SOLO • Shinichiro

Meeting you

"You went to the press and told them we were bullying you? How weak, HANABI..."

Maybe it was weak— anonymously leaking your allegations to the media— but after the ignorance of your company over the years, you were left with no choice. Within a few hours, the GOLD entertainment headquarters in Seoul was in an uproar. It was chaos unlike anything you'd seen in the industry; panicked people looking to panicked people for answers that simply weren't there. The heels of PR workers in thousand-dollar suits clicking across the floor nonstop layered with the ringing of landlines and the screaming of commands— it all felt like too much.

But this— a total shit storm caused solely by your words— was nowhere near as bad as being outcasted and shamed by the other two members of XIXO.

Only a week later and the girl's dorms were emptied, leaving only you to wander the long industrial-like hallways at night, spending nearly two weeks alone at the company headquarters until the hazy dream of a hot and humid day in Tokyo carried you back home like the first breeze of a summer shower. There was nowhere else you could be. This country was foreign to you— no matter how long you'd worked, lived, cried and screamed on this side of the ocean— your home was in the streets of Shibuya.

At your request, the company's leading boy group agreed to help your cause, softening up the manager with expensive meat and empty words of praise— only to usher you in to announce your hiatus without delay. With a sunrise departure and three-hour flight, the only thing that's left to do is— step out of the plane.

"Welcome to Tokyo!" The attendants' greetings can be heard from all around the airport terminal, sounding eerily similar to the robotic voice calling flight times over the intercom. As if you are your own shadow, the clothing adorning your body is black from head to toe, a snug baseball cap and black face mask concealing your identity from the paparazzi that's sure to be waiting for your arrival. It takes less than five minutes to find your bag and run for the sidewalk out front, keeping your head down while you inform the manager of your arrival, you're lucky enough to make it to the private SUV before being spotted in broad daylight.

There's only so much sleeping you can do before the hotel becomes the same prison as the company dorms. As badly as you'd like to check the news— to know what's being said about you, your members, your company— you can't.

It'll only make me sick...

I came here to get away from that...

And you planned to do exactly that, even deciding to walk yourself around the city and give the company drivers the day off. Collecting your hair in your hands and securing the black baseball cap just over your eyes, you pull the mask above your nose just as your feet hit the door, turning down the sidewalk and keeping a steady pace with the flow of foot traffic. The air is exactly as it was in the hazy dream from the last night in the dorm, a wet heat sticking to your skin as you walk despite the passing of summer, the autumn months were seeming to be just as humid as July.

It would be nice to walk with someone.

And if you hadn't run off to idol auditions at fourteen, maybe you'd have friends in the city. The only connections you have here are that of business; music collaborations aren't friendship and it doesn't take an awkward conversation over lunch to see that.

But maybe it wouldn't hurt. After the hiatus period, you'd be expected to release your first solo album. With the help of a few collaborators and the support of these temporary friends, you'd be able to keep it together long enough to get through the upcoming promotions, possibly even topping the charts as a female soloist and laying the path for yourself to create music much more dear to your heart.