Differences

Mukashi froze.
     His eyes darted immediately towards the only K-Pop idol in the auditorium. She was standing up and looking directly at the backup dancers. He scolded himself for letting something negative happen to his charge; he needed to be more aware than that. His posture straightened and he started walking towards Miya.
     “What happened?” He asked firmly.
     Miya realized she hadn’t thought about what Mukashi would do if she stood up.
     “I-I, just…” She looked over at the backup dancers. “Some of them were… b-bothering one of the new dancers.”
     Mukashi took a moment to process what Miya had told him.
     “Did they bother you?” He asked coolly.
     She looked at the brown haired backup dancer, and realized that every eye in the auditorium was focused directly on her. She trembled slightly.
     “W-well… not directly.”
     “Then why did you tell them to stop?”
     Miya looked at Mukashi. She tilted her head at him.
     “I just told you, they were bothering one of the other backup dancers.” She pointed a delicate finger at the brown haired girl. “They were bothering her.”
     Mukashi followed Miya’s finger, and looked at the backup dancer she was pointing at. He resisted the desire to ask about why she cared at all, realizing that it would do nothing to resolve the situation at hand. He looked at the group of backup dancers, then strode towards them calmly. There were eight of them, including the girl.
     Before he spoke, he thought about how Miya had never done anything like this before. He sighed slowly, then spoke to all the backup dancers.
     “Zygeist Media requires that all employees work together for the betterment of the company and the accomplishment of its goals.” Mukashi paraphrased the standard employment contract that every non-idol who worked for Zygeist Media was required to sign. “Furthermore, any employees who are found to be intentionally causing problems for others in the workforce and or disrupting workplace harmony,” his gray eyes gazed stoically upon the backup dancers, “are to be reported to upper management immediately.”
     The auditorium was silent. Mukashi directed his gaze towards the brown haired girl.
     “Who were the ones that bothered you?”
     The brown haired girl turned bright red.
     “It wasn’t, uh, that big of an, um–”
     “Ma’am, this is a matter of contractual obligation.” He said coldly as he leaned closer to the brown-haired girl, his tall and lithe frame towered over her.
     The dancers looked terrified, and the auditorium almost felt frigid.
     There was a gentle tap on Mukashi’s shoulder. He turned around to see Miya behind him.
     “I-I think they understand now.” She said softly. “Th-there’s no need to be so harsh with them Mukashi.”
     He was, momentarily, confused. He didn’t understand why she had wanted him to get involved in the first place, and the fact that she wanted him to stop after he’d barely done anything only made him more disoriented.
     He stopped leaning forward. The auditorium warmed slightly, and he looked back at Miya. There was a collective sigh of relief from the backup dancers, but before anyone else could say anything, Mukashi spoke again.
     “The time is ten forty five am. Your break is over.” He said unceremoniously.
     Within a minute, all the backup dancers and Miya were back onstage.
     Mukashi watched the rest of the recording absently. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Miya had done. He looked over the filing cabinets in his mind and tried to find a similar situation to what had just occurred with the dancers.
     He couldn’t find anything.
     There were instances of other employees causing trouble, and he’d always been the one to intervene and remind those involved of Zygeist Media’s policy towards disruptive behavior. However, he couldn’t find a single instance of someone telling him to stop enforcing company policy. It was strange, and he spent a long while considering what to do with this new memory Miya had created.
     He reluctantly placed it into the amber, honey-scented filing cabinet, then returned to watching Miya’s music video recording.
~~~
     The recording ended at two forty five pm. Once it was over, Miya followed Mukashi out of the auditorium and back towards her tour bus. She stepped onto it and was greeted by the smell of high quality ramen.
     She sat down at the small table and opened up the plastic delivery container of ramen, then began eating it calmly. As she ate, Mukashi sat down across from her on the tour bus and spoke.
     “Why did the situation with the backup dancers bother you?”
     Miya swallowed her mouthful of ramen.
     She thought about what to say in response.
     “I-I… well, I thought about… what it would be like to be her. I-I mean, she said that the other backup dancers had told her to come greet me, which isn’t allowed under company policy, and I realized that they were trying to get her into trouble.” Miya sounded unsure of her words and went back to eating her ramen.
     Mukashi felt a memory begin to push at his mind, but he buried it before it came into focus.
     He didn’t understand what she was saying at all.
     “Did the brown haired girl bother you?”
     “N-no, not at all!” Miya said immediately. “She seemed nice.”
     Mukashi’s brow furrowed.
     “Miya, if you are going to cause a scene, it should only be for matters of importance.”
     She tilted her head at her manager.
     “M-Mukashi, they were trying to get her in trouble.”
     He looked at his charge. Despite not being able to see her eyes, he could tell from the way her mouth was shaped that she was probably gazing at him curiously. His expression stiffened.
     “Miya, it is not your job to worry about the treatment of other employees. If a significant enough disturbance is caused, others in the company will notice and take appropriate action. The contract you signed does not state that it is your job to report disturbances. You are free to concern yourself wholly with the duties you bear as a K-Pop idol.” He looked at her coolly. “It would be detrimental to your mental health for you to concern yourself with what happens to others who are neither relevant to your duties nor long-term coworkers.”
     “T-that girl was relevant; she was a backup dancer for the video.” Miya protested gently.
     “We have many other backup dancers,” he replied coldly, “it is not your job to worry about the wellbeing of every single one of them.”
     “I’m not doing that Mukashi,” she said, her voice now a little bit sharper than he was used to, “I was just trying to do the right thing in the moment.” She returned to her ramen, eating it a little more quickly than before.
     Mukashi didn’t want to understand. He stared at Miya as she ate her ramen in silence, then spoke up clearly.
     “That is not part of your job. Pl–” He paled at his own words, then forced himself to inhale and exhale a few times. “Do not overburden yourself with unnecessary worries.”
     Miya finished her ramen, then set the bowl aside. The tour bus started to move as they began making their way towards her next destination. She looked out the one way windows as the bus drove through the streets of Seoul. Her amber eyes, slightly obscured by her bangs, glanced out over the sidewalks and streets as the tour bus went along its journey.
     She saw a man in a suit, and he looked slightly distressed.
     There was a mother with two children, and though the children were smiling as they walked through the streets, the mother looked somewhat sad.
     A group of teenagers were entering a sweets shop, but the tallest girl in the group looked like she was almost ready to cry.
     Miya realized, slowly, that the loneliness she felt, the distress and pain that gnawed at her in the dark, and the feeling that she was wasting everybody’s time, were not exclusive to her. She’d always known that people loved her image as Miracle Miya, and she’d always known that the crowds loved singing along with her, but up until that day she hadn’t realized that she knew exactly how the people in the crowd felt.
     She breathed deeply.
     Previously, the weight of that burden might have crushed her.
     But as it threatened to do so, she reminded herself that she didn’t have to bear it alone. She planned to write another letter to the Southwell siblings once she returned to Zygeist Media.
     Mukashi saw what Miya was doing, and he glanced out the window as well.
     He didn’t understand why she seemed so enthralled with what was happening outside. He glanced at Miya, and tensed as he saw a tear trail on her lower cheek.
     “What's bothering you?”
     Miya’s breath shook as she turned to look at him. He could see her lips trembling.
     “M-Mukashi… can I write a new song?”