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

AN: ANOTHER chapter I had to chop in half! I was pushing near 10k words in this one alone by the time I admitted that it had gotten too unwieldy.

Trigger warning for slight dubcon overtones.

Enjoy!

Chapter Six

The walk to his car seemed to take a century in itself. Quite an accomplishment when the entire walk from the backlot to the parking lot of LME took maybe six minutes, all told. In that time, Kuon and Kyoko walked in silence. A silence broken every now and again by the sound of Ren's pendant necklace sliding around in the tiny chrome case in Kyoko's right hand; every time her stride jostled it, it clanged ever so slightly.

His car was within sight when Kyoko suddenly stopped walking. Kuon stopped less than a second later as though tethered to her; even deep in his own thoughts he couldn't lose that awareness of her, even if he tried.

"Kuon, let's not drag this out," she said, her voice low but clear as she stared down at the pavement. "I don't think I can stand it anymore."

Kanae said there would be a moment, she thought resolutely. This might not be it, but I can't go on any longer. Not without knowing.

"So ... do you have something you need to tell me? Or shall we just keep hiding from each other?"

Kuon looked her in the eye and almost immediately wished he hadn't. She had that same remote, icy demeanor as before. Only now it cut much deeper. In the aftermath of their scene together, he couldn't be sure if it reflected her actual feelings towards him or if it was a polished shield reflecting his own inadequacies back at him. The difference didn't amount to much, as far as he was concerned. Either way, she had removed herself from him, and he felt that loss as palpably as he had felt his knuckles throbbing under her geta.

He flexed his fingers, remembering. A part of him relished that pain, but it wasn't the only thing. He remembered the excitement he had felt on the receiving end of that thrashing. The pain wasn't quite a lure in itself, but the experience ... maybe he finally had the answer to his question from almost a week ago. When he had wondered if her desires had become his or if his had just been lying in wait for her.

He squared his shoulders and thought: It's time to get out ahead of this. She needs to hear this from me. She has to know she's not alone in these desires ...

"You want to hear me say it?" he asked softly, stalling despite his resolve. "Even though you know already?"

Her stomach dropped. She held herself steady with an effort.

"Yes."

He closed his eyes and exhaled, his breath visible in the chilly night air. "Alright, I will. Maybe then you can see this is something that can work for both of us."

The mask slipped for a moment, confusion and hurt narrowing her eyes.

Kuon sighed, running his fingers through his hair as he tried to compose himself.

"Please don't look like that. It's not as strange as you think! We might even be better suited in that way, if you ask me ..."

He can't be this dense. He can't be! Is he saying we'll be long-distance penpals or something?!

"I know I probably don't seem like the type," he continued, studiously looking away from her, "but I did just ask you to beat me up, after all."

She blinked.

What?

Avoiding her eyes and appalled to feel a blush creeping down his neck, he forged onward in a jumbled rush: "That wasn't just to get your attention. It ... It did something for me, I can admit that. It might not be like that all the time or even an everyday thing, but ... We're more alike than you might think. When it comes to ... things of this nature."

... What on earth is he saying to me right now? she wailed silently. Either I've gone insane or he has. Something isn't right here ..

Careful to keep her face as enigmatic as she could so as not to give the game away, Kyoko looked him over from head to toe and tried to really see him clearly past the haze of her own emotional malaise. He looked ... embarrassed? It seemed impossible, but his hands were jammed into his coat pockets, his eyes were evasive and ... Why was his face so red? Any one of these could have been due to the cold they were standing in, but certainly not all of those things together with this incoherent conversation. He had the look of a stubborn teenager trying to justify some transgression.

Her mind reeled. None of the pieces were connecting. What did any of this have to do with the scene he had just enacted in Touma's place? What was this talk about them being "alike" in some mysterious way? Her fingers twitched impatiently.

Spit it out already! the two of them thought in near-unison.

"You obviously want me to say it, so I will," he said, as he continued to avoid that sphinx-like stare in favor of a streetlamp nearby. "Two weeks ago, I thought there was something wrong that you weren't telling me about, something serious. I was worried, and ... I kept asking you and asking you, but you always said everything was fine, so I ... I read your journal."

Silence.

More silence.

So much silence, Kuon eventually had no choice but to wonder if she heard him at all. His gaze slid away from the streetlamp and back towards her.

Kyoko's face was drained of all color, and her jaw was slack. He heard something hit the ground next to her feet and looked down to see that it was her bag sliding off of her shoulder. Up until this moment she had maintained the poised and proper stance of the ice princess who had spent the last four days crushing him beneath her heel.

Now she looked more like a pedestrian frozen in the headlights of an oncoming truck, no more able to move than a deer would in that situation.

"You ... You did ... THAT'S what this is about?"

The cold aura had vanished as thoroughly as a mirage in the desert, and Kuon saw the extent to which he had been duped. The sensation was like having a veil ripped off of his head, allowing him to finally see indistinct shapes and silhouettes in sharp relief. She hadn't known about the journal. Kyoko hadn't known in the entire stretch of his exile. In fact, if the shell shocked look on her face was to be believed, she hadn't even been thinking about the journal!

His brow furrowed. "What did you think this was about?"

"I thought you were leaving the country!" Kyoko shouted before she could stop herself. "I thought you were leaving me!"

"... What?" he said as some pieces began to fit together while others were cast straight up into the night sky. "You ... that's what you thought was happening this whole time? Where did you get an idea like that?"

What felt like a hundred competing emotions wracked her all at once, chief among them being a deep sense of betrayal, a profound relief and a confusion so complete it muddled every other feeling that was fighting to get a crack at her.

"You-You said - ! You were saying to 'think only about today' when I asked you and that you ... said you wanted ... to be... Wait. Wait."

Kuon froze. He didn't have a prayer of jumping onto her exact train of thought, but the look of realization that suddenly dawned on her face did not bode well for him.

I think the other shoe is about to drop.

"Did you ... you didn't ... you didn't read the whole thing, did you?" The look of horror on Kyoko's face was illuminating, perhaps more than she could realize due to the state she was in. Not once had he even considered that there might be other dreams in her journal, dreams of a similar nature. Standing there in a heavy winter coat, beanie and boots, Kyoko nonetheless looked more naked than he had ever seen her. Utterly exposed and vulnerable. Violated, even.

"No!" he rushed to clarify. "I was concerned about one night in particular. It took me days to work up the nerve to even read that much! I wish I had never done it -"

Her pale face became eerily composed. "One night?"

"Yes. You were crying out in your sleep. The next morning, I asked and -"

She swayed suddenly, and he instinctively moved closer in case she fainted. Her face was definitely drained of enough blood to make that a possibility. Her stance firmed as he drew nearer, and she held up her hands to keep him at bay before she continued.

"Which night? Which entry?" she intoned, staring at his midsection the way she had in the aftermath of their scene together.

"... The doctor."

There goes the other shoe.

A sound came out her mouth then that scared him even worse than her sudden swoon. A quiet, desperate sound. A cry that was somewhere between a sob and a whimper. She smacked her hands over her mouth and shut her eyes, turning away from him. The jumble of emotions he felt radiating off of her made up his mind. They had to go. They couldn't do this in public. Not without repercussions.

"Okay. We're leaving." He glanced around quickly, making sure there wasn't anybody around just yet.

"You - !" she snarled.

"Get in the car. We're leaving."

Kuon reached out to usher her towards the passenger side door, only for her to stoop down to retrieve her dropped bag, ducking his grasp. Kyoko then proceeded to swing it at his chest, knocking the wind out of him for a moment. Then she dropped the bag back to the pavement and came at him with a flurry of smacks against his abdomen before grabbing him by the front of his coat.

"You. Absolute. Prick."

"I deserve that. I know, just -"

Quivering with impotent rage, she had just started stomping at his toes when she was suddenly picked up off the ground. Not very high, but high enough for her own toes to barely scrape the pavement. He held her with his right arm wrapped fully around her, trapping her limbs and mashing her against him bodily. Kyoko was twisting in this embrace, determined to break it when his voice pierced through the red mist clouding both her vision and her reason:

"Kyoko. Listen to me. I'm not going to allow you to stain your career by letting you throw a tantrum in this parking lot. Look at me!"

She looked up at him and inhaled through her clenched teeth, ready to scream so loud it would put Sayako to shame.

Then immediately felt her entire body cease any and all fidgeting, struggling and shaking as his eyes caught hers. Her teeth were still bared at him, and she still had his coat in her claws. But the scream died in her throat, stillborn at the prospect of confronting what she found herself pressed up against.

Oh, God. He looks ... like he could kill me.

Not like he would do such a thing. Definitely not like he wanted to do such a thing. But rather like he had dropped any and all pretense of not seeming capable of doing such a thing at any given moment. It was a hard difference to define, but it was there. There in the flat, intent look in his narrowed eyes. In the severe set of his mouth. In his deep, unhurried breathing. In the way he held her suspended with no discernable effort.

Without much in the way of heat or malice in his voice or expression, all that remained was unbridled power. An unstoppable force in pitched battle against an all-too-moveable object.

In a word, he looked dangerous. Controlled, composed and subtly frightening in the street light. His grip on her was an art unto itself: simultaneously gentle enough to not crush the air out of her, but still absolutely immovable.

Against all logic, Kyoko felt a familiar sensation that made her thighs squeeze together. In almost no amount of time at all, the direction of her thoughts seemed to change completely.

Why now? Why this?

Then he began to speak again, low and slow. Never taking his arm from around her or his eyes from her face, he spoke in a pitch that seemed to strum at that aching spot:

"If you resist, I will carry you," he said, his breath stirring the hair falling into her face. "If you start yelling before we're in my apartment, I will cover your mouth. Hold yourself together until we're in private, then you can react however you're going to react. The place is soundproof, and no one will hear you scream. I won't stop you. That or I can take you back home now so we can talk later. Do you understand me?"

He watched her face, refusing to blink as he said these words that burned like phosphorus in his chest. The situation was completely out of hand if it had come to this. His first impulse had been damage control, and before he could stop himself, he had gone on autopilot and had trapped her in his arm. She had stopped trying to thrash him. In fact, she wasn't moving at all, but he wasn't sure if that was due to his words getting through to her or more akin to the stillness before a wounded viper strikes with twice its venom.

A few seconds went by. The only sound in the cold night air was their mingled breathing.

Then, to Kuon's complete astonishment, Kyoko actually seemed to ... relax?

No. Not relax, so much as ... soften?

Her breathing became deeper, her pupils dilated visibly even in the low light coming from the streetlamp, and strangest of all, her eyelids had lowered in an incongruous, but unmistakable invitation. She had released her death-grip on his coat; her palms now rested flat against his chest, but she wasn't trying to push him away. She was sagging the slightest bit in his grasp. And she was staring at his mouth like it was the only thing that mattered right now.

Before he could think better of it, he accepted the invitation and planted a quick, hard kiss on her. He pulled back with a growl, furious he had succumbed, but not at all regretful somehow. She still had that mesmerized look on her face. Her hands were gripping his coat lapels again. And she was still gazing at his mouth, now with a smoldering need in her eyes that they really weren't about to address out in public. He dug his keys out of his left pocket with his unoccupied hand and refocused on the immediate objective.

"Kyoko," he began, lowering her to the ground without releasing her.

There was no response, only more of that semi-blissful distraction.

"Kyoko."

Her gaze snapped up from his mouth to his eyes, her brows raised high.

"Answer me."

"Yes," she mumbled, still clearly out of it as she looked into his eyes with what could only be described as anticipation.

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, Kuon-kun ... I understand."

She's not afraid, he realized with a jolt. She's ... weirdly compliant, but ... she's not scared.

"Good. Do you want to come with me or am I taking you home? Which is it?"

"You. With you."

"Good girl," he said before he could stop himself. She only nodded slowly in response, still looking into his eyes as though hypnotized.

Why the hell am I hard right now? he thought, praying to every god he could think of that Kyoko hadn't noticed.

Moving her like a broken marionette, Kuon unlocked the door and handed her inside. As he went around the front of the vehicle to the driver side, he glanced through the windshield to see she still had that look as she watched him walk by. As if waiting for what he would do next.

He got into the car and drove them off into the darkness without any of idea what that would be.

Crossing the threshold of her boyfriend's apartment wasn't usually marked by anything other than the name by which she referred to him. To the rest of the world, he was Ren Tsuruga. Here, together with her, he was Kuon Hizuri.

She had long ago ceased to think of Ren Tsuruga and Kuon Hizuri as two different people. Oh, she was still incredibly careful to never confuse the two in public; it wasn't yet time for him to reveal that to the rest of the world. But as far as she was concerned, they were two halves of the same treasured coin. Quite literally, a difference in name only.

Tonight, however, seemed to have revealed a definite line between these two men. A difference in approach, for lack of a better word, rather than a true difference in kind. Though she couldn't quite understand how or why or by what means, she was convinced: Ren Tsuruga might have been the one to coldly stomp down her resistance, the one to seize control of the dynamic with his words, but it was Kuon Hizuri that glowed ember-like with barely restrained power, the tiger in the tank that had subdued her with nothing more than that look on his face and one well-placed arm.

She heard the door click shut behind them. The sound might as well have been the clapping of a hypnotist's hands, snapping her out of her daze.

What is the matter with me? Why is this ... what is this doing to me? Why ... why am I thinking about sex right now ... ? How did he .. !

There was no accounting for that moment in the LME parking. Nor could she account for the elevator ride up to his apartment. Somewhere around the ninth floor, she had looked up into his face to see him looking back with that bland, gentlemanly smile she could only ever associate with Ren Tsuruga. Then she had looked down to where his hand was gripping her shoulder, mashing her against him so she couldn't run if she tried. Practically lifting her off of her feet again as they entered his floor of the building, her steps barely able to keep up with his as he drag-walked her to his place.

Kuon released her as soon as he had the door locked behind them, and he even put a few feet of distance between them so he wouldn't crowd her. But the damage (if you could call it that) had been thoroughly done by that point. She watched him taking off his coat, struck by how wide his shoulders were, how he still seemed to dwarf her physically even when he wasn't right next to her. Thankfully hidden by the cover of her winter coat, her thighs nevertheless kept rubbing together anxiously, trying to quell the sensation that had begun in the parking lot. The rubbing just made it worse. His words from their altercation at LME played like some pornographic loop in her head:

"... I will cover your mouth."

"No one will hear you scream."

"Good girl."

The most terrifying part about that whole encounter hadn't been the implicit threat of what might have amounted to abduction, if the two of them had been willing to put up a real fight. No. It had been the realization that Kuon had already said these things to her several times before.

Not in real life, but in her dreams.

Worse still, in dreams she hadn't written in her journal.

Dreams he would have no way of knowing about.

She flashed back to his admission about only reading one entry. She hadn't wanted to believe him, indeed, she really hadn't in the initial throes of her anger. But these uncanny echoes, in their own way, just proved that he had been telling the truth. He hadn't been quoting her private thoughts to her. He had just ... known. Known what to say to not only stop her from fighting him, but to short-circuit her mind completely in favor of her body's response. It didn't seem to be at all deliberate or conscious on his part, but ... what difference did that make now?

In fact, didn't that make it worse? That he could so easily use her senses to hijack her will and not even realize it?

Her prevailing instinct in this moment directed her to run, to drop her things, make a dash for the door and damn the consequences. Kyoko didn't do that, but as she re-centered herself with a considerable effort, another tactic began to form.

Shift gears. Distract him. Make peace and then run.

Yes. Perhaps a difference in approach was just what this situation needed.

Kuon shrugged out of his overcoat and glanced back to see that Kyoko still had her own coat, shoes and hat on as she hovered near the front door. She was watching him, her expression unreadable. He sighed. Well, at least she wasn't throwing a fit. Yet. He tossed the heavy coat over the couch and doffed his black sweater, revealing a white henley shirt. As the sweater was tugged over his head, Kuon could swear he saw her looking him over. By the time he had chucked the sweater with his coat and looked back, she had taken her eyes off him in favor of the ground. The way she began to nervously chew her lower lip made him flash back to their kiss (well, his kiss) back at LME. That had been a mistake. He had confused adrenaline for desire, that's all.

Another thing I need to apologize for, he thought ruefully.

"What would you like?" he asked, gesturing towards the wooden cabinet where he kept the alcohol.

A pause. Then, tugging the knit beanie off of her head: "Brandy, if you have it. If not, just ... something brown. Neat."

That's not a good sign, he thought as he went to fetch two glasses and the decanter. The last time Kyoko had taken anything straight was when Fuwa gate-crashed the JAFP* and made an awful, public scene during her acceptance speech. He still remembered her nursing that drink backstage, trying to calm her nerves. He remembered having to drag her out of a private exit before she could wobble outside on her spike heels and try to hunt down the musician for a richly deserved beating.

He returned to the living room to find Kyoko sitting on the couch. She had taken off the coat and her boots. She didn't stir when he returned to sit across from her, getting on the floor and placing their glasses on the coffee table between them. Kuon winced slightly as he watched her down the glass in one gulp, face contorting slightly as it burned that warm, weightless sensation into her.

Kyoko pushed the glass aside, shuddering a bit at the aftereffect. She raised her head to look at him directly.

Kuon opened his mouth. "I'm -"

"Stop. Wait."

He shut his mouth instantly. It would probably be best if he let her set the pace anyway. Or, if he was being honest, probably best that he just surrendered to the tidal wave that was undoubtedly coming. He had told her he would let her scream to her heart's content once they were alone, after all. There was no avoiding it.

Kyoko shut her eyes and took a deep breath, then stood up from the couch and rounded the table between them so she was facing his right side straight on. He swiveled around to face her, confused as to what she was doing. Then, for the first time in perhaps three years, he watched in astonishment as she dropped into a dogeza, the top of her head about a foot away from his knee.

What the ...?

As confused as he was by this rare but familiar gesture, it was her words (slightly muffled due to her head's position) that baffled him even more:

"I'm so sorry for the way I've acted, Kuon-kun. Please, can you ever forgive me?"

... What the hell?

"Can I forgive you? Kyoko, I'm the one who's done something wrong here, why are you apologizing to me?"

With her head down, Kuon couldn't see the slight smirk that his words brought to her face. Excellent. He had given her the perfect setup from which to pivot.

"I'm apologizing for how I acted in the parking lot. It was uncalled for. I'm also sorry for how I treated you this past week. I ... I really thought ... I thought you were hiding something much worse from me, and I overreacted. I shouldn't have doubted you."

She let the words hang between them. So far, she hadn't really told any lies. Now whether she could bring herself to truly internalize what she was saying, Kyoko couldn't yet be sure, but there wasn't time for that right now anyway. Her only objective at this point was to resolve this situation and get out of here without any more talk of the journal or why she had been convinced he was leaving in the first place. Those things she wanted to sort out by herself, away from his eyes and all the things she couldn't hide from him and the sexual tension still crackling between them.

Kyoko raised her head, and Kuon could tell something wasn't right by the expression on her face. It took him a few seconds, but he recognized it. It was the exact same look she would probably have given an irate or demanding hotel patron: blandly serene and deeply apologetic. The look of a consummate professional adopting a composed demeanor and seemingly genuine contrition in order to placate someone unreasonable into submission.

His hands began to itch.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Kuon stifled it readily enough, but the urge to reach out and grab her was almost irresistible. Would she keep that lifeless, doll-like smile in place if he took her in his arms right now and kissed her again? Was this a feint to put him off his guard, to move the discussion away from the matter at hand? Or could she actually be afraid of him? The first possibility was almost amusing, if frustrating; the second, utterly catastrophic. He sat in silence for a moment, watching her and trying to gauge which one it could be. Then watched as she sat back on her heels, hands folded in her lap and proceeded to give him one hell of a sales pitch.

"I feel awful about all of this. Let me make it up to you, Kuon."

"Make it up to me?" he asked, playing along.

"I know it's gotten pretty late, but," she put her hand to her chin here, looking like the very picture of innocence as she glanced towards the kitchen, "why don't I make us something to eat? We can have another drink and then ... get some sleep?"

The subtlest twist to those last three words almost - almost - knocked him completely off-balance. He blinked several times and tried to stay focused. Her hand slid up from her chin and into her hair, tousling it slightly in a manner that made him want to reach out and do the same. That shy innocence took on a new gradient, a sensual sheen that was admittedly dazzling in its juxtaposition. Her eyelids were lower now, and the blush on her face was genuine enough, at least.

"M-Maybe ... getting back into our routine together, after being apart for so long, is what I need. I admit I've missed getting to sleep in late with you, Kuon-kun."

Oh ... Oh, you are good, he thought, eyes narrowing as he looked his adversary over with begrudging respect. Feed me, get me tipsy to reel me in. Hint at the possibility of intimacy to pull the line tight. I know this is a trap, and I'm still tempted to take her up on it. Marvelously done.

"Kyoko, are you saying," he asked, "that you aren't angry with me anymore? After what I've done?"

She twitched slightly, blushing harder as her gaze slid away from his. Her hand dipped from her hair down to clasp her elbow in a gesture of vulnerability that wasn't entirely feigned.

"Well, I can't say I like what you did, but ... I also can't say you didn't have your reasons. This was all a misunderstanding."

Ah. And she knew to reel it back in after all the pillow talk. If only she hadn't been so abrupt about it, she might have rooked him easily. Indeed, Kuon had the eerie sense that if he didn't know her so well, if they weren't so thoroughly bound by fate's red strings, this routine would have worked flawlessly on him.

He picked up the brandy and refilled his glass in silence.

Okay, clever girl. Let's see how far you're willing to take this.

Kyoko watched as Kuon sighed and looked up at the ceiling, appearing for all the world like a man thanking God for a bullet dodged.

"That's a relief," he said softly before looking back at her again. "I thought for sure you would hate me for what I've done. Heh ... We certainly made a lot of fuss over a journal, didn't we?"

Kuon caught the slightest hint of calculation flash across her face as she gauged his response. It was gone in a millisecond and discernable to him only because he had been looking for it. He raised his glass to his lips to mask his grin, never taking his eyes off of her.

"Yes," she agreed, the word tasting like sawdust in her mouth. "I suppose we did."

"Funny, isn't it?" he said with a facile smile that he knew would drive her crazy.

Her right eye twitched ever so slightly.

"Very."

Kyoko downed the last of her drink, got to her feet and began to stride towards the kitchen. She paused behind the couch and turned back to him as though something had just occurred to her.

"Oh, uh, what would you like for dinner? It's pretty late, so maybe something small?"

"That sounds good to me," he said, rising to his feet.

She tried to hide it, but he could still sense the relief that his words brought to her. It was so palpable, he almost felt bad for what he was about to do.

Almost.

"Any requests?" she asked sweetly, her back already turned.

"Mmm ... something that doesn't have a lot of sauce. I don't want anything getting on the pages."

She stopped right at the threshold of his pitch-black kitchen, freezing so completely there may as well have been a record scratch. Her foot paused in mid-stride; her hand was poised in mid-air to reach for the light switch.

"Pages?"

Her voice was slightly weak, but she cleared her throat, and tried to brazen it out past the sudden fear that took hold of her. She turned back to face him and found him standing behind the couch with her bag in his hand, a sight that sharpened that fear to a fine point.

"Well," he said, looking her straight in the eyes as he unlatched the satchel, "what better way to put all this behind us," he stuck his hand into the bag, "than to have a look together and see what all the fuss is about?"

"... There's an idea," she said brightly, clasping her hands in front of her to stop them from shaking. Her wide-eyed, sunny facade couldn't quite mask the panicked internal screaming he could practically hear emanating from her. She began to inch her way back towards him, taking fraught half-steps in the hopes that he wouldn't notice her getting into position to lunge at him if necessary.

Kuon let the pity he felt for her in that moment color his expression ever so slightly. No use hiding it if they both knew this had come down to a game of chicken. Please, don't make me do this, he thought, trying not to relish this sadistic game.

"It makes sense, right?" he prodded, making a show of digging around inside the bag. "I think we might even consider this an educational experience. What do you think?"

"Ah ... well," she began vaguely. "The thing is, um, there's a - NO, WAIT, STOP!"

He had just pulled the red journal out of the bag when she proceeded to make a dive for it, coming at him with her hands out. The moment before she would have gotten her hands on it, he chucked sideways it at the armchair across the room where it landed safely.

Carried by the momentum of her dive, Kyoko couldn't swerve to avoid tackling Kuon like a linebacker. He absorbed the impact like it was little more than a sack of flour, locking his arms around her waist so that her feet were once again suspended off the ground. Her eyes were squeezed shut in delayed reaction to the collision that had already occurred. Still grimacing, she opened her eyes and found Kuon staring down at her, visibly amused. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead, grinning when she shuddered slightly at the contact.

"Are you done trying to joust with me?" he quipped, brushing his lips against her hairline. "Or do you have more dinner theater in store for this evening?"

*JAFP = Japanese Award Film Prize. I totally think Fuwa would eventually become the type of unhinged ex who gatecrashes events and makes the kind of public scenes that drives Kyoko to hit the hard stuff. I don't know if I have a story in me yet that will feature this scene, but I've definitely written it in my head, so we'll see!

Till next time!