Kohaku Uta Gassen
Day -5

"Wow!" I exclaimed when we arrived at the Kohaku stage for the first time. It was exciting! Now that we were finally prepared for it, we were all excited. We had our music arrangement done, we had been working on our dance for an entire day the day before and that day before we left, and now we were ready. I believed that we were finally ready for Kohaku.

"Why are we on the red team?" Nuria asked suddenly as we left to find our backstage dressing room. "We're in a boy company, don't you think we would've been on the white team?"

"We're a girl group," Aiko told her. "So, no. We're on the red team because the white team is for the males."

"Speaking of which," Kotone said looking at Sora. "Did you get our outfits done?"

"Of course!" Sora smiled. "I'm really proud about what we picked out too, right Nuri-chan?"

Nuria smiled. "Hai!"

"If I didn't know any better," Kotone whispered to me. "I would think of Sora and Nuria as Jun and Aiba."

"Like Junba?" I asked.

"Hai!"

"Koharu-chan!" 

I turned around and smiled when I saw Chinen running up to me. "Here comes your boyfriend," Kotone teased, making everyone laugh. 

"Shut up!" I scolded, but I knew I couldn't hide the blush in my face.

Chinen looked at us. "Eh?"

"Nothing," I said leading him away somewhere away from the other girls. "What is it?"

"How was Christmas?" Chinen asked as we walked away. "I didn't have a chance to see you before."

"It was good!" I said. "Brian loved it, as usual."

"That's good!" Chinen said becoming a little anxious all of a sudden. "Hey, uh... I have something for you."

My heart started pounding. "What is it?"

Chinen pulled out a small box out of his coat pocket and gave it to me. "I wanted to give to you after Christmas, but like I said, I didn't have a chance. Especcially with Ninomiya-kun hanging around you so much. He doesn't like me very much, and he's scared me a couple of times."

I unwrapped the box and opened it up to find a copper heart necklace inside. "Chinen, it's beautiful!" I told him. 

He blushed before taking it out of the box. I turned around. "I hoped you would like it," he said putting it around my neck. "I wasn't sure, but it looked really pretty."

"Thank you Chinen," I said. I had to fight hard not to blush, but I knew that I would probably end up with a red face. After that, Yamada kept yelling at him, so Chinen had to leave. I headed back to Hanabi, who had stopped and was staring at me. "What?" I asked. 

"You need to stop flirting and go out with him already," Sora said bluntly. "I mean, it's not like it's OBVIOUS or anything that you have a thing for him."

"Shut up," I told everyone as they continued to laugh.

--

We had our first Kohaku rehearsal on stage. I was just happy I could dance, and the fact that I could dance in my blue Converse again made me even more happy. We had our dance completely choreographed, but we couldn't start working with the director about our lighting and special effects until three days before. All we knew was that the lineup had us performing number seven, the female group after AKB48. "They really like to set us up, don't they?" Sora asked. 

"Of course they do," Aiko said. "But maybe it'll allow us to show Japan that we're just as good as them."

"With less people," Kotone smiled.

I sighed. I just wanted us to do good.

Kohaku Uta Gassen
Day -4

Sora stopped and took my arm. "Oh my god!" Sora exclaimed. "Do you know who that is?!"

I looked over in the direction that Sora was looking in. "I didn't know you had a thing for SMAP," I said.

Sora hit my shoulder. "NO! Next to them! It's Girls Generation!"

"Oh..." I said. Sora's favorite Korean groups. She liked to talk to me about them, and I listened most of the time. If she had seen her favorite boy groups like SHINee or Big Bang or Super Junior, I'm sure she would've murdered me from excitement.

"Oh my gosh, they're so beautiful!" Sora swooned. "So gorgeous. Can we go say hi?"

"Sure," I said.

Sora stopped me from walking. "But I don't want to seem like an idiot. I shouldn't go over there."

"Then let's not go over there," I said.

"But who knows when I'll have this chance again! Koharu-chan, come with me!"

"Okay okay I'll go! Just make up your mind!"

Sora took my hand and we walked over there, me more calm than Sora. When we finally reached Girls Generation, they stopped and looked at us. "Hello," I said bowing to them before throwing Sora in front of me.

"A-anyeonghasaeyo," she mumbled. "Sora imnida."

One of the girls then said something in Korean, which then made Sora perk up and start talking to them in Korean. They talked for about five minutes happily and full of energy and excitement before me and Sora left. "Did you hear what they said?" Sora smiled. "They're so amazing! Did you hear what they said about me?"

"Every word," I said sarcastically before Sora kept going on. I was happy for her. It was the first time I had seen her genuinely excited about something, and I knew that she was a bigger fan of Korean music than she was of Japanese music anyway, so for her to have her moment was cool.

Kohaku Uta Gassen
Day -3

"Oi! Hanabi-chan!"

The five of us turned around and quickly stood up from our circle on the ground as Arashi started walking towards us. "Konnichiwa!" Jun smiled. "Have you gotten you're lighting and everything figured out?"

"Hai!" Kotone answered for us. "We got it done first thing this morning! We're just practicing on our choreography now."

"Still using that song I hope," Nino said.

"Of course!" Aiko laughed. 

I smiled along before I noticed that Arashi had one other person with them. I recounted. One, two, three, four, five, six... there was definately seven people, but the seventh was hiding. Sho must have noticed me looking because then he stood aside. "Hanabi-chan, we wanted you to meet someone."

All of us gasped at the same time before we all started to freak out. Inoue Mao stepped up and bowed to us politely. "Hajimemae, Inoue Mao desu."

Kotone pushed us aside. "I'm a big fan of you! I wondered if we'd get to meet you before the live shows!"

"You're being rude," I whispered to her.

Kotone looked at me before she realized her mistake. "Ah! Gomen! Harada Kotone desu!"

Mao smiled. "I know. I know all of you. You're Koharu," she said looking at me. "You're Nuria, Aiko, and Sora. I'm a big fan of you already!"

"Seriously?!" Nuria exclaimed. 

"Hai! Arashi-san here keeps telling me about you, and I watched your music video and have been keeping up with you guys since you started. This'll be you're first major debut, huh? Don't worry. Me and Mady-chan will be here to help you if you need anything. We're you're team captains, and we're here to win this year!"

Everyone smiled. "Hai!"

"Although I doubt you'll win," Jun commented. "The white team has won for the last few years in a row, and we have a strong team of men this year. There's no way we could lose!"

"Shut up Jun!" Mady told him.

Mao glared at him. "Well, we have an even stronger team of beautiful women! Of course we're going to win!"

"I'd like to see you try and compare yourselves to us!" Jun said. 

Nuria came up and whispered to me, "This is like watching Domyouji and Makino in real life!"

"I'd like to see that big mouth of yours talk after we've won our trophy at midnight! You'll be so jealous! Ah, what is that? I can already see bits of smoke coming out of your ears!" Mao laughed.

Jun grabbed at his ears. "There is not!"

"Kawaii~" Aiko said. "His ears are turning red!"

Jun looked over at us. "Urasei!" he said playfully before acting like he wanted to chase us. We quickly ran away, leaving the group laughing at us before we laughed with them.

Kohaku Uta Gassen
Day -2

"Oh, wow!" Everyone exclaimed when we walked into our dressing room and saw our outfits laid out for us. Everyone had a different outfit, but the color scheme was the same. Each outfit had a black and red theme, and it even came with jewelry and shoes. 

Sora was beaming when she saw her outfit. "It's even more beautiful in person!"

"I love my outfit!" Nuria smiled. "I can't believe it's real!"

"I love this coat!" Aiko smiled when she put on her huge black coat. "So warm and beautiful!"

"Sora-chan, Nuria-chan, arigatou!" Kotone told them. "You two did awesome on the outfits! When we go on our concerts, I vote that you pick out our outfits."

Sora pointed at a basket by the clothing rack. "There's an extra basket of accessories and shoes if you don't like what I picked or if you have a preference."

I took my outfit and put it up against me and went up to the mirror to see how it looked. It looked awesome. "Sora-chan, Nuria-chan, hontouni arigatou!"

"We even got you some converse!" Nuria said handing me a pair of black high tops. "We know that you love yours and you love wearing them, so we got you a pair!"

"They're also easier to dance in," Sora said. "You're still resting your ankle, remember?"

I frowned. "Yes, I remember."

We all quickly got dressed so we could start our dress rehearsal. I loved my outfit once it was on me! I loved the red dress, the black overcoat, the jewelry, the black and white scarf, and my shoes. It all fit and worked. It was the same for everyone. I think everyone was just proud of what we were doing.

As soon as we were done, we walked out to line up for our rehearsal, and we saw AKB48 walking off stage. Some of the girls saw us and smiled and waved. Some just glanced. We stopped and watched the large group of girls go, but as I watched for a few minutes, it actually made me realize how many people there were. "This isn't all AKB, is it?" I asked.

Kotone shook her head. "No. It looks like they got all their groups together. AKB, SKE, and I think they have a new group they came out with."

"How can one person remember so many people?" Nuria asked.

"You can't," Sora said. "But that's why we have an advantage. People remember us, versus just remembering an entire fleet of girls."

"An entire fleet of beautiful girls," Aiko corrected. "Don't forget that."

"Hanabi!" the AD called. "You're next for your rehearsal!"

I took a deep breath, and before we went on, I saw one girl from AKB had stopped a few yards away and was watching us. When she saw me looking, she grinned sadly before walking away. I didn't recognize her, but I didn't have time to worry about her either.

Kohaku Uta Gassen
Day -1

"Hey Mom!" I bounced going downstairs for breakfast. "Kohaku is tomorrow. Are you gonna go?"

"I'm planning on it," Mom said. "Brian's been talking about it all week."

"I'm excited!" I jumped again. When I came back down, I felt a familiar pain in my left ankle. I stopped and held onto a chair to test the flexibility of my foot.

"Are you alright?" Mom asked.

I nodded. "I'm okay."

Mom sighed. "Amanda, you're working yourself too hard. You just got clearance less than a week ago. If your ankle is hurting you, take it easy and relax. You have all day today to relax and all day tomorrow."

"I can't relax Mom," I groaned sitting down. "We have to make sure this performance is perfect. You know that this is the first time a brand new group has ever been on Kohaku? Usually a group has to be a few years old and popular to be on Kohaku! Kat-tun's not even in it this year! Neither is Hey Say Jump, but at least NYC will be there."

"Maybe Hanabi's more popular than you think," Mom said putting a plate of food in front of me.

"More like Johnny's up to something," I said before I took a bite.

"You always see things in a negative light," Mom commented before she sat down to eat with me.

--

"One more day!" Kotone said when we started leaving for the day. "How exciting is this?!"

"How many more times do you have to say it?" I asked as we made our way out. "We better get lots of sleep tomorrow if we want to be able to function."

"We'll be fine," Sora said. 

"You will be!" Aiko laughed as they left. "I'll be exhausted by five in the afternoon! I'm sleeping in!"

Kotone stopped and waited for me. Then she glared at me. "You're limping."

"Am not," I said. "Stop worrying about me so much."

"Eh," Kotone said. "But I can't help it. You're my friend."

"I'm fine," I smiled. "I'm tired though. I need to go home and sleep."

"And eat."

"And make some Kool-Aid."

"And confess to Chinen."

"Oi!" I laughed. "Would you stop about that?!"

"Not until you confess!" Kotone laughed with me. 

I rolled my eyes.

One more day, I thought. Then Kohaku. This'll be an interesting experience.

===================================================================================================================

awesome!!! i finally got it done!!! xD

chapter 16 is up! next is Kohaku Uta Gassen!!!! the outfits for each Hanabi member is on Hanabi's blog

http://aibasgirl2013.blogspot.com/

and check out the song too! (if you haven't already. it should be pretty obvious why i chose that song xD )