"Shouganai" is Japanese phrase, that basically means "It can't be helped".

Richardis Herzsprung was not a superstitious girl. She was quite the opposite actually: Ghost stories, karma, rebirth, deities – all were equally superstitions in her eyes. Yet she couldn’t help, but keep Angela’s prophecy in the back of her mind and quietly imagined what if it were true. What if a white plastic flower falling to the ground really meant the arrival of the significant other in her life? What if it meant disaster?

She scanned the sky with her eyes. It was a cheerful bright blue, almost cloudless. It did not look like it was going to rain. She looked to the people in the festivities around her next. There were a lot of young men around – natives and tourists alike – dressed in the traditional festive jackets. In the distance one could already hear the roar of the first crowd carrying a mobile wooden shrine on their shoulders. Muscly arms and sweaty faces came into view.

What if… what if…

She had wanted to come back to Japan, because it was the culture that had always deeply fascinated her. The one with whom she felt a connection. A connection that went deeper than a simple culture-crush. A connection that sometimes made her wonder if maybe something spiritual existed. If maybe there was an invisible force pulling her to this place again and again.

But Japanese boys and men had always been rather shy around her. 3½ years ago she, too, had been a different person. Had found it difficult to talk pleasantly and casually with them. Now she had gained a lot of confidence after just 2,5 weeks at Shiroryuu. But her image of men had been damaged, too. Even the ones who had come far in life seemed to be immature and superficial around pretty women. She wondered if they were just like that with hostesses and if around … normal women… they spoke more carefully and respectfully?

The other Shiroryuu hostesses, all dressed in magnificent colorful kimonos and with one or several white roses in their hair began shouting and cheering as the shrine-carrying youth drew nearer. Richardis joined them and for a moment forgot about the supposed omen.

She had never been to a festival like this before. With her host family she had lived in the far outskirts of Tokyo, where only mini-versions of these festivals took place. Her hometown in Germany had been small and there, too, festivals had not been her thing. But seeing hundreds upon hundreds of people celebrating together created an amazing atmosphere.

Occasionally locals and tourists alike would stop to look at the group of beautiful young women dressed in kimono, standing by the gate to the main Asakusa shrine and ask them for photographs or start chatting. Angela and Richardis soon found themselves surrounded by a group of young male British tourists.

“Are you like a… foreign geisha?” asked one young man.

“No,” said Angela with a smile. “But we are the modern representatives of the local culture.” And she went ahead to hand the men fliers of the Shiroryuu that were printed both in Japanese and English.

“I’m afraid we can’t afford that,” said another one of the tourists.

“I don’t think we want to afford that,” said his friend, who was ushering the group to leave.

“Let’s at least take photos,” insisted the other.

“That was impolite,” said Richardis when they had left.

“What do you expect?” asked Angela, “Foreigners usually don’t have a clue what a hostess is, they just know there’s some loose connection to the red light district – which then either fascinates them or makes them leave like we saw just now.”

Richardis frowned. The idea of meeting her significant other was being pushed further into her subconscious, as she realized that as long as she was handing out fliers and marketing her company for money, she would be seen either as a commodity or a blemish on society.

“How long do you plan to be a hostess?” she asked Angela, who had already starting flirting per eye-contact with the next troupe of male tourists.

“As long as I like it,” she answered.

“And what will you do afterwards? Do you have any plans?”

“Hmm, I dunno,” said Angela, “I might open up my own club and become a mama-san. But my Japanese’s gotta be really good… Well, I originally came here to finance my round-the-world trip. I kinda got stuck, because it pays so well, you know. And I enjoy meeting the rich and famous of Japan. I mean – where else would I be able to do that?”

“True,” said Richardis, preparing her smile for the next advancing group of male tourists.

Kim Junsu felt himself growing calmer and calmer as noon approached. He sat backstage in a small empty concert hall, revising one more time the Japanese lyrics for the songs he would perform. He enjoyed having some solitude before a performance. To sing without instrumental music, to just hear his own voice echo in large room.

At midday the morning parade would be over and people would be dispersing all over the area towards the various attractions and food stands. During the morning hours several local acts had performed on the charity concert stage, at noon it would be his turn, when the maximum amount of people would be present. If people liked a performance they would give money to the volunteers standing by the stage collecting it for a local child rescue center. Some of the children and teenagers from the center were also there to tell their stories. The whole event was thus quite emotionally charged and Junsu was determined to contribute the best he could.

He checked his watch. It was almost noon. Yamaa-san should be picking him up any moment now. Just to make sure he would be on stage on time, Junsu left the small concert hall via door that opened next to the stage – still hidden from the view of the spectators. As soon as he pushed the door open loud guitar music filled his ears – the previous act wasn’t finished yet. He stepped outside anyway and waited next to the door for someone to call him.

When the band had finished a few minutes later, the concert’s announcer went on stage.

“My dear audience, we are honored to present to you our surprise act of the day: None other than Kim Junsu of JYJ.”

The crowd gave first a gasp, then a cheer and then a hurricane of applause, amidst which Yamaa-san turned up out of nowhere, pressed a microphone into Junsu’s hand and ushered him onto the stage.

Stepping out behind the back of the stage, the sunlight blinded Junsu for a moment, then he stood on stage facing an audience of several hundred people, who were already cheering for him.

“Hello Tokyo,” he greeted them, while the announcer quietly retreated from the stage.

A huge cheer greeted him back.

“It’s good to be here again,” he said. “I’ll be performing a few songs for you today and would kindly ask you to show your support for the Asagao child rescue center. Thank you very much!”

While making his request he bowed deep and after the crowd had given a confirming cheer straightened up again.

“Okay, Tokyo, are you ready?”

The crowd erupted in cheers and the instrumental of his first song started to play.

Since the inclusion of him performing at the event had been organized rather recently, he was without back-up dancers and literally had to pull of a one-man show. Additionally everything was live, so he had to tone down the dancing and concentrate on convincing the audience with his vocals. The audience however seemed to include a lot people who were familiar with him and his music, which made his job easier as they started singing along, when the instrumental for “With You Always” started playing.

It was not the first time that he had to sing a JYJ song all by himself, still Junsu caught himself almost stopping at the parts that at a group concert one of his two band members would have sung. Once he had fully gotten into the song however, he felt the music consume him. Just as it should be he became one with the song. He no longer had to think about what words and what melody. It all came naturally and he lost any nervousness he had felt before.

When the first song ended, the crowd erupted into even louder cheers. He thanked the audience and repeated the polite request for a donation to the rescue center for the newly arrived members of the audience. By now many people had gotten out their cellphones and were filming him.

Two songs later the crowd had swollen to such numbers, that people started pushing close to the stage and he had to remind them to be more careful with their fellow members of the audience.

While he was still leaning forward to the people right next to the stage and politely scolding them for their aggression, something odd happened: The instrumental for his next song “Beautiful Love” started playing and Junsu hurried back into position, but the music was much too quiet. Not wanting to complain on the microphone or walk off stage, he just went with it and sang, but it caused a disruption in the crowd, which started to murmur. Angry with whom ever had messed up and set the instrumental of his song to much too quiet, but determined to continue with the performance anyway, Junsu went ahead and gave his all for the vocals and when the song ended apologized to the crowed for the failed audio.

The concert’s announcer hurried on stage and apologized for the audio as well, promising to fix it. But when the next instrumental started playing, the pitch was set too high, so that Junsu couldn’t sing along at all. It had to be one really bad joke, he thought.

The audience was standing there, quiet and cheerless, except for the unintelligible murmurs that went through its ranks. Junsu stood there, sweating from having given his all for the last few songs and embarrassed by the failing audio. Someone in the crowd actually started to booing, which Junsu saw as his cue to head backstage to inquire on the technical problems.

Exiting the stage he saw the announcer arguing with a technician, who when he saw him, quickly hurried on stage to apologize to the audience. Junsu went looking for Yamaa-san and soon found him shouting at the DJ, who was shouting back.

“What’s going on?” said Junsu, finding it difficult to contain his anger. Nothing had gone wrong after all with any of the previous acts.

“I don’t know,” said his manager, whose face was red with anger. “Trying to figure it out right now. Can you… maybe sing A-Capella?”

“No, but I have an idea,” said Junsu, who remembered that several old instruments stood around in the otherwise empty concert hall.

He hurried past the back of the stage and into concert hall, shutting the door as he went in. For a moment the noise of the crowd was gone and he was able to clear his head. He hurried on stage, not sure if the instrument he was looking for was even there and not sure if he was even allowed to just take one of the instruments. Finally he spotted what he had been looking for, took it and hurriedly made his way back to the stage.

“Here he is again,” said the announcer, who turned away from the microphone and addressed Junsu: “You’ll be playing the ukulele then?”

“Yes, can you get me a chair and a microphone stand.”

“Of course,” the announcer said and hurried off the stage.

“I apologize again for the inconvenience,” Junsu said, still catching his breath, while people behind him were carrying a chair and microphone stand onto the stage. “Thank you for your patience… here is the replacement program. I don’t play very well, but I’ll give my best for you.”

“How many flyer do you have left?” Angela asked Richardis.

“Two or three.”

“Yeah, me, too. Phew, almost done! Let’s just hand them to someone and go on our well-deserved break.”

“Sounds good!”

They had been standing around the Asakusa gate for over an hour and were tired of taking photos with tourists.

“Where are you two going?” asked Coco-chan disapprovingly, when she saw Angela and Richardis leaving.

“We got rid of most of our flyers, so we’re taking that break Mama-san talked about. Aren’t you done?” countered Angela, eying the rather large staple of flyers in Coco-chan hands.

“I’m not,” said Coco-chan angrily, “Because I brought Suzu-chan to the station and send her home, because she was feeling sick again. And I offered to hand out her flyers for her.”

“Oh,” said Angela apologetically.

“Is she strong enough to get home on her own?” asked Richardis.

“After she spent half an hour in the train station ladies’ room, she said she felt better, but she looked greenish, so I insisted she’d go home,” answered Coco-chan.

“I do hope that she’s okay,” said Angela, “But there’s a free concert taking place right now, two streets away and Mama-san said we could go there, if we were done.”

At this moment, Chi-chan joined them.

“I’m absolutely starving! Are you done with your flyers, too?”

Richardis and Angela nodded and Coco-chan frowned.

“Coco-chan took Suzu-chan’s pile, because Suzu-chan went home sick,” Richardis explained to Chi-chan, “How about we divide the flyers up between us four and hand them to people that we pass on our way to the food stands and the concert.”

That was something everyone could agree with, so they split up Coco-chan’s pile and headed out together, away from the gate and towards where the seducing smell of roasting meat was coming from.

Walking in a group with Chi-chan, Coco-chan and Angela, Richardis felt like she had really become part of a team, a group of friends. For the first time in her life people around her were actually turning their heads to look at her and for once she didn’t feel it was just because she was a foreigner, but because she looked beautiful and enthralling and was in the company of equally pretty and mysterious women.

“Oh my god!” said Angela, when they had handed away their last flyer and ended up by the food stands. “I am so getting takoyaki¹.”

“Takoyaki?” asked Richardis, “Where?”

Angela pointed and 3 minutes later they had both bought 2 boxes of takoyaki.

“I love this ish!” exclaimed Angela picking up a takoyaki dumpling, dipping it in the sauce contained in the boxes and started eating it.

Richardis had already finished her first 2 dumplings.

“Oh wow, you’re fast!” said Chi-chan, who was munching her onigiri².

“Haven’t had these in over 3 years… must have them now every chance I get!” declared Richardis inbetween bites.

Coco-chan joined them, a plastic bowl of steaming yakisoba³ in her hand.

“Can we go sit down somewhere?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Chi-chan, “Around the corner is a small park with tables. Maybe we’ll find one that’s free.”

Enjoying their respective purchased foods the girls headed down the street in the direction of the park.

“Where did all the people go,” asked Angela, when they reached the park and saw lots of free tables.

“Looks like they all went to the concert,” observed Chi-chan and indeed: Although the park was empty the square and the street adjacent to it where packed with people and they could hear music fairly close by.

“Let’s sit down here,” said Coco-chan, “We’ll have music and food.”

They all sat down, but not long after Angela received a text from Mama-san.

“We’re supposed to return to the Asakusa gate immediately to meet with the Shiroryuu patrons!” she told the others.

“What?” asked Chi-chan, “We had like 30 minutes off and didn’t even get to see any of the concert and now it’s already back to work!?”

“I betcha the concert will be over when we are done with endorsing whatever our patrons want us to endorse this year,” complained Coco-chan.

“Shouganai,” said Angela and together the four women headed back to the Asakusa gate, all of them grumpy over the shortness of their break.

Completely exhausted, quite horse, sweating in the light of the midday sun, but glad he had saved the performance Junsu bowed one last time under thunderous applause and left the stage.

“Where did you even get that thing?” Yamaa-san asked him, pointing at the ukulele.

“It was in the concert hall,” said Junsu, “I don’t want to imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t found it there. When I started my third song at least three reporters had arrived to film the performance.”

“You did marvelously,” said Yamaa-san, patting Junsu’s back in a fatherly manner, but still looking confused and disgruntled by what had happened. “I was lost there for a moment. I thought everything had been cleared with the DJ and the technicians. I’m at fault here. Again. Please forgive me, Kim-san.”

“Don’t worry about it; I requested to take part in this concert very short-term. Therefore I am responsible.”

Junsu didn’t want Yamaa-san to bombard him with apologies as would be the conventional thing to do in their situation. He was tired, his knees were hurting and he wanted to return the ukulele before someone complained.

“I’ll bring this back to where I found it,” Junsu said to Yamaa-san, before his manager could start a tirade of apologies and again headed away from the stage and into the concert hall.

He welcomed the cool air and the quietness of the place and took his time climbing onto the small stage and putting the ukulele back to where he had found it. He wondered if the press would use the technical difficulties as reason to ostracize him again, or if they would report kindly about how he had attempted to save the day with the ukulele.

Generally he felt he had learned once again from the experience: He would not again do such a short-term project – next time he would be well prepared, with back up-dancers or co-singers and definitely well-working audio. To recollect himself, he sat down amongst the instruments and closed his eyes for a moment.

“What am I doing? Why am I here? Why am I doing this?” he asked himself inside his head. “I’m completing my legacy,” he answered himself, “I’m overcoming the past and overcoming the barriers the past has pushed into my present and future. I’m doing this for myself, for Jaejoong, for Yoochun, for my fans. It’s all worth it. It’s all worth it.”

Junsu’s thoughts were harshly interrupted when someone flung the door to the concert hall open and stormed inside. He got up to see who it was and spotted one of the volunteers from the concert.

“He’s in here, Sir!” the young man shouted at someone outside the hall and then vanished.

Wondering who was looking for him, Junsu came down the stage and towards the door, when a tall broad older man in a suit entered the concert hall.

“Kim Junsu, just who I wanted to see. Wonderful performance! My name is Okubo Shinichi by the way,” the man said and bowed.

Not sure who he had in front of him, but judging by the expensive suit, that it was someone of importance, Junsu made sure he bowed lower than the man.

“I have an offer for you, which I’ve already made to the other young aspiring musicians who performed here today,” Okubo Shinichi hastily explained, “I represent the local branch of Subaru⁴ and would be honored if you’d agree to do a test-drive of our newest model. You see, for every minor and major celebrity who takes a test-drive in the new Subaru, we as a company have decided to donate 10,000 yen to the Asagao child rescue center. Would you be willing?”

The sudden offer took Junsu by surprise and he still felt rather exhausted, but at the same time thought that it would be wrong to deny the Asago center 10,000 yen, if it required nothing more than him driving a few meters in a car.

“Just a short test-drive?”

“An itsy-bitsy test-drive.”

“Okay, sure. Yes. Thank you.”

^{1 - Takoyaki - Japanese dish; ball-shaped snack made of wheat, octupus, ginger and onions}

^{2 - Onigiri - Japanese dish; rice ball snack, usually wrapped in seaweed, may contain vegetables, fish or meat}

^{3 - Yakisoba - Japanese dish; wheat noodles in a thick sauce, with vegetables, sea food and/or meat}

^{4 - Subaru - real Japanese car company}

Sorry, if the pictures made you hungry! :D Also sorry, that this chaper is really slow in action... I always feel the need to include so much detail O.O I hope you don't get bored, when it takes a while for my protagonists to meet again... Will definetly happen in the next chapter! Also I'm in the midst of my high school finals right now and it might take a few weeks until the next chapter... but it's coming - I promise! :)