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Goro’s late nights kept getting later. Perhaps it was time for him to start turning down offers for morning interviews. As it was, he was on the verge of nodding off when today’s stylist tugged too hard with her comb, and his eyes snapped open.
"Ah! Sorry, Akechi."
"It's all right," Goro said cheerily, trying to squash the feeling of vengeful irritation that had arisen.
"Your hair is so nice. Not a single split end! You know, I read something about you in a magazine…”
Goro had practiced his conversation skills on hairstylists ever since he had first decided to make a concentrated effort towards cultivating a positive public image, so exchanging meaningless pleasantries with this one was second nature. He was too low on sleep to be at his best, but she seemed delighted to speak to him anyways. Most people were, these days.
After it was all over, he left the dressing room, mentally counting down the minutes until his television appearance. But he was jolted out of his thoughts when, on his way to the set, a middle-aged man stepped suddenly in front of him.
Before Goro could excuse himself and move on, the man grinned and said, “Akechi! I was hoping to see you today.”
Goro called up a smile– not the TV one, but the respectful one that adults liked. Who the hell was this guy? “Oh, hello. I hope you’ve been well.”
“I’m just fine. In fact, a company I’m working with has just come out with a new product.”
Ah. Right. The advertising executive he’d met at that party the network had hosted. A generally unimportant person. Goro’s thoughts went to the time again. “That’s good to hear. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I have–”
The executive shoved something in front of his face. “Akechi, take a look at this!”
Caught off-guard, Goro stepped back and squinted. He was being presented with some kind of lumpy-looking action figure. It was a little smaller than the size of a fist, shaped like a cartoon alien, and bright pink.
"I'm sorry," Goro said slowly. "What exactly is this?"
"Allow me to introduce you to Yui-chan.”
“Yui-chan,” Goro repeated.
“Yui-chan!” the man agreed. “Her backstory is that she's here from another planet to spread love and joy. She's a multi-purpose item! Perfect as a keychain, pencil holder, stress ball, and more.”
“That’s… quite a lot of purposes."
“If you keep her with you, she might even bring you good dreams,” the man added, winking. “That's the line we'll be using, at least.”
“I see.” Goro was far too sleep-deprived for this. “I apologize for being blunt, but what exactly does this have to do with me?”
“I’m glad you asked. You know, Akechi, you’re only sixteen, but you’re popular with men and women, children and adults.”
Goro laughed politely. “You flatter me.”
“No need to be modest. I’ve seen the survey results myself. We want to market Yui-chan to as many people as possible– office workers, students, housewives, you name it. You’re the perfect choice to appeal to a wide variety of potential customers.”
So it was an advertising opportunity. But this product was quite different from any that Goro had promoted before. It was exceptionally pink, for one thing. Would people take kindly to his associating with something so... brightly feminine?
Every choice he made had to be meticulously considered. If people thought this product didn’t fit his image, other opportunities could stop coming. Shido might decide his media appearances were a liability and demand that he cease appearing on TV at all. Soon people would no longer recognize his name. And then…
"Of course, I don’t expect an answer right away,” the man added. “How about you take this?” He gave Goro his card. “And this one, as a gift! I’ve got boxes of them in my office.” Before Goro could react, he pressed the strange object into his hand.
Goro stared at it, feeling its plastic weight in his palm. He felt vaguely as if he was being given garbage that someone had just plucked out of a can. “How kind of you,” he said, and smiled.
That night, sleep did Goro the favor of coming quickly, but he wasn’t spared the inconvenience of dreams.
When memories from his childhood resurfaced, Goro could never exactly recall how old he’d been when the events took place. Dates were unhelpful in the process of mentally navigating the half-repressed shitshow that was his early life. Instead, Goro measured time by numbering foster homes and institutions. This dream was lifted straight from his memories of one of them– house three.
He was a child, sitting sulkily on the front steps of the home– not his home, never his. Eventually Goro could recall why he’d been upset. There was something he'd lost. Its image was clear in his mind: a cheap stuffed animal with a long, curved neck that he’d named Akari. When he’d returned from school the day before, it had been nowhere to be found.
One of the other orphans, Goro remembered, was the culprit behind the disappearance. Later, that was to be the first mystery he’d ever solve. For now, that boy was nearby and having a laugh at his expense.
"I can't believe you're crying over that bird,” he taunted. “It's girly, and you're a boy. Pink birds can't even fly."
"This one could," Goro snapped in the dream, just as he had in life. The older, distantly conscious part of him remembered: he’d liked that ridiculous flamingo more than any other toy he’d ever had. It was brightly-colored, unafraid of being seen and of confronting the world. It had feathery wings to fly away any time it wanted. And it could fly away. It had to. Goro was convinced– this one was different.
The other boy just laughed again, a childishly cruel sound. Goro wanted to rush over and pummel him with his little fists, but before he got the chance, he woke up.
Now sixteen, far too old for toys, and completely alone, Goro felt disoriented as he blinked awake and looked around. “Yui-chan” was lying on its side in the corner where he’d tossed it before falling unceremoniously into bed the previous night. It looked at him serenely with its large, alien eyes.
Good dreams, the executive had said. Love and joy. Apparently, this thing was even more useless than Goro had originally thought.
Regardless, that dream had reminded him of a few things he’d forgotten– like the fact that pink had once been his favorite color. And that number three had been his least favorite foster home.
Goro rose to his feet, went to rummage in his closet for his blazer, and retrieved the advertising executive’s card from the inside pocket.
Later, on the phone, the executive sounded surprised. “Akechi! I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
"I've decided that forming a media partnership would be mutually beneficial for us,” Goro said. “I take it you'll be able to work around my schedule?"
The afternoon sky was bleeding into warm evening colors when Goro caught sight of his own face on a TV screen in a storefront window.
By this point he'd seen the commercial many times over, but Goro stopped to watch it with attentive interest anyway. His image on the screen looked at the camera and smiled. In his hand was Yui-chan, small and pink and marketable. The boy on the screen had a look of calm confidence, one that Goro had worked hard to perfect.
The filming process had gone smoothly. The camerawoman had cooed over Goro and called him handsome, and the businessmen had been impressed by the way he understood their jargon. Now the only thing left to do was assess the reaction from his public. His fans. Goro swallowed, took a breath, and pulled out his phone.
He shouldn’t have been nervous. A search for his own name on a few social media apps brought up a series of fawning posts. There was even a forty-something office worker whose picture of himself holding Yui-chan had gone viral. In his caption, he’d written, “Akechi has one, so…”
Goro felt a sharp sense of relief. So he was safe. A novelty item wasn't going to be the catalyst for his downfall– of course it wasn't. He glanced at his reflection in the window and saw that he was smiling. This had been a productive experiment. Now he knew more about the extent of his appeal.
“Mom, look at Yui-chan!”
Goro turned his head.
A mother and her son were coming through a nearby crosswalk. The boy’s hand was clutched too tightly around what he was holding for Goro to see what it was, but he thought he could guess.
"Yes, sweetie, I’ve seen it,” the mother said absently. She looked down at him. “You really like that thing, don’t you? But you’ve always said pink is for girls.”
"Well… the detective on TV had one, and he’s a guy!” the boy said, emphatic. “And he stops bad guys."
“Wow, you’ve really changed, Kaito...”
Before either of them could see him, Goro ducked his head and walked quickly in the opposite direction. He kept walking until he could lose himself in the mass of people passing through the Station Square, until the rapid pace of his heart started to slow. Catching his breath, he felt oddly overwhelmed.
The boy had sounded insistent. Watching Goro had influenced him, in a way that even seemed real.
For some reason, all he could think about suddenly was Akari, his ill-fated flamingo.
Goro reached into his pocket. When his fingers closed around the Yui-chan charm, he pulled it out and held it up. Its plastic eyes looked at him.
Made of incorruptible parts, it would last longer than that boy, or Goro himself. It might even have a more considerable legacy.
The young boy’s voice echoed again in Goro’s memory. He shook his head a little, as if to clear his thoughts. It wasn’t useful to dwell on the denouement of his own story. With the goal he had in mind, Goro couldn't afford to spare much thought to the matter of how he would be remembered.