The fact that they were all re-uniting – and to top it all, around a very delicious cake – made Elizabeth feel quite joyful. This was actually the first group of friends she could completely call “her own” without ever having the sensation that they had other interests than actually spending time with her.<br/><br/>When the cake had been cut into pieces, Elizabeth found herself facing a rather difficult issue: both flavors seemed equally tasty and she would have liked a bit out of both. Having two pieces of cake was out of the question, considering how much attention she actually gave to her looks. She settled for half a piece from each part.<br/><br/>“Now that everyone knows I’ve been to the beach this summer” she said winking at Onbin “tell me what you have been doing since the<em>former</em>semester ended.”<br/><br/>Elizabeth had been living in Japan for three years now and learned the language well enough, apart from the accent and some formal words which she had the tendency to use in simple conversations. Sometimes what she said sounded strange, but her message got through anyway. Of course, this time she was especially interested in hearing Masato’s reply, although she expected something dull like “training and providing service at the Temple all summer”.  Not that her summer activities had been out of the ordinary – if you took away the private beaches, the yachts, the glamorous parties and all that stuff – going to the beach was pretty dull and normal too. But at least it wasn’t something you did all year long.<br/><br/>The music playing at the radio wasn’t what she usually listened too, yet it had a nice vibe to it. She didn’t feel particulary sorry that the rest of the group didn’t attend the reunion, but she would have liked to see them before classes started. Both Masato and Onbin looked a little out of place in the flowey cake shop, a fact which amused her. Even Masato seemed to enjoy the cake a bit and if she knew him better, Elizabeth would have guessed that it really was a lot.<br/>