Vol. 2 Chapter 1.1 - POV B
POV B
Part 1
Short story by Aka Akasaka
Translation by 64990022
Editing by Shirozoku
Snow fell gently, just as it did on the day Ai died.
Or so I thought.
My memory of that day was a little fuzzy.
On the day of the dome concert, an endless sea of fans stood in line with unwavering patience. Yet somehow, I don’t remember a single one bringing an umbrella.
Speaking of heavy snow, there was also a blizzard on the day of Ai’s funeral. Public transport was even shut down that day, that was for sure.
Looking back, maybe it wasn’t snowing on the day of her death.
Nevertheless, memories have a way of slowly melding together over time. As time passes and memories fade, our minds naturally fill in the gaps with a mix of delusions and imagination. Remembering from the heart is just a part of being human.
Enough time had passed that my memories started bleeding into each other, blurring the line between reality and fiction. Details aside, I would say that when I knew of Ai’s death fifteen years ago, it felt like I saw snowfall for the first time.
I tried on my Dior coat and burst out laughing at how baggy it looked on me.
It was a cold winter day, and when I tried to leave moments earlier, the penetrating breeze chilled me to the bone. In the end, I retreated inside for more clothing. By chance, my hand landed on this impressionistic coat. I bought it around ten years ago, for an absurd price.
This mustard-colored trench coat couldn’t feel more alien on me. Buried underneath was my initial garb for the cold; a fluffy sweatshirt and blue woolen socks.
I then realized that draping an expensive coat over cheap, comfortable loungewear was a mistake.
I decided to ditch the trench coat in the living room. Finally, I kicked in a pair of oversized Adidas sandals and set out. That guy should have left better shoes after he moved away.
“Well, whatever.” I sighed.
It takes three minutes to walk to the convenience store, why did I even bother dressing up?
I slipped on a urethane mask, as always. After double-checking that I remembered my keys, I took a quick look through the peephole. It was a recurring habit of mine. When I was out in the hallway, I unconsciously looked back, shuddering.
Better safe than sorry.
Upon leaving the building, a gust slammed my side. I clenched my teeth. With my small body shivering in the December cold, I hastened to the store.
While waiting at an intersection, a university student appeared to my left. I tried to avoid making eye contact. The light turned green but I remained stock-still.
If I took the lead, he would follow behind me. I can’t endure a gaze from where I can’t see.
The inner lining of the knit kept me warm, but my nape was exposed to the biting cold. To me though, a human gaze is both colder and sharper than any icy wind.
I hung behind, keeping the man in sight.
I would have gotten there sooner if I ran. This is awful.
“Should’ve worn the coat,” I grumbled.
Rather than creeping around in loungewear, I should have prioritized warmth. As I trudged back, my feelings of regret only grew.
That said, by next month, I’d forget this bitter lesson and repeat the same mistake. I am certain of this alone…
With everything said and done, I have grown too old to learn from my mistakes. I have far too many regrets to care anymore. The 37-year-old me no longer wants to change.
It was a different story back when I was an idol, though.
17 years ago.
I was a member of the idol group B-Komachi. Back then, we would chase the spotlight. We sold our youth for cheers, for envy, for attention.
I cared a lot more about my appearance back then. People’s looks were requisite to their desirability. Being seen as cute, being beautiful was all I cared about. After all, the entertainment industry is the embodiment of lookism.
They value women based on their looks, giving jobs out only to the beguiling. It was the rule, everyone said. That’s entertainment, they claimed. Be cute, be beautiful, they demanded.
Only when I re-entered society did I understand how twisted the entertainment industry was. In hindsight, it’s nothing short of wicked. Most normal people would label it as discrimination, or even harassment. For heaven’s sake, there’d be a huge outcry if they only knew what goes on behind the scenes.
How come it hasn’t been addressed then? Well, because we’re treated as “commodities.”
Looks are the specs, educational records are the demands.
Hairstyles must give each member a distinctive flavor, but the outfits needed to present a unified package. That was the minimal baseline for a selling agency. If a bag of chips was torn, customers would rush in to complain about it.
When did it start? When did that kind of world begin to disgust me?
I had always loved idols, yearned for them, and sought to become them.
When I went to my first audition, my passion was as engulfing as lava. And like lava, it cooled down and solidified. The next thing I knew, I had a solid volcanic rock in my chest, a weight that followed me wherever I went.
When I turned 24, I retired.
Anything but being an idol was fine by me. If I could be passionate about it then that’s all I needed.
So for a while, I did modeling.
My face was a little good-looking, but that was all I had.
I gave up on the possibility of acting. During my idol days, the agency sent us to a couple of acting classes. Occupied with being an idol, nothing stuck with me. I dropped it after a few tries.
After that, the title of “former B-Komachi member” landed me a few jobs. But that didn’t amount to much since I wasn’t the popular one in the group.
Time passed, and I was fighting a losing battle against other talents.
Around the time that my jobs were at an all-time low, B-Komachi itself disbanded.
When my contract renewal with the agency drew closer, President Miyako asked me what I wanted to do.
What did I want to do?
What could I do?
Singing, dancing, and looking cute and young were all I was. Soon enough, being “young” would be taken from me too.
Stylists began to dress me in beige or navy rather than my original pink costumes.
Going back to live with my parents didn’t sound too appealing either.
I had to work.
“I can do this,” I told the President.
There was sadness in her eyes. “I see.”
No, that wasn’t what actually happened. Regardless of how desperately I wished for it to be true.
There was a hazy blank in my memory there. I couldn’t remember what I said back then.
But one thing was certain, the next thing I knew, I had left the agency. A little later, I busied myself with job searching. At last, I landed a job at a web service company.
Getting a job after quitting my life as an idol wasn’t easy.
My applications to the various cosmetic and fashion companies I yearned for were all rejected. Sometimes I would get into auditions, but it wasn’t because I was qualified for the job; rather, the recruiter was merely curious about my experiences in the entertainment industry. Attitudes like those made me uncomfortable.
Being a “former idol” garners attention. However, most of the time, it wasn’t the good kind. Many people found it off-putting. “Weren’t you an idol?” they would grumble.
I’m sorry that I’m not a cute idol.
Or rather, I was rejected precisely because I was an idol.
“Maybe I’ll get some work if there’s one of my former fans in the company,” is a widespread belief among idols.
In reality, many of my peers indeed got jobs through old fans. Even so, being an idol didn’t give you some unforeseen advantage in life. If anything, going to a university might have been more practical.
During my career’s peak, I had saved about a million yen. Even those extensive savings had dried up four years after I left the idol industry.
I used to live on the fourteenth floor of a sizable condominium, but those days are long gone. My current apartment is now a cheap ninety thousand yen one-bedroom.
I wasn’t surprised by any of this. I had always been aware of the risks.
I gradually came to understand what wealth truly meant. But by that point it was pretty much too late.
After all, innocence is reserved for the young
That coat, too, stood as a relic of my idol’s age. A phantom of the days past, of youth, of beauty. I knew full well that I would never wear it again.
And yet my attachment to the past stopped me from selling it.
Sometimes I would envy Ai. Forever young, forever beautiful.
No woman in the world could match her, I thought. Perhaps this too, was yet another shadow of my past.
I long for that to be true, to believe she truly was the most beautiful of all. It’s selfish of me, but I can’t help but wish so.
When I was young I wondered if I should die before I grew old. Yet here I am, clinging tenaciously to a life that amounts to nothing.
“Ah, I used to sing songs like that…”
***
