disclaimer: Skip Beat! is the exclusive creative property of Yoshiki Nakamura.

AN: I know there's been some concern about how hard I'm being on Kuon. Well, I'm about to be a whole lot meaner in this chapter!

See, I feel like Kyoko doesn't give nearly as much grief to Ren as he deserves in the manga, so just consider this evening the score. I've written Kyoko to be older and a little more seasoned at this point, so I think her giving him the business is to be expected and welcome, thank you very much.

Trigger warning for someone taking a beating in this chapter. No blood or gore, but still. Warning.

Enjoy!

Chapter Five

For the days that followed, the couple circled one another like a pair of sharks in water that carried only the promise of blood. Some form of carnage seemed imminent. Of that, there was no question. It was just a matter of when and how.

Ren was formally introduced to a side of Kyoko he had never seen before: self-possessed, detached, and in no particular hurry or mood to deal with him in any meaningful way.

This was not the same girl he'd had to chase down the halls of LME to make his confession; nor was it the blushing ingenue he unwound in his bed every chance he could get. She wasn't running from anything, certainly not from him. She looked up at him with all the warmth and enthusiasm of a polite cadaver. She wasn't shying away from him; indeed she seemed not at all moved by his presence. He might as well have been the mud on which she floated by like a lotus, serene and unaffected.

Every line of communication seemed to have been compromised in some way. When he called, the line went straight to voicemail. Whenever he texted her, she gave only short responses, if any. And every in-person conversation became an exercise in a mix of protracted silence and stunted sentences that didn't leave much room for open-ended talk.

Sometimes she was straight to the point:

"Do you need a ride home?" he asked.

"No. But thank you."

Sometimes she would take his questions and turn them back on him, blinking in flat inquiry:

"Is there something wrong?" he asked.

"I don't know, is there?"

And sometimes she would reward any small talk or observation of his with nothing more than a vague, sidelong smile and a non-committal sound.

"Mhmm."

The harshest blow by far was when he noticed that Kyoko wasn't wearing his necklace* anymore. It was the closest thing to an insignia he had, and the day they had decided to go public with their relationship, he had hung it around her neck so that all the world could see he was serious about staking his claim. The few women he had had on his arm in the past few years had never worn his necklace, so this had made quite a stir. She had worn it dutifully for months, and it's absence gnawed at him.

"What happened to your necklace?" he finally asked on the third day of his exile.

She seemed to take pity on him, lifting a hand to delicately touch her bare throat before she answered.

"It's safe. I set it aside to have it cleaned."

"Oh. Good."

Her eyes flicked up to his face, and he could swear he saw something other than detached boredom moving behind her eyes before she came in for the kill.

"Of course," she said. "Important things do get misplaced, after all. Who knows what happens to them then?"

By day four of this treatment, he was climbing the walls, desperate for either absolution or a swift execution to put him out of his misery. The thought that had made his stomach drop that first day was now an ever-present drumbeat, chiseling the very words into the knot in his throat.

She knows. She knows. She knows.

To his credit, Ren wasn't deterred. He continued to show up to the set of Unsafe Passage, even if it was just to watch her from a distance. It gratified him to know, thanks to the way she would still silently note his presence with a glance, that she was aware of his pursuit. That she knew he was there and would continue to be there, whether she liked it or not.

You won't be rid of me that easily, he swore as he watched and waited for his chance.

Kyoko didn't allow herself anything remotely like second thoughts during this time. As ashamed as she was to admit it, Moko-san was right ... There was something perversely enjoyable about this strategy.

Belying the cool facade, her heart raced and her phantasms writhed in ecstasy with each twist of the knife. She could practically see Ren getting more and more frustrated with her, and it strummed at a childish, spiteful part of her. She gave him nothing to grasp onto after that first day: nothing to embarrass him in front of others, nothing in her words or demeanor that demanded a direct confrontation. Just a gaping, glacier chasm filled with everything neither of them would say.

This is awful. I hate this. I want it to stop. I can't wait to do it again tomorrow.

The main benefit to this power play was the fact that it kept her both occupied and angry when he was near her, which suited her just fine. She understood anger, and it understood her. She could deal better with the anger than with sorrow she had felt in his bedroom that morning. And as the days went on, there was much for her to reflect on that made her feel less bad about giving in to this anger.

Chief among them being the fact that Kuon had thought to use pleasure to distract her from something as serious as ... whatever the hell this was all about. The longer this went on, the more it rankled that she had been like putty in his hands. It was bitter comfort, but it gratified her to know that she had shifted into something too cold and diamond-hard to the touch for him to attempt that again, and had placed herself too far for even his magic fingers to reach.

Big talk, she thought ruefully, but who still has his necklace in her pocket? Who still holds it close every night she sleeps alone? Who carries the damn thing under lock and key? Who do you think you're fooling?

The two might have continued on in this fashion for some time were it not for the simple fact that this was another vacuum that the universe couldn't abide.

Something had to give.

Ren was cooling his heels outside of LME's administrative section, at a loss for what to do. As much as he wanted to, there was no way he could keep prowling around the set by himself. That would draw too much attention to himself and Kyoko the longer this deadlock went on. They were an acknowledged couple now, after all, and the last thing they needed were tabloid spreads about them being on the rocks.

It was then that the universe sent him an angel on a mission of mercy.

The significance of this was lost on said angel, since the angel in question was Sawara, and he had no idea he had been sent on any such mission. He gave a heavy sigh as he stepped out into the hallway where Ren was staring at his unanswered text messages.

"Oh, Tsuruga-san, you're here already?" he asked, glancing down at his wristwatch. "I just got the news myself, how did you get here so fast?"

"News? What do you mean?"

"Oh, so you hadn't heard. Unsafe Passage has to wrap early for the day, and it does not bode well for the project."

"How is that?" he asked, folding his arms. "What's happened?"

"Touma-san is dealing with a family crisis of some sort. He had to hop on the first plane to Osaka, but Kiryuu-sama really needs to get this scene done this week in order to stay on schedule. They want this submitted to the JFF, and the deadline is too close for them to fall behind so ... it's all up in the air now along with Touma, I guess."

He stared at the older man before him, feeling for a moment as though he had stepped outside of himself. It was like watching his own revelation hit him in real time. He could see the moment for what it truly was: an opportunity to change the game all but gift-wrapped and dropped into his lap. The plan came to him fully formed, as though he had always had the schematics in his back pocket.

Sawara took the slightest step back, caught off guard by the sudden intensity radiating off of the actor. "Uh ... ?"

"What does the scene consist of, exactly?" He had a good enough idea, but if this was going to work, he needed to be certain.

"Why?" Sawara asked, squinting at the younger man in confusion.

"Touma and I have similar enough dimensions. Would Kiryuu-sama be able to shoot around my face?"

"Shoot around ...? Wait, are you saying - !"

"It depends, is there still time?"

Sawara's response was to make a beeline for the studio backlot. Ren squared his shoulders and followed suit. Time to save the day, I guess. And hopefully my relationship while we're at it.

It was to be a confrontation in the wasteland between earth and the ghostly plane. Ren found this strangely apropos.

Jurou (Touma) was on a penitent march through the wastes, reduced to a shrouded and chained wretch from the falsely heroic figure he started the movie as. He wanders into a nest of kijo** that swarm and torment him with the cries and jeers of the vengeful women who became demons in the otherworld.

They close in to devour him, but then Sayako (Kyoko), his deceased wife who is now a higher order demoness because of his negligence in life, appears and gives a banshee howl that subdues the lesser oni and clears a path to him. She proceeds to beat him as the other kijo cheer, taunting him for his fruitless quest for forgiveness. They hold him down, Sayako climbs on top of him and then shrieks in his face until his ears bleed.

The blocking was such that Touma's face couldn't be seen due to a shroud cast over his head and later an iron noh mask with spikes on the interior, courtesy of Sayako's final act of abuse which closes out the scene.

Kiryuu, a svelte man with nervous energy, was pacing as he explained all of this. Ren and Sawara watched him wearing a rut into the floor as he struggled against his own desire to complete this film in time for the JFF.

"I don't know about this. I just don't know!"

"With all due respect, the deadline is too close for us to waffle about this, Kiryuu-sama," Ren said evenly, struggling against his own desire to pick the director up by his shoulders and shake him until he let him into the goddamn film.

The director chewed his thumbnail, thinking it over. "But you'll be uncredited, Tsuruga-san! There isn't time to - !"

"I'm not too big to do uncredited work," Ren insisted, causing the other two men to squint at him skeptically. "Please, I want to help. There aren't that many lines for me to remember, and they should be easy enough for Touma to ADR whenever he can, right?"

The mention of post-production seemed to settle something within the director. He began to nod to himself and slowly unfolded his arms. He ceased his pacing and faced Ren.

"Well, alright then. We haven't got any time to waste. Follow me," he said to Ren, pausing to thank Sawara before they raced off to the set.

"Please inform the makeup and costume department to stand by," he said to one of the stagehands that immediately materialized at his side. "Thank god no one got the news yet, everything is still ready to go. We should tell Mogami-san there's been a change of plans. I'm sure she'll be quite surprised about all this," he added with a smile.

To say the least.

Ren exhaled slowly. He'd done it. Well, he wouldn't have really done it until the director yelled cut, but the plan was in motion. There's no way she would be able to freeze him out in any meaningful way if they had to work together.

And maybe getting to beat the hell out of him would appease her anger ...

He was trying not to dwell too hard on the masochistic implications of this when a slight commotion arose near the back entrance. He turned and nearly came out of his own skin when he caught sight of Kyoko's arrival, in her full kijo garb and accompanied by her entourage. He had seen some makeup test footage, a bit of sketched concept art and the smudged remnants of what was left of her costuming when he came to pick her up from the set each day, but he hadn't seen the full look.

Until now.

Her entire body from the neck down was bound in crosshatching, clinging straps of tattered gray fabric, giving her curves a sleekly mummified look. What little of her skin that wasn't covered with knotted fabric was powdered to a deathly pale and chalky white. She wore a mantle of gray feathers and fur that fell to her hips, the luxurious heap piled on her shoulders in a way that evoked a vulture's wings. Her head and feet were traditionally garbed in kasa and geta, respectively; these and the mantle distinguished her further from her similarly garbed gang, as they didn't have these visual status markers. Stark white hair fell from under the kasa, sweeping down her back and in front of her shoulders in a tangled mane.

Most unsettling of all were her eyes. With her hat pushed back, he could see she was wearing contacts that had a blown-out photo negative effect, the pupil a narrow pinprick in the center of an opalescent gray ringed ever so slightly with black. It struck him that Kyoko's eyes now looked as cold as they'd felt the last three days.

Ren trailed Kiryuu as he waved Kyoko over to make his announcement.

"Touma-san is headed to Osaka due to an emergency, so he won't be filming today. Luckily for us," he said, raising his arm with a flourish, "Tsuruga-san has graciously stepped in to fill Touma-san's absence!"

The demoness blinked at the director, then turned her head to regard Ren with interest. She lifted her hand out of her furs, producing what appeared to be a Boba tea clutched in her taloned hand. She didn't break eye contact once while she took a pull from the straw.

"Has he? That's wonderful."

Damn the cunning little witch, but she was good. She bestowed a smile on him that was a few degrees warmer than the ones she had given him previously, though it was still nowhere near room temperature, before turning back to the director to discuss the change of plans. He instructed them as to the blocking, serving as a refresher for Kyoko and much needed information for Ren.

"Tsuruga-san, I believe you stated there was that one condition you had with regards to Mogami-san?"

"Yes," he said, eyes fixed on Kyoko's slightly averted face. "I ask that you don't pull your punches."

Her head snapped up, eyes ablaze for the first time in days. It was a sight so beautiful he felt himself unclench, also for the first time in days.

"What are you suggesting?" she scoffed. "That I hit you for real?"

"Yes."

"... Excuse me?"

"Absolutely. Don't hold back," he replied before letting himself be whisked away to the costume and makeup department. Praise was being poured on him from all directions, he was saving them, he was their hero. All very well and good and true, of course, but he only cared about one thing.

That one thing was the feeling of Kyoko's eyes on him as he left. He basked in her attention like it was the sun itself.

Twenty minutes later, Ren emerged as the condemned soul, Jurou. Covering the tattered remains of a paratrooper's uniform were the tattered remains of a cloak the color of sand. His boots were hanging by a thread, filled with holes. Stubble was colored onto his face, as well as faded bruises and cuts from prior scuffles with monsters in the astral wasteland. The cloaks tattered edges disguised the upper half of his face, leaving just barely enough space for him to see.

He pushed the hood back and sighed, grateful there was a reprieve. The final prop and costume adjustments - namely the chains he would be shackled in for the duration - were being fetched, and the cinematographer, sound technician and Kiryuu seemed to be having it out in their own huddle some distance away. Ren watched them, hoping like hell whatever they were arguing about didn't involve ousting him.

"Nice fit," someone quipped from over his shoulder. "Very Prince of Persia chic."

He blinked as a familiar comedian stepped into view. Kijima?

"This is the last place I would have expected you. What are you doing here?"

"Well, I thought I was just here to touch base with my manager, but then I heard two gladiators were stepping into the arena. No way am I missing that!"

Ren rolled his eyes. "Great. You truly do thrive off of conflict, don't you?"

Before Kijima could answer very much in the affirmative, all three members of Bridge Rock descended on the pair with a barrage of questions, effectively forming a huddle with Kijima and Ren.

"You're taking over for Touma-san?"

"You're doing all this for free, man?!"

"Is it true you asked to get beat up for real?"

Startled to hear this last and most troubling tidbit, Kijima tossed a "Bro, are you serious?" onto the pile for good measure.

He looked at all four of them, wondering when he had gathered so many allies for his cause, and answered, "Yes."

Hikaru scratched the back of his head in confusion.

"Does Kyoko-san still, uh ...?" he trailed off.

"Hate my guts with every fiber of her being? Yes. Yes, she does."

Kijima's eyes widened as he fit this last bit of information into the puzzle. "And what? You're just going to let her thrash you to make up for it? You do realize your girlfriend has extensive combat training, right? I wouldn't consider this the smartest thing you've ever done, Ren."

"It doesn't have to be smart," he said grimly. "It just has to be real.

All four of the men gawked at him with varying degrees of admiration for either his bravery or his recklessness, depending on what side of the issue they took. Then Kijima clapped him on his shoulder and said, "Godspeed to you, man."

His gaze suddenly fastened on something behind Ren. Something he studiously looked away from.

"Incoming."

Ren turned around to see the head kijo herself, breaking the protocol of the last four days by making an approach of her own instead of dodging his. Somehow the intimidating effect of her supernatural visage was not at all blunted by the colorful drink still in her hand.

She looked him over, shaking her head. "This seems familiar somehow."

Cain. Who else?

"I remember," he agreed softly.

"Speaking of which, I'd be remiss if I didn't remind you," she stated evenly, "that I've had operatic training and can crack eighty decibels. You might want to rethink the earplugs."

"I've been yelled at before. I'll live."

"Will you?"

He tilted his head slightly at this reply and gave a slight chuckle. "I intend to. Do you have something else in mind?"

She held him in the icy clutches of her serial-killer gaze for a few seconds longer before cracking a grin that made his palms itch. "Don't mind me. Just getting into character."

"Oh, is that why you look like you want to rip out my throat?"

"Pity there's no blood in this scene."

The four other men, having withdrawn ever so slightly without really leaving the two alone, watched this exchange with the riveted expressions of spectators at a tennis match that was going to descend into a bloodbath at any moment. The couple continued their cryptic banter, seeming to have found some common ground in one actor's challenge to another.

"Were you serious about me not holding back?" she asked soberly.

"I was. I still am."

She nodded slowly, considering his decision for a moment.

"Do you have any objections?" he asked.

She shrugged, nibbling at the straw in her drink. "Not in theory. We'll fight for a while, then I'll sit on top of you and scream. I'm up for that if you are, senpai."

His head jerked back ever so slightly as a jolt ran through him, the mental image conjured by her words like a blow to his knees. He could feel the unmistakable ripple that ran through the men standing near him who definitely picked up on the innuendo. She continued to smile serenely up at him, not appearing to care that she had just thrown down the gauntlet before witnesses.

"I'm up to the task anytime you are, kohai." He couldn't have kept the heat out of his voice if he had tried.

Hikaru coughed into his arm, Shinichi and Yuusei looked at one another over his head in awe of what was happening, and Kijima continued to stare directly into the center of this discussion with rapt attention, eyebrows raised high.

Kyoko lifted her chin, smirking at his audacity. "Cute. Last chance. Are you sure you don't want to reconsider?"

"Think of it this way," he said, eyes drifting to her mouth. "Jurou is the reason Sayako is now dead and a demon, correct? His path is less of a straightforward heroic journey than it is a torturous death-march. Right?"

Kyoko blinked in surprise that would know this much about a film while not even being in it and made an obvious effort to not appear too impressed.

"Right."

"Well, he's here in the wastes to atone for his sins. To be punished for his wrongdoings, right? Shouldn't the viewer feel the weight of that punishment as he does? What better way than to feel the weight of it myself?"

They stared one another down, the silence between them heavy with the knowledge that Ren wasn't really talking about Jurou in the slightest. They both knew he was talking absolute nonsense, but damned if he was going to pull back now.

Kyoko stepped closer to him, resting her hands on her bandaged hips. Still not near enough to touch, but close enough to have to tilt her head back to look at him from under the brim of her woven kasa.

"Are you that eager to be punished?"

This was the exact moment he decided to chuck the last of his dignity and whatever remained of subtlety aside.

"I can think of worse things than being beaten by a beautiful woman."

Time seemed to stop; every other occupant on the lot might as well have been vapor.

She took one more piercing look through his soul and said, "So be it."

She pivoted on her heel and strode away, rejoining the demon troupe congregating at the far end of the backlot.

Kijima, brash as ever, took one look at all this and finally gave voice to what every man in the silent huddle was thinking:

"Man," he addressed Ren, "what the hell is this? Foreplay?"

Slightly shaken by the encounter and caught fully off guard by the question, Ren replied without thinking:

"I guess I'll know by the end of the night."

Ren thanked his lucky stars and every single Hizuri ancestor that Kyoko was out of earshot when the four men finally gave way to the tension and erupted into a cacophony of expletives, howls, laughter and back-slapping.

He didn't have the heart to break it to them that he hadn't meant it the way it had sounded since they were so clearly rooting for him, so he just kept his mouth shut and heeded the call back to the hair and makeup department. He tried to remember what he had told them as he was swallowed up by the well-oiled machinery, by the hands that made the glamour on which he and his fellow actors depended:

It doesn't have to be smart. Just real.

He turned this way and that, the rattling of his chains muffled slightly by the ragged shroud hanging off of his frame. The kijo swarmed around, prowling in pantherine strides on the craggy rocks around him and huffing the air, gathering in his scent.

He stumbled into the clearing at the center, shoved from behind by a kijo he hadn't heard approaching. He fell to his hands and knees, and curled into the fetal position as the lesser oni began to close in. Some of them threw rocks, others were screaming, some of the ones closest to him began to claw at the edges of his cloak and his limbs, hungry for the flesh of a wounded man -

Then he heard her voice.

"EEEEEEERAAAAAAH."

A keening animalistic shriek*** that ripped through the other kijo like a buzzsaw. They scrambled away, clearing a path to the pathetic wretch that had been her husband in life. Bowing and prostrating themselves before the closest thing to a queen the likes of this hell pit had ever seen. One reached out to brush her claws against the mantle that enfolded her mistress; another stroked her hair reverently as she floated past them. A hush fell over the group.

She held the back of hand to her nose, eyeing him with disgust as she came closer.

"You carry the stench of my death even now, Jurou."

Her speaking voice was low and raspy, the voice of someone who had cried and screamed until there was nothing left but the bones which bracketed the vocal cords. "You waft it through this domain in which I feel and see all. And yet you presume to hide from me."

Her foot, clad in it's wooden geta, darted out at his shoulder, throwing him off balance so that he landed on his side in the dirt. The unwieldy chains proved his undoing. It was seized by two of the lurking kijo who proceeded to yank cruelly on it, forcing him back onto his knees right as he attempted to right himself. Her foot struck him again, connecting solidly with his back.

"The almighty Buddha sees all you do, Sayako," he snarled as best as he could with his face in the dirt. "I am not alone here."

She slunk around him and spoke once more in that ghostly rasp: "This place has long since been abandoned by the likes of him. Buddha would not trouble himself with your carcass even if I were to pick my teeth with what's left of it."

The other kijo chattered and laughed, continuing to pelt him with rocks every time he tried to break free of the clearing.

"You could have killed me. You've had so many chances. You have that power. Why haven't you killed me?"

She drew nearer to him, eyelids low as she sunk down into the dirt with him, head tilting at the desperation she heard in his voice. For a moment she seemed to be his Sayako again, the girl she was before he had hurt and betrayed her. She was there, he could tell, could almost see the image of her flickering over the guise of the demon like an old celluloid film reel.

"I knew you weren't lost to me. Your soul isn't so far gone that -"

Lightning fast, she grabbed the chain welded to his cuffed wrists and twined it around his neck in three swift turns, tightening until he couldn't speak and could barely breathe. Leveraging her foot against his chest, she pulled the chain taut and looked down at him with those cold eyes, contemptuous as he struggled.

"Every day since I came to this place, I swore one thing and one thing only. That I would see you reduced to the animal you revealed yourself to be in life. I pictured this moment. This exact moment. I lived for it. This is as close to heaven as I will get, thanks to you."

She held him this way for a few moments longer, then released her grip and shoved him onto his back, chains and all. He rolled onto his side, reaching out to draw the chain away from his attackers and gasping for air.

He got her wooden geta stomped across his knuckles for his troubles.

"You speak of gods and souls and chances in this domain," she mocked as his hand darted back into his rags. "You're an even bigger fool than even I imagined if you think you can sweet-talk your way out of here."

She leaned down to spit the words into his face: "You always thought your tongue could work miracles. I assure you, that was never the case before and it isn't the case now."

The howled with laughter, pelting him with vulgar words and handfuls of dirt.

"Put me out of this misery. If there remains even a bit of you that remembers what we were, Sayako, please - !"

Her palm connected with the side of his head, and he saw stars before he hit the ground once more.

"End your suffering before I've had my fill of it? Send you on to the hereafter when I can bind you in the wastes where you belong? I think not."

She turned away then, swaying seductively on her lethal geta. She seemed to have lost interest in him, but then she turned and hurled herself at him with the precision of a bullet, knocking him onto his back, landing perfectly on the mark. Her claws tightened around his neck as she straddle his ribs, arching forward so that their faces were barely two inches apart.

And she unleashed a sound fit for hell itself. That same cacophonic wail that had scattered her sisters, but torqued up to apocalyptic proportions. He writhed underneath her, trying in vain to escape that awful sound, but the other held his chain as their mistress perched on his chest. His hands contorted, clawing at the air the way he wished he could claw at his ears.

Silence.

He opened his eyes and saw ... someone. Not Sayako, not the demon she had become, not even Kyoko. In the blink of an eye, he saw a beautiful tormentor breathing in his face, her forehead resting against his as though in the aftermath of vigorous lovemaking. Her eyes were so blissfully malevolent, so calm and far gone it struck terror and excitement in the heart of Kuon himself, Ren and Jurou be damned.

And in another blink of the eye, she was gone.

"Death was the easy part," Sayako rasped against his mouth, holding out her hand to another for the iron mask. "Your suffering has only just begun."

"CUT! Good!"

Kyoko yanked Ren to his feet, and for one terrifying moment, everyone froze and collectively thought:

Is she about to lay into him again?!

She proceeded to yank off Ren's hood, grab him by his jaw and began to turn his head back and forth, checking for damage that hadn't been inflicted by the makeup department. The calm expression on Ren's face seemed to convey that he had expected this; he didn't try to pull away once. There was a collective exhale before everything around them unfroze, everyone trying their hardest to cut the pair a wide margin and to not stare at what was clearly a very fragile moment.

Once she finally let go of his jaw, he looked down and saw that her face was etched with a very specific kind of wrath. She was gripping his arms, holding him away from her and still searching his frame as well as she could without actively pawing at him.

He had seen this look before.

It was the same furious expression on his own mother's face when she had yanked him out of oncoming traffic, missing a collision with a van by mere inches, then proceeded to scream at him until he cried. He was six at the time.

Juliena had gathered him into her arms and explained as best as she could that when a grown-up is afraid, really afraid, it can look and sound like anger. That was the exact expression on Kyoko's face: a mix of fear that she had hurt him and genuine anger that he had put himself into this situation in the first place.

"Hey," he said, shaking Kyoko's hold and putting his hands around her shoulders. "I'm alright. Okay? Everything is alright. Okay?"

She exhaled sharply, a telltale sign she hadn't taken a real breath since the scene ended.

"I asked for this, remember?" Ren whispered. "You did as I asked. You didn't do anything bad. You were perfect."

She glared at his midsection, still not able to look him in the eye, but she nodded slowly and dropped her hands.

Kiryuu-sama, being the one ostensibly in charge, finally dared to sidle up to the two actors. "Kyoko-sa - ?"

Her head whipped up suddenly, still with a glower truly worthy of a high-caste demoness on her face.

"It's only me. You did a great job. The both of you," he said, adopting the same firm but soothing tone that Ren had without even realizing it.

"Sorry. Sorry! I ... I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head as though coming out of a trance.

She stepped back and wandered into the wasteland.

"I leave you alone," Yukihito Yashiro intoned ominously, "for all of two seconds, and you sneak onto a film behind my back! And why the hell did you ask to be hit for real? I just saw the dailies for that scene, one wrong kick, and she could have taken your head off!"

"But she didn't," Ren said reflectively. "She didn't go as hard on me as she could have, even though I asked her to. My knuckles are a little sore, and I'll probably have a few bruises here and there, but there's no harm done."

Yashiro, who had been pacing whilst delivering this lecture, stopped suddenly and glared at him in a manner that showed he was one more tirade away from a burst blood vessel.

Ren sighed. His manager had arrived right as everything was wrapping up and was clearly not pleased about any of this. He deserved some kind of explanation.

"Okay, listen ..."

He proceeded to explain everything to Yashiro in hushed tones. His reading Kyoko's journal, which he already knew about (sans the entry's contents, there was no way he was going to go there with Yashiro, though he made it clear it represented a major violation of trust), Kyoko's subsequent banishment of him to the arctic circle of hell, and his admittedly opportunistic and reckless attempt to get her attention.

Hearing all this on top of everything else, Yashiro still looked like he might be risking a blood vessel, but now it was due to the tug-of-war between his duties as a manager and his utter devotion to Ren and Kyoko.

Love won out in the end, as it often did with Yashiro.

"Well for god's sake then, get over there and make up already! God knows I can't deal with you two separately again," he said, rubbing his forehead wearily at the very thought of having to go through that. "And no more sly film projects on hiatus! This is the exact kind of thing that contracts are supposed to prevent!"

With this (sort of) blessing, Ren sought out Kyoko. He found her leaning against the wall behind one of the few folding tables left during the clean-up phase. She still had her costume on, sans the hat, contact lenses and shawl. He was relieved to see she didn't have that same thousand-yard stare anymore, but she was definitely not all there as she looked at the gradually diminishing set in front of her.

"How's your throat?"

Her eyelids flickered as she came back to herself again. Unbelievable. The man had just put himself through hell, submitting to a beating of all things from someone who supposedly loved him, and he was somehow still more concerned about her.

"It's okay," she said quietly, still staring off into the wasteland. "I had some warm tea. How're your ears?"

"Well, they're not ringing anymore, so that's a good sign."

Kyoko looked up into the beautiful face she had just shrieked into with the wrath of a chthonic deity and tried to summon ... something, anything. The cold detachment, the bitter contempt, the anger that had kept her warm these past few nights. But there was almost nothing left to draw on from either her own reserves or Kanae's bag of tricks. Save for the one question she needed him to answer, now more than ever.

Do you have something you need to tell me?

"I'm stopping at a lounge nearby. Will you join me for a drink?"

Before she could answer, Kanae appeared as though summoned from the depths of hell, still in parts of her own oni costume.

She was carrying a small chrome lockbox.

Kyoko froze up at the sight of it, heart thumping so loud she could hear the blood churning in her ears.

Oh, no. NO. She isn't about to - ! She wouldn't dare - !

Kanae proceeded to prove her wrong, holding out the chrome box and flatly stating, "Don't forget your pacifier."

For one deranged moment before the embarrassment fully engulfed her, Kyoko was almost grateful for Moko-san's treachery, if for no other reason than it made Ren stop looking at her with his magnetism cranked all the way up to tractor beam-like levels. But of course, the moment didn't last, because Kanae continued, in the clearly articulated and emphatic tones of an overbearing mother:

"She made such a big deal about this box being protected," she said to Ren as Kyoko meekly took the case and accepted her fate, "you'd think something really precious and sentimental was inside. I mean, so much fuss over a necklace. You'd think it was a family heirloom or something."

Fighting both the urge to run away and the urge to kick Moko-san's legs out from under her, Kyoko flushed a lurid shade of red from the roots of her hair to the very tips of her toes. She didn't have to look up to know that Ren was staring at her again.

Damn it.

"You see, I've been calling it her pacifier," Kanae clarified helpfully, "because when she gets fussy, she'll hold up to her mouth and start gnawing on it. Why not just wear the damn thing? Honestly."

DAMN. IT.

"I see," Ren replied, his tone so neutral she could practically hear the dopey smile he was forcing back with all his might.

DAMN IT ALL.

"Thank you, Kanae," Kyoko said stiffly, trying not to gnash her teeth.

"No problem," she replied graciously before she withdrew, tossing a "Good night, you two" over her shoulder as she left.

It was all she could do to keep her face carefully blank and not climb the man like a tree the way she so desperately wanted, humiliation be damned. So with the monumental effort it was taking, she knew she didn't stand a chance when Ren did what Kanae had said he would do:

He begged.

"Please, Kyoko? I know we have something to talk about. Something that can't wait any longer. Will you please come?"

Cain truly is alive and well, I see. Damn him and those eyes.

"... I have to finish up here ... first."

She turned away with the intention of getting as far away as possible so she could compose herself in private, only to feel his hand wrap around hers. That gentle, but firm grasp was the first contact the two had shared in days, and the current that passed through them was so strong it could be LME's backup generator in the event of a power failure.

"Was that a yes?"

".. No."

The current was still flowing unabated. On the strength of that one touch, Kyoko made her decision. She tightened her own grip just as he was reluctantly pulling away, stopping him.

"Actually," she said quietly, "I'd much rather have a drink at your place."

She felt him inhale sharply.

"Will you take me home, Kuon-kun?"

"... I'll meet you out front."

*Y'all know the necklace I'm talking about, right? Not Princess Rosa (I feel like that only comes out for special occasions), but the one Ren wears everywhere. The one he put around Kyoko's neck once they had their moment in the elevator. You know the one.

**kijo - female or demoness, specifically the kind that were women whose resentment turned them into demons

***For an idea of what it sounds like, think of the sound that Soul Edge makes when you beat Inferno in Soul Calibur II, when the sword is ejected from its body. I don't think humans can make that sound, at least not as loudly as I've written here, but let's be honest: if ANYONE could do it, you know it would be Kyoko.

kasa - traditional Japanese hat

geta - traditional wooden Japanese sandals

(^I forgot to put a little asterisk next to these to reference them in the text and by the time I noticed the whole chapter was finally edited and ready to go, so I just didn't bother.)

Whoo! That was a lot. This definitely skewed a little more towards an angsty vibe, so I hope I was able to keep the humor intact. Shoot me a review and let me know how I did! Next chapter definitely has more smut and humor in it, so just sit tight.

Also quick side note: that whole "it doesn't have to be smart, just real" thing is just for the purposes of this very fictional story. DON'T EVER WORK ON FILMS THAT ENDORSE THIS MINDSET. METHOD ACTING IS A LIE.

Till next time!