Minami had not spoken to Juri or Saki since the concert a month ago. She'd never been so embarrassed in her life. Only My Love was a song she couldn't even listen to anymore and even the costume that should've been a wonderful memory, had been thrown away once she got home.
There were so many emotions that she was feeling: anger, sadness, embarrassment, betrayal. Her mind couldn't comprehend how they could've done that to her. After everything they'd been through together, through all the fights they had, and all of the make-ups. What was their goal?
She thought back to the practices they had missed, the whole issue with trying to add Airi, telling her they couldn't do Moonlight Kiss but then proceeded to do it with Airi instead. Was it just to embarrass her the whole time? They clearly had no intention of performing at the concert to begin with. What kind of cruel people would pretend like that?
She swiveled around in her computer chair, not sure of what to do.
'Maybe I should check up on my fans, maybe they'll give me strength.' Sure, her fans included all but five people, IF that, but that's all she needed.
She went to Kissiks' account. To her surprise, there was a new upload that had been posted only two days ago. It was a cover of Only My Love.
Minami felt blood rush to her cheeks, their temperature rising, embarrassment and anger instantly rushing over her. Had they recorded her at the concert and posted it for everyone to see? A painful jab hit her throat and she felt the urge to throw up, but she swallowed it down as she clicked on it.
To her relief, it was not her disastrous performance. Although she wasn't sure that this was much better. It was Saki, Juri and Airi singing it, without her and with the Kissiks name. She looked at the uploader's username, "Producer Juri".
"What? This is Kissiks' account…" Minami said aloud as she clicked on the profile. There in the description was all she needed to know.
'Hi! We are Juri, Saki and Airi, the three members of Kissiks. We want to debut officially one day so please support us!' Followed by links to their individual social media accounts.
She scrolled through the account. The covers containing Minami were no longer available, however, the Moonlight Kiss cover that Juri claimed she deleted was still there with the original upload date.
Minami looked through the comments of the Only My Love cover.
"Where is Minami?"
"Wasn't Minami a member?"
"Why are you deleting all of the comments about Minami?"
"I really liked her…where is Minami? What happened to her?"
'So they were deleting comments about me…' she thought. Then, her eyes fell on one comment that seemed to stand out the most…
"I'm glad Minami's gone. She couldn't sing, she was really bringing the group down. She sucked so bad. This line-up is much better. Thanks for removing Minami!"
She recognized the username and clicked on it. It was one of Juri's old accounts.
Her blood began to boil and she clenched her fists tightly.
"You want to play games? I'll play your stupid game." Her eyes narrowed toward the screen, hatred and anger filling them and fueling her. She typed away and left a comment,
"To everyone that is questioning why I am not in the group. I'm also confused. Juri and Saki informed me last week that they are no longer wanted to be in the group. I'm wondering why they're continuing with someone else? I'm also wondering why they're using the name I came up with if they were going to remove me. It seems in poor taste. I apologize to everyone that is negatively affected." All five people anyways…but it was more than zero so they were important to her nonetheless.
Next, she scrolled back down to Juri's other account and responded directly to it.
"It's fascinating to me, Juri. Why are you commenting such a thing on your other account? Why would you change the account for our group, use the name I came up with, and inform me last minute you were leaving the group. Now, to say things like that? What are you doing? I wonder…"
She grabbed her dust bin and hugged it to her chest. Her body was shaking and tears were rolling down her cheeks yet again, the feeling of throwing up growing stronger and stronger. She didn't want her parents to hear her though, she didn't want them to know what was going on. In their eyes, everything was fine and going well.
Bzz! Bzz! She picked up her phone and saw numerous texts from Juri.
[Juri] "Don't you think it's inappropriate to respond that way? That's not my account. You're making me look bad. You're making us look bad. We don't want your shitty name, it's just convenient. We'll change it as soon as we come up with something better."
Minami gagged, the shaking in her body increasing and fueling the nausea. She scrolled back through their conversations and took a screenshot of when Juri linked the account saying it was hers. No doubt Juri thought she had forgotten, or even forgot that she herself had sent it to everyone, but Minami remembered it.
She sent the screenshot.
[Minami] "Liar. What the hell is wrong with you? No, you will not change it once you come up with something better, you'll change it now."
Juri didn't respond. Minami refreshed the page as she gagged into her dustbin. All of the comments mentioning her were gone, including the one Juri had made and the ones she had left. The account was still called Kissiks and the names on the covers hadn't changed.
[Minami] "Change the name. Now."
Then she received a message, "I'm sorry. You're not eligible to message this person. This means that you are either blocked by this person or there is a network error. Please try again later."
She tried to log into the account but was informed that the log-in information had been changed.
She ran to the bathroom, fully vomiting into the toilet. When she was done, she stood up and stared in the mirror. Juri's words echoed in her mind, 'You're not that pretty and you can't sing or dance very well.' The tears wouldn't stop flowing out her now reddened eyes. Those words replayed in her mind over and over again. Suddenly, she felt so ugly and useless.
She returned to her bedroom, keeping her head low so her parents wouldn't see she was crying in case she ran into them in the hallway. She sat back at her computer and posted on all of her social media accounts.
'Hi, this is Minami from Kissiks. I was informed by both Saki and Juri that they wanted to withdraw from the group last minute. However, I see today that they are still using my group name and uploading covers with a new member. They lied to me in order to replace me. Kissiks' is my group, and they've taken it from me under the guise of leaving the group themselves.'
Posted.
She was suddenly flooded by numerous accounts that she had never seen before.
"Shut up. You're trying to cause drama."
"Why are you stirring the pot?"
"Yeah because no one likes you."
"Kicking you out of the group was doing you a favor."
She checked the accounts, all of them had no other content on their accounts, to which Minami posted a new response.
"Previously, Juri had left a nasty comment on the account, speaking ill of me. I called Juri out in the response, but Juri deleted the comments. Juri is deleting all of the comments about me. Now, she is even creating fake accounts to try and attack me with." She included the screenshot with her post.
Next, was response that she truly was not expecting.
"Hi, I want everyone to know the person Minami is. She has been bullying both Saki and Juri since the beginning of Kissiks. They constantly had to do things behind her back to try and keep things civil. I was an original member, but Minami kicked me out unjustly, removing my name from the account and even privating the original video. She told Juri and Saki that she didn't know why the cover had been removed and that I was definitely not kicked out, however later on Juri and Saki realized that she had sent out lyric distributions without me included…."
Minami started to throw up in her dustbin. She was shaking so much she couldn't control it. That wasn't true at all! She'd never even spoken to Airi before, and Airi was never an actual member. She picked up her phone and texted Saki,
[Minami] "Ddoo you sed wedat airi vsKc onlinh? Cant types sprty…"
Her hands were shaking so much, it made typing pretty much impossible, her fingers were hitting all sorts of keys she didn't meant to.
[Saki] "Um? Idk."
[Minami] "Whar dhe said 8ts liesn…."
[Saki] "Yeah idk why she said that!"
[Minami] "Defend mr pksase, shes majing me look lkke a snaje."
[Saki] "Lol are you DRUNK? Lol!!! Um, I don't want to get in the middle of it sorry!"
Minami tossed her phone to the side and shoved her head into the dust bin, throwing up so hard it was beginning to come out of her nose and her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets.
How could her best friend, do this to her? How could she not defend her? How could she just let someone talk about her like that? The loyalty, the bond she thought they'd built, it was all bullshit. Just lies to keep her around as a toy.