NOTE: Warning for implied sexual abuse, because, well... Kotoko.
Kotoko stopped with the music.
Holding her pose, with a jaunty little cock of her head on the very last note, microphone still pulled up under her chin. Smiling.
Sayaka absolutely could not deny - she was practiced in cute.
"How was that?" Kotoko asked her. Her voice like candy-apple syrup.
Sayaka fluttered a soft laugh in, likewise, a practiced sweet measure. "Very nice, Kotoko!" she said. A soft-yet-refreshing whistling wind.
It was very conscious and deliberate when she added, "It can't have been easy, training to the point of having choreography like that down by your age!"
Kotoko giggled. Bounced and wiggled from shoe to polished shoe a couple of times, her pigtails swaying. A picture of very put-on glee at the joy of being praised. "Well, duh! Of course I had to put the work in!" she said. "Being adorbs is, like, our whole brand as cute girl stars, isn't it?"
Our, Sayaka noticed. Not letting her own smile waver as in her mind's eye, she saw a roiling mass of dark gray consideration.
Sometimes, Kotoko very, very deliberately left her out of statements pertaining to be a performer.
Other times, she did this.
She hadn't yet quite pinned down the pattern to when she did each. Nor was she quite sure whether or not Kotoko was doing it on purpose.
Consciously, at the very least.
Sayaka turned up a little of the spotlight shine to her smile. Roofed her eyebrows a little in faux-sheepishness; a little lilting laugh of the same. "Well, I know that if I said that about my own work as an idol, I'd definitely feel like I was selling myself short..." she said. "...But that is what most people tend to think of when they think of cute girl performers, huh…?"
Meeting Kotoko's deliberation with her own. If I said that about my own work was meant to equal I don't think you're correct, in case you mean what you're saying , followed by I see you're trying to make a point, and I think I see what it is.
Kotoko… was one of those children, Sayaka had begun to think.
One of those.
The kind who one might call a devil child, not because they were bad, but because that was entirely what they wanted.
She was one of a group of five friends joining them from the elementary school for the Ultimate Big Brother and Sister Mentorship Program. All of those five, Sayaka had heard, were… difficult students. They distrusted teachers. Barely tolerated older children. Whoever got assigned to them was going to have their hands full.
As far as Sayaka could tell, each of the other four was currently faring well or… at least well enough in their buddy-ups. Leon had his hands full with Masaru, poor guy, but ha - she had to laugh and call it character-building, especially knowing Nekomaru could handle anything, and Ryoma wasn't easily phased, and Aoi and Akane had experience with kids; any of them could easily take the little guy off his hands; she'd heard Jataro and Angie holding conversations that sounded like absolutely rapt make-believe over their otherworldly sculpture and drawing; Nagisa seemed like a tough kid, not one to run Byakuya's patience dry or have an overabundance of trouble understanding Korekiyo's lessons through his eccentricity; while she was ruefully aware Monaca was giving Makoto trouble, well… at least for the girl's sake, she seemed to respond to Nagito. Junko, too, when she encountered her - the only older kid any of them seemed to seek out.
...She guessed she was in the same camp as her boys, when she thought about it.
Kotoko kept her at arm's length. At the same time, however… she did this.
She always seemed to be playing some kind of dancing game with her. Planting obstacles and clues and little seeds of information in her words.
How she said them didn't help.
She truly was a consummate performer.
But, Sayaka fancied, so was she herself.
She was set to watch and listen to and pick apart Kotoko's next turn before she took it. Still wearing that innocent, sheepish smile.
And Kotoko's turn was telling from the very start of it.
She promptly stopped smiling. She made her eyes bigger and tilted her head. Curious. Just a bit too slow and fluid to be non-deliberate. "Not just cute girl performers," she said. "That's all cute girls are in general! We're always getting reduced to eye candy!"
...Sayaka didn't mind betraying herself a bit.
Her lips thinned on time with a sudden blink; meanwhile, her heart knocked in her chest.
Where did you learn to apply language like that to yourself.
Kotoko gave her skirt a sway before leaning forward. Microphone still clutched just below the level of her mouth, in two fists. "But it's different when you're a performer, because we have a brand to be reduced to!" she said.
Still incongruously sweet. Melodic. Chirping.
It was like she was trying to scare Sayaka.
Sayaka had a chill running down her back, all right.
It wasn't fear.
"We really get the whole world thinking of us as nothing but cute li'l dolls to take off the shelf and enjoy aaaaaall for themselves whenever they want, huh!" The corners of Kotoko's mouth tugged up. A smile. "A lot of the time, it's not even about our talent! We just gotta give aaaaaall the adults who make the money move the sugar that they want! That's true, isn't it?"
Where did you learn to talk this way.
The chill deepened on a question that Sayaka swore to god she had the answer to in a black box that she didn't want to open, in a closet that was right there, and that she likewise didn't want to open.
Kotoko shut her eyes - lower lids lifted. Emphasizing the smile. She tilted her head. "That's what you think, isn't it?"
...No.
Sayaka scowled - the chill flash-solidified into a harsh freeze, half-indignant.
Kotoko had overplayed her hand.
"...No, I don't," Sayaka said. Soft-edged yet flat and firm.
Calling her bluff.
Kotoko gave a light questioning hum, reopening her eyes. Not dropping her own smile.
Sayaka waited a moment to let the look on her own face set in.
I'm not playing around right now.
I want you to listen.
She shook her head, hair swaying. "You're not wrong," she said.
Kotoko didn't change.
"But that's not all there is to it."
Sayaka, all the while, continued to consider her delivery carefully.
"I don't feel that way about my own career," she said, shaking her head again. "I do feel like there are plenty of people who appreciate me for my work. Maybe… that work isn't all that got me to the point of being an Ultimate, but…"
- Kotoko stood up. Put her hands behind her back, started sway-wiggle-dancing again, as if she was teasingly hiding the mic. Face still unchanging.
Still, a stab in Sayaka's chest.
That was important.
"...those are the people who I think about when I think about how proud I am of my job. I think about the people who smile at my work. That inspires me to keep doing my best at it."
She stood.
Kotoko stilled.
Her face, still, had not changed.
"But like I said, Kotoko… I know you're not wrong."
Just a little softer.
She took one step toward the stairs up onto the stage. Not taking her eyes off of Kotoko.
Who, at last, let her smile slip.
The look of surprise she had on now was not stylized.
For a third time, Sayaka shook her head. A small, quick, controlled weave. "There are people who… treat us like dolls. Just like you said." Another step. Another. "And, I mean… you're right. Famous or not, even just… being cute isn't easy all the time." Another. ...Another. "There are people out there who may just… expect you to be that. For everyone."
She wasn't sure how else she wanted to put it.
But she concluded, as she finally ascended the steps, "And I'm… so sorry that you've had to be surrounded by people like that. Especially so early."
She stood over Kotoko, looking down.
Kotoko's mouth was open. Eyes huge. Her hands were lifted - tucked close to her, one clutching the microphone tight.
"But… in case it's worth anything…" ...Sayaka shut her eyes - averted them, with a small turn of her head. Let them drop to the ground. Half in a show of thoughtfulness. Half to give the girl back some room to operate. "...it can be helpful to stick together with other people who've… been through that. Who know that it's not easy, in a way that… not a lot of people even really think about. Or even know about."
She considered an additional card in her head.
There's a lot I'm trying to say, here, but part of it is… I'm not your enemy, Kotoko.
I could be your friend.
She kept it in her deck; it seemed too much.
Too much Kotoko could turn back against her.
After all, as she looked down at Kotoko's still frozen-gasping face, she didn't doubt that she would still spring back.
Keep playing till she got sick of it.
And, sure enough - one… two… three…
"Wow, Big Sis Sayaka!" Kotoko half-squealed, half-chirped, with a great big bounce off her heels, hands clenching into pumping fists, eyes shut again in a great big beam. "You sure are one tough cookie!"
...Sayaka smiled, too, softly.
Wistfully.
Kotoko was calling her tough for not having been intimidated, she could tell.
This was the first time she'd called her Big Sis, but she doubted that it meant much - yet, at least. She assumed it was… throwing her a bone. Also for not having been intimidated. For having tried.
Still, it was… a step in a productive direction, Sayaka thought.
This was the furthest she had felt any of their conversations thus far had gotten.
And she knew that she, at the very least, had learned something.