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.

Author's Notes at bottom of the page.

Chapter XIV: Pas de Deux

I hoped that he would love me.
And he has kissed my mouth
But I am like a stricken bird
That cannot reach the south.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Etsuro asked his wife.

Yayoi ignored her husband for a second and continued working, her straight-backed no-nonsense figure sitting stiffly on the office chair. She was busy filling out purchase orders for the fall. The filing cabinet stood open and a pile of open vendor forms threatened to spill over the desk and onto the floor. She had her back to him, he saw her head with its neat bun bent over paperwork on the desk.

"What do you mean?" she finally responded. "The supply purchases? Of course." She paused and looked at him. "I'm not new at this, Etsuro." She turned around in annoyance and went back to rifling through the pile of receipts. "Mattaku…"

"You know what I mean, Yayoi." Twenty years with the woman, and he'd rarely ever seen her so obtuse. "What are you going to do about Kyoko?"

"Kyoko's busy taking care of Hizuri-san."

"Oh she's busy taking care of him? Is that what you're calling it?" He motioned to the pile. "Kyoko's been taking care of this purchasing for the last year. Why isn't she taking care of this now? Because of the Hizuri boy?" For the past few weeks, he'd kept his mouth shut, remembering the strange dawn conversation and Yayoi's odd resolve to 'let Kyoko find love.' In the intervening time, he'd watched one of the ryokan's highest-paying clients ever do bizarre things like fix the retaining wall and take out the trash. The Hizuri boy had been following Kyoko-chan like a puppy, but the work they had done was so helpful that he could find no objection to it. Yayoi had told him to keep his hands off, and he had. It was a bizarre situation, but foreigners, particularly extremely wealthy ones, occasionally had strange tastes.

"I've told her to spend these last few weeks of summer freely. She deserves some time as a teenager before she goes back to school." Yayoi smiled faintly. The memory of Kyoko awkwardly coming to speak to her—all blushes and awkward pauses—was too adorable to share with Etsuro. It wasn't quite a motherly moment—Kyoko still treated her with too much formality for that—but she felt quietly satisfied that for once the girl had a chance to live the life of a normal teenager. Yayoi knew she had been wise to characterize Kyoko's time as 'working with Hizuri-san' to the girl. Had she told Kyoko to 'spend time with the boy you have a crush on,' she was certain she would have found Kyoko scrubbing pots in the kitchen again in an effort to deny she had feelings at all. She'd been watching the pair from afar and had been giving Takarada-san the occasional update. She knew that the past few days they'd been practicing sword-fighting in lieu of Romeo and Juliet's love scenes. She supposed that was because Kyoko was too shy to be a Juliet to Kuon's Romeo, but she figured that so long as they were spending time together, some development was bound to happen.

"They're in his room now. They spent last week entirely in his room."

Just then they heard the creaky hallway boards give a groan of protest as Kyoko streaked past the office, looking somewhat disheveled with her hair streaming behind her. Yayoi merely saw her back. Etsuro, with his back leaning on the doorframe, could see her face, distraught and reddened. Kyoko never failed to greet the Fuwas, it was part of her unfailing politeness. So Etsuro, who'd been expecting a greeting—and perhaps considering asking Kyoko to join a conversation that was intimately about her—had been shocked as she blew past unseeing. He gave his wife a look, and Yayoi had been about to call Kyoko back herself—until the hallway began rumbling again and they saw a distraught Kuon running after her.

"Kyoko!" they heard. "Kyoko, wait!" Etsuro felt a draft of wind as Kuon passed. It didn't escape him, either, that Kuon also looked disheveled. The boy had his t-shirt on backwards, for heavens' sake—and he was barefoot.

He gave his wife a look of reproach. "Did you see that? Did you just see that, Yayoi?" he asked.

The look of smug satisfaction on Yayoi's face confused him. "Yes," she said, smiling. "Excellent."

"Who knows what in the hell he's done to her! Don't you think it's strange? She's a young girl and you've been allowing her to stay in the company of this strange foreigner for weeks. The staff are starting to talk."

"I don't doubt that they are. You're the Taisho, you can control that kind of talk if you want. We signed a non-disclosure, they've all been briefed on that. And if you recall, that strange foreigner has been providing you free labor for the past few weeks—that, despite the fact that he's paid far above the normal rate for the rooms he's occupying. Not to mention the fact that Kyoko-chan herself has never been paid a wage, despite the fact that she's worked her hands to the bone for us all this time!"

"Kyoko-chan is different. She's inheriting."

"And just because she's inheriting, you don't think she deserves to spend some time to herself? For god's sake, Etsuro, Shotaro was inheriting, and he had a massive allowance, everything he ever wanted, and never did a day's work in his life! The least we can do for Kyoko-chan is to let her spend time with an old childhood friend."

"Are you seriously telling me that Hizuri-san is an old childhood friend? That foreigner?"

"Surely you can't have forgotten."

"Forgotten?"

"Eleven summers ago. Kuu Hizuri's visit."

Etsuro stood stock still, mouth gaping. "Then...Hizuri-san is...related to…"

"His son. And we signed a non-disclosure. So don't go blabbing about it."

"And he met Kyoko?"

"She was 6."

"So this is why you think they're destined lovers?"

"I don't think, Etsuro. Look at them for yourself."

"I don't like this matchmaking you're doing, Yayoi."

"I made no matches. I'm merely giving a young girl who's only given us her very best some time to figure things out."

"She's figured things out! Her future is fixed! She chose to inherit! I told you this!"

"The inheritance is not a prison sentence," Yayoi said firmly. "Do you seriously think she'd just abandon everything she's worked for here? She's done more for us in her short life than Sho will ever do, and even if she does leave to marry this Hizuri boy, it's not like we can't hire a general manager and have her run the ryokan as an executive! It's the twenty-first century, Etsuro! It may not feel like it here, but I won't allow you to pin her down."

"So you're just…not going to do anything even after that scene?"

"It looked like a lover's quarrel to me."

"Are you insane? He could hurt her!"

Yayoi pursed her lips and flipped on the security monitor. She gave Etsuro a stern look as they watched the two figures come onto the screen.

"Etsuro." Yayoi got up. "I have no intention of letting her come to harm, not from our neglect, not from our overprotection. But she's a young woman now, and I will not interfere."

Etsuro glared at his wife, but held his tongue as they silently watched the figures come on screen.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Fuck."

And just like that it was over. He stood frozen, looking into the darkened hallway where she'd run, wondering if she'd bothered to leave him a single glass slipper. The rumpled bed mocked him, his rumpled shirt on the floor mocked him, the mirror mocked his face, which was flushed. The balcony doors were still wide open, letting in a cooling night breeze that chilled the fever off of his skin. For a second he felt a wave of despair crash over his head, threatening to drown all the hope he'd slowly nurtured in the days since the matsuri. You're cursed, remember? a voice said in his head. There's another one that dumped you, said another. At least you won't have to figure out how to date her, said a third, so go back to Tokyo and forget everything. He'd spent the days since their meeting preoccupied with building a castle in the air, nurturing a vision of a future that was less straightforward than the one he'd envisioned when he'd first come to Japan but was infinitely more precious. Now that he couldn't imagine a future without her, though, everything was so much more complicated. What had seemed impossible on his call to Tina now seemed feasible, if not particularly convenient. But if she never wanted to see him again…if everything between them ended here, then it was all for nothing. The castle in the air would be nothing but a castle made of sand dissolving into the tide. A delicious kind of agony was taking hold of him, and for that split second he welcomed the bitterness like an old friend, a much-cherished buffer against wanting too much out of a life that promised success, if not fulfilment.

But then he remembered the feel of her arms pulling him closer to her, the sweetness of her voice asking him "Dost thou love me?" and the momentary paralysis dissolved and he grabbed his shirt and catapulted out of his room after her, barefoot and desperate. He was setting his doubt and fear aside and choosing to move forward instead on the fumes of his much-battered hopes. He didn't want to leave this till morning—he dreaded what a night's separation would bring, and he didn't want this evening—this week!—to end the way it did. He was still half-drunk on the taste of her, and the idea of going back to not touching her...not seeing her, to not talking to her, or seeing the secret smile she would occasionally get on her face when she thought he wasn't watching left him feeling as if a part of him was being torn off. He would do anything—say anything, go anywhere—not to end this evening like this. It had been beyond all his hope to hold her like that, and he couldn't find it in himself to believe that what he'd done had been wrong.

He was sure she felt the same.

So why was she running?

He dashed down the hallways, certain she was headed to the tiny sweatbox of a room she called hers. Rounding the corner, he finally saw her form disappearing past Yayoi's office, and registered Fuwa-san's shocked glare as he ran after her. But it wasn't until she got to her room that she turned and saw him following just steps behind her—and then slammed the door in his face just as he reached out to her.

He felt the wind from the slamming door ruffle his hair.

"Kyoko!" he said, his hands banging against the wooden surface. What had he seen in her eyes as she'd shut it? Fear? he asked himself. Have I done something to make her afraid of me? Stupid stupid stupid. She's a virgin, he thought, and you're a recovered slut, Kuon. He blushed, his mind filled with images of her writhing under him as he took her hardened nipple into his mouth, and again he berated himself. What kind of pervert was he? The love of his life had just slammed a door in his face and here he was standing in front of it like a randy schoolboy. What had he been thinking, taking off her shirt? I wasn't thinking at all, that's the problem, he thought. Six years of self-control down the drain. The last thing he wanted was for her to think that he had been after a quick fuck, for her to think that he was just going to use her and leave her and forget her.

Patience, he told himself. You need to be patient. But another part of himself responded, How much more patience could you possibly have? If she can't see that you're serious, you're wasting your time. And if it had been anyone besides Kyoko, Kuon probably would have packed his bags and simply left. But Kyoko was Kyoko, not some starlet playing games with him. She'd had a lifetime of rejection and abandonment. Between her mother and Sho, she's had so much damage done to her, he thought. Surely he could give her the time she needed to see love for what it was. Didn't he know this? It was why he wasn't going to push things further tonight, wasn't it? But instead he'd charged in like a raging bull and ruined the tenuous trust they had built up between them.

"Kyoko! Please," he said. "Can we talk?"

Silence from the other side, though his intuition told him that she was just inches away.

"I'm not going to leave until we talk," he said. Drained, he sank down to the floor, leaning his back against the door. He turned his head upwards, taking in the dingy popcorn ceiling of the hallway outside her room. It had water stains on it. No wonder she'd been planning on having him waterproof the roof.

Silence.

"Kyoko," he said again. "I love you. Did you hear me?" He hung his head. "I love you…please…" He stopped. When he spoke again, his voice was ragged. "Please don't do this." The words faded into the heavy silence and he sighed.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I love you," she heard. "Please don't do this…"

Kyoko sat on the other side of the door, her back against it and pinning it shut in case the flimsy lock gave way. She didn't think he was the type to actually break down her door, despite the loud thwack of his hands on the wood. If her thoughts before this evening had been a never-ending push-pull, they were now in chaos. What had she done? Hadn't she decided she'd never tell him? Never give in? Not one second more, she'd told herself, and here she was, kissing him after giving her weeks of her life. At the very first test she'd fallen into his arms like a wanton woman, let him take off her shirt and do things to her...breasts. Her almost non-existent, nearly-flat-as-pancakes breasts. Stupid stupid Kyoko, she berated herself, now what?

Her traitorous body wanted more from him, even though her better self protested every wanton thought that crossed her mind's eye. Her heart was caught in the middle and was beating frantically like a newly-caught bird beating its wings against a trap. Lust, fear, and want warred inside her. As for love…well, she wouldn't even think it, much less speak it. She knew how casually Americans used the word. They loved french fries, they loved sunsets, they loved the convenience of laundry service and they loved prompt service. American guests would call her 'sweetheart' one moment and tell her 'oh, I love you, aren't you the cutest little thing?' and then forget her name the very next minute. So if Kuon was sitting outside her door saying "I love you," she was well within her rights to doubt the depth of his regard, right? Right?

The truth was she wanted him—wanted everything the evening had promised. This was not new knowledge. The desire for that happy ending was hard-wired in her blood, and with him she could almost taste it like a drop of honey on her tongue. She'd known this for weeks now, had known it as soon as that night under the fireworks. All through the night she'd wept over him, the days when they'd worked on the ryokan together, all through Macbeth and yes, these past few days with Romeo and Juliet. She thought she'd be able to keep herself separate, even though she'd been fully engaged in that back-and-forth dance they'd been doing. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth and bit back words, willing her body to stay still even though every part of her wanted to open the door and rush into his arms again. He had bewitched her. She had been drugged. There had been some kind of evil spell cast on her. Somehow she had to find a way back to the placid stillness of her life from before.

She could tell from the shadow underneath the door that Kuon was sitting with his back nearly flush against her. If it weren't for the door between them, they'd be sitting back-to-back.

She shuddered—whether from disappointment or horror, she didn't quite know. What would've happened if no one had called him? Would they have—? Could they have—? An unbidden image of him leaning over her came to the forefront of her mind and she clenched her thighs as if doing so could keep her from thinking of the things he'd done to her again. A small part of her was delirious with happiness, and this, she decided, was dangerous. It was a part of her that she needed to excise with speed and surgical precision. She knew how he thought he felt. She'd known for a while. He'd declared it early and reiterated it often, and because she was an idiot she'd let it go unchallenged and unaddressed. But surely the man was deluded, wasn't he? Yes. This is what it was. The man was deluded, had probably come back to the ryokan after being overworked as an actor. And he apparently hadn't indulged in the more…physical…pleasures since his arrival in Japan. Of course he'd latch on to the nearest thing and call it love. Right? Right? So really, the last thing she needed was to join him in a folie a deux.

She couldn't shake the idea that this was all some mistake and she'd wake up tomorrow with her pile of homework still undone and an old man instead of a fairy prince in the ryokan's largest suite yelling at the staff to give him a satisfactory breakfast. Maybe she had struck her head on the way to the forest the morning she thought she'd met him, and was even now in a hospital somewhere unconscious and dreaming fever dreams about an actor she'd recently seen on TV.

And even if all of this really did happen, nothing had changed. He was still leaving, she would still be here. That was a certainty as fixed as tomorrow's sunrise. If anything, all this had just made it worse. Every second she spent with him just made it harder for her to end it. And she had no choice, did she? Didn't she have to end it? Not because he was untrustworthy, or a cheating liar, or any other fault of his. He was lovely. He was wonderful, he'd been her fairy prince in every way and more than that all through these summer days. But his real life was far beyond anything she could hope to participate in. She'd end it now before she could regret any more, before she could love him anymore or give him any more of herself, because when he left, it really would kill her if he took any more of her heart than he already had.

The desire and the delirium were tempered by the hollowness inside her that she'd been denying all this time. When she'd come back from Tokyo, the ryokan had felt like a kingdom asleep. Here, she could live out her days in stasis, one day like the next, no alarms, no surprises. That was the life she'd chosen, wasn't it? Fairy tales only went wrong once the princes got there. Sleeping Beauty was raped by her prince. The Little Mermaid disintegrated into foam and disappeared. Before their princes arrived, both princesses had been perfectly safe. She'd already had her grand romantic Tokyo adventure, and had somehow survived it. As cruel as Sho had been, the fact that he hadn't found her attractive at all was a relief, now. What would she have done if she'd gotten pregnant? She'd either be stuck with Sho forever or abandoned by him, taking care of a child that neither of them wanted. Kuon Hizuri was something else entirely. She knew that something like this would destroy her. What use was it to want more, when more was impossible? She could indulge Kuon, she could indulge herself, go down this path and into the woods for adventure. But in the end, that path would simply lead her back here, worse for wear and alone again.

"Kyoko," she heard from the other side of the door, "Please?" The voice was small and sad.

This time she responded. "Go away, Kuon."

"No."

"I have nothing to talk about."

"There's everything to talk about."

"Kuon, I—" She shook her head at the dingy white wall she was facing. "We can't do this. You know we can't do this."

"Why?" he asked. "Why can't we do this? I don't understand." The idea was absurd to him. Kyoko was his, and he was Kyoko's. This was the natural order of things; it was the way the world was made. "Please don't lock me out," he said. His voice was small and sad and yearning and Kyoko wanted to sink into his arms again and never leave.

In her room, Kyoko smiled bitterly. "I'm not leaving. You are. I'm…" she paused, searching for a better way to put it, and not finding one, continued. "...stuck here. Please don't pretend there's a future for us."

"There can be if you want one."

"How, Kuon? You always say these ridiculous things," she responded. "'Kyoko, I love you,' 'Kyoko, don't leave me,'" she mocked. "I'm a glorified waitress that you happened to meet when you were just a kid. Maybe you were lonely? I'm happy to know you again. I'm so thankful for this time that we've had. But you have to know that there's someone out there that's better for you. Someone really beautiful and gorgeous…maybe someone like Kana, except…without the girlfriend. I know it's been a long time since you've been …intimate…with anyone, but…I'm just…what's available today, Kuon. I'm…convenient right now." Saying it hurt. "When you go, you'll have an entire world out there waiting. But I'll still be here and if I…if I…" …give you what you want. I don't know how I'd go on when you go, she finished silently.

"So this is your opinion of me?" he paused. "This is how you think I see you? As a convenience? As someone who just happened to be here? You're 'thankful for this time'? Fuck, Kyoko."

But Kyoko was relentless. "Nothing else makes sense. Why else would you be here?"

He could hear her voice coming across, muffled by the door.

"You know why I'm here," he said. "I know you do. I know you feel the same way."

"While you're here you say you love me and you do things to me and...you...you flirt...but you're leaving, Kuon. How can you say you're not?"

"Just because I'm not staying in the ryokan doesn't mean I've left you. You will always be home to me. I told you—that day, with the mop…I thought you knew how I felt. I…"

He sighed deeply.

"I will always come home to you."

"That doesn't even make sense. This place is no one's home, Kuon. And Tokyo is hours away...once you go back to wor—"

"I didn't say this ryokan was home, Kyoko. I said you were. I was thinking I'd come see you every weekend. And whenever you'd like, you can come to Tokyo. Spend time with me. At least until…"

He paused. She braced herself. Until what, Kuon? Until you're finally tired of me?

"Until we get married," he finished. It felt odd to speak the words out loud, but it was also a relief.

She gasped. She could feel her heart lurch at his words, but their sheer absurdity—! The day after the matsuri, he wanted to be her boyfriend. Now, a mere few weeks after, he was declaring he wanted to marry her. Surely now she had ample evidence to think him deluded, right?

"And then if you still couldn't leave the ryokan, I'll move here and be with you, and just...commute to Tokyo and elsewhere for shoots."

"You can't possibly do that." Right? He couldn't possibly do that! A confused maelstrom was surging up inside her. He had flirted, yes, he'd intimated that he wanted to be her boyfriend, sure. But to baldly make plans about marriage and their life afterwards was surely a step into true insanity.

"Do what? Marry you?" A small smile tugged at his lips. "The only force in this world that could keep me from doing that is you, Kyoko." Great job, Kuon, he thought to himself, if she wasn't freaked out before, she's going to be freaked out now. Makeout to marriage in five minutes, and while she's locked you out of her room. He certainly hadn't planned on proposing tonight. He doubted this even counted as a proposal, but he'd never even so much as imagined marriage to any other girl, much less mentioned it to one. And they hadn't even gone out on a formal date yet. But with Kyoko, it seemed a foregone conclusion. It would either be marriage or heartbreak for him. Why bother beating around the bush?

"You have a life in Tokyo, Kuon. Millions of people watch your movies. All of the productions are there."

"One of the perks of being an A-list actor is getting to choose exactly how many movies or series one does, you know. My dad does one movie a year, if that. He and mom aren't exactly hurting for cash." It had not escaped his notice that her protestations over this 'marriage' idea were primarily about his work and about the feasibility of their union. Kyoko hadn't said 'no' to him as a prospective partner, and the thought was inordinately pleasing. She certainly hadn't said yes, but neither had she said "Oh, I could never marry you, Kuon, I just don't feel that way about you." It was enough to keep the hope alive for him.

"You're insane," she said.

"Fine. I'm insane. That doesn't change anything."

For a long time she didn't respond. Kyoko was staring at the doorknob, acutely aware that he was on the other side. He heard her fingers fumbling with the lock. He stood and turned towards the door.

"Kyoko?" he asked.

Finally, the door opened a crack and he could see a single golden eye peeking out.

"I don't believe you," she whispered.

His hand reached to open the door further and she moved backwards to let him enter. She tried to hold herself separate from him, keeping her back upright and ramrod straight. She didn't pull away from him, but she didn't move closer to him, either.

"What don't you believe?" he asked.

She retreated further into her room—her dark, dank, nearly windowless room, lit unflatteringly in the grey-white of an old fluorescent tube, with her worn futon and her worn blanket and the desk on which she worked that was kept from wobbling with a piece of wadded-up cardboard. There was an old office chair whose pleather covering was so worn you could see the dingy yellowed foam underneath and not much else at all. He followed her in and she pressed herself against the far wall and again she couldn't say anything to him as he stared at her with his heart in his eyes.

"Any of it. You're lying. You have to be lying." She turned away from him and he flinched at the sudden movement. "And I've watched too many Dajowney movies."

"I'm not lying, Kyoko."

The room seemed so much smaller with him inside it. She hadn't noticed the first time he'd followed her here, given the lack of electricity and how quickly he'd grabbed her books to lure her out. He filled it, his tall frame nearly to the top of the ceiling. She noticed with some chagrin that if he stretched out all his limbs, he could probably fill the entire space with very little trouble. She felt some shame that he even had to be in this little room, especially after the spaciousness of his own suite. He seemed so much taller here, and she bent her neck upwards to look at him. He truly was devastating. A nuclear bomb couldn't be more effective at clearing her mind of every rational thought. Her heart lurched and sang and she was angry at herself for forgetting—AGAIN!—what she needed to do in order to survive this. But the look in his eyes was as scared as she felt.

"Then you're crazy. You don't need to try so hard to sleep with me, Kuon. Would it be preferable if…"

"Preferable?" Her words echoed in his head. 'Try so hard to sleep with me'? he thought. Oh god…

"Would it be better...Do you think...If…"

He let her stutter on. A tear was forming in her eye and the body that had been as stiff as steel was beginning to tremble. She refused to look at him.

"If you...slept with me...maybe...maybe it'll be easier for you to go. Because I think maybe when you've had me, you'll get me out of your system and...and then you'll see. That I'm not the one. You don't need to chase me anymore...won't need to worry about me giving you a chance…just...while you're here. You can...use me and then I'd be...OK with that, Kuon...you wouldn't need to marry me. And I know you would be really good at that stuff...so I'm OK with you...being my first. Just get me out of your system, and then you wouldn't have any regrets and you wouldn't need to waste your time with me."

Kuon stared at her in shock. And then in fury. And then he was staring at the single tear that had escaped from her glassy eyes and was now falling down her cheek and his heart broke. The girl he loved had just offered herself for his use as if she were nothing but a rag.

"What in the actual fuck?" She truly believed what she was saying, he realized. Slowly, very slowly, he nudged himself closer to her, pulling her into his arms and holding her there despite the small squeak of protest that rose from her throat. His eyes beseeched her not to reject his touch.

"No, Kuon, don't," she said, weakly trying to pull away. He ignored her.

He sank down in front of her on his knees. This made him slightly shorter than her, and she found herself looking down into his eyes instead of up. She was defenseless when he tightened his arms around her waist, even though her arms hung limply at her sides. "So...please let me summarize what you're telling me," he said. "You think that because I'm on vacation for the first time in six years that I would imagine that I'm somehow in love with a girl because she happens to be the only available female in the area, and that if I sleep with her, I'll somehow fall out of love with her because I've sated my lust? That's what you think?" It would be an insult if she weren't crying about it. "You think that if you sleep with me, I won't want you anymore? That's what you think? That I'm just horny?"

"It's the only reason that makes sense, Kuon," she said.

"None of that makes sense," he said flatly.

But she continued. "Because why would you want me?" And all of a sudden the tears that were leaking out one by one became a deluge. "I'm not pretty, Kuon. I'm not interesting. Can you even imagine what your fans would say when they saw me? They'd pity you for having such an ugly, plain girlfriend. Even if I did everything I could to keep you happy—any housekeeper could do the same." She was sobbing now, unreservedly. "If...if you still want me...I can...you can...tonight…"

"No."

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I guess I presumed too much. Of course you don't want that with me…if you don't want me, then please allow me to call for a woman of your choice—we don't usually offer this as a service for our guests, but as you are a VIP, I'm sure it can be arranged."

"NO! I don't want anyone else!" he all but shouted at her. How could she even think it? Hadn't he just lost his mind kissing her just moments ago? Softening, he said, "I want that…with you. But not like this."

"Wouldn't you want…someone pretty to…do that with?"

"I think you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."

"I would have an easier time believing you if that statement was less absurd, Kuon." Objectively, Kyoko knew she was plain. There was nothing beautiful or unique about her. She had non-descript black hair, like most Japanese women. She had a round face that would never book any ads for a variety of reasons—there was a distinct lack of cheekbones, for one. She had eyes that were lighter than most people's, sure, but it's not as if they were a beautiful emerald green like Kuon's. And she'd long come to the conclusion that her flat bust would never attract men, especially given the fact that most of them preferred buxom women.

"Why is it absurd?"

"Objectively it can't possibly be true. I'm not a model or an actress. The other people auditioning all said I looked like a housewife."

"Stop!"

"And my chest is very flat."

"I'm sure you noticed I was perfectly satisfied with you chest, Kyoko."

"You'd just be throwing yourself away on me."

"It's me who isn't worthy of you. I'm not giving up," he said. "Whether you agree or not, you are beautiful, and brilliant, and mine, and I am yours. Even if it takes me a lifetime to prove it to you."

"WHY?" She paused and shook her head back and forth, as if trying to clear her head of a million thoughts. "Why do you keep TRYING? Everything was fine before you got here, Kuon. Everything made sense. But then you got here and…and…"

"And now everything is different?" He took his hands and cupped her face gently, wiping away the tears that fell down her cheek.

He watched as her lips trembled. "Mmhmm," she whimpered. "And nothing makes sense."

"Do you know what 'I love you' means, Kyoko?" he asked. He said the words in English.

"Yes," she said. "Do you?"

He gave her a look of reproach and a sardonic grin. "No, I have no idea what love means. I just tell you aishiteru for no reason. Just to make sounds to fill the silence. I go around telling every girl I meet aishiteru, and when I'm in France I tell them je t'adore, and when I'm in Russia, I say ya tebya lyublyu. That's the foundation of my success as an actor. I just tell everyone 'I love you.'"

Kyoko snorted derisively. "But you can't love me, Kuon. That's just ridiculous."

"Why can't I love you?" He felt her try to move away half-heartedly and tightened his grip on her, leaning himself onto her as she stood stubbornly.

"Because it's not possible," she said. "You've only known me for a few weeks. And maybe you just didn't find anyone else with all those actresses because you were working so hard and...Kuon, I'm plain. And boring. And you can do so much better...and maybe it's because I'm inexperienced and that's why you think you love me. That's why I think...maybe if you had me, then you'll see I'm nothing special and you can leave here without any regrets. I can end your six-year drought and you'll be free."

"Kyoko," he said again. It sounded almost like a reproach, but it was more a plea. "Please don't do this."

"Do what?" she asked. "Point out the obvious?"

"Push me away," he said. "I can't bear it. I don't understand it."

"There's nothing to understand," she said. "I got caught up in the moment, that's all. I told you Juliet was an idiot and we got carried away with the balcony scene."

"Bullshit."

Gold eyes locked onto his.

"We're wayyyy past this, Kyoko. You're insulting me, and I love you."

"You don't love me, Kuon."

"Please. Don't insult me by telling me how I feel. Don't insult me by lying. I love you."

"You said yourself—you didn't know what it was like to be in love. How is it that you know now?"

"Because I met you. Because I met you and I got to know you, and because I know what I want." He couldn't help himself. His hands reached for hers and he took them and started pressing kisses into her fingers. She left them in his hands, hanging limply as she screwed her eyes shut.

"Kuon…"

"I...I keep telling you what I want. But what do you want?...Do you want me?"

"It's impossible," she responded. He watched tears escaping from her tightly closed lids. It was as if she was using her refusal as a way to hide herself.

"Forget what's possible. Do you...did you...did you ever think that I could make you happy?"

The moment that followed was one of the longest in his life. He thought he knew how she felt, but after the preceding scene he wasn't so sure. She was trying so hard to refuse his love—if she told him 'no,' wouldn't pressing on be…harassment? Wouldn't that be stalker-ish behavior? Kuon had been raised to respect a woman's 'no,' and if Kyoko said no, once and for all, then…he'd have to leave. Even if every cell in his body was convinced she loved him back.

He held his breath, but then…

"Yes," she said. "This entire time...I've loved every moment with you...even when I didn't want to. But...you...you're so beautiful, Kuon...and I'm...I'm just me."

He fought down the urge to kiss her senseless.

"Did you...did you never think that I loved every moment with you too?" He had grabbed her hands in his again and was kissing them, soft kisses on each finger tip and then on her palms and the insides of her wrists where he felt her pulse on his lips. "Do you think I'd go six years without a single woman in my life and then simply go 'oh, there's one, I'd like to fuck that one'?"

Suddenly he stood up and she was being swept up in his arms again as he made his way over to her folded futon. He sat down and she found herself on his lap, and instead of her hands he began kissing the tracks of her tears, down her cheeks and then along her jawline, and then finally in the crook of her neck where he finally rested his forehead.

"Don't you feel it?" His hand went to hers, his pinkie finger hooking over her own. "The red cord. From me to you. You're the other half." She was silent. "I am yours and you are mine. Why do you keep running?"

"I'm scared," she whispered.

"What are you scared of?"

"Pain," she responded. A single word, speaking volumes.

"I would never hurt you," he said.

"You can't promise that."

"I can promise never to do so on purpose. I can promise to love you and honor you and cherish you all the rest of my days and—"

"Stop, Kuon, please…"

He sighed. "I'm scared too," he said. "I'm scared of fucking this up so badly you shut me out and never speak to me again," he added.

"...I…"

"I'm scared that you won't even give me a chance…"

"Even if I did, the end result would be the same."

"Why, Kyoko? Do you have special powers? Can you look into the future and know how things will turn out?"

"No, but…I've been here before." Hadn't she? Wasn't this just like the situation with Sho? Believing someone loves you when he doesn't, she thought. A Kyoko Mogami specialty.

"Well I certainly haven't," he said.

"I just think that…maybe if you went back and dated other people, you'd see that I'm just a sad, plain girl who would be a waste of your time."

"You keep going back to this, and I keep telling you I will never want anyone else again. There can NEVER be anyone else, Kyoko. No one, not so long as I live."

"Now you're the one making impossible statements about the future. Statistically, there will be other women, Kuon."

"Stop insulting me. Do you think so little of me? You know that you've basically called me a horny idiot without any honor, right? A liar of the worst order. A fuckboy who doesn't know his own mind. Would you really be OK with bringing me an escort, Kyoko? Would you really have done it? Do you really think I'm that kind of guy? Please tell me, because if that's what you honestly think of me, then I've clearly failed."

She had the grace to look abashed. She felt his hand on her skin again, and again they stared at each other, stock-still. He wondered if this would be how they'd communicate...meaningful glances and silences, saying more than words ever could. He nuzzled his nose into her hair and tightened his arms around her lithe body. She relaxed and pressed herself closer to him, and the contact quieted them both.

"No," she said, "I know that's not who you are."

"Thank you," he said. "Do you believe me, then? You know I'm not insane."

She nodded. For a long while they just sat there, his hands entwining themselves into hers. She looked at him and said "What now?"

Heart pounding, he asked, "Kyoko Mogami, may I have the honor of calling myself your boyfriend?"

A deep blush spread over her face, and Kuon felt his breath catching as she scrunched her eyes closed again. And when she nodded a tiny nod of assent, he couldn't help but give a small laugh. She was simply too adorable. At the sound of it, Kyoko opened her eyes and gave him a small pout. The smile he gave her rivaled the light of a thousand suns.

The heavens had opened up.

He brought his lips to hers and gave her the gentle, reverent kiss he'd always imagined would be their first.

Kyoko was his girlfriend at last.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Author's Note:

Thank you so much for reading! I truly appreciate every comment and review. Please let me know what you think!

1. The specific Pas de Deux I'm thinking of is the White Swan Pas de Deux from Act 2 of Swan Lake (Specifically, Act 2, no. 4, part 5—you know, the bit with the solo violin).

2. 'The Kiss,' Sara Teasdale

3. I admit I'm supermeh about this chapter. I hope it is still enjoyable and…somewhat coherent?