Okay... so comment replies later and fic responses later too (so many fics to catch up with now! Thanks guys! X__X).
I thought I'd have the time to just sit and write stuff and update as usual, but NO. Not happening.
Am having way too much fun.
Yes grac, I just came back to Vietnam from a short trip to Malaysia. Finally out of that oven of a place.
Nah, was wonderful. Shopping and Sunway Lagoon.
Having fun is really exhausting, especially if you're overseas and the fun never ceases. By the time I get back to the hotel, I'm dead beat and my eyes close the moment my head hits the pillow. So I think Secret Admirer will need to be put on hold until I get back to Australia... or at least, I'll probably only have the first chapter done for the month.
In the meantime, since the
graduation is oh so close, here's a little something.
This is a very messy piece I wrote a day after the graduation announcements. I was feeling lots of things back then, and so decided to pour everything out in writing. I really needed it to deal with my feelings xD From Sayu's perspective, because I could only think -
KAMESHIGE! *sob sob sob* - for a very long time. I wasn't planning to post this initially, but thought about it for a while beforehand (doing plenty of editing), and now I feel kind of bad for not updating Secret Admirer, so I hope this is okay for now. It's a little messy like I said, and there's no plotline or anything. It's just emotion.
Hope to get more time to hang around next time!
Good day, friends, and take care of your lovely selves.
Kamei Eri forever.
A L i t t l e F a i t h
The members graduating at the end of the year are…
Jun Jun.
Lin Lin.
Kamei Eri.
***Kamei Eri…
After Tsunku releases the final name, the magnitude of the news doesn’t register at first. Not until a second or two later when our minds begin catching up, assembling sense, when we finally grasp the weight of his words.
My breath stops as a clammy tide of panic spills over. In an instant, everything around me seems surreal, everything that’s going on, all the fuss, the subdued murmuring, the stunned looks mirrored on every other face. Nothing is real anymore.
The room’s collapsing beneath me, and I’m light-headed, smothered by the waves of nausea passing through me, one after the other, before I’m completely numb, and then begins the buzzing off my head, the questions, the rising uncertainties. I can sense Eri’s determination to avoid my eyes. Even more strongly, I can sense the flickering glances the other members are giving me from the corners of their eyes.
It’s strange, they are probably thinking, that Michishige Sayumi is only finding out about Kamei Eri’s graduation wish now.
Because Eri tells me everything. Or so I had thought. This announcement is a revelation – it’s completely unexpected. While Eri had often complained about the stress she was going through and her plans to call it quits, I’d never once thought the day would come when her words became truth, crashing down on me like this and crushing every notion I had of living the rest of my Morning Musume dream with her.
Sayu, I hate this. Look how much I’m sweating! My skin’s getting so irritated. I’m going to leave Morning Musume tomorrow and find a cure for myself!Eri would say such things in a cutely grumpy voice. She’d said something along these lines during concerts over many years, but nothing ever eventuated. Eri’s complaints gradually began to drown into the background, no longer ominous, no longer causing me undue stress as it had in the beginning. The last time I’d heard the complaints must have been during the Platinum 9 Disco concerts.
She’s been too quiet since. I should have known something was up. I should have seen this coming. But being the person that I am, so hopeless in situations that really matter, I have missed the signs altogether. And for being unable to catch onto them, I now cannot forgive myself.
Sayu, I hate this…Her words back then begin to feed into my thoughts, my consciousness, parading down the deep recesses of my mind. Mocking, reminding, agonising in its intent to overwhelm me, to break me.
It’s a boy, isn’t it? I’m tempted to blurt out. Because that would somehow be more bearable than losing Eri to a skin condition. This skin condition that I have known about for a long time, but never paid any mind to, convinced it was something trite. It makes me so much guiltier, having known all along and having failed to take it seriously. It’s entirely my fault now that Eri’s decision to leave comes to me as such a shock.
After Tsunku exits the meeting room and leaves us to recover from the mammoth news, as expected, there’s an unpleasant moment of hushed tension before the room becomes one heated interchange of reaction. Every one of us slips on a mask of polite composure while trying to maintain what idol exuberance we have left in us in the face of such news. Ai-chan makes a big show of pulling us together in a huddle; she begins meting out her congratulations and cheering on the would-be graduates – the rest of us have no option but to take her lead.
But, of course, I can see right through it. None of us are happy, that much is clear. The illusion that we had gradually been sucked into, of the eight of us becoming something of a fixed unit… shattered in an instant. Like a splash of ice cold water across us, we’ve been shaken awake.
Three members.
Why does it have to be three? One graduating from our group is painful enough, but three all at once? And not just any three…
I feel gutted. Crushed.
“Being Michishige Sayumi, and thus being unbelievably cute, is
such a demanding job,” I jokingly tell Eri afterwards when we finally have some private time to talk to each other. The other members realise that I’m hearing all this for the first time too, so they obligingly give us space. “But I’ll do my best when you’re gone,” I continue, with as steady and assuring a voice as I can. “I’ll hold myself together.”
I’m sure my smile doesn’t convince her. No, not even someone as naïve as Kamei Eri. I can hardly convince myself, not even for a moment, I’m struggling like hell to keep my tears intact, to not let the dam break. I feel sullen, lost and distinctly empty. I fight to keep it all from showing on my face.
“It’ll be okay, Sayu,” she says.
I had half-expected her to respond with something weird, something just plain kooky, in typical Kamei-Eririn-style. But her answer is so…
normal, it hurts to hear. It’s almost as if Eri herself understands the severity of the situation, she understands just what all this means for
me.
And I notice too, that Eri speaks in a deliberately controlled voice; she sounds fine, but is she really? I can’t imagine how she could be, not when my own heart is coiling in on itself, not when I’m hurting as much as I am.
How can it be okay? I want to scream at her, but the words remain painfully lodged in my throat.
Deep down though, I know that for Lin Lin and Jun Jun, the news must have hit them much harder. They’d always looked forward to doing more for the group, never giving up on Morning Musume and never relinquishing their dreams to one day front us. Their present was Morning Musume, and all they could see in their futures was Morning Musume too. My heart goes out to my two Chinese friends. While they’ve been pushed to leave, Eri must have been thinking about graduating for a while now, and this is ultimately
her decision.
Sometime later that day, Reina takes Eri aside too, and they’re talking in whispers behind the dressing door. I can’t grasp onto anything, the words are too quiet, wafting away from me… what I catch though, unmistakably, is my name. I strain to listen, leaning forward, and then realise what I’m doing and abruptly, I walk away. As much as I want to know, I’m also shaking in my boots. I’m afraid what I hear will only intensify the pain. Afraid, so very afraid, that the truth will be solidified. Because giving in to this daze, to the relief of its numbness, and trying to shake off this nightmare rather than accept it – all this must be more bearable than the truth.
I still can’t believe it. At the beginning of next year, I’ll be in a Morning Musume that has no Kamei Eri in it. I don’t know what to think, except that trying to imagine such a future is so overwhelming, it’s verging on pain.
Later, Reina approaches me wordlessly, but I can see the pain glittering at the back of her eyes like tears. She puts an arm around my shoulder in a comforting gesture, but somehow it doesn’t alleviate the pain, I’m only feeling worse. We’ve been through so much together, us three, right from the beginning. We’re both wordlessly aware of how dear Eri is to us, what she means to us and what she means to our Morning Musume. Even though Eri is older than the both of us, she’s almost always the one being babied amongst us Rokkies. My pain must be Reina’s too, no matter how tough the other girl wants people to believe she is; I can’t forget that.
Eri must have noticed the conflicting emotions within me, that or Reina told her something, because that night she slips into my room.
There's nobody around so Eri holds my hand, interlaces our fingers and I feel a slight dampness growing between our palms. We're holding on so tight.
“Sayu…” she says quietly. My name has never sounded so precious.
I don’t say anything. We stay like this, caught up in this strange void, at a loss as to what to do or say. We stay like this for a long while, maybe too long, because at some point Gaki-san comes crashing into my room in a noisy peal of excited chitchat, Aika beside her, startling us. I let go of Eri’s hand.
It looks like Gaki-san can’t stay down for too long (unless it has something to do with Ai-chan); she really does bring the sunshine with her.
“Oi! Kamei, Sayu… what’s with this gloomy atmosphere? Let’s go out and get a quick meal before we come back for rehearsal.”
For the rest of the night, Eri and I, we’re silent.
In the following days, after the initial shock has worn off somewhat, a gloom hangs ever so lightly in the air.
Ai’s pained expression over the imminent loss of three kouhais, all at once, and especially the looks she reserves for her beloved Lin Lin. Gaki-san now clings tightly onto Eri wherever she goes. Reina, being strong and unaffected as always, but there’s a glint of sadness in her gaze too. She is, after all, such a Rokkies enthusiast, and losing Jun Jun would be akin to losing the soothing presence of a… boyfriend. Aika, in all her preciousness, those pursed lips and her teary visage. She’d been pretty bouncy and spirited at first, but slowly reality’s sinking in. Her generation of three will soon only consist of one.
At least outwardly, Gaki-san seems to be taking the news the worst. I’d thought that she had recovered remarkably well judging from that fairly nonchalant interruption of hers the other day. But I’ve begun to notice the way she’s dipping in and out of trance-like states. One minute she’ll be twittering away, completely chipper, her normal, cheery self, and the next, somber, quiet. She tries to keep up the high spirits whenever she has the will to, being our sub-leader and all, but I see that it gets to her too. For Eri is also somebody incredibly dear to Gaki-san. Not to mention how fond she’s become of the pandas… and then we have Ai-chan, who’s been crying a lot, but then she’s usually crying so I can’t say much about that.
As for me, they tell me my voice is faint and distracted. Ai-chan approaches me a lot now, when she’s not quietly moping herself and when the others aren’t around.
“Hey, Sayu,” she’ll say, placing a hand on my shoulder. “You want to talk?”
I shake my head. And smile. I can still smile.
I don’t tell the others, but Eri’s impending absence hangs like a wet blanket over me, it’s heavy and suffocating. I’m not sure if I can hold myself together in time for our next public appearance. The temptation to spill all my raw thoughts and feelings into my blog – to bear everything as it is – torments me mercilessly, like a persistent itch. But I know better than that. Whatever I do, I have to keep these soul-searing thoughts private. I need to keep my blog entries emotionally light, it’s one of the few protocols I can’t forget to abide by. Oh, and that’s aside from the fact that the fans don’t know yet.
During rehearsals, during lunchbreaks, during the rides back home and while I’m lying in bed, desperately trying to continue another chapter of the book I had previously been unable to put down – Eri’s on my mind, constantly now. Something doesn’t feel right. There are still a few months before her graduation, but already there’s this stony emptiness sitting somewhere inside me. Even when she’s right next to me, still goofing around, still being the
Kamei I so love and adore and worship.
Anxiety swells furiously inside me, often now, when I get the time to just sit back and look at Eri, observe her, evaluate the role that she plays in my life. My head’s a roar, spinning and spinning and trying to make sense of what’s to come when she’s gone. During the long trips in the company van, while Eri is sleeping and I’m pretending to, images of a future Morning Musume claw through my mind in sudden and sharp, painful flashes… images of us delighting, fretting, struggling, conquering. All without Eri.
I dread the future concerts that I’ll take part in, when I turn to the side, expecting Kamei Eri to be there in all her glory, giving it her all, that crazy ball of energy that she is when she’s on stage. And knowing that when I do, she won’t be there. It will be somebody else. A new 9th gen member, another of my cute kouhais. But not Eri. The thought sends a cold horror sprawling across my heart, it makes me nauseous. She’s been there with me every step of the way. How will Sayumi go on without her right-hand woman? I can’t bear to think of a Morning Musume without my Eririn. I just can’t.
I know time heals everything. It always has, and when some seemingly insurmountable obstacle stands before me, I’ve had a reassuring past of being able to get past it without too much hassle, no problemo.
I’m certain that we will be seeing each other outside of work, as we often have. During my days off, I’m sure we’d still hang out; we’ll go shopping together, we’ll visit each other’s houses and talk about everything under the moon and stars and share our silly little secrets, as we always do.
I have nothing to worry about… nothing, right?
Even so, I’m afraid the distance will eventually deteriorate our relationship. We won’t be able to see each other half as much as we’re able to now, perhaps even less and knowing this, I’m more than afraid, much more. Doubt festers beneath my skin.
And all so suddenly, I have never felt so lonely, so desperately lonely, even in the company of these people who I’ve grown up with. The impending graduation has poisoned my subconscious, made everything dull and sluggish, has somehow drained the colours from the world.
I’m probably making this all sound a lot more dramatic than it really is. The last thing Eri needs right now is a morosely heartbroken Sayumi on her hands; she’s got plenty of her own things to deal with in these last few months leading up to her graduation. I wonder what I can do for her in this time, I know I can’t give her any extra worries.
But she’s taking care of herself, I can see it. It’s long been routine for everybody else to take care of Eri, since she’s a (self-proclaimed) hopeless case at taking care of herself. But now, it seems like it’s the resident turtle herself taking on the role of caring for everybody else. At least, she’s the one reassuring us all in her strange little way (e.g. spending more time being light-hearted and dorky, making us laugh, sneaking in unexpected hugs and cuddles).
The more I think about her the more I come to realise that Eri, as seemingly unreliable as she is, is surprisingly reliable. Eri, my turtle, has been like a rock, a constant and comforting presence, the anchor which keeps me grounded.
It’s only after a whole month since the private graduation announcements that I finally find the voice to tell Eri all these feelings that have been eating me up little by little.
As I tell her everything on my mind, the emotions come flooding over me in tidal waves, gripping my throat as I talk. It’s a gratifying mixture of relief and unburdening, of finally being able to release my sorrows and every petty little uncertainty.
So quickly, my guise of being the stronger one crumbles, and I’m crying in front of Eri, I’m completely exposed and at her mercy. She takes me into her arms, holds me to her in a furious tumble of smells and emotions. I’m swept up by it all – I can’t remember the last time I’ve cried this openly, I can’t remember the last time we embraced like this, if ever. Eri’s surprisingly calm and strong-headed, a sore contrast to the rather helpless, spaced-out turtle I have known for so long, who has always sought
my shoulder to lean on,
my comforting words,
my warmth.
She lifts my chin so I’ll look up at her.
“The reason why I’ve been hanging on to Morning Musume for as long as I have has a lot to do with you,” Eri says, beaming at me that angelic smile that has been the beacon of my life for the last eight years.
“So have a little faith.”
That’s all I need to hear.
I think I will.
Topic: STORIES OF US --- [All I Want For Christmas] Xmas One-shot -- 27/DECEMBER (Read 40025 times)