“Starry Sound…”
Whispering the name, Koharu Miura quickly used a search engine to find the forum.
A grayish-white background, cluttered titles, and words dancing between the lines—filled with malice and carnival-like revelry—entered Koharu Miura’s field of vision.
It was a typical anonymous forum used by “those people.”
Unlike the restraint, politeness, and decency people showed on social media platforms, the communication here carried a faint sense of madness, even in the titles.
Koharu first searched for the keyword “Sugar Starlight.”
Finally, Koharu confirmed that the so-called “Truth Thread” Maki had mentioned had indeed been deleted by the moderator.
But as she flipped through the posts, the words that made one break into a cold sweat still caused Koharu’s heart to ache.
Even so, she had to look closely.
Koharu wasn’t just here to confirm whether the source of the information had been deleted.
In the world of the internet, even an unintentional reply is enough for a sufficiently careful person to find an account.
Koharu Miura patiently scrolled through the remaining posts, attempting to find information about the leaker by looking through the replies.
[Subject: Since a certain Center is leaving, the group might as well just disband.]
[Reply 12: Didn’t a stagehand leak this? The internal rehearsal schedules match up, and they say ALISA has indeed been absent a lot lately.]
[Reply 25: LOL, I went to the livehouse the same day I saw that post to see what was going on, but I was blocked outside by security.]
[Reply 42: You’re just unlucky. I waited outside and saw her. ALISA really did leave first with a cold face. No matter how much I called her, she ignored me.]
[Reply 48: Don’t start drama, person above. What if she just wasn’t feeling well?]
[Reply 49: You whitewashers should give it a rest. An insider said she’s already signed with a major agency. It’s not like she just started looking down on her dead weight teammates yesterday.]
Koharu Miura’s finger stopped sliding, her eyes flickering slightly.
‘This person…’
The words from Reply 49 seemed a bit too sharp.
Moreover, they carried a certain tone of conviction. Whether it was about the signing or the relationship between the teammates, the person spoke as if they were stating absolute facts.
“…”
Koharu Miura’s brow furrowed.
She had been a bit concerned when she heard it from Maki.
Something like an internal rehearsal schedule could have been obtained by a stagehand or similar staff; it didn’t necessarily mean someone involved in the group leaked it.
But, when combined with inside information about teammate relationships, it was a different story.
Considering both factors, Koharu believed there was a very high possibility that the source was a member of the group or someone closely related to a member.
Only then could they know the internal relationships on top of having the rehearsal schedule.
Of course, Koharu did not believe that the Kiyono Arisa she knew from the game—who valued her teammates and Sugar Starlight more than anything—would hate her teammates here.
There was another reason she thought this suspicious Reply 49 was problematic.
The way it mentioned Kiyono Arisa’s discord with her teammates used highly subjective terms.
“Look down on,” “dead weight,” and “not just one or two days.”
These were private feelings that only the parties involved should know, yet this person spoke of them with such certainty.
There were two possibilities: first, the poster was just making wild guesses; second…
The poster believed that ‘this is exactly how Kiyono Arisa thinks of them.’
Among fans of idol groups, aside from solo-fans who might hold the mindset that ‘only my favorite is necessary, everyone else should get off the stage,’ those who would believe a core member resents the others are usually the peripheral members who are not at the center.
She continued to dig along this line of thought and saw similar traces in another discussion thread about a certain performance.
It was a thread complaining about the stage aesthetics of Sugar Starlight.
Amidst the numerous voices of dissatisfaction, one account evaluated the performance from an extremely professional perspective: “ALISA’S positioning in the third segment clearly leaves too much space. She doesn’t want to have any physical contact with her teammates at all. That kind of repulsion can’t be faked. Though, it’s not like anyone wants to touch her either, right? Who is she putting on that act for?”
‘Such details…’
Koharu Miura held her breath.
These words were even more obvious.
If one looked at those messages from a different perspective—not from an idol fan’s view, but in a workplace setting—it was the exact mold of an employee using anonymity to complain about people they couldn’t stand.
It looked more and more like the work of a teammate.
The moment she realized this, anger crackled in her chest like sparks dropped onto dry hay.
“Despicable,” she whispered under her breath.
This was very likely a meticulously planned persecution against Kiyono Arisa, carried out by one of her most important friends.
Leaning against a utility pole by the street, Koharu Miura analyzed the malicious replies one by one, trying to find patterns in speech habits, punctuation usage, and even the timing of the posts.
Then, as the investigation progressed, Koharu’s heartbeat grew faster and faster.
If that anonymous user showed real-time control over Sugar Starlight’s internal dynamics at a specific point in time, she could definitely narrow down the range.
Koharu was looking for exactly that—she wanted to find the sender.
However, as the investigation deepened, a deep sense of powerlessness began to wash over her like a tide.
Due to the forum’s high level of anonymity and the large-scale cleanup of topics by moderators after receiving complaints, much of the critical evidence had become fragmented as the original threads disappeared.
It was difficult to find any systematic content.
When she flipped to the last page, all she saw was a cold system prompt:
[This topic has been archived. Further replies are prohibited.]
Koharu Miura let her hand drop weakly, the light from her phone screen flickering in the cold wind.
Several hours of effort seemed so pale and futile.
She hadn’t been able to find the true identity of the anonymous user who served as the source, nor had she been able to dig up any hard evidence from those tens of thousands of insults that could serve as a weapon for a counterattack.
Those replies all looked the same—the disappointment of fanatical fans, the cynical mockery of passersby, and the instigation of a few professional haters. The true manipulator was like a slimy venomous snake that had already vanished into the complex underground network after spraying its venom.
“Is it no use…?”
She let out a self-deprecating laugh, but a shadow flickered in the depths of her eyes.
As a selfish supporting character who had originally only thought about “wanting to survive,” her current frustration felt somewhat ironic.
With the results of her several hours of effort yielding nothing, Koharu Miura simply put away her phone and walked quickly toward the subway station.
The streets of Sakuragicho were as bustling as ever, the neon lights reflecting blurred colors on the damp road surface.
Koharu Miura pushed through the crowds of people talking and laughing, feeling an unprecedented mix of loneliness and anger intertwining within her.
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