A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Three: Part Two

“Welcome home, Hanabusa-sama!”

The maids and chauffeurs lining the red carpet that was rolled from the front doors curtly bowed their heads as a familiar blonde boy entered the room.

I peered from the bottom of the staircase towards the front doors.

Around his shoulders was a black blazer secured neatly with a knotted ribbon that held his collar in place. It looked very similar to the school uniform I had pulled out of the excessively heavy box earlier that morning, although instead of a frilly skirt, he wore dark dress pants.

“How was school today, Hanabusa-sama?” Megane’s voice chimed cheerfully as the familiar, tall figure approached the boy.

“Fine,” the blonde boy bluntly responded.

“Do you have any homework to complete?”

“No, Megane. It’s Friday.”

“Right! Right! I forgot . . .”

Friday, I silently repeated, pondering through my thoughts as though I had forgotten something.

I planted a fist into my palm and felt a determined expression loom over my face. I still have my Friday shift at the Orange Café!

I determinedly rushed towards the front doors with as much speed as I can muster.

“Megane-san! Hanabusa-kun!” I pronounced as I hopped before them. “I was supposed to work at a café today after school. I don’t know how to get there from here, so can I be driven there?”

Megane raised a hand towards his sunglasses and fidgeted with its frames. “Hotaru-sama, there is no point in working a job. We have plenty of money.”

“I know, but I just figured that I could work there anyway.” I shrugged my shoulders hopefully and maintained an enthusiastic smile. “It’s really fun, and my friends are there. Plus, this way you won’t have to spend as much money on me, so—“

“I’m sorry, Hotaru-sama,” Megane raised his hands off of his glasses. “It would be much less complicated if you remained at home.”

I left my excitedly enthusiastic expression frozen against my face. “So you’re saying . . . that I can’t work at the café either?”

“That is correct, Hotaru-sama.”

I felt my smile slowly morph into a snarl, and my eye began twitching. I gradually hissed until I finally pumped a fist into the air and bellowed with all of the strength my lungs mustered.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN’T WORK AT THE CAFÉ?!”

Megane’s sunglasses almost slipped off of his face, but no part of his eyes were revealed. The blonde boy kept the emotionless expression plastered onto his face, though his hair was blown back behind his ears.

“You say that it’s complicated for me to work and earn my own money so you won’t have to spend anything on me, but how about you?!” I roared, glaring between the expressionless blonde boy and the sunglasses man with what I guessed looked like a very death-threatening glare.

“H-Hotaru-sama—“

“Don’t ‘Hotaru-sama’ me!” I threw my fists around me as I shouted. The maids and chauffeurs that had been lining the red carpet immediately scattered out of sight.

Without thinking, I automatically threw all of my thoughts out into words.

“You guys are way more complicated than I am! Don’t you think that something complicated would be how your dinner table is five miles long?! How many people is that table supposed to sit?! And when two people sit at dinner, you have to yell to hear each other from across the tables! That’s definitely complicated!

“And then there’s the maze of hallways upstairs! What is the point of all of those hallways?! Each house should only have like one hallway! Maybe two or three! But your hallways are endless! Are you trying to trap someone in there?! Because it’s very, very possible that someone could spend their whole lives trying to get out of those deadly hallways and that they will never ever be able to get out! That’s pretty complicated to me!

“And then there’s the Hulk living in your kitchen! This house is so big that you probably didn’t notice the Hulk is living in your kitchen! I saw with my own eyes! He had this huge axe and he tried to chop me into kabobs! See, if your house wasn’t so complicated, you would have figured out that that abnormally large monster man is living in your kitchen!

“And then there’s my bedroom! It’s not a bedroom! It’s probably meant to be some kind of stadium for a football field! That whole entire single room is bigger than my apartment! That’s pretty complicated, too, isn’t it?!

“And you people dare say that me wanting to work at a café to make my own money is complicated! Well you know what I’m going to do about it?! W-Well . . . I’m not going to do anything because you have like a billion chauffeurs and maids trained to kill! That’s way complicated too, because what kind of house needs that many maids and chauffeurs?! Oh I know! A COMPLICATED ONE!”

I ended my bellowed speech with a series of panting. My hands were still clenched into fists.

The boy continued to stare at me with his nonchalant expression, although his eyebrows had traveled far up his forehead. His hair looked as if a bomb had exploded upon his head, and bundles of it stuck up in messy spikes.

Megane was clutching his sunglasses against his face. His slick hair also looked as if it had been planted with dynamite.

Both of them eyed me silently without another word. When they failed to reply to my speech, I let out one long, hissing “Ugh!” and scrambled deafeningly up the stairway.

I no longer cared about the people downstairs or their worries of the ceiling crashing down on them. I found the long run through the paths of hallways satisfying as I stomped my feet against the floors with every step I took. The largely exaggerated house seemed to tremble against my stridently loud marching.

After all of the twists and turns that I zipped through, I finally found the familiar bedroom doors. I pushed them open, slammed them shut as I walked in, and I dived headfirst onto the bed.

There were no tears. I puffed up my cheeks as I pulled my knees against my chest. How frustrating it was how I had woken up that morning believing that I would reunite halfway with my ordinary life with school and the Orange Café only to find that both options were unavailable.