A sudden memory attacked my mind when the picture was taken. I opened it on my glasses to see a completely different face on him, the face of a girl; my ex-colleague.

Chiharu?!

Behind the transparent picture, the hacker deviously smirked at me. I could see it now; the way she spoke, her manners, her weird sense of humor, and the aggressiveness with which she tackled things. The hacker was Chiharu, using HoloForm and other technologies to appear to be a guy.

"Looks like you saw a ghost," she smirked. "In fact, you actually did. Let me fix that for you."

The picture on my glasses disappeared for a split second and appeared again, now with the guy's face in it instead of Chiharu's. I stood frozen.

"Cat got your tongue?" she continued. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

"Why?" was the only word that came out of my mouth.

"Why? I think it's pretty obvious. Just give it some thought, you have enough brain to connect the dots. Besides, our chat already lasted for too long, we don't want to draw too much attention."

"Murderer!" a woman yelled out of nowhere. She stood in front of the platform on which the girls were meeting the fans.

"Speaking of attention and secrets," Chiharu said. "Looks like you'll get busy. This is the perfect distraction for me to bail out. I might tell you more when we meet again if you behave well. See ya."

"Wait!"

She ignored me and walked into the crowd. I stared at her to see where she was headed, but the woman in front of the platform yelled again.

"Murderer!"

Left with no choice, I approached the platform to see what was happening. The girls stood in shock, while the woman glared directly at Aki. The entire square had become silent as the crowd watched the situation.

"You cold-blooded bitch!" the woman continued to yell. "You murdered someone and you ran away without saying a word! Now you have the…"

Only then did my brain forget about Chiharu and realized what was happening. I didn't know who she was or how she knew about Aki's past, but she had to be stopped before it was too late.

I tried reconnecting to the Talkie app and it worked.

"Butcher, push her away through the door from which we arrived. Don't be aggressive."

"Understood," he replied.

Butcher hastily walked off the platform and approached the woman. Obviously, she was far from pleased for being asked to leave, but Butcher did an incredible job by barely touching her while slowly moving her away as she screamed. Finally, they walked through the door, yet the square remained silent. Only murmurs could be heard.

"What should we do?" Astra asked through Talkie. "Should we stop?"

"No," I instantly answered, "apologize and make up an excuse to lighten the situation but don't give out any information. We need to distract them for a bit so most people won't give it too much thought. Aki, I'm sorry, but please bear with this for ten minutes."

"Don't worry, I will," her voice quavered, but she kept smiling at the crowd.

Sanae spoke into the microphone again and the crowd seemed to have returned to normal. The fan meeting resumed and I discreetly headed to where Butcher had taken the woman to. I could already hear her yelling behind the door.

"This is the last warning," she fumed, "I'm going to call the police if you don't let me—"

We looked at each other as I walked through the door and closed it behind me.

"Look who it is," she scowled. "How does it feel to be the boyfriend of a murderer?"

I glared back at her. "Butcher, go take care of the girls."

"Are you sure, young man?"

"I am."

He glanced at me one last time and walked out.

The woman and I continued to stare at each other, neither of us showing signs of fear. She looks to be around the same age as Aki, now that I am looking at her up close.

"Are you sure you want your security to leave?" she asked.

"Why? Are you going to punch me? I doubt the police are going to like that."

"I doubt they are going to like that you pulled me here against my will."

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"They saw everything. They were going to do the same sooner or later if my security didn't do it."

She clenched her fists before letting out a deep breath.

"Alright, you win. Can I leave now?"

"No, I have some questions. Who are you? How do you know about what Aki did?"

She glared at me in silence. "I was Aki's classmate in high school when it happened. I am… was the best friend of the girl she murdered."

The answer didn't surprise me, I already knew it was going to be hard to deal with.

"Happy?" she said and tried to walk past me, but I extended my arm to stop her. "I guess not."

"What's your goal?"

"To let everyone know who she really is and destroy her career, it's only fair in return for what she did. I am truly sorry for dragging you and the other girls into it."

"You know you won't achieve that, right? Someone already tried and it had the opposite effect."

"You can't compare that to a murder."

"That's true, a lot of people will stop following us because of this, but I'm sure even more people will follow us."

"Why? Because she's a cold-blooded—"

"Stop calling her that. Yes, she might've been a cold-blooded bully and behaved like a queen, but that's in the past. She's changed for good and I'm sure of it."

"And how can I know that?! She ran away and didn't even apologize!"

"We've all run away!" I yelled. "I ran away from my past, she ran away from her past, and you're running away from the fact that…."

Realizing what I was about to say, I decided to say nothing.

"Wise decision," she said. "Can you move away now?"

"No. She's going to apologize, she's just not ready yet. In fact, I'm going to give you two options."

"Are you in the position to give options?"

I ignored her. "You can continue yelling to fail miserably and make everyone think you're crazy, or I can convince her to chat one-on-one with you."

Her frown became more prominent. She looked at the floor, then a notification appeared on my glasses, requesting for me to add her contact information to my list. I hadn't even accepted when she pushed me aside and walked back into the mall.

I threw a punch towards the wall but stopped myself before my fist connected with it. My breathing hastily rose until I became unable to control it. My vision kept narrowing down as it grew black and white. I placed my hand on my mouth and clenched my cheeks, but I felt no pain, only my chest became tighter and tighter.

"Follow my breathing," a voice echoed.

I turned to see their face, but I could only see a blurry blob. Still, I could hear a muffled yet rhythmic sound. I followed it, as the voice said.

Slowly but surely, my vision returned to normal the more I blinked and my heart calmed down, although not completely. The echoing voice had come from the woman that welcomed us when we arrived at the mall.

"Are you alright?" she asked. "It seems like you had a panic attack."

I moved my hand away from my mouth. Did I?

"Sorry," I said. "How did you know it was a panic attack?"

"No need to apologize. It's a little personal, but I'm willing to share it with a fellow sufferer. I used to have many panic attacks, you could say I even got used to them, so I was confident you were having one. Is this your first time?"

"I guess so. Thank you for helping me."

"You're welcome. You should take the time to think about it and see a doctor, don't make the same mistake I did and wait for years, but that's enough of my meddling in your life. Do you need anything?"

"I do, actually. Is there a bathroom we could use? And somewhere private to chat and eat?"

"There is, but it's far from comfortable and there's a lot of noise."

"That works."

She asked me to follow her. We arrived in no time at a room with a sofa for three, two chairs, a table, a water dispenser, and a bathroom connected to it. She walked away and I returned to the mall's square. I waited for ten minutes before telling everyone through Talkie it was time for a break. The girls announced it to the crowd and we all headed to the room, except for Butcher, who I asked to buy food.

We let the girls sit down first. Aya handed them wet wipes from her purse and the room remained silent as we drank water from the dispenser.

"I'll use the bathroom first," Umi said and entered the bathroom.

Aki's leg wouldn't stop bouncing on the floor. I placed my hand on her shoulder and she glanced at me with a weak smile.

"What are we going to do?" Risa wondered.

"For now, just continue as if nothing happened," I answered. "Are you okay with that, Aki?"

"I am, I just might be a little off."

I grasped her shoulder and shook her gently before letting go.

"What happened with her?" she asked. "Did Butcher kick her out of the mall?"

"Of course not, that would've been worse. I talked with her and she came to her senses."

"What did you tell her? What did she tell you?"

It was only logical for her to be that curious, but it wasn't the time to make her more anxious.

"The important thing is that she won't bother us anymore," I answered. "You should rest now, we are not even halfway through the day. I'll tell you every single detail when we are at home, alright?"

"Alright," she replied and looked down at the floor.

The room became silent again, giving me time to reflect on what had happened with Chiharu. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how crazy the day had been and it hadn't even been two hours.

"Are you okay?" Sanae asked me.

"I am. Why do you ask?"

"You're massaging your head."

"I just got a mild headache, it's nothing bad."

I shouldn't be a hypocrite and do what I asked Aki to do: relax. There will be plenty of time to think about everything once we're back at home.