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As she grew up, the one thing that proved to be stable in her life was the presence of idols.
Idols; who shone the brightest, who were, on the surface, clear of imperfections, of mistakes.
Idols; who lived up to inhumane expectations and demands from fans.
Idols; idolized for their personas, idolized for pretty lies.
They would perform, and in turn they would always have fans backing them, that was a given, a constant, something familiar in a never ending sea of unfamiliarities. Supply and demand, new girl groups would be pushed out every year with the hopes of them being marketable, mainly towards the male eye, and the ones who didn’t make it would silently disappear from the public eye.
The center girl for the group B-Komachi, Ai, caught Memcho’s attention, just like she did for thousands of other fans. There was something about her, some kind of charm behind her captivating eyes that made it feel like she was the only one in the world who mattered, unable to tear your eyes away from her for even a moment.
She shone as bright as the north star.
As B-Komachi gained popularity, they proved to be a group that would be staying around for a while, with the potential to go down as something legendary.
In turn, B-Komachi’s constant presence in the idol industry through concerts, fan-meetups, and never ending commercial presence offered Memcho a sense of familiarity, a sense of routine commonly missing from her everyday life. It gave her something else to focus on rather than the extenuating circumstances occurring in her real life, the things she wanted to escape from.
Most importantly, B-Komachi’s performances offered an escape from the real world, from all her responsibilities, even if just temporarily.
As she watched Ai sing and dance on stage, Memcho realized she wanted to do that too.
To be someone who could stand in front of a crowd like that, fawned over by all. A parasocial bond to never be interfered with, fans supporting idols like they were objects of worship, not actual people behind the personas.
To be untouchable. Unbreakable.
That was how it was supposed to go, until the murder of B-Komachi’s Ai broke the news not even an hour after it occurred.
Ai’s death left Memcho feeling shaken, but nonetheless, she still wanted to pursue her dreams of becoming an idol, after all, her love for idols never dwindled even as the years passed, despite the tragic event.
At times, her gaze would be met with the paper fan adorning the phrase ‘Ai’s fan for all eternity!’ fixated on the wall of her bedroom. No matter how many times she moved over the years (and, it was a lot, short-term rentals always put her mother in a tight place), that paper fan always came with her, something precious to her, packed into the same suitcase that she’d owned since she was a child.
As she aged, Memcho started to put more thought into her future, into what she saw herself doing for the rest of her life.
She knew the most plausible option for her future seemed to be going straight into working after high school, a path that tossed aside her dreams, in favor of something with actual longevity as a career. That made the most sense to her, considering the way she was raised, until her mother encouraged her to chase her dreams, and that she’d have her support no matter what.
Memcho had the skills to become an idol, and others thought so too, considering she made it to the final phase of her auditions for a major company.
It seemed like things were finally looking up for her.
Until she was faced with the decision to withdraw from her idol auditions, dropping out of high school in order to provide for her family, making up for the places her mother fell short in.
It wasn’t an easy decision to come to terms with, by any means. Despite a part of her wanting to cry out and protest in favor of her wants, ultimately she knew that supporting her loved ones took priority over her dreams on any given day.
As she was the eldest out of her siblings, Memcho understood that concept from the start, that regardless of what anyone told her, at the end of the day responsibilities outweighed everything else, from a logical standpoint.
Her mother’s encouragement to pursue her dream of being an idol continued despite herself falling ill and being admitted to the hospital, clearly in need of the extra support from her daughter, even though she’d never admit that out loud. Memcho’s mother protested the decision which favored caring for her family above all else, wanting nothing more than to see her daughter’s dreams come to fruition.
Early on, she learned that responsibilities took priority above everything else, being the eldest daughter meant watching her mother break her back to support herself and her children.
Being the eldest daughter meant taking on more and more responsibilities early on to help ease some of the stress from her mother.
Being the eldest daughter meant taking on more of the work regardless of the looks of silent guilt her mother would give her without protesting the extra set of hands.
Working multiple jobs to make ends meet wasn't an easy feat by any means.
More often than not, Memcho felt how her body was clearly overworked, muscle tension occurring in places she didn’t even realize existed, the physical and mental stress taking a noticeable toll on her body. Most days she was exhausted, coming home from work meant helping her mother with dinner, helping her younger siblings with their homework, only to collapse late in the evening in order to rise early in the morning, a never ending rinse and repeat cycle of minimum wage hell.
But, she tried to look at it through a positive lens, with an optimistic glass half-full mindset: At least she was able to provide food to put on the table, at least she was able to put money towards sending her siblings off to college, at least she was taking some off the weight off of her mother’s conscience. In the end, her efforts would be worth it, Memcho knew that of course, it was just a matter of getting to that point.
And one day, it did get to that point.
Memcho and her mother were able to witness sending off her younger siblings to college, a sight that warmed her heart, knowing her efforts over the years did make a difference in the end, and that at least her younger siblings had the opportunity to chase their dreams like she’d wanted to do herself.
Now that their household had become more financially stable, Memcho was posed with the question of: what now?
As much as she wanted to try pursuing being an idol, she knew it wasn’t a feasible option despite the skills she clearly had shown from her previous auditions.
After all, she was already twenty three, far past the prime age for an idol. Fans would shun her for her age, there was no doubt about it. The offhand comments vocal fans would make would most likely consist of things such as ‘who would even want to see an idol at 23?’ and ‘she should be working some corporate job.’
Agencies dropped girls after they reached their twenties, and popularity amongst fans dwindled in favor of focusing on younger girls, she knew that, but she also couldn’t help but wonder about the what-if’s.
Ai was just barely twenty when she’d passed. If she’d still been alive, how much longer would she have been an idol for? How much longer did she have until she faded from the minds of the public?
The world would never know what Ai was capable of, her death encapsulated her to be forever remembered as the perfect idol, eternally twenty at the peak of her career.
Questions like that lingered in the back of Memcho’s mind as she laid in bed on sleepless nights, trying to distract herself from her own reality.
The reality of the situation was that so many years had passed as she helped her family to become financially stable, and it wasn’t like she was getting any younger. Whatever she decided to do, Memcho wanted to be in front of an audience, rather than being stuck in some kind of minimum wage job, being overworked and underpaid, a repeat of the past.
Sure, she could always go back to school, graduate with her high school diploma and move onto post-secondary, but at that point she’d be pushing thirty.
Having lost hope towards her dream becoming a reality, she fell back into working minimum wage jobs as always, the thing that remained a constant for her.
Until she discovered content creation.
And suddenly, things seemed like they might make a little more sense.
Content creation, more specifically streaming, seemed like a feasible option to start a career. After all, everything could be done from the comfort of one’s own home, with access to their audience just a social media post away. Forming relationships and connecting with fans had never been easier thanks to the explosion of internet popularity.
After being an idol, content creation was the next best thing to put herself in front of an audience, is what Memcho thought.
With something else to focus on, something else to occupy her time with, maybe then she’d be able to forget her dreams of becoming an idol. Maybe then, people would begin to notice her for who she was. If reaching for the stars was out of the question, maybe she could settle on making it in some other way, even if it wasn’t what she truly wanted to be. As long as she kept telling herself she’d be content with leaving her dreams in the past, as time passed the lies would slowly become the truth.
Memcho had the looks and the personality for content creation. From the get go, she knew it. The way her fans fawned over her for lying about still being a highschooler made her realize that maybe, it was okay to lie just a bit. After all, it wasn’t hurting anyone.
Memcho had untapped potential, and she knew it, she’d known since back during her idol auditions that she could make it big, given the circumstances worked out in her favor, which they did. She amassed followers quickly through her TikTok account, which was great for building up a fanbase quickly, but not so much for monetary gain.
The switch to streaming on YouTube came as a no-brainer, carrying her followers amassed from TikTok over to YouTube helped her gain money from the start, along with a fanbase that consistently turned into her livestreams. Just like that, she’d made a career for herself.
Two years passed, with surprisingly no suspicions about Memcho’s age. As long as she played the role of a high school girl, things would seemingly work out thanks to her younger face and petite frame, although the reality of the situation was that she was already twenty-five, but no one needed to know aside from herself.
Her renown landed her on a reality dating show, Lovenow, in which she’d decided to use the opportunity to continue growing her fan bases on social media. The idea of being on a reality dating show meant for high schoolers was a tricky topic to navigate considering her own age, so she decided it would be the best to step back and play the role of a more ditzy character, and her fans couldn’t get enough of it.
The topic of dating never exactly crossed Memcho’s mind to begin with anyway, she was still stuck in the mindset of staying away from relationships due to her dream of being an idol.
Even when there was an opportunity to get intimate, she ran away from it. Always in the back of her mind were thoughts of wanting to be an idol, thoughts of whatever she did now coming back to haunt her if she ever were to get famous in that way.
No matter what she did, those thoughts always followed her, almost like a curse, lingering in the back of her mind.
That silly dream of hers was always in the back of her mind, even as she walked home from the Lovenow wrap-up party, accompanied by Aqua of all people. In that moment, something came over her as she decided to open up about her dreams of being an idol once the conversation shifted to her knowledge of B-Komachi.
What she didn’t expect, however, was to be receiving the offer of a lifetime: Aqua’s agency was recruiting for the revival of B-Komachi, years after they disbanded.
At first, Memcho thought Aqua was joking, but when did he ever joke like that? But quickly, it clued in to her that he was being serious, that this was real.
That this could be her chance.
At this point, what did she have to lose?
After all, Memcho knew beggars couldn’t be choosers, she was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She’d been haunted by what could have been in terms of her career as an idol, and this was the one chance to make up for it.
With her hands clasped, Memcho looked at Aqua with an expression that was pleading, full of desperation and, for once, hope.
There was no question that Aqua would be bringing Memcho back to Strawberry Productions.
The manager, Saitou, caught on quickly that Memcho was hiding a secret, assuming correctly that she’d been hiding her age. At that moment, she had to come clean about lying about her age for so long. Exposing her age, the fact that she was actually twenty-five made the insecurities and anxiety want to surface from inside of her.
After all, who ever heard of a twenty-five year old idol? She half expected to be rejected just on that basis alone, she knew lying about her age would catch up with her at some point, but the lie had already been going on for some years.
But Memcho would quickly set aside those thoughts.
”It doesn’t matter how old you are, after all, dreams are timeless.”
Ruby spoke with such a pure heart, with such determination it came off like she was dead serious about her point.
Memcho thought lying about her age would be the nail in the coffin for any agencies wanting to pick her up for idol work. But yet, here she was in the office for Strawberry Productions, being proven wrong.
Her mind started racing when she really realized that her dream was about to happen. The what-if’s started surfacing, thoughts she hadn’t given rational thought to in years, way back when she was in the midst of her initial auditions.
Was she ready to give up the thought of ever getting into a relationship? Memcho didn’t have a partner, and didn’t have much interest in dating anyway, sex wasn’t something that appealed to her, so she’d be free from scandals.
What if the group failed to gain traction? Well, Memcho figured she’d be able to bring over some of her fans from her streaming career, offering the group an ideal way to start their careers as idols. Even if the fan base was biased towards her at the start, it was better than building from the ground up.
What about constantly being in the public eye? Memcho was already used to that, being a streamer and all. If the group were ever to reach the same level of fame that the original B-Komachi had garnered, that would be a problem to manage at that moment.
As it was, they were rookie idols with nothing to lose.
With tears spilling down her face, surrounded by her new colleagues and friends, Memcho stepped into forming the new B-Komachi, hoping to achieve what Ai was unable to before her untimely and tragic demise.