"Ms. Aizawa, is this true?"
The conference room, first thing in the morning. Kuroda, our department head, thrust his phone screen in my face. I was supposed to be the one under attack, and yet, strangely, not a single fingertip trembled.
I own thirty percent of the company that runs this social network, actually—but you don't know that, do you, Mr. Kuroda?
On the screen was a row of screenshots posted by an account I didn't recognize. That I had gotten blind drunk while entertaining a client and leaked confidential information—that was the "exposé."
All of it was a lie.
"I have done nothing of the sort."
I answered quietly. But the replies beneath the post had already become a living hell.
This woman is an embarrassment to the company.
Expose her to the client.
Where's the photo of her face?
In a single night, the quote retweets had passed twenty thousand.
The account behind the accusation was called "The Industry's Conscience." Almost zero followers, freshly made. A burner account, in other words.
And yet the moment one influencer quoted it, the whole thing caught fire.
That influencer was a coworker who had joined the company the same year I did.
Rika Mochizuki. A hundred and twenty thousand followers. Known around the office as "the star of PR," she sat at the desk right next to mine.
It makes me so sad that someone like this works at my company. I stand with the victim.
That one line from Rika poured oil on the flames.
The victim. There was no victim, anywhere. The fabricated client dinner, the leaked secrets—none of it had ever existed.
"Ms. Aizawa, why don't you work from home for a while."
Kuroda said it without meeting my eyes. With the same mouth that, until moments ago, had been reviewing my performance, as if he were a different man.
"You know how it is. There are clients watching. The company has an image to protect."
He cut me loose without even looking into it. That was how he protected himself.
When I left the conference room, Rika was standing there with a coffee in hand.
"Yui, are you okay? Sounds like things have gotten pretty rough for you."
Only her mouth was smiling. Her eyes were studying me, enjoying every second.
I knew. I knew exactly who had cooked up this fabrication.
Six months ago, I had been put in charge of a major project that Rika had wanted more than anything. Ever since the day the executives praised me in front of everyone, the way she looked at me had changed.
"Yui, you're so plain. How come the higher-ups like you so much?"
She'd said that once on the way home from a drinking party, as if it were a joke. Her eyes hadn't been laughing.
I hadn't said anything back. I hadn't felt any need to. But apparently she took even that silence as me looking down on her.
"Thanks for worrying about me," I replied.
Rika's eyebrows twitched, ever so slightly. She must have expected me to break down in tears.
"...Don't push yourself too hard, okay? Social media can be scary."
With that, she went back to her desk and raised her phone again. No doubt to throw more fuel on the fire.
Back at my own desk, I opened my personal laptop.
The center of the firestorm: the social network where that post lived. The biggest platform in the country. Forty million monthly users.
I stared at its login screen.
The account called "The Industry's Conscience." Posted at 2:14 a.m.
An ordinary person could never tell who had posted it.
But I could see it.
My phone buzzed. A single message. The sender was my lawyer, Mr. Uno.
Ms. Aizawa. I've confirmed the matter on our end as well. Give me the word, and I can move at any time.
I sent back a short reply.
Please go ahead. Start by preserving the evidence.
A familiar logo glowed on my laptop screen.
The company that ran this social network. For the past three years, I had been quietly buying up its shares.
More than thirty percent of its outstanding stock.
Its largest shareholder—was me.
I quietly closed the screenshot of the post that had set off the firestorm.
And in a voice no one else could hear, I murmured:
"Rika. You really don't seem to understand what you're dancing on."