Kashiwagi was expecting a lot from me. A lot more than I expected when I first agreed to go through with this project. I always knew that there was more to being a musician than just going into a studio and letting an audio engineer do all the work. Those albums wouldn’t sell themselves, at least for a small-town band with no notoriety beyond a viral video of it’s vocalist getting into a street altercation.

We had the rough outline of an EP ready to go, and Kashiwagi had sent it out to radio stations around the area to see if we could get any airtime. Not for the music, but for me. I needed to go out and sell it like I’d never sold anything before. With all that said it was still a mystery to me how Kashiwagi managed to get me an interview. When I say that the album was rough, I mean it. Really rough.

Pushed into a small broadcast studio next to an overly eager and unfamiliar woman. Not the way I wanted to spend my Sunday off. I shuffled in the rickety office chair and awaited the inevitable barrage of questions that were coming my way.

“Good evening everyone, you’re listening to Go! Yonezawa. With me Ako-chan! Tonight we have a special guest, a bit of a local celebrity, and a girl I’m a very big fan of myself – Miyako Nakamura.”

“Thank you.” There was no way to get comfortable in the booth, the chair was broken and poking into my butt. I put it to the back of my mind and tried to focus on the interview.

“We only have a short time together today, so let’s just get straight into what I’m sure everyone wants to talk about. Of course I’m talking about the video of you defending your sister from men attempting to solicit her. It could be said that you’ve become a bit of an idol for a lot of young women in Japan recently.”

I rubbed the back of my head, “Ah, is it so admirable?”

“Yes. You really started a conversation about the way that men attempt to exploit women in clear daylight. But first, tell us a little about yourself.”

“I’m not sure how much there is to say… I live with my sister and parents, and I’m in the music club at my school.”

Ako smiled, “You seem like the kind of person who likes to take charge.”

“Not recently, I’ve been following some people for a while now. I think it’s more like that I want to be clear with the people around me.”

“Would you mind telling us a little bit about what happened?”

“To be honest there wasn’t much more to it than what you saw in the video. We were just minding our own business when they approached us, and one of them became very aggressive towards Reika – and I wasn’t going to let anything happen to her.”

“Your sister?”

“Yes. I didn’t really think about it. I stepped in and did what I thought would help. I wasn’t expecting to get into a big fight with him, but I knew that kind of guy doesn’t like it when the victim fights back. So I grabbed him, and he ran away after that.”

“Hm. We’ve heard a lot of differing opinions of your actions. Some people think that standing up was the right thing to do, while other people think that they’d have left you alone if you walked away. Even some major politicians have commented as such.”

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I tried to stop myself from swearing out of reflex, “It’s easy enough to pass judgement when you’re not in the middle of things. Everyone likes to think that they could handle matters in the best way, the way that isn’t reliant on emotions, but when you think about it there is no right thing to do. The moment they came onto us someone was going to be on the losing end. If you ask me, those kinds of people shouldn’t be allowed out on the streets like that. They just make people uncomfortable by harassing them.”

“Strong words. Would you consider yourself a feminist?”

I paused. The head of steam that I had built complaining about street hustlers cut from under me by a very simple question. A lot of words slipped through my mind. But the one that stood out to me most amongst them all was imposter. I suddenly felt aware of myself, the feeling of my clothes against my skin, the slight pinch of the bra that I was wearing.

“No. I’m not.”

“And why is that?”

“…I’m not a fighter. I don’t look for battles like that. I’m just a schoolgirl. When somebody tries to mess with my sister, why wouldn’t I do something about it?”

“I see.” Her reaction wasn’t as negative as I was expecting. It was exactly the kind of leading question that I should have been ready for. The entire premise of my celebrity was something that had made me a feminist hero, however briefly. “I think that’s really inspiring.”

“Hm?”

“I think it shows real courage to admit that. And I think it’s an important lesson to all of us. We shouldn’t feel irresponsible because we don’t attach a label to ourselves. When we see an injustice, we should do what we can anyway.” I had to stop myself from interrupting. She’d taken the most complementary way of interpreting what I said and blasted it out for anyone who was listening. “Now, I hear that you’re working on something special?”

“Uh, me and my friends from the club are working on an album. It’ll be out soon.”

“What do the staff at your school think?”

“Not a lot, probably.”

“Do you think you could give us a preview of what it’s all about?”

“It’s… a very personal album. We spent a long time drilling into five songs that we think people will like. It’s a collaborative effort from all of us, a sending off present for the club if you want to think of it like that.”

“And do any of the songs deal with some of the experiences you’ve had recently.”

“For sure.”

“Is there anything else you want to say to the people listening out there?”

“I hope they don’t think I’m being a complete sell out by talking about this,” I chuckled to cover up the fact that I was actually really worried about that being the case. “Somebody said something to me recently that really made me think about it. Sometimes things happen that we can’t control, sometimes people want to give you a helping hand, and you don’t think you deserve it. You do deserve it. You’re not depriving people of their own potential happiness by making sure of your own.”

The host nodded along with my trite speech; words stolen from people close to me. It was true. I wanted to share that with everyone else too. Reina was correct. Me being happy wasn’t going to take everything away from Shinsuke. He had to find his own answers and accept his own help, and we were going to extend that hand to him in his moment of need. It was up to him whether to accept it or not.

“I think that’s a really good thing to say, these days can be hard for all of us. When opportunity comes knocking don’t push it away folks,” she said, hyping up the listeners with her high-tension tone of voice. “That was Miyako Nakamura, butt-kicker and student musician. Speaking of hot young acts, I’ve had this next track on repeat for days, and I think you’ll like it too!”

She pushed a button on her computer. The red light above the door turned off as the mics were no longer live and broadcasting. “How did I do?” I asked as Kashiwagi pushed through the door and waved me over.

“I think that went well. Positive messages, got the point about the album across. Hopefully, it’ll put people into our circulation and we can get them onto your webpage.”

“My heart was about to burst in there.”

He patted me on the back, “Don’t worry. You sounded as confident as ever. Let’s wrap up here and head back to the office.”