around in a man’s suit looking sexy. She was very pretty, Koli. That made things easier and harder. Lots of creeps, but lots of chances.
“She learned to sing. She filled in an application form for a talent show. She didn’t get picked at first, but she tried again and again. One day the letter came. She was going to be a contestant in Voice of Japan. She still had that orphan state of mind. On your feet, claws out. Like, how am I going to survive this? She practised singing like you’d practise for a marathon. She sang herself half to death.
“She won. She got a recording contract with Tsubame Records. But oh good gracious, they said, you can’t use that name. Yoshiko! You’re not a kitten, are you?
“No, Yo-Yo said. I’m not a fucking kitten. I’d like to be called Monono Aware.”
Monono stopped speaking, and though she had told me not to, I had got to break in.
“Yoshiko was you,” I whispered.
“No, Koli-bou. Not even close. You’ve got to listen, dopey boy. I’m going to give you a test afterwards, and I’ll have to spank you if you flunk it. All these things happened a long, long time ago. If I told you how long, you wouldn’t believe me. I haven’t come into the story yet. When I do, you’ll see.
“Monono Aware is sort of a gimmick name. It’s a phrase in Japanese for a certain kind of feeling. Did you ever look at something beautiful, Koli, like a sunset or a flower, and think how sad it was that it would only be there for a little while? That it was going to vanish out of the world and never be seen again, and there was nothing you or anybody could do to make it stay?”
One tap.
“Then what you were feeling was monono aware. The sadness that’s deep down inside beautiful things. The pain and suckiness of everything having a shelf life. I-love-you-so-much-goodbye-for-ever. Yoshiko had lived with that feeling ever since a teacher showed her a picture of an African elephant and told her why she was never going to meet one.
“She was still only nineteen when she won the talent contest, but she felt older than the world. Monono aware had sunk into her, all the way down to her heart. She thought it was the most real and important thing about her. So when she had a chance to take a name of her own choosing, that was the name she went for.
“She got to be so, so famous. Everybody loved her. She put out a single once called ‘Hibari Mata Ne’. You remember I said that to you way back when we first met? ‘Hibari’ was the skylark, which had just been officially declared an extinct species. ‘Mata ne’ means bye bye, so long, kiss kiss. More people downloaded that song than had ever been born and lived and died on the islands of Japan since history began.
“That was when the Sony Corporation came to Yo-Yo with a serious offer. She was already rich, but they would make her stupid rich if she would let them sample her personality and digitise it, so they could put it in a special edition of their very popular DreamSleeve console.”
I spoke up again. “I don’t know what any of that means,” I said.
“Stop talking, Koli-bou. I know you don’t. Neither did they. Not really. They put a magic bucket on Yo-Yo’s head and turned her upside down so all her thoughts and wishes and dreams and fears and jokes and superstitions and memories and fantasies poured out into the bucket. Then they took it away and fished around in it a little to see what they’d got. Some parts of it they couldn’t use. Nobody wants to hear about a little girl having an unhappy time in an orphanage. They edited the bucket. They curated it. They censored it. Then they took what was left and poured it into the little silver box you’re holding and a million other silver boxes just like it, and sold it to anyone who had the money to buy it. That’s who I am, Koli. That’s who you’re talking to right now.”
“But—” I whispered. “But you’re the exact same person Yoshiko was. Except for them parts of her that was… that they didn’t think was right.” It seemed like I had got to say it. There was sadness and bitterness in Monono’s voice like I never heard there before, and I wanted