“Ha~na~bi~  Are you all packed and ready to go?  It’s better if we get there early so you can get a good seat!”  

The voice which called out to me from downstairs was my mother, Sora Kaede.  The destination she was in a hurry to get me to was the train station.  The reason for it was the beginning of my new life.

Currently I live in Tono, which is a small farming village in the Iwate prefecture, Northeast of Sendai, and Southeast of Morioka.  As you can guess, I’m a mura musume, in other words, a young, single, and boring female NPC in this equally uninteresting village out in the sticks.

It’s not like I hate my town entirely.  We have high speed internet, Amazon delivers here in a timely fashion, and we have plenty of festivals.  But, what we don’t have… is what I want.  An experience.  Not the kind where I find a boy (yuck!) and we find a quiet place to hide in the fields and then I wind up doing something irresponsible because I was bored and end up stuck here forever.

No.

I want to live life in the fast lane!  I want to go to a big city and become something other than just me.  Shy, boring, introverted, bookworm me.  Get a makeover, or a tattoo, maybe even dye my hair any number of different colors!

I’m Hanabi, by the way.  Sora Hanabi, age fifteen.  As you may have guessed already, I’m named after a firework.  Though, that’s not entirely correct.  I was named after a specific firework display.  The one that happened sixteen years ago when my mother, Kaede, had visited this town to get away from the hustle and bustle of her life in the big city. 

She came to Tono, and stayed with her maternal grandmother’s sister’s daughter and son-in-law.  They just so happened to have a son her age, and his name was Sora Yoshiyuki.  For the two weeks she stayed here to unwind, she was almost always in his company.  She told me he was a handsome young lad and she had the hots for him from the get-go.  I think it is romantic, but also gross. Even if he’s got a good figure, a square jaw, and thick muscles… he’s my dad!  I can’t see the same kind of attraction as mom does.  

So, anyway, those two had gotten around to spending a lot of time with each other over those two weeks.  She helped out with a few chores around their place, and in their free time he took her to some of the local scenic spots to relax.  It happened exactly like you think.  They slowly yet quickly fell in love with each other.

Then at the end of her stay, there was a harvest festival this town was proud of being held.  The village had a surplus budget due to a good harvest that year and everyone agreed a nice fireworks display was in order.  So, as the festival went on, they enjoyed themselves, then found a nice cozy field they could easily get lost in, away from the rest of the townsfolk, and they laid down together to watch the fireworks display.

After that, mom went back to her old life.

Three months later she found out she was pregnant with me.  At months along, she packed up her entire life into one carry-on bag and one luggage carrier on wheels, boarded a train to this middle-of-nowhere town once more, and came to settle down with my father.  Two months after that, she was happily married to him, and only a month later, slightly premature, I was born.  Even so, I was quite healthy when I was delivered at the only hospital that was equipped with a maternity ward, out in Tono City proper.

Of course, being a daughter born to a family of farmers, you can imagine I was quickly familiarized with tasks to help out around the place.  Weeding, picking fruits and vegetables, cooking, getting absolutely covered in dirt.  Jumping in a nearby lake naked to wash off so I didn’t get yelled at coming back filthy.  Doing laundry and hanging it out to dry in the sun on a clothesline attached to a wooden post that fought a losing battle everyday against the elements.

The usual.

We had one school in our village, and it was an all-ages-inclusive one.  Kindergarten to Junior High.  There were twenty-nine students in all  from our village and two others nearby, with only three teachers to guide and educate us until it came time to attend high school.  The school building was located in our village, but it still took almost twenty minutes on foot to reach it from my house, longer for some of the others.  It was made of wood probably cut from some tree that Tokugawa Ieyasu himself likely took a leak on hundreds of years ago as he passed through on his quest to unite Japan.

For high school, there was one in Tono City, but… That’s part of the reason for all this rushing around this morning.  I had no desire to go to school in Tono City.   I wanted to go to school somewhere much more lively!  I sat down with my parents and talked about it, but all I got in the end was a “We’ll see.”

Then, just the other day, mom delivered the good news to me.

I could go.  She had a friend from her old life before she had me, and periodically kept in touch with her.  Mom, in her mid-teens, had attended an All-girls school, and just by chance her friend was a teacher there.  So, when bringing the matter up to her friend, it was decided after a discussion with my father afterwards that I be allowed to go, provided that I stay with my mother’s friend.

Her name by the way is Ogata Saiyuri.

Mom only had a single picture of her, and it was the both of them in beautiful blue yukatas embroidered with golden thread while holding hands and eating cotton candy together.  The picture was precious to behold and made my heart flutter as I gazed at it.  I wasn’t sure why, but I wanted to be my mom in that picture.

Her friend, Saiyuri, looked so beautiful.  Her brown hair fell to her mid-back and on the sides of her head from above her ears downward she had french braids. In her hair was a lovely red carnation, and her hand looked softer than the cotton candy they shared.  Her skin was lightly colored, and she had just the smallest smattering of freckles underneath her eyes.

She was so lovely.

I had never seen a picture of her before, and until now had never even heard of her spoken of by mom.  I wondered why, but mom gave me an unsatisfying answer.

“Some things you have to let go of first, to find out if they really meant anything to you at all…”

She seemed a bit sad saying that, but then she looked over to the wall that hosted our family portrait.  Dad with one of his strong arms wrapped around my mother and the other reaching down to me where my tiny hand held his own.  Her sadness instantly washed away.

I love my family.  Dearly.  But I want more than this town has to offer me.  For them, it’s their peaceful idyllic life.  For me, it’s a cage.  I think mom was the one who really understood that about me.  That’s why she went to the trouble to arrange this for me.

Like mom did sixteen years ago, I descended the staircase in my house with one carry-on bag full of miscellaneous items, and one luggage carrier on wheels.  Ironically, the same luggage carrier that once belonged to her, now was transporting my life hundreds of miles away from here.

For this special event, Aobara Yumi, who was basically my closest female friend since I could talk and her father were here to pick me up in their pickup truck and take me to the train station.  I had received some help with loading my luggage onto the bed, and Yumi and I sat in the back with it as my mom and her dad drove us.

Yumi and I talked about our plans for the future along the way.

“So, Hana-chin is leaving me finally.” She spoke loudly over the engine and wind whipping past our ears, “I always thought we’d be together at school in the city as well.”

“Sorry Yumi-chan, but I finally have a chance to go somewhere different, and be the person I always wanted to be!”  I answered her disappointment with a heaping dose of enthusiasm.  “I’ll be sure to text you and send you emails and stuff.”

“You better!  You’re so lucky that you get to go to a big city school, but I still don’t get why you think a bigger city is better than this place.  I mean, at least here you know everybody!  Where you’re going now, everyone is going to be a stranger to you.” She said, both respecting my choice to leave, but still airing her grievance about it.  

With me gone, Yumi will also be in a similar situation.  She will be going to school in the city, and meeting new friends, but not having the security of knowing she has me to fall back on.  I am also going to miss her greatly.  

Yumi is special to me in so many ways, but at the same time not special in the way that would have kept me here.  Because Yumi has someone she likes already.  Someone who wasn’t me.

It’s the one thing Yumi couldn’t understand about me, even though she understood just about everything else.  It was also what went unsaid for the last year between us, and another reason that had me running away to a brighter future in a bigger venue than Tono City.

I… liked Yumi.

Liked, as it’s in the past now, but last year she spent the night over on my birthday.  We had a slumber party and it was all fun and games.  She was going on about Ooyama Sosuke.  How they got to talking about the upcoming festival, how she thought how handsome he was beginning to look, and how his hand made her feel when she held it as he helped her up after she had fallen on her butt after pulling up a really tough weed from around the school building.

She sounded like a young girl in love.

Hearing her say that about holding his hand made me think that I wanted to do the same.  What was so great about that smelly muscle-brained boy’s hand anyway?  So I reached over to take hold of Yumi’s hand and she got real quiet when I did.  She wondered what I was doing, and before I knew it, I had brought her hand to my face and pressed my lips against the back of it.  

Even though her hand was rough, since she was a farm girl like me, it was soft in its own way, and I enjoyed it. The soft sensation of it transmitted through my lips and directly into my brain.

But that ended her tirade about Sosuke instantly.  She did stay the night, but she didn’t talk to me for most of the rest of it, and when the morning came, she was quick to leave me.

For the whole night she spent there, my heart kept beating fast.  I wanted to show her that a woman’s hand could feel just as good.  But maybe I did go overboard with the kiss.  It was two full weeks that she didn’t talk to me.

Even though I tried to reach out to her, she would just avoid me or straight up turn around and run in the other direction if I got close.  

Yumi was my only real girlfriend in this backwater village, and at that time, I didn’t even have her anymore.  All it left me with was mom and dad.  So, having no one else to converse with when I needed that human contact, I told my mother what happened.

“Isn’t that normal though?” She said to me while we took turns painting each other’s fingernails.  She was applying a pretty shade of dark violet to mine and I was applying a plum tomato shade of red to hers.  “When I was younger, I also thought that the softer touch of a woman was more enjoyable than the rough touch of a man.  So I wouldn’t worry about it.  I’m sure she’ll talk to you again, just let her have a little space.”

And it went just as she said it would.  Barely to the end of the third week and she had enough of avoiding me.  She loved to talk and gossip about everything, and as it turns out, I was just about the only one who was capable of putting up with it!

I never tried touching her again after that.  Nearly three weeks alone was punishment enough for me, but I was still quite sure that I wouldn’t like holding a boy’s hand.  I even tried it with Sosuke once when I knew I could get away with it without Yumi knowing about it.  I threatened to kick him in the egg-basket if he ever said anything to her, but he said he wouldn’t have said anything anyway, or she’d follow through with my threat with no warning.

His hand was rough.  Mostly because his chores included stuff like chopping firewood with an axe.  His hands were all calloused and bumpy to the touch.  Completely unenjoyable for me to hold.  Instead, what Sosuke asked of me in return was what kind of things Yumi liked.

That was when it really dawned on me for the first time.

Yumi and Sosuke…  liked each other.

And I didn’t fit in between them anywhere anymore.

So, I doubled down on my passion and left those two to their own devices.  I love reading.  I love it so much, and I have two full shelves of books, all of which are mostly stories about romance, and all with worn covers to prove it.

And while I love reading that kind of romantic fluffy stuff, it was quite by accident that I met someone special one day in an online forum I belonged to that discussed these books.  They were someone I would come to talk with many times a day over the long year after the awkwardness with Yumi, and I later learned that they were in fact a she, and an aspiring web novelist to boot!

‘I know you like such and such a book, and I wanted to write something similar, but, I wonder if you would give what I’ve written a read so far before I post it to Narou.’ they asked me one day in a private message.

Narou was a website where people could write stories chapter by chapter and receive feedback and praise based on the content, genre, and style it was written in.  It had a great community and was super friendly to new authors.  So I agreed to read her story, and once I began, I realized it had awakened something inside of me.

The story was simple.  Just two girls in a regular school setting.  One was a fairly tall tomboy who played basketball and liked cute things, while the other one was a bit shorter, but cute and studious.  They sat next to each other, and over time the tomboy fell in love with the cutie and asked her out one day.  The cutie had never expected it, but had admired the tomboy for being very outgoing and capable, so without a real reason to decline, she accepted it, if only for one time.

They went out on a regular date.  A little karaoke, a trip to a cafe for a parfait, and then a quiet walk through the park where the tomboy dared to hold her hand.

It was a ridiculously saccharine read and before I realized it, there weren’t any more words left to consume.

I had devoured it voraciously and it made my heart flutter!

I demanded more!  I told her it was great and she had to keep writing and that I would support her as her number one fan.

So she did.  Even now, I had the link to it saved in my email inbox.  I don’t own a smartphone yet, but when I get to Saiyuri’s place, the first thing we’re doing is to go out to a phone store and have me select one.  If I’m going to make a new debut in life, I need a place to store the contact information of all the friends I’m going to make!

I also hope one day I might try my hand at writing something like that too, but I think that time is a far way away.

So, in the back of the pickup truck being driven by Yumi’s dad, we had our last real face-to-face talk, and eventually reached the train station.  I hopped out of the back of the truck and lowered the tailgate.  Yumi helped slide the luggage carrier to me, but in the end her dad was the one to pull it down onto the ground.  Why was it so heavy anyway?

Yumi took charge of my carry-on bag and we all went to make sure the train would be arriving on time.  There were only four people at the station besides us, but none from our village.  So while we waited, mom went over the route the train would take, and the time it would arrive.  Saiyuri would be waiting for me and mom sent a picture of me ahead of time so she would know what I looked like.

Yumi for the first time in a long time connected with me again.  She held both my hands, as an act of support for me who was going ahead without her in my life.  I was going to miss her so much.

When the train finally arrived, I took hold of my luggage roller along with my carry-on bag and walked to the edge of the platform and to the open doors that would carry me to my new life, and my new future.  I looked back one last time to my mom smiling but holding back her tears, to Aobara-ojisan waving farewell and to Yumi.

One of the train attendants took my roller luggage and stowed it away for me.  I kept the carry-on bag to bring with me onto the train.

Yumi, who at the last moment ran up to me, threw her arms around me in the tightest, warmest hug I ever received from her in all our years together as besties, and surprised me with the softest kiss on the cheek.

Even though I knew it wasn’t to be taken like that, it couldn’t stop the feeling of elation that flooded my heart.  

“You definitely better not forget me!  That took everything I had, because you mean that much to me!  When you get there, do your very best to become what you set out to be.  If it gets too hard, and you have to come back home, I’ll always welcome you back.”

“Yumi-chan…”

She opened her mouth wide and gave me a perfectly destructive smile.  “I saved that for you.  Treasure it, okay?  Because the rest I’ll be giving to Sosuke after today.  I love him, Hana-chin, and I’m going to do my best to be better too!”

I returned her smile with my own.  Happy for her friendship my whole life, and happy for the life she’s choosing for herself, even though it won’t be with me.

“I know you love him, Yumi-chan, but don’t go having any babies until you graduate!”  I answered her feelings and determination with my own supportive compassion.

I waved goodbye once more and stepped on to the train.

The last thing I heard was a call from Yumi, saying only “No promises!”

I smiled and shook my head.

Walking down the aisle of the train, I found my seat, and looked out the window at the platform.  All three of them stayed and waved goodbye until the train let out a hissing sound and it began to move.

Yumi was the only one to run while still waving goodbye.

Tears flooded my eyes.

I was finally leaving everything and going bravely into the unknown. My heart was beating fast, and I was more excited than anxious.  But I knew I would be okay.  I knew this was the best thing for me.  After all, I’m fifteen already.  I’m practically an adult!

As Yumi and the station disappeared from my view, I let out a deep sigh.  It was a many hours long trip to the big city, and I had nothing but time now.  I opened my carry-on bag, and saw there was something in it I hadn’t packed.  I had opened it with the intent of pulling out one of my favorite romance novels, but instead there was a blue notebook, decorated with tons of stickers and Yumi’s handwriting.

On the cover it simply said in gold glittering letters, Ganbarou!

I felt a surge in my chest full of emotion.  Was it sadness, was it happiness, was it even important that the feeling had a name?

I opened the cover to the first page, and there were all of her thoughts there that she never could say aloud to me.  Everything from as far back as I could remember us being friends.  She must have known me better than I could have ever thought she did.

Aside from her feelings, which she entrusted to me, many of our friends she got to leave a quote or advice or a funny saying or joke they were known for.  All throughout the first half of the book were stickers and drawings and it was just so full of love and home.

Then I had finally come to the last page that had anything written on it, maybe a quarter of the way through. The final words in this notebook and on that page were written by my mother.

“Much like this book, your life is entering from the first quarter to the next.  As all the pages before now were filled with the experience and wisdom of your dearest friends, companions, and family, you will now have to fill in the rest of the pages on your own from this point on.  Make sure you treat your friends well, be wise and accept the good advice from your seniors in life, and always be true to yourself.  Though you surely must think from time to time that you are a dud, nothing could ever be further from the truth.  That’s why I gave you the most important name I could think of.  Because nothing is more dazzling out in the open to behold, than a firework in full bloom.”

On that page alone, the paper will forever remain wrinkled with the tears I spilled upon it.

I love you mom, I love you dad, and I love you most of all, Yumi-chan.  I will make you all proud of me, I promise.  I’ll show you, and everyone else, just how beautifully this firework will explode!