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Rising Tides

By Moirae Ma'at

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Chapter 2: On Display

A few days later Sho was sulking on his couch instead of writing his new song and decided to turn on the television to alleviate his boredom. The singer flipped through several channels searching for something interesting to watch and flipped past a black blob before pausing on a random channel.

Wasn't that the guy who had been with Kyoko?

Sho went back to the channel with the punk in black on it and settled in to glare at him and make fun of his answers on the talk show. The guy didn't seem very nice and Kyoko shouldn't have been spending time with someone like that – even if it was for work. He'd been so distracted about what she was doing with such an obvious punk that Shoko had ended up postponing over half of his PV for the next day. It had put them a little behind schedule and his manager hadn't been happy about that, but his angry expression wouldn't work for this particular promotional video. They really didn't have much choice in the matter – it was his video and if he couldn't do his part right, then there was no point in doing the video to begin with.

In order to cheer him up, Shoko had even asked Director Asami to go and figure out what the girl had been doing on the set of the PV for Devil's Dance. His manager had returned to tell him that the two punks had been picked up off the street by the band's manager for their video, but the other band's director and manager had refused to divulge any more information about the girl with golden eyes and the male with black eyes, rightly suspicious of Sho's interest in the two punks. One of the stage hands let slip that the two were called Setsuka and Cain Heel, but clammed up tight when he realized what he had said and quickly made his excuses when he spotted Director Tezuka.

When Shoko returned from her fact-finding mission, she'd spent quite a bit of time talking to Sho and almost had him convinced that the girl hadn't been Kyoko – the different name and fashion style, the way she lad dangled on the male's arm – but the singer was stuck on the girl's golden eyes. He'd seen those eyes glaring up at him or looking at him adoringly too many times to ever forget them – although he'd never seen them looking at him with the same cool distain that the punk with pink-streaked hair had displayed so easily.

Well, whether or not it had been Kyoko, the dark-haired male who had glared at him was sprawled out in a chair, comfortably slouched with his legs casually spread wide and one of his arms tossed over the side of the single-person couch.

"So how do you like Japan?"

Fuwa saw the punk raise the hand hidden behind the couch and was shocked to see a lit cigarette in the other male's hand. The dark-haired guest took a slow drag before leaning back in his seat and ignoring the talk show host. Several people couldn't believe that this insignificant guy was blatantly smoking on Tatsura Misa's show – much less that the dark-eyed punk was completely ignoring the beautiful hostess.

"Has it been interesting?" Misa said with a tight smile.

Her only response was another long drag at the cigarette.

"I hear you recently did a promotional video for the visual kei group Devil's Dance…" the female tried again, hoping to get the punk to at least answer the trailing sentence even if he wouldn't answer questions.

The dark-haired male simply leaned forward and set one of his ankles across his knee so that he could stub out his cigarette against the heel of his black boots before dropping it on the floor. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from somewhere on his person and pulled out a new stick before lifting it to his mouth and setting it on fire it with a discrete black lighter that was slipped right back into his pockets. Cain took a deep drag of his cigarette and leaned back again, smoothly dropping his ankle off his knee into the previous wide-legged position.

The hostess gave forced a smile in return to the male's rude actions and managed to get a sentence out from between her tightly clenched teeth.

"Maybe the girl you arrived with could give us a few answers?"

Cain glared sharply at the female in response and back in his apartment Sho leaned forward, curious to see if the aforementioned female was really Kyoko.

~.~.~.~

Setsu kept her casual pose against the wall when she heard the host's words, but Kyoko was inwardly flailing around in a panic that made Setsuka's calm all the more impressive. Cain's little sister wasn't at all surprised that her most important man had refused to answer any questions, but the amber-eyed talento didn't really think that inviting the Setsu onto the set would be an effective way to convince the elder Heel sibling to talk. She would probably make the situation worse because Cain was protective of her and the female Heel sibling in turn would just ignore everyone – including the host – in order to pay attention to her brother.

One of the female stage hands soon began to usher Setsuka towards the stage entrance, carefully stopping short of touching the younger Heel sibling at the harsh glare the punk gave her. Setsu eventually stalked on stage, her walk a beautiful exhibition of the power and grace usually found only in large predators. Several men simply stopped and stared at the girl, completely shocked at her punk clothes and her lithe form.

In direct opposition, the blonde only had eyes for her brother and ignored everyone else – the audience, the host, the camera men, the backstage hands – as she casually strolled across the floor and sat down on the arm of Cain's chair. Inside Setsu's mind Kyoko was in a dogeza, completely embarrassed about ignoring the host and appearing on live television in a small leather vest and matching short skirt. Setsu wore clothes Kyoko would never be comfortable in and acted in a way the talent never would, but it always embarrassed the amber-eyed girl when her characters were rude – even if they were supposed to be disrespectful towards authority like Setsu and Natsu.

Setsu smiled over at her brother – ignoring, or possibly not even hearing, the thump of falling bodies – and leaned sideways so she could support herself against his shoulder. The dark-haired male lifted the hand without the cigarette and wrapped it around her waist, the feel of his hand on her bare side casing Kyoko to shiver inside of Setsuka. The girl from Kyoto wasn't used to personal contact in front of others – Shotaro had certainly never been affectionate and neither had her mother – and Cain was touching her bare skin on national television.

Kyoko was relatively used to Tsuruga-san touching her due to her time acting as his sister, so she really didn't think much about contact between them anymore, but she still wasn't used to people seeing that contact. Yes, he had laced up her corset for her, but that had been in a private dressing room and he had been Setsuka's brother Cain at the time. They'd slept in the same bed together and she'd seen him in the shower fiasco, but it was quite a different matter to touch like that in front of millions of people. It was probably a good thing Setsu was in control currently, now that she thought about it, because Kyoko would be hiding behind the couch in embarrassment instead of casually sitting on the arm and leaning against her big brother.

The hostess of the show tried to ask the duo several questions, but Cain simply took another drag from his cigarette and Setsuka nonchalantly crossed her legs and closed her eyes. Kyoko mentally bowed to the hostess after every question in apology for not answering them, sorry for the rude behavior but proud that she was able to stay in character during this time period. The Heel siblings never really interacted with anyone else when both of them were present – unless they were shopping or filming the movie. If they did interact, Setsu was the one who would do the majority of the talking, but she could tell her brother didn't like the hostess and therefore refused to have anything to do with the woman. Setsuka worshipped her brother and there was no way she was going to interact with anyone he didn't like.

The duo's relaxed and uncaring poise contrasted greatly with the Misa's visibly mounting anger until the hostess finally decided to ignore the two Heel siblings and call in the next guest. The males had been hiding out in one of the private dressing rooms in order to avoid thier fans, so the brother and sister had no idea who the second set of guests were going to be.

Reino and the rest of Vie Ghoul were calmly announced by the hostess before the break started and the camera missed the way Cain's eyes narrowed and Setsuka tensed slightly. A couple of Kyoko's antennas immediately gravitated toward Tsuruga-san as they sensed his anger and the talento mentally shivered at the idea of encounter the Beagle again. The only good thing she could think of was that Tsuruga-san was there to protect her, even if he was acting as Cain Heel right now. But then again, Cain was a lot more dangerous than Tsuruga-san in general, so she should be fine as long as she made sure not to react to the singer's evil presence. If she kept a tight rein on her grudges and pushed Setsuka as far forward as possible, she just might be able to make it through the rest of the talk show without alerting Rieno that Setsuka was really Kyoko.

When the show once more restarted, Rieno walked onto the stage with his band behind him to find a set of black eyes glaring at him. The silver-haired man gave an almost imperceptible shiver at the venom in the glare and made a conscious decision to avoid annoying the other guest. That look had been worse than the one Tsuruga had sent him the last time they had met – and if Tsuruga had been a lion, then this guy was a feral wolf with an aura darker than Tsuruga's had ever been. When he'd looked at that guy the silver-haired male had seen guns and blood and glory intermingled with a fist impacting someone's face, a body lying at the feet of black boots, and cold black eyes staring down the barrel of a gun at him as the other male pulled the trigger. That was definitely enough to make Rieno desire to avoid the other male, so he made sure to avoid looking at the girl next to the monster in human skin as he sat in the middle of the couch while his bandmates tried to charm the hostess.

The long-haired blonde settled down next to the singer while Shiruzu – the dark-haired bassist with the weird bang that had previously made fun of Kyoko – spotted Setsuka and elbowed the keyboardist sitting next to him to get the other band member's attention. When his bandmate looked at him, Shizuru pointed at the punk-looking girl sitting on the arm of the other guest's chair and the two members of Vie Ghoul shifted their attention from the hostess to the hot punk sitting near them.

"Wanna come sit on my arm chair?" Shiruzu said as he leaned forward toward the other guests with a large smile.

The blonde simply looked down her nose at the bassist and scoffed lowly as the male next to her glared black death at the musician. The girl promptly turned her attention to the darkly-dressed male she came in with, who in turn lifted his cigarette to his lips and left it in his mouth as he stared at Vie Ghoul.

"It'll be a nice place for a girl like you," the bassist tried again, this time reaching out an arm to try and touch the hot girl that was only a few feet away. The black-eyed male casually tugged the girl into his lap with the arm he had on her waist in response and Setsuka absently lifted her legs over her brother's from her position in Cain's lap so she could get more comfortable. This position was even more awkward than having Tsuruga-san's hand on her bare hip, but it gave her more protection from the Beagle and it wasn't like Setsu hadn't been in closer contact with her brother before…

Shiruzu was so captivated by the long length of bare leg revealed as the blonde girl shifted positions that he barely moved his arm fast enough to avoid the lit cigarette that the smoker had intended to put out on his sleeve. Four of the band members looked shocked at the other male's actions although Rieno was still carefully looking away from both foreign punks.

Misa promptly interrupted the interaction with a few words and a forced smile, hoping to avoid a fight occurring on her stage. "Vie Ghoul, this is Setsuka and Cain Heel – they starred in the latest promotional video for Devil's Dance."

"Don't suppose you'd do our next PV then?" the keyboardist tried with a leering smile, hoping his luck would be better than Shiruzu's previous attempt.

All he got in return was Cain's arm sliding back around Setsu's waist and two matching, dead stares that sent shivers down his back and prompted him to look away from the two people in the armchair. That was obviously a no to doing the PV and Kiyora didn't exactly want to push his luck asking a second time after what had almost happed to Shiruzu earlier.

Setsuka relaxed in her brother's lap and leaned back against his shoulder, the movement baring even more of her smooth stomach and causing several eyes to hone in on the uncovered skin. Cain saw members of Vie Ghoul looking and reached out and flicked the ashes of his cigarette at them right before he stubbed out the cigarette on his lighter. The remainder of the stick was dropped by the side of the chair and Cain shifted his sister to his other side before reaching into his outfit and pulling out a switchblade that he promptly handed to his bored-looking sister. Setsuka flipped it open easily and began to use the tip of the sharp blade to clean her nails as her brother calmly lit up a new cigarette. The audience and everyone on stage simply gaped at the siblings, unable to believe just what they were doing.

"Heel-san recently played Actor X in the highly-publicized psychological thriller ?," Misa tried one final time in a last-ditch attempt to get her first two guests to actually say something before they left. The hostess really didn't have much say in the matter by now because the two siblings were either going to start a fight with Vie Ghoul – and probably win – or create more dead air on the show – something she couldn't afford anymore of in this episode.

Misa finally gave up and bid Cain and Setsuka a subtle goodbye. The elder sibling squeezed his sister's waist and she smoothly rose to her feet, simultaneously folding and hiding the switchblade as she stood in a move that had several people wondering where the blade had been hidden. As soon as her brother was on his feet, the blonde glomped tightly onto Cain's arm and looked glued to his side as they left the stage in an attempt to avoid any of the members of Vie Ghoul.

As soon as they were out of sight of the stage, Setsuka leaned even further into her brother as Kyoko sagged in relief at avoiding a catastrophe with Vie Ghoul. She had no doubt that Cain would have won any hypothetical confrontation, but still it would have been hard to stay under control as either Setsuka or Kyoko, so she was grateful that nothing extraordinary had happened on the talk show. The Heel siblings had been rude and completely absorbed in each other – which was normal for them – and Cain probably shouldn't have been smoking or pulled out a switchblade on national television. Come to think of it, Setsuka really shouldn't have cleaned her nails with her brother's knife either, but Cain indulgently finding something for his little sister to concentrate on beside the hostess – and incidentally giving Kyoko herself something to think about besides Vie Ghoul – was such a common thing in their sibling relationship that Setsuka hadn't even thought twice about using the switchblade to clean her nails. She could have always started carving on the armchair they were sitting on, but her brother had avoided permanently damaging the set, so she would do the same.

"Nii-san, we have to get going if we're going to catch our flight!" Setsuka said imploringly as she hung off her brother's arm and tried to tug him in the proper direction. It was her job to keep control of her brother – control being a relative term – and act as his protective charm, but it seemed like Ren had been more of a protective charm for Kyoko than the other way around for the past few hours.

Cain looked down at her indulgently and easily followed the soft tugs on his arm as the two siblings stalked out of the television studio, easily ignoring the people around them as the focused solely on each other as usual. Setsuka was commenting sharply and softly about the stupid persistence of the fake perky hostess and the even more obviously fake visual kei group Vie Ghoul. The female Heel sibling hadn't thought anyone could look more like a punk-pretender than Fuwa Sho, but the attitude and outfits displayed by the talk show band had been even more false than the stuck up blonde's had been. Part of the reason for the comments was to calm Cain down so he didn't go back on stage and beat Rieno bloody and the other was to distract herself from freaking out and breaking Setsuka's character before she was supposed to do so.

Well, acting as Setsu had certainly been quite the experience, Kyoko thought with a wry smile as they got in the car, but thank Kami that it was almost over. It wasn't that she hadn't like spending so much time with Tsuruga-senpai – quite the opposite – but mentally she was starting to think of Tsuruga-san as more and more of a friend and she was worried that her attitude was going to carry over to their interactions once her job as Setsuka was finished. She would never be so presumptuous as to assume that such a lowly talento as herself would be friends with the great Tsugua Ren, but spending so much time in close contact with Tsuruga-san was giving her delusions about their relationship…

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AN: I sent PMs to my reviewers (if I could) and would like to thank you all for reading this. It's not a very long chapter this time (3200+ words), but it is an update!