THE THANK YOU PARTY.
It was another busy day at LME when Kyoko exited Swara's office with the script of the drama named Box R in her hands. Having her jobs as Bo the chicken and Mio, her acting and regular classes, and also the Love Me assignments the President would hand out to her every now and then, she could only scrape enough time for one more drama in her hectic schedule. So she picked the one she hated the least, since all the roles were of bad guys.
Hizuri's words of wisdom rang in her mind and she decided that the first thing she needed to do was somehow start liking her character. Flipping through the pages of the scriptbook, she stumbled upon the character-profile of Natsu Kitazawa, the role she had been offered.
Natsu Kitazawa turned out to be a package of beauty, charm and charisma. With little effort, she was able to achieve outstanding grades, which proved just how smart she was. Other than that, due to her alluring smile, her commanding presence, and her magnetic personality, she was quite the model student. Every girl at her school either wanted to be her friend or become her entirely. Kyoko did not dislike her so far, but she was also at a loss when it came to relating to Natsu. From loving parents to secret admirers, Natsu had everything. Meanwhile, Kyoko always being the outcast, couldn't even begin to imagine how it would feel to always be the centre of attention.
She turned her head back to the script and now the part she would come to hate about Natsu finally appeared. Everything Natsu did was just a lie. Her beautiful smile, her cheerful behaviour and most of all, the fact that she actually cared, it was all nothing but a pretence. Hiding behind the facade of her pretty smile, seducing words, and fake friends, Natsu never let anyone see how she actually felt. Deep down, she was always dissatisfied. No matter how good things were in her life, she was always board. And so for the sake of getting rid of her boredom, she started bulling other students to achieve some sort of entertainment or recreation in her otherwise dull and wretched life. Most people still didn't see Natsu for what she really was, but those who did, they started fearing her when they used to admire her before. The girls who called themselves Natsu's friends were sweet talked by her to become her bullying companions. And now they followed her around like slaves and did whatever they were told like puppets. For them, Natsu's word was the law. It was how she earned herself the nickname, the Sadistic Queen-Bee.
Kyoko's jaw fell to the floor. Being on the receiving end when it came to bullying, she had no idea how she was supposed to ever love someone like Natsu, let alone become her. Nastu had everything one could ever hope for, but instead she turned out to be so mean and bitter.
Kyoko closed the script with a sigh, trying to come up with even a single reason she should like Natsu. She passed through the cafeteria with her mind still engrossed with the script, when her eyes fell upon a small figure with a familiar face.
"Hey Maria," Kyoko went up to her and joined her in the corner where she was sitting in a sulky mood. "What are you doing here sitting all by yourself?"
"Nothing. Exactly nothing," Maria's snorted through minced teeth. "Why isn't there anything fun to do? I'm so bored!"
"You can't find anyone to play with you? Then how about this?" Reaching into her bag, Kyoko pulled out one of her handmade Ren voodoo dolls. She took it out knowing how crazy Maria was about Ren. Since they were friends, the President's granddaughter had let Kyoko in on her deepest secret, about her having a crush on Ren. She also told her that she intended on marrying him once she grew up.
Kyoko found it so hilarious, in an adorable way, that she couldn't help chucking, and be amused at how much of an active imagination Maria had for a girl who was barely eight years old.
The moment Maria laid eyes upon that doll, her face lit up like a christmas tree. As she reached out to hold it, she asked shyly, "Big Sister, can I keep it?"
"Well," Kyoko hesitated. "I'm so sorry, Maria, but I can't give this to you. You'll have to return it to me once you're done playing."
Maria looked down disappointedly
Instead of cheering her up, Kyoko ended up making Maria even more gloomy. So she tried distracting her. "Say, shouldn't you be at home helping your grandfather with all the party planning?" Kyoko wondered.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm talking about Christmas. It's just around the corner. And now that I think about it, your birthday is coming up as well. It's on the twenty-fourth, right? On Christmas Eve? Shouldn't you be more excited?"
"Well, I don't celebrate my birthday, or even Christmas, so I don't let Grandpa throw any parties like he used to."
"Why the heck not?" Kyoko's brows knitted together into an inquisitive frown.
Maria's face darkened. "Because my birthday is on the same day as my mother's death anniversary"
It was then Kyoko remembered that Maria's mother, who had died in a plane crash, was on her way home for her Maria's birthday when she died. She couldn't help but sympathise with the poor soul with she saw the look on Maria's face... until an idea popped into her mind.
"I know!" Kyoko clasped her hands excitedly. "You wanna do something fun?"
"You have something in mind?" Maria looked up hopefully.
"Yup." With a grin Kyoko suggested, "how about we throw a party? Before you say no, I should tell you that it's not going to be a birthday party or a Christmas party wither."
"Then what?" Maria couldn't help but be curious.
"We'll organise it ourselves and invite all the people who have been kind and helpful to us throughout the year. What do you say? We can call it a Thank You party."
Maria pretended to consider the suggestion for a moment as she tapped her index finger on her chin, even though she already knew what she wanted to say. "Hmmm...let me think... Yes! I've always wanted to host a party myself! What do I have to do?"
Kyoko pondered on it for a moment. "It'll only be a small get-together. I can take care of the decoration and the food. That leaves the venue and the invitations."
"I can totally take care of those!" Maria offered. "I'm really good at drawing, so I can easily make the invitations myself, and as for the venue, we can keep it at my house. I'm sure Grandpa wouldn't mind since it's always empty anyway."
"Great. Then it settled. We'll keep it on 24th since I've that whole day off. That gives us six days to prepare. It will be so fun!"
"I cant wait!" Both the girls giggled and hugged each other.
"Me neither!" Kyoko exclaimed with the excitement of a kid who just got ice cream. "I'll make all of my favourite recipes. It had been so long since I've cooked for so many people."
Maria joined Kyoko. She wrapped her tiny arms around her waist and embraced her tightly. "Thank you so much, Big Sis."
After four days of some intensive party planning, Kyoko finally met Ren and Yashiro at the set of Dark Moon. At last, the two costars had the timing of their shoots overlapped, and luckily, Kyoko was saved the trouble to find the time in her already jam-packed schedule, to go see them in order to hand them out their invitations. She sighed with relief as she passed them their cards.
As Ren opened the handmade invitation, which looked quite impressive to be drawn by an eight-year-old, he looked back at Kyoko after glancing at it. "A Thank You party?"
"It's organised by Maria and me," Kyoko explained. "We wanted to express our gratitude to everyone who had been there for us through this year."
Ren glanced at it again. "The venue is the President's mansion?"
"Yeah," Kyoko replied. "Actually, we were planning on keeping it small at first. Only a handful of people were invited, and I was going to cook all the courses myself but then the President found out and..." She let her sentence trail off, since no further explanation was needed.
Both Ren and Yashiro nodded in understanding. If the President was involved, there was no way things could be kept simple now.
"Let me guess, Takarada hired some five star chefs for the courses?" Ren asked out of curiosity.
"Well, not exactly," Kyoko blushed. "He allowed me to take care of the dishes since I was so excited about it, but he also hired a whole gourmet team to help me, and now apparently, I'm the head chef."
"Impressive."
"Anyway, I know you've a pretty tight schedule, but if you could maybe find the time to just stop by, it would mean a lot to Maria."
"Of course I'll come," Ren promised. "I'll be there, I have to give Maria her birthday present too."
"Really?" A toothy smile broke out on Kyoko's face. "That's awesome! Maria will be so happy to see you"
"Only Maria will be happy?" Ren cocked an eyebrow up with a flirty smirk.
Yashiro, who had been only mildly interested in their conversation until now, perked up his ears attentively suddenly become quiet keen.
"Uh," Kyoko blinked. "Of course not. I'm sure everyone else will be just as thrilled to see you there."
"What about you?" Since Kyoko still didn't take a hint, Ren just straight-out asked her.
"Of course I'll be happy too," she replied simply. Before Ren even had a chance to catch the meaning of her words, she added, "it's a thank you party after all, and I've been grateful to you for such a long time for all your advices about acting. So it's a given that I'll be happy if you could attend."
Yashiro cleared his throat, skillfully disguising the bubbling fits of laughter rising within his throat in the process, because once again, Kyoko painfully ignored Ren's attempt to flirt with her. The manager even felt a little bad for his employer, though it didn't make the fact any less funnier.
"So, is the rest of the crew also invited?" Ren abruptly changed the subject.
"Not all of them, only the Director, and Itsumi, and a few more people," Kyoko answered. "Which reminds me, I have to go invite them too."
"Sure." As Kyoko turned to leave, Ren called after her. With an effusive smile, he told her, "I'm really looking forward to it."
On the morning of twenty-fourth of December, Kyoko was out of Darumaya early so she could set out for the President's mansion, where she still had a lot of last minute party preparation to take care of.
As she crossed the foggy street, she pulled her jacket tighter around her chest to stop the biting wind from reaching her skin. Making her way ahead, she stopped when from the fog, a limo materialized. Beside the car, there was a tall and dark stranger wearing an elegant tuxedo, who seemed to be waiting for someone.
Their eyes met and he advanced towards her. "Ms Mogami?"
"Yeah?" Kyoko asked warily.
"I've been asked by the President to pick you up."
"Oh! So President Takarada sent you!" Kyoko sighed and flashed him a greatfull smile before she hopped in the warm, comfortable backseat of the car, and they drove away to the President's mansion.
Kyoko studied the strange driver with intent curiosity from the rear-view mirror. She was pretty sure she had never seen him around before or she would've remembered him because of his unusually dark complexion. Yet his crisp and pointed features and his curly brown hair - which were slicked back on his scalp - seemed oddly familiar somehow. Even his tuxedo seemed a little too fancy for a chauffeur to be wearing, but with Takarada as his employer, it was hardly a surprise.
When they reached their destination, before Kyoko even had a chance to thank him for the ride, he drove away leaving her standing at the gate. The very next moment, a very excited Maria came hopping up to her. "Big Sis! Big Sis!" She giggled as she capered up and down on her spot. "It's here! It's here!"
"What's here!"
"The chocolate stream!" Maria's eyes shown with amazement and she dragged Kyoko inside to show her the party's decoration.
Kyoko turned even more amazed than Maria after she had a look at the extremely stunning and apparently, crazy expensive decorations the President had asked his men to do.
After taking a tour of the mansion, Kyoko suggested that it would be fun to help out with the decorations and so the two girls chose a corner where they sat down and started blowing in the balloons.
Upon hearing the merry chuckles and loud cackles of his granddaughter, Takarada peeked at the two girls having fun as they worked, while he himself hid behind a pillar. Seeing them enjoying so much, he allowed a small smile to spread across his own face.
"She looks happy, doesn't she?" Someone voiced his thoughts.
The President cocked his head in the direction of the sound and found the same dark man with the crisp and pointed features. He was also staring at the those two girls.
"She sure does," Takarada answered. "That girl with Maria, she's the one I told you about. Kyoko Mogami."
"I know," the man replied. "I took the liberty of meeting her this morning." He smiled. "This is the first time I've seen Maria so happy on her birthday since her mother died."
"Let's just hope that after this, Maria moves on from what happened to her mother and starts enjoying her birthday like everyone else." Takarada prayed aloud. "Infact, I think that's what Mogami was going for since the beginning, when she talked Maria into having this party."
It was around seven in the evening when the guest finally started filing in. One of them was Kyoko's best friend, Kanae Kotonami. The moment Moko found herself on the threshold of the gate of the President's mansion, her vision was flooded with the colour gold. From the carved walls, to the symmetrical tapestries hanging on the walls, and to the uniformed men surrounding the main gate with shiny brass saxophones on their shoulders, it was all washed in gold. A beautiful chandelier hung from the centre of the ceiling reflecting the golden light of the bulbs protruding from the walls.
Moko, who wasn't easily swayed by anything, gave a little gasp of amazement and awe, at how marvelous it all looked. Before she even had a chance to enter, the party poppers around her went off showering her with, once again, golden confetti. The liveried men around the gate raised their saxophones in unison and blew her a welcoming tune, which was probably meant for royalties only.
Her cheeks burned red as she made her way through the small lane formed by those men with the saxophones. Near the end, she found a small figure with a familiar face. It was Maria. Dressed up in a small dark tuxedo, the young lady had a little bow tie fastened around her neck, and her golden-brown curls were secured in a long braid leaving only her smooth bangs to cover the top of her chubby face. There was no doubt that she looked adorable.
"Welcome," giving a littlebow, she flashed a grin to Moko. "The party is this way."
"This is all so embarrassing!" Moko whisper-shouted to her tiny host. "I agreed to come because Kyoko said it was only supposed to be a small party! What happened to that?"
"It was indeed supposed to be," Maria answered matter-of-factly. "But then Grandpa found out."
Moko sighed knowingly. "That man just has to go overboard with everything he does!" She glanced at the faces of the other guests hoping to find someone she knew, but was surprised to see that almost half of them were foreigners. "Who are all these people?" She asked Maria discreetly.
"They are all Grandpa's guests. Since he was now helping with the party, he also updated the guest list."
"Figures," Moko muttered. "Anyway, I don't see the main host anywhere." She cocked her head to the sides. "Where is Kyoko?"
"Well, you see, I was left in charge of the guests, but its Big Sis who has the toughest job. She is out battling in the front-lines."
"What do you mean?"
"She is in the kitchen."
The kitchen was in so much chaos and turmoil that it certainly did resemble a battlefield. The moment Kyoko was done explaining her recipe to one chef, ten more popped up for her insights. Some called out to her for her help, while others asked her to taste some part of their dishes. It would've turned into a pandemonium and ended in ruin if her reliable sous hadn't stepped up and taken matters into his own hands.
After only two claps of his hands, they all went silent, and he shouted orders to everyone. But that didn't make Kyoko any less busier. She was still surrounded by half a dozen chefs hounding her to remark on their jobs, with probably ten more waiting behind them for their turns. Being a head chef was quite challenging!
But Kyoko didn't seem to mind, or get tired. Infact, she was far from it. She felt thrilled to be working as an actual head chef, even though she was mostly depending on her sous to get the job done. She had always loved to cook, but now, getting a chance to work with actual professionals who were cooking her recipes for such esteemed guests coming from all corners of the world, it was so exhilarating that she had to pinch herself to believe that it was not just a dream. She was having the time of her life.
Glancing at the wall clock, Kyoko noticed that it was almost nine thirty: the time for Maria's piano recital to begin. She had promised her co-host that to come out before that, so, throwing her apron and her chef's hat at the counter, she left the kitchen in the hands of her trusted sous and made a dash for the ballroom.