Prologue: A Punk Rocker is Born

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I’ve never been very good with people. All through elementary school I was the kid who got picked last for group projects or to play on any sports teams, and when we went on field trips I was the one kid left over who had to hang out with the teacher after everyone else found a partner. It wasn’t like I’d done anything wrong to make everyone else dislike me, and even if I had this was elementary school*.* If even that one girl who was always picking her nose and eating her boogers could have friends, why couldn’t I?

It might not be very fair, but it seemed to just be how things were. Maybe my parents had known I was just destined to be alone forever. It would explain why they’d named me Hitori. If it really was destiny for me to never have friends or anyone else in my life, what was the point of trying to fight it?

Still, it would be nice if I could just have even one friend. More would be nice, but maybe that was too greedy or arrogant. Just one friend was probably more than a lowly sub-water flea like me deserved, but it didn’t feel like too big of a dream…

The problem was figuring out how to make friends. What was I supposed to do, just walk up to someone I’d never talked to before and say ‘Hi new friend, my name’s Gotoh Hitori!’ Maybe some kind of crazy extrovert could pull that off, but I would probably spontaneously combust if I tried something like that. Besides, who would want to be friends with an awkward weirdo like me? No, I needed something to make others want to be friends with me first. Maybe even something to make them approach me first. But not too much, or in a scary or aggressive way, or so many people it would be overwhelming, or…

Anyway, I needed something to make me seem more interesting than a nothing background character. Then, shortly after I started middle school I finally found what I was looking for. It was such a simple thing, just a random TV interview with a band member about how he’d been quiet and introverted as a kid, but he could still stand out as a member of a band.

If I learned to play the guitar I could join a band, and if I was in a band then I’d finally have friends! Maybe I’d even become popular! People who played guitar in a band were cool, after all. Imagine if I got to play at my school’s culture festival, and afterwards everyone would want to be my friend.

Of course, first I’d need to be good enough to be worth recruiting into a band. Nobody would want a total unknown with no accomplishments to be their lead guitarist, after all. I had a clever plan to get around that, though. All I needed to do was upload videos of my playing to the internet and someone was bound to notice me.

I’d uploaded my first video to J-Tube this morning before school. I hadn’t had a chance to check the comments while I was in class, but now that I was taking the train back home this was the perfect time to see how my video had done. What if I’d already gone viral with my first cover?!

*"And now we welcome to The Grand Imperial Theater of Tokyo the viral hit sensation who’s first video got over a billion hits the day it was posted. Give a warm welcome to Japan’s living national treasure, beloved across the entire Co-Prosperity Sphere, the one and only Gotoh Hitori!"

I strode out onto the main stage to the cheers of my countless fans, throwing my hands up into the air to egg them on. "Yeah! Rock you!"

The fans just cheered louder and louder the longer I was on stage. Then one of the Imperial Princesses rushed onto the stage, dropping to her knees in front of me. "Oh great Gotoh-sama, please do me the honor of letting me bear your child and raise it to be the next Emperor of Japan!"

The announcer let out a shocked gasp. "What’s this? But how could the legendary guitarist father a new imperial heir when she’s a woman?!"

"Hehehueeee… Nothing is impossible for the great Gotoh-sama…"

A moment later the train changed tracks, jostling me out of the daydream. I blinked and looked around the train car. For some reason, the one person who’d been sitting kinda close to me had moved to the opposite side of the train and was refusing to look in my direction. Why?

I shook my head and pulled out my phone to check my video on J-tube. Maybe a billion hits in the first 24 hours was a little unrealistic, but surely I could at least make it to—

"Eh?" I frowned and refreshed the page again, just to make sure. Nothing changed. The video I’d uploaded to our family’s J-Tube account this morning wasn’t there. Why? Was it just taking longer than usual to finish uploading? I knew it took some time between when I hit the button to start uploading and when it hit the internet, but surely by now it should be up. Or maybe…

*"Gotoh Hitori, for the crime of uploading a cringey bad guitar cover of a good song, the prosecution intends to seek the highest possible sentence!"

The judge nodded and banged the gavel. "This court agrees. Only one punishment can fit this crime. Death!"

The Tokko officers forced me to my knees and one of them drew their katana, preparing to…

I groaned and shook my head. No, that wouldn’t happen… right? There was no way my cover could be that bad. Even if it was, the Special Higher Police had better things to do than track down middle school girls who uploaded bad covers to J-Tube.

I frowned and glanced over the other videos on J-tube until I spotted a new story about the Kwantung Army clearing out some bandits. What if…

"Her guitar cover video was so bad it undermined public order throughout the Northern Resource Area. The workers there no longer believe in Japanese supremacy after seeing her perform! The Kempeitai believe that we can restore order and fulfill our production quotas only by executing the criminal Gotoh Hitori!"

What if that had happened?! It was possible, right?

I quickly shut off my phone before the situation could get worse than it already was. Maybe I should just find something else to focus on for a bit. I looked around the train cart, but it was still mostly empty, and the people here seemed to be avoiding me. Did they know?! Was everyone else getting alerts on their phone not to associate with a wanted criminal like me?!

I pulled up the local news broadcast, mostly just for something to do but also so I’d know if they were hunting for me. I let out a relieved sigh when I didn’t see my face plastered under headlines about a criminal wanted for cultural desecration. Instead it was just the same old stories.

I stopped to watch one of the ones where a Tokko Senior Commissioner was talking about wanted criminals, just to be safe. "…anyone who knows anything about the dangerous criminals behind the recent Shinjuku Incident or who was present at Shinjuku FOLT in the days leading up to the Incident is required to report to their local prefecture authorities at once. Failure to comply makes you complicit in the actions of these dangerous criminals who are, according to our latest information, a band of Chinese dissident radicals seduced by poisonous Western ideologies and possibly even working under an Anglo ringleader. If you have any information regarding these barbaric criminals, please contact…"

I turned the video off. I’d never been to Shinjuku, it was way too fancy and trendy for an ordinary girl like me. If I went there I’d probably be attacked by all the beautiful fancy people there, who would all instantly recognize me as an outsider who didn’t belong.

Before I could find anything else to do to pass the time, my train finally arrived at my station. I sighed and picked up my bag before heading out. The sooner I got home, the sooner I could find out what was really going on with my video. It was probably just something normal and boring, like I’d messed up one of the settings or forgotten to click a button to actually finish uploading it.

"I’m home." I stepped inside and was in the middle of putting away my shoes and putting on my house slippers when I noticed something. An extra set of shoes. Not just any shoes, boots. Like the ones worn by—

"Hitori," my father’s voice came from the living room. "Could you join us, please?"

*Oh no oh no oh no, don’t tell me it was actually… *I stepped into the living room, and sure enough, sitting in my dad’s favorite chair was a man in a green-brown uniform wearing the armband of the Special Higher Police, the Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu. The Tokko.

I immediately prostrated myself on the floor. "Please don’t execute me just for posting a single cringey video on the internet! I am a lowly creature less significant than even a water flea, and—"

"Nobody’s going to execute you today, little Hitori." The Tokko officer chuckled and waved for me to sit down on the couch next to my father. The man had a fleshy face that wasn’t quite fat but certainly wasn’t slim, and was old enough to have laugh and smile lines on it. I’d say it was a kind face, if not for the fact that even when he was laughing and smiling, it never seemed to reach his eyes. "I just have a few questions for you. I’m sure you’re aware of the penalty for lying to one of the Emperor’s officers, so you’ll tell the truth. Where were you on the night of the 27th?"

"Um, here," I mumbled. "I was in my room, practicing the guitar."

"You didn’t sneak out?" He pressed. "Go with your friends somewhere like … say, Shinjuku?"

I tried to shrink down into the couch enough to disappear completely. "I don’t have any friends, and even if I did, nobody would invite someone like me to somewhere as nice as Shinjuku."

"You were in your room the whole time?" The officer asked.

"Um, I came down for dinner around… 7:00, 8:00? The usual time." I looked over at Dad for confirmation, but he was keeping his eyes on the officer. He looked … well normally my dad was all smiles and fun, but right now he looked deadly serious. I guess that made sense, considering who we were talking to.

The officer nodded along and jotted something down in his notebook. "That lines up with what everyone else said. Just for the record, do you know anything about the recent Incident in Shinjuku?"

Was that what this was all about? "Um… I think I saw something about that on the news while I was riding the train home. Otherwise, no."

He made a final note in his book. "I thought not. It was a long shot, but high command wants us to be thorough about checking out every possible lead. You never know who might have the one last piece of information we need to crack the case." He stood up from my father’s chair, and started to head for our door, only to pause halfway. "Oh, and one last thing, Hitori. You should probably find something better to do with your time than play the guitar."

Oh. Was that just because I was bad, or… "Am I going to get arrested for playing it?"

"No, no, playing Western instruments isn’t illegal." Despite the fact that his words should’ve been reassuring, there was no warmth in his words or eyes. The way he said it wasn’t illegal sounded a lot like he thought it should be. "But if you want to study music it would be much better if you learned to play something proper for a young lady like a shamisen or a biwa. You’ll never get a good husband playing the guitar."

I could not possibly care less about getting a husband, but I was pretty sure saying that out loud would be a bad idea. Instead I just nodded and stayed quiet, which seemed to be enough to satisfy him.

"Don’t worry," my father spoke up. "I’ve already deleted the video from our J-Tube channel, and I’ll make sure to discuss this with my daughter."

Oh. That didn’t sound good.

"Very well, Mr. Gotoh." The Tokko officer finally left. I let out a relieved sigh when I heard the door close behind him.

After a minute or so Mom came down from upstairs, carrying my baby sister Futari in her arms. "He’s gone."

"Um… so I guess we need to go buy me a shamisen then?" I would hate to give up my guitar, but at least a shamisen still had strings that you plucked. It wasn’t like I hated traditional Japanese instruments or music or anything, I wasn’t some delinquent corrupted by Western music or ideas. Everyone who goes to school knows how decadent and corrupt the Americans and British are. I only even took English because it was a required class, and I was barely passing it! I just thought the guitar was a little bit cooler. That wasn’t a crime, the Tokko officer had just said so.

Dad took a deep breath and turned to face me. "Do you want to learn to play the shamisen, or the guitar?"

I hesitated, trying to figure out what the right answer was. The shamisen was more proper for a young lady, but it was Dad’s old guitar. Would he be proud of me for wanting to play his old instrument? Then again, a guy playing the guitar was different from a girl. And he’d just told the Tokko officer that—

"Hitori," Mom’s voice cut in. "Just tell us what you want, not what you think we want to hear."

I felt all the spit in my mouth dry up. That definitely meant they’d throw me out of the house and make me live on the streets in shame if I said the wrong thing. I’d end up having to work for the Yakuza just to get enough food to eat, and if I messed up then they’d cut off my pinkie and I wouldn’t be able to play the guitar anymore!

I didn’t know what I was supposed to say, so in the end I decided to tell the truth. Mostly just because I wasn’t a very good liar anyway, Mom and Dad always seemed to see through me. "Um, I guess I’d like to keep playing the guitar, but if that’s not okay I can totally learn another instrument or just give up music entirely. I know I’m probably not very good at it anyway, so…"

A second later Dad was patting my head, and I let out a relieved sigh. That probably meant I was okay, right? "If you want to keep playing, we’ll find a way to make it work. Just don’t upload any more videos of you playing guitar to our family account. It’s best to avoid the sort of… complications we had today."

Oh! Right! It was all my fault that a member of the Tokko had come here! I quickly prostrated myself, banging my forehead on the floor hard enough to sting. "I’m so sorry I messed up!"

"It’s fine, it’s fine," Mom helped me back up. "Don’t worry about it, I’ll make karaage for dinner. That’s still your favorite, right? I know sometimes girls your age change their minds about that kind of thing…"

"I still like it." How could anyone not like fried chicken?

"More importantly, you don’t need to apologize for anything." Dad patted my head again.

"But the police came here because of me." And not just any police, the Tokko. They usually only dealt with political subversives and enemies of the state.

"I know." He nodded along, a frown on his face as he answered me. "But that doesn’t mean you did something wrong. They were just looking for information. And sometimes even if they say you did something wrong, that doesn’t mean—"

Mom cleared her throat and shot a look his way, and Dad went quiet. After a few seconds he squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. "In any case, if you want to keep uploading guitar songs to J-Tube, there are a few things we need to change. We should get you your own account, separate from our family one. Then we’ll have you log in using our VPN whenever you use that account, just for a little extra safety."

"Vee Pee En?" I repeated uncertainly. I vaguely recognized the English letters from somewhere, and a second later it clicked. "Those things you use so you can’t be tracked online?" I suppose wanting to use one of those made sense, except… "Aren’t those Western? And illegal?"

Dad leaned in and whispered. "Maybe, but it’ll be our little secret, okay? I just want you to be able to play the guitar if you want to."

"We already had it for other things like listening to the news anyway," Mom spoke up from the kitchen. "So we might as well use it to support you as well."

My parents were… criminals? Rebels? Subversives poisoned by Western ideas? From what Mom said they even listened to Western propaganda. What was I supposed to do about this? Shouldn’t I report them to the Tokko for their subversive activities?

Roll: Willpower (2) + Ethics (2) +1 Bonus Dice Roll : 5d6 : 6, 6, 5, 6, 6 4 Successes vs DC 2 Those dice were on fire...

Wait. No. Mom and Dad weren’t doing anything wrong. Just like I hadn’t been doing anything wrong when I wanted to learn how to play the guitar. But the Tokko still came here anyway, and tried to scare us and act like I wasn’t allowed to do that. He even tried to scare me into abandoning the guitar completely and playing a different instrument just to be more ‘proper’ and ‘womanly.’ Whatever that meant. I didn’t want to be a proper woman, I wanted to keep playing the guitar! I loved doing it.

I’d thought of this kind of thing before. That maybe the problem wasn’t really with me after all. That it wasn’t a matter of me not fitting into society, but that society refused to let me be myself. In the past I’d always dismissed it as pure arrogance to think such things, but if Mom and Dad felt that way sometimes too…

What if, when I disagreed with society, it was because *society *was wrong?!

I took a deep breath. "Okay, so what do I need to do to set up my own J-Tube account to upload my guitar covers to?"

Dad smiled. "Well, there are a few technical details I’ll need to work out to make sure it’s all safe before we get to that, but while I’m doing that why don’t you think of a name for the account? You can’t exactly use your real name on a secret account, after all."

"Think of it like a stage name," Mom suggested. "Plenty of famous artists have those."

Hmmm. A stage name for my J-Tube channel. What should that be? Rockers needed to be cool, right?

"And a persona!" Mom chimed in. "Everyone knows a rockstar needs to have… what do kids call it now, Hitori? Rizz? Aura?" She chuckled to herself. "I keep up with all the slang kids use these days. Why, I bet if I put on my old high school uniform I could pass myself off as your big sister, Gotoh Sannin."

"Please don’t do that," I mumbled as loudly as I dared. I know I’m not very cool, but even I know Mom’s worse.

Still, she wasn’t wrong about building up a stage personality. ‘Lonely future shut-in with no friends’ was not very rock at all. As long as I was making up a name, I should do a persona to go with it. Hmm…

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What Will Hitori’s Channel Name and Persona Be?

[ ] Guitarhero A cheerful extrovert who’s the most popular girl in school, dating the captain of the sports team. In other words, her total opposite.

[ ] Guitarpunk A quiet withdrawn genius guitarist, whose playing inspires the school but whose innate coolness leaves her isolated as her peers struggle to understand her brilliance.

[ ] Punkhero Badass rebel student who’s not afraid to stand up to bullies or authority figures, who has earned the respect of the school despite her anti-authoritarian ways.

[ ] Write-in

New Positive Trait!

Hitori Lives In A Society:: "Is Japan really that unfair? I used to think I was the only person who felt that way, but…"