Ritsu didn’t think such a circumstance would ever happen to him, but it does — and the news comes crashing down like an avalanche on an intense winter day.

“Sakuma-kun, Sakuma-kun,” someone from his class yells out his name, and Ritsu regrets turning down Koga’s offer to eat lunch together. It’s clear he wouldn’t be getting any wink of sleep this break.

“What?” Ritsu asks, blinking lazily, flickering his eyes upwards to stare at the person. He couldn’t be bothered to lift his head from the desk. “This better be something useful. If this doesn’t concern Maa-kun or Knights I won’t hesitate to suck you dry of your blood for wasting my time,” he mindlessly threatens, smiling when he catches a glimpse of the student shivering from their spot. The trick works every time.

The words are a little nasty, and Tsukasa would probably reprimand him if he were around, but Ritsu believes that it’s well deserved especially since they chose to disturb him at a time meant for his naps.

Now, it shouldn’t be long until the student apologizes and leaves. Ritsu starts counting down the seconds. Usually, it takes about ten to twenty before they disappear from his sight, but when he reaches thirty, and the person is still there, Ritsu couldn’t help but glare.

The student nervously laughs. “Really sorry to bother ya, but I thought you should hear it if you haven’t yet. There’s this hot news goin’ around, and it apparently concerns that old group Galaktika,” he shares. “You were partnered up with their main vocalist before, right?”

Yes, Ritsu was partnered up with their main vocalist before. They were a fraud-married couple first before becoming coworkers, then coworkers turned into friends. At the mention of the name, the Knights member finally wills himself to look at the person properly.

“What about Yurika?” Ritsu questions, interest piqued. It’s uncanny for the former idol to be the center of gossip. She disappeared from the public long ago, and her name is nothing more than a distant memory; and even when the group was active, she rarely brought attention to herself. Ritsu wonders if this by chance had anything to do with her family name.

Just as he is about to probe the student more about the issue, his answer comes in the form of Arashi. She looks like she has just run a marathon, and the expression she casts over at Ritsu stirs worry within the strategist.

“This is terrible, Ritsu-chan!” Arashi cries out. “Look.” She shoves her phone right into Ritsu’s hands, and the headline of the article causes his entire world to still.

Ritsu is sure that if Arashi handed him not her phone, but a physical newspaper, he would have already ripped the thing into shreds. His head spins as he stares at the image slipped between those false texts.

Arashi sighs. “Poor, Shimizu-chan. I guess even retiring from the spotlight isn’t enough to shake the media away.”

“This entire article is nothing but filled with lies,” Ritsu says through gritted teeth.

“Right?” The blonde model crosses her arms. “They never change their ways, do they? Despite promising they would. It’s annoying.”

Very annoying.

Yurika’s actor boyfriend? Secret date spot? Oh, don’t make him laugh. Anyone who has met the ex-idol would know that stepping into a relationship is the least of her priorities, and if she did get into one, she isn’t the type to carelessly expose both herself and her partner to camera lenses.

But there is no denying that the girl captured alongside a young actor was Yurika, and it would have been fine, really, if it just stopped there and reported that the two met each other secretly, but the way the paparazzi has instilled romantic connotations to the image and sensationalized it into a hot and juicy story that — Ritsu is a hundred percent sure — isn’t even supposed to be, gives him an overwhelming urge to throw the device in his hands across the room and to tear the author apart.

Actually, not just the author. To hell with the actor, himself, too for spilling the fuel to light the fire in the first place. Something tells Ritsu that this was all a setup — a trick for publicity by dirtying another person’s name. It’s a strange coincidence for a media personnel to miraculously stumble upon an ex-idol and actor talking in what seems to be a secluded alleyway, after all.

Oh, his poor, naive, and kind-hearted Yurika. Getting taken advantage of in broad daylight. She probably thought she was approached for a mere friendly conversation.

If Ritsu had just dropped any evidence of his presence in her life earlier, then maybe this wouldn't have happened. No one tampers with people important to the Sakuma’s.