1 Dreams

It was a huge day for Maya Yamamoto. She was a shy woman but she finally found what little courage she found within her to chase her dreams. Half past twenty, she felt this was her last chance. Her lyric sheet was a little smudged from hands that sweat buckets. It was as if someone was crying in her palms. She brushed her hands over her torn jeans and replayed her song of choice on her phone. She was more than nervous but there she was at the audition hall for an ambitious international idol group called "U-Knighted".

Feet raised up on the chair, Maya sang softly in a cracked whisper. She liked to keep her voice to herself. She wasn't the best singer by a mile and she was aware of the painful fact. Whenever she practiced at her apartment, her neighbors called on animal control about strangled cats. In order to practice and have a scapegoat, she even bought a cat and named it Miho but the cat ran away after the first verse.

Maya sighed. She felt comfort knowing that singing wasn't all there would be. She could dance but the kind one would dance on a friday night and nobody's looking kind of dance. She tried to make a routine herself once. Once. For everyone's sake, she thought it would be best to stick to the routine prepared by the agency.

"Oh-my-god. Do you see that girl?" A woman with straight blonde bangs said in a loud hush. She pointed, her arm was like a small crane close to her chest but obvious, at Maya. She leaned like a stalk of bamboo to her friend's ear.

"Where— Oh, ew… I can see them through her jeans." The black woman covered her mouth with her fingers fanned out. "What is she thinking with those meatloaf legs? Didn't she get the memo that we're here to sing and not run a triathlon?"

"Shantele!" whined Joanna as she playfully nudged her elbow on her friend's arm. "Take the nasty down and— Those arms though. I don't know what she's smuggling inside that sweatshirt but she's smuggling more than her own food to the movies."

The two exploded in laughter like breathless hens and slapped each other silly.

"Hey. Can you two keep it down?" Maya removed her earphones and spoke in the friendliest manner she could, "This is just me but you two ought to keep it to yourselves. This is an audition, not the shit-stained restroom of skank anonymous."

Maya placed her earphones back in each ear but the music felt clouded. She couldn't help but think. She envisioned herself on the world stage where she was embraced by passionate fans and people celebrated her musicality but that dream was only a stepping stone to what truly spurned her: Io Hara.

Io Hara was the biggest idol of the time. With a beauty unmatched and the voice of a captivating siren, she charmed the world. She broke charts and won hearts. She was purity personified. There wasn't a place in the world where she wasn't spoken of with the likeliness of a saint that didn't shit.

But Maya? She hated her even more than seven weeks of bad luck and the air inside a bag of chips.

Ever since they were children that wore red backpacks to school, Maya hardly grasped why she wanted to throw her notebook at Io's face. She thought she was a mean kid for feeling so. Years passed and when they reached their first year of high school, she finally understood that unshakable feeling that made her blood boil.

Somehow everything went Io's way. Lunch trading? Io took all the meat and left Maya with a box of rice. On days of physical education, Maya was left with just an empty box. Io took the utensils too. Embarrassing moments? Io was always there to witness and laugh like a hyena, sometimes even pulling a crowd together for all to see. Boys? Io was insanely beautiful and while Maya tossed that up to a genetic advantage, it always hurt that the ones she fancied liked Io too.

It was the little things at first but then it went deeper than that. Maya was forgotten and exchanged for Io's cooler friends. Getting pushed and shoved in her teenage years bore a heavier hit than the childish fun before. She sought solace in music but even that sanctuary was intruded. The last straw was when Maya was laughed at for wanting to be an idol. To add salt to her wound, Maya felt hollow when she learned that Io Hara debuted as an idol. The days of coming home from school together were over and they remained as just neighbors until Io's ascent to fame.

Only Maya knew this other side of Io. Io's faithful and bordering-on-fanatical fans would dismiss what she knew as blasphemy and would most likely lit their torches and sharpened their pitchforks if a word ever got out. But she kept a lid on it. It wasn't for them or fear of the backlash but because it was her fuel for revenge and redemption. Ultimately, she wanted to see Io's dumb face when she stood at the top.

Maya wiped the drool off her face because the brief ecstasy of fantasy wore out to the truth.

Io was gone and no one knew why. Two years and not a word from the idol. The speculations on the internet went wild like the weeds of an untrimmed lawn. There were rumors that she eloped with her significant other— steamier speculation ensued. Some said she just wanted to get away from it all and maybe even bought a private island just for herself.

But Maya knew in her black heart that that wasn't the case. She knew Io wouldn't trade all she had for anything else. At most, Maya thought it was a stunt for the explosion of publicity that would come once the idol resurfaced but in all honesty, she didn't know either. The sudden disappearance of Io Hara left an odd void in her and it made her angry enough to crumple her lyric notes. She muttered to herself in a pissed-off voice, "Io Hara…"

A female assistant who stood by a door held onto her earpiece. She checked her clipboard and addressed the room, "Maya Yamamoto?"

"H-Here!" Maya's voice peaked to the heights of Mt. Fuji. She shot up from her seat and raised her hand, "I'm Maya Yamamoto."

The assistant gave a thumbs up, "Be ready in five, Ms. Yamamoto."

"Y-Yes." Maya quickly went for the mirror behind her. With a knee on her seat, she licked her fingertips and patted down the flyaways of her short black hair. She wore an oversized pink sweatshirt, torn faded jeans, and casual sneakers. Her used gym clothes unfortunately got mixed with the outfit she prepared for the audition and so she went with the cleanest clothes she had. Actually, it was the only clean clothes she had. For an idol audition, she surrendered that at least she was… presentable.

Maya shrugged. She stared at her own lake-blue eyes on the mirror and muttered, "Don't mess this up, Maya. That bitch has to get what's coming for her."

Maya grabbed her folder, which contained her headshot and portfolio, off the seat next to her. She removed her earphones and headed for the door where the assistant waited with a smile.

"Male auditions are next week," snarked Shantele as she reapplied her make-up.

"Don't be so wicked, Shantele!" Joanna mildly slapped her friend's shoulder, and Shantele's lipstick drew a very stray line across her cheek. "She wants to be the next Io Hara. I say, let dreamers dream."

Maya raised her eyebrow at them and dryly replied, "Who?"

The two women looked at each other with their jaws dropped. As Maya headed for the door, Shantele whistled and wiped the lipstick off her face. "Damn, that girl. Mm-mm. How tall do you think she is?"

"Around five-seven?" guessed Joanna. "Why, Shantele?"

"Could've fooled me. If you want a tan, you better stay away from that one with that damn shade she dropped on Io Hara."

Maya stood by the door and tried to avoid the assistant's awkward smile. She recited the lyrics over and over in her head. If she couldn't sing the song right, she might as well say the lyrics right.

"Miss Yamamoto? They're ready for you," reminded the assistant as she looked at her watch.

"R-Right." Maya shook her head and swallowed her spit. Hand on the doorknob, she closed her eyes and took two deep breaths. Thoughts rushed in.

'Should I act cute? Should I be sultry? Should I trip on the way in and bring out the goddamn teehee? ...No.' Maya opened her eyes and her eyes gleamed blue. Eyebrows on fleek but furrowed, she looked like a wolf on the hunt. 'I've done and failed so many stupid auditions… You know what? How about I start being me?'

"M-Miss Yamamoto?" The assistant, protected by her clipboard close to her chest, carefully asked.

Maya ignored her and, with an empowered resolve to take a certain famous idol down, opened the door, "They better be ready."