Disclaimer: I love Skip Beat!, but that doesn't mean I own it. Pure fan love here.
Story: In another world, what if Kyoko met Kijima first? Right after Sho breaks her heart, she meets the playboy actor who ends up changing her life and affecting her views a little differently from canon.
Set as an AU, what if? universe.
Spoilers: Yeeeessss. Yes, yes, yes. Beware?
Warnings: Hm, I need to think about this time.
Pairings: Reverse Harem including: Kijima Hidehito/Kyoko, Koga Hiromune/Kyoko, Kuresaki Yuki/Kyoko, Yashiro Yukihito/Kyoko, Shingai Seiji/Kyoko, Matsushima/Kyoko…

Jump Pulse!
Chapter Five: Life is Moving

Kuresaki was looking over Kijima's laptop, eyes roving back and forth on the screen. Kijima was humming happily as he enjoyed Kyoko's cooking. It seemed oddly normal and like nothing was out of place. That was a strange thought in of itself, but Kyoko found she didn't mind how normal this kind of thing was.

Kuresaki and Kijima seemed like they fit all along in her life now.

"How's the resumé?" Kijima asked, pausing eating to look to Kuresaki.

"Passable," Kuresaki said. "Needs tweaking in some areas, but it's good enough for now."

"Hm," Kijima nodded. "She can pad it up as she does jobs. Anyway, Kyoko-chan, the guy I told you about? The one that's supposed to be your roommate? He's coming this morning."

"Eh? Such short notice, Kijima-san!" Kyoko said in distress.

Kuresaki just raised an eyebrow at him.

"Really? I did say that we'd deal with your roommate situation today-ish," Kijima said thoughtfully.

"I didn't know that meant he was coming and it was for sure and –" Knocking interrupted Kyoko's panicked rant.

She froze and looked to the door, while Kuresaki and Kijima looked to it curiously. Kijima, having an idea who it was and the one to invite him over in the first place, got up from the table and headed to the door to answer it.

The door opened to reveal a rather handsome man with slightly wavy dark hair, a cheerful smile on his face, and dressed up nicely with a scarf wrapped loosely around his neck.

"Ah, Hiromune, we were just talking about you!" Kijima grinned and stepped aside to let him in. "Kuresaki-san, Kyoko-chan, this is Koga Hiromune."

Though startled to see Kuresaki there, Koga waved at everyone and gave a grin equal to Kijima's.

"Hullo! I'm Hiromune. Pleased to meet you all." He looked to Kyoko. "I'm guessing you're who my new roommate is supposed to be?"

Kyoko smiled hesitantly. "Um, yes. I believe so?"

"Great! This is for you," Koga handed her a giftwrapped box. "As new roommates!"

She curiously, if still hesitant, opened it and gasped, feeling hearts in her eyes. Makeup! She got a makeup set!

She started cooing over it and gushing to herself, leading to Koga being bemused while Kijima snickered and Kuresaki shook his head. Kuresaki did give a look to Kijima, who shrugged. If he had hinted to Koga as to what 'homecoming gift' he should buy, then well…he was only helping everybody out. Besides, Kyoko was in ecstasy at the moment, it seemed.

"Thank you so much!" Kyoko happily said to Koga. "You really didn't have to, but I really like the gift!"

Koga blinked and smiled unsurely. "Um, well, my pleasure?"

Kuresaki stood up. "I should be leaving now. I have work in an hour, so I'll have to start heading out if I want to reach there in time. Mogami-san, keep working on your resumé and look over the notes I wrote down, and look over those sites I told you to look at for jobs."

"Ah, I should be going too," Kijima said, looking forlornly at the food on the table.

"I can pack you some of it to go, Kijima-san. You too, Kuresaki-san," Kyoko volunteered.

"You're the best, Kyoko-chan!" Kijima exclaimed, while Kuresaki inclined his head. "Thank you, I'm quite grateful."

"Koga-san, you're welcome to get settled in," Kyoko told him. "I'll help you out after I've packed some food for these two."

"No problem," Koga was back to being fully cheerful. "Don't mind me."

Kyoko made two bento boxes that the other two accepted in surprise.

"A bento? You didn't have to go that far, Kyoko-chan," Kijima said, but she waved him off.

"It's okay. Besides, you guys are always helping me out and I'm very happy to do a little something in return."

They thanked her again and then they left, before it was just Koga and Kyoko left. She turned to him shyly.

"Do you need any help?"

He smiled slightly. "I'd like that. We could get to know each other too."

"What do you do, Koga-san?" she asked while they walked down to his car. "And you can take the parking spot next time. I don't have a car, so it's okay if you use it."

He looked surprised. "Uhhh...thanks. I'm an actor. I'm fairly well known," he added in amusement.

"Really?" she looked at him with wide eyes. "I have no idea, sorry. I never know these kinds of things."

"It's alright! I like that you don't know of me," he said in excitement. "It's kind of refreshing. What about you, Kyoko-chan? What do you do?"

She blushed in embarrassment. "I'm trying to break into showbiz. Kuresaki-san and Kijima-san have been nice enough to teach me about it and to help me see what I'm good at and what I could be interested in." And knowing he'd be her roommate and would probably come to know about it, she reluctantly added on. "My motives weren't really pure at first, though now I really am more focus on finding out what I want to do with my life." 'I hope,' she added in her mind. Several of her demons still screamed in hate about Sho.

"Not pure, huh?" he said in curiosity. "What do you mean by that?"

Kyoko cringed. "It wasn't too long ago that…a childhood friend lived here with me. Let's just say I overheard him talking about me to his manager and how he'd just been using me as a maid and all, and I ended up confronting him angrily and swearing revenge by getting into showbiz and becoming bigger than him –and then got kicked out of the studio, where Kijima-san ended up finding me."

Koga winced at her predicament. "That is…a really, really horrible thing. Any chance you'd tell me who this so-called childhood friend is? I promise I won't tell anyone."

"Fuwa Sho," she reluctantly said his name and several of her demons flared up, screaming hateful things about Sho and how much they hated him and they were going to defeat him soon.

She started muttering, not noticing the dark aura that started to surround her by then, though Koga stared at her in fascination and a tinge of fear.

"What is this darkness?" he muttered, leaning in and trying to peer closer, as if he could decipher it just by doing that.

"Eh?" Kyoko blinked and tilted her head, breaking out of her dark thoughts to look at Koga in question.

He chuckled and shook his head. "You're really interesting, Kyoko-chan! But Fuwa Sho, huh…" He looked thoughtful as they reached his car and he opened his trunk. He reached in and grabbed a box while Kyoko grabbed a bag. "I know him. He's overly arrogant and there's no depth to his songs," he said bluntly, smiling brightly at her. "At least that's what I think."

Kyoko sweatdropped.

"Ah, that should be it," Koga looked into his trunk. "I didn't bring much with me. I'd probably buy a bed later on."

"Koga-san, do you mind me asking why you're moving in with me, instead of finding someplace you can have on your own?" Kyoko asked shyly.

He tugged a little at his scarf, wearing a slightly troubled look on his face. Kyoko realized she might've accidentally asked something troubling and was about to speak up, when he did so first.

"I lived with my family all this time," he said honestly, starting to walk back. "We're big on sticking together, with my brothers not moving out until they got married. But last year, I'd decided I was finally going to move out, find my own place to live. My mother, however, was then diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. I stayed to help out when I wasn't working, but it was hard between mine and my dad's schedules. Eventually, just recently we decided to hire a home nurse to take care of her and my dad told me to go on and look for someplace to live. I wasn't really looking, but Hidehito mentioned you to me and told me you needed a roommate, and I decided maybe I should just move finally."

Kyoko felt bad for asking and she told him so. He smiled slightly at her and shook his head.

"I don't mind and it's not like you knew," he said. "Besides, it feels nice to be listened to and to let that all out to someone. So thank you."

They shared peaceful looks with each other, and Kyoko felt happy and grateful to have found another friend in her life.

Kyoko had gone on to look at her resumé and see what changes Kuresaki had made to it, gawking slightly at how much more comprehensive and eloquent it had become since she and Kijima had first created it. It made her sound much more capable and really spruced her up. When she looked at his notes, it showed what he changed and had added on, and then the last pages showed what he wanted her to work on. Most of it was the section on her skills, which he kept emphasizing that she should keep thinking carefully on all that she was capable of and not dismiss anything.

"How's the resumé coming along?" Koga asked her, finishing up fixing his room. She was in there with Kijima's laptop because he'd asked for her opinion on where he should be putting stuff.

She scratched her head. "Alright, I guess? He told me to work on expanding on my skills section, but I don't know. I've never really thought about it."

"Can you sing?" Koga asked her.

She scrunched up her nose. "I can't carry a tune. Sho said so, even though he used to make me help him write his songs and sing with him."

"Mmhm," he gave her a side-glance. He flipped on his already set up music system, though on low as courtesy to the neighbors since he didn't know if the walls were soundproof. "Lyric-writing," he said. "That's one skill. And start to sing this."

"I don't know anything about writing lyrics though," she frowned. "And I just said I can't carry a tune!"

"One, you wrote for Fuwa and I'm guessing he used some of those songs as demos to get into his agency, therefore they were at least good enough. And Fuwa was the one who told you couldn't sing and you believed him, so I think at this point his opinion is invalid. Sing this song."

She glanced at him exasperatedly, but began to sing along to the English song that Koga had started playing. She stopped after a while, feeling embarrassed though.

"Told you his opinion was invalid," Koga laughed. "That was pretty nice! I don't think he knows what he's saying, or he just didn't want to complement you."

That made her pretty happy and she wondered if she really had any talent in music after all. She wasn't sure, but maybe she wouldn't be as afraid to sing aloud to music anymore, especially if she wanted to while she cooked or cleaned or something.

"Maybe I should look up some jobs now," she thought about it. "Kuresaki-san told me about some sites that were for show business, and where I can look through and see if something's posted."

"Good idea," Koga said. "Look around the theaters too, when you have time. They should have some jobs, though probably more background stuff."

Kyoko found the first site and scrolled through it, finding nothing that could work for her since she didn't have the experience or training for it. But on the second site, she thought she might have found something that she could do and seemed to pay quite a bit, at least more than her usual and current jobs.

There was an AM job cooking and cleaning up at the Uesugi Stage Combat School.

Started 3/25/17 – Completed 3/29/17

A/n: Ah, so it looks to be like the initial stuff is mostly over, and we can slowly start to get into the meatier part of the story. Also, I have about up to chapter 20 planned for this story, so I can stay mostly regular on this fic. I hope everyone liked this chapter! Please remember to leave a review! I get more motivated when I read them!

Quick Points:

1. Pandora Box: My rare pair forum that has challenges. Please subscribe!

2. The Regions Legends: If you're a pokémon can, this is my collab account and the link is on my profile. I'd really appreciate it if you check it out since it hasn't garnered too much attention.

3. (Pretty Please?) Request: So I'd gotten back into this fandom because one day I felt like rewatching the anime and seeing certain arcs again, and then I thought about the manga and went to its wikia and ran across the wiki profiles of Kuresaki and Koga, which interested me enough to go and read the newest arc of Skip Beat! (and henceforth skipped all the chapters since I last read the manga), and then end up rewatching the anime for real and then read the manga from where I left off on the anime. I loved the new arc so much I really got back into Skip Beat!, but I was disappointed to come back and find practically no variation of stories with Kyoko other than pairing her with Ren! It's frustrating and part of the reason why I lacked any interest in this fandom before, so I would like to request a story, even if it's a one-shot, pairing her with either Kuresaki, Koga, Director Shingai, Yashiro, Matsushima (the Head of LME's acting department), Nakazawa (the Head of LME's singing department), Kuu, or even anyone not mentioned that is practically NEVER paired with Kyoko. In fact, I'll call this the Rare Kyoko Love Fest Challenge!

Please answer this challenge and do your best to write it!

Anon Reviews:

1. Lolo: Thanks for enjoying the chapter! I'm hoping to try to steadily get out longer chapters, but these lengths are pretty easier for me to more or less quickly write up and then update, so I guess it'll depend?

2. Julez: Awww, thanks! I'm glad you're really digging the story, especially the pairings/friendships. I adore Kijima, so I like to have him around to help out Kyoko, but he is an oddball minor character, so it's good to know that how he interacts and how everything portrayed with him and with him and Kyoko goes well.