DISCLAIMER: SKIP BEAT! and its associated characters are the creations of Yoshiki Nakamura. This author claims no ownership of Skip Beat or any of its characters. All other rights reserved.

**TRIGGER WARNINGS for suicide, suicidal ideation, implied child abuse and child sexual abuse, bullying. Language.**

Additional Author's Notes at bottom of the page.

Son of Rage and Love

Chapter 1: Prelude, Winter 2010

Peoples Magazine, February 10, 1994

CONGRATS! JULIENNA GIVES BIRTH TO BABY BOY & SHARES FIRST PRECIOUS FAMILY PHOTOS. AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK!

LOS ANGELES. Congratulations are in order as Julienna, star of Runway Diaries and supermodel, gets ready for her new supermom role! Julienna Hizuri, 22, and husband Kuu Hizuri, 27, welcomed their first child, baby boy Kuon, late last night at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Speaking to Peoples in an exclusive interview, the Runway beauty shared her first moments with Kuon and Kuu, gushing over her sweet new family. "I couldn't be more grateful and happy...and tired," says the radiant new Mom, "We are all so excited to welcome Kuon into our family."

Doting Daddy Kuu can't stop smiling. "I'm so proud of her. I have the most beautiful wife in the world and we have the most beautiful baby boy," said the Academy Award-winning star of Venus Rising. "She's been so amazing through this whole process. She's so beautiful, inside and out."

The superstar couple hit it off on the set of their joint project 1,000 Valentines and wed in June of 1992 after a whirlwind courtship. The Mysteries of Dust actress said yes after the Burning Down actor put a 7.2 ct. blue diamond rumored to be worth $700,000 on her finger. The stars married at a lavish ceremony in his native city of Kyoto, complete with a mountain of food that was completely decimated in a joint effort by both stars. "I just knew she was the one for me," hunky hubby Kuu says. "I know she felt the same."

Kuu isn't the only one crazy in love. Princess for a Day actress Juli can't keep her smile off her face. "I just love everything about Kuu," she told Peoples. "He's so handsome, and funny, and smart, and so generous, and I can't wait to see him be a dad to Kuon."

A source close to the star couple tells Peoples that they are in "absolute bliss" over baby Kuon. "They've got this amazing nursery over at their new house in Malibu," the source said, "And Kuu's already talking about how he's going to teach Kuon everything he knows about martial arts."

Peoples has exclusive pictures of beautiful baby Kuon! Check out pages 34-37 for a preview of the little angel….

=.=.=.=.=

Kuu Hizuri shut the scrapbook.

Eyes prickling, he'd picked it up off the floor in a room that was otherwise completely trashed. The book had been precious—was still precious to both he and Julienna. They had painstakingly and lovingly collected every article, every photograph of Kuon the press had published back when he was born. Given their fame, Kuon's birth had been some of the biggest news on the celebrity beat back then, and that portion of the book was fat with glossy cut outs from publications of all stripes. But it hadn't just been magazine clippings. There were family pictures, too. Pictures of the three of them on sunny Californian meadows, Juli wearing flowers in her hair. Pictures of Kuu and Kuon practicing the same fighting stances. Kuon with his favorite Megabot toy. A crayon drawing of the three of them, holding hands under a yellow sun, and then later…pictures of Kuon on-set for his first commercial.

His heart had twisted when he saw it splayed on the floor like garbage. He couldn't bear to look through it right now—all those pictures taken of their young family right when Kuon first came into their lives. He and Juli had sworn to be the best parents ever, worrying over him at night as he fretted and cooing over him when he smiled.

They'd had all the best intentions in the world…all the money…all the love.

And yet they'd failed their son in the worst ways possible.

The book had been open to the Peoples exclusive when he found it, and for a little while, he couldn't help but stare at his wife and his son in the picture they'd taken at the hospital. They were angelic, truly. Even then, Baby Kuon knew how to mug for an audience. The camera caught him with a tiny smile on his face, big blue eyes staring wonderingly at the world beyond. Those eyes had darkened into his mother's emerald green, but the damage had been done. They got fan mail in droves over the article.

Kuu sighed. He'd made a mistake when he decided to re-read the article. Were celebrity birth announcements always so vapid? He tried to erase it from his mind. Fluff pieces on celebrity births always read in the exact same way—breathless pronouncements, the mother radiant and happy, the father proud. Lory had been the one who suggested cutting Peoples an exclusive interview-and-picture deal, and Baby Kuon had made his first $4 million minutes after he took his first breath.

The money had gone straight into a trust fund for baby Kuon's future.

Even as an infant, he'd started a trend: subsequent celebrity couples were quick to sign similar deals after their licensing agreement had become an open secret in celebrity circles. No one had beaten the $4 million mark yet, though—the thought of it remained a bittersweet point of pride for Kuu at a time his family was fracturing right before his eyes.

Looking back on it now, Kuu couldn't help but feel how they'd started off his childhood in the worst way possible. Why were they so quick to be so mercenary? By now, it was clear that their attitudes towards work and the way they'd emphasized the importance of being professionals had damaged their son in unforgivable ways.

Over and over again, he'd been blind to the danger Kuon had been placed in. Kuu had been blind to the way his expectations hurt his son, and blind to the dangers of the predators that lurked in the shadows left by Hollywood's brightest stars. He'd downplayed Juli's warnings, had convinced her everything would be fine. He'd chosen not to see the ways in which his son began coping with trauma. In his weaker moments, Kuu told himself that it was easy to overlook his son's emotional turmoil—Kuon was a precocious child, preternaturally attuned to their moods and their emotions. And more than that, he was gifted. It wasn't just the fact that he was the child of actors. He'd learned how to fake emotions nearly as early as his first kung fu forms. Kuu had no doubt he'd been able to act his way out of having them realize the true extent of the trouble he was in. But that was no excuse. Kuu was his father and his sometime teacher. At the very least, he should have tried harder to understand what was really happening.

Instead, they'd embarked on a strategy of…denial. The teenage years were supposed to be tough, he told himself. He knew Kuon was smoking—Juli had even found a packet of cigarettes in his pocket, once. But he'd told himself it was a teenage phase—hadn't both of them smoked when they were younger? And who cared if he smoked pot? Didn't everyone? Neither one of them even considered the possibility that he might try other, harder substances. When he began showing up with bruises on his body, he and Juli had moved schools. When he began showing up with busted up knuckles after being out late at night, he'd chalked it up to him working harder on his martial arts training. He'd even convinced Juli that it was perfectly fine that Harvey Jackson wanted to spend so much time with him. It wasn't until the police brought back his thirteen-year-old son—for boosting cars, of all things!—that Kuu had to admit something had gone wrong. Even then, he hadn't seen the big picture. He kept failing to see the big picture even after picking Kuon up multiple times from the police station for other things, fighting among them.

He thought they'd gotten him help. But the therapists, medication, transfers to different private schools—none of it had worked. It didn't help that his son—once so angelic, once so kind—had shut them out completely. Kuu had tried to tell himself it was just the fact that Kuon was a teenager now. Teenagers were supposed to hate their parents. Teenagers rebelled, it was what teenagers did. Except that he was still so young—even if he looked years older with his height and his apparent maturity.

Back then, it felt as if they'd tried everything.

But they hadn't.

Kuu's inaction, his failure to address the problem at the start haunted him. What else could you have done, Kuu? he asked himself. Maybe taken time off, that's what you could have done. Maybe spent time with your son instead of handing him off to a bunch of paid sycophants who had no interest in him beyond the fat paychecks you were writing them while you made your thirtieth summer blockbuster.

And now it was too late.

Kuu caressed the cover of the scrapbook sadly. In a house where everything had been pristine and clean and expensive, it looked worn and well-loved. Its covers were dog-eared. It had the remains of a chocolate stain in the corner. It felt like an artifact, a painful reminder of how things had been, how things should be still, if only he'd been a better husband and a more attentive father. He looked around him. The house was silent—too silent. Not empty, exactly, just heavy, like the air right before a thunderstorm.

=.=.=

Three days earlier…

To his everlasting shame, his first thought was to wonder whether Kuon had finally killed someone.

It had been an errant, guilty thought, quickly repressed and shoved out of his mind and out of his heart in a way that only a parent could do. He'd gotten the call as he'd been making the rounds through yet another Hollywood party—some shindig in some producer's modernist home out in the Hills. The call had interrupted a discussion on popular tropes for the teen television market—he'd been trying to keep a look of polite interest on his face and was failing miserably. When the phone rang, he'd had to excuse himself and rush outside to hear the scratchy voice of some hospital administrator informing him that he needed to pick up his son. He was sure his frantic exit out of that gathering had been marked in some way—he didn't care.

Kuon was a juvenile, but he had a reputation for violence and a record known to the police. It had only been the superhuman efforts of a team of LA's best lawyers and the combined influence of Kuu and Eltra Duris that had kept that quiet and Kuon out of a juvenile detention facility. Kuu knew there was a darkness in his son—a darkness that had somehow grown in him while his parents weren't looking. As much as he loved Kuon, he wasn't insensible to the way his son went after his opponents in his sanctioned bouts with an almost sadistic glee. And yet he refused to give up on him. There was light in him too—he didn't look like an angel for nothing. For all of the violence that surrounded him, this young man was still the boy who'd named and raised a chicken all on his own simply because he couldn't bear to see that chicken butchered.

It had been a social worker who'd explained that Kuon had gone through a terrible shock, watching his best friend bleed out onto the Los Angeles pavement after a hit-and-run. The accident had claimed Rick's life. She explained that the police were not interested in charging him with anything, that he was not in trouble, that he was free to go after they'd gotten his statement.

He'd been free to go, but it quickly became clear that he was still trapped. Those wide green eyes that were so like Juli's stared off into space in a thousand-yard stare. He responded to questions like a man half-asleep. Kuu had taken him gently by the arm. For the first time in years, Kuon followed him obediently out to the car, and then back into their house in the hills overlooking the lights of L.A. Kuon had been silent the entire ride, and Kuu could not question someone whose loss was still so palpable.

Kuon had walked like a zombie to his room and then shut the door in Kuu's face, and Kuu had left him there to wait out the night alone. He figured his son wanted to keep some kind of vigil in Rick's memory, and thought, perhaps, that leaving him alone for the evening might be the best thing. Kuu stepped away from the door quietly, took a shower, changed. He'd tried to put together some semblance of a normal evening, all the while thinking of his son, alone in his room.

He would never forget it—he'd gone to bring Kuon a bowl of soup, tiptoeing in their silent house. Outside Kuon's door, he'd raised his hand to knock and then froze as he heard it—a snick and snap, the sound of metal clicking into place, and then a thwick as things snapped back. He knew those sounds. It was the sound of a gun's slide being pulled back and then released.

It was the sound of a bullet being chambered.

Horror. Pain. Panic. Frantic thoughts: Kuon had access to the gun safe—he knew where the ammo was—why had Kuu told him!? Flashes of memories, too quick to parse: he and Kuon out on the range, Daddy Kuu showing son how to stand, how to keep his elbows from locking, how to aim. The look on Kuon's face at the hospital, shuttered and shattered and broadcasting his distress in a deafening silence. Flashes of things that could yet be: his beloved, beautiful son's body reduced to so much meat on his mattress, his beloved, beautiful son's face in a rictus of rage as he sought to revenge himself on Rick's killer. All of that and more flashed in his mind's eye, horror-love-fear all warring inside for primacy as he sprang forward thinking oh god no.

The crash of the soup bowl on porcelain tile barely registered in his memory. The door splintered and gave way quickly, and he strode into the room not knowing what to expect, but expecting nothing good.

Even so, he could not have been prepared for the sight of his son in front of his mirror, Sig 226 in-hand and parallel to his temple.

Kuu would never know how he made it to Kuon—would never know how it was that he'd managed to move so quickly and disarm him. The gun flew out of his hand as Kuu made to secure his son's wrist. The boy fought back as a string of expletives exploded from his mouth. He and Kuu had spent his entire childhood sparring—though Kuu was no longer his teacher, he'd learned his earliest lessons from him. They knew each other's moves. But this was no sparring match—as far as Kuu was concerned, this was a fight for his son's life.

"Leave me the fuck alone, Dad," he was screaming. "You don't even give a shit what happens, so leave me the fuck alone."

He cornered his son, holding him down, and then holding him up as long-suppressed sobs wracked his body. What kind of father was he, not to have known the immense pain Kuon had been carrying? He had a feeling the sobs weren't because of Rick's untimely demise. "I will never leave you alone, son," he said. "I know I've been a shit father, but I will never leave you alone."

Kuon had clung to him like a lost boy. For a few minutes, Kuu thought that perhaps this could end like it did in the movies—maybe he and Kuon would have that life-changing, heart-to-heart talk that inevitably came right at the climax of the film. Kuon would be vulnerable. Kuu would be loving and wise…and he'd know, he'd just know the right thing to say.

But the magic moment didn't happen.

Kuon's tears dried, the wracking sobs ceased. Kuu watched as his son retreated into himself again, and soon he sat as still as he had before. Kuu's entreaties to him fell on deaf ears. His heart told him that he could not leave his son alone tonight—he made plans to sleep on a couch in his son's room.

Kuu was at a loss. He refused to send his son to a psychiatric hospital—they'd just lock him up in a robe without tie-backs or buttons to keep it closed, on a floor where pencils were contraband. He didn't belong in those expensive rehab centers up in Malibu, either. And the normal rounds of therapy hadn't worked. The last thing he wanted was to lose his son in some kind of stereotypical tale of Hollywood-gone-wrong.

In desperation he'd called Lory. Eccentric as he was, Kuu had to admit that the older man's intuition usually found a solution to whatever problem presented itself. Lory, sensing the desperation in his voice, came as soon as he could. Chartering a transpacific flight wasn't cheap, but Kuu was glad Lory had done it—the man was there in a matter of hours. Kuu was grateful.

"What've they done to him?" the man asked. Kuu explained, aware of the reproach in Lory's eyes as he recounted the arrests, the fighting, the bullying. He didn't mention his unease over Harvey, or the fact that he'd just found out that Cedric had been the instigator of the fights all these years.

Lory nodded. "You're sure there was never anything else?" he asked. "You never asked him?" Lory asked.

"Asked him what?" Kuu responded.

"What happened. What's been happening." Lory waved the cigar he was smoking around, as if it would clarify everything. "I know you noticed it too," he said. "The way he changed didn't happen right away."

"I noticed but—"

"You thought you could pawn it off to some shrink."

"We thought that would be the best way to go."

"You know better than that, Kuu."

Kuu hung his head. "I do. But you know—he can act."

"He can," Lory said. "Good enough to throw you off how fucked up his situation had gotten." He snorted. "He'll be better than you, Kuu. Mark my words, someday the boy will surpass you."

"If he lives through the night, I've no doubt he will," Kuu responded.

"It's not a question of if, it's a question of how," Lory said. "He may not want or be able to accept any kind of help right now. It's why they send people in crisis to the hospitals."

"I am not sending my son to a hospital. It's never helped him before."

"Then don't. Hospitals are stopgaps. The wards are there to keep people safe and not much else."

"Then what the fuck am I supposed to do, Lory?" Kuu was pacing back and forth, hands clenched. "He's got a therapist. He's on meds—whether or not he's taking them is beyond me. I can't keep him locked up here—he'll get out one way or another. I'm not sending him to some posh retreat in Malibu—what're they gonna do? Yoga the pain away? And…even when he gets back—all those people are still going to be out there."

Lory sighed. He'd spent the flight thinking of answers to Kuu's problems. He'd been an observer on the sidelines for a long, long time—a fairy godfather, of sorts, watching over his godson from a distance across the Pacific. He'd been perfectly placed to see what Kuu and Juli hadn't over the years. He was far enough away from Hollywood that the social machinations of the celebrity set meant nothing to him—he was influential enough in Japan that he never needed to cater to this director or that producer while his son handled LME business stateside. And he'd seen things that had concerned him over the years. Concerned enough over his godson that he'd tried subtly to call Kuu and Juli's attention to the changes he'd seen in the boy. But until recently, they'd made excuses…or dismissed the gravity of the situation. Still, what was obvious to Lory in the past few years was that Kuon was lashing out. That he was being bullied was a given. But Lory had heard things from unconventional quarters, and though he never had proof, Kuon's actions were proving his disturbing hypotheses.

"Send him to Japan with me," Lory had said. "It'll get him away from all of this. It'll get him away from the situation. It'll be a lot easier to get him cleaned up in Japan."

"What?!"

"The boy needs to get away from here, and you know it. He can't get away from the gangs and he can't get away from you."

"Lory, that's my child."

"Precisely. You know, I've been watching him for a long time." Lory sat down, folded his hands and brought his fingertips together. "I think half the trouble started way back when. He was what, nine? Maybe ten? When they threw him off that movie and cast Cedric instead. Everyone was expecting him to be you, and he was already under so much pressure. And then Priscilla goaded Cedric to bully him off the set and that was that."

"What are you talking about?"

"You didn't know?"

Apparently he didn't. Why Lory had never shared half this shit with him, he'd never know.

"I'm saying that everyone knows this kid is your kid and he can't get away from you or Juli's reputation. There's no room for him to grow and everyone gives him grief for it, and that, coupled with this bullying, is what he needs to get away from."

"So what're you going to have him do in Japan? Everyone'll know he's my son there, too. And the Japanese media would never take to him with his blonde hair."

Lory gave him a long, hard look. "I'm going to give him a chance to start over. No rich daddy. No big name. Give him a chance to earn his redemption."

"A stage name." It wasn't a question.

"A whole new identity," Lory responded. "A whole new look. No blonde hair, even as beautiful as it is. I've already vetted the possibilities with Jelly Woods."

"How? He's too American," Kuu said. "You'd have to teach him a lot to make him successful in Japan."

"I won't sugar-coat this," Lory said. "I don't simply mean that he would have a stage name. I mean that he would be a stranger to you—that you would not acknowledge him in public. That you would not contact him, not even in private. I want him to have the chance to grow into a man he can respect, and to do that, he needs to sever ties with this life."

"That sounds crazy, Lory."

"It might be. Obviously we'll abort the plan if I see it's not working."

"I've never even heard of something that insane."

"And yet everything you've ever heard of hasn't worked."

"I'd have to talk it over with Juli—"

"You know as well as I do that we don't have time," Lory said. "If he weren't a born actor, I'd never even suggest it. I'm going to have him create a role, Kuu. Someone only Kuon could ever play. A consummate actor, a gentleman, a heartthrob so gorgeous the women melt at his feet and the men go to their barbers asking for his haircut. Kuon's young, but I see so much potential in him—he's the kind of actor that'll lose himself in a role. He has method acting in his blood—and that's why I think this will work. That's the only way this works."

Kuu was still skeptical…and yet…there was an odd logic to Lory's words. He'd seen for himself how his son lost himself in a role. Even as young as ten—he'd apparently found a playmate in Kyoto who'd thought he was a fairy prince, and every time he came back to their lodgings, Kuu would have to bring him back to earth. Trust Lory to think of method acting as a ladder up out of whatever darkness his son was lost in right now. Lory was like that—the man often sounded insane and yet…and yet his intuition was correct nearly every time.

But still…the ramifications of Kuon disappearing without so much as a by-your-leave to his mother…"It's going to destroy this family," he said.

"Perhaps not so efficiently as finding him hanging off of your rafters."

Kuu had no response to that. "I won't stop him if he agrees to go," he said. "The choice will be his. But you need to watch over him, Lory. He'll be all alone—he won't have a support network…"

"If he takes to this the way I think he will, he won't need one the way you think he will," Lory said. "And it's a lot easier to watch over him there than it would be here. And you know how much harder it is to score drugs in Japan."

"Ask him, then." The words left Kuu gutted, as if he'd ripped off a part of himself alongside that permission.

In a matter of hours, he'd watched his son walk out of his house with Lory, holding nothing but his passport.

Everything else had been left behind.

=.=.=.=

Kuu shook off the memory. It was still too recent, too raw for him to adequately process.

And now, with Juli home, he'd have to explain why their son had disappeared.

"Juli?" he called out. He knew she was home. Who else would have done this to the house? "Juli?" he called again. "Babe, I know you're home." There was no response.

He couldn't blame her for how she'd reacted. He'd expected it. But he'd needed to act quickly and he hadn't known what else to do. Kuon had been gone for three days. The feelings of guilt…of loss…of failure hadn't gone away. Juli had been at a gig in Paris, or London, or maybe it was Rome. He hadn't told her until after Lory had left with their son.

She'd exploded on the phone, first with disbelief and then with panic…and then with rage. She'd cursed him in five languages and then vowed to have Lory extradited and prosecuted as a kidnapper. He'd tried to talk to her, explain why he'd done it. And now?

Now he had no idea what he'd find.

He set his mouth in a grim line, following the line of destruction throughout the sprawling mansion. He wasn't surprised, not really. If it had been him who'd found his son spirited away without so much as a goodbye, the house itself may not have survived at all. But instead, it had been Julienna who was away those weeks—far away at work, doing what she did best. Kuu had been left all alone to deal with a crisis neither one of them saw coming—though in retrospect, how they never saw it coming he'd never understand.

He found her in a stupor, a nearly empty bottle of vodka in her hand. She was still dressed for travel, her sharp linen suit rumpled underneath her as she lay like a broken doll across the floor of their shared bedroom.

He rushed to her side. This was his wife, his beloved, his soulmate, his one-and-only, bright as the sun and just as blinding.

"Juli," he whispered. He put an arm underneath her—she was on her belly with an arm cradling her head. He could see the streaks of mascara running down her face. He was resolved to get her cleaned up a little and into bed where she could rest easier, but then her eyes flew open.

Emerald eyes, just like his son's.

"Don't touch me," she said, pushing off of him. She was wobbly but sat up on the floor.

"Juli—I—"

"You never did understand." She might have swallowed most of a bottle of Uncle Vlad's, but chills flew up and down Kuu's spine. Her voice was hoarse, her eyes red in the aftermath of tears. "You weren't born here," she said. "You didn't grow up here. You don't know how people are. L.A. is not Kyoto, Kuu, and you left him out for the wolves to eat." She got up onto her feet. "Boys will be boys, babe," she said, imitating his voice. "He's just being a teenager."

She twisted the cheap cap off the bottle and took another swig. "I told you I was worried about Harvey Jackson. I told you he wasn't safe around Cedric. YOU said it would build his character to come across some adversity. YOU said he could defend himself."

She threw the bottle at him. The remainder of the vodka in it arced across the air before thudding on his chest and falling to the floor. "He shouldn't have had to defend himself at all, you fucking asshole—" She whirled and screamed at him. "—because we were supposed to keep him safe. FUCK YOU, Kuu. Fuck you and fuck Lory and FUCK both of you—"

"Juli—"

"—for stealing my son on some crack-brained, fucked up plan—"

She ran at him, hands forming into claws. She was screaming now, "Instead of getting him some actual help. How dare you steal him—how could you—it's all your fault—"

"Don't you blame this all on me." Her anger had raised his hackles. "You were gone too. You were fucking gone all the time, Juli—"

"Oh, so it's me now? I was gone all the fucking time? FUCK you, Hizuri. Fuck you and your goddamn work ethic. YOU were gone. YOU were." Juli simply wept. "How could you?"

"I don't think I had a choice," Kuu responded.

"You did have a choice you fucking asshole—"

"Forgive me for wanting to keep his skull in one piece, Juli—"

But she'd turned away. "I failed him. As a mother. As a human—"

"No. You loved him and you were the best mother you could've been. Neither one of us meant to fail him."

She wiped away at the tracks of her tears. "I'll never forgive Lory for kidnapping my son."

"But if this works—"

"'If,'" she interrupted, "'if.'"

"—he'd have a new identity and a clean slate," he finished.

"I'll give Lory one month," she said. "More than that and I'm going to report it as a kidnapping."

"Juli—"

"He stole my child, Kuu."

He caught her wrist as she moved to slap him, and their eyes met. "I don't want to do this," he whispered. "Not to you. Not to us. I'm sorry."

Suddenly all the fight went out of her and she clung to him just as her son had done, earlier that week. He put his arms around her then and for a while they stood, silent and trembling at the enormity of their grief.

It would be six long years before they saw their son again.

=.=.=.=.=

Author's note:

1. 'Son of Rage and Love' is a lyric from Green Day's 'Jesus of Suburbia.'

2. This is Kuon's prequel-a story made up of little vignettes to form a portrait. Please let me know what you think!