Idol, Burning Quotes

“In the same way that a night of sleep put wrinkles in a bedsheet, just being alive took a toll.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“Phones and TV screens have kind of a grace built into their separation, like the distance between the stage and the audience. It was reassuring to sense someone's presence at a certain remove so that the space couldn't be destroyed by interacting directly, or the relationship ruined by anything I did.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“But this world where I showed up with my half-made-up persona was a kinder place.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“Sometimes it was harder to be doing nothing than it was to do something.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“I still felt the burden of my involuntary role as a mammal dragging me down. In the same way that a night of sleep put wrinkles in a bedsheet, just being alive took a toll. To talk to someone you had to move the flesh on your face. You bathed to get rid of the grime that built up on your skin and clipped your nails because they kept growing. I exhausted myself trying to achieve the bare minimum, but it had never been enough. My will and my body would always disengage before I got there.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“Maybe if I kept putting out uncomplicated emotions, I could eventually turn into an uncomplicated person”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“Idol groups generally assigned each member an official color, which would be used for the light sticks that fans would hold up to show your support at a performance or for other individual merch. My oshi's was blue, so I systematically surrounded myself with everything blue. Just being in a blue space made me feel calm.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“Why couldn’t I live normally? Manage to do the bare minimum needed to be human? I never meant to break things, make a mess of them. I tried to live, but things just kept piling up like the waste from my own body. I tried to live and my home collapsed around me. I”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“It was tiresome being told I was being taken advantage of, when I had no expectation of getting anything in return. My devotion to my oshi was its own reward, and that worked well for me, so I just needed people to shut up about it. I wasn’t looking for my oshi to return my feelings.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“I couldn’t manage life the way everyone else easily seemed to, and I struggled with the messy consequences every day. But pushing my oshi was the center of my life, a given, and my one point of clarity. It was more than a core—it was my backbone.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“I could see that normal people fleshed out their days with schoolwork, and activities, and part-time jobs that gave them money to go out with friends to the movies or to eat or buy clothes, which enriched their lives. I was moving in the opposite direction. My entire experience was increasingly concentrated into this backbone, as if I was going through some kind of ordeal to purify myself. Everything that was unnecessary fell away, until my spine was all that was left.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“Sometimes the thing in life you depend on is suddenly subjected to some kind of baffling, cruel calamity. What can you do when that happens? When the only thing you believe in, the one thing that helps you survive, is lost, how do you think about it, and what do you do?”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“I still think you should graduate. You can keep pushing just a little longer. Think about your future."
I felt like what he was saying was true, but the voice in my head overwrote it with But my present is already too much.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“There were as many styles of fandom as there were fans. Some people worshipped every move their oshi made, while others thought discernment made the true fan. There were those who had a romantic interest in their oshi but no interest in their oshi’s work; others who had no such feelings but sought a direct connection through engaging on social media; people who enjoyed their oshi’s output but didn’t care about the gossip; those who found fulfillment in supporting the oshi financially; others who valued being part of a fan community.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“โอชิได้สอนฉันให้ทุ่มเททำบางสิ่งบางอย่างทั้งตัวและหัวใจ”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“วันนี้โลกก็ยังกลมเหมือนเดิม งานก็ยังไม่เสร็จเหมือนเดิม โอชิก็ยังเลอค่าเหมือนเดิม”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“There were as many styles of fandom as there were fans. Some people worshipped every move their oshi made, while others thought discernment made the true fan. There were those who had a romantic interest in their oshi but no interest in their oshi’s work; others who had no such feelings but sought a direct connection through engaging on social media; people who enjoyed their oshi’s output but didn’t care about the gossip; those who found fulfillment in supporting the oshi financially; others who valued being part of a fan community.
My angle was simply to keep trying to understand him, as a person and as an artist. I wanted to see the world through his eyes.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“You transferred to a different school and developed your own way of learning, different from the conventional Japanese system, and now you're top of your class, getting perfect scores on tests. From crawling on the floor, you clawed your way to a new life. You don't need to make yourself do what you can't do. There's nothing wrong with you, or Akari. It was the things that invalidated you - society, institutions, me that day - that were in the wrong.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“Can't we just be trying in our own ways?”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“I tried to live, but things kept piling up like the waste from my own body. I tried to live and my home collapsed around me.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“His existence and my witnessing of it were all I asked for.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“Maybe that was how a home broke down over the years, as the sound of doors slamming and chairs roughly scraping the floor built up like dust, and the slow drip of gnashing teeth and resentful grumbling bloomed into mildew.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“My oshi had shown me there was something l could dedicate myself to.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“Phones and TV screens had a kind of grace built into their separation, like the distance between the stage and the audience. It was reassuring to sense someone’s presence at a certain remove, so that the space couldn’t be destroyed by interacting directly, or the relationship ruined by anything I did.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“dancing, talk, personality, presence—everything about him. It was the reverse of that saying “Hate the monk, hate his robes.” If you fell in love with the monk, even the frays in his robe became loveable. I thought that was pretty normal.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“Bodies were so heavy. Legs spraying up water were heavy, and wombs that shed their lining every month were heavy.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“The idea of making direct contact with my oshi didn’t interest me. I went to shows, but only to be part of the crowd. I wanted to be inside the applause, inside the screaming, and anonymously post my thanks online afterward.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“People who wanted balanced, reciprocal relationships said there was something unhealthy about connections that were only one-way. Stop pining over him, you don't have a chance. Why are you always the one making sacrifices for her? It was tiresome being told I was being taken advantage of, when I had no expectation of getting anything in return. My devotion to my oshi was its own reward, and that worked well for me, so I just needed people to shut up about it.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“There were so many ways of being in the world-friends, acquaintances, boyfriends and girlfriends, family-all of which involved influencing each other and adjusting daily in subtle ways.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning

“It didn't make any sense. I couldn't tell when she'd defend me, and when she'd get mad. My sister expressed herself not through logic, but through her body, which spoke and cried and angered. Mom didn't get angry so much as judge. She would make snap decisions. My sister would pick up on them immediately and wear herself down trying to keep the peace.”
― Rin Usami, Idol, Burning