Disclaimer: I don't own Skip Beat!, Nakamura Yoshiki does. But I do own this story.
Pairings: Ren x Kyoko/Setsu
Hello everyone!
I love love LOVE Skip Beat! and I've been a big fan of the manga and anime for a while now. So here I am.
Important Note: This story takes place after Volume 33: Chapter 200 of the manga or could also happen sometime in the middle of Chapter 201... You pick. This story isn't hard to understand though if you haven't read the manga. I think. Okay, not really. Some scenes (like the juicy Cain x Setsu moment in their hotel room. Eek! *starts hardcore fangirling*) are heavily implied through the course of this story. That's it though, so I really think it's not all too hard to understand. But then again I'm the author so what do I know.
Besides that, I also want you all to know that this is my first story for Skip Beat!- I've been writing exclusively for CCS -but I hope you will still like it.
Prologue
Kyoko stole a glance at the president as she settled herself on one of the many seats at the back of Ten's trailer.
How was she going to explain herself to him? The look on his face earlier as he caught sight of her expression when she was encased tightly in Ren's arms at the studio…
She shivered. She didn't even want to think about it.
"We're ready to go darling!" Ten announced as she sat down on the driver's seat.
Kyoko was infinitely grateful for the woman's presence. If she hadn't been around, she was sure the president would start questioning her then and there about her feelings for Ren.
"Let's go," Lory said, buckling up. He was seated at the front beside Ten.
Sighing, Kyoko looked out of the curtained window just in time to catch Ren and Yashiro get into his silver Porsche. This was another thing she was grateful for, that she didn't have to ride in the same car as him.
Ten had come to the studio with Yashiro to pick her and Ren up. Lory, who had been at the studio since the afternoon to spy on the pair, had come using Ren's car.
She was also perplexed when she found out that Ren was still heading out to film a TV drama which explained Yashiro's presence. It was almost four in the morning after all.
Did that man ever sleep? Also, what sane person would actually schedule a shooting at this time?
Her curiosity was immediately settled earlier however when Ten was in the middle of removing their makeup and fixing their hair for she had questioned Ren about it. Apparently, the absurd time was only scheduled for that day. They were shooting on location and sunrise was needed for the certain scene they were going to film. The actors needed to go as early as the crew for hair, makeup, and a run-through before the final take by sunrise.
Kyoko smiled at the thought while the trailer moved along down the streets in a steady pace.
So this was why she was in love with Ren then? His dedication? His passion to his field of work? Of course, she knew that those weren't the only reasons why. There were a lot of things about the man that was hard not to love. When he wasn't giving off that gentleman's smile of his that made her cringe, he was actually a very kind and understanding man. He was also talented, serious, reliable, awe-inspiring… The list can go on and on.
If she knew all of this from the very beginning, why hadn't she realized her feelings for him until now?
The events that took place in their hotel room the other night…
Kyoko blushed and shook her head at the memory. She still couldn't believe they did that. That she did that. But she knew that was the triggering factor to her jumbled up emotions. Well, that and the fact that the girl, Manaka or whatever, kept clinging onto him earlier today. The thought of her being so close and openly showing affection towards him still irritated her.
Yes, it definitely took all those things to finally make her realize and admit her feelings.
'I love him,' Kyoko thought to herself in wonder. She still can't believe it. After everything she had been through with Sho, she was actually capable of experiencing the feeling again. 'I love Tsuruga Ren.'
With that almost surreal admission, a shy smile found its way on her face.
Then a blinding light took her attention away from her own thoughts.
She turned to look outside the window again just in time to see a pick-up truck lose control and swerve towards their direction.
Kyoko's eyes widened as the car gave a loud screech, twisted around, and slammed against them. The impact sent chinks of broken glass everywhere and had also sent her soaring from her seat until she hit the opposite side of the trailer, hard.
It took a moment for her to clear her head. Even then it wasn't entirely clear for the hit had made her woozy, but she managed to open her eyes and clear a bit of her blurred vision at least.
From her crumpled and aching form on the trailer floor, she managed to turn her head enough to see Lory and Ten. His bloodied arms that had large shards of glass poking through some areas were holding onto Ten who had been thrown off her seat with her legs still stuck in an unnatural position in the driver's area.
The car collided with them on the left-hand side of the trailer where she from the front and Kyoko from the back were seated.
"Mogami-kun! Are you okay?"
"I'm…" Kyoko thought she spoke although she didn't hear her own voice. After he had shouted those words which sounded a mile away to her, a persistent ringing had started in her ears.
She tried to stop the sound by covering one of her ears with her palm. But as soon as she did this, she pulled her hand back immediately.
The contact not only intensified the ongoing pain in her head that she seem to not have noticed until now but it also made her realize that there was actually a hot, sopping wet feeling in that area as well.
Kyoko looked down at her withdrawn hand and saw it.
Blood. A lot of it.
Her arms which she used to shield her face earlier were full of bloody gashes from the broken window glass just like the president's but she was sure the large amount of blood that was staining her hand now had come from a much bigger and more severe wound.
Just thinking about it made her feel sick to her stomach.
Kyoko could feel herself getting dizzy. The loud ringing in her ear was starting to disappear and so was her vision.
Not a moment later… Everything turned black.
Kyoko was starting to stir. But as more of her consciousness returned, so did the pain. A groan escaped her lips.
'Where…?'
She tried to move her head where she felt something touching- or prodding or hammering, really –the top of her scalp.
Bad idea.
Kyoko groaned even louder as pain shot through her.
"Kyoko-chan, please don't move," instructed a man's soft and familiar voice somewhere above her.
"She's in pain!" exclaimed a more urgent voice. It was also a man's voice and it was just as familiar, more so than the first.
"Let's hurry up."
She heard more people nearby agreeing and she felt herself move even faster. It was apparent to her that she was on a vehicle of some sort and was being taken somewhere although where exactly, she didn't know.
Even if someone were to tell her, she doubted she'd remember it either. The persistent pain in her head was almost deafening.
"That's the operating room. You have to stay here."
"But-"
"I'm sorry Tsuruga-san." The man's words were stern and expressed finality.
She heard a pair of doors being swung open.
"Ren, she'll be okay. Let them take care of it."
That faintly conveyed sentence was the last thing Kyoko heard before she heard the doors swinging again and before she lost consciousness once more.
Chapter One
"Restart"
"Shacho!"
Lory sighed. His eyes were closed and it remained closed as the small crowd of people started gathering around him.
"Shacho! Are you okay?"
"How are you feeling?"
"We were worried about you, sir."
He let them express their concern for a short while before he finally raised a hand to silence everyone and opened his eyes to look at them all. Well, one eye since the other one had a bandage over it.
His gaze passed through everyone nearby, which comprised of Sawara and the other section heads of LME who had visited the hospital to represent their various departments, until his sight landed on Ren who had remained seated on a bench not too far away with Yashiro talking in low murmurs beside him.
"Everyone, I'm perfectly fine," Lory finally said with a reassuring smile at the group in front of him.
He appreciated their concern but there were other more important things to deal with at that moment and he was bent on taking care of it first.
"Can you give me a bit of privacy for a while? Please go wait in my hospital room. Maria is there and I need someone to watch over while she's there at any rate. I'll be with you soon."
They all nodded. The president rarely showed his overly serious side and it was apparent from his face and his tone of voice that he was dead serious at that very moment.
Lory waited until they rounded the corner before wheeling himself over towards the pair sitting on the bench.
"Shacho," Yashiro acknowledged with a nod. "It's good to see you up and about though I still think you should go back to bed."
He ignored his suggestion but nodded in return before turning to Ren. The young man still had his elbows on his knees with his face in his hands.
Quite frankly, he didn't know what to say to Ren. He wasn't involved in the accident so he knew the main reason why he was so distraught over this was the fact that he saw the accident happen and the wreckage thereafter. Not to mention the state of Kyoko when she was taken out of debris.
Lory turned back to Yashiro. "What are you guys doing out here? Who's watching over Mogami-kun?"
"Two doctors just when in to check on Kyoko-chan. She woke up only a few minutes ago. They're doing some tests so they made us wait out here."
"How… How is she?"
"Physically, she seems okay," he informed reassuringly although his face betrayed his tone of voice. He looked just as distressed as Ren and why wouldn't he be? He saw the accident happen as well. "Most of the trauma was to her head that's why it took her this long to regain consciousness. Other than that, she only has minor scratches and bruises, nothing permanent. The test they're doing now will still confirm things though."
Before he could say any more, the door to Kyoko's room opened.
Ren got to his feet immediately, as did Yashiro.
"How is Mogami-kun?" Lory asked quickly. "Is she okay?"
The two doctors looked at each other for a moment.
"She's okay," answered Dr. Maeda, the younger of the two.
The older one, Dr. Asano, then looked at Ren. "Tsuruga-san, you were the one who filled up… Err… Ms. Mogami's admitting form, is that correct?"
Ren nodded although confused with this question. What did this have to do with her condition?
"We are all aware that Mogami-kun is underage," Lory cut in, "but we at LME take full responsibility for her. She's an orphan you see. You can use my name as her guardian if you have to."
"Uhmm… No, you misunderstand," Dr. Asano amended with a raised hand. "It's just that, we've spoken to her and…"
The older doctor seemed to be at a loss as to what to say. He looked just as confused as Ren now.
"What's going on?" Ren asked. Something was obviously not right.
"The young lady inside is fully awake now and quite… Uhm…"
"Reserved," Dr. Maeda supplied.
"Reserved?" the three men echoed. That wouldn't be the word of choice they'd use to describe Kyoko but then again she did just come out of an accident.
"Yes. She also can't say much to us," said Dr. Asano. "She's perfectly capable of talking though, it's nothing serious like that," he added in a rush after seeing the dire looks on their faces. "She just refuses to talk to us, that's all."
"Why? Is she in too much pain to talk?"
"No, she just refuses to say much more than needed. She says she won't. Not without her brother there at least."
"Her brother?" the three men echoed together yet again.
"Doc, Kyoko-chan doesn't have a brother," Yashiro said, perplexed.
"I clearly wrote that down in the form too, no parents or siblings," Ren added, a frown on his face.
"That's why I was wondering if we have the right girl in there," said Dr. Asano with sigh. He shook his head. It was clear he was even more perplexed now.
"Is she still confused?" Lory asked, looking just as confused himself.
"On the contrary," Dr. Maeda replied, "she's quite well. Besides the fact that she doesn't want to talk to us unless necessary, her vitals look good and she's in a right state of mind. No signs of confusion at all."
Ren sighed and raised a hand to stop anyone else from saying. It may seem rude of him but none of them are going anywhere with their conversation. He rubbed his temple with his other hand before speaking his mind. "If you say she's perfectly alright, then let us know… What exactly is the problem here?"
The two doctors looked at each other yet again before Dr. Asano finally spoke.
"The girl inside claims she doesn't know a Mogami Kyoko."
"I beg your pardon?" Ren asked incredulously.
Dr. Maeda nodded grimly. "She doesn't recognize the name at all. Whenever we called her by that name, she all but glares at us."
Lory looked at both doctors with raised brows. "Then what does she want to be called then if not her name?"
"Her real name, or so she says it is."
"Which is?" Yashiro persisted.
"Setsuka Heel."
'Where the hell is nii-san?' Setsu thought while looking around her hospital room.
She sighed and shut her eyes. What happened to her? And how did she end up in the hospital in the first place?
Her head pounded. As it did every time she tried too hard to remember anything.
'Dammit nii-san, come back to my side already!' she thought fiercely.
The door clicked.
Setsu swiftly turned her head to see who it was this time. Her head pounded again.
"Damn," she hissed under her breath, shutting her eyes once more and waiting for the pain to ease. "Nii-san?" she called out. "Is that you?"
She listened as the newcomers came closer to her bed.
"Kyoko-chan?" a soft, male voice that sounded sort of familiar to her, spoke up.
It took a few more seconds for the pain to subside and she waited until it lowered down to a dull throbbing before opening her eyes.
There were two men in front of her. One of them was a young man with light-colored hair that fell past his ears, wearing a suit and glasses. His companion was much older with long black hair in a ponytail and he was seated on a wheelchair, wearing a patient's gown exactly like the one she was currently wearing and he had a bandage over the side of his head which covered one of his eyes as well as a cast on his left foot than ran all the way up to middle of his calf. He had bandages around his arms as well.
Setsu looked down at her own heavily bandaged arms.
Some of his bandaged injuries looked fairly similar to her own. Did she come out of the same accident as this man? The doctors earlier had told her she was in a car accident with people from her "company" whatever that meant.
"Kyoko-chan?" glasses man asked her again, snapping her back to the present.
She scowled.
"Will you people stop calling me that?" she asked, trying to keep the resentment in her voice. She didn't have a bad personality, if anything she never got this easily riled up, but her patience was worn now that everyone kept using that name on her. That and she was still in considerable amounts of pain. "My name is Setsuka Heel. Call me Setsu, okay? I don't know who this Kyoko is but I really don't like being mistaken for her or anyone else for that matter. It's quite rude too."
Both men looked at each other and the worried looks on their faces was apparent.
"What?" she asked with a frown.
"Moga- Setsu-san," wheelchair guy spoke up, "do you know who I am?"
His voice was awfully familiar too.
"I… I'm not sure. Should I?"
They looked at each other again. Now she was irritated.
"What?"
"K- Setsu-san, my name is Yashiro Yukihito and this is President Takarada Lory. We're both from LME. Does that ring any bells?"
Setsu frowned. Not only were their voices awfully familiar, so were the things they were saying. But she… Just. Can't. Remember.
She gripped her head again, feeling another round of pain emitting from the inside of her skull.
Yashiro and Lory watched as she shut her eyes and started groaning in agony.
"You stay here," Lory instructed in a whisper before wheeling himself around and out the door.
Ren frowned after the doctors as they turned to make their leave. They had just told him the full story of what's going on, or what they think is going on anyway.
"Ren," Lory said in a low voice as he rolled out of the room towards him. "She really does know herself as Setsu. She doesn't even recognize the name Mogami Kyoko or Yashiro and I for that matter."
He sighed and sat back down on the bench he had only recently vacated. His mind was reeling. "The doctors said they think its amnesia."
Lory gave him an unconvinced look at this.
"It does make sense," Ren added although he didn't look happy all the same. "The doctors made it kind of sensible to me anyway. Mogami-san really had forgotten her memories except for her character as Setsu. I talked it out with them. I explained to them who Setsuka Heel was and they said they were sure now that she's suffering a type of amnesia."
"What did they say we do about it?"
"They want to keep her here for further tests until they're sure she's stable. After that, they said all we can do is wait until her memories return."
"Do we knock her on the head again to help her recover her memory?"
Ren ignored this poorly made joke. Although he was relatively calm now knowing Kyoko was fine in a sense that she was alive, their situation was still worrisome to a degree.
"What do you want to do?" Lory added in a more serious tone now.
"What do you mean?" Ren asked, surprised.
"Mogami-kun, or rather, Setsu is asking for her brother," he pointed out. "Should we force reality on her now or should we give her Cain Heel?"
Author's Note:
How was it? I hope you guys enjoyed it!
I don't know if this plot is overdone because I never read any Skip Beat! fanfics. before but I assure you the content is 100% original that my brain thought of.
I started writing this right after the recent chapter (Chapter 201) of the Skip Beat! manga came out a few days ago. When the inspiration struck me, I ended up coming up with this plot and writing like mad since then. In fact, I already finished writing the entire story except for the epilogue.
Also, I rated this story as T but it'll sort of border on M in the following chapters. Not quite sure what to do about it. I'll change it accordingly if I have to later.
I'll update when I hear what you think!
Raeny