A week went by. Camellia asked if she could hang out at my house for a little while since her parents were going on some vacation honeymoon thing. Of course I, being the great friend I was, said yes! We don’t really yap too much, but it’s always nice to just be in the presence of another person that isn’t reted to you.

  “Oh, You’re Camellia, yes? I haven’t seen you in forever!”

  “Thank you for having me, Ms. Yamato.”

  Camellia took a yonder around the house and found a severe ck of me there.

  “Where’s Fiona?”

  “Oh… that girl. She hasn’t left her room ever since school ended. I think she might be dead.”

  “What?”

  Camellia brushed past mama and walked up stairs to my room door. She knocked three times before asking in a very concerned voice:

  “F- Fiona?”

  No answer.

  “I’m coming in–”

  As soon as she opened the door, some weird vampire-goblin thing shrieked away from the sudden burst of artificial light. It looked grotesque, sporting a bumpy spinal cord and a massive amount of unkempt facial hair… and it growled.

  “What the?! Fiona?!”

  Her eyes bugged out of her head when she saw me. Or what was left of me, at least. She rushed over to me before I colpsed onto the floor.

  “Why do you look so dead?”

  “Well… I kinda didn’t sleep at all. Hehe.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “That Ado person is pretty good!”

  “Y- You stayed up all night listening to her? What the heck…”

  A chill ran throughout my body. My voice acted on its own, sounding far away as my instincts began to sing.

  “All Night? A- Ah… All N- Night R- Radi– A- Ahhh…! A- Aahll!! N- Radi– Nadio—!! Ahhh!ahhhahhAHhHH—”

  “Fiona?! Wake up!! Fiona!!”

  ***

  After a while of recovery and such, I was practically still dead fish resting on her p as we silently listened to music. Though, she was all like “...Let’s listen to someone else!” because OOHhh “you listened to her way too much” and “you’ll get tired of hearing the same voice” and whatnot.

  I’ll admit it, I was getting a little tired, but that was because I stayed up all— all week listening to Ado. She’s just really good, okay? But too much of a good thing can be poisonous I guess.

  “Camellia~~ You have nice thighs.”

  “Uh– O- Okay…”

  I could hear the blush in her voice. Heh.

  “Fiona, you wanna see the fireworks in July?”

  “I can’t, remember?”

  “Aw come on, just this once! You always say no.”

  Well, yeah. From what I’ve seen in photos and videos, fireworks are really pretty and colorful. But they’re also super loud and they fsh a bunch. It really freaked out my mama before, so much so that she ended up crawling over to me and forced me to hide behind her when I was younger. I never got a reason as to why she reacts the way she does, but I have an inkling on what she’s experiencing… Poor mama.

  “No means no. Negative, Impossible. Sorry.”

  “Can you at least tell me why?”

  “You’ll just have to stay in the dark…”

  “Ah?! Whatever. I won’t pry.”

  She kinda gazed off and began petting me like some sort of cat– Which I definitely do not mind— I mean– I definitely mind!! I’m not a cat, y’know! But whatever, I’ll allow it.

  “I was just hoping we could see the fireworks. Apparently, it’s… Hanabi…? In Japanese? That girl you spent all… week listening to had a really big global tour called Hibana, which means spark.”

  “Oh! That’s cool, I didn’t know you spoke Japanese!”

  “I don’t, I used a transtor… But anyways, I just thought maybe we could y’know, see big fireworks that all started from a little spark, too.”

  I sat up to face her and was greeted by the slightly red face of a girl pying with her long curly hair.

  Ugh! I hate this! It clearly means a lot to her, but I can’t! I just can’t!! Ugggghhhhh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry

  “W- well, if we can’t see fireworks here, L- Let’s go to Japan!”

  “...What?”

  I don’t even know, girl!! Where did this idea come from?! What pocket in my brain misfired to come up with that idea?!

  “They have a fourth of July, right?!”

  “No?! What? No, definitely not?!”

  “Well! There’s fireworks, right?!”

  “I don’t know?!”

  “Yes! Yes, there is! There is because I said so!”

  Yes, I made up my mind: Fireworks exist in Japan because I said so!

  “Let’s go to Japan! And see fireworks! Yes! Let’s, Camellia!!”

  “You’re not making any freakin’ sense, Fiona! Where would we get the money?! What time of year? Why would seeing fireworks in a different country be any different? The reason you can’t see them here will be the same reason you can’t see them in Japan!”

  Ah! Crap! She’s right! We’d need a chaperone, huh? Papa is still a citizen of Japan, so he could take us… but Papa loves mama very much, so obviously he’d want to take her with us… And abandoning my mama seems kinda cruel now that I think about it.

  “Hmmm……. Camellia, what about field trips?”

  “What? Like school trips? Like the ones you take to Jamestown and D.C.?”

  “Yeah, what if we could go to Japan through the school? Then we could see fireworks without our parents.”

  “That sounds crazy. And I still don’t get how that changes anything…”

  “Well, it does, trust me.”

  I sprung up and sat face to face with Camellia.

  “I know it sounds insane, but why not try, right?”

  Camellia’s face bunched up in a frown, leapt into deep thought… then slowly nodded her head.

  “I- I guess? But how would you get the school to sponsor that?”

  “Uhm… Let’s see…”

  A light bulb cracked in my head. That’s it! Many different kinds of clubs existed in our middle school, and those went on field trips all the time. Especially the band and sports clubs, with all their band-sport thingies they deal with. Yes, a perfect idea!

  I stood up at full attention, proudly pumped my hand on my hips and manufactured a peace sign with the other.

  “I’ll simply start a club! Yes! I’ll dub it: The American-Japanese Appreciation Club!!!”

  “Ah. You’re insane.”