Life Without You

Chapter 30 - Toughen Up

Ariel refused to step out of her house. Even though it was workday, the sheer embarrassment and horror at the circulation of the photos of that so-called kiss with Hiroshi made it so hard that she wished she'd rather fall into a deep, dark hole straightaway.

All the curtains in the house were drawn to avoid the gaze of those sneaky photographers outside her house. How could one innocent date out turn out so disastrous? Those photos gave birth to new rumours and gossips, and her social media were flooded with unwanted assumptions, accusations and even words of congrats.

She could not help herself wondering what the world was thinking until she read them. Angry and upset by the lies, Ariel wished she could reply and address the rumours, but she knew she could not since her company had taken full control of her narrative after the park incident and her social media was fully in the hands of their PR team. She cried for hours under her blanket.

Hiroshi had rung a few times on her phone but she avoided him.

Then it went silent before it rang again.

"Shut up!" Ariel intended to switch it off until she realised Mr Ken Fujita's name was flashing on the screen. She knew she had no right to refuse the big boss even though she felt scared because he was Hiroshi's father, and she was sure he needed to know how his son was dragged into this.

Quickly wiping away her tears and neatening her hair, she accepted the video call.

"H-hello, Fujita-san?" Ariel tried to sound calm. She could see in the background, an embarrassed and guilty-looking Hiroshi.

"Ariel-san, why are you not at work?" Mr Fujita interrogated.

"すみませぬ (Sumimasen i.e I'm sorry), Fujita-san!" she bowed apologetically, "I'm scared and ashamed to come out of my house right now. I can explain."

"Yes, we all know what happened," Mr Fujita glanced at his son who lowered his head. "This is not the first screw-up, Ariel-san." He reminded her what happened at the park.

"お父さん, (Otousan i.e father), like I said it's not her fault. It's mine," said Hiroshi. "I'm truly sorry, my fault. This should never have happened." He gave an apologetic bow to both his dad and Ariel.

"How on earth can both of you be this careless," Mr Fujita shook his head.

"I'll get our PR team to release a statement saying that -"

But Hiroshi was stopped by his father's raised hand.

"Just let it slide."

"B-but, Fujita-san, I really need the PR to help counter these falsehoods," begged Ariel.

"Well, Ariel-san. You can't lock yourself up forever just because of a few photos. That's the media. They'll always report unfair things. You need to keep your head up high and treat it like any normal day. They'll think that you don't care about what they say about you and in time, they'll forget about it and move on."

"I understand, Fujita-san. But I'm still scared. The photographers are still outside."

"They'll always be because you are our celebrity. Don't mix personal matters with business. Our bodyguards will protect you so don't fear."

Ariel felt dejected.

"Besides," continued Mr Fujita, "If I keep allowing you to hide every time the gossip mill churns out something uneasy about you, do you think that's fair to us? Do you think that reflects the ethos of Fujita? What kind of example are you showing to the rest of the Fujita employees? That they can use any petty reason not to come to work? "