It was decided that our first solo would be 'Morning Light' instead of 'Negai', which would be the companion song. No one really complained. Everyone seemed to like that song better anyway. For the entire week after school, we would go to work and immediately start working on our dance choreography for the music video. Me and Kotone seemed to be the only ones able to fully grasp the dancing easily. Nuria and Sora were really good too once they knew the steps, but Aiko was having trouble so we would all try to help her out the best way that we could. 

On Saturday, we finally began filming. It started at eight in the morning, so everyone had to be awake and fully dressed by the time we got there. Our outifts for the video would be at the studio already, and Johnny-sama said that he would come personnally to watch over us during our first shoot. As if that didn't add to the pressure already. 

When we were riding in the van to the studio, Kotone had her headphones in her ears and was humming a song as she played on her iPod. I took an earphone out. "What are you listening to?" I asked putting it in my own ear.

"'Ponponpon'," Kotone answered. "It's Miki-chan's favorite song. She happened to be awake when I was getting ready, so she turned it on and had it stuck in my head."

"I've never heard of it," Sora said turning off her own iPod.

"It's addictive," Kotone told her. "It's so cute! But the person who sings it is a little weird. I wouldn't be surprised if she took her cues from Lady Gaga."

"I wonder what our outfits are going to look like," Nuria spoke up suddenly. I'm excited!"

"Something we can dance in," Sora said. "I don't think they want to kill us just yet."

We got to the studio and immediately we were taken over to a rack of clothes. "Oh my gosh!" Nuria exclaimed. "Look!"

"Ohayou gozaimasu!" Johnny-sama said coming up to us.

We all bowed. "Ohayou gozaimasu!"

"I see you all have found the rack of clothing," Johnny-sama smiled. "I'm giving you a special treat today. All the clothes you wear today and tomorrow I'm going to allow you to take home as long as you take care of them. We're filming today and tomorrow, so after tomorrow you can take the clothes if you want to."

"Awesome!" Aiko and Kotone smiled. 

"Every piece of clothing has a tag with your name on it," Johnny-sama continued. "So very calmly, I want one girl at a time to come and collect their clothes. Then you'll go into that trailer over there, change, and the artists inside will do your hair and makeup. Your shoes and jewelry are also inside. Aiko-san, you come up first."

Aiko swallowed before carefully walking up to the rack and went through the clothes. She stopped at one outfit, looked at Johnny-sama who nodded, before she pulled off a lavendar colored dress with a matching jacket off the rack. She then pulled off another purple outfit that consisted of purple skinny jeans and a purple sweater. "It's pretty. Arigatou gozaimasu!"

Nuria was next, and her outfits were orange and she had a t-shirt for the first outfit and a really pretty orange dress for the second. She was really excited about it. 

Sora groaned when she pulled off her clothes off the rack. "Pink? I get to wear pink?" She showed us the dress and jacket and the mini skirt over tights and a short sleeved hoodie top. 

"Pink's a good color," Kotone told her. "It fits you."

Kotone was excited when she pulled off her two yellow outfits. Her first one was a mini skirt over blue skinny jeans with a striped top underneath a yellow sweater. Her second was a bright yellow dress with a matching jacket and blue scarf. "Ohmiya colors," she joked as I went to get my clothes.

My clothes were blue. I had a pair of blue jeans with a black and blue striped hoodie, and a really pretty blue dress. I was really happy with my first outfit. It looked like something I would've worn in America. Comfort clothes. 

After we got our clothes, we quickly changed in one of the big trailers and sat down so that the hair and makeup artists could work on us. The clothes fit me perfectly, and everyone got their own pair of matching Converse shoes. Aiko, Sora, and Kotone had solid colors, while me and Nuria had designs on ours. Mine was white with blue flowers, and Nuria's was orange with pink stripes. Everyone loved their outfits.

"I'm wearing Nino's color!" Kotone smiled as her hair was slightly curled. "I'm so happy! Koharu-chan, you're wearing blue, which is Ohno-kun's color, so we're both like Ohmiya SK!"

I laughed as the lady finished my makeup. It wasn't much, but some eyeliner and some light eye shadow. "Kotone-chan, you're silly!"

"I am not! I know what I want for my birthday. I want to meet Ninomiya Kazunari!"

"You will eventually."

Aiko ran in suddenly and looked at us. "Guys! They messed with Sora-chan's hair!"

We looked at her. "Eh?"

"She's in the other trailer with me, and they redid her hair!" Aiko told us. "She has bangs now!"

A minute later, said person came in wearing her pink outfit with her pink ribbon hairband and necklace and pink bracelets. She looked adorable! And the bangs were good on her. "Sora-chan, kawaii!" I told her. 

"Shut up," she said grumpily as she played with one of her curled pigtails. "I can't believe I agreed."

Nuria walked in. "What? You look cute!"

"Nuria that has got to be the ugliest color I've ever seen!" Sora said looking at her orange outfit.

Nuria smiled. "You're just jealous!"

"I'm really not!" Sora laughed. 

My makeup was finished, so I went over and put Nuria's orange hairband in her straight black hair. "You look pretty Nuria-chan."

"You too Koharu-chan!"

As me and Kotone were finishing putting on our jewelry and hair bands, the director walked in. "Is everyone ready?" 

We all nodded and followed him over to our set. It was set up as a huge dark stage lit up with lights from the back. There were four black light screens in the back that weren't , and each one had a space between them. There was also a large sign in the back that said 'Hanabi' in kanji that lit up the entire stage. It was really cool looking. 

"Now, what we want  you to do for the beginning," the director told us all. "Do you see the five spaces in between the screens? Each one of you will stand in between one of those. When the second intro starts, start walking up and make sure to make it to this line on the floor before the singing starts, and then you can start dancing your routine. Make sure that you're singing along." He then put us each in an empty black spot. I was in the middle (shocker) with Sora my far right and Nuria next to me, and Aiko on my far left with Kotone next to me. They did a few light tests with the sign and the light boards, which lit up in different colors, before they told us to get ready.

"Now I'm nervous," I told Kotone.

"Don't be," she said. 

The lights went down to where it was black, then we could hear the director call out. "Action!" The music started, and just as we had rehearsed, we walked up to the line, went into our dance formation, and started dancing and singing with the track. When a person was singing, they stopped got center stage while everyone else danced behind them. When the chorus came, we all danced and sang together.

It felt kinda weird to hear us singing together though. We could finally hear what we sounded like on the CD. 

When we were done dancing the first time and the cameras stopped rolling, I could finally breath. "Oh wow," I gasped as everyone did the same. "That takes a lot out of you."

Kotone nodded. "I'm having a moment of greater respect for Johnny Kitagawa."

"Do we have to do it again?" Aiko asked. 

And we did. Four more times. By the time we were done, I was exhausted. But we got a thirty minute break before we got to go and do our individual dance and singing scenes. I literally gulped down an entire water bottle in less than ten seconds. 

We also had to get used to cameras following us. We had behind the scenes cameras with us as we sat around and practiced and as we were filming. This was definately weird.

"I feel like a crayon," Sora said after Nuria had gone to do her individual stuff. "A pink crayon."

"There's nothing wrong with pink!" Kotone told her. "It's a pretty color! Besides, you're a girl. Girls are supposed to wear pink."

"You're not wearing pink."

"Well you act more like a girl than the rest of us do!"

"Let's not argue," Aiko spoke up. 

After Nuria was my turn, so I went back to the stage with a camera following me. It really felt weird. "You can talk," the cameraman told me.

"I know," I answered. "But it's kinda weird having a camera follow you, isn't it?"

"Well, how do you feel about the PV?"

"Well," I started trying to find the words to say. "I think that the PV is really cool. It's exciting and I think it's a good way to debut."

I walked back on stage onto a large glass part of the stage and followed the director's instructions. First he had me just standing there singing along to my parts of the song, then he had me start dancing solos to the music. I didn't really do much. I did a little bit of freestyle but tried to stay to the routine. I was there for about ten minutes and then the director said thank you and let me go back. When I got back to the trailer, someone had brought donuts. Sora went to do her part, and I sat down on the couch and grabbed a chocolate covered donut. 

"These are so good!" Kotone exclaimed. "But we're probably going to be fat if we keep eating like this."

"Not neccessarily," Aiko said. "If we keep dancing then we'll be able to keep the weight off."

"Besides," I spoke up. "No one said we had to be pin thin like AKB."

"No one said we had to be AKB," Nuria corrected. "I would rather just be ourselves and not copy everybody else."

"AKB doesn't copy though," Kotone said. "They're actually pretty good. There's just so many of them."

"Like Girls Generation?"

"Don't you even think about comparing Girls Generation to AKB48!" Sora nearly yelled coming back. "Girls Generation is so much better. They're music is better."

"But there's a lot of them," Nuria told her.

"There's nine of them," Sora said taking a donut. "Jessica, Sunny, Taeyeon, Tiffany, Yuri, Yoona, Hyoyeon, Seohyun, and Sooyoung."

"That's incredible for a girl who didn't even know all of the Hey Say Jump members."

"Would you shut up Nuria?!"

"What is with you both today?" Aiko asked. "You're fighting at every moment!"

"In front of a camera," Kotone mumbled looking over at the cameraman. I looked over and felt embarrassed . This probably wasn't a good impression for us.

We all finished our solos and we danced together one more time before we were released to go home. I was tired and exhausted, and I couldn't wait to go out and have a big bowl of ramen before I went home and crashed on my bed.

--

The next day,  we went back and dressed in our nice dresses and went through the same routine of getting ready. We got dressed, had our hair and makeup done, then we put on our jewelry and accessories. Me and Nuria were the only ones without a jacket, but I didn't complain. I thought I looked better without. 

It felt like it was mostly a photoshoot. We went on stage and stood in a line and sang together as a group. Then, one by one, we were directed to another room set up a lot like the blue room with million light bulbs used in Arashi's 'Beautiful World' CD. We were instructed to look around the room and act like we were trying to find our way back to the stage, then at the end we would all come together and form 'Hanabi'. 

I started in the blue room, and I sat down in the chair next to the table and pretended to be occupied with what was on it. When the director started rolling, I started playing with a pencil before I got up and started looking around the room for a minute before I got to the door and opened it. I carefully looked out of the door and walked out towards the stage, and my part was over. 

Everyone else was kinda similar to me. Nuria was playing with a light bulb and looking out of the window before she left, Sora sat on the window ledge instead of the chair, Kotone stared out of the window before making the decision to leave, and Aiko kept looking up at the lights around her like they were stars. Then, we each got to a seperate staircase that led to the stage, and when we were told to, we all walked up on the stage, stopped and looked at each other curiously, then we walked towards the middle, stopped and looked at each other again, before putting our hands in the middle to show group unity. 

The last photo was us together in a line in our dresses and the Hanabi sign lighting up and the screens showing patterns of fireworks behind us while we looked at the camera. It actually looked really cool.

"I'm so glad we can take these clothes home!" Kotone said. "I love this dress."

Johnny-sama met us as we started walking to our trailer. "Congratulations girls, you're done with filming your first music video! Now, I have some very big news for you. Since this is already almost November, the entries to be in the Kohaku Uta Gassen will be coming up soon. If you all do really well with your single release, then we're going to put your name in to perform on New Year's Eve."

Everyone looked at each other shocked. Kohaku Uta Gassen was a big deal! And for someone as new as us? It was nearly unheard of.

"I just thought I would let you all know," Johnny-sama said. "You can keep the clothes, and have a great rest of the day off."

After he left, Kotone looked at me. "Holy crap. He's expecting us to be the biggest thing in Japan, isn't he?"

"Looks like it," I said. "It's almost like he's wanting us to be his most popular group."

Sora shrugged. "Maybe he thinks we will be."

The thought put a rock in my stomach. It felt nearly impossible.

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so what do you think of the PV? I hope you like it! I had to think of it for a long time before an idea for how it would look like actually came to my head. that kinda stuff can be hard I think....

chapter 10 is up!! tell me what you think! if you like it, if you hate it, all that fun stuff.

I have lots of goodies for you this week!!!!!

http://aibasgirl2013.blogspot.com/2012/05/morning-light.html <-- PV outfits

http://arashi-hana9183.livejournal.com/24399.html <-- the blue room in case you don't know what it looks like