to wait outside her dorm so he wandered slowly in that direction. It was not quite freezing, but he was fine with just the sweatshirt. Overall he had acclimated back into the Japanese way, and that included regulating body temperature.

Leaning against the wall beside the entrance to the woman's dorm earned him quite a few stares of curiosity, interest, and fear. He paid attention to none of them. From the sidewalk he heard Natsumi call his name, and looked in the direction, smiling. She trotted up and smiled at him.

"Hello older brother!" She referred to him politely; nudging him as a few girls went by, eying her jealously. He pulled the door open for her, the wide atrium spread in front of them. "I'm glad you came Shin!"

He slipped in after her and nodded. "It's good to see you too Natsumi. I hope you don't mind that I don't visit often. I guess that's not really new though." It was a rarity to see her in high school, and then came Africa.

"Of course I do. But you're right, that's not really new." She nudged him again. Natsumi was always happy to see her brother, but she didn't expect it more than once every few months. She swiped her dorm card and pushed open the door into the stairwell. Her room was on the third floor and they chatted casually on the way up the stairs. Sawada was alarmed by how many girls they passed that knew Natsumi by name. She said hi to every one of them as they passed. Rounding the last flight, Natsumi hopped up the last stair, and pushed the door open for her floor. Her dorm was at the end of the hall. She slid her card again and at last he has in her dorm. She set her backpack on her desk, and flopped down on her very neatly made bed.

He occupied her desk chair, and looked at her very neatly organized desk. They had inherited some very similar characteristics despite the length of time they had lived together. A picture of Akio was sitting on the desk in a little heart frame. He smiled at that. "You know, he's a good kid." He gestured in the frames general direction.

Pushing herself up, she looked at him and nodded. "I heard he saw you. I don't even know why he took that preliminary exam. He's practically guaranteed entrance to Waseda." She took a short breath, thinking about what Akio had told her about the day. "I wanted to tell you about him before you met him. If I had known you would be there taking the test too, I probably would have stopped him from going."

"Of all the test centers in all of Tokyo he had to walk into mine." He smiled at her, joking a little bit. "It was divine fate little sister."

She wrinkled her nose at him, pretending to glare. "I guess it's okay since it

went well though. I think how you reacted is better than how Dad reacted. He approves though. It is Waseda after all. Majoring in political science, eyes to be a senator. It's like he's taking the place you would've been in." Sawada circled slowly in the desk chair.

"Good for him, he can be the son Dad always wanted." Shin rolled his eyes and slumped farther back into the chair.

Natsumi's eyes softened a little bit. She knew her brother had to care somewhere about how their father felt. "I don't really mean that Shin."

"Trust me Natsumi, he can have that spot. I don't want it." His eyes were hard as stone. "There are more important things to me than his acceptance. Let's talk about something other than our father."

Natsumi nodded. "Although there is one other thing I wanted to say. Akio was serious about your opinion being more important than Dad's. I kinda made it clear to him that you were more protective of me than Dad."

"That's right, and you better make sure he knows he'll have hell to pay if he does anything to you." She nodded again, smiling a little bit. "How are classes?"

Natsumi sighed heavily, lying back down on her bed. "They're fine, there's just a lot to do. All of my projects and papers are due this month, and then comes finals." Ah, the joys of school. Sawada wasn't sure if he was looking forward to it. "How did you do on the preliminary?"

"Pretty well actually. It took me a few days to find out since Kuma doesn't have Internet, but I can get into a state school if I have to." Maybe it wasn't so important to get into Keio again. Just getting into school seemed good enough.

"When is your test for Keio?"

"Next month. I have three weeks until then." The first time around he had felt pretty carefree about it, but then, the first time it really hadn't mattered to him if he was accepted or not. It mattered this time, and there were butterflies hatching in his stomach.

"You passed it the first time with flying colors. I'm sure you will this time too. After all, now you're a well-developed person. They ought to just love you Shin."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Shouldn't you be getting to work Natsumi? Don't you have projects to finish?"

She pouted a little bit. "You're right, but there's something more important I have to ask you first Shin." He looked up at her, raising his eyebrow. She took a deep breath. "Tonight, Akio is taking me to dinner. I asked you to come over today because he's taking me to meet his family. I don't want to bring Mom and Dad, and I don't even think they would come, but I would like if you would go. Would you go Shin? I don't want his family to think I'm alone."

Sawada looked at the wall for a few minutes, thinking about her request. "Yeah, I can go with you Natsumi." He responded finally, not sure if he was pleased at the prospect. "How many people are going exactly?" He didn't really want to be overwhelmed by family.

"Oh thank you so much Shin!" Natsumi leaped off the bed and wrapped her arms around her brother. "It means so much to have you meet them." After satisfying her need to squish her brother, she sat back down on the bed, thinking about whom Akio had mentioned. "Lets see… Akio mentioned his mom, dad, his uncle, and I guess his uncle is bringing a date."

"So there will be seven of us?" That didn't seem too bad. "Why is his uncle coming?"

"He wanted to meet me…" In a much smaller voice she added a little to the sentence. "And you…" Sawada shook his head. "He told his family about you, and they all wanted to meet you. I guess they're really close actually. His aunts and uncles are like extra parents. It's almost kinda weird." Neither of their parents had any siblings; and their parents were hardly that.

"I'll go Natsumi, but I can't afford it, and I don't have anything else to wear." He stood up, showing his… unique… attire. "It might be a good idea to go alone, it'll seem strange either way."

Natsumi looked him over. "Well, it'll just have to do, and dinner is on them. I don't want to go alone… I haven't met his family yet, and I don't think I could do it without a little support." She tucked her hands under her legs, and how nervous she was became very evident.

"You're really serious about him aren't you?" She nodded. "Wow. Well I guess I'm happy for you Natsumi." He sat down beside her, patting her shoulder. "How about this, I don't have anything, but Uchi might be able to help me out. When is dinner?"

Her eyes lit up. "Really? They wanted to meet me around 6:30."

"I can get back to the apartment and get back here?" He glanced at the clock on her wall. It was approaching 3. "It'll be pushing it though."

Natsumi thought about it for a minute. "Maybe you can meet us there? It's closer to downtown than here, and that way you don't have to rush TOO much."

"Alright, Natsumi. When I am ready I will call you from Uchi's and you can tell me where to go." He stood up, getting ready to run for the next two hours.

She stood up, and hugged her brother tightly again. "Thank you so much Shin." There wasn't much more she could say. He smiled at her, ruffling her hair a little bit.