A/N: I don't own Skip Beat! Because I reposted, for anyone who read it previously, just look for the [REPOST DIVERGES HERE] partition I set up in the middle. Thanks for giving this a second chance. For everyone else, thanks for giving this a chance!

Premise: Suppose that Kotonami Kanae took up her old acting gig, and she gets an unusual request.

Something Messy

He hated the desperation almost as much as he hated the gaping loneliness. She had faithfully stood by him as he worked. He'd understood how at the peak of his dreams, she would breathe her last. But his days were numbered, too, since the director called everyone together to thank them for their hard work and inform the entire cast of final deadlines. All the shots involving him had been captured and the terrifying reels were locked away under holy wards... He wanted but one day in the darkness. And he knew how to buy it.

Kotonami Kanae hated the desperation almost as much as she hated poverty. It had been weeks since she'd treated herself to a pedicure and she really needed a trim. Also, a thin film of hair serum remained in her bottle, and Kanae would rather kill than let anyone see her natural hair. And worst, the mystery of President Takarada's missive "KOTONAMI-KUN: SOMETHING MESSY" hung over her head and there was no foreseeable paycheck in that.

With a deep shuddering sigh, she posted the familiar advertisements at the speed of light, because internet cafes cost a fortune.

K-Chan, Actress for Hire

I can be the friend, sister, daughter, and mother you love. In Japanese, Korean, or English. See below for contact information to make reservations. Please include your name, her name, a description or picture, your preferences. Cost is flexible. We will meet in public. Absolutely no nonsense will be tolerated.

Included in the advertisements were candid pictures of her in each role. As acting took her off the streets (or more aptly, out of her family's hovel), acting would give her a spending allowance appropriate for a rising talento such as herself.

As Kanae made ready to log off and pay the bill, the computer rebooted itself for no apparent reason. She freaked out and dragged one of the waitresses over, hoping that the clock wasn't still running on her bill.

"We apologize for the inconvenience, Miss." The waitress called the technician and it was twenty hellish minutes as "troubleshooting" and "system scans" were done. Fortunately, it wasn't a stupid waitress, so Kanae was led to the next computer terminal without having to pay for her previous minutes of the day. Score!

Kanae checked her account for responses and was disappointed to see only one.

"What kind of name is that?" Kanae muttered to herself. "It sounds as stupid in English as it does in Japanese."

She didn't read his request so much as scan it, despite the fact that it was in English.

...She has long, wild hair and wears daring punk rock clothes that don't match her sweet and devoted personality to her brother. You think you can be her for today?

Her eyes flicked over names and another brief description. This wasn't the first time she'd gotten caught in potentially weird sibling complexes. "Something messy", indeed.

Just as she was about to delete the request, Kanae caught sight of the dead ends of her hair and her backbone hardened. After replying with a time, a place, and emergency number, she decided to make an unscheduled stop in the costume department of LME.

Technically, she wasn't supposed to be in there, but most people backed down at the shocking color of her official LoveMe uniform. She rifled through the discard pile, looking for skulls and fake blood and studded leather fit for a punk rocker. She only managed to dig up an arm bangle and an over sized black T-shirt. The bangle looked suspiciously like President Takarada's new pet Natsuko.

Kanae was ready to toss it, but the way the silver glittered on the black made her rethink and head towards the nearest bathroom. Five minutes after Kanae entered the bathroom, out came a girl dressed for a crazy night in a cemetery. The first thing that caught the eye was the bangle snaking around her slender pale arm. The silver stood out next to the ripped T-shirt cinched by a wide-tapering belt. Dark skinny jeans and white snakeskin heels topped off the look.

Inspecting herself in the mirror, Kanae realized she looked too sophisticated for the part. Sighing, she tied back her hair into a long ponytail and took off all the MAC make-up around her eyes and mouth. Kanae glared at herself in the mirror, angry that she looked her actual age. It wasn't perfect, but it had to do. She refused to step foot into a cosplay shop, and she had ten minutes to meet the client at the intersection they'd agreed on, which was conveniently close to LME. Normally Kanae hated standing in the middle of the sidewalk, but the occasional glance at the chipped nail polish on her toes steeled her resolve.

A hulking black car idled by the curb. "Ugh, is that a hearse?" Kanae muttered distastefully. "What bad luck!"

She turned her back to it and was irritated by the jarring "door open" alarm. Next thing she knew, something closed around her belt and yanked her off her heels. She would have screamed but a gloved hand clamped her mouth shut. Kanae was then dragged into the hearse car.

She punched at her abductor and was thrown to the other side of the seat. "What do you want?" Kanae screamed, despairing as the door locks clicked into place.

Then Kanae had a better look at who it was, and it froze her blood. Before her sat the scariest person she'd seen in her life. He was so tall that even seated he stared her down easily with his bloodshot eyes. The smell of burning surrounded him, and Kanae took a second to register the cig clenched in his sharp teeth. For that brief second, Kanae had thought she'd smelled hellfire.

Then her professional spirit took over and she saw him for what he really was: silent, short-tempered, strung up tighter than a chihuahua.

'Well, you are catering to people on the Internet,' Kanae reminded herself as she slouched appropriately into her role.

"I don't wanna go anywhere with you until you're nicer to me," she drawled, crossing her arms tightly over her chest and sticking her lip out in the brattiest little sister pout she could manage.

He reached over and grabbed her arm, hauling her up to a better posture. They were practically nose-to-nose and he persisted in his heated glaring.

'What the heck is his PROBLEM?' Kanae wondered, and then the words from the ad clicked. Kanae might have had the right look, but she was forgetting the sweet and devoted personality.

And because Kanae was an ad-lib pro, she stuck her chin out and rubbed noses with him before gracing him with the most unassuming and beguiling smile she could manage. It was the sort of thing Kanae's sweet and devoted (and cRRRrraaaaazy) friend Kyouko would do before Kanae shoved her to the curb. "Don't be mad, brother. I won't run away again."

In the back of Heel Cain's twisted head, Tsuruga Ren acted as the voice of reason.

"You can't replace her," Tsuruga Ren repeated. "This is wrong. Just give the poor thing the money and call it a day."

Cain put out the voice the way he stubbed out his cigs. He had been on the verge of kicking her to the curb and throwing crumpled singles on her, but this K-chan had surprised him with her audacity. Her face brightened like a polished knife when she'd thrown him off guard. And Cain liked a good fight.

He reached out and flicked her nose lightly. "You want something from me, don't you?" He waited for the correct response, and made no attempt to smother his disappointed sigh when she didn't give into him.

K-Chan flushed pink, but it didn't give her a wide-eyed innocent look like he'd expected, because she persisted in eye contact as though she was trying to grow up to his height and see eye-to-eye with him on a true level. Then she pasted on her smile and tossed her head to make her ponytail swing girlishly. "Let's go to the mall!"

He nodded his assent, already bored, and K-Chan eagerly repeated her instructions to Driver-san. On the way over to the mall, they were briefly caught in traffic. She made conversation noises that he slouched away from. Cain could tell that whatever she'd wanted to ask of him, it sure as hell wasn't the mall. As they got closer and closer, she seemed increasingly dissatisfied with her rash request.

"Why don't you like me?" she finally blurted.

"How'd you know?" Cain asked. He didn't bother looking away from the window to acknowledge her. Because deep down, he wanted to turn his head and see blond hair streaked with pink and a worrisome chain dangling from lip to ear. And her oblivious, wonderful, forbidden smile.

"I'm not stupid. You asked me to go out with you; I came. The least you could do is be nice to your family. You're all I have left, big brother. I can't believe you don't like me when I'm all you have, too."

Cain allowed some of the guilt to sink past his defenses (which, to the interested few, were rock hard, like his six-pack). "Sorry. I can't help my feelings." Then he froze as Tsuruga Ren, the voice of treason, idly commented "And that definitely didn't sound like any of your previous break-ups..."

"So shut up," Cain said to his boring alter-ego, but K-Chan heard him perfectly and misunderstood.

'What the hell kind of sister would take this crap?' Kanae asked herself. She wanted to reach over and shake the jerk for the terrible way he must be treating his real sister. With other "brothers" she knew how to play the "sibling rivalry" card, but the uneasiness between Cain and his sister ran deeper than normal.

"It's no wonder she- I... I left you!" Kanae sputtered, tripping over the pronouns while trying to catch her Japanese accent. "Here I am, being here for you, and you're saying crap to me. I might be your little sister, but damn you if you think that makes me worthless. Stop the car!"

The driver was too afraid of Cain to listen to her, but the hearse was crawling slowly enough that Kanae, shoes in hand, leapt out with minimal scrapes. Kanae huffed and picked herself up, limping towards the mall where she could call her real sisters and brothers and threaten one of them into picking her up (despite her shame of being seen in such a clunker).

Her ire rose as she noticed more of her nail polish chipped away. She should've just waited for the next client to make a request! The nerve of that guy! He was almost as self-centered as an only child. Or maybe Kanae didn't suck at being a sibling because she'd had a lot more practice with little sisters and nieces.

"Ugh, I'm walking like an idiot," Kanae winced as her sensitive skin negotiated bits of gravel on the walk way. One would think that Kanae's history of speaking honestly and reacting harshly around LME President Lory Takarada would have conditioned her to keep her mouth shut, at least until the car got to the mall and she could ditch Cain the Heel in favorable conditions.

Kanae didn't make it far when she was swept off her feet by a dark shadow. She would have objected, but for the look on his face. Sure, his hair was eating his face, but she saw enough to know he was pitiful. Cain had no right to be adorable when he was pitiful. His anxious eyes reminded her of the last person who'd made Kanae swallow her better judgment and cave in ridiculously.

'Oh gawd, he's like that person!' Kanae cried to herself. His pathetic eyes made her feel like she'd killed a unicorn.

"You shouldn't walk around the city with no shoes. You might cut your soft little feet."

Kanae suspected that by Cain's standards, that was all the explanation and apology she would ever get. Though it made no sense, something about his lips at her ear made her toes curl.

"I thought I was the relationship idiot," Tsuruga Ren murmured uselessly at Cain.

Cain knew that years of working under his megalomaniac boss was causing him to develop a mild but worrisome split personality disorder. He'd have to tell Yashiro-san to find him a good therapist. No, scratch that. Yashiro-san would slyly mention a certain unattainable high school girl with erratic personalities. Or worst, set up some kind of hokey couples' therapy, ugh.

At the moment, there was no denying that he didn't know how to be himself to the girl he cradled in his arms. It was clear he'd dropped his Cain act, but he didn't want to give away his identity as Tsuruga Ren. He was half-surprised that she hadn't guessed it when his mask slipped. Or maybe it was the English that guarded his secret.

She took the decision out of his hands. "Who are you thinking about. Big brother?" K-chan asked shrewdly.

Cain was a professional actor on and off the camera, but even he was impressed how she worded her question. She managed to state that she could guess his mind while asking him if he was going to keep playing "big brother." Maybe he could help this girl break into show business and out of her amateur gigs.

"I'm sorry that I didn't give you the attention you deserved," he said simply. "You put big brother in his place."

"Hmph. I see the mall. Lemme down." She kicked her legs lightly but he tightened his grip on her.

'If it were her...' Cain thought. "I'll never let go," he said quietly.

She shouldn't have wiggled. Because of the brother-sister dynamics, K-Chan wasn't supposed to be hyper aware of her "brother's" hands gripping her bottom or occasionally brushing the sides of her breasts. The reminders that he wore a heavy coat and thick gloves were losing power with each step. But then he said that weird thing!

"You have to leggo eventually," Kanae said cryptically, to give him a heads up on the deeper meaning. And then: "I don't like being carried around like a princess unless it's by my prince."

"If you're a princess and we're related by blood, then I'm a prince, too," Cain said, childishly.

"Shows how much you know," K-Chan returned as childishly. In a fit of genius, K-chan continued. "I meant my prince. That means the man who cares the most about me."

K-Chan sensed no change in his pace or in his breathing but felt his thoughts swirl into chaos. Which was odd, since at that moment Kanae's observations and intuition concentrated in one burst of clarity.

'This man holding me does care the most about me. But I was talking about a husband.' Kanae's brows knit and her eyes shut out the distractions of cars and people. She felt like she had fit in the last piece of the puzzle, but she still couldn't see the whole picture.

Then she looked up and saw the hunched set of his shoulders and subtly her eyes roved down his chest and his belly where the tension in his body strung him up. She flushed and dragged her eyes to the deceptive curve of his shoulders. Those were the shoulders of a man at ease, but his center, where she touched him, was a different story. He was hard under her, and God was it horribly suggestive.

'But I was talking about a husband,' Kanae repeated, picking up the sentence and examining it at every angle. Then her brows smoothed out because the truth, hot and flat, hit her in the face like an ironing board and smacked out the questions and uncertainties.

'He's in love.'

[REPOST DIVERGES HERE]

He'd come pretty close to dropping her on her ass. Not because he was angry at her teasing, but because she was a sensible girl and hearing the words "princess" and "my prince" from her was too shocking. He vaguely wondered if she was related to Mogami Kyouko, but dismissed the disturbing idea.

'Only a trickster god would play with me like that, putting me in that improbable conflict.'

"Brother," K-chan said, pulling him from his reverie. "I don't want to go to the mall anymore. Can we go home now?"

'That's a loaded question if I ever heard one,' Cain thought.

"If by home, you mean the Ritz Carlton, then sure. Are you going to cook?"

"Hell no," K-chan said. "You're paying too much at the Ritz friggin' Carlton not to use the room service."

He obliged her and turned them both around to find their car. She was so different from the Setsu-chan he'd requested, despite his meticulous description. Setsu would have perked up and cheerily answered, "Over my dead body if I let you skip a meal!" But he did ask for a sister, and it seemed he was getting one.

While he was sad about losing Setsu, Cain was relieved that this sister came without complexes.

"Are you going to pig out on ice cream?" he asked blandly. "If I didn't strength train, I wouldn't be able to carry you."

His taunting about "ice cream" hit a nerve in Kanae. She forgot who she was, and propelled by anguished memories of eating too too much because of Kyouko, she took another swing at him. Her fists hit target, but her real weapon-her heels- were dodged expertly. Like a misdirected grappling hook, her shoes were thrown into traffic and flattened by a taxi.

"I really should drop you on your ass," he said. Cain spotted their car and their harassed looking driver and put her down before quickly jumping in the hearse. "Since your ass is big enough to take a fall."

"Don't you taunt me about health choices, you smoker!" K-chan roared. She banged on the windows and made all sorts of angry faces and still couldn't get into the car because he'd pushed in the lock. The only thing stopping her from kicking in a dent were her bare toes. Cain was impressed at her antics since the car was still moving, albeit at 15 mph.

Finally, her rage burned out and when she slumped by the road, he pushed the car door way out and held out his hand. Not wanting to be abandoned, K-Chan jogged and leapt into the car, her palm smacking his forehead with all the outrage she could muster.

"Please shut the door!" the driver squeaked.

Cain obliged his driver before the driver could panic and kill them all in a pile-up. His driver's unhappy expression floated in the rearview window as him and K-chan started up a heated fist fight. To be more accurate, she was swinging at him and he was dodging in the expansive interior.

"I really hate you," she said bitterly. He wanted to pat her head. Her sullen face was unexpectedly endearing to him, and Cain realized that he'd missed out on a lot of fun growing up as an only child. That's why he indulged K-chan when she set her eyes on the huge gift shop they passed as he led her to their room. He'd expected her to load up on junk food, but she came out with a mysterious bag that she wouldn't let him see.

"It's a woman thing," K-chan said, blushing to the roots of her hair instead of kicking him in the stomach when he snatched the bag to peek.

He almost threw the bag back at her and reviewed the advantages of his lonesome childhood, which did not include the horrible discomfort of- that unspeakable thing that just happened.

It was her turn to laugh at him. "Honestly, bro," she hooted, pleased with her revenge. "You were willing to take me bra shopping at the mall."

"No," he argued. "I was going to idle until you needed money."

Cain almost missed his room number. As he slid in the card key, a really important detail occurred to him. Before he could warn K-chan, she shouldered him out of the way, ran in, and immediately claimed the only bed in the room by jumping on it feet first.

He was amused when she landed on her bum and then flopped back onto the bed, wiggling her arms and legs to test out the bed's softness. "It's been ages since I slept on a Western bed." Then a happier thought occurred to her because she quickly sat up and looked around. "And I'm going to take a long bubble bath, too!"

"Girls," Cain muttered, rolling his eyes. Inwardly, he was relieved that she hadn't noticed the awkwardness of a one-bed hotel room. Then his eyes settled on the tasteful, but dinky little couch she probably expected him to sleep on. His feet would touch the floor even if he propped his knees on the arm rest.

"The floor it is," he muttered as K-chan skipped off to the bathroom, taking the gift shop bag with her.

When the lock of the bathroom clicked into place, K-chan's goopy smile slid off as though it never happened. Because she was damned good at her job, Kanae did not act out of character as a sister. Inside, however, Kane was fuming.

So it was a brother-sister complex! She had half a mind to kill the guy, but he hadn't made any moves on her or indicated any unbrotherly interest. And so the mace in her purse remained unopened.

Kanae twisted the tap for hot water viciously. The loud flow and swirl of steaming water masked her voice. "He's in love with his sister! That sick freak! In love with his sister! He better not mess with me."

Once she calmed down, at about the same time the tub filled up, Kanae undressed, keeping a stern eye on the bathroom door. Despite her revulsion, the steaming perfumed water beckoned her. This bathtub was a luxury lacking in her small apartment. She slid in, a tranquil and thoughtful expression smoothing her twisted features.

She knew about his dark feelings, and still she hadn't walked away. Sure, there was the money to think of (a handsome sum involved), but money had not always kept her from walking out on a job. The problem with acting so many roles was that it forced a person to see one story with different perspectives and to be aware of missing details.

For instance, there was a good chance that his sister wasn't blood related. Kanae had pegged Cain as a loner, in a real sense. It was very possible his parents had screwed up his life by divorcing and remarrying. Hell, her own parents had packed their bags years ago and left the eldest siblings on their own, maybe sending in guilt money every now and then. Kanae felt a twinge in her chest as she thought about Kyouko. Kyouko thought she was hiding it, but her cookie-cutter smile winked on whenever the mystery of her parentage came up.

Another possibility occurred to Kanae. Setsuka was a Japanese name, and Cain was not. Biological parents, even biracial parents, usually tried to give unified names to their children. It should be either all American or all Japanese. Cain's mom or dad could have married Setsuka's otou-san or okaa-san.

And she didn't know the circumstances behind the absent "Setsu-chan." Maybe in his guilt, he'd spent a fortune shipping her out of his life. He certainly had the money, but did he have the conscience? Or maybe he left "Setsu-chan" in America.

Whatever happened in his checkered past, Cain Heel didn't seem like a bad character. But God help him if he made another fat joke about K-chan!

"You soooo lucked out, Cain Heel... if that's even your name," Kanae muttered as she draped a hot towelette over her face. If he'd hired a shallow girl, he'd have had the cops called on him.

Clearly, it was up to Cain to take care of dinner. Annoyed at K-chan, he decided to order the greasiest American foods offered on the menu such as macaroni and cheese. He hoped that K-chan wasn't lactose intolerant or bulimic.

It was clear that the actress worked out to keep herself trim. Cain almost rubbed his hands gleefully at all the hours she'd have to exercise. Wait until this Japanese girl saw what it did to her complexion! After all, he couldn't be blamed if she shoveled the food into her mouth. He enjoyed playing the villain.

She was lucky he didn't Super Size any of it.

When she threw open the door, he schooled his face into placid boredom. No diabolical plots here, just watching a C-list action flick about Nazis.

"You didn't start eating without me, did you?" K-chan asked. She raised an eyebrow at his coat puddled on the carpet and the empty burger wrappers strewn at his feet. "You have ketchup on your shirt, you slob."

Cain blinked and frowned at the incriminating red streak. He didn't like being a sloppy villain. He blinked again when K-chan held her hand out to him. He put the burger wrappers in her hand.

"Not that, stupid brother! You have to clean up your own messes!" She pelted the wrappers at his lap, his penalty for being so dumb. "I meant your shirt. Take it off."

'What is she thinking?' he asked himself, but at the veins twitching on her forehead and on her fist, he peeled it off, wrinkling his nose at the body odor coming off of him.

"Go take a bath," she ordered him after throwing his shirt over her shoulder. "Your sweats are in the bathroom."

"Sweats?" he repeated.

"Don't tell me you've gone native!" she said, giving him a look that one would give a slow child. "I got you a pair of sweat pants from the gift shop. You'll feel more at home in them. Now go shower, you really need it bro."

Now that he took the time to look away from her scary face, he noticed that she sported an "Angel" wife beater and sweat pants.

"I didn't think American boys would be that nasty," Kanae muttered as she soaked his T-shirt in cold water. That should take care of the ketchup. She picked up his coat, folded it in half, and placed it over the sofa he was totally going to sleep on. She would have preferred hanging it in the closet, but he didn't look smart enough to logic out where his coat would be hanging.

Kanae had watched dozens of American sitcoms and cartoons, but none of them prepared her for the mountain of food Cain had ordered. Was that a chili dog? Against her will, Kanae reached for it with trembling fingers. It meant three hours of tread mill and two antacids (compliments of the Ritz), but it was so worth it.

Despite the high calories, she wasn't full. She wanted to eat more, but she realized that it was a horrible, tasty TRAP set by that Cain. Kanae clamped her nose shut to the delicious smells and rooted through the food until she hit green. Anything that once existed as a vegetable or contained soy.

When Cain finished his shower, he was upset to find her nibbling on a salad and the mountain of food relatively untouched on the food cart. How the hell had she found it? He'd stuck the complimentary salads on the very bottom, wedged between the bacon sandwiches and the pizza pie.

As though sensing his defeat, K-chan smirked at him and crunched on a baby carrot. "What's up, Doc?"

"You're really annoying, you know that?" Cain said. He noted with some surprise that she had tidied up his mess, although it had to be when he couldn't see her do it. It made him feel warm and fuzzy inside, just like the sweat pants she'd gotten for him. He was impressed that a Japanese girl would be aware of American comforts.

"You have shit tastes in movies, you know that?" she bit back at him. Cain rolled his eyes and continued toweling his hair. Beads of water sat on his toned shoulders.

"I gotta check out the competition," Cain said.

Her eyebrows raised, and he caught the question in her eyes.

'Yea, I'm still acting,' he said, knowing that she would bother him about it. Then her eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Cain thought he might have revealed too much.

"Then you have to keep in better shape to get better roles, idiot brother," she snapped at him. "Do you actually have a job now? You can't eat junk food even if I'm not around."

She surprised him with her advice. It bordered on sisterly.

"See that guy on the screen? He's got love handles. That's why he's the side kick." She discarded the salad and yawned and stretched for bed.

And then again, not sisterly, whatsoever.

He tackled her to the bed.

"Hey, what the heck?" K-chan screamed at him, but he'd already pinned down the arm she favored for punching. Then she screamed again, because he was tickling her.

"Aww, c'mon, laugh a little," Cain urged, tickling her harder on her stomach.

Kanae bit her lip and wiggled away from his gentle, but insistent fingers. The look she gave him could have frozen Hell.

Immediately, Cain sat up, his hands in the air to show his surrender. She was so scary that his face melted into a look one would find on a kicked puppy.

Her scary look softened. Marginally. "Why haven't you landed a role, yet? You're actually not too bad looking when you're not scaring people." He wondered if she knew how ironic those words were.

"Is it a girl?" she propped herself up on her elbows and frowned. "Did you come to Japan to screw around or achieve your dreams?"

When he'd waltzed out the shower, Kanae was too shocked. She actually forgot about the forkful of lettuce on its way up to her mouth. Cain didn't look it underneath his baggy trench, but he was ripped. And the sweat pants rolling innocently down his hips did not shorten her recovery time.

To her credit, Kanae did not swoon. And she had no way of knowing that she was seeing the Number One rated body in all of Japan. In a hotel room.

In her repressed memories of dire poverty, most of her brothers and nephews had run around wearing little more than threadbare scraps. Her first exposure of matured bodies inevitably happened when she'd played a couple of extras as Miscellaneous Hot Girl in scenes that happened at the beach or the pool side.

The best she could do, in the wake of Cain's pheromones, was insult him.

When he'd pounced on her, although it was for childish reasons, the best she could do was sharpen her tongue. And hit him in the love handles. Except that he pulled that pitiful look again. Only a monster would knock down that face.

Kanae, a demoness in her own right, went in for the kill. Being from a household that had a dozen boys in all stages of puberty honed Kanae's skill in twisting a man's balls around. And so she dropped that bombshell on him, despite knowing exactly what "girl" halted Cain's progress into show business.

"There are girls. Plenty of them. I am a healthy male, after all."

"Then which one of them's got you all wound up?"

"None of them. I'm hardly a two-bit trick."

"You're doing such a good job of convincing me, except for the part where I know this is an act."

"Why are you pushing me on this? It's none of your business."

"The hell it is. If you really buckled down and applied yourself, then how could you afford the time you're spending with me? I don't exactly see your name in lights anywhere."

Immediately, the cheerful energy coming off of Cain dissolved.

"Listen here, kid. I've been doing this longer than you. You're an innocent so I'll spare you." The shadows under his eyes darkened to an inky black as he smirked down at her. "It's a small world full of big names. Let me tell you, the fastest way to screw yourself in Tokyo is to get your name blacklisted by a major player."

'Correction,' thought Kanae. 'Cain dissolved. This man holding me down is much much more dangerous. Crap, I lost the feelings in my fingers!'

Kanae glared at him, feeling for the edge of her courage. "You're starting to sound like a bully. That's definitely not the way to get ahead. And don't think your..." Terrifying. "...hissy fit is going to change that fact that there is a girl. Open up a little, would you? In this small world, if you can't open up to family then you will die and who gives a fuck then?"

She was really caught in the spirit of the thing. Kanae would've kneed the guy's crotch and taken her commission out of his wallet, but she was someone else now. She was a Heel, and she was grinding hers into the dirt until she won.

He smiled, but none of it showed in his black eyes. "Well said, well said. For a caring sister. Let's drop this farce, shall we? I'm no one's brother and whoever you are, you're no sister of mine. And if you were, I reject you. I disown you." He bent over her and his velvet purr hummed in her sensitive ear. "So how about I take you? I'll let you call me whatever you want. Big brother. Big daddy?"

She was a Heel, until he tried to intimidate her with his penis.

"I'm not the one with the sick fantasies!" Kanae blurted. She hated how his bare chest was this wall of flesh she couldn't push away. "You are the one in love with your own goddamned sister, Setsu-chan! You're throwing away your face for something that will never happen!"

"I never laid a hand on Setsu," Cain snapped. A rush of cold air told Kanae he'd retreated.

"You want to," Kanae said, breathless from nailing at her point. "You're so strung up over your own sister that you'll never be a star."

"Stop calling her my sister. It's not like she's blood and not like I grew up with her and it's not like I'm with her now!"

Kanae was excited now; she had to. "Why don't you take her then? At least admit to-"

"I DON'T DESERVE LOVE. I can't love. I am empty and dark and nothing will reach me. Don't you get it, you nosy bitch? I want to be a star so bad that I ditch my family, my home, my pathetic self everything nothing was a sacrifice I want number one and be loved by everyone the most. I want them all to love me. I want Japan, America, Setsu, you and no more empty."

Cain did not babble any of it. He didn't slur or forget any words. In fact, he spoke all of it deliberately with no hitches like a man who knew his lines. It only sounded like garbled raving because Kanae only caught some of his meaning, some of his intensity. She'd never in her life talked about how much she wanted to act. She'd always performed until someone opened the door to a bigger stage. She'd thought that she was the only one who acted even when no one watched. And most importantly, she'd picked acting over love.

He'd crumpled over her and Kanae breathed hard because of his weight, but she hardly noticed because her mind was outracing her heart.

"I don't understand," Kanae said, unsure if he held her or if she held him. "Love comes from acting, doesn't it? I act because love never filled me. It fed me and made me beautiful when my parents couldn't."

He lifted his head and the light in his eyes almost blinded hers. Suddenly, her reasons for acting looked insignificant. Why settle for hot meals and vanity when you could arrest the world itself? Kanae recalled the nights she'd spent, hiding in a crawl space to read a script and then locking herself up in her bare apartment with costumes, movies, and a day planner.

"How many times have you picked acting over love?" He touched her cheek to make her look at him.

"Every single one. And I don't regret any of it." She met his gaze coolly.

"And how many nights did you spend alone?" She dropped the act and her eyes as well.

"The same as me, then," he chuckled. "How do you like being asked a question when the person who asked knows the answer?"

He quelled her flaring temper with an arm around her shoulder, the way one would with a best friend. "I've spent every night of my life feeling lonely, but it's not so bad now, right?"

Kanae considered his answer, and nodded her agreement.

He yawned and sleepily rubbed at his face. "Opening up didn't kill me, but I am pretty beat. It's, like, midnight." He eyed the couch with some misgiving, which Kanae noted with satisfaction.

She waited until he was rolling off the bed to grab his arm and jerk him back onto the mattress. His sudden weight on the mattress jostled them two times. Kanae settled onto her pillow, preferring to sleep on her back to keep her skin away from the oils on her hair and her pillow.

Beside her, Cain fluffed his pillow and then flopped on his stomach, turning his head so that he faced her. Out of the corner of her eye, Kanae saw the bright gleam of his eyes through his tussled hair.

"G'night, K-Chan. Break a leg."

She rolled her eyes. "You just want me out of the way, Mr. Star."

His low laugh blended seamlessly into a light snoring.

Instead of falling asleep at midnight, Kotonami Kanae fell in love.

Fortunately, she had no clue, otherwise she would have fallen into a panic.

The next morning started off groggily for Kanae. Her phone vibrated and it woke her up because it was her usual alarm set for 6 AM. It was still dark outside and Kanae felt through the darkness for the door to the bathroom. She opened it and surprised a maid pulling along a tray of coffee and Danish. Kanae blinked, the smell of coffee setting off the gears in her head.

But the coffee was getting away! Kanae stuck one foot in the door and then executed a graceful dip that ended in one pot of mocha in one hand and a tray bearing some buttered croissants in the other.

As Kanae retreated into the room, the lights came on. She glared at the person responsible even though lights made it possible for her to safely put breakfast on the table.

"For me, darling? You shouldn't have." For some reason, his teasing made her nervous. She didn't want the coffee or the French pasties and instead went into the bathroom to change into her skinny jeans and the tank top she'd worn underneath Setsu's shirt. She had no idea where the bangle snuck off to.

When she came out, his coat was gone. On her plate was a clean stack of bills.

Even though Kanae had given him time to pay and run, she was inexplicably cranky. Immediately, she shook that particular emotion off to avoid prominent frown lines.

"It's not like we had a special night. This kind of emotion is unjustified. Mo!" She was getting more irritated, and really needed to brush her teeth.

Later in the day when she snuck the black shirt back into the costume department, she noticed her friend Kyouko being nudged into a corner by that Tsuruga character. She was gratified to see that he looked as tired as she felt. Kanae hated that guy, especially the way he was getting fresh with Kyouko.

"Hey loser! Wanna grab some bubble tea?" Kanae cupped her hands. "My treat!"

Kanae called so Kyouko floated over, completely deaf to Tsuruga's offer to buy dinner... 'and whisper sweet little nothings,' Kanae added unkindly.

"I'm so happy! But, um, what's the occasion, Mooooko-san?" Kyouko tried to loop arms with Kanae, who shouldered her purse and kept Kyouko at bay.

"My bro bummed me some cash." She hesitated before offering. "You want to get our nails done together- Aaaaahh, get off me you lunatic! Can't you be grateful and cool about it? Mo!"

But it was exactly the kind of response Moko-chan expected. However, she put her foot down on matching pedicures.

_FIN

Thoughts: All that work to make them like each other, just for Kanae to cock block Ren. -_-' I'm never touching Kanae x Ren ever again. Also, I limited Moko to two "Mo!" since they're mostly speaking English. I thought it was cute how she calls him "brother" even though it's okay in America to be on first-name basis with all of your siblings. Moko-chan really does have a humble Japanese heart! Haha!