Aika - Girl Who Carries The Most Burden

I excused myself with a smile that knew how to behave. The usual.

I bowed slightly. Added something polite for touch. I let them believe I forgot something. The moment I was out of sight, I ran.

Down the hallway, past the fluorescent lights, past the smell of antiseptic and warm food and hope I wasn’t ready to hold yet. My chest burned like I’d swallowed something too big. My hands shook. My vision blurred.

I didn’t know where to go, but I had to go there. My father’s room didn’t seem to be the best choice to be having a little cry at the moment. The public toilet isn’t it either. I was only going to get worried family members telling me it will get better. It was all already better.

What was I still ungrateful for? My father woke up. My mother is happy and healthy. I was still alive to witness this all.

I kept walking till I reached the quieter side of the hospital. Healing. Maybe acceptance? Of myself mostly…

The chapel door was unlocked.

Thank God.

I slipped inside and let it close behind me, and the silence swallowed me whole. Whew…

I broke down. Finally.

I sank to the floor between the pews, palms pressed to my eyes, breath tearing out of me in ugly, uneven sobs. I really let it roar. I hadn’t cried like this in months. Not properly. Not without measuring the sound, or the mess, or who might hear.

This was different.

My family was laughing upstairs.

My father had awaken today. My mother had looked lighter, like something heavy had finally been set down. Her husband and daughter are with her.

At such an happy time, all I could think about was how badly I’d almost taken that away from them.

I started this life at thirteen.

Training rooms that smelled like sweat and floor cleaner. Mirrors that taught you how to hate yourself with precision. Girls lined up like reflections, all trying to be brighter, cuter, better than the next.

I was the “majime” one. The serious one. The girl who followed instructions, who stayed late, who said thank you even when it hurt. The one adults pointed at and said, ‘See? Be like her.’

I debuted at fifteen. By sixteen, we were touring Japan. By seventeen, Asia. By eighteen, the world.

Airports blurred together. Hotel rooms became interchangeable. Smiles were mandatory. Fatigue was weakness. Privacy was a luxury you learned not to miss.

I was the face of the group. Not necessarily the prettiest. But I was the safe one. The most honest one. The one parents liked. And little did I know, what the higher-ups liked as well…

My father worked in the industry. Cameraman for huge shows. Equipment handler for movies. Everyone knew him and trusted him. When I said I wanted to sing, to dance, to be on stage, doors opened easily.

My mother came from a family that understood power. Currently inactive but still a name that was politically used, if someone wanted to refer to “good examples” of how a Japanese leader should carry themselves. Appearances and consequences was hammered by relatives on my mind as I grew up.

Mother never interfered, but I knew the weight of her name followed me like a shadow I wasn’t allowed to step out of.

They never forced me. That was the worst part. They just supported me. They paid. They waited. They showed up. I only had myself to blame. They told me they’d be proud no matter what I chose, but somehow, younger me heard something else entirely.

“Don’t waste this”

So I didn’t stop. Not when my feet bled inside shoes that were too tight and too pretty to complain about. Not when I slept three hours a night and learned how to smile through vertigo. Not when my smile became something I applied like makeup. Something made precise by repeated practice. Something easily wiped away.

When the scandal came, it wasn’t even mine, it belonged to someone else who looked like me and needed a shield, I didn’t fight hard enough. I let them place it on me.

I thought endurance was the same as strength. I thought obedience was survival. I thought if I just complied, if I stayed quiet, if I let it happen, it would pass.

It didn’t.

The thought of ending it all came to me more than once. It felt like a suggestion whispered in a hallway I passed too often. I didn’t act on it. I couldn’t. Something in me refused.

Surely there has to be more than this.

That single thought carried me through a month of psychological and physical humiliation. Through hands that treated me like a tool. Through words that stripped me of name and will. Through mirrors I stopped looking into because I didn’t recognize the girl staring back.

I told myself I was strong. I wasn’t. I was surviving on borrowed hope.

One day, one of the producers smiled at me like he was about to do me a favor.

He told me that because I was such a good girl, because I followed instructions so well, I could take as much [redacted] as I wanted. That I’d earned it. Like it was a privilege to be touched by their fifth.

He and a few other men laughed and said without a shred of hesitation that they could always find another idol to train. There were hundreds of girls waiting. Desperate girls. Girls who would be grateful. Someone younger. Someone brighter. Someone who hadn’t been worn down yet. Another dream they can take the pleasure of grinding down.

He said it gently, like an advice.

‘You should understand how this works by now,’ he told me. ‘You’re not permanent. None of you are.’

He said they were already getting tired of promoting me. That my image lost its shine. He made sure I understood that I wasn’t special. That I never had been. They even offered a more handsome payment for my private “performance”, if I respond to their call at anytime.

I felt so disgusting. I wanted to skin myself inside out and remove all of the traces of these men in me. I finally understood that no amount of compliance would earn me my life back. I was not an investment. I was inventory.

I nodded automatically, because that was what I’d been trained to do. I realized then that I was never meant to return. I was meant to fade quietly, grateful for having been useful. I realized I didn’t want to submit myself to that kind of erasure anymore.

I pressed my forehead to the cool stone floor of the chapel and let out a broken laugh through my tears.

How wrong I had been.

My family would have taken me back at any moment. I didn’t have to be useful to be loved. I didn’t have to be obedient to be worthy. I didn’t have to let myself be handled like something disposable.

There is always another choice. I should have chosen myself sooner.

My hands came together so tightly my fingers ached. With uneven breath and chest tight with words I didn’t know how to shape properly yet, I bowed my head.

‘Please,’ I whispered. ‘Please let my family be safe from now on. Please let them laugh without fear. Please let their smiles stay whole.’

My raw, aching cry echoed throughout the chapel. I couldn’t breathe but I had to say the words.

‘Please don’t let me ruin anything good ever again.’

The thought of seeing that fragile happiness break because of me was too much to bear. An ugly sound ripped from my throat before I could stop it. I bowed even lower.

‘I tried,’ I whispered. ‘I really tried. I did what they told me. I stayed quiet. I stayed grateful. I thought if I endured long enough, it would mean something.’

My hands trembled violently as I pressed them together.

‘I chose wrong. I misunderstood what strength was supposed to look like. Please don’t let them pay for it. Let the consequences be mine. Just mine.’

Tears spilled freely.

‘And please… please keep Caleb safe.’

Saying his name felt like stepping onto sacred ground.

‘He believes in people,’ I whispered. ‘He believes kindness is enough. He believes faith protects those who walk honestly.’ My voice cracked. ‘Please don’t let that belief be what destroys him.’

I squeezed my eyes shut.

‘Please don’t let my past reach him. Please don’t let my mistakes touch his life. Please don’t let my brokenness be something that harms someone good.’

A long, shuddering breath tore through me.

‘If You must take something from me,’ I whispered, ‘take my fear. Take my shame. Take the part of me that keeps expecting punishment.’

I stayed there, kneeling, emptied out and shaking. For the first time, I wasn’t asking God to make me stronger. I was asking Him to take what I could no longer carry.