Hey! How's it going?
So I'm just gonna let you know for the next two chapters I'm gonna focus on school life more so than work life. It's a part of Yuka's journey so I hope you'll enjoy ;)
"Aight! So, we need to come up with a theme for our class to do during the cultural festival! Any ideas, shout it out!"
It is a month before our cultural festival that's held in June, and we are coming up with a theme for our class's store. A lot of the popular themes were already taken so our choices were limited.
(At schools, during November, they hold a cultural festival where each class holds a store/activity and raise money. They also have performances done. But since it's my story, making it in June)
Our class rep is up in front of the class and everyone was madly shouting out ideas as he madly writes them down on the board.
"Why don't we do a haunted cafe?" I say with my hand up, slowly bringing it down as the class quiets down, curious to the idea.
"What do you mean by 'haunted cafe'" one of the class girls says.
"Well say we have the two classrooms. The customers will have to go through the first classroom which will be a haunted maze, then once you've finished the maze you walk through into a cafe. "
The class nods in understanding and some in agreement to the idea.
"Not bad Ortega-san. It seems like we have a winner." The class rep rubs the other ideas off the board and writes "haunted cafe" in a bubble for a mind map. As a class we start brainstorming ideas for the maze and the cafe to make sure we get as many customers as possible.
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"Nice idea by the way. It's gonna be interesting. Hopefully we can get all the prep done in the month though.." Jay says as he slings an arm over my shoulder as we walk to the science labs.
A lot of the people still keep staring at the facts; a. "Omg it's Ortega Yuka" b. Jay is super tall (almost 185cm and grown during winter break) and c. The fact that he has an arm slung around my shoulders and for some reason here in Japan not many people PDA.
But cos we are halfies and we both have the attitude of yeah I don't care what you think, we keep casually strolling through the corridor to the science labs.
"Yeah. I hope so too. It'd be a shame if it turns out really bad, everyone was excited to start making it."
"Ah well. What can you do? Oooh yuck chemistry. I so don't understand any of this!" Jay replies with a photo worthy cringed face as we step into the labs and see chemistry equations up on the board.
We take our usual seats and the teacher begins the lesson.
..........After school .............
Cutting, passing, glueing, sewing, measuring. Each person in class is staying back to help with preparations for the cultural festival. We all have our different jobs and it is surprisingly more fun than I thought it would. I've gotten along better with the other girls in the class and some of the boys too. I'm slowly starting to feel that the class is treating me more like a classmate than a "model superstar".
I'm currently measuring the girls for their costumes for the haunted maze and have to allocate a role/character for each of them. But luckily for me I have a list that I can allocate characters from rather than coming up with them myself.
"Ortega-san!" The class rep calls me over so I walk over and he directs me outside.
"We were able to get two classrooms for our event. So I was wondering how you were picturing to set the whole thing?"
"Well, we can reserve the left classroom for the cafe and the right for the maze. We can block off the back two entrances as a path way from the maze to the cafe. The people enter through the right and yeah. The exit can be this left door." I show as I point to the doors and use hand gestures to show what can be blocked and what not. As the class rep roughly sketches the picture, I get a phone call.
"Hello??"
"Ah! Emily it's your mother. I was just wondering what time you'll be home? I have to go see a friend and it's really urgent." My mum said through the other side of the phone sounding slightly panicked.
"Um I think we'll finish up about five. Cos a lot of the people have to go to tutoring. But some will stay back, so I don't know. Maybe six-ish?" I replied with uncertainty, while looking over inside the classroom, looking at the progress being made.
"Okay, well as long as there's people there then it should be fine. Make sure you come home with Kou-kun okay?"
"Yup yup! Bye!" I shut the phone off and ask the class rep if that's all he needed and as he replied yes, I walk back in and continue measuring.
.......one month later......
*Narita airport*
"Yeah okay! Look sorry about not being able to come but I have to pick up my friend! No wait, what?! Kou listen. Wait. Stop. SHUT UP WOULD YA?! Okay so she's coming from Australia, she's staying for a month, and I need to pick her up from the airport. That's all. I'll come by afterwards. Yeah, okay. Bye" after hanging up, it was somewhat of a relief. Kou was ranting non stop for an hour about how I'm missing the last and final preparations for the festival. But he finally gave up.
It's been a month since we first started preps and we were basically finished yesterday, but today was a run through and to make sure that nothing is malfunctioned. But since Maya is coming, obviously someone has to pick her up.
Speaking of the devil,
"Omg!!!!! Maya!!!" I scream for the whole airport to hear as I see my best friend coming down the escalators.
She sees me and comes rushing down, grabs her suitcase which was conveniently already rolling by on the luggage belt, and came rushing over and we gave each other a massive hug. And since she's not a squeeze hugger I ended up almost suffocating her.
"Hey! OMG it's been too long girl! And I can't believe I'm here in Japan!" Maya matches my excitement as we scream again.
"Oh, might I add that you are here for a month visiting your very famous best friend! Well.... not very famous but still famous in a sense.... oh what the heck! Famous!!" We both laugh as we exit the airport and follow my mum to the car. Yes, my mum was there the whole time.
As we sit in the backseat we talk about all the things that we missed talking about on Skype. I told her that it was the cultural festival season and we were preping for it.
"Gasp! I just remembered! Mum I need to go to school and do last minute finishes for our store!" I lean onto the front seat so she could here me properly without having to turn her head.
"Alright, we'll head there now." My mum gets off the main road and heads down the way to school.
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"YUKA!!!"
"Choking! Choking! Cho....king..."
"Haha..... Sorry!" Kou lets go of me from his neck-breakable, choking hug.
Maya and I got to my classroom (cafe side) and everyone was in their costumes.
I look at the finished product of our cafe and couldn't be more proud of what we were able to make in a short time.
"Wow! Cool cafe!! And you guys have a haunted maze too! Nice job it looks awesome! :)" Maya walks into the classroom as well and looks around in awe. Everyone else though look so confused. Probably because she talked in English and they've never met her before.
"Friend of yours?" Jay whispers as the whole class stares at Maya as she openly awes and 'investigates' the cafe.
"You could say that." I reply and wave Maya back over. "So yeah, this is my friend Maya. She's from Australia but she's Japanese so just talk to her normally and she'll understand. Maya this is Jay and Kou. And yeah!"
I introduced my three friend to each other and they became acquainted.
I tried my costume on, which was a zombified fairy, and realised that I actually couldn't figure out what character Kou and Jay's costumes were.
"Hey guys, what are you supposed to be?"
"Well I'm some werewolf/farmer looking person." Kou says picking at his costume and looks at Jay.
"I'm Jack the Ripper bro! Victorian era yo! I bring the hot in psychotic !" Jay says presenting himself in a dramatic way. Kou and Maya laugh at that statement while I finger shoot myself in the head. This is going to feel like a long festival......
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Aight! That's all folks! Not the best but oh well good enough!!
Let me know what you think!!
Like always,
Ttyl and happy readin bros! Robi :)