Second Meeting

A distraught teen wandered aimlessly through the large woods. She pushed back angry tears from her startling golden eyes as she stomped over the broken under bush. Shaking back her long dark hair, she looked around, deciphering her surroundings. Her eyebrows furrowed. A sigh escaped her before she marched off, following the sound of the babbling stream.

The young man who had been following the girl also sighed, as he attempted to work out where he had seen this pretty, young teen before. He followed her for quite a while longer, fruitlessly racking his brains as to who the girl was. After twenty long minutes he still had no idea who she was or what her name was, but Tsuruga Ren is not one to give up. Still he pushed on, deciding that the only thing for it was to ask for her name.

When the mysterious girl collapsed in the base of a large tree, he saw his chance and jolted forwards to the edge of the small clearing. As he caught sight of the stream running through the clearing he stopped abruptly, memories hitting him like a wave.

Kuon was mad. All he had wanted was to see Japan with his father, but instead he had got insulted and mocked. Just remembering that mean boy's taunting face made him shudder with rage.

"You're Kuu Hizuri's son aren't you? Bet you think that means you get special treatment of something, right? Well not from us posh boy! Come on lads."

Then the boy's fist had hit him hard, making blood trickle down his scrunched up face. This had happened before, back in America. It didn't make it any easier. Kuon opened his eyes up and hit, kicked and scratched until he saw an opening in the circle. He ran as hard and as fast as he could. He stopped, looking back to see if he had lost them. He had. Of course he had, he was the fastest boy in his school apart from Andy Williams, but Andy's legs were longer than Kuon was!

As Kuon approached a small clearing in the heart of the woods his angry thoughts were interrupted by a muffled sobbing sound. Confused, he moved forward, preparing to investigate the weird noise, when he saw a little girl crying her eyes out. He froze in his tracks when the small girl made a sniffling noise and looked up at him with wide, golden eyes.

"Are you a demon?"

Ren blinked, bringing him back to the present with a jolt. Kyoko! The little girl had been so kind to him over the short two weeks they had meet in summer break. Well, she wasn't so little now. If she was seven back then, that makes her thirteen now. Ren thought, doing mental arithmetic. He was still smiling at the prospect of meeting up with the innocent little girl, when he heard a sharp gasp and a little sob.

He was about to go shock her into forgetting whatever had made her sad, but stopped when he saw her click open a small purse and tip the content into her hand. She bent over the object and muttered furiously for a few seconds, before holding the little blue stone into the light.

"Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd snap, I'm back in the room." Kyoko grinned, then closed her eyes and added "Thank you Corn, for giving me this precious little thing. It never fails to take away my sadness. I just hope I haven't tainted the thing with evil sadness spirits of something."

Ren chuckled and Kyoko whirled around, a snarl on her dainty little face. "Who are you? Why are you here? No one comes here."

"Well I clearly do. Don't you remember me Kyoko-chan?" Ren chuckled, "I'm certainly older but I'm still trying to escape my fathers restraining fingers and fly. I can soar but I still get caught in my father's long shadow."

Kyoko's beautiful eyes widened and her feral snarl melted away.

"Corn" She exclaimed, bounding forward to hug her long lost fairy friend. "I missed you so much sometimes. When I don't add up to Mom's standards and my classmates are especially cruel, it would be nice to have a friend around. To comfort me, you know? Shotoro freezes up if I cry, so I try not to say anything around him, and nowadays he spends most of his time with that guitar of his."

Ren wheezed, it was all he could do under the tight grip of the jubilant Kyoko. He wheezed some more 'til she got his point and let go.

"Yeah, I know," he replied gently "and it's Ren now, not Corn, Tsuruga Ren."

Kyoko's already wide eyes grew even larger as realisation dawned.

"The Tsuruga Ren? The actor guy? You were Japan's Number One Rising Star To Watch! That's amazing! It also leads to the question, aren't you a fairy prince? Not a minor celebrity?" Kyoko's eyebrow was raised accusingly, her hands on her hips.

"Well," Ren stammered, "You see, I'm not a fairy, Kyoko-chan." He continued before the girl could open her mouth, anger and surprise blazing in her amber eyes. "I lied, and I didn't even mean to. It's just that you were so young and I wanted you to stop crying." Ren looked at his feet and muttered, "I'm sorry."

Softening, Kyoko took Ren's hand. "It's okay. You meant well, I suppose." She looked into his dark grey eyes, searching them furiously. "But if you lie to me again then I'll curse your soul for thirteen years and then some!"

Ren smiled "Thank you for understanding, Kyoko-chan. Anyway," He steered the conversation away from his short stint of being a fairy prince, the first time he had ever acted for someone else other his mother or father, and towards Kyoko's school life, "You said the other pupils were being mean? What happened this time?"

Kyoko only needed a little prompting here and there, leaving Ren free to gaze into her pretty eyes. He was searching for ways that made her older, that made her different from the seven year old he had left behind in Kyoto. Asides from her cheekbones being more prominent, he could find none on her youthful face.

"They what?" Gasped Ren at a particularly malicious stunt pulled by one of Kyoko's spiteful peers.

"They left flowers on my desk. I know, that made me really mad. I cried so much that night." Kyoko said, her voice miserable and downtrodden. " I don't even know why they do it. It baffles me still, even after all these years; I just don't know what they have to be cruel about. My mother despises me; apart from Shotaro I have no friends at all and my looks leave nothing to be desired. If it is jealousy I don't know of any thing I have to be jealous of. Like I said, it baffles me."

Ren leans forward, a mischievous glint in his black eyes.

"Well then, lets give them something to be jealous of! I have a plan!"

Disclaimer: Skip Beat belongs to Yoshiki Nakamura.

Thank you for reading! Please review, this is my first fan fiction :)