PuriKyun: Houkago♡Rakuen PreCure

Vol. 11 - I Wish I May, I Wish I Might

"Any questions class?"

Runa raised her hand "Yeah! What exactly did you just say?"

All the other students giggled as their teacher facepalmed "Are you being serious Runa?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Runa looked at her mirror in bewilderment making the class break out into large fits of laughter.

"Runa, you are the reason why I am going to retire at an early age" Ms. Kaga shook her head "Anyways, to reiterate what I had been speaking about, I was discussing our history. There will be a lot of celebrations and our class needs to do something special too"

"What is Tanabata anyway?"

"Runa. Were you paying attention even in elementary school?!"

"Why would I listen to elementary school teaching? I'm a high schooler?"

"I- nevermind, Tanabata was one of the 5 seasonal festivals during the Edo Period"

"Yes, the Edo Period which was from 1603 to 1868." Ayato pitched in

"Yes, that." Their teacher rolled her eyes.

Yuzuki raised an eyebrow as Kimi grinned at her "He's doing that again"

"Here we go" Yuzuki faced towards Ayato in pretend enthusiasm.

"The Tanabata however existed way before the Edo period and actually dates back to the 6th and 7th centuries when Japan adopted many of China's social institutions."

"Do you expect me to understand what you're talking about?"

"No actually, I am speaking to the more literate beings. Definitely not trying to speak in your language but if you wish, I meant-" he gave a gentle cough "When the Japanese people had Chinese parents"

"Oh, got it"

"That she gets?!" Riho said in shock

"Trust me, we have to speak rather simply for her to understand." Kimi laughed

"So in continuation, this particular festival is celebrated in China when young women prayed for success in weaving and sewing, their arts- though may I add that although the Chinese techniques for weaving silk brocades were first brought to Japan by the Koreans and not actually the Chinese people"

"Dude, what does that have to with Tanabata?" A student from the back called to him

"Oh right. Anyways. To trim out major history to all you simpletons, the Tanabata festival is a festival celebrating the arts of weaving, sewing, writing etcetera etcetera. So then because of all of that, school children during this period would wake up rather early during the day of Tanabata and write on the dew of sweet-potato leaves which they collected. With the dew to mix their ink, they'd practice writing on the mulberry leaves. This was the changed from leaves to what is now known as tanzaku which is colored paper if you didn't know"

"Get on with it" Yuzuki yawned from the side

"You people are so impatient. Anyways. Funny thing about Tanzaku that you may not- you probably don't know this but the Tanzaki came in the colors of the five common colors of the elements. Wood being blue or green, fire being red, earth being yellow, metal being white and water being black."

"We don't care about that part" Another student called to him

"Well, as Ayato has been saying, Tanabata is a special celebration. Every school around the country will have Tanabata decorations throughout their schools entryway during this particular season. But because the usual traditional of floating them across the streams clog up the drainage systems, we'll simply burn them when done." Ms. Kaga finished