That laugh was Leo’s secret fuel.

The little girls in the lobby began to cry. Some ran away. One threw her autograph book at the screen.

That’s when The Do Re Mi Fa Girl began.

"No," he said, pointing to the closet. "The other one. The one with the missing string."

A producer rushed on screen, trying to pull her away. But Hanako—the Do Re Mi Fa Girl—held her ground. "And that big ladybug?" she said, a tear tracing a path through her foundation. "It smells like sweat and old cigarettes inside. It's not magic. It's just… work."

Her name was Yumi-chan, but the whole nation knew her as the Do Re Mi Fa Girl. She was seventeen, with a geometric shag haircut that defied gravity and eyes so large and liquid they seemed to have been drawn by a shojo manga artist. Each weekday afternoon, she burst onto the screen in a explosion of pastel shoulder pads and synthesizer arpeggios, singing a new "lesson" song. Mondays were "Do" (the heart's foundation). Tuesdays were "Re" (the ray of hope). Wednesdays were "Mi" (me, myself, and the cosmos).

His grandmother, a stoic survivor of the post-war years, would shuffle in, fanning herself. "You're watching that racket again?"

He called it "The Excitement of the Do Re Mi Fa Girl -1985 - ..."