Bonus Chapter - A Pastel Firework

*What's wrong with me?*

*Why…  am I like this…?*

    I watched, expressionless and cold, as the girls who are supposed to be my friends stared back at me. In fact, they're most of the very few girls who even make the effort to be my friends. And, I know that they don't intend to be mean, exactly. I'm pretty certain that they don't even realize what they're saying can come off that way.

    "Tae's just cranky because she still hasn't found a girlfriend."

    Are you sure that's why, Mariya? You don't have anyone and you're not a complete-

    "How hard can it be? We're in a building literally full of girls. There has to be more than just you and Ai, right?"

    It's not like shopping for fruit. You don't just walk into the dorm and pick one that looks ripe, do you? Besides, I'm not even really looking for that. I just want to feel like I have a connection with someone. It doesn't have to be like *that…*

    I just want one, *real* friend…

    "Well that was kind of rude… Don't let the teachers hear you saying stuff like that or you'll get in trouble."

    "We were just joking around with you, Tae. You know that, right?"

    "Song-sama, are you okay?"

    Every last molecule of air forced its way out of my lungs, carried on a long, deep sigh. The feeling you get at times like this is often called "fight or flight". Either you'll want to lash out at something or you'll want to move as quickly as possible away from it. Either way, the threat ends, and you can move on with your life.

    What does it say about me that I feel the urge to do both?

    My workout clothes today are a pair of black leggings, an old, baggy gray t-shirt, and white ankle socks. What should I have done when I left the studio in a hurry? I should have gone back to the dorm. Put on a sweatshirt and my warm slippers. Curled up in my bed with my headphones and listened to depressing music. Not take the stairs four at a time or more, practically jumping the last half story, and power walk a block south just in case one of them followed after me. And certainly not head toward the subway and board a train. And even if I did that, I should have stayed on the train, or at least in the station, letting the heat in my head dissipate until I felt well enough to come back. Until I stopped being so…

    Why am I still so angry?

    I didn't used to be like this, you know…

    "There you are. I knew you'd look beautiful in that dress." My omma found me, as she always somehow does, hiding near the back of my bed, laying as close to the wall and as flat against the mattress as I could manage. It often works with my siblings. They're short and can't see into my top bunk unless they climb up, but it's much easier to trick a pair of under tens than it is an adult. "You had better not be ruining your hair. The stylist was very expensive."

    "My hair is fine."

    "Stop pouting. You're going to have a great time. You always have a great time. There will be plenty of boys there tonight, and they'll all want to meet you. If you're lucky we'll find a good match."

    "Omma, I'm only fourteen…" And, boys? I don't understand why anybody likes boys. I just want to hang out with my friend…

    "Tae-Eun'ya, it's never too early to focus on your future. It's going to be tougher for you here, and your father's influence will only get you so far. But you have better opportunities. You don't want to grow up to marry a salaryman or a shopkeeper, do you? We didn't make the sacrifices we did for you to throw it all away."

    "But-"

    "Tae-Eun. We expect you to behave tonight. No more playing around."

    "Why don't Kyu and Yu have to-"

    "Tae-Eun! You're the oldest. You have responsibilities."

    "...yes, omma."

    "Go get your shoes. The car will be here any minute."

    My appa is an executive for a large company. Not a real executive. Not someone who's actually important. He's a junior executive, so barely one at all. And, he's in charge of overseeing his company's interests back in Busan and I guess pretty much half of the country. Being a Japanese company, you can imagine just how important their Korean office is, which is to say that just like appa it's not really very important at all. I'm aware that this sounds harsh, but it really isn't. It's, at the worst, honest, and if honesty sounds harsh that can't be laid at my feet. Being not very important is still enough to afford a very nice apartment for us. Omma always has nice clothes. We have plenty of good food. All three of us go to fancy schools. And, I'm the oldest child of an important junior executive. If it were a son, maybe I could convince myself that that was important just like they have, but… it isn't. I'm still not able to speak my own language with people I'm not related to anymore. I can't have friends who don't make fun of how I sometimes pronounce things or the references I don't understand. It would be nice to just have friends…

    I'm not important.

    That's just the honest truth.

    "Remember to smile. And be polite! And mind your pronunciation. We don't want everyone thinking you're slow."

    Tonight is another of my parents' awful charity events. They're always terrible. What teenager wants to spend an entire evening standing around in a corner wearing ridiculous evening wear while their parents ignore them? We don't even get to pick out our own clothes. There's almost nothing that makes them even a little bit appealing.

    Maybe one thing.

    One person…

    "Taecchi!" A girl in a ridiculously ornate blue gown ran toward me the best she could in heels, clutching her skirt awkwardly to try and get back a little bit of motion in her legs. As she approached she raised her hands, a gesture which I matched, bracing for impact. A loud smack echoed off the far door as we greeted each other with a double high-five, both of us laughing in relief. We wouldn't be stuck enduring this alone. Now, we hadn't expected we would. We text a little bit. Mostly about these awful events, and making sure we're both going to show up. But, still… "This is going to be a marathon, huh? How's it looking out there?"

    "They're singing karaoke. I think they've already forgotten that we're here."

    "I saw Aki and Kaede out there. When did they decide boys are more interesting than dancing?"

    "Abooout three months ago. Right after Kaede got her braces taken off. I think it was at the equinox celebration."

    "That's right! I thought she was always joking when she complained they'd make kissing weird! Hmm."

    My friend narrowed her eyes and leaned in close, scrutinizing my face carefully. "Wh-What are you doing?" She was hovering so near to me that I could feel her breath on my face. It smells like peppermints…

    "Good. You don't have braces."

    "So… S-So kissing wouldn't be weird?"

    She looked at me with the same intense expression on her face. I held my breath. I didn't really understand what she meant when she said what she did, but I was certain I had guessed her reason for saying it even less accurately. This would be so much easier in Korean.

    Her mouth opened wide into a hearty laugh, clearly displaying her own teeth, also without braces. "It means you won't suddenly decide a bunch of boring boys are more fun than dancing."

    "O-Oh. No. I don't… That won't happen."

    "It had better not. I'll never forgive you if you leave me alone at these things. I'd get so bored I'd actually have to say yes when I get asked to dance! As if anyone could keep up with me, right?"

    "It won't. I promise."

    Once more she examined my features. My face felt warm. Can she tell I'm not normal? Would she be mad like people usually are if she found out?

    "Taecchi, you're so serious tonight! I know what'll help." She grabbed my hand, and a spark of electricity shot up through my arm. I thought it was all in my head. The spontaneous release of weeks worth of anticipation. Maybe I had thought about it so frequently that my mind shorted out when I felt her touch me, and that was the only way it knew how to let me know it was on the fritz. Then I saw her sucking on her finger and understood that it hadn't been poetic in the least. "Sorry.” She looked embarrassed from the shock. That's what happens when you drag your feet while wearing crinoline. Her nose crinkles just a little bit when she's embarrassed. She took my hand again and this time it lasted, the current coursing between us now being felt only by me. Like holding a supernova in the palm of my hand.

    "Come on, we'd better go say hi before anyone notices we're missing. Then we can sneak a peek and see if any desserts look worth stealing!"

    We'd danced the hours away. She whirled and twirled. Spun and twisted. If she had been allowed to wear something in her usual style she may have done backflips or spun on the ground, but taffeta makes for poor dancing. I had the opposite problem. While her dress was overly large and elaborate, shaped so voluminously that you could barely tell what she looked like underneath it, mine was far too tight and constricting. The sort of thing an older girl would wear, or at least one who had more curves to show off, of which I have few. It had gotten late. Not as late as it would get before we were allowed to go home, but if this were a normal celebration people would already have started excusing themselves for the evening.

    I held her arm up and she spun like a ballerina. Pirouette. Sissoune. A retreat down the hall before running back and tripping into me. I salvage the moment, channeling her momentum into a dip. Not a classical move, but she's not very classically trained to tell the difference, and we both laughed anyway. To her, dancing is just dancing. Mrs. Park would have a fit seeing the way we move, but she's an entire country away. And, nobody ever really sees us dance. At least nobody who knows who we are. Not since Kaede and Aki moved on to other interests.

    "What time is it?!"

    "I'm not sure…"

    Time tends to play tricks on you when you're in the studio. My usual practice space is a small room with a wooden floor, one wall covered floor to ceiling in mirrors and three barren of any real details except for the single door. No windows means no sun, no weather, and none of the usual ways to judge the passage of time. Sometimes it feels like I spend hours in there only to discover not even one has passed, and other times an entire Saturday passes in the blink of an eye. Here, we have a similar problem. The hallway we escape to is open to windows all along one side. During the day it's a beautiful view of the city. At night, like tonight, time flows in irregular leaps and lunches just the same as if it were a solid wall of black.

    "Awah! It got late!" She stared in shock at her phone, before putting it back in her large purse and retrieving something else. "Come here! But close your eyes!"

    "O-Okay…"

    There was the sound of a small struggle, then a soft fwoosh, and then a second.

    "Ok, open 'em!"

    When I did as asked, she was both staring at me with bright blue eyes and smiling right at me. Her arm was extended, offering me a bottle.

    "Ramune?"

    "Champagne! Just like the adults."

    I took the glass bottle from her and took a sip. It was shaped like a bottle of ramune. It tasted exactly like grape soda. It was even the same sort of purple you would expect grape soda to be. If the characters on the label were to be believed, even they were fairly insistent that this was nothing more than simple grape soda. But, all of those were wrong. She reached out and clinked the neck of her bottle against mine. That's not something you do with soda. That's the sort of thing you do with a glass of champagne. So, all of these things must be wrong.

    "Ah!"

    A loud boom filled the hallway, shaking the air all around us and being followed by the crackling of colorful sparks. She ran to the windows. The first time she showed me the view from up here was the first time I fully appreciated the beauty that could be found in my new home. At night, lights of every color and size fill the city. Some standing still, some dancing across the inky blackness, others blinking and spinning to draw the eye, a symphony of colors. More explosions rang out, each hesitating for just a moment after a bloom of color filled the sky. In the reflection in the window, her face was painted by each splash of light. Blue. Red. Green. Each vibrant hue painting her with a different beautiful mask. One which tonight, only I got to see. A loud laugh shook me out of my stupor.

    "Your hair looks cute in all these colors."

    "You look…" I've been in Japan for less than a year. What I want to say in my native tongue, I don't know the words for in hers. At least none that she would understand, though that's probably for the best. You're beautiful when you shimmer like a rainbow. Something like that. My heart smiles having seen you painted with light. Closer. The only word I knew in Japanese that was even close was one she had taught me the first time we met, though it was a misunderstanding at the time.

    "You look… kira-kira."

    She laughed. Not meanly. She smiled as well. But, it was still embarrassing. I think she assumed it was an inside joke between us. To feel something but be unable to say it exactly…

    How do you tell someone you only see every now and then that you think they're your best friend? That they're in your thoughts far more than you're sure you're in theirs? That not a day passes when they aren't in your mind even if weeks pass between the time you spend together?

    I focused on the dancing lights outside the window. Every now and then I glanced at her reflection, still smiling more brightly than the fireworks that lit up the sky.

    Gazing out over Tokyo, watching the city celebrate with us, I smiled too.

    When I'm with her, everything feels kira-kira.

    "...Tae-Tae?"

    "Hi, Bibi. Um, can, um…"

    My best friend pulled me through her door and into her room. I guess showing up unannounced like this probably wouldn't help with those pesky rumors, but it was either here or my parents', and it's easier to explain to Dam-Bi…

    Still impossible.

    But, easier.

    "You're freezing!"

    "It's not that bad…"

    "Where's your coat?"

    "Back at the dorm?"

    "Did you come straight from practice or something?"

    "Yes?"

    "Why are you here?!"

    "Do I really need an excuse to visit my best friend?"

    "How did you even get in here?!"

    "I just followed some girls in. I told them I left my ID in the practice rooms when I went out for some air."

    "They're not supposed to do that! You could be a crazy fan or something."

    "I'm not that big a fan…" Bibi pursed her lips. That was unnecessary of me. "Sorry. I'm awful today."

    "Now really, what's wrong? Pre-debut jitters? Were your group mates being mean again? I know you didn't miss me *that much.*" She shook out a throw blanket from the tiny couch against the far wall and, true to its name, half threw, half whipped it around me as I stood near the center of her room. I draped it over my shoulders. Maybe it was colder out there than I've been willing to admit. I know I can be stubborn like that.

   "Kohaku gave me that stuff you wanted at rehearsal. The ghost repellent or whatever. It smells pretty nice. It's in my bag."

    "You froze all the way here to bring me ghost repellant?"

    "You sounded like it was pretty urgent so… No. I'm just, having a rough day I guess."

    "Needed some time away from your new status quo?"

    "So you do understand."

    "Not really. I can't get enough of my group mates, but you've always been a little bit more…" My friend glanced up at her ceiling while she stroked her chin, trying to come up with a polite way of calling me a gigantic bi- "Sensitive! Your feelings have always been more delicate than mine. Tea? And sit down!"

    "Green, if you have it. Thank you."

    While Bibi filled the electric kettle, I curled up in the corner of the couch in the back of the room. On my way here, even to the point that I stepped through the doorway, I didn't feel the cold. Even when the clouds shed a small dusting of snow, the heat I felt inside me kept me moving as though it were summer. I simply didn't acknowledge the cold, and like many things in life, if I didn't acknowledge it then it couldn't hurt me. Now, all the aches and burns were rising to the surface of my consciousness, my nose and cheeks and arms and ankles punishing me for my irrational journey.

    "Sooo…" Bibi offered me a steaming purple mug. I clutched it with both hands, letting it speed the painful thaw. "I actually have plans in a few minutes. It's a good thing you showed up when you did!”

    "I could've gone to another…" Actually, the only people I know here will probably be with her, so maybe not… "I would've just gone home."

    "You would've froze! Next time, text first! I don't mind you dropping by, but I do mind you lying your way into the building and worrying me." As she spoke she dug into her closet. She was mad. Well, maybe not mad. She's upset. Which… I understand… A big poofy purple sweater was hurled at me. It's hideous. No doubt Bibi's way of driving home just how upset she is. "Do you want to hang out here or come along and…? Wait, actually…" She took a few paces in a circle as she pondered something. "Sorry! I don't think I can bring you today. We're not playing video games. It's kind of… not totally a secret, but… sort of a secret…"

    "That's fine. I'm ok here. I think I'll just warm up then head home. I'm not really in the mood for… people, I guess."

    "I promise we'll catch up really soon. Maybe play some *Capsule Girls*. Kanon's been awfully cocky lately and you may need to be my partner to teach her a lesson. I wish I could say more, but…"

    Dam-Bi lives for gossip. Having a secret and not being able to share it is pretty much her own personal torture. Of course, not letting her know that I'm pretty sure I already know her secret is only prolonging it, which is exactly the sort of thing I usually do that makes me hate myself. I can imagine Bibi talking in circles around it for the entire evening if I let her, never letting the conversation stray more than a few steps away from her carefully guarded secret. Or I can just let her know that everyone already knows.

    "Say hi to the new girls for me. Good luck with the, um, ghost or whatever it is…" Bibi grew flustered and red, moving her mouth like she wanted to deny it. "Rinko spilled the beans about recruitment to Erika and Ai last week, and someone tipped them off last night about how auditions went. I'm pretty sure it's already in the newsletter, actually."

    My friend breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm not the one who blabbed!"

    As we celebrated her iron-willed resolve - by quietly sipping my tea while she danced in place - a rapid knock came from her door.

    "Come in!" She shouted, then turned to me and said, "Since you already know, there's no harm in introducing you!"

    The door to Dam-Bi's room opened quickly and a small, dark-haired girl - like, really small, smaller than Erika - was standing there. Erika is already pushing it, and I didn't know they even made idols in this size. She's really cute. Not like Eimi Inagawa or Junko… whatever her surname is, cute, but she would fit right in line with our videogame buddies.

    "Allow me to introduce my new friend Yume! Yume lives at the end of the hall. She and her roommate are two of our new members! Don't worry, I didn't blab! Hanarin did! This is Tae-Eun. She's my best Korean friend! And she's an idol too! She hangs out here pretty regularly so you'll probably get to know her really well at game night. Don't let her team up with Kanon!"

    Best Korean friend? That's a little unnecessary. I just call Bibi my best friend, but I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it since it's, technically, true. "Hello, Yume. Congratulations. It's always a pleasure to meet another of Bibi's friends."

    "You too! I'm sorry I can't stay and talk, we've gotta get to a thing. It's our first bigWHOO!" Suddenly and without warning the tiny girl was lifted off of her feet by a new arrival to the doorway. Yume laughed once she understood what was going on. Poor girl. That must be happening constantly at her size. Unless she likes it. I mean, being swept up into a girl's strong, athletic arms isn't for everyone, but the appeal is certainly there if you have a certain perspective.

    "And this is her roommate now. Akira! Akira, I want you to meet my bestie-"

    "Taecchi?!"

    The girl who had made such a bold entrance was looking directly at me with bright eyes the color of the summer sky, a detail which I could notice because that's exactly where my own had landed. Not at all unusual, given she was in the middle of being introduced to me, except that she already knew my name. Well, a version of my name. One that I've grown to distinctly dislike ever since… about two years ago, now. Since the last time I'd looked her in the eye. Right before our parents decided maybe we weren't a good influence for each other…

    Yume looked confused, though that may be because she was left slung helplessly across the new girl's arms. Our mutual friend looked no different until her eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open, making the connection between all the stories I'd told her and what was occurring right now in her bedroom. The shock wore off suddenly, and unthinkingly I greeted the girl in the only way I was accustomed to thinking about her.

    "Hi… Kira-Kira…"

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