“I’m so happy that you decided to come see us Miyako. I thought I’d given you the wrong impression when we met the first time.” Kashiwagi rubbed his hands together in barely concealed glee as I followed him up a tight flight of stairs. He opened a door and allowed me to enter first. The office wasn’t a run-down dump, but it wasn’t blowing me away either.

“Things changed. I was hoping that you could do me a favour, help each other out.”

Kashiwagi held up his hand, “Take a seat.” I sat down opposite him and awaited his opening salvo.

“Do you know what we do here?”

“Manage performers?”

“Yes. But specifically we assist them with reaching out to interested bookers, creating a social media presence, managing their image, and giving them training to enhance their opportunities. That being said, we also ask a few commitments from the people we manage.”

“What kind of commitments?”

“Keeping your nose clean, no arrests or anything like that. Projecting a positive image of the agency. Fulfilling booked commitments, with exceptions for emergencies that might impact your performance. Nobody would work with us if our talent kept skipping dates.”

“I understand.”

“I know you were concerned about being turned into an ‘idol’ by us. We aren’t an idol agency; we don’t manage performers like that. We’re not here to look over every aspect of your life and choose what you’re allowed to do. And I also understand that you’re in your last year of school, and there’s a lot of options open to you right now. I don’t expect you to stick with us for years given those circumstances.”

“…I don’t know if I want to do this for myself. I’m doing this for a friend, the point being, the only way I’m doing this is if he gets paid too.”

“Is that the favour you were hoping for?”

“He needs the money more than I do, and he’s twenty times more passionate about music than I am.”

Kashiwagi seemed interesting in the story, “Well, I won’t dig too deep into your reasons. Call it cynical, but I was already considering bringing in your band as a unit anyway. I dropped by your show to see how you’d do.”

“Really? I didn’t see you.”

“I was near the back. The point being that you have something unique, and more important for us here, marketable. Not just for your own local celebrity but being a school club that’s going out and making things happen. I know a woman who runs a recording studio, and digital distribution is all the rage these days. We could do it, we could get an album or EP out for you,” he reiterated.

“What if it doesn’t sell?”

“It doesn’t matter. The only investment is your time, we’re not printing CDs to distribute to stores. We can gauge your reach without having to go all the way.”

“I need to get them to agree first, Johnny will kill me for changing my mind.”

Kashiwagi smiled with crooked teeth, “No need to worry. We’re speaking in hypotheticals here. If it doesn’t work out, then it’s not much trouble.

Hypotheticals seemed to be overtaking my life recently. It was silly and stupid and any person looking from the inside in would call me bipolar for changing my mind on the spot like that. I was a fickle woman. I could do what I wanted. And it was for a good cause anyway. I didn’t need any judgment from other people about it.

---

Johnny shot me a strange look as I pulled him aside after class, I had to take the hit and tell him what had happened. We were out in the yard where nobody would hear us. “Remember that asshole you made me meet a few days ago?”

“Yeah, what about him?”

“I went to the office.”

Johnny threw up his hands in protest, “What? You gave me so much shit for introducing you to him.”

“I know, but… things changed. It’s not for me.”

“What do you mean it’s not for you?”

“The guy in charge, Kashiwagi, he says that he can help us record an EP with the material I wrote,” I pulled the book out of my bag and showed it to him. Johnny took it from me and flicked through the notes.

“Recording an album sounds cool, I guess. But why the change of heart? You’re not exactly the kind of person to go back on a decision like that.”

I looked around to make sure that nobody could hear us. I leaned in close to Johnny, “Alright, this doesn’t leave this conversation, right? Just me and you. This is some heavy stuff.”

“Right.”

“You know Shinsuke’s been having problems? At home.”

Johnny shuffled, “I thought that something was going on, but you know, I don’t like to think about that kind of thing. And I'm not gonna' bring it up.”

“His parents beat the shit out of him Johnny, I found him loitering outside of school because he ran away from home.”

He closed his eyes and nodded, blowing air from his nose, “Right. I get it.”

“He doesn’t have a thing. No money, no other family to go live with. I had to put him up for the night. So I got thinking that maybe we could all give him a hand – try to make a bit of cash for him so he has something to fall back on.”

Johnny considered my words for a minute. “I don’t know how much money we could make selling our own album though.”

“May as well try though right? We have a chance here, we didn’t realize it then, but this is just what we need. A studio, a website, and some word of mouth, we could make him a bit of cash at least. Give him something to protect himself.”

Johnny nodded, “Alright. I’m on board. What are you going to tell him?”

“I didn’t want to tell anybody else really. But I’m going to see what Shinsuke thinks first. This isn’t me doing charity for him, we’re going to do this properly.”

“Get all the boys on board without letting them know, it might be tough.”

“Just tell them it’ll be fun. Beats playing in that busted to shit club room.”

Johnny laughed, “You’re right. Matoi would crawl over broken glass to get a pro setup.”

---

“So, the long and short of it is that me and Miyako managed to score us a big opportunity. A local agency wants to give us some studio time to record a single or two.” Johnny had been the one to make the pitch, since he was so excited about the idea in the first place.

Matoi was sceptical, “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with the guy?”

“Well – he told me that I could bring you all along to work with me. Since it’d be a club activity, I decided to let you all in on it instead. Beats being an idol or whatever.” Kei seemed excited, but Shinsuke hadn’t said a word, “Shinsuke, sound good to you?”

He brushed away his fringe and nodded, “Whatever. As long as you don’t pick a stupid time.”

I pulled out my workbook and put it down on the table, I cringed in anticipation of what was to come. “I need you to rip this apart.”

Matoi put his hand down on the cover and pulled it to his side of the table, “Huh?”

“I want all of you to savage whatever I wrote down in there over the past month. And don’t be nice to spare my feelings. If we’re going to take the time to go into a pro studio, I want some pro quality material to play in it.”

“I get it.”

“And if you have any bright ideas of your own, riffs, lyrics, anything, we need to be able to share them with each other.”

Johnny decided to cut through my leadership with a single comment, “You still want to sing?”

“…I don’t know.”

I didn’t. I’d enjoyed my time at the front of the group somehow, even though Johnny had forced me into it. Our entire identity as a band before then was what Johnny brought to the table. He had a punk look and a punk voice, and our music reflected that. We stood out, but that didn’t mean we were popular.

I had the voice of a J-pop singer, and a face to match. I could have easily leveraged my looks and god given vocal talent to take the world by storm. There is always something appealing about the path to success, the road that leads to accolades and easy money. But was that what I wanted really? Again, Johnny forced me to the front. I still preferred to play guitar. Pragmatism versus idealism.

Pragmatism was the entire reason we were here though; it was the reason Johnny asked me. He knew all of that as well as I did. To a stranger I was a naturally appealing person. Johnny pushed people away with his bleached hair and rough and tumble voice, I drew them in with earthly beauty and a cool attitude. If we wanted to give Shinsuke something to survive with – we needed to decide on who would be at the front. Who would capture the hearts and minds of the people in town and beyond?

“What do you think?”

“Johnny. You know what I think, why did you even ask?”

“You’re gonna’ do it? Because I think you’re the key to making this idea worth the time. I know we always tried to avoid being sell-outs but…”

I looked to Shinsuke. I didn’t know if he was looking me dead in the eye, and I hoped that he didn’t know why I was sacrificing my own principles like this. I didn’t want to place any responsibility on him. I didn’t want him to think that he owed me a debt.

“Yeah, I know. For this one, I’ll take the head again. Let’s use those fifteen minutes of fame before people forget who I am.”