AN: Please enjoy 😊 I wasn't able to write for one of the fics I planned to yesterday because I got asked to stay longer at work and I had a migraine which seems to have cleared for right now. I hope you enjoy this chapter 😊

Chapter Three- You'll Always be Special

The Hizuri family – well two of the members of the Hizuri family, Kuon and Julie, looked at Kyoko in shock as she stood there with her eyes not leaving Kuon's. Kuu, however was smiling excitedly. Kyoko took a deep breath in. "I don't say those words lightly. It's not out of the fact that I think that I think you need to hear them, I just…it doesn't matter what you look like, Tsuru – Hizuri-san, I love you. I love the way you have always helped me and supported me. I love it when you pat my head and wrap your arms around me. I love that I can talk to you about anything and even if you laugh, you try to understand me. I love who you are and even if your entire face was burnt like that horror villain, I'd love you."

"I love you too" Kuon said in response. "I do," he nodded before looking down. "I haven't been honest with you though. I don't know if you'll still love me when you find out how I've been lying to you. I never intended to hurt you."

Kyoko allowed herself to smile as she heard his unexpected reply. Maybe now she'd have enough trust and courage to tell him that she was his confidant, that she had dressed in a rooster-duck combo just to help him. "Okay," she nodded not thinking that he could say anything which would hurt her so badly she would turn against those feelings.

"I stole a kiss from you," he started as Kyoko blinked confused.

"On the cheek? Are you talking about when you kissed me on Valentine's Day?" she asked as the Hizuri parents looked at one another. Kuon shifted awkwardly.

"No. I told you that I was under a curse," he said as he looked down not sure what her response would be. "I told you that I could only use magic once a day, that adults could only see the person that they were thinking about. I didn't really mean to hurt you. I thought that you'd figure it ou—" he said as Kyoko gasped and put a hand over her mouth.

"No…way" she said slowly as she looked him over. Her heart started pounding in her chest as she took in the revelation. Still, how could she end up meeting her childhood friend after so many years. How could she have crossed paths with him when there were hundreds of ways that she wouldn't have been able to.

"You're…Corn?" she asked as Kuon looked up at her with guilt and regret in his eyes.

"I didn't know how to tell you. Corn was such an important person to you, Ren was someone who you looked up to in the acting world. I couldn't let you down. When I saw you in Guam, I intended to leave so you wouldn't figure out my identity but when I saw how sad and shocked you were…I couldn't do that to you. I can't hurt you anymore by lying to you. I can't let you enter into a relationship with me unless you know the truth. I deeply apologize Mogami-san."

"Kyoko," Kyoko said as she looked at him, somehow she didn't feel that angry with him. She felt a little hurt and confused, but seeing his honesty and looking through the burn, she didn't want to dislike him at all. It was as if all her inner-angels were cheering her on. "I want you to call me Kyoko."

Kuon looked at her, "Even after you've known that I've lied to you?" he asked and then gestured to his face, "Even with this. Are you saying that you still want to be my girlfriend?"

Kyoko nodded, "I told you that I don't consider love frivolously. I love you. No matter what skeletons might be in your closet, I love you, Kuon," she said as she saw him smile a little. "Your face doesn't matter to me aside from if it brings you pain."

"The doctors are saying that it is improbable that they can fix it," Kuon tried to tell her and Kyoko came closer. She noticed how Kuon spread his arms out and she walked into his hold, letting her own arms wrap around him. "So I'm not going to be a great actor. I'm not going to be this special person who you look up to anymore."

Kyoko laughed softly, "You'll always be special and amazing to me. Remember how you played the piano in Dark Moon, you learned so quickly and I know you'll learn something else. You'll become great at something else. It's not your status I love, it's your kindness, your warmth, your maturity mixed with your teasing, but most of all I love how supportive you are of me and how easy I feel it is to talk to you. Now that I know you're my treasured Corn as well, do you think I could just leave you and forget?"

Kuu smiled at Julie who was still looking surprised at the kind of love and devotion that this seventeen-year-old was expressing. She blinked as Kyoko very very gently placed a kiss on the burnt side of Kuon's face and let her head rest on his shoulder right next to it.

This girl really was a wonderful person.

….

….

About an hour later, Kyoko was just about to leave Kuon. She held his hand and let her thumb rub over the back of it. She smiled as she thought about how he was returning her love so easily. "Kuon," she said as he hummed. "Are you going to be okay if I go?" she asked since Kuu and Julie had given the two of them some space. "You're not going to forget how much you mean to me, are you?"

"I'll hold your love right here," he told her as he pressed his hand to his heart, the doctors had told him that he could soon get the burnt side of his face covered. "Will you be back?"

Kyoko nodded, "Not today, but tomorrow I can come," she blushed before looking at him shyly. "Kuon, may I kiss you?" she asked as she turned red. Even though he was both Corn and Ren whilst also being Kuon, she wondered if she was moving too fast in the relationship. After all, Kuon was only partially Japanese and had grown up in America, he was probably used to relationships moving faster.

Kuon smiled and leaned towards her, turning his face as much as he could so she wouldn't have to face the burn. Kyoko slid her hands to his neck and turned his head so she could see both sides. She kissed his lips as he returned the kiss and smiled. The burnt part of his face was a little disturbing, but she knew what he had looked like. She would do her best to support him now that he looked different as well.

As she walked to the door and opened it, she froze as she saw one of the guys she really didn't like. She was so shocked to see him, so shocked that he had managed to get through security, and maybe even Kuu and Julie, that she hadn't noticed his phone in his hand and that he had taken two shots of Kuon's face and then clicked the upload button.

Kyoko looked at Kuon and then turned to Shou. She protectively stood in front of Kuon, not realizing that it was now too late to stop the world from having access to his appearance. "What the hell are you doing here, you asshole?" she hissed.

"I wanted to see the damage and it's worse than I thought. It's good to see that the beloved actor and model looks repulsive now. My stomach is churning just from looking at -" Shou was shocked when Kyoko slapped him hard.

"How dare you?" Kyoko said in a cold manner. "Do you even know what he's been through? You know, despite how I don't want to admit that you were right, I am in love with him and true love means being able to look past the scars to the person underneath, not that you'd know anything about love.

"I know that you're lying, how could you love a face like that?" Shou asked before getting an alert on his phone that ten people had unfollowed him. Maybe twenty people had unfollowed Tsuruga, Tsuruga had ten times as many followers as he did, soon he would have ten times less.

"How? Because Ren supports me," Kyoko said, careful to use his stage name. "Because he respects me, he encourages my growth as an actress, he makes sure that I feel safe, he listens to me and lets me cry. I would love to tell you how much I pity you that you've never felt a love like I have for Ren, but I don't have enough words to say it."

Shou turned his phone around to show Kyoko that he had posted the picture of Kuon online and people were commenting about it. Kyoko looked back at Kuon and noticed the light was leaving his eyes. She pushed Shou again, her eyes dark and unforgiving.

"You asshole," she whispered before seeing that his follower count kept decreasing. Maybe they were seeing him for the cold idiot that he was."

She looked back at Kuon's phone, which had been recovered from the fire, and she saw Kuon nervously turn it on. His facial expression changed into one of bewilderment as he read the alert, there were seventy new people who were following him and he had received over a hundred messages with condolences and people telling him that they were rooting for him to get better and that his face didn't matter, they still loved the Ren Tsuruga they had seen behind the scenes and in magazines.

Maybe these were just sympathetic followers, but since he would have to leave acting, he did appreciate them. Kyoko quickly looked back and caught the new follower count and the messages to him. She came to sit beside him and read them with him, there was only a small number of comments insulting him and people were defending him to those individuals.

"They love you nearly as much I do," she told him as she kissed his shoulder. "See," she pointed to a few comments, "These people say that they'll follow you if you choose to step away from acting. They're saying that they know that whatever you choose to do next, they know you'll be amazing. She saw Kuon refresh the page where he received even more followers and even more positive messages.

She looked at Shou as he refreshed his page and looked stunned.

"What is it? You losing followers? People see the way you bully and attack and can't stand for it?" She asked with a superior smirk. "People can see the true Ren Tsuruga just as they are now seeing the true Shou Fuwa. Seems I picked the right guy, I don't need somebody who the public despises, I need someone who is kind enough and warm enough and has enough charm and charisma that people don't care what they look like, they are just excited to see the man who he really is."

Shou frowned and then took a step backwards, "You'll regret this, Tsuruga," he said as he left the hospital. Kuon put his phone down and Kyoko looked at him. She knew that she needed to go but she was worried about whether he would be okay or not. She could see the light return to his eyes.

"Do you see how many people love you?" she asked him and Kuon looked at her and nodded.

"It's good that so many people support me," he told her, "but the only person who I need to fall in love with me is you."

Kyoko nodded, "Just remember that, okay?" she asked, "When you feel sad or feel like giving up, just remember that I love you."

End Chapter Three

AN2: Thank you everyone who reads and supports this fic. The next fic that I'm going to work on for a few days is 'The Little Prince'. Special shout out to reviewers of Chapter Two: brennakai, ktoll9, and Michiyo