Chapter 6 And Illuminates my World…

Naozumi came down with the three singers and they stayed at a hotel near the school. We had arranged for them to come after school on the Wednesday and we were all quivering with excitement by the time they arrived. I had gone to the school entrance to guide them to the gym and I must say that they were all more beautiful in the flesh.

Yua, Moko and Miko were exquisite but very friendly and, by the time we got to the gym we were chatting freely about their clips. We had set up the computer with speakers so we could show our performance to them. We had worked out moves for each of the songs we had been sent and they watched while we went through them. At the end Miko asked who had choreographed the steps and all the girls looked at me. She came over and gave me a hug which would have sent me back to the doctor for a testosterone shot if I had less of the new hormones in my system.

Naozumi pulled a video camera out of his bag and the three girls joined us and we went through the songs again, this time with them singing along and copying our moves. There was discussion about some points and we made changes, practised those sections and then went through the songs again. I was really carried away with the whole experience; it was so unlike what we had done with the band as they stood still as we moved around them. This time we were a shifting sea of movement and I realised that I was imagining it from above, which sharpened my senses to what we achieved. At the end of the evening the three left with Naozumi as they were going back to Tokyo in the morning. Naozumi told us that he would send the video clip to us before the end of the week.

As they were leaving, Miko gave me sketches of the outfits they wanted us to wear at the concert. They were all based on the dresses they wore on the Bibi video and there was ten different outfits. Four of them she put marks on the pages and told us that these would be worn by us four older girls and the rest could be made to suit the sizes of the other six, leaving it up to us which dancer got what outfit. I saw, straight away, that the four outfits matched the main ones from their videos so it looked like the four of us would be very close to them in the performance.

Before we closed up for the night we had a group meeting and congratulated our other girls on their performance and allowed them to choose the outfit they wanted. With names on the sketches we took them into the sewing class the next day and spoke to the teacher about getting them made. The shoes in the sketches were all Mary Janes with a short heel which made dancing easier and we all had our own already. On Friday evening I saw that I had a message from Naozumi and it had the video clip attached. It was of our final run through and I was not too hopeful at what it would look like but, when I showed it to my family they all wanted to hug me to bits. I forwarded it to all of the other girls and also to Machiko.

The term followed the usual course and we all had lots to do. The exams were a lot more complicated and involved a lot more thinking. I imagined that a University or College would be similar but it was a lot of fun starting something so ‘adult’, having just become a teen. By the end of term we had got the gymnastic team together and working on their routines. We had a number of very good first years that just needed to perfect their apparatus work and that, I knew, would take most of the next two terms. I was starting to feel that we may have a chance at the competition again. We four kept in shape with our own practise and often needed to demonstrate moves so we could fill in if need be. Well, I couldn’t now I was on hormones.

The dance group were all now resplendent in their outfits and we became smooth as silk with the performance. I did pretty well on my exam results and, four days after term ended, the ten of us, Machiko and four mothers were pulling our bags along the bullet train platform, heading to Tokyo. It was a quick trip and the remnant of boy in me was awestruck at going so fast on the ground. We were met at the other end and taken to our hotel. It was just a ‘budget’ one but was still pretty swish. We were dressed in our stage outfits and taken to the practise hall where we met up with the three girls again. They had arranged it so that we would have the whole performance recorded for us.

They had decided which of us would be closest to them during the performance. As I expected, we four older girls were closest with the others spread around behind us. The three were in the stage gear as well so we all took our places. This time they had radio mics and the music was pre-recorded backing track. It was everything that we would have on the night except the crowd. We worked through the songs that they would sing, in order, and it all went well, our previous session making the difference. We worked through the set a second time and the trio decided that we were good to go. Miko had a wicked grin on her face as we sat around having a drink. She told us that we couldn’t be here at the Cosplay Summit without attending the stadium and that she had organised costumes for us. The kicker was that there would be a competition during the day and we all had been entered into a dance competition. She said that we would do one of our performances with the trio miming to one of their songs. They would be so heavily in costume no-one would know it was them. As there were thirteen of us we were entered as ‘The Coven’ and the three singers would be three different versions of the Scarlet Witch.

On the Friday we were decked out in our cosplay outfits and it was a very diverse range of characters. Okemia became Harley Quinn and I ended up as Raven. Tamura was a glorious Elf and Masuko became a very fetching Yennefer. When the three singers showed themselves I thought that they may be a little too exotic to show themselves in public and I wondered if the sight would give me erotic dreams in the future. We worked through our entire set in these costumes while it was being filmed, this time by several cameras. Moko told me that they had the idea that one, or more of these could be spliced into the videos of our previous rehearsals for a clip to go out on YouTube.

After we had been changed back to normal girls, Naozumi took us all out for dinner and we all had a good feast, joined by the girls from ‘The Margarines’. He told me that we would all be going to the ‘Chubbies’ café, in costume, on Saturday lunchtime before we went to the Summit. He told me that the girls from Chubbiness all worked there from time to time. Saturday morning we were all kitted up in our costumes and make-up. I felt different, more alive than I had been. I was truly being drawn into the world of Kawaii and CosPlay and the very essence of being a Japanese teen girl. The rest of our team were all very bouncy this morning and having the time of their lives. We went to Chubbies and tried the delicious chocolate donuts, and then it was off to the Summit where we wandered the exhibits and wondered at the other teens in their costumes. It was like every Halloween you have ever experienced, all in one place at one time.

When the dance competition was announced we went and watched the other teams perform. I could see that they were pretty good but they were no match for us when we went up and moved to a Honey Popcorn number. We got such a response that the organisers asked if we could do it again and we did another routine to one of the other songs. It was hard to keep my concentration as I danced close to three, very sexy, witches who all had wicked grins on their faces. None of us could stop smiling and Machiko smiled even more when Miko told her that our prize money would be donated to the school because it was our work that achieved the success.

After that we had the task of removing every vestige of our characters and redressing in our stage outfits. Once again we were all made up and I know that I felt very adult and way more girlie than I normally was. We had done all the work and now it was time to put it out there. We were all very quiet in the bus to the stage entrance and the three girls told us that they always felt nervous themselves before a live concert as the audience would let you know if they were not happy. We waited in the wings with The Margarines while Chubbiness did their set. They were sooooo cuuute! I loved one of the songs about eating donuts which had the line ‘Soft and Squishy, I’ll love you forever.”

The Margarines were next and they put on a very polished performance. One thing about these shows was that it was impossible to tell if the girls were actually singing or if they were miming. Our act was live singing to a pre-recorded backing track so I knew that we all had to be right on our marks. When the others came off there was a short interval before we were on stage and we all took advantage to have some sips of water and psyche ourselves up to be out there in front of what looked about fifty thousand fans. The three girls told us that we didn’t need to worry as we had it nailed, gave us all a hug and then we were on stage waiting for the curtain to go up. I had never been so ready for anything in my life!

Marianne G 2021