Chapter 5

KISARAGI ATTENTION “Oh! Mornin’, Momo! Lookin’ cute as always today!” “Hee-hee-hee! Yeah…” After a quick greeting, we passed each other by. That was the thirty-seventh encounter today. It was early morning as I walked through the nearly empty shopping center, far removed from the shortest, most direct route to school. Right now, there were no shops open, no customers milling about—or there shouldn’t have been. But the place was quickly beginning to come alive. A steady stream of people flew out of the stores I passed, as if waiting for just this moment to try to strike up a conversation. “Ooh, Momo! Off to school again? Try to enjoy summer break at least a little, eh?” “Uh…yeah. Thanks. Ha-ha…” Number thirty-eight. I gave an awkward greeting to the produce seller who popped out from behind his stand. Looking ahead, I noticed the road begin to swell up with people. “Ngh…!” I recoiled for a moment, but there was no time to sit and ponder over it. I made a right at the shuttered drugstore adjacent to the produce stand, attempting to escape down a narrow side path. I checked my watch as I began to trot along. If anything, I had it pretty lucky this morning. Usually, I’d screw up and have to retreat back in the direction of home by now. If everything went right, I might actually make it through the school gate with time to spare today. As I made a left at the T intersection, my legs gradually quickening their pace, I realized how wrong I really was. The line of people at the bus stop was long enough that not even two buses would be enough to hold them all. They must have been running behind schedule. A man in the back noticed me. The moment he raised his voice, everyone’s eyes were immediately upon me. —Oh, no. This is bad. Shrinking back at the chorus of cheers, my face turned ashen when I saw the clock hanging from the bus stop. My drawn-out groan was quashed by the drone of the cicadas. “Dahhh! I knew it…” The school gate was already closed, not offering enough space for a single straggler to get through. Of course, if it did allow people to get through, it wouldn’t serve much purpose as a gate. Thinking about it that way, it was doing a hell of a job. August 14th, 9:10 a.m. It was no longer a matter of being on time. I was so late, I had cut out the entire first period of summer school. I had successfully dodged all the autograph-seekers at the bus stop, but by then, my schedule was already ruined. My luck ran out for good when I started running down the main thoroughfare, the shortest route—a truly desperate decision. On the street, one of my lovey-dovey songs, the sort of thing I couldn’t deny was far too over-the-top, was being played at high volume. Posters advertising my new single were tacked up all over the place. A large plasma screen showed me dancing in an outfit that looked bent on smothering me in frills. The record shop underneath the screen was selling my new CD (debuting today, of course), and a line of people snaked out the door, hoping for a chance at the free limited-edition poster on offer. “If I hadn’t been passing by just then, who knows what would’ve happened to you…” My manager’s car, parked in front of the school, was a miniature utopia of air-conditioning. The short-haired woman in the driver’s seat had her arms draped over the steering wheel. She mumbled with the drone of a woman exhausted after a hard day’s work, even though it was still morning. “I…I’m sorry. But it wasn’t my fault! I think the buses were running late today or something, so there were all these students…” I tried my best to defend myself, but was stopped by a long, fatigued sigh. “Listen, I understand how you feel…and I know you think commuting by car would make you stand out too much.” “Um…yeah…” “I want to respect your wishes as much as I can, but…Well, I’m just not sure it’s practical any longer. I think we’re going to have to talk about this again soon.” She seemed terribly apologetic about it. I felt terribly apologetic about myself. After a moment of quiet, I looked at my watch. The first period was just about to end. “…Ah! I need to go…! Uh, I’ll call you later! Sorry!” I hopped out the passenger door, turned around, and bowed at my manager in apology. She waved me off, a resigned smile on her face. After bowing one more time as she turned off the hazard lights and drove away, I walked along the wall encompassing the school grounds and building, headed for the employee entrance. I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead, formed by the temperature difference between the brisk car interior and outside. The furor of the morning’s events had already made me sweaty to the point that my uniform shirt was sticking to my back, so it wasn’t much of an issue. Running around in this heat would make anyone perspire, no matter how much of a glittery sixteen-year-old your branding makes you out to be. Awful. Just awful. I want to go home and take a shower. The bell began to ring just as I reached the edge of the school wall. Crap. My second remedial class was starting in just ten minutes. I jogged up to the employee entrance and pushed the small intercom button. After a few seconds, the speaker crackled to life. Even through this cheap speaker, you could still hear a subdued, alien murmur of noise in the background, that classic trademark of school life. The thought of spending the whole day in that clamor was easily enough to fill my heart with gloom. “Can I help you?” “Oh, hello! Momo Kisaragi, year one…I’m late to my remedial classes, but would I be able to get in…?” I couldn’t guess how many times I’ve spoken with this office receptionist. It’s been about four months since I came here, but this may be the woman I’ve spoken to the most. It was sad to think that these little intercom chats were taking up more than ninety percent of my school conversations. “Ah, yes, Miss Kisaragi. I’ll unlock the door, so head over to the faculty room for me, please.” If there was anything I could take comfort in, it lay in how she didn’t ask me why, or get angry at me, or even make any unusual note of it any longer. “Thanks…Sorry.” The lock made a clunking sound, and I pushed open the door to the school grounds. The door closed automatically, locking itself shut with another clunk. The school grounds were infused with a sort of cool, refreshing atmosphere you never found outside. It was summer break, but the place was still open for club activities and summer-school students. —I had only just enrolled this spring. The school building, freshly renovated two years ago, had a fetching Western-style design to it, almost too gaudy for its intended purpose. It wasn’t quite up to the level of the glittering all-girl private academies you saw in shoujo manga, but it had everything from a needlessly elegant clock tower to little creeks, fountains, and nude bronze statues dotting the grounds. As if that weren’t enough, these weird tunnels made out of vines and grass and so forth seemed to be everywhere you looked. I don’t know who came up with this, but setting up this mistaken attempt at a fancy boarding school in the middle of a crowded cityscape was, I thought, just adding more chaos to the landscape. But—and it should have been expected—it was apparently a hit with young women, enough so that the school was constantly near the top of the prefecture in application count. This school caught my attention for very non-fairy-tale reasons (it was close to my house), but really, for someone like me with an overwhelming lack of study skills, getting accepted was nothing but pure coincidence. There were already a hopeless number of absences and tardies in my record, so I was going to summer school to make up for it. But even if I won the perfect-attendance award yearly, I’d probably still be forced into these remedial courses. That much, at least, I was confident of. I was also out of time. Scrambling for the faculty room as fast as I could, I clambered up three flights of stairs before reaching the glass door. Opening it brought me back to a blissful world of air-conditioned comfort once more. Standing in a chilly room made me all the more aware of how much sweat was dripping off me. I picked up my bag and slippers next to the shoe locker and hurriedly changed into my indoor footwear. “Agh! It can’t be that late already!…Oww!” As I folded up my slipper bag and bent over to remove the one for my outdoor shoes, something hard hit me on the head. Surprised, I looked up at a large man in a lab coat carrying an attendance ledger. “Uh…Ha-ha-ha! I…um, good morning?” “Was that meant as a question? If so, then yeah, it is still morning. Barely.” “Y-yeah…” Oh, no. I forgot that my first period today was taught by my homeroom teacher. I could slip past the other teachers, but this was one man I couldn’t fool. “You know, I’m not the sort of guy who likes to quibble about lateness, but I think you should have a look at this.” “Hmm? What’s this…? Whaaaaa?!” He took a paper out from the attendance ledger and handed it to me. It was enough to make me turn white. “You know what this is, right? Is that much clear enough?” “It’s my Biology I test…The one from last week.” “Ah, good. Glad that’s understood. Now, do you know what the number written next to your name means?” “Um…heh-heh. I’m not sure I do, actually…Ow!” He hit me with his ledger again. His expression never changes, so I always have to stay on my guard around him. He’s impossible to dodge, too. “Look. Your handwriting’s a bit…unique. Nonscientific, I could say. That I don’t mind, but after two weeks of remedial courses, you get a two? Are we gonna have to be here a hundred weeks before you get a perfect score?” The result of the test in my hands was devastating. I made the effort to write an answer down for every single question. Not a single one went unnoticed. But, save for one, there was a red X next to each response. The sight was unreal. I could feel myself getting dizzy. “But…but I studied and everything…” “What? Are you kidding?! You call this ‘studying’?! Look at this. ‘Question: Name one type of mammal. Answer: Crab or salmon.’ That’s studying?!” “W-well, my mother ate a lot of those back when she grew up on the coast in Hokkaido, so…I, I mean, I was wavering between that and ‘Deer or bear,’ so…” “Yes! Them! That’s right!…Why are you going on about your mother’s homeland in a bio test?! And why are you giving me pairs?! It says only one!” “What’s wrong with that? That’d be too lonely, having only one of them!” “Why are you trying to get all fancy with your test answers? You’re making no sense at all! Besides, if you put a deer and a bear together, the deer’s gonna get eaten!” “E-eaten…?!” Wavering against this barrage of criticism, I took another look at my test paper. I was completely befuddled by what could have caused this. I put every fiber of my body into taking this test, and the results were just brutal. What would my mom say if I showed this to her…? I didn’t even want to imagine it. —It’s always like this. No matter what I do, I wind up with these crazy results. And every time, I can feel people’s eyes honing in on me. Back in fourth or fifth grade, I drew a picture in class that happened to catch the eye of a famous author. He put it on the cover of his novel, and that novel wound up being a huge bestseller. Once I reached middle school I was recruited by the art club, and the work I submitted to a contest held at the beginning of my first year completely dominated the club president’s submission on its way to winning first prize nationwide. It was around that time when I began to feel the eyes of people around me gathering around not just my work, but myself. In my second year, I quit the art club; it was getting too uncomfortable for me and the other members. My afternoons were suddenly free, and while on a meandering after-school shopping trip, I began to get scouted more and more often by talent agents. I turned them down at first. The agency that reps me now just happened to call me up while my mother was having a few problems with work. I figured I would try to help keep the lights on a little. That was really the only reason. I had no particular interest in television or music. But even I had to admit it—I adored the idea of being a pop idol, going onstage and singing for the masses. My first gig as a would-be idol was to serve as the warm-up for one of the more established acts at the agency, basically chatting with the audience for a little bit. Even now, I don’t think I’m exactly gifted when it comes to public speaking but, at the time, the only thing running through my mind was “our household is riding on this; I’ve got to keep from getting fired, no matter what.” Once up onstage, I was so nervous that I honestly don’t remember what I talked about, but I suppose you could say I was an instant success. A perfect ten, results-wise. I had revved that audience to unheard-of levels of excitement, to the point where I was the subject of feature articles in magazines and tabloids. If there was any negative aspect, it was that I wound up becoming the main talking point of the show, not the main act I was supposed to be fronting. So there you have it. This girl chatting onstage, not singing or dancing or anything, an anonymous rookie idol, suddenly earning a massive, rabid fan base. The agency couldn’t have been happier with me, but ever since that day, the number of job offers has grown to positively scary levels, barely giving me time to breathe in between phone calls. It defied any measure of logic or common sense. There was no reason for it. I had no attractions to speak of. But everybody’s eyes grew increasingly fixated upon me. It made me realize all over again that I was far from a “normal” girl. “Hello? Are you listening to me?” “…Huh?! Uh, yes, sir!” “No, you weren’t. I’m not blind, you know. Is the summer heat making you faint or something?” “No, uh, it’s just that…that test was just, like, too much for me, so…Ha-ha…” “That much I could tell, yes. I’ll give you a chance at a retest next week, so…just try your best, okay?” He looked at me with the downtrodden eyes of a man looking at a pitiful, wayward child. “Next week?! Ughh…I’ll try…” I thought I’d tried hard enough with this test. How am I supposed to try even harder…? “Try not to get too tense or anything, all right? I’m sure you’re still getting used to things around the school…and you’ve got a concert next week, right?” “Ah…! Y-yes…I do…” My face could not have been a very healthy-looking shade at this point. I held it down as much as I could, to not much avail. The teacher sighed and looked at me again, this time with gentle eyes that belied his exasperation. “Well, try not to work too hard…You can go home now, if you like. You mentioned you were shooting that TV drama today, didn’t you?” “Y-yes…Wait, no! I’ll go to class, okay? There’s still lots of time!” “Didn’t you see the remedial-course schedule? It’s the Obon holiday, so the first-year students are only here for first period today. Class will start up again in three days. You should really be keeping track, you know.”