Tsuruga Ren reclines comfortably on the left end of his couch with his back against the arm rest and his jean clad legs stretched across the length of the seat where his calves rest on the lap of his clueless kohai. He can't believe she accepted his excuse that he needed to stretch his legs out after swimming and that it wouldn't be right to put his feet on the coffee table. She had just shifted slightly towards him and let him swing his legs onto her lap. Her only comment had been that they were a little heavier than his head before diving back into her script. Absently, her free hand moves across his legs and draws circles with her fingernails on his jeans as she imagines the scene in the script that she holds in her other hand.

Ren hides his smile behind his own ignored script as he steals another glance at Kyoko's profile. Yashiro had once likened his lady love to a carnival attraction where you put the coin in and see what expression comes out. Ren can't help but agree as he watches the emotions play across her face. Kyoko tightens her grasp on his legs as her entire body becomes stiff. The actor lowers his script to his lap as tears slip silently down her cheeks.

He reaches out to comfort her but arrests his movement when she pulls her script against her chest and hugs it tightly.

"Something good?"

Startled by Ren's voice, Kyoko jumps slightly. She drops the script onto his legs and scrambles to catch it before it falls to the floor.

With her hand firmly on the script again, she nods before wiping her tear tracks away with the back of her hand.

"Yes and no," she cryptically replies.

"Care to elaborate?"

"My character didn't have a lot to do with the second episode of the drama. It focuses on the Namada brothers. The older brother, Ko, seems like a very laid back and flaky person. He jokes about everything. The younger brother, Ryuu, is so much more serious. He was an incredible baseball player destined for playing professionally. He already had scouts chasing him in junior high. His whole world is shattered though in an accident at age 15 and he find himself confined in a wheelchair and never expected to walk again. He meets my character by chance at a movie theater and they end up having a date at the end of the second episode."

"This is the script for the third episode. It splits the focus between Aya and Ryuu. Ryuu keeps trying to get Aya to spend more time with him but she is very resistive and hedges about why she can't but finally agrees to study at his house instead of going to the library. Aya gets to interact with Ko for the first time and during one of their exchanges, she suddenly sees her dead brother mirroring Ko's actions. According to the notes, I will act the scene with both Kijimi-san and Matsuo-san and I guess the director will be editing the two parts together somehow."

"The images of her dead brother are not the only upsetting part of the story. At the end of the episode, the three characters find out that Ryuu's accident was actually the same accident in which Aya's brother died. This just adds another burden for the young girl because now she has guilt about Ryuu's condition. Ryuu tries to convince her that she has no reason to feel bad because she didn't have anything to do with the accident. He wants her to keep seeing him as a person and not as the victim of her brother's accident."

"It's Ko's ending scene though that is the worst because it shows him worked into a frenzy of anger at Aya because she is part of the family that destroyed his brother's life. I can just image all the terrible things he is going to do to Aya to make her life even more miserable. It's sad but exciting at the same time. I feel so bad for Aya but it will be a challenge for me to be on the receiving end of the bullying for once. I hope I can do it well."

"I'm sure you will be fine," Ren encourages Kyoko. Noticing the time, he swings his legs off her lap and suggests that she might want to start getting ready. He mentions that she might want to shower before heading over for the shoot. Although resistive at first, Ren reminds her that she bathed here before and that if he didn't peek when he was delirious with an illness, why would he peek now when he has control of his facilities.

Grabbing her bag, Kyoko storms off to the bathroom as she envisions herself once again the victim of Tsuruga-san's bullying. As the shower starts, Ren shivers as he imagines Kyoko, naked in his shower. He regretfully realizes that he does not have as much control over his facilities as he joked because his jeans are suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Disgusted with himself, he flees to the kitchen where the sounds of him putting away the dried lunch dishes can cover the soft sounds of his running shower. He wonders briefly if Kyoko thought about him in the shower while she was making them their lunch. He kicks himself mentally. As far as he can tell, walking in on Cain's shower hadn't made her think of him that way so it's just a stupid fantasy on his part to think she would even consider imagining him showering. Still, he can't help indulging the thought anyway as he finishes the dishes.

Twenty minutes later, Kyoko emerges dressed in a new outfit and her hair dried and clipped back with two barrettes. Gone is the chlorine smell from the pool; it is replaced with the soft fragrance of cherry blossoms. She still wears no make-up though because she rightfully believes that the make-up artist will want a clean slate in preparation for the shoot.

Ren drops his thoroughly neglected script onto the coffee table and stands. While Kyoko was changing, he had swapped his worn jeans and t-shirt for dress pants and a dark dress shirt because it would never do for the Tsuruga Ren to appear in public in anything so casual.

He kindly takes Kyoko's over-sized bag as she bends to slip on her shoes.

"Who would have thought that putting on shoes could be so cute?" he thinks as he watches her latch the little buckle on her sandal. He rubs the back of his neck hoping to relieve his slowly building headache. Silently, he hopes that the photo-shoot is less dramatic than the rest of the day has been. Suddenly remembering why he wanted to go to the shoot in the first place, he doubts it will happen though.