#ug.prod

Name: Amanda Shibasaki Pseudonym: KAONASHI  Pronouns: She/her Age: 24 Occupation: Producer/DJ Canon: PROD_02

Freeform:

OAKLAND

It’s not perfect. Her parents never fall in love. She shows up at the wrong time, in the middle of lives meant to go in different directions.

It’s Amanda who ruins everything. Amanda that changes the trajectories of everyone’s lives.

And that’s just the way life goes.

Mom says it could be worse, she could be a lonely little girl who no one in the world loves. She could’ve been given up for adoption, left to wait for people who are looking for little pug-faced girls to bring home.

But she wasn’t given up for adoption.

She’s raised by Erica and Nozomu until they get divorced and Nozomu gets replaced by Steven who doesn’t like kids especially not little girls name Amanda.

And then Nozomu comes back and Erica and Steven go away and nothing’s ever constant.

“It’s not your fault,” Nozomu tells her, “just unlucky and born in the middle of wrong lives.”

Later when she’s older she finds out it’s called being a victim of circumstance.

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JŌETSU

There’s something about being othered.

She’s not Japanese enough for the girls at school. Her accent is funny, and she stands out awkward and gawky amongst her schoolmates. One of the girls tell her if she made more of an effort maybe they’d like her more.

Then again, maybe not.

Even when she tries her hardest she still sits just on the outside, always looking in never quite included in.

Dad says being popular in high school doesn’t really matter anyways, not at least in the grand scheme of things. There are things Amanda has that the girls at school don’t. Smart to a nearly prodigious degree, she’s got talent where it really matters. People later in life will get her, he promises.

But promises of the future don’t change the present. She rides her bike home alone, sits in her room alone, and buries her head in the pillow and listens to the same handful of songs on repeat. Repeats it ad nauseum.

It’s easier to exist in a daydream. To press her head to the speaker and get lost in something other than herself, and at some points she decides to make her own soundtracks. Posts remixes of songs she’s made when she ought to be busy enjoying her youth under a name as nameless as she feels.

Turns out people like it too. The irony of people loving KAONASHI more than Amanda Shibasaki doesn’t escape her.

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SEOUL

Here’s the part not mentioned. She gets into Waseda not because she wants to but because everyone else wants her too. She’d break her own back for a crumb of approval.

It’s pathetic really.

But she gets into Waseda even though she doesn’t want to go and spends another year out of place (for the most part) stuck in a major she hates at a school she doesn’t care for.

And then, because she can and because she’s bored (and maybe because she’s looking for a reason to self-destruct) she takes a chance at a year abroad in Korea. Nevermind the fact she’s never had any desire to go to Seoul, nevermind the fact that she doesn’t even know a lick of Korean. It’s the act of running away she wants. Feet hitting the pavement and moving as fast as she can.

And then it falls apart.

She does the same shit she does in Tokyo. Nights run too long, bleed into days, she wastes time in clubs, smoking, drinking, always listening for something that sets her alight. But Baachan and Dad are a country away and Mom might as well be a world away. No one asks anything of her, no one expects anything of her.

Her grades fall first. Or maybe she stops showing up to classes first. She can’t remember, it’s not important either way. What’s important is she convinces some band in her shitty little Korean that she’s an actual producer and not some stupid girl just playing at something and they give her a shot and they make a song that’s fucking good. What’s important is some of the local clubs take her on as a DJ, let her waste the night away spinning records and wasting time on childhood passions.

But mom calls and says she’s a ungrateful fucking idiot for wasting everything on little pipe dreams. Fuck the scholarship. Fuck the degree. Fuck the perceived promise of a secure future in a job she’ll inevitably hate. But she’s the idiot for throwing it away.

Dad’s disappointed too, even though he doesn’t say it. He says he worries about the future, asks her to come home. The music industry’s never been known for job security. He worries maybe he indulged her too much growing up, filled her head with too many fairytales and not enough reality. He sends her a plane ticket and tells her to comeback, he’ll be there to pick her up when she gets there.