I woke up on a girl's soft thighs. What happened? Is it Abby? I looked up at blonde hair and a stupid face full of worry. I immediately stood up, felt a little woozy, and straightened my legs. What happened? Oh right.

“We have to kill her and take her phone.” I proclaimed.

“K-kill her?!”

“Yes.”

“No, we can’t kill her! She took the photos already, it's not like we can stop her. I don’t even know how Daniel will react to this.” She looked sad, but I was the one who was sadder. Her sadness paled in comparison to my sadness!

“Who cares about Daniel!” I grabbed both her arms and shook her. “WE HAVE TO STOP THIS.” Then, suddenly, I realized the futility of all this, as long as this girl was here, I would be stuck in endless cycles of useless problems. “We have to stop this…” I whispered as I stopped shaking her and put my hand on my chin.

I paced back and forth while Emily recovered on the floor. What can I do? Well, why do I have to be involved? All I wanted today was to go home and enjoy some time with Abby. The photos are out. There's nothing I can do about that, but has it been released yet? I opened my flip phone. Ah. This was useless!

I looked at Emily as she sat in the corner. “Quick, google your name!”

“Huh?” she looked up, her face filled with despair.

“Get out your phone and google your name!”

“I don’t have a phone…but we have a laptop here. Let's see if an article was released.”

I sat next to her and looked at the results, nobody is talking about it. Good. Fans are ruthless animals. Once they find out that their precious Emily was “dating” someone they will find me and rip me to shreds. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that they would reveal my name in an instant, and then Abby could know. Abby can never know.

She sighed with relief. “Nothing was released…what can we do? I can’t believe Clare did this to us…”

This is all your fault, you indigent girl. I should have strangled you when I got the chance. “We have no choice…we have to kill her.”

“No, We can’t! What about first island?! What will happen to my group?” She threw herself unto me.

“I don’t care!” I threw her back to the couch. She looked back at me with a face of horror. “We have to kill her! And you,” I pointed at her. “Will help me! Today was supposed to be the day I masturbated to Abby all do and look at what you did!”

Ah, did I say that out loud….

Her face blushed. “Sorry…”

I steeled myself. This wasn’t the time to be embarrassed. “We have to get her to delete those photos,” I repeated. “At any cost.”

“But we can’t kill her or anything horrible. Let's just talk to her, I’m sure that if we begged hard enough she would just delete them, or maybe she will blackmail us, but I’m sure that it wouldn’t be that bad.”

I looked at her. “Speaking from experience?”

“W-well she’ll ruin the group by ruining me. I’m, well, I guess I’m the most popular member, and if other people even think that I was dating or having s-se-sex with another person that would ruin the group. The company would never ruin the group like that. If we talk to her maybe we'll convince her?”

I looked at Emily for a second. The realization hit me that I had no idea what ‘First Island’ even was or who was the most popular, but if Emily is the most popular, then I could never let Clare keep that photo. Once they broke up, and if Clare was ever on the edge of obscurity, she would release the photos and ruin my chances with Abby. “Okay, we can talk to her then. Let's try talking. Where could she be now that she's left this wonderful building?”

“She's probably at the dorm…but so are the other members…”

“Even better. Let's go. Ah, but first, I have to go home.”

I took us down into the company-provided van. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me using it for something like this. And from the company building, I drove to my basement hovel. I told Emily to stay in the car and went off into my house/room.

As Emily suggested we would talk with Clare. Gently. But, just in case she didn’t agree, I would kidnap her and bury her somewhere in the desert. During my spare time, I bought some ready-made rope and chloroform for…situations similar to this. I just had to find where I put it.

My house was just my bed, a mountain of clothes, and a computer to the side. Along with a closet where I threw everything else in. Boxes, on top of boxes, of things that I’m sure were important at some point, but never as important as what I needed now. I started digging.

Where was it?

Nope, not there.

Why do I have a girl's swimsuit in here?

That shouldn’t be there.

*Creak*

I looked back to see Emily walking in, dumbfounded. “You…You live like this.”

“What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay in the car.”

“You were taking too loooong. What were you looking for, have you found it?”

“I-I’m- none of your business. I can’t find it.”

“If it's so important…could it be money? Or maybe some sort of gift?”

I glared at her. “No.” I went back into the heap of trash that I had ignored until now.

She sat on top of my bed, jumping up and down. My bed! “Please stop jumping on the bed and let me search in peace.”

“But it's springy.”

I could feel my veins pop. “whatever, let's just go, I’m sure you can talk her out of the pictures.”

I grabbed her off my bed and pushed her out. she mumbled in response “It was so small…”

“It's big enough for me, and that's what matters.”

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I ran back to the van and Emily followed. “Did you even get anything?”

“I would have gotten something if you weren’t so set on ruining my house.”

“I can’t believe you live in such a small place, what are they paying you?”

My heart ached. “My pay…is sensitive, lets's just go to your dorm.”

“I think my bedroom is the size of your house….”

“Please don’t rub it in.”

Emily pointed out where to go and, even though we got lost on several parts, to the point that I had to get out of my car to ask for directions, we managed to arrive at the dorm before the light set. We also managed to clear up our story.

The dorm she lived in was in a gated community where only people with passes, like Emily, would be able to get in or out. Once we got inside we followed the road down to the end, where a gray house, with two stories, and a backyard large enough to hold a baseball game, stood.

“Yea, I guess my house is pretty small compared to this one.”

She patted my back, “cheer up, It's not like I even sleep here. Most of the time I just go to my parent's house.”

“Then why would your members be here? Don’t they all sleep with their parents?”

“T-they don’t.”

She got out of the van and opened the front door with a key she pulled from her purse. There were two girls in the living room, one watching the tv, another looking at her phone. They both looked up at me and Emily and then looked back to what they were doing.

“M-Marina, could you call everybody down? This…there's someone that w-wanted to talk to you all…”

One of the girls looked up. From the corner of my eye, I could see Emily trying to avoid her eyes. “Sure.”

Everybody gathered in front of me. Everybody being 5 girls, each with a strangely unique hairstyle that tried to catch my attention. And then there was Clare, a blank look stuck to her face.

I coughed. “Hey everybody I just wanted to talk to you about Filming, you see if any of you have a film script, or tv script, that you just can’t or won’t do. I’m Leslie's assistant, an actress in your company, and am very interested in any scripts that you might not be interested in. Thank you.” With a click of my fingers, I acted as if I just remembered something. “Clare. Did you happen to have anything, I know Emily told me you had a script you weren’t interested in.”

“No.”

I started sweating. “Yea that script that you had, remember, I would be very interested in talking with you about it.” I gave Emily a nudge.

“Y-yea. R-remember you told me about it.”

I tried to look normal, but Clare was just as blank-faced as she seems to always be. “Oh, that.” She remarked. “Sure, I’ll let you see it.”

Suddenly one of the girls rose her hand. I don’t know why. We weren’t in school or anything.

“Ah. Yes?” I pointed at the girl.

“I have one too if you want, I didn’t really like it.”

“Sure I’ll come by with Emily once we are finished with Clares. Now Clare show me that script, the rest of you can go, thanks.”

Clare turned “Come on, let's go to my room.”

Her room…was bigger than mine by 3…no 4 times. Did I really live in such a shithole? No. I liked it there. It was comfortable and nobody bothered me.

Clare looked at me as I closed the door. “So what is this? Are you going to beg me to delete the photo now?”

I looked at Emily, she was already on her knees. “No. I demand that you delete it!” I whispered. “Are you really willing to ruin your group! For what?! Isn’t Emily your most popular member?”

“Ruin the group.” She giggled. I’m surprised she showed emotion. “She doesn’t even show up to group meetings, half of the time she spends away from everybody, and the other half of the time she ignores us because she has a crush on this or that idol. It's pathetic.” She looked at Emily. “It's pathetic that you can even act like you are the victim here when you only do whatever you want.”

“I-I’m sorry…”

“Look,” I said. “She’s apologizing, and not even that, she feels so sorry about everything she's willing to get on her knees and beg. Why don’t you just delete the photo? Delete it, so that we can heal. And so that First Island will be safe.”

“No.”

Where did I put that rope goddammit? “Okay, then you must want something. Emily will do anything, she really doesn’t want that picture out. Please, please, please let's just negotiate like adults.”

Clare snorted. “I see you got yourself a nice one here Emily. What did you do to him? Well, It's not like I care what you get up to, but I guess sure. Fine. There is something I want. I want Daniel.” A smirk appeared on her face. “You would do that for me, Emily? You would introduce me to Daniel.”

Emily stuttered out a sound. “I-I don’t know if-“

“Stop playing with me. Do you think I don’t see you trying to worm your way into his heart? You…you think that I will let you just get him? Daniel is mine. You’ll set up a date, and you’ll come along, watch as he falls more and more in love with me. After some time it's obvious who he’ll choose.”

“Deal.” I turned out my hand. “You’ll delete the photo in front of her if she does that?”

“Sure.” She took out her hand and gently shook mine.

Emily didn’t respond, her knees still on the floor. With as much force as I could, I lifted her up and dragged her out of the room. She had a face that reminded me of Leslie drinking.

I rushed to leave. Emily tried to stop, but I pushed her forward until we were at the edge of the exit.

“Hey! Didn’t you want to see the script I had?” One of the girls on the couch said.

“Yea, give it to me I’ll take a look at it.” I spit out the words, I just needed to get out of here before Emily began to decide that she was tired of being a little puppy.

“Here you go.” She handed me a manuscript that I shoved under my armpit. “and aren’t you staying here Emily? None of us have been using your room.”

“No,” I responded. Emily shouldn’t be anywhere near Clare. That might ruin everything. “She actually wants to go back home, I’ll just drive her there.”

“Okay…”

I rushed out of there as fast as I could while pushing Emily out and into the van. We had to get out of here before Emily decided to talk. Now, I just had to get her back home.

“I guess you were right, talk-“

“I c-can’t give Daniel to her. I’m not doing it.”

“Well you see this is the best thing we can do so that-“

“N-no.”

“Hmm…you do understand that this means that your career as an idol could be over? Your entire purpose for the past something years is gone. Because even though it won’t affect me as much, the company will get rid of you and you will never work in show business again if it's revealed that you were having sex in the booths?”

“I know.”

I didn’t know what else to say so I agreed with her, that we wouldn’t do it if she didn’t feel comfortable. I asked her where she lived and she said that she would point the way. I started to think about the rope, but then I a plan hit me. If I could do this without committing any felonies it would be better.

“But are you really that sure about Daniel?” I asked as we were driving back home.

“Yes! He and I really like each other, we are meant to be. I know that he is the one.”

“Well, I mean, I did hear some stuff while I went to his…actually never mind.”

“What did you hear?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Wait, what did you hear. You’re making me curious.”

“I just heard that you were easy. You know that it was kinda cliche that he was going after you but that you were cute or something along those lines.”

“Did..did he really say that or are you making that up?”

“I heard it while I was there, for some reason guys are just really honest. I was also told that you were using me like you used a lot of other men. You know, as a kind of warning.”

“B-but I just, I just feel more comfortable around men. I can talk to men, but that doesn’t mean that I’m hitting on them or anything. I don’t know why everybody thinks I’m seducing other men…”

“I know, what selfish bastards. This is why you should just go along with this, and if you don’t believe me then you can see yourself. That guy was going on and on about how he was tired of idols because they were all selfish and narcissistic and then I think I heard something about you being cute enough for him to get over it. I don’t know.”

“He wouldn’t say something like that.”

“I mean that's just what I heard.”

We drove for several minutes “Okay, fine….it was my idea anyway…we might as well do this, and then…if he truly doesn’t love me, then I’ll never talk to him again.”

“See..at least this way you can be sure. This way you can really know that he is in love with you.”

“Thank you, Jake.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to get this girl to get rid of this photo she has over you and me. Once this is done, we can live happy lives you and me. You know, the entire reason why we even spoke in the first place.”

“Yea, thank you anyway, you are such a good friend, I’m glad I tried to help you and then blackmailed you into helping me. Although I really didn’t mean to blackmail you. And also I don’t want you to misunderstand or anything but I think of you purely as a friend.”

“I understand Emily. We all do things like that. And, I too, see you the same way, as a friend.”

“Thanks.”

I left her in her house and smiled and waved as she smiled and waved back. Her dad saw me and glared at me. I tried to avoid looking at him.

On the drive back I wondered how I could get rid of Emily from my life. What is this? The second thing she has forced me into doing? The second act of hell I had to go through, astray from the one light that leads me to heaven, all because she forced this on me. All because…why did this happen again?… That's right because she begged and pleaded for me to give that note to Daniel!

It was becoming obvious that Emily was a little too much.