1-2% chance of breakout to success, yet confident, composed, promising in terms of life achievement rather than breakout potential. Bird-like in mannerisms, hobbled by her sarong, THETA was the very last encounter of the programme, another chance crossing of paths that she just might have skeptically read as deliberate. Was she art, artist, objet d’art, or artless? Any of these was actually possible.
IOTA, cutesy girl, one of the gang of three who found each other in the very first few days to form a coalition of cute, GOAT’s roommate, with uniquely shaped eyes, formed a counter-point to TUSK’s pursuit of ICEPRINCESS, the ‘little sister’ rather than the ‘big sister.’ She was “cute enough to eat,” as GOAT put it; she responded with loud affection to TUSK’s playfulness.
IOTA was a sort of antidote or counter-response to galaxy’s seriousness. She had a boyfriend back home; perhaps this is what goes to explaining various personalities, that we are in the end affected deeply by our partners, but more so than this, she was carefree and lively, a unique epitome of her own, leading her group (which slowly dissolved into relationships based on more serious matters), befriending a slightly slow girl, responding to things as they happened. There is no long-term, life-changing potentialities in this girl: she is a girl of the now. But the now is the perfect in this situationist, the oblong eyes flashing with laughter in a morningside’s bright.
EPSILON did her doll perfectly; Yoshitomo Nara.
We are on to lower-case names now, Farhome of course who is most prominent (lower-case merely representing complete lack of sexual tension, possibility and/or appropriateness), rising as she does from first target of very subtle bullying by TUSK (and one must, one is not trusted if one is friends with everyone) to becoming BARBIEDOLL’s ‘kohai’ (junior). Farhome got laid. This was almost certain as TUSK had been a vegetarian for a year now and was continuing to diet, perhaps even a notch underweight this week and he could smell the smell of action as Farhome arrived, late on Tuesday, smirking. BARBIEDOLL smirking also.
It was great! These flowers, so refined, so deadly, could also put out, and though wearing a mask of propriety, Farhome clearly pulled a boy out of a club the night before and nailed him, the dominance factor was undoubted, despite being the actual vocalizer of sentiments contemptuous of Korea, Farhome with her gyaru-go vocabulary, her loneliness on Sunday morning (seen walking on the street), pulled off the first score of 2/1 (and this would be a girls’ year), with an implicit middle finger to meddle-some AJ-4 who asked ‘doshita no?’ (what’s wrong?) to girls who did not greet her in the morning.
It was probably some slim, low-confidence Korean boy. There was no further evidence of one thing or another, but alerted to these possibilities, TUSK now estimated 30-40 of the girls would pull during those three weeks (out of 180; and based on voices heard piling back into the dorm at 2am in the morning; certain evidence of people engaged in the ‘walk of shame’ at odd hours).
Brillopad liked things to be where they were. This reflected itself in a certain conservativeness in taste, despite her gyaru styles. She liked Takurazaka and saw the simulation of men by women as somehow superior than many examples provided by men. Lacking distinct social talent, she was probably the least popular of the group in the end, although respected enough for what she was. She categorized; she was dogged: this earned her a certain space.
Rockstar, short-side, slightly chubby, was the second girl to try to befriend possibly more than befriend TUSK. Discouraged by some non-sense talk about live bears in Tokyo, she nevertheless remained interested in friendship with TUSK until ICEPRINCESS put an end to it. It wasn’t ICEPRINCESS’s deliberate plan; rather, she was slightly put off by the refusal of TUSK to take initial liking into casual friendship, and so ICEPRINCESS texted and emailed Rockstar into despising TUSK a little, which was too bad but not unendurable. Questioned during a practice session, “do you like the country or the city better,” Rockstar replied country; and ‘mountains’ for the ‘mountain vacation/sea vacation’ standard vacation-preference question. Rockstar was perhaps despite going to university in a city a country-mountain girl at heart, so the slight negativity about social drama was not hard to accomplish. In fact, it was precisely this social presence that made her switchover possible and desirable.
Rockstar blossomed! Like TABUN of last year she was into rock music, and Friday of the program’s second week, she whipped out her Stratocaster, and publicized her concert of Saturday. This was the magic defining moment of the program, the girl with Stratocaster, the admiring crowd. Rockstar changed her hairstyle; she followed the music so that she evolved into artiste looks.
If the story of TABUN from last year was that of evolution and change, here 2/1 had generated its own heroine, a girl who came into her own once abroad, following that particular strand of artistic self-definition that an introvert and country-girl who willfully followed a city-path purely for its career purposes would unwind. The effect was estrangement from normal humanity: the look as she evolved was a first-step towards total weirdness (“nerd rock”).
The choice to become an artist was not itself deserving of awe or admiration. Final judgment could only be reserved for outcome, what new ground was broken.
Monday TUSK went out and purchased chocolates. He waited at the early morning main gate and handed out about fifty, including Leaf4/5, becoming mildly the object of conversation that day. He made sure GREENEYES got one; he wore the cat ears from the previous week’s excursion to LotteWorld, he said “nyan-nyan” (meow-meow) upon returning to class after first break, eliciting laughter. The class did verbs.
Tuesday the program went to doll-making. The event was great: dolls were making dolls, revealing inner-taste. TUSK sat with 1/4, was talked to by 4one, 4two, 4three, THETA. ICEPRINCESS did a doll with Mohawk; almost 90% of the girls did very similar almost identical standard models. EPSILON and only EPSILON (TUSK too) did a Yoshitomo Nara variant, widely-set eyes and no mouth. The boys mostly did boy dolls. Afterwards GREENEYES and TUSK talked; GREENEYES was revealed to be highly-educated, from a military-family (enlisted), born even in the same museum that treated the casualties from Pearl Harbor, and interested in traditional laundry (TUSK honored this choice by kneeling by the laundry diorama as GREENEYES pounded away). They left only pulled away by others.
Wednesday, a quiet day, saw slight shifts in alliance. ICEPRINCESS-Rockstar was now set in stone and then surprisingly BARBIEDOLL “adopted” Farhome rather than her old friend Alpha. Was it Alpha’s crankiness? Was this the beginnings of a larger fissure? Probably just BARBIEDOLL approved of Farhome’s treatment of certain things, and both girls snickered the day after Farhome got laid.
Thursday, relying on a pinky-promise, ICEPRINCESS positioned TUSK awkwardly, and then left him hanging high and dry during kimchee production (an old standby of K-language programs). At least everybody drank meogkoli and pretty sketches were examined by all, of high quality but not stunning. There was some slight disagreement between the two teachers at this event, but it did not rise to outright conflict.
Friday Rockstar ripped out her white Stratocaster and brought the week to a close on a high note, although the worm had turned and 2/1, which had been more tightly-knit even as late as Tuesday, had by now separated into different cliques and elements. The presence of a boy had destroyed female unity and both genders (though represented on one side only by a single speciment) felt critiqued and judged, driven by formalities and truisms rather than casual unification of minds. Or perhaps it was all the elite backgrounds. It was Keiwha management’s hand here, concentrating things out of sheer curiosity for what would ensue. Yet things had been brought out too early; individuals would retreat to their private snobberies.
Largerly speaking, 1/3 fell into line behind a charismatic girl, whose influence was so strong that standing around in a group, nine of the ten girls tilted their head slightly towards the one leader. SocialNode scored major breakthroughs, becoming the most widely networked girl at the program, expected as she hoped to go into finan
ce. A slightly lower-prestige group began to form around one of the more overtly cheerful Japanese boys, but people also began to disappear. GREENEYES as promised did her final early and started packing for a Saturday departure. Another US girl took off, may not have even lasted the first week. TUSK also began developing something with IOTA, she of the oblong eyes. Coincidence was that IOTA was GOAT’s roommate; none of the parties knew they lived on the same floor. There were trend lines that were negative; there were trend lines that were positive. Encounters were sometimes a barely concealed mask of politeness over considerable malice, yet at other times new friends were being made.
The conceit now has been understood. This year, compared to last, was just a simultaneous catastrophe and unbelievable success story; it was learning about the 180 rather than the 2/1 Five, TUSK was simultaneously hero and individual too chicken to just sit in the floor kitchen all evening and see every single person walk by. The counter-point, the evolution of the SEATTLE affair, provided both commentary on ongoing realities as well as the suggestion of a three-week period dominated by nostalgia and remembrance,
The Flowers of Keiwha Page 29
