== April 17, 2015 (Saturday)
The day of the trip has arrived and you currently find yourself in front of Kitabayashi’s apartment, handing over a cat carrier and a small bag.
”There’s some wet and dry food in there,” you say, “Just make sure to feed Azuki the wet food in the evening or she gets grumpy and will complain – loudly,”
Only somebody like Kitabayashi would open their door in a tank top, underwear, and fuzzy slippers. She looks into the bag and yawns, “Okay,” she says, then kneels and pokes the car carrier with a finger, “I’ll spoil you lots~”
Azuki, an American Shorthair, purrs in approval.
Kitabayashi rises again, her brow furrows, “Miho, are you really okay?” she says, “I’ve seen a lot of panic and anxiety attacks during my days as an idol, but yours was one of the scarier ones…I was about to call the hospital, y’know? …Try to relax a little.”
Perhaps you do need to find a way to mitigate your stress a little.
After the weekend.
You smile, “Sorry to have worried you,” you say, “But I’m going to a hotspring, there’s probably no better place for me to relax.”
Kitabayashi pouts, “Still wish I could’ve come with,” she says, “Do you want to come in for coffee at least? It’s like 6 AM.”
You shake head, “No thanks,” you say, “I have to go or else I’ll be late.”
Waving goodbye, you hurry back to your car.
Late for being insanely early that is.
Your plan is to park your trusty Renault Twingo near the entrance of Matsuno Inc, where the bus is going to show, and watch the traffic like a hawk.
It’s now cold and early, 6:30 AM. You’re in position.
The streets of Tokyo at this time feel barren compared to the usual traffic in the late afternoon.
During your time in HR, you used to go to work with the bullet train, but now you need a car to ferry your idols to and from jobs.
In your passenger seat sits a thermos with oolong tea, you unscrew the cap and have some.
You honestly haven’t really thought about what you’ll do if some paparazzo does show.
But if they show, at least you’ll know. You won’t be caught unaware.
After you were send home, you tried calling Matsui-san to suggest that everybody should be picked up from home as a sort of courtesy service, but she said that the bus was rented on short notice for only a few hours and the distance between those joining the trip would’ve made the request impossible.
Furthermore, she said that if you refused to rest and called again then she’d come over to your apartment and chain you to the bed, then hung up.
Matsui-san can be scary sometimes.
An hour passes as you keep a watchful eye, but there isn’t anybody suspicious.
You pull out your phone and check your email messages, nothing much.
A fancy new icon decorates the home screen, it’s that chat app you installed that Kaiba-san and EmikoDesu55 used.
Despite being by yourself in your car, you glance left and right, then open the app.
You barely feel any guilt for doing this anymore. Add it to the pile.
There’s a couple of new messages, but it’s a one-sided affair.
It seems like Kaiba-san is cutting contact with EmikoDesu55 for now as promised.
== April 16, 2015 (Friday) “Yesterday’s Messages”
[11:39] @EmikoDesuu55: I’ll be quiet!
[11:51] @EmikoDesuu55: …
[11:55] @EmikoDesuu55: kaiba-chan?
[11:56] @EmikoDesuu55: did manager-san drag you into a meeting or something :P ?
[12:12] @EmikoDesuu55: let me know when you get out
[13:44] @EmikoDesuu55: Hhelloooooo….?
[16:25] @EmikoDesuu55: I watched your stream!
[16:26] @EmikoDesuu55: you seemed a bit down tho, but I suppose that’s on-brand, haha!
[16:48] @EmikoDesuu55: kaiba-chan… I know you’re there, I saw the stream…
[17:03] @EmikoDesuu55: why aren’t you responding?
[17:15] @EmikoDesuu55: I’ll call you tonight
[22:31] @EmikoDesuu55: …rejected call ＼(｀0´)／
[22:32] @EmikoDesuu55: …I will have my pillow talk, kaiba-chan~
[22:40] @EmikoDesuu55: DID YOU BLOCK MY NUMBER???
[22:40] @EmikoDesuu55: KAIBA-CHAN WHY???
You adjust your posture and you can feel your grip tightening on the phone.
This’ll be where EmikoDesu55 reveals her true nature and intentions.
Her window of opportunity is closing and she must know it.
Suddenly, the little icon next to EmikoDesu55’s name flashes green – she’s online.
You gasp and quickly close the app.
Hands pressed together, you utter a little prayer, and it seems like god isn’t dead.
No notifications bombard your phone. EmikoDesu55 must’ve missed that you were online.
Still, although objectively wrong on every level, you could impersonate Kaiba-san if you wanted to.
Alternatively, you could speak to her as Kaiba’s manager and explain the situation.
Or you could simply say nothing at all and only use the app to observe EmikoDesu55’s reaction.
> Decision
> >1 - Pretend to be Kaiba-san and speak to EmikoDesu55 in the chat and try to calm her down
> >2 - Give a formal reply stating that Kaiba-san’s social media presence is currently undergoing internal review and she is barred from chatting until then.
> >3 - Only use the chat to peek on EmikoDesu55’s reactions
> >4 - Don’t use the app at all anymore. She might catch you online.
> >5 - Write-in
>
> Winner
>
> Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
>
> >5 - Look up the app in more detail... (x5)
> >Watch reaction if invisible mode is an option
> >Check the fansites and chans for leaked info
That was a close call, you’re not even sure what you would’ve said if EmikoDesu55 caught you online and tried to engage you in a conversation.
Besides, if Kaiba-san gained access to the account in some way or spoke to EmikoDesu55 through other means and found out you’ve essentially borrowed her identity to chat with her Emiko-chan so you can ruin their relationship – she’d never forgive you.
Still, it would give you some peace of mind if there was a safe way to observe how EmikoDesu55 is responding to this all.
Tapping away on your phone, you browse the internet to see if the app has a way to be “invisible”.
To be able to chat or read messages without your account appearing as “Online” to others.
Turns out there is, tucked away deep in the settings you find a toggle to enable a “beta” feature that allows you to appear as “Offline”.
Across the road, a van stops.
There’s something written on the side of the van, but it’s too away far to read.
The driver’s seat door opens and a man steps out carrying a small device in his hands.
He turns around and glances at Matsuno HQ, back at the device, then smiles and moves to open the sliding door on the side of the van.
They’re here. The delivery person.
Sugar packets ran out a few days ago and it’s comforting knowing you’ll get to add sugar to your tea again.
No paparazzi in sight yet, though.
Your phone buzzes and you glance at the notifications: EmikoDesu55.
After waiting a few minutes, you quickly open the app and glance at her status: Offline.
Good. You open the settings, enable offline mode, and pin your own status to offline.
Now you can keep an eye on EmikoDesu55’s messages without worry.
== April 17, 2015 (Saturday)
[07:55] @EmikoDesuu55: i guess something must’ve happened…
[07:55] @EmikoDesuu55: call me when you can, k? (⋟﹏⋞)
[07:56] @EmikoDesuu55: have fun on the trip~
==
EmikoDesu55 pops back online and you can only work the beta feature works as intended.
A new message appears.
==
[07:59] @EmikoDesuu55: i miss you <3
==
But is then deleted by EmikoDesu55 seconds later.
You sigh, you barely know this girl and yet interacting with her is so exhausting.
Her approaches and intentions are all over the place.
At the beginning she was nice, then she became manipulative, and now she’s nice again?
What do you really know about her other than that she’s a struggling college student that can barely seem to pay her phone bill?
One of the first messages you remember from her was when she made an off-hand comment right after Kaiba-san’s first stream.
Kaiba-san cried back then, tears of joy, overwhelmed by all her viewers coming to see her.
You tried calming her down, soothing her to the best of your abilities.
Later she appeared during the handshaking event and whispered something to Kaiba that left her a blushing mess.
She also passed Kaiba-san a note which turned out to contain some contact details.
Afterwards there was a brief back and forth between EmikoDesu55 and some other individual, keyszz, or something along those lines.
They spoke about starting up some project, but that’s all.
What has EmikoDesu55 been up to when she isn’t talking to Kaiba-san?
You pull out your phone again and your chest grows tight as your mind races through possibilities.
Has she been publishing everything under a hidden blog? Sold the info on?
What do you have to look for? What search term?
You type “Kaiba Aoi scandal” into Google to see what comes up.
There’s dozens of results, but none are actually scandals.
Just clickbait articles like “DOES KAIBA AOI ABUSE CATS?” and then the articles links a short clip of Kaiba’s stream where she mentions that she prefers dogs over cats.
The article then goes on to say that since she prefers dog, she probably hates cats, and you know who else hates cats: people that abuse them.
Ergo, Kaiba Aoi is a cat abusing lunatic.
Over in the comments, a woman, that you guess is in her late fifties from her profile picture, mentions she’ll share this article on Facebook in order to warn her grandson.
There’s also a video channel filled with short clips of Kaiba Aoi talking animatedly about something that happened at work and she makes a movement that causes her breasts to bounce.
The video zooms-in and adds some kind of sound-effect.
You make a mental reminder to tell Matsui-san to send a cease-and-desist warning to this channel.
Beside these “scandals” you stumble upon the website of her fanclub: The Gloomlings.
Their forum is an equal split between threads praising Kaiba, discussing the vlogs, guessing what she’ll do next, and starting witch-hunts to dox people that spoke poorly of Kaiba-san.
One member mentions that they cut together a bunch of audio from the vlogs into something they call a “ASMR sleep track” and that they make use of it every night.
Other members are screaming at this person to share the track, but he refuses.
Not much luck here then. Perhaps EmikoDesu55 hasn’t leaked anything yet?
You can’t be too sure though, spending a few minutes on Google isn’t quite enough to settle the matter.
How about the name “EmikoDesu55” then?
There are a few results.
Most of which are accounts on various websites that seem abandoned.
Among the top results is EmikoDesu55’s account on the website that Kaiba publishes her vlogs on.
It seems like she’s most active here, but there’s also a Twitter account.
You open the link to her Twitter and scroll through her tweets.
It mostly seems to be retweets of various promos in order to have a chance at getting free stuff.
At one point, you spot among the tweets a name you recognize: Keyszz1
It’s actually quite recent, the conversation happened only yesterday.
@Keyszz1: @EmikoDesu55 answer your phone or your DMs
@Keyszz1: @EmikoDesu55 i swear to fucking god, we’ll kick you from the group
@EmikoDesu55: i’m busy
@Keyszz1: you said you had notes for the exam
@EmikoDesu55: i’m not sure yet, need more time
@Keyszz1: the others in the group are waiting you dyke, we need notes
@EmikoDesu55: fuck you, calling me a dyke
@Keyszz1: you’ve been talking to the professor, right?
@EmikoDesu55: i barely talk to her, like once a week maybe
@Keyszz1: hand over the fucking notes, so we can move. i need to pay rent
Ah, so she really was in college.
There’s a sudden knock on your car window, making you yelp and fumble your phone – it falls.
Body tight with panic, you glance at the window: It’s Chigusa-san.
After you lower the window, she leans in and speaks, “Good morning, manager-san,” she says.
You try to calm yourself down, “M-morning, Chigusa-san,” you say, then glance at a small digital clock on your car dashboard, “You’re… an hour early?”
Chigusa nods, “I had hoped to set example by being the first person here,” she says, “I will do better next time.”
You can only hope she doesn’t do the same thing with stuff like birthday parties.
She probably does. Awkward for everybody involved.
You pick up your phone and pocket it, “Do you want to wait in the car with me?” you ask, “It’s still cold at this hour.”
Chigusa bows, “Thank you, that would be appreciated.”
You enjoy some small talk with Chigusa while you wait for the bus to arrive.
Well, enjoy might be too strong a word for it. It’s fairly one-sided.
Over the next hour, the other managers and idols begin to arrive.
This the first time you’ve seen Watase Yoko in person, but she doesn’t seem to be as intimidating as her picture suggested.
[https://assets.legendkeeper.com/a543a44a-3847-4841-9e0c-1218b6ec2272.jpg]
You leave your car in the office parking lot and join up with the others.
“Manager-san,” shouts Enatsu Mari, “Hello, hello!”
Kaiba Aoi shuffles up towards you, bowing slightly, “Ah,” she says, “Good morning, manager-san.”
You manage the briefest of introductions before the bus shows up – 9 AM.
Formal introductions will have to wait until you arrive at the destination.
The bus driver informs you that you’ll be going to a hot spring on the outskirts of Mt. Fuji and while not that far, it’s a two-hour drive because of traffic and lacklustre roads.
Those two hours on the bus might be a good time to socialize.