The Truth Segment

Nataria had learned, early on, how to read a room.

A dance studio before auditions. A greenroom five minutes before a live broadcast. The charged silence before a crowd decided whether they loved you, or tore you apart.

Tonight, the studio air felt like stretched wire.

Takeshi was even more theatrical than usual.

He lounged in his chair with that foxlike smile, suit immaculate, eyes flicking from camera to cue cards to the guests lined on the couches.

Nataria sat a picture of calm on the outside. Counting heartbeats on the inside.

Come on, she thought, gaze steady. Take the bait.

She’d asked Shou three days ago, casually, like it was an offhand thought.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if Takeshi did a truth segment?

Shou, perceptive as ever, hadn’t needed to ask why. He’d just hummed thoughtfully and said he’d float the idea to his manager, who would float it to the producer, who would, if the gods of television were kind, float it to Takeshi himself.

The excuse he gave to his manager was easy: let Senri have the chance to publicly come clean about the leak, which would mean a bigger condemnation for him later when doesn't.

“And now,” Takeshi announced, turning to the camera, “for our final segment together… Let’s try something different, shall we? Tonight, we get real,” Nataria felt a sharp, thrilling jolt of success.

Stage acquired. Now, they had to perform.

There was an unspoken hierarchy to these things, a customary order. But the narrative demanded Senri go first.

And it was up to Senri to make happen.

Takeshi’s eyes swept over them, the benevolent game master. “So, who’d like to start? Share a secret dream? A hidden fear?”

Senri didn’t wait. He leaned forward, his ivory suit stark under the lights, his expression thoughtful. “Takeshi-san, what kind of truth should it be?”

Takeshi, delighted by the engagement, spread his hands. “Anything! Something from your past, a feeling you’ve hidden… anything you think your fans should know about the real you. What would you like to share, Amano-san?”

Senri nodded slowly, it was obvious that he was stealing himself. The studio was silent, hanging on his every breath. Nataria held hers.

“I never got along with my father,” Senri said.

The statement dropped into the studio with the seismic weight of a stone sinking into a still pond. Takeshi’s expertly curated flickered for a nanosecond, he was not expecting such a delicious confession. He recovered smoothly, leaning in with sympathy. “Ah… a difficult relationship? Was this… before he passed?”

It was the general assumption about Senri. The heroic idol raising his sisters. She herself had assumed it.

Senri met Takeshi’s eyes with a genuinely puzzled look. “My father isn’t dead.”

A ripple of confusion passed through the live audience. Takeshi’s eyebrows shot up. He was a veteran; he could feel the tectonic plates of the interview shifting under his feet, and his thrill was palpable. “He isn’t? Where is he?”

Senri’s gaze never wavered. “He’s in prison. Because he was a terrible man.”

A collective, sharp gasp sucked the air from the studio. On the monitor, Nataria saw the camera operators frozen, then zooming in frantically on Senri’s grave face. Takeshi looked, for the first time all season, genuinely stunned, then ecstatic. This was the clip that would be on every gossip site within the hour.

But Senri wasn’t finished. He continued, his voice softening just a degree, laced with a resolve that was more powerful than any anger. “The only thing I ever learned from him… was what not to be. I’m modeling my life on being his opposite.”

Nataria swallowed.

A seasoned actor couldn’t have delivered that line better. Without fanfare or plea for sympathy. Just truth, laid bare and unadorned.

The tone was set for the remaining confessions.

Takeshi, the ever brilliant host, abandoned his theatrics and turned to Shou next without words.

As Shou spoke without prompting, the playful glint in his eyes was subdued, replaced by a vulnerability that made him look younger. He fidgeted with the cuff of his jacket, a tell his frantic, adoring fans would recognize as genuine distress.

“I never said before that my group is my family. I don't see my real family much.” He gave a weak, half-shrug that was utterly charmless and therefore utterly compelling. “One year, my family forgot my birthday. The guys found out. They staged this whole… ridiculous song and dance number in our dorm at midnight. Woke up everyone with the noise.” He smiled then, a small, private thing that bloomed into something real. “They looked so stupid, but it was the best birthday.”

Nataria’s heart ached for him, but this was the strategy she’d suggested: show them the person behind the smirk. The image of the confident charming idol, vulnerable and loved by his team, would make his fans combust with protective fervor.

Then it was her turn. The lights felt hotter. She could feel the ghost of her PR’s directives clawing at her throat: Be palatable. Be stoic.

She took a quiet breath and let them go. She was going to be only herself tonight.

“I was always in dance classes, or vocal training,” she began, her voice losing its melodic tone, turning thoughtful. “I didn’t… play like other kids.” She met the audience’s gaze, letting them in. “In sixth grade, a rumor went around my class. They said I was lying about my real name. That ‘Nataria’ was a fake name, an idol name I’d made up because I wanted to be special.” She chuckled, the sound dry and thin. “They weren’t being mean, they just genuinely believed it.” She paused, overwhelmed by the memory, how long that year seemed. “The funny thing is… my mother gave me that name because it sounded like a stage name. She said, ‘You’ll never need to change it when you shine.’” She offered a small, complicated smile, a mix of gratitude and the faint, eternal ache of a childhood loaned to a dream.

It was a confession of a different kind, of a childhood sacrificed to a future. It was the origin story of the “calculating” girl, reframed as a daughter’s burden and a mother’s love.

Momo followed, her usual glittering personality tempered with a rare, somber honesty. She spoke of her grandparents, their worn hands and traditional hopes she would be a teacher, like her mother. Of silent celebrations and unreturned calls. “I love them. And I love my work. I just… hope one day those two loves can meet.”

Sachiko, fingers twisting in her lap, confessed her terror before coming on the show. “I’m not glamorous like everyone here. I didn’t know if you’d like me.” Her voice was a fragile thread. “Gymnastics is… solitary. Your world is your coach, the beam, the silence. I was happy with that. But now…” She looked at each of them: Nataria, Momo, Shou, Senri, then finally Hibiki. “I’ve learned how warm it can be. To have friends. I’m happy I met you all.”

Finally, Hibiki. His mask of princely gentleness was replaced by a somber look in his silver eyes. The real Hibiki through the mask.

“Sometimes,” he began, “I feel like I forget how to be anyone other than the role I’m playing on screen. I regret… not being more honest. Not being there for the people I care about, as myself.” He paused, and silence held the set. “I’ve learned from Amano to be honest. And from Hidomu-san,” he added, with a slight nod her way, “to be brave.” He then turned his head, his focus narrowing to one person. “So. Tamaki-san.” The entire world seemed to shrink to the space between them. “There’s something I’d like to talk to you about. Privately. If that’s okay.”

Sachiko’s hands flew to her mouth. Her nod was a frantic, breathless little motion.

Next to Nataria, Momo’s hand shot out, clutching Nataria’s arm in a vice grip. Nataria squeezed back just as hard, their shared, breathless excitement passing through the contact like a current. It’s happening.

Takeshi, sensing the perfect, poignant peak, gracefully swept in, his face a mask of satisfied reverence. “What an incredible, heartfelt moment. Thank you for trusting us with your truths.” He signaled the end of the segment, the transition to closing banter smooth as silk.

The show ended on a wave of thunderous, emotional applause. As the closing music swelled and the lights began to shift, the careful façade of the group began to crack. Shou let out a long, shaky breath, running a hand through his hair. Momo was whispering rapidly to a still-shellshocked Sachiko.

Nataria’s gaze, however, cut through the glittering chaos, finding Senri. He was already looking at her. In his eyes, she saw the exhaustion, the relief, the echo of his painful truth, and beneath it all, a steadfast, glowing promise.

The segment was over. The show was done.

Now, it was time to slip unnoticed into the shadows, where the only truth that mattered was the one they whispered to each other.