Kuu wandered the halls of LME for almost half an hour before he finally found Kyouko curled up against one of the floor to ceiling windows on the eighth floor with red eyes and a heartbroken face. His boy, no matter how much Kuu loved him, was going to get hell this time. There was no one else who could've inflicted this much pain to his little girl's fragile heart.

The large man's footsteps were far from quiet—every other step a loud squeak—but the amber eyed woman didn't so much as glance his way. Her puffy eyes were fixed on the rising sun as her lips trembled from the sheer willpower by which Kyouko was holding back another flood of tears. Wordlessly, he crouched beside her and murmured her name softly. She jolted in place and turned to look at him in soundless terror. A small whimper escaped her lips as he reached to pat her back in comfort and it stung, even if she didn't mean for it to.

Whatever Ren had done had brought Kyouko's doubts about love and her own value to the forefront, and she once again feared to be rejected by those she loved, her pseudo-parents included. A proud actress had been reduced to a small, frightened animal in less than four hours by a single man who barely deserved her.

Kuu bit back a snarl. He loved his son, but he loved his daughter too. His son could handle rejection, even if it would take some time to recover. His little girl had had too much rejection already and feared it more than anything else.

Slowly, the senior actor picked his pseudo-daughter up, despite her small, whimpering protests, and carried her into one of LME's many lounges nearby. He set her on the couch, ordering her to stay there or he'd give her some unmentioned punishment, and left to go get her some tea from a vending machine he'd passed in the hall. He returned with a steaming cup shortly, and pressed it into Kyouko's cold, trembling hands. The brunette stared into the swirling tea for a long moment before taking a tentative sip. She yelped as the hot liquid burned her tongue.

"You should've warned me it was hot, Otou-san!"

The brown eyed man smiled wearily. "You weren't talking to me so I thought you didn't want me talking to you."

Kyouko felt a rush of shame for her earlier foolishness and stared into the green depths of her cup. "I-I'm sorry. I'm just sort of out of it right now." Tears once again gathered in her eyes and the actress took a deep, fortifying breath to push them back. "I don't deserve your kindness."

The tall man sat on the couch next to her, put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a gentle, and hopefully reassuring, squeeze. "You deserve that and so much more, Kyouko. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise." Kuu paused to let his words sink in for a moment. "Especially yourself."

The young actress didn't even bother denying the accusation. They both knew it would be a lie. It was a fairly new revelation and it unnerved her how little self-confidence she had. She had thought after Shou, she'd become more confident, more sure of herself, but she hadn't. She was still the same withdrawn, plain girl she had been when she'd left Kyoto four years ago. She hadn't changed at all. The woman wasn't sure why the thought made her want to cry.

"I'll try," she croaked quietly, her voice hoarse from crying.

"That's my girl."

Her Otou-san's words, so soft and gentle, brought tears to her eyes once again, but she didn't have the will to stop them. Kuu didn't speak, just held her as she grasped his shirt and cried into his shoulder. He was going to have a very long talk with his son once Kyouko was safely tucked away in her apartment. But for now the actor was going to hold his little girl until her tears dried and eventually ask what had happened to make her cry. From the sound and frequency of her sobs, it was going to be a bit.

Nearly two hours later, Kyouko's sobs had been reduced to soft sniffles and Kuu thought it was time to get the tired woman home. After she'd gotten some sleep, he'd call from Lory's mansion, where he was staying with his wife, and make sure she was okay before asking what had happened. This time, the international superstar would give his pseudo-daughter an opportunity to just hang up the phone if she didn't want to talk to him. He'd get Julie to call Kyouko next and if she still wouldn't talk to the model, Kuu would head over to her apartment and see if he couldn't get her side of the story to help get a sense of what really happened—because, really, his son's story would most likely be a greatly skewed version of what had happened in Lory's notorious costume vault.

It took a bit of coaxing, but Kuu managed to detach Kyouko from his shirt and convinced her to let him take her home in a company car. Thankfully, no one recognized the two famous actors as they made their way to the parking garage attached to LME. Kuu had stopped by Lory's office on the way to get a key and the corresponding fob for one of the sedans from the eccentric man's secretary.

He quietly urged the amber eyed woman into the passenger seat of a sleek blue sedan and she complied miserably, curling against the seat after buckling her seatbelt. Kyouko didn't feel like doing anything except curling into a tiny ball and disappearing. Crying had taken a weight off her shoulders, but her heart still ached as if knives were being stabbed in at every angle. Repeatedly.

Over time, her heart would become callus and the pain would dull, but it would never truly be healed. Not again. A heart could only fully heal once after being broken so thoroughly. Shou had done a number on her heart three years ago, and now she'd inflicted an even worse wound.

As Kuu drove, Kyouko stared out the rain-splattered windshield sightlessly. Her world had screeched to a halt, even as the Earth turned, and the amber eyed woman feared it would never resume its rotation. Even if her world did manage to move again, it would be in jerky, half-hearted motions—not the smooth, graceful pirouette it had once been. It wouldn't even compare to the sporadic gait that had been caused by the Fuwa Fiasco.

Water splashed her face and it took several moments for Kyouko to realized they'd arrived at her apartment complex—the same one that her sempai resided in—and her Otou-san held open the passenger side door, using an umbrella as a futile shield against the wind and rain. The father-daughter pair were drenched as they ran for the doors leading to the lobby.

Inside the large complex was warm and dry with a doorman waiting at the entrance to hand out fluffy towels. The doorman silently handed the famous actors towels and fixed his gaze back on the street after a brief glance at the pair. He saw various idols, celebrities, and LME employees everyday so seeing Hizuri Kuu wasn't anything for him to get excited over.

While the doorman was voluntarily mute, he wasn't deaf, blind, or dumb. He knew very well that Tsuruga-sama and Mogami-sama were strictly friends, but he also knew that they didn't want to be. The funny thing was that they, and the media, had yet to figure out that such a feeling was mutual, despite it's obviousness.

After Kuu and Kyouko finished drying off the best they could, the two headed up to Kyouko's apartment. Kuu left fifteen minutes later, after having made sure his pseudo-daughter had changed into pajamas and crawled into bed with a murmured promise to call him when she woke up. On his way out, the Hollywood star tipped the doorman to ensure a certain actor who lived in the building didn't hear about Hizuri Kuu escorting a red-eyed Kyouko to her apartment. Kuu didn't want Ren to try and fix this mess before the older man knew exactly what was wrong and how badly his son had screwed up this time.

Julie stared blankly at the pages of her notebook and sighed. For the past half hour, she'd been racking her brain as she tried to come up with a plan of action for Operation Reconcile, but she still hadn't thought of anything that would persuade Kyouko to forgive Kuon. The main problem was that the model had absolutely no clue why Kyouko was angry. According to her son, the brunette had returned the kiss and had been peeved when it had come to an end—something that didn't happen when a girl, especially one as spirited as her adopted daughter, was kissed against her will. Such an act usually ended up with the culprit on the ground, whimpering and clutching his aching privates.

But if the kiss hadn't caused Kyouko to flee, what had? Julie and Kuon had put their heads together, but hadn't been able to think of a logical conclusion for the actress's actions.

The door to the bedroom creaked open and her husband appeared in the doorway. The middle-aged woman smiled at him, but her smile quickly faded, seeing his expression. She set her notebook and pencil aside to go to Kuu, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"What's wrong?"

Kuu sighed and returned the embrace. "Trying to decide what to do with our idiot son. I'm torn between a twelve-gauge shot gun and a wood chipper." As he'd predicted, his tiny wife slapped his arm and gave him a glare lacking in any real heat.

After a few moments of searching his face, Julie cuddled against him again. "How angry was she?"

"Angry? I could've handled angry, but when I found her, Jules, she was a mess." He briefly recounted what had happened while his wife had been with their son and by the end, the model was even more confused and being to worry.

Julie had seen the girl take immense onset bullying without batting an eye; had seen her go toe-to-toe with one of the most infamous directors this side of the Pacific and walk away unscathed and just as sweet and innocent as she had been when they'd first met. Mogami Kyouko was a tough woman—nothing that had happened in the vault could've possibly caused this. Unless, of course, Kuon had lied to her. If that was the case, her son would soon realize why many models still referred to her as a hellcat—especially those that had tried to chase after her husband.

A/N

Avid readers, the end is near! Only two chapters left, including some much needed fluff at the end of such a sad story. I'll update soon! I promise!

Thanks for reading! ~MGW96