Hello loyal readers!
Sorry that it's been like a month and a half, but I cannot tell you how many times I have re-written this chapter! I was trying to post it last weekend, and at some point I just stopped trying because I realized I was writing for a deadline, not because I actually thought the content was any good.
Hopefully after the umpteenth iteration, it's actually good! Haha Extra long chapter today as a reward for waiting patiently! :3
Today we have Saena and Delta, Kyoko and Kimiko, and a little bit of Ren as all of the chess pieces align for our final showdown! If you're confused about Saena's names used in this first part, I'd recommend going back to read the last bit of Chapter 34. (I know it's been a long time since I posted that one… SORRY! TT_TT)
Hope you enjoy! As always, don't forget to leave a fave, an alert, or a review! Your reviews in particular really make my day special and motivate me extra hard to write!
-x-
CH37
- 2 days before revote -
Saena walked briskly down the tiled corridor flanked by two guards. Not by her own choosing did the obviously hired-muscle escort her to the office she had been both dying and dreading to enter since this whole charade began.
To stave off the nerves, she started subtly straightening her appearance, ticking checkmarks off in her mind.
Bun smoothed. Jacket flattened. Suit skirt –
A hand gently caught her wrist. Toudou who had been walking beside her grasped her hand firmly in his warm one. She looked up at him sharply, sure that caught unawares, that damnable frown he loved to mock was affixed to her forehead.
He tried to smile as he gently let her wrist go, but the career lawyer's usually calm demeanor cracked as his smile became an unwitting grimace. Apparently the normally unflappable man was nervous as well. For the first time in a long time, Saena felt a stab of regret, dragging her colleague into a mess that was honestly only her own to clean up. Even though he'd insisted on accompanying her to this extent, she still felt the weight of responsibility for his life heavy on her shoulders.
Despite his anxiety, Toudou attempted his own strange brand of comfort. He chided her in a light murmur, "Mogami-san, in your neurosis, the skirt is always after the jacket, but you never seem to remember your blouse."
Not breaking her pace, Saena reached up and to her amazement, her blouse's collar was stuck at an awkward angle under the jacket. She fixed it swiftly, trying not to think how distracted she had to have been all day to have missed that. She muttered back to her friend, "You never told me before? How many newscasts have you seen me go on with my collar like that?"
Toudou uttered a wry bark of a laugh, "None. I would have told you."
Then there was no more time for talk, because they were there.
The guards slowed in front of a double set of imposing brushed metal doors. Almost eager to face the beast and have her fate decided, Saena squared her shoulders and took a step forward. One of the hired-gun's hands shot up, blocking her path. Startled, Saena almost staggered back, her nerves on edge.
Keeping his hand in the air, a silent yet intimidating barrier, the guard gruffly stated, "Delta requests that Councillor Toudou be returned to the car at this point."
Saena prayed that her face didn't seem as pale as it suddenly felt. Trying to keep herself from spluttering and seeming less authoritative, she attempted in a stoic tone, "That was not the deal. My terms for speaking with Delta were–"
"Mogami-san." Toudou touched her elbow lightly. Saena started, glancing up at him and then following his line of sight to the hand of the guard now resting in a not-so-subtle gesture on his sidearm. Toudou murmured low into her ear, "While I would love to accompany you into this final battle, I would also equally love to avoid unnecessary rough-housing that would not produce a commensurately beneficial result."
"Toudou-san–" She couldn't help the desperate tone that crept in past her usually careful monotone.
Her friend shot her a resigned smile. "We should know when we are outmatched."
Leveling a determined look at him, Saena retorted grimly, "Not outmatched for long."
"We can only hope." Toudou smiled and raised his hand. For a moment, Saena thought he was going to reach for her, then his hand hesitated, faltered, and dropped to his side. He instead murmured quietly, "Stay safe, Mogami-san."
And with what Saena dearly hoped was not the last she'd see of her steadfast colleague, Toudou was ushered away by one of the guards. The remaining guard opened the door and beckoned her to enter Delta's office.
Saena considered herself observant. As a lawyer and a politician, and a female in a man's world at that, she'd had to develop an acute sense of scrutiny and detail-awareness. However, as she entered through the threshold, all she could seem to see was the man in the black trench coat standing behind his desk, facing the large bank of monitors away from the door.
As if drawn by magnets, her feet crossed over the floor and farther into the room. As he heard her approach, the man half-turned. Her heart leapt to the base of her throat.
The man shot her a too-familiar mischievous grin as he turned fully around. "You really didn't have to threaten to jump out of the window in order to see me, you know."
If Saena had been in a desert, her throat couldn't have felt drier. However, she was surprised at how steady her voice came out. Years of practice at faking it, she supposed.
"I needed to make sure that you took me seriously," she drawled in her practiced politician's monotone. "You have been extremely elusive over the years. Isn't that right, Kazushi?"
A dark look that seemed very foreign on the face that she'd once loved crossed his visage. However, she thought from some distracted part of her mind, for him Kazushi's face and mannerisms might have been considered the foreign expressions.
Then the man smiled and past her better judgment, she suddenly felt as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds after a very hard rain. Misonoi chuckled and said with a hint of nostalgia, "Well, now… I haven't been called Kazushi in a very, very long time."
"Because Misonoi Kazushi was just another mask for you," Saena said, trying to make her voice as cold and sharp as steel. She couldn't afford to let old feelings get in the way anymore.
"Not just another mask," Misonoi stated with a beatific smile. "It did lead me to you, after all."
Saena fought to keep her eyes trained on him as she snarled out, "Don't lie to me. Misonoi Kazushi was just another identity for you to use then discard."
Her implications hung heavy in the air – 'I was just something for you to use then discard…'
"Well now," the cold stranger wiped the glee off Misonoi's face like a coffee ring under a damp cloth. Saena struggled not to squirm under his powerful gaze and the unnerving, chameleon-like changes. "I suppose we both know a thing or two about discarding troublesome identities. Eh, Makoto?"
She couldn't help but stiffen at her old name before straightening and shooting back her most scathing sarcastic barb. "I suppose I learned from the best."
"Mogami Saena…" Delta mused, clasping his hands behind his back. "Quite a unique name. Did the government pick it for you or did you get to choose when you entered the Witness Protection Program?"
Ignoring the mastermind's question, Saena glared at him and asked the question that had been burning on her mind since the moment Delta's people had first approached her all those years ago. "Why me? You must have known that I was trying to find you."
At her forwardness, Delta chuckled mirthfully, and Saena caught another glimpse of the happy, tender man who had gently broken down every single one of her defenses so many years ago.
"Why you for the keystone piece? The crowning jewel of my plans?" Delta stood and walked around his desk. Saena stood stock still as he approached her, drawing uncomfortably near. Yet her heart turned traitor and began to beat a ragged rhythm in her chest.
"Because you are worthy, my dear."
Misonoi raised a gentle hand to brush a stray piece of hair out of her face, his hand barely skimming across her skin. A feeling of self-loathing began to percolate in her gut as she felt her cheeks flush.
"And maybe a small part of me had always hoped that we would be reunited one day," Misonoi murmured wistfully. "Under better circumstances."
"Better circumstances?" Saena closed her eyes and breathed out a shuddering sigh, stepping back out of his reach. "You mean when you aren't seducing me to steal my company's secrets and frame me for corporate negligence and murder?"
A look the politician could not pinpoint crossed over her former lover's face, but Delta took her anger as his cue to get back to business as well. He turned around to walk back to his desk.
"Now, Makoto," Delta said as he settled into his desk chair, steepling his fingers in front of him. "I'm sensing that you're not here to just reminisce over old times…"
"No," Saena gazed stoically at him, despite the fluttering in her gut. Here it was. No turning back. "I'm here to tell you that I quit."
Delta froze. "Excuse me?"
The hardness in his voice made Saena's stomach churn nervously. Still she soldiered on, leveling her coldest glare at him. "You abandoned me when it was most important. I have spent years hunting you down – chasing a ghost – living just for this day. The day that I abandon you when it's most critical for you."
Delta's expression didn't change. This worried Saena, but she stood her ground.
"I'm going to resign from the House of Councillors," she announced, watching his face carefully. "The New Change Party will have no choice but to dissolve. And you will be behind bars."
At this, Delta raised a brow. Feeling a bit relieved that she had at last managed to get a reaction out of the man, Saena continued, feeling more and more triumphant. "I have spent no small amount of time and effort compiling evidence. No matter how careful you have been to destroy the proof, you never could have eliminated all of it. And I have hundreds of witnesses in the politicians you have ruined and their family and friends you have blackmailed and threatened. You can't silence them all. And you can't silence me."
Time for her ace in the hole. Delta had begun to clutch his hands tighter and tighter on his desk. A minute change, but one Saena was pleased to observe.
"If I don't walk out of here in the next hour," the politician declared, "and go to a certain bio-locked computer terminal and log onto a certain encrypted website and enter a certain code, all of this evidence will be immediately sent to every single major news outlet, the police, and the PSIA."
By this point, the look on Delta's face was thunderous.
"You will never take control of this country," Saena concluded. The phrase she had been waiting for nearly two decades to utter passed her lips with practiced ease. "You lose, Kazushi."
Delta was silent. The dark-haired woman waited with baited breath for him to break. She had absolutely cornered him. All of his plans were in ruins now. She had finally, finally gotten her revenge on him.
"You're blackmailing me?" His voice came out a strangled growl. She could almost laugh.
"Yes."
Finally, finally, Delta spoke and in her millionth iteration of imagining his reaction to her vengeance, she had never considered his actual answer.
"Fine."
Saena took a step back in surprise, her high heel echoing hollowly about the room. "F-Fine? I come and ruin your plans, and you–"
"It's fine," Delta mused, his facial expression smoothing itself over into a passive, simmering anger that she found nearly three times as disconcerting as any outburst. "Because you're going to walk out of this room, tell your friend Toudou that you've given up, and go back to that computer, log into that website, and enter that password."
"W-What?" Composure now lost, Saena stammered, completely at a loss. "I absolutely will not–"
"Hmmm? You won't?" Delta asked innocently, cocking his head to the side. "Not even if I have something precious of yours?"
At this threat, Saena uttered a bitter bark of a laugh. "Everything precious to me has either been taken away or thrown away a long time ago."
"Oh really?" The smug look on Delta's face sent Saena's heart plummeting. "I guess I've found one of your cast-offs then."
He produced a remote control from under his desk and clicked a button. Immediately the screens behind him flashed to form a giant picture. On it was grainy security camera footage of a prison cell. A girl sat within, hugging knees tucked protectively against her chest. Her hair was longer and blonde, and her clothes were much more provocative than Saena had last seen at the PM's birthday gala, but it was definitely her.
Kyoko.
"Should I dispose of her, if you've thrown her away?" Delta asked, tilting his head in mock-curiosity.
Unable to formulate a proper response, Saena could only gape at the video feed.
"My dear, naive Makoto," Delta mused, considering her with a smirk from behind his desk. "That is how you blackmail someone."
Failed. All of these years – all of these emotions – all for what? In the end, she had just become his tool again. Bitter tears stung the corners of her eyes as desperation swelled in her breast.
"Fine. Do it."
Delta's eyes widened, still mocking her in his calculated surprise. "You don't really mean that do you?"
Unable to watch the video feed any longer, Saena turned away painfully. She grit her teeth. "Of course I do. What does that girl mean to me?"
Each word felt like acid in her mouth. And Delta knew it.
"Konoe-san, you can send in the guards to eliminate Mogami Kyoko now."
As Saena's head flew up in a panic, the mastermind caught her wide-eyed alarm. Not dropping eye contact, Delta clicked the remote again. The monitor behind him splint into two screens – one with Kyoko waiting unwitting in her cell, and the other with half a dozen armed men marching down a corridor that Saena absolutely knew led to her daughter's holding room.
"Make sure you strip her and parade her before all our mercenaries before ending her." Delta smiled broadly at Saena as he cheerily requested, "Make it painful. Oh, and dump her body in Tokyo Bay after you're done."
Heart thumping audibly in her ears, Saena could only watch helplessly as the leading guards reached the cell door. She could see Kyoko behind the iron bars, scrambling back on the cot.
She had abandoned this girl once before. She would do it again. She had already disqualified herself from the honor of being called a mother. This girl was nothing to her… Nothing compared to getting revenge on Kazushi.
The guard's aggression was obvious in the slant of his rigid shoulders as he reached for the ring of keys on his waistband. Kyoko mouthed a question, unheard over the video-only feed. The guard snarled back an answer that made the girl go limp.
She could do this. She could do this.
The armed man turned the key in the lock. Kyoko seemed frozen in terror. The gravid weight in Saena's chest plummeted.
She couldn't do this.
"WAIT. STOP!"
A quick flick of the remote from Delta, and the guard halted.
Panting, Saena realized that it was herself who had shouted. Delta raised a brow at her. At the end of it all, she just couldn't throw that girl away. Closing her eyes against the simultaneous onslaught of relief and self-loathing, she stammered out, "I… I'll do whatever you want. Just… stop…"
Delta clicked the button, and on the monitor all the guards withdrew, tramping back up the walkway. Kyoko collapsed back onto the cot, feeble and limp as the screen blacked out.
Gritting her teeth, Saena balled her hands into fists, feeling the despair wash over her. All of these years, all of these plans, all of these emotions… wasted. She said the only thing that would come to mind.
"I hate you."
Past her distress, she couldn't entirely tell, but Delta's smirk seemed to fade for a moment, the corners of his mouth pulling into a thin-lipped smile.
"Now, now Makoto dear," Delta murmured, his tone deceptively cloying. "What is that saying? Hate and love are two sides of the same coin? I'm sure you'll flip back around in time. After all, we will have years to rule Japan together, my darling Prime Minister."
Leaning forward, Delta held down a small button on his desk phone. "Councillor Mogami is finished with her conversation and wishes to be escorted back to her vehicle. Please take her to any destination she wishes. After which she would like to return here until the final Diet vote has been confirmed."
The voice on the other end noted an affirmative, and Delta ended the call. For the second time in her life, Saena felt so infuriated and hopeless and emotionally ravaged that she had no biting remark. But Delta had one for her.
"Aren't you being a hypocrite?" The mastermind remarked coolly as he picked up an envelope from his desk. As he spoke, he emptied a small, thin cylinder into his palm before closing his fist. "You fault me for leaving you behind, yet you so willingly tossed her aside, all for your own aims?"
A familiar stab of regret she had thought long-buried pierced her chest. Swallowing her guilt, Saena narrowed her eyes at him and replied with equal coldness, "Like I said. I learned from the best."
There was no verbal reply, but Delta turned away; Saena knew when she was being dismissed. But thoughts finally collected, she had one last piece of ammunition.
"You're her father you know," she snapped bitterly, hoping to get a response.
Nothing. Not even a flinch. Whether he knew or whether he hadn't known, either way, if Delta was still intent on holding Kyoko hostage, despite that knowledge, then…
"You're a monster," Saena hissed.
Busy examining the object in his palm, Delta still did not look up as the guards returned to escort her out of the room. However as she was walking out, she thought she heard a quiet voice say, "Good-bye… Makoto."
-x-
Kyoko fell into a fitful sleep that night, even more on-edge than the previous nights due to her harrowing experience that afternoon. All night, leering armed guards reached for her, chasing her down darkened corridors, their impure intentions plastered clearly on faces that morphed into ugly, grey goblin-grins with long teeth. All the while, she desperately searched the halls for someone who would keep her safe. She had a vague dream-sense that he was up ahead, but she could never quite catch up to him…
When she awoke that morning, Kyoko still felt exhausted. Disoriented, she blinked blearily at the ceiling. She had half expected to be woken up roughly and with no warning, dragged away to who knew where for who knew what purpose at the same caprice that had narrowly and inexplicably spared her the day before.
Her cell had no clock, but judging by the tug of hunger in her stomach, she guessed it was the morning. Despite a lack of appetite, she had dutifully ate the meals set before her morning, noon, and night, and now her body had grown accustomed to some manner of a feeding schedule. Biting back a weary sigh, Kyoko got out of bed to start the day.
However, an hour or so later when Ito-san still had not emerged with her breakfast tray, Kyoko began feeling a pit of unease build in her stomach. Had she just woken up very early, her internal clock thrown off by anxiety? Or had the terrifying threat of the guards yesterday signaled that her status had somehow changed?
Then a faint echo drifted down the hall. A single pair of footsteps. Kyoko's ears perked up, and then her heart sank. The footsteps' cadence was much different than that of the surprisingly congenial female guard who visited her three times a day. Whereas Ito-san's were measured and easy-going, these steps were brisk and sharp, aggressive almost.
Kyoko rose to assess the threat before she was caught off-guard like last time. As she caught sight of her visitor, the bad feeling in her gut blossomed into full-fledged bitterness.
Striding down the hall, Morizumi Kimiko glared back at her, a broad smirk playing across her lips. The brunette flipped her long, curled hair over one shoulder as she slowed to a stop before the bars of Kyoko's cell door.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the new Agent M," the Henshin assassin cooed. "Where's Agent T? Hasn't he come to save you yet?"
Not wanting to show her enemy the stab of pain she felt, Kyoko turned away from the bars and silently headed toward the back of her cell.
"Wha~t?" Kappa called after her, her voice upturned in clear mockery. "I just came to talk. I'm sure you haven't heard the news after all…"
'Just ignore her,' Kyoko repeated over and over in her mind as she sat cross-legged on her bed, facing the wall. 'Ignore her and she'll go away.'
"Not interested even a teensy-weensy bit?"
Silence.
Kimiko gave a rather theatrical sigh. "Oh, well… I was trying to be nice by telling you that Fuwa Sho managed to give Delta all the Diet votes he needed—"
"WHAT!" Brief vow of silence forgotten, Kyoko flew to her feet. But as the news sunk in, her sense of rage swiftly dissipated into a feeling of staggering defeat. Delta had the votes to get her mother elected over Ogata… But how? Why? Why would Sho help Delta?
"I ma~y have told Delta that you and Fuwa were childhood friends…" Cocking her head to the side, Kimiko pretended to think, tapping a manicured nail to her chin. "It seems like no matter how Fuwa treated you like a used candy wrapper, he still values you enough to bargain for your life."
Sho had given Delta the votes to spare her life? As her mind began to make out the links, Kyoko's legs suddenly seemed to adopt all the structural integrity of gelatin. She grasped the wall as she slid to the floor.
That was why she was being kept alive. She was not merely an intelligence agent held captive. She was a hostage, and her captivity would propel Delta to victory. Kyoko whispered hoarsely to herself, "It's all my fault…"
"Oh no, dear Kyoko," Kimiko crooned. Kyoko glanced up, feeling as if she had just been punched in the gut, wary of another attack. The former Agent M continued, her voice coy, "It's not your fault… It's Tsuruga Ren's fault."
Kimiko's smirk hardened into a bitter, tight-lipped grin. "It's always his fault."
Looking down and trying to collect her wits, Kyoko ran a hand through her Setsu wig. Her throat suddenly felt dry. The LME agent managed to croak out, her voice thin and quavering, "This… This isn't his fault... I was the one who got caught–"
A loud titter interrupted the rest of her sentence. Kimiko dabbed at her eyes as if the LME agent had just told a hilarious joke. Mocking laughter still tracing her voice, Kappa shook her head and said, "You poor, deluded girl… Still so loyal. You ended up falling in love with him, didn't you? You don't even believe the very words that are passing through your lips."
That barbed verbal arrow hit home. Kyoko had to quickly duck her head so Kimiko wouldn't see the glistening tears building in her eyes.
"Don't feel too badly about it. It happens all the time with the great Agent T. Partners falling for him, that is." Kimiko's voice had taken the cold, steel tones of someone bitterly wronged. "Even before I became his kouhai, he'd had this reputation, but I didn't listen. I was a fool."
Morbid curiosity piqued, like a soldier unable to help but stare at the fatal bullet wound in his chest, Kyoko turned to regard the former LME agent.
"The characters he plays are so convincing…" Kappa barked a short, spiteful laugh. "He makes you think that he cares for you. He makes you think you're special…"
Half of Kyoko wanted to snatch her hands up over her ears and cry at the top of her lungs so she wouldn't have to hear anymore. The other half, drawn by a foreboding sense that every single one of her deepest fears was true, yearned to hear the rest, if only to more quickly cauterize the gaping hole these broken feelings had left in her soul.
"I did everything right," Kimiko continued, her stare at the bars of the cell becoming hollow. "I worked hard at my job. I protected him when I could. Even when other women threw themselves at him during missions, I endured it…"
Kyoko could only lower her eyes to the floor, her heart a stone in her stomach.
"I… I thought he… I…" Kimiko's voice cracked. But that seemed to break the spell, and she shook her head angrily. "The day I finally confessed to him, he just thanked me, kept that damned sparkling smile up, and… and apologized," the brunette snarled. "Like my feelings were just some dishes he'd dropped and shattered on the floor by accident."
Kyoko's hand curled into a fist against the wall as her heart clenched painfully. She had mercifully never confessed her feelings to Ren, but she could only imagine that her experience would have been similar. It would've just been Sho all over again… but worse.
"Then at the end of that mission, we got dragged into a firefight with enemy agents." Kimiko's hand gripped one of the metal bars of the door as she finished. "There was only one LME casualty that day…"
The Henshin agent's free hand ghosted over her left shoulder, near her heart.
"Why are you telling me this?" Kyoko asked, her voice shaking with emotion.
"Revenge," Kimiko growled out. "I'm going to make sure that every single woman on this planet knows what a conniving heartbreaker Tsuruga Ren is."
Shaking her head again, Kappa continued, her voice dripping with disdain, "Tsuruga Ren lures you into his act, and suddenly when it comes down to reality, you're left reeling and all alone, the floor pulled out from under your feet."
Kyoko nodded miserably.
"He makes you feel like his love is the only thing you'll ever need, and he's ready to provide it."
Kyoko nodded again, pinching her eyes closed in pain.
"But then he puts this impenetrable armor on and pushes you away with this perfect façade–"
Kyoko continued to nod. Then stopped. 'Well, perfect except when he's refusing to eat. Or when he's being a bully. Or when he's sick and delirious with fever –'
"He pretends to be kind and gentle in the beginning, but then politely turns away–"
'Actually, he really hated me in the beginning…' Kyoko narrowed her eyes at the remembrance.
"—Always perfectly in control–"
A memory echoed in Kyoko's mind. Ren gazed out the window of the Edo Land ferris wheel, a haunted smile twisted on his face. 'I lost control of myself,' he had said.
"—Always so independent—"
'I might be counting on you a lot more for this upcoming mission,' he'd also said, locking eyes with her reflection across the gondola.
"—Always so enigmatic, not sharing a thing about himself–"
'My real name is Kuon Hizuri,' Ren said, hanging his head in his hands as he sat slumped against the bathtub rim.
"—Always so distant and cold, not caring about anything but the mission and professional courtesy–"
The last she had seen of Ren in the parking garage right before she'd been knocked out – the look in her partner's brown eyes of sheer, undiluted panic and breath-stealing regret– spoke of anything but coldness and mere professionalism.
The man and the actions Kimiko had experienced were completely different from her own memories of Ren. Now ignoring the Henshin agent's ongoing diatribe, Kyoko's brow furrowed.
Different… why? Kyoko felt as if she were back in her dream, endlessly yet desperately chasing an answer always a hairsbreadth out of reach. The answer was in the dissonance between the two stories, if only she could tune into the correct frequency…
And suddenly, like the sun breaking out from behind a bank of clouds, the answer she'd been avoiding out of fear for so long became abruptly clear.
He really did care for her.
Kyoko felt herself audibly gasp, a hand going to clasp over her mouth. Her face went warm as she blushed from the tips of her toes up to the top of her head. Her heart did a gymnastic tumble in the pit of her stomach.
In Chiba, he had tried to protect her by pushing her away, but he'd unintentionally dragged her into a trap as she'd insisted on following him. She could imagine him struggling through this dilemma, ultimately wanting atonement for his sins against Rick. Kanae was right about sacrifice, but what if Ren had decided to sacrifice himself to prevent Kyoko from becoming more entangled in his destiny?
Kyoko snorted. In some ways, that sounded too ridiculously convoluted, but for a complicated man prone to over-thinking like her partner, the idea fit like a glove.
Then a second realization hit her. Tsuruga Ren had told Bo the chicken that he was secretly in love with a high school girl – his childhood friend – but he was hiding his true identity from her. So did that mean that Ren was actually–!
Kuon Hizuri. Kuon. Kuorn. Corn?
"CORN!?" Kyoko yelped out, smacking the palm of her hand against her forehead.
"Corn? What are you talking about!"
Startled back to reality by Kimiko's harsh demand, Kyoko glanced up, blinking in bewilderment at her new revelations. "Oh. Sorry… I forgot you were there. I suppose that's rude, isn't it? Did you still want to talk?"
Nails raking against the metal bar of the cell door, Kimiko immediately flushed up to her hairline in anger. Indignant, she spluttered out, "W-What! What are you talking about?"
"I think he loves me," Kyoko replied simply, still completely amazed herself. Kimiko forgotten, Agent M picked herself up off the floor and began to pace back and forth in her cell. Unconsciously, she began muttering a baffled-incredulous-panicked stream of consciousness, "He loves me? Oh Kami-sama, he does doesn't he? He's such an idiot. We're both idiots. Moko-san was right. Is he really Corn though? How is that even possible–?"
Meanwhile, from some far corner of her mind, Kyoko was listening to Kimiko work herself into a very close imitation of an epileptic fit in her rage. Finally the LME traitor managed, "Are you a moron! Weren't you listening to anything I said? Besides, if he really loved you, he would have come rescue you by now."
Only half-aware of herself answering, the rest of her mind a rapidly whirling mess careening toward unintelligible giddiness, Kyoko answered with simple confidence, "He'll come."
From the door, Kimiko scoffed with the loud bluster of one trying to come up with some sort of insult on the fly, "Well… C-Congratulations on your ability to live in a fantasy world, you… you-!"
Kimiko's face turned an unnatural shade of crimson as her mouth gaped open and closed repeatedly, devoid of any words. Finally, her mouth snapped shut and a cold fire lit back into her eyes. As she spun on her heel to exit, she spat out, "Whatever! You're just… You're just… A plain, boring girl!"
As Kimiko beat a hasty retreat, Kyoko slowed her pacing and stared at the back of her cell at the toilet. Her eyes glazed over as she remained deep in thought, yet she managed to catch Kimiko's last barb.
Mind working furiously, Kyoko murmured thoughtfully to herself, "A plain, boring girl, huh…"
-x-
- Day of the revote -
"Eighty-eight… Eighty-nine… Ninety…"
Sweat beaded on Ren's forehead as he finished off his last set of push-ups. He could feel the droplets of perspiration trickling down the back of his neck. The strain in his muscles offered a welcome distraction from the nagging temptation to get up and run around the LME unit headquarters, bragging to each and every soul he could lay his hands on that Mogami Kyoko loved him.
A goofy smile crept over his lips, quickly followed by a gut-wrenching frown. Ren had to physically shake his head to dispel it.
'Concentrate,' he ordered himself sternly, dipping into another push-up.
But damn, it was difficult to focus. Yukihito – that cursed busybody – had been right. Ren had been too selfish – driven by fear of his crushing guilt and too scared to accumulate more guilt by potentially hurting Kyoko – that he'd actually ended up hurting her.
"One-hundred." Agent T collapsed to the floor, winded. Despite his best efforts, his mind spiraled downward into regret and concern. Who knew if he'd ever see her again? Who knew if he'd ever get to tell her that he loved her?
Groaning, he rolled over and forced himself to move to the shower. He had to keep busy or risk drowning in a typhoon of emotions. Elation, remorse, worry – around and around on repeat. Rushing through his hygiene routine, Ren emerged from the bathroom and finished towel-drying his hair, sending drops of water flying.
As he walked by his desk, a small flash of reflected light caught his eye. Ren paused. A small blue stone rested in the center of his work area. He'd found it, unintentionally abandoned by its owner in the Heels' apartment. The rock in a small, pink, decidedly un-Setsu-like purse had been smuggled into the apartment despite her character, and Ren had smuggled it out.
With a bittersweet smile, Ren reached down to pick the stone up. He turned it over and over in his hands, his heart heavy. He was about to put it down, when he hesitated. On a whim, he lifted the rock up to the overhead light and watched the fractals sparkle through the crystals in the stone. Blue flashed to gold and back. A small grin flit across Ren's lips.
"When the colors change, you can feel your mood getting lighter at the same time, right? It's magic, you know?"
Ren chuckled and caressed the rough edge of the fateful stone with his thumb. She'd been so excited to encourage him, even after he'd treated her so miserably right before her first mission – even though she'd ended up saving him. How far they'd come since then…
Cocking his head to the side, Ren looked down at the rock in his hands. Curiously, his heart did feel a little lighter after all.
KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK – pause – BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!
Startled, Ren almost catapulted the rock up out of his hands toward the ceiling and had to juggle the precious stone for a moment before catching it and stowing it safely again on his desk. Breathing a sigh of relief, Ren turned toward his door with a frown.
"Now what."
The knocker continued to hammer on his door as Ren strode forward. Yanking it open, Agent T barely managed to catch Yashiro as his friend stumbled into the room, wheezing and out of breath.
"Yukihito-san?" Ren faltered, helping Yashiro into the room. "What on earth–?"
"Ren," Yashiro rasped, sounding as if he'd run a marathon in a desert. "I ran – (cough) – from the Tech Workroom."
"…That's not very far from here, Yashiro-san. Maybe you should consider exercising more often–"
Yashiro waved his hand and leaned against Ren's wall, doubled-over trying to catch his breath.
"Kyoko-chan," the techie managed to gasp out. Instantly, Ren stiffened, his heart skipping a beat. Yashiro finished stammering, "Homing beacon... Got pinged."
"WHAT!" Ren's hands flew up to clutch his friend's arms. He tried to resist the nearly overwhelming urge to shake the man silly. "What are we standing around for? Let's GO!"
Still gasping for breath like a beached fish, Yashiro just flapped his hand at Ren. He managed a breathless, "Go on… (cough) Command Post. (wheeze) I'll catch up… in a bit–"
Agent T didn't even hear the rest of Yukihito's sentence as he had already sprinted out of the room.
As he ran, not caring that he roughly pushed past half a dozen bewildered co-workers in his haste, Ren clenched the brown leather watchstrap on his wrist and offered up a small prayer.
'I'm sorry, Rick. I don't deserve it, but… Please… Just this once, please…'
-x-
MAILBAG (Section where I respond to the 5+ most interesting reviews for the recent chapter)
Guineapigs1 – It's true! It's like this uncanny active avoidance of the truth that keeps them blind to their feelings for each other. But that's also part of the hilarious part of Skip Beat. No matter how romantic the situation, Kyoko will spin the circumstances on their head and look at it in some way that Ren's intentions are misconstrued as definitely unromantic and only platonic. As for Sho, next chapter he really turns a corner and I'm looking forward to seeing how people respond to it! Thanks again for the reviews! :D
Brennakai – LOL, I really enjoyed writing that bit about Chiori sticking the notes under the door. xD Thanks for leaving a review!
Aikori Ichijouji – No worries! I totally know what you mean about it being nice to have a backlog of chapters to read. I usually only read completed manga and fanfictions because I can't stand the idea of being in suspense for such a long time. Skip Beat is the only manga that is incomplete that I actually am willing to wait for month by agonizing month. TT_TT As for Kyoko's picture – it actually was her! She has legit been kidnapped and is being held hostage. She's still wearing her Setsu get-up because she's too depressed to change out of it… and also for various plot reasons soon to be revealed… *rubs hands together* muhahaha! Thanks again Aikori!
Tabbykatroses – LOL yessss last month was the sulking chapter. That's a perfect way of putting it! Everyone was in a dark emotional hole. Luckily it only took one chapter for everyone to mostly snap out of it! Also, you didn't miss anything about Saena. I hadn't mentioned until this week whether she knew of Kyoko's kidnapping, and she didn't know about it. Kyoko's being held double-hostage! Haha Thanks again for reviewing!
MWEH – How could I NOT miss you? I think I've said before and I'll say again, but you're far and above my most faithful reviewer and I really look forward to your reviews at the end of each chapter! I'd never heard of a Eurasier, but after looking up a picture, I feel like I've seen them around before and just lumped them in with chow chows! We were trying to get this cute Italian Greyhound mix from a rescue but the rescue decided to give the dog to someone else. TT_TT But we ended up getting Murphy (who we think is a long-haired Chihuahua/ Kokoni mix?), and I wouldn't trade him for anything now. :D What did you think of the May chapter of SB? I feel like there were probably paparazzi in the bar who got a shot of that slimy old lady kissing our precious Ren. *hmph*! As for the extra chapter about Ren and Kyoko's first mission together, it's already like half written but I just need to polish it up and finish the other half. I'll most likely either post it in this story or as an entry into a series of SB AU one-shots I want to do after this story. I'm happy to hear I was able to give you a good case of the feels! That's always a great thing to hear as a writer that I've been able to evoke emotions in other with my writing! Thanks MWEH!
Erza – Sorry to keep you biting the inside of your cheeks in anticipation for so long! Haha Don't worry. You'll get both of your wishes, and Ren will definitely be super handsome and doubly badass. ;D As for the manga, I'm going to be so angry when it turns out that some paparazzi caught a pic of that crazy cougar's kiss, and it's going to end up hurting Kyoko. *facepalm* Thanks again for reviewing Erza! The great escape (for Kyoko) is coming! Haha
Don't forget to leave a fave, alert, or review! Help be my muses :) Next chapter should be out by the first week of July!