“What’s the worst they can say?” Asami reasoned as the four of them sat nervously in the hall outside the Student Council’s office waiting to be called.

“No,” Moo mumbled, eyes staring intently at the polished wood floor, Garr in her bag on her lap.

“They wouldn’t do that!” Asami turned to Momo, eyes wide in shock that the girl would even think such a thing, let alone say it out loud.

“I’m sure things will be fine,” Emi lied, waving her hand breezily. “We have the paperwork perfectly done thanks to Asami. We have wonderful reasons to start our Society. We are a boon to this school! They will absolutely give us the thumb’s up!” Emi raised her thumb for emphasis.

“Really?” Asami clasped her hands together excitedly.

“Sure!” Emi lied again with a chuckle. “We have nothing to worry about!”

“Then why is Momo nervous?” Moo asked, clutching her hands in her lap.

“So am I,” Asami admitted.

“I’ve only just met you all and I’m nervouth,” Suyin whispered in Korean, yelping slightly at the end of her sentence. She brought her hands up to her lips in surprise and pain. “Owwww…I bit my tongue.”

“Momo thinks Garr will throw up again,” Moo moaned, holding her own stomach.

“Now, now!” Emi put her hand on Momo’s shoulder comfortingly. “I’ve met the Student Council, so have you, Moo! They’re not scary. They’re just the same as us with better tea! Don’t worry!” She caught and held Asami’s gaze and then Suyin’s. “We will be Legion! We need to believe in ourselves and once we do, everything will work out! Ok?”

“O-Ok,” Asami nodded, her knees bouncing up and down nervously. Momo dipped her head once, not looking much better.

“We can do!” Suyin grinned, trying to be positive without feeling even remotely positive. She’d never joined any clubs whether in Taiwan or Korea and never considered herself much of a joiner, but there was something about this peculiar little group that appealed to her in a way she thought she’d lost after her favorite teacher had left Sehwa. She wanted…no, she needed them to succeed.

“C’mon in!” Tsubaki said, opening the door and sticking her head out, causing all four of them to jump in surprise.

“Right!” Emi laughed maniacally. “Come in!” She tried to get to her feet, but her legs had taken a moment’s break and seemed disinclined to do as instructed.

“…Right,” Tsubaki blinked at the four girls struggling to rise from their seats in the hall outside the Student Council room. “uh…c’mon in?”

“Ahahaha!” Asami cackled, finally getting to her feet. “We are ready!”

Finally, they managed to get upright and mobile and stepped from the hall into the Student Council room. Chie had her head on the desk in front of her and opened one eye blearily as the group entered before closing it again in exhaustion. Himari waved at them from where she sat at the end of the table. Riku stared at them blankly, a huge binder filled with papers spread out before her.

“Have a seat!” Himari gestured to the seats opposite the Student Council and the four sat heavily. “When you said you were going to start your own club, Seto san, I had faith you could do it! I admit, though, I was a bit surprised how quickly it came together. As you can imagine with the way Seitosha Sakurai is put together new clubs don’t spring up very often. I’m so glad for you!”

“Well, you know,” Emi swelled with pride. “If something’s worth doing it’s worth throwing together as quickly as possible like a mongoose on fire running toward the sea!”

“I…ok!” Himari smiled patiently.

“I call this meeting of the Student Council to order for the purpose of hearing the petitioner’s request to start a new club,” Riku declared. Emi glanced at her in some awe. Her air of staggering officiousness washed over the room like a well-ordered tsunami of efficiency. Someday this girl would be in the Diet for sure, Emi decided. Maybe even Prime Minister. “Who speaks for the petitioners?”

“Uh…” Emi mumbled, suddenly painfully aware that sort of thing had never been discussed. She glanced at the others who were all staring back at her except for Moo who was staring at the desktop in front of Emi. “I guess I am!”

“Delightful!” Himari clapped quietly, her smile growing broader.

“Can I use your white board?” Emi asked as her legs worked the first time and she got to her feet.

“Ooh! Visual aids! Please! Help yourself!” Himari nodded.

“Thank you,” Emi nodded politely, moving quickly over to the board against the wall beside the door. She pulled a marker free and drew a large circle. “In the beginning the earth spun in the blackness of space.” Emi drew a circle with a blue marker and then proceeded to shade the area around it with the black marker.

“As we all know the gods soon came into being from a single spark of life. They used a spear and created Japan.” Emi drew some spots on the circle. “Then they decided to build a duplex. Nice but not too nice, you know? Homey.” Emi put a dot on the other dots as everyone looked on dumbfounded. “So during the marriage ceremony Izanami spoke up because Izanagi was kind of a tool and he got mad because she decided that going around in circles in opposite directions was kind of stupid. Since she was female obviously everything went wrong because it’s all our fault always and their first kid came out an ugly lump. He was called Ebisu and took care of fishermen because eventually an inordinate number of fishermen become ugly lumps, too.

“Now eventually they had more kids and Izanagi spoke first this time because…sure. Misogyny. Anyway, they had a bunch of kids because they were gods and diapers weren’t much of an issue. Amaterasu became the moon and then she had a kid and he became the Emperor and then the Emperor had kids and so on and so forth until we get to this part here,” Emi had written something of a crude timeline below the picture of the earth. She drew a heavy line on the timeline and then drew a small happy flower springing up from the line.

“It was here the Flower Appreciation Society sprung from the muddy sea of Seitosha Sakurai and with your kind permission, will grow and grow until it reaches the clouds and calls forth upon the world a new group of Goddesses who will not tolerate misogyny or being told to speak second and we won’t have fisher lumps, either. We will be what the Gods always intended! We will be enlightened!” Emi wrote the word enlightened in big bold letters on the board and then, to add weight to what she was saying, drew flames coming out of the top and then a strange rabbit face in the fire for good measure.

“That is the Flower Appreciation Society!” Emi turned and dramatically put the markers back in the tray and bowed. The assembled group clapped appreciatively, none of them entirely certain what had just happened but relatively sure whatever it was had been a stellar performance. Finally, Himari spoke up.

“Thank you, Seto-san! But…what did any of that mean?”