Chapter 4: Ten Seconds Each

On Saturday afternoon Emi became staff.

Misaki gave her a black T-shirt that said TSUBOMI SEVEN CREW in pink letters, and a stack of cardboard timer cards.

Emi put it on over her cardigan and felt like a fraud.

"It's an online handshake event," Misaki said.

"Fans buy a CD and get a ticket."

"The ticket gets them ten seconds on a video call with Kokone."

"Ten seconds."

"Thirty seconds if they bought thirty CDs."

Emi looked at the stack of tickets on the screen, a long list of numbers, and did the math.

She stopped when she got to the end of the first page.

"Some of them bought three hundred," Misaki said, without looking up. "They cost nine hundred yen each. That's how it works."

"What do they do with three hundred CDs?"

"Leave them on the street. Sell them used. Put them in the pile in their room."

"And they get ten seconds."

Emi stared at the number.

She had worked at a convenience store for four years, and she thought she understood how people spent money on small comforts.

This was something else.

The living room table had been turned into a set.

Kokone sat behind a laptop and a ring light, in a fresh pink dress, with her hair in twin tails tied with white ribbon.

A ribbon-wrapped box sat at her elbow, because fans liked to see a box.

Emi's job was to stand off-camera, left of the laptop, and hold up a card.

TEN SECONDS LEFT.

Five.

Next.

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