When Noriko Nakagawa finished reading, the room was dead silent. She glanced over everyone's faces, nervous to the core. It had been a while since she'd read out her poetry, and that had been in English instead of what she was used to. She thought that the poetry itself sounded better in Japanese, but they didn't look like they'd hated it.
She dipped her head and went back to her seat, clutching the paper she'd read from in both hands. The girl that sat next to her leaned over to talk to her.
"Did you really write that?" she asked, her eyes wide and blue and interested.
"Yes," Noriko said.
"It was super good! I bet it sounds great in… you're from Japan, right? I bet it sounds great in Japanese, too."
Noriko nodded. The girl, taking this as a sign to keep talking, continued.
"Was it hard learning English? I mean, it sounds great in English, and sometimes translated things… don't? Unless you wrote it in English…"
"I wrote it in Japanese," Noriko said. "I thought it might sound… bad. In English."
"No, no, it was great. Way better than any poetry I've tried. I mean, I'm glad this is just creative writing instead of a poetry or prose class, because I can't write poetry worth shit," she said. "But I like hearing other people read out theirs. I mean, there's something so great about hearing someone read their own work, you know?"
Noriko blinked and nodded, a little hesitant. This girl was talking very quickly, and it seemed like her hands couldn't quite keep still, either. They tapped on the desk, twirled a pencil, messed with her hair…
"Oh, wow, I totally didn't introduce myself," the girl said. "I'm Andrea."
"Noriko Nakagawa," Noriko said. Andrea's smile widened, and she wondered if she'd done something wrong.
"Who's that guy that always comes and picks you up? The one with the guitar? Is he your boyfriend?"
Noriko, who was by now extremely overwhelmed, hesitated before nodding. She thought so. She still wasn't quite sure – they hadn't exactly talked about it, they'd been too busy getting on their feet and figuring out what they were doing, but… she thought so.
"Either way, the two of you are cute," Andrea said. "Do you think that you can read your poem in Japanese, too? I bet it sounds pretty."
Noriko did as she asked, and Andrea clapped when she was done. "Thank you," Noriko said, smiling a little. Andrea put a hand on her head.
"I'll buy you coffee," she said. "And I want you to try and teach me Japanese."
Noriko smiled at her, and then after an admonishment from the teacher, focused on what was being read next. This was a different sort of class than she was used to – everything was so casual, and so fun, and everyone talked over each other and ate things and drank energy drinks and coffee. Perhaps it was because it wasn't a traditional school setting, because it was a class that occurred every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at night in the basement of the library at the closest University.
"I would like that," she whispered back, and Andrea gave her a smile.
America was turning out better than she was expecting.
This was requested by a user on Tumblr, who wanted Noriko reading her poetry to a class, post-Program. This could also be seen as the third part to 'American Elation' and 'Thunder and Lightning.'