So, it turns out, I can't stay away from these two.
Have some more tension-charged moments!
1)
Kyoko found herself staring mindlessly into her dark closet. She had been unsuccessfully looking for one of her skirts when she had come across Ren's folded poster. She had taken it off her wall in a hurry the last time her senpai had come to the Daruma-ya, when she had feared what he would think if he demanded to see her room and found it there, next to Shotaro's poster.
Life had been so hectic, that Kyoko hadn't even thought about hanging the posters back up. So now poster-Ren stared back at her from under a folded t-shirt, and she could have sworn she could see a disappointed gleam in his eye.
She sighed deeply and let her shoulders drop from her usually perfect posture as she stared sightlessly into the darkness for a moment longer.
Then, she heard a terrible sound, as her phone vibrated on her table with such force that it seemed to move the table itself. She picked it up to read "Tsuruga-san" on her screen.
Kyoko took a deep breath to settle the contradicting feelings inside her and make sure her voice would sound normal before answering the call. "Good evening, Tsuruga-san."
"Hello, Mogami-san. I thought I'd finish my interview earlier than this, I hope I didn't make you wait too much."
It's true that, before the confession, they called each other every once in a while, but there was always a reason behind their calls. Nowadays, Ren usually sent her a message about once a week asking her if she could talk and they agreed on a time they were both available. The first two times, Ren had come up with excuses to call, but now, he didn't even bother and just said that he wanted to talk to her. It warmed her heart to know that Ren liked talking to her as much as she liked talking to him.
"Don't worry about it, I was just settling in my room for the night."
"That's good. So how was your day? You said Box R's filming went on a bit longer than expected," he said, referring to a message she had sent earlier.
Immediately, a knot formed in Kyoko's stomach, and she regretted having mentioned Box R to him at all. She felt awful about what had happened on set, and wasn't sure how Ren would react when she told him.
"Mogami-san?"
"It was my fault," she tried to keep a neutral tone of voice, but even she could tell that she sounded down. "I kept being distracted by something... I'm the worst."
"You are not the worst." Ren rebuked sternly. "But it's not like you, are you worried about something? Did something happen?"
"No, that's the worst part." Kyoko closed her eyes in frustration. "It was over something stupid. I was distracted because…" she bit her lips.
"...Yes?"
She couldn't say it. She couldn't confess that something kept reminding her of Ren and that it made her mess up her lines.
"What do you do? To stay focused?" Kyoko asked. Surely, if someone could give her advice on acting, it would be the best actor in Japan.
"Well," he started, cautiously. "There are things you can do to help your concentration. I can send you a couple of articles I found with useful tips…"
Kyoko nodded as if he could see her, looking forward to reading them, so as to not make the same mistake again.
"But, just so you know," he continued. "I've also had times recently when I've been distracted on set."
Kyoko snorted, unable to believe it. "I've never seen you distracted while on set."
"What about when I was having a hard time playing Katsuki?"
"That's different."
"I've also been distracted a few times during the filming of Dark Moon... Because of you."
Kyoko's lungs stopped drawing in air.
She didn't believe it. She wanted to know more. She didn't know how to ask without sounding like she was fishing for compliments.
Ren seemed to interpret her silence as permission to elaborate.
"Sometimes I went over our conversations in my head after you left the set. And I usually missed Ogata's directions and had to ask again." He chuckled at himself. "The lies I've told other actors to get them to explain the directions to me…"
"You thought about our conversations?" Kyoko asked, still incredulous.
"Yes, for a lot of reasons. Sometimes I went over our conversations because I was trying to figure out why you did something, or because I came up with something I wish I had said to you, or because I was trying to discern if something you did meant that you felt the same way about me..." Kyoko could hear his smile in his voice. "Really, I thought about you for a lot of different reasons."
Kyoko's heart ached, still rather unused to having Ren share his feelings so openly to her. And even more, feelings about her!
"I was thinking about you." She burst out, without really planning to speak. But since she had started, she decided to go on. "A character in Box R, a student, was denying her feelings for a senpai, relying on their senpai-kohai relationship to draw distance between them. And it made me think of you and me." God, it had been embarrassing, standing on set, watching those two characters and recognizing the silliness of the excuse, when she had done exactly the same not too long ago.
"The thing is…" she continued, bracing herself to say what had really been bothering her. "After the first NG, I got in my head and kept making mistakes. I became afraid because I thought that... I thought that... maybe, me losing concentration because of you meant that I was going back to how I was before. When I was a stupid little girl with only romance in her mind," she finished bitterly, closing her eyes and pressing her lips together to stop the turmoil inside her.
That had been one of the reasons why she had tried so hard to ignore her feelings for Ren, after all. For fear of going back to having no life of her own. Of being so obsessed with another person, that she missed out on her own goals and achievements. And that day, being distracted because of a thought, not acting well because of it…
"But you're not like that," Ren interrupted her spiraling thoughts. "You are a talented actress. As passionate about acting as I am. And you have many friends who care about you. You are not going to lose any of that just because you became a little distracted. Everybody has off days, it doesn't mean anything."
Kyoko was instantly drawn to the sincerity in his voice. Wanting to believe his words more than anything.
"Striving for perfection is great," he said, softly. "But it's also important to forgive yourself for your mistakes. Otherwise, you're letting an error define you, when it doesn't have to."
"I know, I do know that. I guess that I freaked out too much to remember." Her short laugh trembled a little, feeling vulnerable over confessing such a weakness. But better after hearing Ren relate to her experience.
"I get that, it's alright," he said in a calming voice. "And, Mogami-san, I want you to know that I'd never ask you to think only of me. I'll always have your back regarding your career. You're gonna be a great actress. Don't let a bad day scare you."
She felt a knot in her throat because of the kindness of his words. She couldn't find what to say other than a small "thank you".
Ren hummed. "Are you feeling better?"
"Yes," she said, with a small, shy smile.
"That's good."
"Tsuruga-san, you're being gentler than usual." At his silence, worried that he might misunderstand, she explained, "I mean- I thought that after telling you about this you'd be like a gardener pruning a tree with twisted branches." She said thinking back at her first mistake at Box R, when she had been incredibly late for a read-through..
Ren laughed humorlessly. "Well, back then - when I treated you like a twisted tree, as you like to say– that was what you needed in that moment to move on from your mistake, right? For some reason, I don't think that's what you needed tonight."
Kyoko was touched and confused at the same time. They had known each other for less than two years, right? How could Ren know her so well? How could he know, more often than not, exactly what she needed to hear?
"Or maybe," he added in a lower voice, "I just don't want to scare you away and have you change your mind about… us."
Kyoko's heart jumped in her chest. He thought she could change her mind and deny her feelings? She couldn't do it even when she had been trying with all her might. And she wasn't sure she even wanted to anymore.
"I- I wo- I won't," she stuttered, eyes squeezed closed and blushing furiously. She thought she heard him sigh and whisper something that sounded like "you could."
"Tsuruga-san?"
"I'm glad you feel that way," he said in his normal voice. "Then that means that I can be as mean to you as I want, right?"
She exhaled through her nose, amused. "As if you don't already tease me to your heart's content."
He chuckled.
"It's getting late. Since I don't want to be mean and keep you up too late, I guess we should hang up. Good night, Mogami-san."
"Good night, Tsuruga-san."
After hanging up, she opened her window, and looked up at the moon and at the lights from the skyscrapers in the horizon, painting a lovely picture in the dark. She felt better after her conversation with Ren, and she leaned on the windowsill and closed her eyes, enjoying the light breeze that caressed her face.
But then, she opened her eyes, thinking about Ren's whispered voice through the phone. "You might." Did he really think that she would have a change of heart about him?
She knew that something had been keeping him from trying to find a happy relationship, something that had happened in his past.
In her head, Tsuruga-san's words echoed "You don't have to let an error define you."
Kyoko wondered if Tsuruga was the kind of person to take his own advice. Somehow, she didn't think he was. But then again, in some cases, forgiving oneself was difficult without help from someone else.
2)
Are you still alone at the Love Me Dep? Kyoko blinked at Ren's text illuminating her cell phone screen.
She looked around unnecessarily, since she knew she had been alone for an hour now.
Yes, - she replied. - Moko-san and Amamiya-san won't be here today. Why?
She put down the phone and went back to the film she had been watching on the department's TV screen. However, minutes passed and she wasn't receiving an answer. She was starting to worry when there was a knock on the door and Ren opened it.
"Tsuruga-san!" Kyoko exclaimed.
"Good evening," He flashed Kyoko an infuriatingly handsome smile. "I hope I'm not bothering you. Are you still working?"
Kyoko paused the film and stood up to greet him properly with a bow.
"Not really, just doing some research for that role I told you about. Is something the matter? Where is Yashiro-san?"
"I mentioned that I wanted to come here for a minute and he suddenly started craving a relaxing cup of tea in the cafeteria." Ren explained while he came into the room and closed the door. They shared a sheepish smile. Yashiro's discreet help at creating situations where they could be alone for a few minutes made them feel both grateful and a bit embarrassed about having someone acknowledging their feelings. "Anyway, I just wanted to say hi and see how you were doing with that role you said you had trouble with. What are you watching?"
"Well, since my next role is a flirty high schooler, I asked my manager for help and she lent me some DVDs of TV shows with that type of character." She pointed at the small tower of DVDs on the table and Ren walked over to go through them.
"Does that include Love Mina?"
"No, I don't think so."
"I see, you should ask her if she has it... Although I have to say, maybe you're worrying too much. Natsu and Setsu are quite flirty, aren't they?" Ren turned his eyes from the DVDs to her and she realized with a small start that they were actually quite close. Although not so much that it would be considered improper. "And you've played those characters well."
"Well, it's not the same kind of flirting, I don't think... " She touched her chin in thought. "How to explain it… I'd say that they are more seductive than flirty. They are too mature. This character is flirty in a cute way."
"I see, yes, you're right about that. They don't act like how a normal girl your age would act. And you yourself don't really flirt." At this, he leaned on the table and looked at her with a cheeky smirk. "Although you've flirted with me before, during Dark Moon's wrap party."
Kyoko opened and closed her mouth a few times, not knowing what to say in her defense. Hoping she wasn't blushing, she crossed her arms. "That's different, that was a distraction!"
"A distraction?! From what?" he asked, curious and amused at the same time.
"N-neverming!"
"Well, either way, just so you know…" he leaned a bit towards her and lowered his voice, like he was sharing a secret with her, "I enjoyed it."
Kyoko's stomach jumped a bit and she had to turn her face away from his smirk to hide her expression. She acted irritated to hide her pleased embarrassment, muttering darkly under her breath.
"Who are you calling a shameless playboy?" His now usual, dry complaint to her mutterings made her smile a little, but hid it quickly.
It was true that she had flirted with him to distract Ren from noticing her growing feelings for him. (Which, now that she thought about it with some distance, sounded ridiculous.) But when she had done it, she had been channelling Setsu a bit. Unfortunately, Setsu wouldn't help her with the kind of naive, cute flirting she was supposed to deliver for the role.
She sighed. "I wonder if I'll ever use Setsu's character for a job," she wondered aloud.
Ren, already used to Kyoko changing the subject of a conversation to follow her own internal train of thought, didn't even blink before replying humorously. "Well, I don't think you'll be able to use her for a normal sibling relationship. But I'm sure you must have gotten something out of the character."
"Other than the clothes?" she joked. Obviously she had learned a lot from acting opposite Ren. The clothes had just been a more unexpected reward.
Ren then turned back to the DVDs and took a few seconds before replying with a seemingly disinterested voice "You kept them? The clothes?"
"Well, yes. Most of the clothes Cain bought for Setsu, I used several times, so I couldn't have taken them back to the store, even if I had the receipts.
"Mmhm," Ren replied, non-committal, suddenly interested in the summary in the back of a DVD.
It was at that moment that all the flirting scenes she had been watching all evening merged with the conversation they were having and she saw an opportunity to tease Ren.
She had a fraction of a second to take a look at his face and decide whether to say a flirty line she had just come up with. He looked relaxed and in a good enough mood. And he'd teased her before, he wouldn't be angry at her for doing the same, would he?
She decided to go for it. If only to see his reaction.
Kyoko touched her chin and looked up at the ceiling in an expression of innocent pondering.
"I also tried to give back to Muse-sama some of the clothes she gave me at the beginning," she continued with a nonchalant voice, "but she told me to keep them since they had been altered for my measurements. And some of them I couldn't possibly give back, like that risky camisole and the underwear..."
She quickly looked down towards Tsuruga's face with fluttering eyelashes and a sweet, innocent smile.
He was looking at her with that blank face and wide eyes he sometimes got when Kyoko really surprised him and Kyoko tried to control her amusement and, at the same time, her embarrassment at her own cheek.
After a couple of seconds, Ren averted his gaze and cleared his throat. "I see, so that's the kind of character she is, huh?" he said, referring to her potential new role.
He saw right through her.
"Yep," she said sheepishly and twisted her fingers a bit. Should she apologize? He didn't look angry or disappointed or offended.
"As always, you are a fast learner and know how to think on your feet," he said. Then he turned to look at her. "If you want my advice, I'd say you just need to incorporate your eyes." And he demonstrated by bending slightly his head to the side and running his eyes from Kyoko's head to toes and back again in a look so intense that Kyoko's whole body caught fire and she unconsciously took one step back.
Ren had never seen her in the black camisole and panties she had to sleep in as Setsu, but somehow, she knew that he was picturing it.
"Although, respecting the intensity of the look, you'll have to figure it out depending on the feeling of the character in that moment, of course." He said with a polite smile as if he hadn't just obliterated her with a single look.
Kyoko tried to calm down her dizzy thoughts and come up with a response, but didn't know what to say. She was saved from a long awkward pause by Ren standing up and walking towards the door.
"I should go, Yahiro must be waiting for me. It was nice to see you, Mogami-san."
"Ah, yes!" She could still feel some blush in her cheeks but she soldiered on. "Please give him my regards."
Tsuruga-san nodded with a smile and, taking a few steps, grabbed the door's handle. But just before pulling on it, he turned back and, surprisingly, walked back towards Kyoko. He stood just in front of her and leaned towards her to rest one hand on the table, beside Kyoko's hip, but leaving her one side completely open.
"By the way, Mogami-san, rehearsing, filming... all that is okay. But, please, outside of the job, make sure to practice flirting only with me, okay?"
Kyoko's brain short-circuited due to the combination of the warmth of his eyes and the possessiveness of his words.
The only thing she could do was nod and watch his happy smile before exiting the room. Leaving her a mess of embarrassment, hormones, happiness and annoyance at being so easily defeated.
3)
Kyoko took a sip of her tea and dared a glance across the table at Ren. They were at his living room table, reading scripts. Well, Ren was studying his and she was reading a couple of proposals that her manager had given her.
The reason why they were at Ren's apartment was simple: they had ran into each other at BTM and Ren had offered to take Kyoko home. Only, once in the car, they had discovered that both of them were planning on spending the evening going over scripts, so Ren proposed doing it together.
How could she have said no?
She curled her hands against the warm ceramic of her cup, simply enjoying the cozy sensation for a moment, as she watched Ren underline certain parts of his script in different ways and make annotations. It seemed that he had a whole process.
Finally, the other actor seemed to notice her stare, looked up and smiled at her. "Do you need some sugar for your tea?"
"No, thank you. It's really good." They shared another smile and went back to their own scripts.
Kyoko was really enjoying this feeling of companionship. Of each of them doing their own thing, but together.
She focused on her reading material. It was a script for a teenage romance film. She hadn't been offered the part of the main character, but of her best friend, who had a crush on the same guy. She guessed that, whoever had thought of her for the role, had seen Lotus in the Mire and had liked her interpretation of unrequited love.
She was also making annotations on some of the pages of the script with a pen, writing down opinions that would later help her decide wether to take the role or not.
While she was reading, she moved her pen between two fingers in an unconscious habit that she'd had forever.
Suddenly, a part of the script caught her attention, even though her character wasn't in it. It was a scene between the two main characters, who were bound to end up together. It was a scene full of tension, in which the two of them were alone and had started to suspect that the other one liked them back, but weren't sure. It was well-written, and Kyoko found it quite cute and, at the same time, nerve-wracking. She was getting into it.
Then, the characters reached for the same pencil and their hands touched. But instead of moving their hands away hurriedly, the boy grasped the girl's hand and started caressing it.
Caressing it? That's all the script said. Kyoko tried to imagine it, but was having a hard time. She thought back to her life experiences. When she was in high school, like these characters, she had sometimes thought about touching Shotaro's hand "accidentally". Or she had thought about Shotaro taking her hand as they walked home from school. But caressing?
Then she thought about Ren. He sometimes took her hand and squeezed her pinky finger affectionately, but that wasn't it.
She looked at the hand Ren had resting on the table. What would it feel to caress it? Would it be warm of cold? Would it be soft? Would he enjoy it of feel nothing?
She didn't realize the other actor was observing her util he spoke. "Is everything alright?" he asked, making her jump guiltily. That drew an amused smile on his face. "Are you stuck somewhere?"
She looked at him, surprised. "How do you know?"
"Well, suddenly you stopped moving your pen, then you started making these weird faces and then stared really intensely at the table. Is there something you don't understand in the script?"
Damn, had she been THAT obvious?
"It's silly..."
"I don't mind. I'm curious about what could've had you making those faces."
She opened and closed her mouth, not knowing how to explain. So she marked the scene with the pen, and passed the script to Ren.
He read it quickly and looked at her with questioning eyes, not knowing what the problem was. So Kyoko explained.
"Okay, so it says that he caresses her hand but, like... how? Like- like this?" she petted her left hand with her right hand, like it was a cat. "That's... awkward, right?"
He chuckled at the, yes, awkward gesture. "You haven't watched a lot of romantic movies, right?"
"Shotaro's parents didn't like them, so we didn't watch many. And after leaving for Tokyo, I was always too busy to watch movies, and then– well..."
He nodded with a serious expression, understanding what she left unspoken. Ren looked back down at the script, then licked his lips and said. "They probably mean something like this."
He reached his right hand to Kyoko's left one, but stopped before touching it.
"May I?" he asked solemnly. Kyoko's eyes had rounded, not expecting that turn of events. Her heart skipped a beat. Ren was waiting expectantly for her reply. Saying no would have been rude, right? It would have been disrespectful to deny an offer of help, right? Her willingness to do this didn't have anything to do with the part of her that really wanted to touch Ren's hand, right?
Kyoko nodded, while she swallowed nervously, and Ren nodded back.
He took a deep breath and touched her hand.
Ren started with just one on his fingers grazing the side of her index finger and up to her knuckle, really, really softly. Kyoko didn't expect the electric current that went from her finger to the back of her neck and that made her take a sharp breath.
Without taking a beat, Ren used only the pads of his fingers to stroke the back of her hand towards the tips of her fingers, just to push them upwards with incredible gentleness.
They ended up touching palm to palm, and Kyoko admired for a few seconds how different their hands were, then he slid his fingers between hers in a soft caress and continued their slow descent across the palm of her hand.
After that, changing the angle of his hand, he delicately pushed her hand palm-up against the table, and caressed her from her exposed wrist to the tip of her fingers.
He finished by taking her fingers in his and not letting go.
Kyoko, who had been hypnotized by the proceedings, finally looked from their joined hands to Ren's face. Her heart did a complicated thing in her chest when she saw his expression. He looked... pained, longing and affectionate all at once. Before she could think of anything to say, he rearranged his features into a simpler, warm expression and spoke.
"I think that would suit the scene much more, don't you?" he said it quietly, as if he didn't want to break the moment yet.
Kyoko could only nod wordlessly, still feeling too much.
Ren looked down at the script for a second and then back at her. "And then they kiss."
She couldn't move. She was actually paralyzed by the intensity in his eyes. Distantly, she noticed how both their chests were rising in a faster way than just sitting at a table would warrant, and how her fingers were gripping Ren's back with increasing tension.
Then, just when it was getting too much, Ren broke his stare, took her hand and brought it to his mouth to kiss her pinky finger, filling her chest with unexpected yearning.
As he smiled at her tenderly, she wonderer if they were breaking their own rules by doing this kind of thing. They had agreed that they couldn't be a couple until they had reached their goals. But this seemed a very couple-y thing to do.
It's alright if it's just this, she said to herself, desperately. It's alright as long as it's just this.
Thank you all again for your comments on the first chapter.
I continue to accept ideas about what situation you think could lead to a lot of romantic tension for these two.
Or if you want to fangirl about this manga, that's also welcome!
