I want to go home.
I want to see my mom and my sister.
I want to be with my friends again.
Adjusting to life in Tokyo was hard, being an idol even harder; and if you add the daily pressures of school to this, you know things would eventually fall apart.
I can’t take this anymore. I’m miserable and tired and lonely.
I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I could’ve given my mom or my sister a call, but I didn’t want to worry them any more with such problems of mine. I could’ve called Miyake-kun or Morita-kun but…I didn’t think they’d understand what I was feeling. Besides, I knew I haven’t completely earned their respect, given the fact that I didn’t have to go through what they went through as Johnny’s Jr’s, so telling them about my situation would only make them think less of me. It was so frustrating! I just had to talk to someone to keep me from going crazy. I knew calling management about it was a big no-no, but, aside from the guys from V6, I really had no friends in this big city.
How I wished Yoneda-sensei was around, being the one person I always ran to whenever I needed to talk to someone. He had this way of always making things better, making me see things differently. He was old but he understood the problems of a teenage boy like me.
Old. . .
"Hai, Sakamoto desu," answered the man at the other end of the line.
"Uh-- hai, this is Okada. I’m sorry, I know it’s late and-- "
"Okada-kun?"
"Hai."
There was silence on the other end.
"I’m sorry," I apologized immediately, thinking I might have caught him at a bad time. "Are you busy? Because I can call another time-- "
"Nonono! Now is fine. It’s just that, I didn’t expect you to give me a call."
"Same here," I thought.
I didn’t expect that I would one day, consciously and voluntarily, give Sakamoto-san a call for help, but I realized that if a member of a group is experiencing problems, shouldn’t he go to the leader first for help before going to anybody else? Sakamoto-san is our group’s leader, and for this reason I chose to call him up. I just wonder if this leader would take the problems of an adolescent boy like me, the youngest member of V6, seriously.
"Is everything alright?" he asked worriedly. "You don’t sound good."
"No, I’m not alright."
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Well-- y-you might think it’s childish but-- "
"Try me."
And with that, I began pouring my heart out to him.
Sakamoto-san strongly discouraged it when I told him that I wanted to quit school. He patiently explained things to me when I complained about life in the spotlight. He so generously offered his help when I whined about adjusting to life in Tokyo.
That night, I saw Sakamoto-san in another light. That night, he didn’t act out his role as the great leader of V6 to me, but instead he became something even better than that -- an older brother.