BONUS
"So you're the squirrel?" Ren asked.
Kyoko nodded without looking at him, her eyes staring at the floor. Her usual self would've stared at her own feet, but she couldn't do that because she was still wearing that bloody squirrel suit.
"And you've always been the chicken?" he continued.
The girl nodded again without a word.
"Even that mutant chickenduck?" Ren kept asking.
She cringed inside the suit, and for a moment Ren only could see clumps of orange hair on the top of the beheaded squirrel, while a choked fading 'Yeees' was heard.
"The chickenduck too..." Ren whispered and then sighed, breathing out slowly. "Didn't it occur to you that I was talking about you? Ever?"
For an answer he heard a stifled 'Nooo,' muffled by the fabric of the costume.
Ren sighed again, taking his forefinger and thumb and pinching them over the bridge of his nose, to try to get rid of an incipient hell of a migraine.
"Now what?" he asked.
"Pardon?" Kyoko said, pulling her head (hers, her own head, the real one) out of the suit where she was hiding, and tilting.
"What will happen now?" Ren elaborated.
"I beg your pardon?" No way, the girl didn't get it. At all.
"What am I going to do with you?" he asked.
"T-To let me live?" Kyoko suggested, trembling quite obviously.
"To let you live...? What are you talking about?" He is the baffled one now. He sighed again (he has been doing it a lot for half an hour) and took a breath for his next question (another one). "How are you going to treat me from now?"
"Ts-Tsur—" she said, but Kyoko hid again in the depths of her stuffed squirrel suit.
"Are you planning not to look at me never again?" he spat, a bit too abruptly. "And not to say two words in a row? I don't know if you've realized, but we're going to work together again. Eventually, you'll have to do it."
But Kyoko was still hidden, believing herself to be safe, as if she were an ostrich who thinks that if it doesn't see the danger head on, it'll be free of harm.
Ren, who knows Kyoko best, huffed and sighed again, frustrated at not making himself understood and at not pulling out from her more than two words in a row.
"Come on, put the head of the squirrel on," he said, bending over to pick it up from the floor.
"Huh?" Kyoko replied.
"Come on, put it on," he said, pulling it on not much carelessly.
Ren sighed again (yes, again), but now with that tone of someone who has to explain things to someone thick headed. Or very obtuse. Or blind. Or someone else. Or Kyoko.
So now, finally conveniently unbeheaded, that is, with the proper head on, Kyoko was Ao again, the adorable little squirrel from Akatsuki no Yona.
"Oi, what's up, Bo-kun?" Ren greeted.
"B-But what?" she mumbled, surprised.
"Did you hear the news?"—he moved closer to the squirrel to speak to her in confidence—"At last, the girl found it out."
Kyoko jumped inside her suit.
"Yes, yes... You know... The girl I'm in love with... That high school girl, four years younger..."—he waved his hand, as if dismissing the details—"Nah, I'm sure you remember."
Ao, that is, Bo-kun, who was playing Ao, was paying attention to Ren now. She didn't even blink not to miss a single thing of what he was saying. But come on, Ao is a stuffed suit. It can't blink.
"Do you want to know something?" Ren continued. "Well, it turns out that this girl has never noticed when I wanted to kiss her. Not even once! Nor any of those times when I just wanted to pull her into my arms and not to let her go..."—he folded his arms (those very same arms he has just mentioned) over his chest in a serious gesture—"Do you have the slightest idea of how frustrating that is?"
Ao / Bo-kun shrugged, in that American way she watched Ren doing, and shook her head.
"Look, Bo-kun, it turns out that she just found out that I love her... I'm not telling you the details so that you don't get bored... Well, the girl doesn't even look at me now, she doesn't talk to me either..."—and here his voice lost strength—"I'm afraid she will never talk to me again. I don't know what else to do…"
Ren was silent now. Bo-kun still remained quiet.
Meanwhile, Ren was dealing with the idea of that if Kyoko didn't reacted by now, his heart wouldn't be able to endure.
But then, he noticed that the huge squirrel writhed in uneasiness in front of him.
"M-Maybe she's scared..." she said, her voice unsteady.
"Of me?" he asked, holding his breath.
Ten seconds went by before having an answer.
"Scared about that being true..."
"What?" he asked quietly.
"About you loving her..." she replied almost without a voice.
"Why?"
"Because maybe she feels the same..."
May the world stop moving! Kyoko just said that she feels the same. Kyoko said that she feels the same...
KYOKO SAID THAT SHE FEELS THE SAME!
'Put yourself together, man!'
"Ah..." 'You speak three languages, and that's all what you say?'
Ren's heart raced, speeding beats, and his lungs forgot how to breathe. Regarding Kyoko, faint announced its arrival. She was unsure whether it was due to the emotions or the heat inside the costume or to any other reason...
"So, what do we do from now?" he asked, as if talking about the weather.
Poor Kyoko couldn't stand it any longer and took her head (squirrel's) off, struggling to breathe fresh air, her cheeks red, because of heat, of emotions... And finally she looked up. Her golden eyes met Ren's brown ones. He held his breath, as she took a deep breath to pluck up the courage to say what she was about to say.
"Could you forgive this poor blind girl?" she asked softly.
In response, his hands rushed to her cheeks and Ren leaned forward, eager for her lips. Due the vigour of the movement, his torso collided with the padded suit of the squirrel and bounced (may heavens help him) but their mouths didn't draw apart a bit. He pressed his lips over hers trying to make her understand with that kiss the intensity of his feelings, their strength, his love... And Kyoko must have understood something for sure, because the stuffed head fell to the floor with a muffled noise and then she raised her big squirrel arms to cling to Ren.
When they drew apart, just enough, his hands were still on her cheeks.
"You have no idea how much I wanted to do this..." Ren whispered over her mouth.
"To kiss a giant squirrel?" she replied, out of breath.
Ren burst into laughter just before kissing her again.