“We are going to help nurture the next generation of performers in a safe, stable, professional environment where they can build their own legacy with personnel and business managers, trainers, choreographers, musical directors, public relations professionals and security teams designed to help them succeed, not the other way around,” Akari swept on. The spotlight faded and left me trembling in the dark.

I felt, honestly, like I’d been violated. I had spent years tiptoeing around the spotlights shining all around me. Kunoichi spent years in the glare of the stage lights. I had always managed to fade into the darkness backstage, never stepping forward, never wanting to stand exposed before the crowds and to have all that work and care flushed away without my knowledge was maddening and horrifying.

Gradually, however, that horror turned to anger, and I turned my head slowly toward Nanami, eyes narrowing. She had been there when I had no one. She had taken me in when I had nowhere else to go. She had been more than an aunt; she had been like a mother to me.

She had always respected my choices and decisions. Even if she felt they were wrong she would defer to my judgement. Many times, she had to pick up the pieces after I broke my life, and never once had she said she told me so, even when she had. She had been the bedrock of support I had built my life on. She had been the shield between what I felt was a hostile world and myself. Now, staring at her as she sheepishly looked away, I felt betrayed.

She knew I didn’t want attention. She knew I valued my privacy. She knew I wanted no part of the world Kunoichi lived in. I had been more than content being nothing more than a satellite safe in the shadow of that world for many years and now, suddenly, gravity had caught and dragged me down in a burst of flash bulbs. My scowl deepened.

Akari was still talking but I found the heat and feeling of eyes boring into my back suffocating. I finished my drink, stood and without a word strode quickly and purposefully toward the exit, keeping my eyes on my phone. I stepped out of the front door, not even looking at the throng of reporters standing at the bottom of the stairs. Several raised their cameras, but I was already gone, vanishing into the deep shadows on the side of the building.

I looped around toward the back of the building, hopped a small fence, dress be damned, and emerged on a little used side street. Several long moments later my hired ride arrived, and I climbed in the back, giving terse directions back toward home.

The ride dropped me off at the end of my street and I proceeded directly into the cemetery, vanishing in the cold darkness. I breathed as I walked the paths through the silent stones and monuments, my breath exploding from my lips in a burst of frost. The path was unfamiliar, but its hush was comforting in a way the din of the crowd at the gathering could never be.

Finally, certain I hadn’t been followed I emerged from the graveyard, crossed the street to my apartment quickly and headed upstairs, closing and locking my door behind me. The darkness of my apartment was deep and friendly. The familiar smells and shapeless lumps of my furniture in the dim light from the windows soothed me. I kicked off my shoes and made my way toward the living room, finally falling back onto my tattered sofa with a deep sigh, a headache pounding like an over-enthusiastic drummer in my temples.

The last thing I wanted was my turn in the spotlight. I could lie to myself as I’d done possibly millions of times before and say I had seen the lure of fame corrupt better people than I. Of course, while that was fundamentally true, the real reason was much more selfish. I had left my past when I left Tottori. I had stepped outside that girl who had screamed and cried as her life as she knew it was ripped away by those who were supposed to love and support her. I had bid farewell to the girl with no power over her own life when I’d settled into that train seat.

I had left but never escaped. Not really. There was always a piece of myself stuck in Tottori. A chunk of my life I could not ever really escape from. A part of me still waited on that platform. I could not face that girl sitting on the bench in eternal anticipation of my return. The chances of being seen was small. But however small, it was still not zero and being seen was the one thing I did not want.

Some things were better left dead and buried. That girl staring down the tracks waiting for me to come back was one of them. I was no longer her. Except for her face, we had no relation to one another. My parents, my sister, my friends, they were gone. Faded into the mist. Still at home with the ghost of who I had been. They had moved on, some before I had even left. I had moved on as well. At least as well as I was able. No good could come from digging up the bones of the past and giving the girl I had been breath.

I jumped as my phone rang in the dark, my heart pounding in sudden surprise. I angrily fished it out of my pocket and stared at the number popping up. Nanami. Of course. I scowled deeply and flipped the text response, writing simply “Don’t call me. I don’t want to talk to you.” Before silencing the ringer. The phone remained silent for a few moments more before it rang again. Again Nanami. My scowl deepened and I quickly turned the phone off. Nanami was pretty near the top of my shit list, and I had no interest in anything she had to say.

I tossed the phone onto the table beside the sofa and sniffed irritably. To hell with her. To hell with Kunoichi. To hell with this world right now. I climbed to my feet, locked the door, and stomped down the hall to the bathroom. I began heating the tub while I rummaged through my closet.

After several minutes I found the large over-sized T shirt I wanted to wear to bed and entered the bathroom, desperate to get out of this stupid outfit and wash away the clown makeup I’d put on. I didn’t mind make-up, per se. I just rarely wore so much.

I got undressed and sat on the stool as the bath water warmed beside me. I closed my eyes as the water from the bucket poured over me and sighed as I felt it running over my hair and down my face. It was all so much. It was like I’d just found a pace I was content with and place I belonged and then it had to explode in my hands.

I wasn’t sure what was normal, but my life was far from how I imagined normal to be. Growing up in Tottori things had been boring. At least until Aria. When I came to Tokyo I searched for that sense of normalcy. That sense of fading into the background. Nothing more than an extra in the movie of life.

I remember sitting on the bench at the park after school watching the people going by. Each absorbed in what they were doing and where they were going. No one paid me a single thought or glance. I was simply an NPC in the game of their life. Nothing more than a faceless body designed to do nothing more than make the world space feel lived in.

They had family and friends and jobs and worries and joys and nothing about me meant anything to them. For some reason that brought me comfort. It made me feel like how a normal person would feel. Doing nothing but living in my small space and living my small life.

In Tottori everyone knew me. Or, especially at the end, knew of me. When I came to Tokyo, I was instantly transported into the world of high visibility with Kunoichi, but I kept out of sight. I stayed quiet and small and unknown, nothing more than a shadow thrown by the stage lights. But here I was, not center stage but far closer than I ever wanted.

I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face to get the last of the makeup I hadn’t managed to remove at the sink off. Honestly, what the hell was I even worried about? I chastised myself. It wasn’t like I’d killed someone or embezzled money. I wasn’t hiding from the police. Just my past. Why did it even matter anymore? I left Tottori six years ago. I rubbed the palm of my hands over my eyes and shook my head. I didn’t even know why I was so scared. I just knew I was.

I would have eventually moved out of the darkness on my own. I mean…probably.

It was the way it was done, I decided. It was like Kunoichi had said “Here’s the runaway lesbian! Good luck Kasumi!” And set the wolves on me. I had seen what happened in the limelight. I’d seen the paparazzi staking out Koemi’s apartment. I’d seen them hiding in the bushes and following her everywhere she went. She couldn’t even go to the store without a gaggle of people with cameras taking pictures of everything she bought.

It would, obviously, be different. I wasn’t famous. I wasn’t talented or a star or any of that, but being around fame was like being in a convection oven. No, you weren’t on the heating element, but you were going to get cooked anyway.

I sighed irritably and stepped into the bath. What the hell did I even know about being a managing director? I placed the hand towel over my nose and eyes and sat back in the hot water. What the hell even was a managing director? What did a managing director do? I, honestly, had no idea. But I was certain there were ten million people in the greater Tokyo area alone who would be better qualified for the job than I was.

I mean, I couldn’t dance. I couldn’t sing, and I seriously doubted my ability to do a spinning hook kick would qualify me for much in the entertainment business except to maybe be a bodyguard. I also was certain drawing hairless vaginas wouldn’t get me any closer to qualified to do whatever a managing director was supposed to do.

I owed them everything. They gave me a home, a life, a future, and a safe place to be. They never asked for anything in return. I would have done anything for them, but why did they have to drop this turkey into my lap? Especially in such a public and dramatic way? I shook my head and ran my hands through my wet hair. The whole situation was way too much for me to wrap my head around. Especially after the day I’d had. Honestly, my ever-present headache was growing worse by the second.

“Tch,” I sucked my teeth in disapproval. “This is fucking stupid. Screw it, I’ll just go into work early tomorrow and avoid this whole mess.” I nodded decisively. “I need to sleep.”