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The headlines are splashy and huge and all over the fucking place when she opens her phone. She doesn’t even realize the manager is blowing up her phone at first; there’s so much of it.ABYSSAL RED’S LUCY AND MOONLIGHT’S ATSUSHI REPORTEDLY DATING, says one. The rest are worse. She scrolls through them for five minutes with increasing horror poking through her numb shock before she realizes she’s descending into doomscrolling, and cuts off the Wi-Fi connection. Clears all her notifications and flops back on her bed, thinking, Atsushi is having a grand time right about now. And, class today will be hell, because of course this has to happen on her biweekly-scheduled media training lesson. The dorm is eerily quiet, the rest of the girls nowhere to be seen or heard. She’s overslept, probably. Her schedule is free enough for this week.Her phone pings—Louisa. Are you okay???? Followed by, did u rlly just blow up mega-famous before any of us. Lucy groans. Tells Louisa, I’ll be fine, I’m more worried about Atsushi anyway, and to Margaret, kys. and im fine don’t come back, and then she sees the text from their manager: meeting @ 1pm with an attached location link.She buries her head in her pillow and screams and wonders if they could still sue her for violating her seven-year contract if she committed suicide right now. The meeting is as routine as it goes. She sits in front of an array of executives and—not the CEO, this isn’t quite important enough for that, she thinks, she hasn’t done anything unbecoming, exactly—her manager and also fucking wonderful, her media training teacher.They demand answers. Show her the pictures some fucking weirdo took and—look, Lucy knows this could’ve happened to anyone, but how was she to know someone would stalk her and Atsushi? They’re not even very well-known, which is the only reason she suspects they haven’t strayed anywhere near contract termination, which. Thank fucking god; Atsushi might get off easy, but she won’t.“What were you doing with him?” her teacher asks, all fire and none of her usual kindness. Lucy curls her hands into fists under the table, careful even with her sweater sleeves hiding them. She puts the photos down, printed across A4 sheets, in front of Lucy with no grace.Atsushi and Lucy, masked up, walking across a park side-by-side, kneeling to play with a kitten, Lucy with her masked yanked down to point her finger at Atsushi and yell at him for being annoying and a jerk (not that photos convey that, it just shows her indignance and Atsushi’s stupid fond smile), the two of them holding cotton candy and picking it off delicately with their hands to avoid getting any sugar on their masks. Why the fuck are there so many? And, conveniently, it had left out their time spent chasing after Dazai who stole their candy, or Louisa, who just hung back to sigh at their antics.“Are these all posted?” Lucy asks, numb. Anger pokes through in pinpricks, but mostly, she’s—numb. Doesn’t know what the right thing to say or do right now is.“Only the one with the cat,” she replies. Great. Lovely. That’s the one where she’d grabbed Atsushi’s arm in startlement because the kitten swiped their claws at her.“So they sent the rest of this for what?”“They haven’t said,” an executive says. “Best guess is a miffed fan seeking retribution.”Fancy fucking wording aside, that’s. Lucy draws in a deep breath, in and out, then another. “I didn’t intend for this outcome,” she says flatly, memories of her trainee years and being made to stand outside of the dance studio for mouthing back flaring, “and I deeply apologize. I was not alone with Atsushi last week; Louisa came with us. We—Dazai Osamu, too.”She takes out her phone and lets them go through her gallery to prove it. (All her real important stuff is on a different one, hidden between bedroom drawer and Louisa’s. None of the girls breathe a word about it.) She’s telling the truth, obviously, and no one comments on the selfies with Louisa that she had taken. She’d been intending to post those on the group socials, another silly feel-good post for the fans.Not that she’s feeling particularly charitable right now. Her head pounds something awful, and she thinks of the messages they’re going through, too, none of which are incriminating or embarrassing, but—she gets reprimanded, a second later, for sending selfies to Atsushi, for planning to go out so publicly in the first place. Atsushi is a well-known name at this point, they tear into her, how could you have been so careless and shameless and stupid.It takes another two hours, but she leaves the office with a warning that this is strike one. Translated: they could so easily find a more compliant, traditionally-beautiful girl to fill the gap Lucy will leave when they kick her out. She heads up to the cafeteria instead of going home, dodging her manager’s worries, because she really does want the best for Lucy and the girls, but—she needs to be alone, right now. Not so alone that she’ll be tempted to do something to herself, but isolated enough when almost all the groups active within the agency right now are off doing scheduled-related things or holed up in the practice rooms. The rest are smart enough to sleep through the morning while they can.Lucy thinks she’d love to put on one of their angrier tracks and dance until her body gives out. She hasn’t eaten yet, so that’s a no go. Sighing to herself, she slams the tray down on a vacant table and slides into the corner seat, slumping against the wall with her eyes closed. This is one of the times when Louisa would tell her to breathe through the anger, but—she blows out a breath. There’s nothing to breathe through.She doesn’t even want to look at what people are saying about her. Naomi and Jun’ichiro both have sent their own concerned texts, and of course Yosano; Atsushi is still sending a constant stream of apologies. Lucy pulls out her phone, and says into the voice message, “Stop it already, okay? It’s neither of our faults. Shit happens. Anyway, I’m fine. They’re not kicking me out or anything.”She doesn’t ask how Atsushi is because she already knows, he’s said as much, and it’s not like he’ll get more than a reprimand, anyway. It might be callous; of course it’s a hit to his own career, too, but between them, only one is liable to be massacred by the public and she isn’t in the mood to dole out sympathy to someone else when she cannot even spare any for herself.Mostly, she’s angry at herself. She should’ve known.A girl slides into the seat across from her, places a phone with a startlingly detailed article displayed on it between them, and says, “you’re not usually careless enough to let this happen.”Lucy looks right into Izumi Kyouka’s eyes and says, flat, “fuck off, brat.”“Did the execs tell you it’ll be fine?” Kyouka asks. Lucy wants to bang her head into the wall again, but refrains from doing so with seniors she respects in the room. Not that any of them are exactly looking at her right now. “Atsushi’s fans are going insane right now.”“I know,” she groans. “Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out I just ruined their self-insert fanfiction dreams.”“They’re organizing protest trucks at the moment,” Kyouka informs her.“What?” That gets her attention, and she snatches Kyouka’s phone, navigating out of the article tab, and—yep, there’s the Moonlight forum, she knew the little sneak would be on that. With growing horror, she watches the posts roll by as she scrolls. She puts the phone down, mildly nauseous. “Well, that’s not good.” No shit, Montgomery. “What prompted this? The photos aren’t usually enough. I didn’t get caught holding his hand/”“More proof that you’re dating,” Kyouka says. “Your necklace and his bracelet matches.” A gift from Naomi on their shared debut anniversary last year. “The classic, exact similar shirts.” Gag Christmas gifts Dazai got for them last month, because he’s an annoying little shit despite being a full-grown adult (he also got a similar set for Atsushi and Akutagawa. Lucy does not know what he thinks he’s achieving). “You were both at Hong Kong at the exact same time, even though your group wasn’t invited to MAMA.”“Fucking—I was there for a modeling gig that got canceled! I was with Margaret!” she slams her fist down on the table, then drops her face onto it. Kyouka doesn’t say anything in response to this. “God. Who the fuck even orchestrated all this?”“You’ll probably never find out,” Kyouka says.“This fucking sucks,” Lucy says into the table. Her hands have begun shaking a bit. She should tell her manager. She does not want to speak to anyone else right now, but Kyouka isn’t going to move. For someone who’s just a trainee, she sure has a lot of nerve. Then Lucy catches herself; she is not going to be the idol who thinks she’s above someone just because she has debuted.(It’s so easy for anyone to fall from grace.)“Atsushi has been blowing up my phone, too,” Kyouka says. “He wants to know how you are.”“I told him I’m fine,” she bites out.“You don’t look fine,” Kyouka does not respond to the anger. “He’ll be upset if you’re lying to him.”“Well, fuck him, because he’s not the one this close to being kicked out my group!”“It’s hard for him, too,” her voice takes on a protective edge. Lucy’s chest simmers with something uncomfortable. Of course Kyouka’s right, just. “He didn’t ask to be slammed on Twitter either. Don’t pretend you don’t worry for him, either.”“Whatever.” She doesn’t like that Kyouka can read their relationship so well. Anyone with two eyes could, of course, but Kyouka, who follows Atsushi around so quietly, somehow slipping under the managers’ and teachers’ eyes, who’s eerily good at singing, with a voice that projects emotion her spoken voice does not. Kyouka, who’s as protective of Atsushi as they come. She is. “Just—whatever.”“Are you dating Atsushi?” Kyouka asks. It’s spoken in the same flat tone, betraying hardly any emotion at all.Lucy can feel her face coloring hotly. “Wh—no!” she sputters. “Do I look like I’d be caught dating him?”“That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t.”She considers throwing something. Decides against it; she has too much against her already. She doesn’t need to be crucified for ‘abusing’ a trainee, or something. It’s simply not worth it. She does, however, say, “no, I would not,” hotly. And it’s true. What would she even get out of dating Nakajima Atsushi?A good, attentive boyfriend, maybe. He’d be so kind to her, he always has been. She’s certain she would never feel left out of anything—she still thinks about the time he taught her to use chopsticks, painstakingly, undeterred by her growing frustration.But. They’re idols. Lucy feels a bit gooey around him, certainly, but that’s not exclusive to him. She wonders if it’s even possible to separate out all the things she feels about him, about anyone, really. She doesn’t feel as if she’s losing anything by staying his friend. She doesn’t think they’d work as a couple, even.And. She’s not looking to slip up one day and be burnt at the stake for having a life of her own. She is painfully aware that she’s lucky to have debuted at all.Kyouka accepts that, doesn’t press further. Then, she says, “I’m going to vocal practice.”“By yourself? Where’s your teacher?” Lucy raises a brow at her.“Damage-controlling Atsushi’s anxiety breakdown,” which translates to, making sure he doesn’t sing until his throat bleeds. Atsushi and Kyouka are under the same sublabel, which is probably why it’s easier for them to stick closer than Lucy.“I’m coming with you,” Lucy decides, because singing is the one thing even Kyouka can’t make her angry over. She switches off her phone, slides it into her pocket, and follows Kyouka through the halls, through all the right doors to the one Kyouka’s booked out.When she grips her mic and pushes aside the speaker with her foot to make more room to move around, she sings with a vengeance. Kyouka’s phone beeps with constant alerts, but neither of them pay any mind to it.This is the one thing the world thing cannot take from her. She knows there’ll be more meetings, there’ll be the apology letter to post onto socials, staying carefully out of sight of cameras for a few weeks—it’ll be tedious, annoying, soul-crushing. She expects death threats and more.But this is what she signed up for, after all. A give and take. Tit for tat.