Chapter 20

After a nice, comforting, and clarifying phone conversation, both parties were finally pulled out of their hazy states and brought back from Fairy Land. It was nice to know that they both had such a comparable morning. It had been hard for either to admit it to the other, but it had been mistakenly outed by Kyoko, and Kuon couldn't leave her hanging in the breeze alone like that. He'd freely admitted that he'd been a bit absentminded that morning too and how Yuki had reacted. Now that he thought back on it, he felt he should probably apologize to the man and throw him a bone. It was the least he could do after putting him through the hell of these past couple of years. Well, it had been much longer than that if he counted the years of his regretful actions of trying to forget her when he'd first left Japan. God, he had so much to make up for. Hopefully she would allow him a lifetime to do it.

Tiny rivulets of moisture cascaded down freshly washed porcelain skin as she exited the black marble-tiled shower, and grabbed the warm, plush towel waiting on the rack for her. One smaller, fluffy, dark-purple towel for her long silken, raven hair and another larger to wrap herself warmly in. Steam billowed around her as she crossed the large bathroom then wiped a streak of moisture off of a thoroughly covered mirror in front of the expansive double-vanity. Hidden golden eyes scrutinized the two large scars that marred what would otherwise be perfection. One scar from an old bullet wound just below her waist-line to the right, and a larger knife-wound scar horizontally that had slipped between her ribs, to the side on her left, below her breast. They were both faded, could be covered by concealer, but those two badges of honor still existed along with the memories of how she had received them. Betrayal. She had been naive enough to believe that anyone could love her. For this mistake she had been used and deceived. Something that she most certainly would not allow to happen again. At least she hoped so.

Drying her body and dropping both towels to the floor, she left the bathroom to enjoy the cool air on her bare skin before she dressed for her day. She had a meeting with an important client in a few hours.

"CUT!" A distant voice called out, pulling her away from her new character, Samantha. "Great job Kari!" He turned to look at his Assistant Director. "Check that last take. I want to make sure that the angle and lighting wasn't off. I want to to get that morning sun in there just perfectly." He commanded, checking some paperwork on a clipboard he'd been handed.

"Yes, Sir." She obeyed as she pulled up the last bit of filming and studiously looked it over.

Kyoko stood silently waiting as wardrobe and makeup checked the fake scars on her body to make sure the water had not damaged them, before covering her with the thin silk, royal-blue robe while her agent Anita handed her a bottle of water to sip from.

In the next room, that had been set up as a lounge in the large mansion, sat two very rattled and flustered male co-stars, one more than the other. Kuon had no idea that she didn't use a body double, but Hiromune was well aware and stunned each time he'd been exposed to the perfection that he compared to the goddess Aphrodite on more than one occasion. To Kuon, she certainly did not look like she had ever given birth.

"I still can't get used to…" Hiromune started.

Kuon shot him a glare. "Don't… Just don't." He growled a little. "Be a little more professional." He scolded, trying to be professional about the whole thing himself. It was a given that any actor or actress worth their salt would have scenes like that and it wasn't like they were filming a porn. The director and writers had made that scene very tasteful. It was just to show that Kyoko's character could be a normal human being with a somewhat boring life when she wasn't slaughtering her marks, and also to give that gratuitous body scene that most R-rated movies contained.

At this point, it had been several weeks since the cast and crew had to deal with Mr. Bennett's scandalous fallout, and Kuon had been seeing Kyoko and Shin regularly. They had been meeting up at least three times a week, nearly every day that first week, sometimes going out in disguise as a family to various places or just spending a nice little quiet time at one of their homes together.

Kuon was becoming increasingly aware that there was far more to his son than met the eye. He had accidentally spied a brief look at Shin's computer monitor as the boy had quickly set it on sleep when he'd noticed Kuon had entered the room to let him know that dinner was ready one evening. Oh yes, he'd seen some of those little programs before. Yuki may have been an apocalyptic harbinger of death for anything with a microchip when not wearing a pair of Nitrile gloves, but that didn't mean that he was technologically illiterate. There was the tracking software that was used just for Kuon's safety and the software that Yuki, and many others, used to break into cell phones and computers. Yuki used that to transfer the souls of his electronic victims to their new hosts once they'd suffered from his touch accidentally. So, there was no question as to why he had them, but why would Shin need something like that?

Thinking back on the mess that Cedric had gotten himself into, Kuon had a bit of a hunch on who was responsible for the release of said information. He shuddered to think that a child of that age was so intelligent. He had mixed feelings about the entire situation. On one hand, Cedric deserved it for being such an idiot and filming his activities; on the other hand, he was a bit upset that Shin's innocent eyes had seen such illicit activities, if it had been truly him that was responsible for hacking Cedric's computer and posting everything on the multiple fan sites.

Hiromune turned to Kuon and smirked. "I heard she has a kid."

Kuon nodded. Of course he knew and Hiromune would know that the "kid" was Shin if he'd realized that Kari was Kyoko or if any of her male co-stars that she knew from Japan had met the boy.

"Have you met him?" Hiromune asked out of curiosity. "I heard that he's pretty antisocial to anyone that has tried to date her in the past."

Kuon chuckled. "Judging from the scandals they had, he was right to be a bit antisocial. Don't you think?"

Hiromune leaned back in the makeup chair and sighed. "I suppose you're right." He glanced at Kuon to test the waters. Well, he really didn't think that Kuon would want to date her. He hadn't dated anyone since that fiasco in Japan with Kyoko. "I wonder if she'll go to dinner with me if I ask." He pondered.

I doubt it. Kuon snapped internally. He decided to keep the comment and irritation to himself. Obviously Kyoko could handle it, she'd been doing so for many years gracefully. However, he refused to encourage the man. He felt he was on thin ice as it was, he didn't need any more rivals or reasons for Kyoko and Shin to turn against him.

Kuon glanced at his watch. "I better head to make-up. It's almost time for my scenes." He commented and stood languidly from his seat. They were doing all of the scenes involving this particular location the next two days. He and Hiro had two afternoon scenes, a morning scene, and each had an evening scene with her before they had to pack up and get ready for their filming overseas.