This is an AU based off of Shinkuu Yuusetsu, a wonderful manga by Bikke. I do not own Skip Beat or the premise, only the plot.

Hollow Junction

Chapter 1

In this country, every person has to be matched up with a partner when they are three or four. The doctors decide who gets paired together and the sets are made of two people in the same generation with matching wavelengths. One person acts as the 'supplier,' the other as the 'receiver.'

It is impossible for a receiver to continue to live without periodically being given power from the supplier. And in the same way, it is imperative for a supplier that a receiver accept some of the power generated within their body. This power can't be made anywhere other than inside a supplier's own body.

And that power is always transferred through the two partners' lips.

Smiling weakly, Kyouko shifted on the couch to draw her eyes away from the television to Sho, who's gaze remained steadfast on the unit. She waited for him to notice, and when he continued to watch the comedic show with a ready grin, Kyouko's own wan smile slowly began to thin, flimsy on her own face. "Sho-chan," she tried, struggling to keep the corners of her lips up. Again, she said, "Sho-chan," her fingers reaching out to tug softly at the edge of his sweater.

Scowling, the handsome blond finally turned to face her, and guilt twisted Kyouko's stomach. He was just trying to relax, and here she was bothering him! But, still…

"What, Kyouko?" He asked sharply, and Kyouko shivered slightly at his tone, before regaining her tepid smile.

"Sho, don't you need to charge? It's been awhile -" two days actually "- and it's getting kind of uncomfortable…"

He huffed sharply, before leaning over, his large hand resting familiarly on her shoulder, pushing softly so that her back rested against the arm of the sofa. Gently, like the caress of a feather, Sho brushed his lips against hers, Kyouko closing her eyes and sighing against his mouth as she felt the suffocating energy drain away into him. Slowly the pressure against her lips increased until a raging blush flooded her cheeks, and then he drew back.

When she tenderly opened her eyes, she found him looking at her face with an inscrutable expression, gray eyes searching, as if to memorize.

"Sho-chan?" Kyouko asked tentatively, but he just stood, brushing her off. She mutely watched him as he left the room, reappearing with a familiar dreaded black bag. "Sho-chan, are you leaving?" She asked in disbelief. When he didn't answer she unfolded from the sofa and stepped after him, brows pinched together. "You only just got here…" she continued hesitantly.

"Kyouko," he said, and she looked up to find him watching her again. Heat blossomed in her cheeks and she could feel butterflies in her stomach. She wanted to hold his hand, to tug him to her and beg him to stay. To not leave her all alone in an apartment too big for just one person. She wanted to see the look on his face when they finished charging, soft and open. Gentle.

"Kyouko," he said again, as if knowing her mind had drifted. His eyes were tender and he cupped her cheek with one hand. She leaned into the warmth as he continued, "You know I'm busy. I can't stay. I'll see you soon." Sho leaned in to press a warm kiss to her cheek and she sighed contentedly, before standing on her toes to press her own lips against his cheek, a sign of affection.

"Okay, Sho-chan," she said. "I'll be waiting for you here."

He smiled, but when he left all Kyouko could feel was the absence of his warmth on her cheeks, and so she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and begged herself not to cry.

Kyouko hummed cheerfully the next day, hands busily making a bento as she sang along to one of the radio's more recent hits. Her muted attitude last night had disappeared when she heard the news this morning report about the lastest in celebrity gossip, specifically about Sho. He was climbing the charts with a speed that even she knew was impressive. It was getting hard to hide her own pride when her coworkers gushed about him.

But, following on the trails of that pride was a bit of loneliness, and Kyouko determinedly shook her head. "Now Kyouko," she said aloud. "You can't very well go following him everywhere, right? He's a young male celebrity - well, he's actually a consultant, but nonetheless he's famous! - his selling point is his 'availability' and if you're by his side all the time it would all be a moot point!"

"...is what Sho told me," she trailed traitorously. "Really, isn't his consultations the main point here? It's not like they don't know he has a partner."

"But there's a difference between seeing his partner and just vaguely knowing one exists."

A door opened and shut, startling Kyouko, then, "I'm home! Are you talking to yourself again, Kyouko?" Sho called out lazily, and Kyouko brightened.

"Sho-chan!" She cheered, rinsing her hands and grabbing the nearby towel. His feet padded rhythmically on the hardwood floor as he neared and she turned to face him. Their kitchen doubled as a dining room, too, so he stopped short of her across the table. "You're back early," she accused, though there was no real irritation in her voice. "I was just making your lunch, it should be finished soon! Oh, but I should place it on a plate instead since you're here, hm? Or, are you leaving again?"

She said the last bit in a soft voice and Sho glanced towards her as he scowled.

"No, I'll be here for a bit, but food isn't why I'm here." He rummaged through his messenger bag and pulled forth several papers, the edges slightly crumpled from his careless handling. "We need to talk."

Kyouko's eyes landed on the official seal branded on the corner of the papers and her throat closed up. "Talk?" She said weakly.

Sho procured a pen and then slid it and the papers around towards her to see. Her eyes darted across the bold printed words "Application for Partner Separation" before looking at him again. When she spoke she was shocked at how steady her own voice was. "Sho-chan, what is this?"

"It's exactly what it looks like. I want to end our partnership."

Kyouko felt her body still, her breath catch and her own heart slow, before everything seemed to suddenly work double-time. "End…? No, I don't understand Sho-chan. Why… why do you want to end it?"

Sho sighed irritably. "Because Kyouko, it's such a trouble having to come all the way here just to charge! I have to travel halfway across the city just for a few minutes!"

"I said I could go with you!" Kyouko cried indignantly. "From the very beginning I promised to stay with you! You wanted to live here!"

"Kyouko!" Sho said, his voice never really reaching the threshold of yelling but loud enough to make Kyouko flinch. His next words were spoken more softly. "Things have changed. Our lives are so different… my day starts by the time you're having lunch and ends when you've already been asleep for hours. I was just told to start considering expanding to across Japan, and that'll involve me traveling all over the country for maybe a month, maybe longer! There's no way you can drop everything to go with me."

She was shaking her head before he'd even finished. "Yes! I would!"

But his eyes were closed and he was already dismissing her. "Just… just spend a couple days thinking about it, okay? Anyways, I've got to go. I only came to give these to you." He zipped his bag shut and slipped the strap over his head to rest on his shoulder. "Don't bother with my lunch, I won't have time to eat it."

"Oh," he said, and he leant over the table to cup her face, drawing her in for a kiss that could only taste bitter to Kyouko. "Bye Kyouko, I'll see you."

"Bye," she murmured to an empty room. Her gaze fell on the abandoned papers and she almost threw them off the table, almost tore them into such tiny pieces no one would be able to read them. Instead, she sighed and turned back to the useless bento.

"You and me both, huh," she said to it, and then morosely decided she might as well eat it herself.

Kyouko had thought about it. She had pondered, mused, and stayed awake the entire night thinking about it. But, the facts were as true as ever, and nothing would sway them. She wanted to stay by Sho's side.

This wasn't the first time these papers had haunted her. When Sho had first began considering his career in consultations between partners, he had approached her with the documents in hand, gaze solemn and his mouth set in a thin narrow line.

"Kyouko," he had said, and she remembered how frightened she had been when she had seen the words emblazoned across those pages. "I'm leaving, and I want you to come with me. But," he hunched his shoulders and looked away from her, nervous, "if you don't want to I'd understand. I mean, I'm asking you to uproot your whole life to come with me and I can't promise anything but-"

"Sho-chan," Kyouko had interrupted, smiling and feeling something in her heart swell, so full and so gentle that it made tears spark in her eyes at his kindness. "I'll always stay with you, and I'll go where you go. We're partners, after all." The look of sheer relief he had given her made the pain of leaving all the more bearable.

So, no. Kyouko would not sign those papers. She had uprooted her life before - many times before, in fact - one more time wouldn't make a difference to her. The next morning, papers in one hand and homemade bento in the other, Kyouko approached Akatoki Agency. She was eager to see Sho. He hadn't dropped by to charge that morning and the dull pressure of energy was building in her, making her slightly nauseous. She wanted to charge with him soon.

As always, the agency was large and intimidating, and packed to the brim. Despite matching people based on brain wavelengths, among other factors, partners grew up with each other from the age of four, or thereabouts, and stayed together for the rest of their lives. Nonetheless arguments and fights would always happen, and ironically the closer you are to someone the harder it is to make-up.

This is where businesses like Akatoki Agency came in. While they were mainly founded on research about the peculiar condition they were all born with, they funded their endeavors through side projects such as consultations, matching facilities, and the nurseries. Despite being largely humanitarian and for the good of the public, rivalries had already arisen.

There were various other agencies that all competed against each other to make the best matches between children, provide the best care in the nurseries that all partnered children stayed in during the week - to facilitate the partnering process, after all, Kyouko thought dryly, you were asking children to continuously kiss another stranger child - and to generally draw in the larger part of the public.

Sho had quickly realized that his charm came not only from his impeccable genes, but also some innate understanding he had of people. He charmed people simply because he knew how to. Their entire grade had fawned over Sho collectively, and glared at Kyouko for stealing him away. He endeared himself to people, he was admirable, and he was as quick to steal a person's heart as he was to look at them.

The most logical job for him, then, was to help partners find the spark that had once been between them, and to help them reconnect. It was a popular job, with many benefits, and fame was the biggest one Sho sought.

In a world where such a consultation was nearly a requirement at least once in any partnership, the business was booming and the eye of the public was on them. Sho shined in his charm and in his endearing ways.

As she entered the large building Kyouko thought it ironic that Sho had already proposed breaking off their partnership twice even though he was a consultant who worked to prevent these very same instances. She navigated around the stream of people milling about the clinic stationed on the ground floor and towards the lobby. The receptionists there looked at her curiously.

Smiling winningly, Kyouko flashed the little card being Sho's partner had granted her, and the receptionists immediately scowled down at Kyouko. The brunette remained unfazed. It was not the first time and it would not be the last that Kyouko had received such jealous looks. She was just about immune to them now.

Without further preamble Kyouko bowed her head - a polite gesture than any kind of sign of respect - and entered the bank of elevators situated on either side of the receptionists. Mimicking the blocky shape of a Y, the lobby extended on either side of the receptionists to house the many elevators a building the side of Akatoki's clearly needed. Kyouko entered one of them and punched the button for the consultation floor.

It was almost as familiar as the back of her own hand, and Kyouko navigated the muted hallways with ease. The floor was always disconcertingly quiet, since the walls were built to be soundproof to protect the partner's receiving consultations within. When she found the foggy window of Sho's office to be dark, Kyouko mused he might be relaxing in one of the many lounges peppering the floor.

She backtracked to find the one closest to the elevator's - Sho liked his attention, even in relaxation - and just as she was about to round the corner and face the lounge she heard his voice, piercing in the silence.

"I can't wait until she signs those papers, Shoko. Kissing her is such a drag."

Kyouko stilled, her breath catching and her heartbeat roaring in her eyes, a deep cacophony of beats and the rushing of blood.

"She never even bothers to look pretty, you know? Her hair is always a mess and she looks like a plain servant. It always puts me in a bad mood to have to charge with her."

"That's cruel, Sho," a feminine voice said, and Kyouko numbly thought it must be 'Shoko.' She hazily attached the voice and name and matched it to the few instances Sho had mentioned his manager. "She's your partner, and you dragged her all the way to Tokyo with you. Can't you be nicer to her?"

"Nicer?" Sho barked cruelly. "Shoko, I asked her to come with me. I gave her the option. I even brought those damned papers with me when I asked her. She had a choice and she made it. Besides, I'm like a pampered prince. I shouldn't have to worry about cooking and cleaning and finding a new partner on top of it all! And that's not even considering all the school work I have to study for. It was convenient, really, to have Kyouko along. But now," Sho's voiced purred, and Kyouko heard a sliding of fabric that made her throat close up. "I have you Shoko, with your sexy dynamite body. Why would I settle for that plain ugly girl?"

Something in Kyouko snapped.

She dashed around the corner and in the same breath threw the handmade bento at him. The sneaky bastard he was dodged the attack without even looking up, tucking in towards Shoko's chest whose lap he straddled. Kyouko saw red, and she cursed herself for feeling jealous even in the midst of her heartbreak.

She was breathing heavily, she noted, and made an effort to regulate it.

"Kyouko," Sho said, and something in her twisted painfully at his voice. The gentle tone, the regret, and even the carefully hidden affection that had always accompanied the way he said her name. Oh, she had loved him. In spite of her heart thundering in rage she still loved the way her name sounded in his voice. And, even worse, her eyes flickered to his lips and she thought of kissing him, the unreleased energy within her feeling suddenly suffocating in that moment.

Desperate to gather some semblance of control, Kyouko fell on her anger. "You brought me here to Tokyo...not because I was special," she choked on the words, and she dimly realized she was hyperventilating. "But because I was convenient." Her breath was coming to fast, and she tried to deepen them and pace them.

Kyouko sensed more than saw Sho flinch back. At some point he'd had to decency to clamber off his manager's lap. "Kyouko, don't cry," He ordered tersely.

Oh, Kyouko realized, I am about to cry. Desperately she took even deeper breaths to keep the tears at bay and she found herself laughing. The sound was hysterical, even to her, and somewhere deep within her aching heart Kyouko wished she had never stumbled on Sho like this.

But then the anger was back and overwhelming and Kyouko snapped to focus on Sho. "You!" She seethed, and no longer was his hair glorious and blonde but a bad dye job. His eyes didn't make her heart flutter, it only served to enrage it. She found comfort in her anger, and she thrived in it. "You will regret this! I'll make you regret ever treating me this way!"

Kyouko thought the pinch between his brows was worry, but then it smoothed away and he laughed in her face, and somehow he was closer than she remembered.

"You'll make me regret it? I'd like to see you try," he sneered, and Kyouko wasn't really thinking when she drew her arm back, fingers curled in and her own lip lifting in anger, her lips opening to say Oh, I'll wipe that smug smirk off your face all right, when a strong grip halted her.

Startled, Kyouko looked up to find two burly security guards regarding her with a strange mix of pity and sternness and her anger flared even higher.

"Pen," she barked at them, hand held out, and the guard was so startled he released her open-palmed hand to place a pen in it.

She stormed over to the low table the lounge sofas were situated around and bent down, signing her name with a flourish over the papers she had somehow retained the sense to keep a hold on of. Done, she snapped back up and threw the papers at Sho, feeling somewhat vindicated at his incensed expression.

The only sound in the room was the soft flutter of the falling pages, and Kyouko held her gaze on Sho's even through the white sheafs fluttering down like soft down. "Goodbye Shotaro," she said coldly, and stalked from the room, shrugging off the sympathetic hand one of the guards placed on her shoulder.

She didn't need sympathy.

No.

She needed revenge, and she was going to get it. Eyes burning bright, Kyouko resolved herself to bringing Sho down to his knees before her. He was going to eat the very dirt she walked on, and he would do it gladly.

A/N: And I'm back with a new story! As stated above, this is based off of Shinkuu Yuusetsu, and while I recommend it, it may not be for everyone. It's not really Boy Love per se (its more focused on the love between family and friends) but the two main characters are boys who have to kiss often so -

And, as you can guess, there will be a lot of kissing. Or as much as modest Kyouko can take, really. If there's any confusion about the nature of this AU please PM or review and I'll answer to the best of my ability. This is going to be around 10 chapters, but there's a lot happening in each one, so look forward to some lengthy reading ahead! I'll try to update weekly on Sunday.

I've already ranted on my profile about this, so I'll just ask - if you enjoyed this, please review. As much as I love to write, I also love feedback. I write as much for myself as I do for you, dear reader, so please take a moment to let me know if you enjoyed it!

As always, I do hope you've enjoyed this prologue (which was a whole lot of exposition to get this story off the ground) and if there any mistakes please let me know.

Cheers!