Has it been like a month since the last upload? Possibly...I'm too tired to check. I did NOT under any circumstance mean to put this up so late but work has/is killing me. We've been having major problems and some how i got appointed as the pseudo IT person...which makes zero sense cuz me and technology aren't exactly the best of friends. Since the problems got fixed I finally got time today to actually sit down and write more than two sentences per day. Anyways blame me not, blame my work...or not...lol really though guys sorry.

Mistakes...are probably there but like before I'm too tired to double check.

Enjoy!


"What?" he asked, clearly not understanding why she was looking at him like that.

When she did not reply, Kuon stared at her waiting patiently.

With a shake of her head, she spoke "Care to tell me why your office is such a mess?"

Kuon shrugged "Well if we need to talk I thought it best to have a legit reason as to why you're in my office without an actual reason."

He did not outright say it, but he did not want her to get into any more trouble than she already had been. If she was found in his office one too many times then questions would arise, questions that would more than likely burden her even more so.

"So you created a mess just so you could talk to me?"

Kuon blinked in surprise, Kyoko it would seem jumped from point A to a point that even he was not willing to be aware of. He had wanted to talk to her but he never gave that feeling much thought, or at least he tried not to, but when she put it in that manner it made it all the more real.

"I wouldn't really put it that way" said Kuon folding his arms in defense, and hoping that she would not see how unsettling that sentence had been for him.

"Then why did you do it?"

"Oh, I had to look for some files and throw away some of the things, so I thought why not clean everything out?"

He waved his hands in the direction of the file bins on the floor and tried not to look into her sunny eyes.

"Oh," she nodded her head in understanding and Kuon put on a small smile, glad she did not see through his lie.

They stood in their regular awkwardness, not really knowing what to do with each other.

Kuon stared, though gazed would be a more appropriate term, at her as she looked about, trying not to pay particular attention to her moving eyes or her rather straight hair. Actually it might be better if I did not look at her at all, he thought as his eyes landed on her small waist, the same waist that had been agonizingly withering on his shoulder moments ago.

It had been dangerous picking her up like that to avoid Fuwa getting killed…perhaps he should have left her to do what she wanted.

Shaking his head at the traitorous thought, he was brought back to the feeling of holding on to the girl in front of him. Even now his fingers were ghosted with the feel of her body.

It did not occur to him at the time that taking such an action would be painful for him, and with her wiggling around it had been even more so. Yet he could not deny that there was a part of him that had smiled in glee when he had touched her, the same part that could not forget the shape of her body when he had picked her up to place on his bike.

He had touched women before, knew the feel of someone's skin on his own, but there was never a feeling of soul wrenching desire to imbed himself into her.

The past few days when he had not seen her would have made Lory laugh in triumph if he had seen the way Kuon had behaved, like a lone wolf passing the days, howling at the moon. Okay, so he did not really howl at the moon but the pathetic "I want to see her" face had his coworkers asking many a questions about his emotional state. Kijima even went so far as to ask Kuon if he was depressed because of a sad breakup.

Depressed! Ha! Over a girl? Well….it was not so much borderline depression as it was a dire need to interact with her.

It was official he thought, he was not only attracted to her he was having honest to god feelings for her. Feelings, like actually feelings, not the kind of feelings that made him crave frozen yogurt on rainy days. They were not even the kind of feelings that made him feel that a woman looked beautiful or that he wanted to get to know her. No these feelings went deeper, did he think she was attractive? Yes in her own way she was, and did he want to get to know her more? He did, but those things took background to the feeling of wanting to possess her.

Not in the physical sense but in the whole sappy I want your soul deal….okay so that sounded like a demon come to wreak havoc and sucks people's souls, but honestly he had no way to describe his emotional state. There were words out there but no words could ever come close to describing the feeling one feels in their soul concerning the object of their affections. It's simply not done, can one come close? Yes they can but emotions cannot completely be put into words.

He knew it was unreasonable, and he knew it did not make sense, but then again when did love ever make sense…or coming close to being in love.

Was he in love with her? No, far from it but he knew that his current feelings would lead him in that direction. It had been a while since he had fallen in love, she was not his first but a growing part of him wanted her to be his last.

He had only known her a few weeks and she had pretty much had him at day one. That is not to say that he fell in love with her at first sight but she had managed to hook him and slowly without even knowing it she was reeling him in day by day. It was not a Romeo and Juliet kind of love but the kind of love that forms like a small snow ball rolling down a hill, gaining momentum and mass with each roll.

"So what do you want me to do?" floated the voice into his rambling thoughts.

He shook himself out of his long epiphany like reflection.

"Let's start with organizing the files of people who have already graduated, if you don't mind."

"Okay," she said as she waited for him to lead her into the right direction.

Kuon looked at the boxes on the floor, and wondered...lost in his musing once again.

"Sensei?"

"Ah yes," he said coming back to earth again.

He walked over to a box that the previous counselor had packed and left for him to take care of. He never had a chance to look at that closed box and now seemed like a good time as any, especially since he needed the distraction.

Taking a pair of scissors from his desk he crouched down and ripped off the tape. He stiffened slightly when Kyoko came down to sit near him. Not sitting nearly as close as he thought she was sitting.

She is too close for comfort he thought, as his hands moved to open the flaps.

He concentrated on the box, peeking inside to see it filled with files and some binders.

Kuon reached in and pulled a stack of files.

Rifling through the names without much thought he opened one file up and looked at the latest date. Six years back.

"Here, we can start with these first, look at the latest entry and if it's more than five years old than put it in a separate pile," Kuon handed Kyoko the files, pointing to the dates and such as he reached for the box for more.

Kyoko took them without comment and they both made themselves comfortable on the floor, as they went through each file.

"Are you going to throw away the old ones?" she asked once they finished.

"No, I'm going to scan them and put them into the school system."

"Why not just do that to all the files? Make them electronic, instead of keeping hard copies."

"Because it's annoying to pull things up through the system and plus no one likes to have a person typing away on a laptop or computer while they are talking about personal matters."

"Oh"

Kuon read the information in the binder while Kyoko stared about.

"Sensei?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you mad at me?"

"Eh?"

He glanced up at her and abruptly looked back at the binder.

"What makes you think that?" he asked berating himself for looking away like a damn thief.

"Because you won't meet my eyes" she said softly.

Oh man he was losing it, completely losing it. Where was the balanced, calm, and collected Kuon?

Regaining some form of sense he replied slowly "I'm not mad Kyoko-san, I'm just distracted by something."

Mainly you.

"Oh"

"Yes, sorry I seem so out of it."

He looked up and gave her a smile. Banzai! Old Kuon was back…sort of.

"Is there….no never mind" she said shaking her head in the end.

"What?" he prodded, but she did not answer and just shook her head again.

He found her fingers playing with her skirt and he knew something was up. It appeared that her habit of playing with her skirt was reactionary, either out of nervousness or feeling uncomfortable.

Without a second thought he reached out and stopped the moving hands.

Time froze, and yet everything seemed to be in motion.

He froze.

She froze.

Her hands felt soft. Like how one would imagine clouds would feel if one could touch them.

Not knowing why he touched her so, Kuon just looked at his hands surrounding hers.

Abruptly his hands became empty and Kyoko stood.

Kuon looked up at her to see her rosy cheeks and her eyes darting here and there refusing to look at him now.

"Are you mad Kyoko-san?" he asked lightly with a hint of teasing, clearly border lining on flirtville. Bad Kuon.

She shook her head, "No, why do you ask?"

"Because you're not meeting my eyes."

Her eyes landed on him, and she quickly looked away again.

"I'm not mad"

"Then why won-"

"Sensei, didn't you tell me that you would help me get revenge?"

Though he did not show it, Kuon was glad that she changed the subject. The time was not right to sit here analyzing why his body was moving on its own and why his emotions were overruling his brain. Just because he liked her did not mean he should act out of character. Nor was it the right time to be teasing like that.

"That I did," said Kuon, regaining some sense of seriousness, as he stood too, brushing off nonexistent dust off his pants.

"Soo where shall we start?" asked Kuon rubbing his hands together.

"Ways to kill Sho?" she replied innocently, fingers grazing his desk.

"Ha-ha-ha! That's taking it a bit far, why don't we slow down and move some steps back. Start at step one you know?"

"I guess we could do that" she said and Kuon could have sworn he heard disappointment in her voice.

They both sat down and started at each other for a few good minutes.

"Sooo?"

"Sooo?"

Kuon rolled his eyes "You do realize that you need to give me a bit more than 'sooo' for me work here right?"

"But you already know too much!" she exclaimed.

"Not enough to lay out a decent plan."

Kyoko sighed and Kuon knew that she did not want to dig herself deeper into this than she already was. Emotionally deeper that is, he knew that she liked to keep her problems to herself because of her upbringing.

"What do you want to know?" she asked in a near death voice.

Kuon tried to keep the grin off his face "You know if you feel that adamant about telling me things then we can forgo this whole revenge thing."

"NO!"

Kuon raised an eyebrow up at her, and watched as she slowly sat back down again.

"No" she said much more meekly "I'll tell you what you need to know."

Kuon nodded. He knew the gist of the situation, but he still felt like he was missing something, and there was also the fact that he needed to clarify some things.

"So the biggest reason of course is your motive, if you have too small of a motive then chance are that you won't be able to pull this off."

"It's big"

"How big?" he prodded.

"Big enough"

"Kyoko-san"

She sighed again "I….we…I don't…"

"You love him" Kuon pointed out bluntly.

He knew from her face that he hurt her, but certain things needed to be done in order to reach a goal. His priority as counselor had not changed; he wanted to heal her emotional scars whether she wanted him to or not. Romeo Kuon could wait with all his 'save the girl of his dreams of whatever'. A job was a job.

To some it might appear that he was forcing his right as a counselor on her but he had her best interest at hand. She was the type of person who could glow like a firefly on a breezy summer night if she overcame her emotional scars. He knew she had a lot of them too, much more than half the students in the school. And she needed someone to prod, poke, and push until something gave.

"I loved him" she muttered putting emphasis on loved.

"Really?"

"Yes"

"Love does not disappear overnight Kyoko-san."

"Well then you'll be glad to know that it wasn't overnight" she stated stubbornly.

"Of course"

"You don't believe me," she accused.

"Nope, not one bit"

She crossed her arms childishly "Well that's not my problem now is it?"

Kuon didn't answer.

He shrugged "Then I guess we can sit here and gaze wonderfully upon each other."

"Hmph!"

Kuon put his chin in his palm and the staring continued. It was strange that they stared more than they spoke to each other, or at least that's the way Kuon saw it.

"Ok! Fine maybe, just MAYBE there is a stupid part of me that still loves him for whatever moronic reason, but that doesn't really mean anything! Because it's not important at all," she said giving in after a few moments.

"Alright, we'll go with that for now"

Kyoko opened her mouth to argue but Kuon held his hand up to stop her as he continued "Like you said, it's not all that important right now, so please continue on with the story."

"I was a delusional idiot who fell for a stupid emotion, along with an equally stupid guy and thanks to that my eyes have opened up."

"Uh-huh"

"Yeah"

"And that's all there is to this?"

"Pretty much"

"Then we're back at square one aren't we?"

"Uggh! You know your being really annoying right now! And stop smirking!"

"Kyoko-san, when did you see Shotaro kiss Aki?"

All anger was drained from her eyes as she shrugged "Does it matter?"

"It does" he replied firmly.

"A few weeks before I came to your office for the first time"

"And that was the reason you did all those things to him?"

No answer was forthcoming but Kuon knew he was getting closer.

"Kyoko-san don't you think it's a bit unfair that you would let your jealousy harm those around you? On a work ethics level it was wrong of Aki and Shotaro to be kissing, but let's put that aside for now and focus on what you did. Don't you think it's wrong that you used your jealousy to justify your actions to yourself?"

Kuon he was pushing her, he could see it from the way her head was lowered and her hands were gripping her skirt. He knew that it was not jealousy that made her act the way she did and that revenge was not on her mind because of such a small thing. It was not in her character to let her jealousy control her actions, if anything thing he would bet that she was the kind of person who would bury that jealousy deep within the depths of her soul and never let a anyone take so much as a peek.

"You liked him, yes" continued Kuon, waiting for the volcano that was sure to erupt after what he was saying "but that doesn't mean that he's has any sort of obligation to like you back or to stay true to you Kyoko-san. As far as a romantic relationship goes, he had no ties to you; he was and is free to do whatever he wanted."

Her head shook as Kuon paused.

"You know I'm right"

Her shook stronger and she stood, blurting out defensively "That's not it at all! I've seen him with other people but this time it was different! We were going out!"

"Or at least I thought so…."she said dejectedly unfurling her anger as her shoulders slumped.

"That wasn't so hard to get off was it?" smiled Kuon when things settled.

He had heard the rumors around the school and none of them ever spoke of a mutual romantic relationship between Kyoko and Shotaro. Still he knew something was missing, and now he knew what that something was.

"I'm leaving"

"Eh? What! Hey wait Kyoko-san!"

Kuon scrambled out of his seat to chase down the girl who just left his office.

Stubbing his foot on the boxes on the floor, he almost tripped but managed to make to the door in one piece. Damn!


Ok this is going to be a long one so bear with me plz. First of and foremost thanks to all of you who replied to my fake chapter! I'll reply to those "reviews" soon.

Next thing, ok so i don't how or where some of you got the idea or thought that I'm not finishing this story, and i know my track record is not the best but hopefully this will one day be complete. So yeah i have no plans of stopping this any time too soon.

And i honest to go don't know where some of you got the idea that Kyoko will end up with Sho...because I don't think I ever even so much as HINTED that Kyoko will/might/possibly/perhaps end with Sho...cuz I dunno about other authors/stories, but lets just clarify NO WAY IN HELL WILL THE KYOKO OF THIS STORY END UP WITH SHO! Hahaha not to say I hate Sho but the punk does NOT deserve her! ever. So we clear right? cool? Cools.

Last point...I think...I did read each and every review/PM carefully and thought about what you guys said for like days literally and it kinda just enforced what I wanted to do with this story...drum roll please...Kuon will not sadly end up with Kyoko, you have been warned. Will there be an epilogue with an happier ending? Perhaps, chances are big but I shan't promise in case I can't do one.

Ah the major point i did forget! To all you who were worried about my statement "sprinkles of romance" well I hope this chapter proves some parts of what you thought wrong. Seriously Kuon was too cheesy in here with his inner thoughts...made me almost shiver in the cheesyiness of it all...and my sprinkles of romance will be as generous as i can make them, none of that powered sugar stuff...though powered sugar tastes good...oh man now i want some cake...but if you guys still have a problem with the romance...then we'll work something out, but not if you want them to like get hitched in the next couple of chapters and have a couple of kids and live happily ever after...life doesn't work like that...and plus then the characters would totally be flat which i hare.

So yeah i think thats pretty much it. Oh yes! hehe sorry guys, but someone asked me through a review if they can adopt this story...and I'll be truthfully mean and say I'm sorry but one may not adopt this story...yet...maybe in the far off future...like twenty years from now...though I felt kinda honored that you would ask...

Maraming salamat for Reviewing/Favoriting/Following/and Reading! (Found this on the internet again, so if it's wrong then hit me up. Indonesian)