Every term, the two choirs held a party of sorts for all the members who wanted to come. Straight from conception, the two directors had abstained from all responsibility for the event, and for good reason. It normally ended up as more than a little loud and it was very rare that anyone came out with a decent night of sleep by the time everything was over.

It was, of course, as sleepover, but a sleepover of twenty odd girls and then twenty or so boys was bound to be a disaster from the very beginning. The first task was finding somewhere to hold it (and someone whose parents were willing to possibly have their living room destroyed by one activity or another), of course, which ruled out anyone who didn't have a large place to live, like Niles or Kamui and Corrin or even Charlotte. It also ruled out the Nohr family home due to the Hoshido family being the definition of unwelcome there. Hosting it at the Hoshido family manor also had its problems, but if the guests in question were sly enough it could be done.

Beyond that, there were problems like entertainment (you cannot, no matter what you may believe, play card games for six hours) and feeding people and having enough beds and enough space to lie down and also parents owning earplugs was a problem.

This term, the boy's sleepover was being held in the Hoshido household, because Garon was out for a week on a European tour with an orchestra he directed, so it was safe for Xander and Leo to do as they wished when it came to where they slept. The girl's sleepover was being held at Azura's house, because her parents were gone for 'at least a week', according to Azura, and she could easily get rid of the maid for a couple of days. The two events were to be held on the same night (something about not bringing guests and making the party even larger, one year they'd ended up with thirty choir members at one house), which was a Friday night just so everyone was completely recovered by the time it came to school on the Monday.

Kamui had offered to help Azura set up all the stuff for the party and also to bring a couple of things they could possibly do because Azura was at a complete loss, but she found that when she arrived, almost everything was already done. Impeccably clean, lights out the front so everyone knew it was the right place, there were even cushions set up on the floor of the largest sitting room in the house so they could all gather around and sit in the same place (and sleep, if they got round to that one).

"Azura, it's already done!" She waved to her mum, who was pulled up at the edge of the curb, looking slightly anxious. Kamui smiled to her encouragingly. It wasn't like she didn't attend these every term, and she'd been to Azura's house plenty of times. "I thought we'd have loads of stuff to do, and now I'm really early!"

Azura laughed. "I need your help with the TV, I've never used the DVD player," she said, closing the door and then giving Kamui her usual greeting of a kiss. "You never know, it could take two hours."

"No it won't," Kamui said, putting her bag down on the floor and taking one of Azura's hands in hers. "Tell me you haven't done the snacks too, right?"

Azura nodded, pulling Kamui through to the kitchen. "I did some crisps in that bowl and whatever those twiglet things are in that bowl, and there are chocolates in that tub over there, and I got Sera to make some cakes with me, so there's enough for two each of those." Kamui's mind was cast back to the previous summer term when Setsuna had hosted the sleepover and they'd survived off the food they brought with them to share and the pizzas Hinoka had managed to order for them.

"You know everyone will still bring stuff, right?" She asked, helping Azura put all the food on the big coffee table in the sitting room before they went to get some cups and glasses for everyone.

"Yes, of course!" She said. "But I want to give people some stuff too, because I don't have any great games like Flora thought up last winter and I don't know any movies or shows we could watch on TV."

"I think Camilla said she was going to bring Mamma Mia again," Kamui told her, and Azura laughed again. It was so nice when she was happy, Kamui thought idly, but she didn't voice the thoughts.

"Maybe we'll get more than halfway through learning the dance routines," she said, even though they both knew that it was more a joke than anything else. Every single term, Camilla would try and teach them all the dances and the songs in the musical, and every single term they got about halfway through and then everyone was too tired to carry on.

It took them about half an hour how to work out the DVD player, and another half an hour to route out every musical that Azura's parents had collected up over time (a surprisingly large number). They now had a pile of ten to watch, and they'd all have to choose when everyone arrived. From there, they killed an hour checking that everything was okay and that they knew how to tell people where the bathrooms were and that everything was clean.

Finally, at five, people started arriving. Elise and Camilla were there first, very slightly early because they'd walked, armed with Mamma Mia and a large tube of crisps each. This was Elise's first sleepover with the choir, but it felt like she was a huge part of the choir already (even though Kamui herself wasn't very fond of coach based sing songs, she did love Elise). After that, Hinoka and Sakura arrived with a few DVDs of their own and Hinoka had brought a big cake and Sakura had brought...a salad. Well, Kamui wasn't going to judge, but she didn't think it was getting eaten any time soon.

Then people arrived in a steady stream. Felicia and Flora with some food that they'd made together for this, Setusna with nothing as usual, and so on. No arrival came with a surprise, and it all seemed as usual.

"Azura, your house is so nice!" Elise said, peering down from the top of the stairs. "Everything is so tidy, are you sure your parents don't mind everyone being here?"

"My parents barely even know this is happening," Azura said with a smile. Kamui knew that if her parents did know, they probably wouldn't mind anyway. It came with the territory of an absent parent. They didn't mind as long as she was having fun and didn't get arrested for it.

After a few quick tours around the house so everyone knew where all the bathrooms were and which rooms were strictly off limits, everyone settled down in the sitting room to start the evening off. It had now become a form of tradition that they would set all the snacks out on the table, get a whole load of drinks and then start by watching Mamma Mia. This time, though, Elise knew all the dances too, and while it was not unheard of that you could refuse to do something for Camilla, there was no way that anyone could tell Elise no. She was just too sweet to everyone.

As predicted, though, they didn't finish every dance, and by three quarters into the film, everyone was on the floor, laughing and already half asleep. They hadn't even ordered dinner yet, that came after Mamma Mia. As soon as the film was over, Hinoka was off the floor and next to the table with a notepad and pen. Kamui didn't want to ask the older girl where she'd gotten those from, because the likelihood that she'd say 'Camilla's bra' was fairly high. "Come on!" She called. "Pizza orders are needed! It's three to a pizza." Kamui ordered hers with Azura and Selena, because apparently they had similar enough tastes that they all wanted the same kind of stuff.

One confused pizza delivery girl later (Elise gave her a £10 tip and Sakura's salad for her efforts), they were gathered around the table with seven pizza boxes. Now it was time to choose the films and the order they'd play them in. Kamui didn't know when everyone had decided that there was no point in bringing anything that wasn't a musical, but it had happened and now it was a standing tradition that they only watched musicals.

They ruled out a few musicals first due to the age of a couple of the people there, but Kamui got to watch The Wizard of Oz for the first time in way too long, and then they watched a recording of Showboat, and from there was when a couple of the younger kids started to get tired out. After the films, they played a couple of card games, but they quickly found out that it wasn't much fun to play when you already knew that despite all the odds, Camilla would win every single game.

Then came the mistake. Azura got monopoly out, and they got into four different teams of mixed ages. It was going to be a quick, fun game, probably only a couple of hours at most, but four hours later they were still going and Elise, having been woken up by laughter, was now laughing in a way that she probably hoped was evil as she observed the final few turns as the board fell, swiftly, to the mercy of her railway stations and lines of high price hotels. By this time, it was four in the morning, and the fun had only just begun.

Needless to say, when the first parent arrived to collect a child from Azura's at nine o'clock the next morning, the living room was a mess. Pillows were strewn everywhere, Elise and Sakura were sharing a blanket, Hinoka had lost one of her socks, Setsuna had locked herself in one of the bathrooms by accident and Hana was on the roof outside trying to force open the window to get her out, and Kamui was standing at the door, trying to work out how to explain to Effie's mother what on earth was going on and yes, yes, this was entirely normal, don't worry, no one has ever been killed, miss.