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Airi had always felt insecure about how she came across to other people. Physically, socially. What kind of person did she appear to be? And how did people like that person?
As a child, her shift towards a more girlish expression, in her clothes, her name, her life, had made her an easy target. Boys would call her a monster, girls would give her sideways looks. Her family understood, but that wasn’t enough to make the rest of the world see her as she was.
“Someone like you, dressed like that? You look like a clown, not an idol!”
Airi clung to her idols, to what she could mean to other girls like her. She would practice her smile, her poses, her laughs in the bathroom mirror. She watched idols on TV learn the best ways to talk to other people, to make them happy. To make her loved.
“She’s good for a laugh, but come on. It’s not like she could ever be a front-runner.”
Airi begged her mom for pretty dresses. She went to auditions and sang her heart out. She had her sisters backup dance for her so she could better learn choreography.
“I fully support all kinds of lifestyles, but people want a cute girl as their idol!”
Airi fought back tears when Shinonome Ena yelled in class, when she told the kids doing her Happy Everyday moves to shut it and get a life.
“More of a comedy act than an idol, really.”
Airi stared at the mirror at night and pulled hair up in different ways, trying to hide, change, take attention away from every bit of her face that might make her look less girlish, less cute, less idol-like.
Airi heard there was another girl like her, Hinomori Shizuku. Except she.
She passes so much better.
A newcomer with a pretty face.
“You won the Grand Prix, right?” A cocky front to hide her envy. “I’m your rival from now on!”
Shizuku’s hesitation, her teary eyes. Airi’s envy melted away to fondness.
“A pretty face like yours should have a smile on it!”
The way Shizuku avoided her eyes, face strangely blank and wringing her hands. Airi saw more and more of herself in this girl the more she looked.
Ah, right. What Airi had wanted to do. Be an idol for a girl like herself.
Going out to eat with Shizuku, practicing and hanging out together. Letting their “rivalry” fall into a friendship with no resistance. Smiling when Shizuku got leading roles. Laughing, self-deprecating, when management brought up another punishment game segment. Despite how much she cared for Shizuku, how much she loved Shizuku, this envy wrapped her heart and her lungs in a fog which choked her every day.
“We’re going to start phasing you out of idol gigs. You do best as a variety show personality.”
More of a variety show face, too, probably.
“Hey, it’s Happy Everyday!”
More of a gag, a joke. Someone like her would never get to be a real, beloved idol. Someone like her couldn’t bring hope, make people smile and believe tomorrow could be better.
Except Shizuku was a real idol. Shizuku, who was so blessed. Who rose in the ranks of talent and beauty.
They were alike. They were both girls in a different way. They were both people in a different way, struggling to build their lives and personalities around being idols.
Hinomori Shizuku. Clumsy, airhead, failing upwards. You’d never guess she was…
Momoi Airi. Dedicated, funny, assertive. No, of course I don’t want an autograph. But do you think she’d respond if we started heckling her?
So much alike, but seen so differently. So much so that Airi’s self-hate, her resentment, led to her talking down to Shizuku. Twisting her feelings of guilt and longing, envy and fondness. Airi had been so twisted up with her own humiliation and resentment that she hadn’t seen her own dearest fan.
She had put down the girl who meant so much to her. Breaking her smile, bringing those tears to her eyes.
A pretty face like hers should have a smile on it.