AN: Present for a friend that likes KagePro. May edit to be better eventually. Happy August 15th!
I don't regret my decisions.
It's a choice I made a long time ago. Regret will implode upon you if you do; it will fester like a cut that never heals. I never think 'what if I had done something else' because I know that those thoughts don't matter; they're just thoughts. Thoughts may lead to action, but thoughts alone exist only as much as you do. If I think 'what if', it predicates a thought on how I can undo the decision now. Dwelling on the past does nothing for anyone. The only thing living in the past can do for you is let you wallow in self-pity until you decide to die in your pool of lost potential. I don't plan to do that nor am I capable of doing it. You can only lose potential if you have it in the first place.
I'm walking aimlessly through the city. Everyone looks at me reflexively. It's like I'm a fucking supernova that's just landed on earth, ready to explode at any second, and nobody wants to miss the moment. I want them to all disappear. Everyone's heads turn to look at me, and that turned me into a fucking idol. I wanted to laugh when the agent offered, but I signed the contract, or rather, my mother did. I yelled at her, how could she, how dare she sign my life away without my consent.
"You're failing miserably in school, Momo. Don't you see? I'm doing this for your future!"
She seemed upset that I was unhappy with her decision. She knows nothing about what being an idol is really like, how it's harder than any fucking career path I could never enter because I'm too stupid.
No one calls me stupid to my face, not anymore. Not since they learned how much muscle an idol has to gain to sing and dance perfectly at the same time without breaking a sweat for hours at a time. How you're able to kick hard enough to bruise a rib, and punch hard enough to knock out teeth.
The producers tell me that the constant school suspensions will tarnish my idol reputation, but right now, I'm a nobody, one whom everyone looks at, but a nobody nevertheless. Though soon, that will end. Soon, I'll make my album debut, and the magazines will be digging for every piece of information they can get their hands on. My mother is planning to pay the school to burn the disciplinary records into the smoke.
I walk into the house. It's silent. My mother's at work, Shintaro's in his room, wallowing in depression. At least, that's what I expect. No one could pay me to go in his room.
I hear footsteps and turn to see Shintaro walking outside. I jump at the sight of him not in his room slouching in his swivel chair. Not once in two years has he left his room all because his girlfriend committed suicide. It isn't that he doesn't deserve to grieve, but having a middle-schooler call you a fucking chuunibyou doesn't bode well for your mental maturity. He has his headphones plugged into his phone, probably talking to his weird virus AI thing girl apparently named Ene. He's oblivious to my presence.
I make myself a sandwich and head to my room. Passing by Shintaro's room, I crinkle my nose at the sight which the open door gives me. Our mother will come to take all of the laundry later tonight along with all of the empty soda bottles. She's always too busy micromanaging my life, so she tries to compensate with Shintaro by letting him do whatever the fuck he wants.
I slam the door to my room. No one is here to get mad about it, so why not?
The sandwich bread is stale, and the ham tastes sickly. I throw it away in the trash bin, disturbing the gnats that live in our house despite how clean our mother insists on keeping it.
I lie on my bed. It's bright orange, my mother's favorite color, and the one my producers decided I should always wear (they say it matches my hair; I call bullshit). A dress is next to me. It's bright orange. Surprise, surprise.
Next to it, there's a note telling me to try it on to make sure it fits. Of course it fits; my mother told the producers all of my measurements.
I look in the mirror, and immediately take it off. I look like one of those fruit flavored cream popsicles that are always disgusting because who likes those abominations.
My phone buzzes with a text message. I fall down on my bed, looking at the text. It's from my mother. She's going to be late when coming home.
I go back outside to the city. Walking around aimlessly in downtown Tokyo is a favorite pastime of mine. While in Ikebukuro, I see an album cover that has me on it in the window of a record store, and I cross the street to check that it's real.
It's real. The album shows me at my first photo shoot. My mother had threatened to force me on a diet if I didn't behave on set. My face was caked in three hours of makeup and that dress was made entirely of low quality polyester. Itchy as hell.
"Are you Kisaragi Momo?"
It's a little girl. There's a crowd of people behind her that's gathering more people by the minute. I was so entranced by the album that for the first time, I didn't notice everyone staring at me.
I don't answer her and just keep walking. A reporter pushes her way through the crowd. Her makeup is perfectly noticeable, her hair in a tight bun, her lips a coral orange.
Shoving a microphone in my face, she starts to ask me all of these questions about my idol career that I couldn't care less about. The crowd starts to grow even larger, starts to surround me instead of staying in front.
I breathe in and out and in and out and in and out. Twitching my left eye, I rub my hands together. I feel sweat creeping up on my neck, but I can't let any of that show. Or maybe I should. My idol career would be over pretty quickly if everyone knew I'm claustrophobic. Only a little bit.
I keep rubbing my hands together nervously. I answer no comment to the reporter while walking at a leisurely pace out of the horde of people.
"Why are you running, Momo-chan?" the reporter asks, trying to keep pace with me. This is insufferable. Who does this reporter think she is, calling me 'Momo-chan'?
She keeps trying to get me to answer her questions. I break out into a fast jog, and she disappears. Everyone disappears.
I'm panting, sucking in as much air as I can. My legs are burning from exertion. I'm alone at least. Looking around, I'm back home. Shintaro's back as well, and I hear him talking to his computer.
Silence fills his room. I peek in for a moment, curious, to see him with a pair of red scissors at his neck. I watch as he sinks it in his flesh. Screaming echoes from his computer as the blue digital girl pounds at the computer screen.
Kisaragi Shintaro. I always knew that the only time I would ever acknowledge our blood relation is when he was six feet underground. I only decided that after Aya (I think that was her name) died and he became a hermit, dropped out of school and everything. And of course our mother let him. It was obvious he suffered from severe depression, but he fucking deserved it. He could've chosen to not stuff himself in his room, to rot.
His blood isn't very red, I notice. It's just a peculiar shade of orange.