On the way back you…

> Decision

> >1 - Sit by yourself. (Skip to office)

> >2 - Sit with Yukimori, reveal you listened in, and thank him for what he did.

> >2 - Sit with Yukimori without revealing you listened in.

> >4 - Sit with Chigusa Iki

> >5 - Sit with Enatsu Mari

> >6 - Sit with Kaiba Aoi

> >7 - Sit with Ichihara Riko

> >8 - Sit with Watase Yoko

>

> Winner

> >5 - Sit with Enatsu Mari

As you all board the bus, you decide to sit next to Enatsu Mari.

You haven’t been able to speak with her much during the trip, so might as well do that now.

“Ah, Manager-san,” says Enatsu Mari, “Hello~”

“Good afternoon, Mari-chan,” you say.

Enatsu Mari is one of the few people that is clearly shorter than you are and she’s basically drowning in the large coat she’s wearing.

“My~,” you say, “Isn’t that coat a little large on you?”

“Is it?” says Enatsu, opening the coat a bit to glance it over, “It used to be my brother’s coat.”

Right, Enatsu comes from a big family.

Hand-me-downs are inevitable.

“Well, it looks good on you,” you say, trying to salvage the situation somewhat.

Enatsu pulls the coat closed and grins, “Right!?” she says, “It’s so warm!”

The both of you get comfortable as the bus prepares to take off.

Once it’s true and well on the road, you turn to Enatsu.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to spend more time with you all at the hot spring,” you say, “I had a lot of things I had to talk about with other adults.”

Is that a weird way to put it?

Enatsu Mari is sixteen, but you can’t help but treat her like she’s younger because of her small stature and cheerful demeanour.

“That’s okay,” she says, “Adults are busy all the time. It had fun with Aoi-chan and Haru-chan.”

Haru-chan? Ah. Matsudaira Haru. One of the granddaughters of the owner.

“Oh, Haru-chan,” you say, “One of the girls that was helping out her grandfather at the resort. She seemed like a nice girl.”

Albeit an extremely depraved one.

“I know, right?” says Enatsu, then pulls out her phone, “I added her to Line, so we can talk more.”

”Ah,” says Enatsu, staring up as she’s trying to remember something, “Manager-san, you’re close with Watase-san, right?”

Geh! Well, closer than you are comfortable being, maybe.

“A b-bit,” you say, trying hard to fight down this morning’s memories, “How so?”

“Haru-chan is a big fan of Watase-san,” says Enatsu, “So she’d like a signed picture or something. I promised I’d ask.”

That’s not too bad.

“I’ll ask her tomorrow, okay?” you say, adding a smile.

“That’s fine,” replies Enatsu, tapping a reply on her phone, “I’ll let Haru-chan know. She’ll be happy.”

She looks confused for a moment, then holds up her phone above her head.

“It doesn’t work,” she says.

“There’s no signal. It’ll come back when we return to Tokyo,” you say, “Just be careful, okay? Don’t share anything about the things you do as an idol.”

You’re having flashbacks to the moment when you first discovered Kaiba chatting to EmikoDesu55.

However, trying to stop Enatsu Mari from having or meeting with friends is a fool's errand.

First thing tomorrow, once this whole scandal business is done, you’re setting up that social media training for all your idols.

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After a two-hour ride, the bus returns at the office.

People come up to you and thank you for the trip.

There’s a few minutes of chatter and then people say their goodbyes.

Most of them will be returning home to enjoy what remains of their weekend.

For you, however, the day has only just begun.

Working in the weekend is, sadly, nothing strange to you or your co-workers so there aren’t any questions when you mention you want to reply to some urgent emails back in your office.

If anything, their faces show thin smiles of sympathy before they depart.

This only leaves you and Kaiba Aoi.

You check your phone, but there’s no new messages from Matsui Tomo.

Hopefully this means that nothing else happened, that things aren’t that bad.

“Manager-san,” says Kaiba, looking nervous, “You’re going to try and stop what Emiko-chan is doing, aren’t you?”

You nod, no need to hide it.

”I am,” you say, “I’m going to do whatever I can to limit the damage she tries to do.”

“Can I come?” asks Kaiba, “I promise I won’t get in the way. I just don’t want to spend another night wondering what if… I don’t think I can take that.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

It’s probably better for Kaiba if she’s here to see what’s happening.

For one, it’ll allow her to witness the damage that information leaks can do.

She’ll hopefully be more careful in the future.

Mostly, it should provide her with some peace of mind.

As bad as the fallout of this scandal might be, the stuff she can come up with while isolated away in a dark room is probably far worse.

“Sure,” you say, “Lets go to my office.”

Together you ride the elevator.

The elevator pings, the doors open.

Standing before you is Matsui Tomo, in person.

“I figured I should be here for this,” she says.

Things might be far worse than anticipated.

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Moments later, the three of you are in your office.

Matsui Tomo has dragged in a small desk and set up a laptop there.

Kaiba’s sitting in a chair a short distance away, biting her nails.

Meanwhile, you sit at your desk.

You take a deep breath.

”Tell me, Matsui-san,” you say, “How bad is it?”

“I’ve called in some long-standing favours from people I used to work with and discovered several companies that have purchased the information of the anonymous seller,” she says, “I’ve managed to make most of them fold by threatening legal action.”

“Kaiba-san,” she continues, flashing an apologetic smile towards Kaiba, “Is not yet famous enough that they’ll risk their reputation or a lengthy legal battle over it.”

“But some refused,” you say, stating the obvious follow-up.

“Three,” says Matsui, then leans in towards her laptop to read something from the screen.

“Saito Media, a magazine – which I’ve mentioned before. Everything Idol, a popular freelance blog. And, finally, Cupid-san Shintaro, an online web series that focuses on relationships and gossip about idols and celebrities.”

You nod, “That’s all of them?” you ask.

“All I know about and likely the biggest ones,” says Matsui.

“So, what do they want?” you say, “They wouldn’t have bothered replying if they didn’t think they could get a better deal.”

Matsui sits at her temporary desk.

”Cupid-san Shintaro wants us to promise to send an idol to his show,” she says, “He’s planning a variety show filled with games like ‘truth or dare' and he’s looking for idols to participate. It’ll feature both male and female idols.”

A thinly veiled dating show.

“When does this show take place?” you say.

“Somewhere at the end of May, so a little over a month,” replies Matsui.

Both your new idols will have debuted by then, so maybe you’ll be able to send one of them.

Kaiba-san could also be an option, but even with months between now and then – the host is almost certain to bring up the current leak if any of it slips through your fingers.

“What about the others?” you say.

Matsui clicks on her mouse a few times, pulling up a new window.

”Saito Media wants us to reimburse the cost of the info, the estimated value of the traffic the article would’ve generated, and the hourly cost they spend writing it. A total of $15.000.”

Ouch. No doubt in your mind that that isn’t an incredibly inflated number.

Kaiba speaks up for the first time, looking shocked, “…I-isn’t that just blackmail?”

Matsui shrugs, “When companies do it then it’s called 'doing business'.”

At least it’s straight-forward.

“How about the last one: Everything Idol?” you say.

“They want to publish the article no matter what,” says Matsui, “But they’re willing to rewrite it to make Kaiba-san appear as the victim if we provide them with a scoop in the future. A piece of info that they receive before anyone else so they can write an article that’ll draw all traffic to them.”

Usually, information is presented by Matsuno Inc. on their website or social media.

All the news outlets, gossip websites, magazines, and other players receive it at the same time and they all rush to get an article out.

The result is an outright boom of interest in the subject matter.

The information will rocket up the prioritization charts in search engine algorithms and content websites with so many places publishing articles about the same thing at the same time.

Matsuno Inc. is the absolute winner in this scenario.

Providing a specific company with a scoop means they have an article ready to go and they publish it when you give the go-ahead.

With this monopoly on the information, the company will draw all the initial traffic to themselves.

The end result is that a lot of companies, knowing they’ve been beaten to the punch, might not even bother to write an article themselves.

With fewer players, the news won’t make as big of an impact as it could’ve.

Everything Idol would be the winner in this scenario.

“What would we even give them?” you say.

“Whatever you want,” replies Matsui, “But it can’t be smaller than this news or they’ll feel cheated.”

Matsui leans back in her chair, thinking.

”I know some managers keep a news outlet in their contacts to leak scandals to.” she says.

“On purpose?” asks Kaiba, clearly confused.

Still leaning back in her chair, Matsui waves her hands in the air above herself, “Exhaust for the dirty smoke. The scandal. If they know they can’t stop it, they might give one company the scoop to ensure they make an article before anyone else and with content approved by the manager. Other places might not bother writing an article if there already is one.”

Matsui leans forward, sitting upright in the chair.

“Won’t work for us right now though, our information is already out there,” she says.

You grumble. This would’ve been good to know a few days ago.

Can’t blame Matsui for that though. You’ve purposely kept the leak hidden.

You had little choice, right? Sharing the leak might’ve resulted in the trip being cancelled.

Trip being cancelled meant Kaiba-san would’ve gone on that date with EmikoDesu55.

Which probably would’ve resulted in even more blackmail material.

Though things only reached that point because you didn’t want to tell Kaiba you spied on her chatlogs.

At least Kaiba seems to trust you now more than ever.

Hindsight sure has a way of making things seem easy.

Ah. You can’t wait for this all to be over.

You sag in your seat, then sigh, “I wouldn’t know what big news I would tell them…”

Matsui looks uncomfortable all of a sudden.

No. Downright nervous.

“There is another way…” says Matsui, “But I’m not sure if we should use it.”

She seems hesitant to even offer up her suggestion.

Normally, Matsui would say that any option is a good option.

Just having more things to pick from already helps a great deal.

The only reason she would act this way is if it’s an option she doesn’t want you to pick.

Matsui glances at you and speaks carefully.

”Have you met Hada-san?” she asks.

You think for a moment.

Hada-san. That’s the assistant of Matsuno Takechi, the owner.

You’ve met her once before when you had your performance review.

She had a very peculiar choice of attire.

“Tracksuit lady?” you say.

Matsui nods gravely, “She has a lot of connections,” says Matsui, “There’s a reason why Matsuno Takechi drags her to every single one of his new businesses.”

”One call from her,” continues Matsui, “And the problem disappears. Everything Idol won’t dare publish a thing.”

Matsui’s nervousness is somewhat contagious.

It’s already affecting Kaiba.

To be fair, that doesn’t take a lot.

“T-that’s good…right?” says Kaiba, balled together in her seat.

“But you’ll owe her,” says Matsui, “And she’ll make you work hard to repay that favour. Really hard. And you can’t possibly refuse.”

This is beginning to sound like a deal with the devil.

“How do you know all this?” you ask.

“I worked alongside her for a long while,” says Matsui, looking melancholic, “I was her protégé, I was supposed to be the second Hada-san, but I… couldn’t. To do what she does… you have to be completely empty inside. I couldn’t do it.”

You swallow.

”Perhaps as a last resort…” you say.

Three ways to increase your chances of limiting the damage of this scandal.

All of them with a cost.