Aoi's Trip

“So that’s how I’m going to do it then,” said my brother, over the phone.

“I trust your judgement,” I replied.

“No, I trust your judgement.”

“I’m a little concerned that this relies on trusting each other's judgement,” I said, slightly nervously.

“That’s just how things are young bro,” said my brother, “also, you could’ve just sent me a message you didn’t have to call.”

“I’m making sure you do this properly-” I said, as he hung up mid sentence. I simply looked at my phone confused, confirming Hiroaki had indeed cut the call abruptly. Somewhat doubtful of the result, I stored my phone out of sight.

The hum of the plane I had boarded didn’t allow for the silence to settle in after my call. The flight attendant’s announcements completed the dry atmosphere of the plane, where Eiko and I were sitting in first class. I felt Eiko’s hand slowly and softly link up with mine. I looked at her, not disapprovingly, but wondering what that was about.

“Have to play it up for the fans,” said Eiko quietly.

I did my best to avoid rolling my eyes at the statement, and simply looked back at her.

“So you go on TV, you say you want to advertise our country and culture, and then they reach out to you to do promotional work all over the place?”

“That’s pretty much how it went,” she said, amused at my wording.

“It’s that easy to get paid to do propaganda huh.”

“Aoi, the choice of words you have is always so rude, can’t you be nice for once? Don’t you love our country too? They’re trying to appeal to the new generation, shouldn’t you respect that?”

Her words seemed half honest, so I didn’t want to engage further. I simply looked towards the pre-flight snacks we had been given and moved on. While I respected Eiko a lot, taking trips around the country for promotional material was not my idea of fun, and this was perhaps taking our arrangement too far.

“Just be nice, alright? We’ll be in Kyoto before you realize it.” Eiko’s honest smile was a weapon she knew I was weak to, and she wielded it far too well.

I could see the flight attendants gossiping about us, recognizing Eiko’s content as she smiled at me while we talked. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that people might know us from her videos. I adjusted my behavior to one that would make Eiko feel more comfortable in public. Before we knew it we had landed at the Kansai airport, where a luxury bus carried the both of us to our hotel in Kyoto.

It was a beautiful, luxurious, traditional-style inn. It blended a lot of old fashioned architecture styles into a beautiful modern building. The staff was also exceptional. We got to our rooms, unloaded our belongings, and could finally relax from the journey.

“See, isn’t it nice? Can’t you be grateful for once?” asked Eiko proudly.

“I would’ve preferred a western style hotel to be honest.” I was lying, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

“Right… right.” She looked at me distrustfully.

I started scrolling through my phone, looking through our schedule as we were treated to a welcoming meal. Our trip’s itinerary had all of the same old attractions that Kyoto is known for; we couldn’t avoid visiting the classic tourist spots.

“Didn't every kid visit these places when we were in school? Why do we have to advertise them? They’re already quite crowded…”

“You’re thinking too small Aoi. It’s also for foreigners. And besides…” She looked at me, switching to a serious tone, “not everyone went to that kind of school here.” She had to remind me of how different my upbringing was. I respectfully withdrew from that argument, knowing comparisons to myself were not useful.

I noticed there were a couple of days that were completely empty on the schedule, and I asked her about those days.

“It’s so we can recover of course. We can’t do a good job without some breaks, right?” She winked at me, which made me realize that it had all been arranged by her.

After we were done eating, she slowly started arranging our outfits for the next few days as I relaxed and sipped some water. It was great to see that despite her seemingly selfish nature, she was hard working and great at what she did. I'm not worthy of any of this, even though I don’t really care about it either. More importantly, I don’t believe she deserves how relatively little I do for her in comparison.

“I might need a coffee for today, I'm feeling a bit tired from the trip,” I said, once I noticed Eiko was done planning.

“Alright old man,” answered Eiko before her face changed to a surprised expression. “Wait, since when do you drink coffee?”

“Just something I picked up lately. Besides, I stayed up late working with my brother on a new project.”

“Sure, I’ll arrange it then.” Eiko quickly complied with my request and then kept planning our schedule for the day. I was mentally preparing myself for the crowds and Eiko’s fans. A lot of thoughts went through my mind as I drank my coffee, but one came up that I was particularly curious about.

“Eiko… are you happy doing all this?”

Eiko stopped doing what she was doing; perhaps my question was too direct. Eventually she answered in a way that made me feel like the answer was obvious.

“Of course I am. I like traveling, and all the food, and all the luxury,” she replied with a smile, even though it seemed like she thought about it for a long time. “And I get to hang out with you, too.”

Those last words made me reflect a lot more than I wanted to. I thought for the most part I was simply a prop for her channel, so her admitting to being happy with me really challenged what I thought about our whole situation and arrangement.

“I see.” That was all I managed to answer.

“Besides, I can’t let down all the people that supported me this far. I owe it to my fans too, you know?”

That seemed like a heavy burden, thinking about fans. But Eiko felt energized by them, pushed forward. She didn’t see it as a dangerous, unhealthy thing, like Mika did.

As I drank that coffee I couldn’t help but remember the evenings I spent with Mika. What is she doing now? Will my plan work? But most importantly, When did I become so fond of her?

She was a scrawny, mediocre singer, but she had grown so much in the past few months that I couldn’t help but root for her, help her, support her. And she in turn helped me, and supported me. I would even go as far as saying she supported me effortlessly, without thinking, and yet more than she thought. But wasn’t Eiko the same way? Hasn’t Eiko been supporting me all this time? Hasn’t Eiko put a lot more effort into it? I’ve been assuming it’s just for fun and work and that was all there was to it, but it’s been going on long enough that maybe I’ve completely lost track of our feelings.

As I looked at Eiko, gorgeous and hard at work, I realized how fortunate I was for having her around. And then a thought crept up on me. Maybe these girls are the unfortunate ones. I hid them from each other, not by choice, but the result was still the same. I had to find a way to fix this situation, before it went too far.