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Note: I do not own Skip Beat! or Ninja Warrior/Sasuke.
"Please welcome to Stage Two, Fuwa Sho!" The crowd screamed again for the top singer. Kyoko rolled her eyes at the noise and Ren placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. In her annoyance at the singer and his fan, Kyoko did not notice the tall actor drawing her near or the fact that she unconsciously leaned back against his warmth. Ren sighed in contentment as Kyoko pressed into him. He thanked the heavens for the time that they had spent as the Heel siblings and the fact that she had grown comfortable with him physically. Sho looked down at the pair and darkened when he saw the intimate position that his childhood friend stood in with his biggest rival. He still felt that she was his and he stiffened up at the sight. He was so angry that he missed the buzzers that signaled his run and only snapped back to his task then the gate clanged open and the crowd started yelling for him to go.
"It seems something has distracted Fuwa-san from his task. Will this cost him the Second Stage?" The announcer called. Fuwa cursed the pair and threw his rage into the course and crashed violently through the Slider Drop. He landed heavily on the bobbing pads and grasped onto the bar of the Double Salmon Ladder. It took Sho no time to use his anger to slam his way up the first half of Salmon Ladder. He turned around and pushed himself up the second half.
"It looks like Fuwa-san has recovered and is moving at an incredible pace!" The announcer cheered along with the excitable audience. Sho ignored them and gripped onto the first plank of the Unstable Bridge. He bounced along its length quickly and rocked back and forth so he could make the jump between the two boards. Surprisingly, the mad musician managed to make the transfer smoothly and worked his way to the far side without losing it. His temper was still hot as he let his emotions drive him on to the Balance Tank. His eyes glanced over to the two actors still standing together and a new burst of anger pushed him onto the cylinder. He took three fast steps before his unstable mind caused him to slip and the log shot out from under him, his bottom hit and he bounced as the he fell backwards. The bounce caused the log to roll farther back and he cracked his head on the log as it was forced up the ramp. He finally came to rest below the surface of the dark water. Sho let out a scream of frustration that went unheard by the audience separated by the cold liquid. When he surfaced he pulled himself to the edge of the pool where Mimori was waiting for him with a towel. He grabbed it way from her and wiped the water out of his face. The lady conduction the interviews approached him with the microphone.
"Can you tell us about your run?" The girl stuck her microphone out to the singer. He froze on the edge of admitting that he was unbalanced due to the sight of his property being touched by another, but realized that would not be good for his image. He quickly reconstructed his thoughts and claimed that he was moving too fast and lost his balance. The woman nodded and thanked him for his time before he turned way to get dried off. He wanted to go and rip Kyoko away from Ren, but under the gaze of watchful cameras was not a good place to start a fight with the tall actor. Sho stormed off as he imagined some of the things that he would like to do to the tall actor if he ever got him alone in a dark alleyway. Ren smiled at the back of the livid singer as he left. He could feel Kyoko shake her head at the singer from where she was pressed into him. During the short run, Ren had managed to slip his hand from the top of woman's shoulder and across the front for her shoulders to hold her closer in the cool air. His pules raced at her closeness but he held her as gently as his beating heart would allow. Any tighter and he was sure that she would notice his invasion of her personal space and pull away from him, but he was not ready to release her just yet. Ren had already prepared to use the cool air as his excuse for being close to her if anyone asked, but no one paid much attention to them as the next challenger danced excitably up the steps. Well almost no one, Yashiro was giddy and Lory was screaming his joy, but his calls were lost in the crowd's cheers for the next ninja.
"Next up is the man that gave us the top time in Stage One, Yashiro Yukihito! Can he be the first to finish Stage Two and win his place in Stage Three?" Yashiro pushed his giddiness away and tried to study as much of the first two events that he could see. He had trained hard, but he was not very confident that he could make it thought this part. He no longer had anger pushing him and his eyes kept glancing over to his charge wrapped around the oblivious girl. He almost giggled as he lost his concentration again, but was pulled back as the beeps sounded and he was omitted to the course. Yashiro immediately took up the bar of the Slider Drop and slid the length of the parallel poles to swing easily to the mat waiting to take him. He wrapped his hands around the bar of the Double Salmon Ladder and shifted his weight onto it.
"Can our Yashiro Yukihito make it to the top of the Double Salmon Ladder?" Yashiro heard Kyoko's and Ren's voice cheering him on and he swung and pushed the pole up the length of the first half of the hellish event. He switched over and jumped the bar across and reached the top of the second side fairly quickly. His hands were starting to ache him as he pushed on towards the Unstable Bridge. Yashiro made the transfer to the third obstacle and reached the end of the first plank quickly. He got the boards close together and jumped to the second, but his right hand hit before his left and the unstable wood pivoted up and slipped from his grasp. Yashiro flailed as he landed with a splash.
"The waters of Mt. Midoriyama have claimed another victim tonight! Are either of the two remaining challengers strong enough to make it through the Second Stage?" The announcer called to the audience. They cheered when Yashiro climbed to shore dripping wet. It was when Kyoko went to move away from the tall actor that she discovered their intimate position. She blushed furiously as he released her. It was all Ren could do to hide the disappointment and longing in his eyes as she turned and stared at him with surprise showing in her golden orbs. Ren shrugged nonchalantly as if what he had done was not a big deal. It was the same un-Japanese gesture that annoyed her when she first saw it as Bo. She turned from him to the manager answering the interviewer's questions. Ren followed her at a respectable distance with a sigh. Now that she had noticed him, it was unlikely that she would allow him into her personal space again so easily.
"I guess I was just not fast enough to catch the board with both hands." Yashiro explained how he fell. The woman thanked him and he went to retrieve his coat from where he had hung it preparing for his run. He had been so excited by the antics of this charge that he had almost worn it on to the course. It was the words of one of the course workers that reminded him to take off the article that saved his phone and appointment book nestled in the pocket. After a quick check to make sure everything was intact, Yashiro went back to his friends waiting for him. Kyoko congratulated him on the good try. Yashiro gave Ren a devious smile and the tall actor gave the older man a sheepish look, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar but was not ashamed of doing it. They went back to watch the second to last challenger to the course.
