|firefly|

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"Look at all of the fireflies I caught!" Yua exclaimed happily while she held her clear jar up for everyone to see. The five fireflies crawled all around the sides of it to escape, however, the lid prevented them from doing so.

I held my own jar up and smiled, having caught ten.

We all spent the evening- until bedtime- collecting many fireflies. We wanted to keep them, but Okemia said we couldn't.

(None of us knew that in the morning, every single one was dead.)

"...wake up." A familiar voice echoed throughout the darkness again and again.

"Kagome-Oneesan, wake up!"

My dark blue eyes snapped open and a face loomed down from above me. It was Ayuka. She had her long blonde hair tied into her usual braid and was wearing her pink cherry blossom yukata.

I looked around and saw that everyone's beds-except my own of course- were empty and made.

"Huh? Did I sleep in?" I inquired, confused as to where everyone was. I sat up and continued to look around.

"Yup! Mamma told me to wake you up because breakfast is ready." She said with a toothy grin then merrily skipped out of the room.

I shook my head and pushed myself out of bed. My first couple of steps were more like stumbles because I was still disoriented. After blinking a couple of times, my crusty eyes finally adjusted to the light.

"What time is it, the afternoon?" I thought as I directed my gaze to the window where the dreadfully bright light was seeping through the white curtains.

Deciding that I needed to get up because I had already slept in enough, I began to get ready for the day.

My hair was getting really long, so it took a while to comb through it, however, I did it as quickly as I could because I didn't want to eat cold eggs and bacon. After untangling my wiry hair, I got dressed.

I noticed that the sleeves of my yukata were a little bit above my wrists. Realizing this, I squealed then jumped up with my fist in the air.

"That means that I've grown a little bit!"

After calming myself down, I smiled and left the room. While I skipped down the steps, I stopped once I realized that I would need to apologize to Okemia for sleeping in.

I went through what her responses might be and thought of the realistically worst possible thing that could happen. My nerves settled, knowing that she wouldn't punish me or anything of the sort. However, I was still scared of disappointing her.

Downstairs the children were eating and talking. Most were explaining their delightful dreams while others were complaining about how they were still tired and wanted to continue to sleep.

"I'm so sorry for sleeping in late. It won't happen again." I whispered shamefully, bowing my head towards Okemia.

Because I didn't wake up, she had to cook everyone's food by herself.

"It's quite alright Kagome. You needed the sleep, I'm sure." She reassured with a smile. I let out a breath. Okemia was so very kind.

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