Try Me

A/N: A bit more citrus here. If you calculate all the weeks, the date in this chapter is probably very wrong but just go with it.

Disclaimer: I don't own Skip Beat

The Scene

Kyoko was sitting in the Love Me locker room with Kanae and Chiori cleaning out out files for the music department of LME. While they worked, they had a radio playing in the background. They weren't listening until Kyoko heard Director Ueda's voice on the radio. She turned towards it in horror. Her fellow Love Me members stopped what they were doing to listen.

"So your new movie is starring Tsuruga Ren-san, correct?"

"That's correct," Director Ueda replied to the host.

"I've heard there's risqué scenes in the movie. Whoever his costar is must be pretty lucky, right?" The host of the radio show asked. "I'm sure there were actresses begging for the role once they heard he was cast."

"Actually there wasn't. We were going to cast someone else for both lead roles."

"Really?"

"I didn't like the casting, but I thought it was as close as we'd get. I was getting close to desperate, so I asked a friend who specifically recommended the now-leads of the film to me. I was skeptical about them, but both agreed," Director Ueda explained.

"If you were skeptical, why'd you have them sign on?"

"Well, for Ren-kun, I thought he'd say no. He likes to try new things, but his agency likes to protect his image," Director Ueda said. "As for the actress, she's a relative newcomer. Generally I don't like to work with fresher faces because I don't know what kind of performance they'll give."

"A newcomer? She must have been really excited about this part then, acting across from Tsuruga Ren in such an intimate role," the host reiterated.

"We're very lucky to have her because she isn't excited at all. Most actresses would mess it up by being too enthusiastic," Director Ueda said. "She's obviously inexperienced in every way that would matter for this role, but she is able to play the role far better than anyone else I had in mind."

"I'm surprised we haven't heard her name, then. The rest of the cast has been announced," the host said.

"You'll hear it after the movie, for sure. She's like a mini-Tsuruga: talented, professional, and smart," Director Ueda praised Kyoko. Kyoko was shocked to hear it considering how strict he was with her on set.

"But why not now?"

"It's a marketing decision. The other actors and actresses in the movie are all much more well-known, so mentioning them will bring in larger audiences. I'm not sure why they're withholding her name entirely. I think her agency is waiting until she's a bit older." Kyoko hadn't realized that her name wasn't tied to the project."

"Older?" The host was obviously curious about this slip.

"She's very young for a risqué role, so I believe her agency doesn't want it to hurt her career. When the movie comes out and people see her as a serious actress it will be okay, but right now she's primarily competing for roles on teen dramas with innocent, cute idols," Director Ueda tried to rationalize. "So if she wants to keep working in the time before the movie's released, her name can't be tied to it."

"And she's okay with doing intimate scenes?" The host asked, surprised at the Director's words.

"No, she isn't, but she's a professional. Ren-kun is worse. He performs them well because of their chemistry on screen, but beforehand he's a wreck – he thinks too much about the possibility of accidentally offending his costar," Director Ueda told her. "He's too much of a gentleman to just do the damn scenes like any other."

The host laughed.

"What the hell, Kyoko?" Kanae asked. She slammed her hand on the radio to turn it off. "You're not only doing those sorts of scenes, but you're also good at them?"

Kyoko blushed. "I think I'm bad at them. I have no idea what to do!"

"Isn't your character the same, though?" Kanae asked her.

"Well, she's not an expert, but she at least knows more than I do." Kyoko said.

"Then how do you act it?" Chiori asked.

"I don't know," Kyoko said. "Julie-san recommended that I watch similar scenes from other movies, so I did that, and it helped a bit. They don't actually show much."

"But they show enough! Mo- aren't you nervous about being naked on set?" Kanae questioned her friend.

"W- well, I just- I don't know," Kyoko replied.

"You have to know! Didn't Hizuri-san give you advice?" Chiori's eyes popped wide open at Kanae's question – she hadn't realized that Kyoko knew the Hizuris, let alone know them well enough to ask for advice.

"She did," Kyoko said, mulling over whether she should tell her friend or not. She determined that that would be a huge mistake. "But on set, I just try to stay covered up as long as possible. They also usually try to keep it tasteful because Director Ueda doesn't like these sorts of scenes."

"Really? Who'd've thought," Chiori replied. "A lot of his movies have risqué scenes. Maybe he's being careful because of your age?"

"Tsuruga-san told me that having those sorts of scenes makes the film more likely to win international awards," Kyoko tried to explain. "So Director Ueda feels he has to put them in if he wants his work to be noticed internationally."

"That's such bullshit," Kanae said.

"But at least you get to look at Tsuruga-san naked, right?" Chiori joked. "He's easy on the eyes."

Kyoko looked horrified, as did Kanae. Kanae wondered if Chiori knew how Kyoko felt about Ren. Soon, though, Kyoko's look turned into a blush.

"He only really ever gets shirtless," Kyoko said.

"Even more bullshit, making you get naked and not him?" Kanae huffed.

"It makes sense with his character," Kyoko attempted to justify. "Director Ueda doesn't like to show the actual act on screen, so everything is before or after. Tsuruga-san's character is the type who likes to leave as soon as things are over, so he gets dressed quickly."

"It still sucks," Kanae replied.

"Yeah," Kyoko sighed. "It does."

It was the morning of the scene that would suck the most. Kyoko had walked on set early for hair and make-up and was greeted by a larger team than she was used to. In the main part of the studio a plush hotel room and the outside hallway had been built overnight.

This scene would take place after a dinner date one that had been filmed as one of the first scenes, even though it was one of the last to be filmed. Kyoko remembered the costume: a sexy red dress with a stylish short black trench coat. Both items were hanging in her dressing room.

The head make-up artist approached her after closing the door. "Mogami-san, if you wouldn't mind, would you take off your clothes?"

Kyoko's eyes widened and she couldn't hide the shocked look on her face.

"We don't know when the director is going to cut the scene, so we need to do extensive make-up," she explained. "You can put a robe on for now, if that would help."

Kyoko nodded. "Could I have the robe please?"

They began with the normal make-up on her face and styling her hair. As the main make-up artist and hair stylists worked their magic, the assistants got to work on her body. One shaved her legs, ensuring no hair would be visible while the other groomed her nails to look as they had for the date scene. Kyoko almost fell asleep waiting for them to finish.

"Can you remove the robe now, Mogami-san? We at least need access to your chest," the make-up artist said. Shyly, Kyoko complied. She'd bathed with other women before in traditional Japanese baths, but they'd never touched her unless they knew her well enough to help wash her back.

Kyoko watched as one of the assistants got a pot of wax ready. The other assistant began to check for underarm hair before applying the wax. Kyoko tried to hold in a yelp of pain as the hair was ripped out. Thankfully, once they were done they left the room. On her chest and back, the make-up artist checked for any skin blemishes and covered them up as necessary.

"Will the make-up stay on?" Kyoko asked. She didn't want this done again.

"We'll put a spray on when we're done. It will make the make-up stay on at least until your next bath, although sometimes even that won't get it off," the make-up artist assured her. "This will feel a bit funny."

Kyoko looked down in utter confusion as the make-up artist began to apply make-up to her nipples.

"I suppose you've never had this done before, have you?"

Kyoko nodded.

"It's to make your nipples look perfect for the camera. All women have something asymmetrical about them, but beauty standards want symmetry, hence this. It shouldn't take too long for you, since you have very little asymmetry."

Kyoko blushed at hearing the make-up artist's frankness.

"We'll also need to do some cleaning up down below, in case the director wants to show you in your panties," she added. Kyoko gulped. "It's okay. I know this is all new to you."

By the time Kyoko was allowed out of her dressing room in costume, she wished it was still new to her. Luckily, she found Ren sitting at a table in the studio eating his catered breakfast. He seemed perfectly awake and comfortable, unlike she did. She hated that hair and make-up always took a shorter time for men.

"Good morning, Mogami-san," he said. "How was your morning?"

"Good," she lied.

"I can tell," he replied, dripping with sarcasm. "I heard hair and make-up put you through the ringer this morning."

"Didn't you get anything uncomfortable done?" Kyoko grumbled.

"No. I usually keep my body hair in control by myself to avoid any unwanted questions," he explained. That reminded Kyoko that any body hair he had would grow blonde, making it important for him to minimize its growth. "I also have a stipulation in my contract saying that I won't do any nudity below the waist."

"Is that why your character always wears pants?" Kyoko asked, recalling her conversation with Kanae.

"No, that was an acting choice. Today I'm sure I'll be without pants at some point," he assured her. "Though it'll be covered by a sheet, so I'll be fine. I can still wear underwear if I want."

"I'm glad I haven't seen Yashiro here," Kyoko sighed. "He would be so excited for this scene."

"Which is why I made sure to give him meeting after meeting about potential projects for me," Ren smiled deviously. Kyoko rarely saw him smile like that in public.

"Kyoko-chan, Ren-kun, we're ready," the Director called. "Get into position for the shot of your characters entering the hotel room."

Kyoko and Ren took off the coats they had worn for warmth and moved behind the fake elevator doors.

"And… Action!"

As soon as the elevator doors opened, Kyoko guided Ren through the hall towards the camera and the door to their "room." She fumbled through her "purse" to find the room key. Before she could insert it into the door, Ren grabbed her butt, causing her to jump nervously.

The hotel room's door opened and Ren pushed Kyoko through the door, crushing his lips to her own and forcing her coat off her shoulders and onto the floor. She, much more shyly, reached up to force his coat off and work on the buttons of his shirt. In the meantime, Ren made quick work of her dress and let it drop to the floor. Now, as he kissed her neck, Ren forced Kyoko towards the bed. His shirt had fallen into the growing trail on the floor.

On the bed, he continued to kiss up and down Kyoko's torso as she desperately reached for his belt. She knew that her character, although nervous, would be sexually assertive because she thought sleeping with him would be good for her career.

This time, Ren let her take the belt off and unzip his pants, though after she did it he repositioned her so he could easily take off her bra. His character liked control: he'd take the rest off on his own time, but now he wanted Kyoko naked. Ren tried not to flinch as he kissed down her neck and chest to focus his attention on her breasts. This was farther than he'd ever gotten with her, so he had to be careful. That wasn't to mention the bad taste in his mouth from the make-up they'd placed on her. He moved his mouth back up to hers so he could avoid that taste. At least the literal bad taste in his mouth from the scene was a total boner-killer, because he knew he was getting one.

"And, CUT," Director Ueda called out.

Kyoko scrambled to get under the bed sheets and cover up while he checked the footage. Ren sat at the edge of the bed and stared at the wall, trying to think unsexy thoughts.

"It looks like all the stuff before you got onto the bed is exactly what I wanted for the film. The stuff in bed I would film again if I wanted to include it, but I hate putting anything that risqué in my films, so I intend to cut it anyways," Director Ueda told the crew along with Ren and Kyoko. "We're just going to film the aftermath. Would you two mind throwing the rest of your clothes on the floor and messing up the bed a bit? Everyone else, have a five-minute coffee break while they do that to give them some privacy."

The set cleared out of the skeleton crew running it that day. Kyoko turned her back to Ren so she could take off her panties and drop them near her bra. He took off his pants and boxers and dropped them to the floor as well. They hopped under the covers of the bed for privacy before the crew came back.

"I forgot!" Kyoko said, surprising Ren. He rolled over to look at her. She was sheepishly cuddled under the blankets, with the sheet pulled all the way up to her chin. "Happy Birthday, Ren!"

"Thank you," he smiled. He would've reached out to hug her if not for the position they were in. "Don't worry about it, though. I entirely forgot as well."

"I'm sorry I can't do anything tonight to celebrate."

"It's okay. I thought I'd call my parents when I got home," Ren said.

"Really? I thought you wanted to wait a little longer before you reconnected with them."

"Over Christmas I realized a call every once in a while wouldn't hurt. It was nice to see them."

"That's great," Kyoko told him, an enthusiastic smile on her face.

"What are you doing tonight?" Ren was hoping she would make dinner for him on his birthday or provide moral support for his call home, but if she was busy, she couldn't help it.

"My mother invited me to the symphony. I guess her law firm gave her tickets and she didn't want to take a date, so she invited me," Kyoko blushed. Her mother's invitation was entirely unexpected, but she felt obliged to accept. Because her mother was finally trying hard to be a good mother, Kyoko wanted to show that she was thankful.

"That should be nice. I've never been to the symphony here, so you'll have to tell me how it is, or better yet-" He had meant to ask her on a date, but of course the doors to the studio opened to let the crew back on right at that minute. Kyoko was so surprised she jumped up, causing the sheets to fall to her waist. She scrambled to pull them back up.

"Mogami-san, Tsuruga-san, we need to fix your make-up," Kyoko's make-up artist said.

Kyoko remained seated and waited for them to finish blotting her lipstick out. They added some extra color to her cheeks and did the same for Ren. After they were done the director came over to inspect the set and his actors. He finally determined it was time to start.

The crew adjusted the lighting so that it appeared the lights in the hotel room had been turned off. Kyoko lay back down and rolled over onto her side facing the edge of the bed. Ren rolled to the far side of the bed facing away from Kyoko. Crew members adjusted the sheets to cover just enough of Ren and Kyoko for modesty, but reveal enough for the implication of the shot could be clear.

Kyoko and Ren waited while the director took what seemed to be an excessive number of angles of them lying far apart in the bed.

"Okay! Now we can start the scene," Director Ueda called out. That meant Kyoko would have to do literally nothing but pretend she was asleep. She wasn't entirely sure how well she could fake that considering what was coming. At least the angle of the shot Director Ueda had planned wouldn't show much of anything.

Ren gruffly got out of bed, wrapping a sheet around his hips for modesty. Ren knew his character wouldn't actually do that, but his own false modesty (and contract) dictated that he should do so. He grabbed the prop phone off the nightstand and moved to the side of the bed where Kyoko was "sleeping." He used the phone to take pictures of the sleeping Kyoko and adjusted the sheets to reveal more for the photos. When he was done, he grabbed his clothes off of the floor and moved to the fake hotel bathroom to get dressed. The door closed behind him and the scene was finished.

Inside the fake bathroom, he bothered to put on as many clothes as he could before he left. He didn't want to be too naked and offend anyone. Outside of the bathroom, he saw Kyoko once again tucked under the comforter. An assistant waited at the edge of the set with a robe for Kyoko, so Ren went to grab it for her.

"Thank you, Tsuruga-san," She said. He laughed as she tried to put it on under the sheets.

"Do you need any help there?"

"No!" Kyoko's muffled voice came from under the seats. Ren chuckled. After a minute, Kyoko's head popped up from under the sheets and he could see her hands tying the belt.

She slipped out of the bed and stood up. She grabbed her discarded costume to bring back to her dressing room. Ren tried to follow her to the dressing rooms, but was stopped by Director Ueda.

"I hope those weren't actual pictures of Kyoko-chan," he warned Ren.

"Never," Ren assured him.

"Good. I have a daughter Kyoko's age, so I feel more dirty than usual filming these scenes," the director admitted. "If she wasn't so good I would've picked someone older."

"Understood," Ren replied, eager to get off set.

"So there better be no pictures. I know it's not connected to a network, but that isn't stopping some pervert in the prop department from stealing it and uploading the pictures to his pictures," Director Ueda said sternly. "And even though I don't want to, I'm checking the phone to make sure."

Ren watched with amusement as the director grabbed the phone sitting on the table and brought it over. As Ren supervised, he went through each and every picture on the phone. There were only a few from the set – it was the old phone of one of the prop guys – so most were his old pictures. All of the pictures on set were of the cast and crew as far as Ren knew. Still, Director Ueda made him wait as he examined the photos.

"Good. Now go home," Director Ueda told him. Ren was only too happy to take him up on that. He wanted to catch Kyoko before she left.

Ren knocked on the door of Kyoko's dressing room. The make-up artist opened the door and poked her head out. "Oh, it's you." Her head popped back into the room. "Mogami-san, it's Tsuruga-san."

Kyoko said something, but Ren couldn't make it out.

The make-up artist's head popped back out of the door. "She says to come back when you're dressed."

"Thank you," he replied before running to his dressing room and hastily putting on his street clothes. When he returned, the make-up artist let him in. Kyoko sat in the make-up chair dressed in whatever she was wearing to the symphony. He could see a bit of green dress poking out. Her hair was pulled out of her face so that the make-up artist could re-do her make-up for the evening.

"Are you heading home?" Kyoko asked from the chair.

"Yeah," Ren replied. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Okay?" The make-up artist took this opportunity to leave the room so they could talk in private.

"About the scene today," he said.

"I'm fine," Kyoko replied. "Because of Julie's advice, I was a lot less nervous than I thought I would be."

"So I didn't do anything wrong?"

Kyoko shook her head. "You being there made me less nervous."

"To be honest, it was the same for me," Ren admitted. "It was easier to do something like that with someone I trust." There were some actresses he was sure would molest him if given the chance in that sort of scene.

"Oh! Did Yashiro-san ask you about Valentine's Day?"

"Valentine's Day?" Ren asked her. He hadn't remembered Yashiro telling him anything.

"You're filming a live variety special in the evening, so we can't do dinner. Instead, I thought we'd do brunch instead? I already asked Yashiro about your schedule for that day," Kyoko told him.

"So what excuse did you give him for finding that out?"

"I told him that I try to give my friends their chocolate on Valentine's Day. I wanted to know if there would be a time our schedules would match up to give you yours. He eagerly told me that you had a free morning," Kyoko explained.

"What time?"

"The restaurant with American brunch has the menu start at 10am."

"I'll pick you up at 9 then," Ren told her. "You still have the disguise I got you for Disneyland?"

"It's at your apartment," Kyoko reminded him.

"I'll bring it to set day after tomorrow then," Ren assured her. He leaned down so Kyoko could give him a kiss, but he didn't get one.

"I have lipstick on," Kyoko whispered. "I wouldn't want you to leave with lipstick on your face."

"Smart as always," Ren laughed. He hugged her from behind instead. "I'll see you soon."

"Good night," Kyoko smiled. "Happy Birthday!"

Ren left and let the make-up artist back in, a brilliant smile on his face. He didn't care that Kyoko forgot to get him a present – getting close to her was all he needed. Now he would just have to figure out how to make it through that Valentine's Day special.

A/N: Next time, Valentine's Day!