CANDID CONNECTIONS

"You know, I'd say you have a wily talent for collecting famous men," Koga began as he sauntered over to where Kyoko stood in a hallway. "That is, of course, If I thought you were doing it on purpose."

His voice echoed in the otherwise empty studio hallway and Kyoko turned to regard him with a face pinched in confusion. She looked from him to the man she'd been conversing with. Conversing was the polite term Koga chose to describe the scene as it was more like arguing, maybe almost banter. He'd seen Kyoko before when she had her hackles up and they were sky-high when he approached her. Koga pondered that while waiting for his words to register in Kyoko's brain, which he knew from experience typically took a moment or two.

"Wait, you mean him?" And there it was. He didn't bother to stifle his laugh when she jabbed a thumb in the general direction of the man beside her, her expression tightening further. "I grew up with this idiot."

He only laughed louder at that and ruffled her hair like she was little more than a petulant child. She played the part well too, batting his hand away with an incensed growl. "Of course you did," he drawled, not out of disbelief but because this seemed exactly like something that would be true. Especially when it came to Kyoko.

"Oi, Kyoko, does Tsuruga know you're going around with another guy?" her companion asked with a sneer that Koga couldn't help but be impressed by. "Or does he not know you're off the leash right now?"

How he got his lip to curl just so was almost enviable. The fact that his brand of teasing when it came to Kyoko also matched his own was icing on the cake. How unfortunate that they'd not met sooner. Fortunately, there was no time like the present.

"Koga Hiromune," he formally introduced himself with the customary polite bow. "Currently working with Kyoko in a drama." He raised a hand to stop the other man when he opened his mouth to respond. "There's no need to reciprocate," he assured him. "I know exactly who you are, Fuwa Sho. It's an honor and a pleasure."

That must have spectacularly stroked Fuwa's ego as Koga could practically see the man preening like he'd been paid the highest compliment. Celebrities were honestly the easiest instruments to play. Warm-ups weren't even necessary. All it took was something in the key of conceit and the concerto pretty much wrote itself.

The irony of the fact that this exact strategy also worked on Koga himself wasn't lost on him.

"So, is this a social call or…" He looked between Fuwa and Kyoko, waiting for one of them to fill in the blank. Judging by the grimace that formed on Kyoko's face when he said 'social,' he assumed it was anything but that. Very curious.

"Actually, I'll be filming a video here next week." Fuwa casually flipped his hair out of his face in a move Koga assumed he'd practiced enough times to make it look natural. "Running into her was just an unfortunate coincidence."

"One that seems to keep happening," Kyoko grumbled next to them with clenched fists, refusing to look either of them in the eye.

Koga cocked an eyebrow at her. This was getting more interesting by the second. Having grown up with one of Japan's hottest singers was one thing, but he was far more intrigued by their tense, adversarial relationship. There was a distinct tingling of his Drama Sense, and it wasn't coming from Fuwa's garish style of dress which Koga wanted badly to characterize as 'punk light.' This… whatever it was between them wasn't anything close to whatever odd arrangement she has with Tsuruga Ren. This one felt on a completely different level somehow; like it reeked of history.

If he played this right, he'd either have a wealth of experience he could use at a later date for a role or the most outrageous story to share whilst stunningly drunk.

That provoked a thought.

"Well I, for one, think we shouldn't waste this unexpected reunion," he admonished, holding his arms out. "I'd come to ask Kyoko if she wanted to go with a few of us to grab a bite now that filming is finished for the day. You should join us."

"Why?" Fuwa balked with a sour frown. "You don't even know me."

"You're right, I don't," Koga agreed, nonplussed by the musician's reaction. "But networking is crucial in this industry. You're not really going to turn down a chance to chat with a group of both veteran and new actors are you?"

It was framed as a challenge for a reason, naturally. Entertainers, whether in drama or in music, needed each other. In a world where nepotism reigned supreme, connections were everything. Refusing any opportunity to form more of them was akin to self-detonating your career. It was important to meet as many people as you could as you never knew when it would be beneficial later.

He saw a strange smile stretch across Kyoko's lips as she watched Fuwa ponder the invitation and when she met his eyes, it widened further. She saw the gambit for what it was. Not only that, she approved. Appealing to Fuwa's foolish pride was apparently the right move.

"Yes, Shotaro, come with us," she purred and the way Fuwa winced at her choice of emphasis spoke volumes. Koga filed that away for later. "You do this all the time, right? Maybe you can show me how it's done."

The spectacle of Fuwa's impetuous acceptance and Kyoko's knowing smile of triumph was absolutely riveting. Bravo, Kyoko. That was a masterful stroke.

The transportation situation was sorted relatively quickly despite the parties present. This was mostly due to the fact that Koga called for a ride without consulting the other two. He then herded them both into the van, catching them by surprise enough to get them seated with little fuss. The fuss didn't start until after they were safely buckled in.

Sharing a ride with Kyoko and her childhood friend (perhaps 'nemesis' was a better word to use here, he considered) was educational, to say the very least.

While the bickering bordered on exhausting, the interesting bits and pieces of that oh-so-intriguing history he did pick up in between the vague threats and indignant huffs were invaluable—the fact that they lived together at some point was especially delectable. Kyoko was either a fool or a saint—he was willing to concede that it was probably a bit of both. And Fuwa, well, he was exactly as Koga assumed; arrogant, opinionated, and undeniably talented. He let the conversation pass over him in the same way the lights of oncoming cars did; not that he had much choice, there were a lot of references that made absolutely no sense to him.

All of that came to an abrupt halt the minute they stepped inside the restaurant to meet up with the other cast members. Somewhere deep inside the rock star, a switch was flipped. He was courteous to everyone, even appropriately deferential to his seniors. Kyoko may have been teasing but he really had done this before. This was not the impertinent little upstart he'd just witnessed having verbal fisticuffs with his co-worker.

This was gap moe, wasn't it? Koga never saw the appeal until now.

Even Kyoko had to collect her jaw from where she'd dropped it on the floor. "Who is that person?" she whispered as she sat next to Koga at the large table.

"You're the one who grew up with him," he hissed back. "Shouldn't you know?"

She looked thoughtful for a moment then waved her hand in dismissal. "And he calls me a shapeshifting demon."

The meal was a jovial affair and Fuwa was welcomed into the fold with zero resistance. Koga wanted to laugh at the uncomfortable twist in Kyoko's lips when no one seemed to question that the two of them were, at least, acquaintances. But, while the group bombarded him with work-related questions that he patiently answered in turn, Koga quietly watched the way the singer dutifully nursed his highball. Like it was an obligation and not an indulgence.

He leaned over to catch Kyoko's attention over the din of constant chatter, clinking glasses, and scraping utensils. "Why'd he order one if he's not going to drink it?" he asked quietly, nodding toward the nearly full glass beside Fuwa.

A snort accompanied a tiny smirk. "Yeah, that's an aesthetic thing," she explained. "It's not what he actually wants to drink."

Curiosity burned through him. "What would he have instead?"

Kyoko stretched forward to pull the drink menu from where it lay on the table in front of her. She flipped through a few pages, dragging a finger down each item listed and shaking her head. Upon reaching the midpoint of the last page, she stopped on one of the cocktails and grinned to herself before handing the menu off to him.

"This one," she said, tapping her finger against the item name and hardly containing her laughter behind her grin.

A cocktail of chestnut creme liqueur shaken with vanilla vodka and cream. He tried to imagine what that would taste like. Definitely sweet, like a dessert in a glass. It was probably like liquid pudding.

Forget earlier, this was the true gap moe.

He immediately flagged down a server and surreptitiously asked them to bring him one of their chestnut concoctions. When it arrived, he took a small sip and made an exaggerated face before sliding it across the table towards Fuwa. The bemused musician looked at him like he'd spontaneously sprouted another head. Koga motioned to the unfinished highball.

"I wasn't expecting it to be so strong," came his paltry excuse. "Care to trade?"

Fuwa made a great show of snickering as he swapped the two glasses. "Didn't peg you for a lightweight." After taking a sip of his new drink he disguised his appreciation with an appraising frown that could have worked, were it not for the flush of pink on his cheeks. "It's all right, I guess."

Koga exchanged a look with Kyoko who then had to press a giggle into her napkin.

Everything ended in the usual way with professionals; before long, everyone had somewhere else to be. Farewells were bid and vague promises were made to reconnect in the dim glow of waxing street lamps and waning daylight. Kyoko, he'd noticed, had been looking at her phone often during the latter part of the dinner. Sometimes checking the time. Other times checking her messages.

A message came through, brightening both her phone's screen and her expression, when it was just the three of them still lingering on the sidewalk.

"You're going to see him later, aren't you?" he made an educated guess.

Her face colored and she avoided his eyes but nodded. "He wanted to hear about how filming was going."

"Make sure you get that leaf unstuck from your teeth before you start sucking face," Sho added—Koga decided he could now replace 'Fuwa' with 'Sho' in his mind; they'd had a meal together, after all. And what a delight it was to have him on the same page. Koga cackled.

"It's not like that," Kyoko defended hotly, while pulling a compact from her purse to examine her mouth.

"Sure it isn't," Sho soaked his words with sarcasm. "Well, whatever it is like, just make sure you're not stupid enough to get caught."

Kyoko's flush transitioned to a furious shade of red. She stalked off while muttering to herself about men and audacity. Koga noticed the tense hunch in Sho's shoulders as they watched her shrinking form hurry away from them down the street. It didn't relax until she was out of sight.

"You're actually worried about her," he observed.

"You don't know her like I do." Sho sighed with a shake of his head. "She's got a history of building things up inside her head until they're more fantasy than fact."

Koga collected his thoughts into a pensive hum. "I'd wager this instance is probably the opposite. I get the impression she tried to tear him down to nothing only to find there was more than she'd bargained for," he suggested. It was mostly conjecture but he liked to think he had a sense for these things. "Now she's trying to parse out what that means for her. Maybe they both are, who knows."

Sho scrunched his lips forward in distaste, making his nose scrunch in a way Koga found oddly pleasing. "Isn't he supposed to be dating Kusunoki or whatever?"

Koga rolled his eyes and offered a patronizing laugh. "In this business you never know what's for real and what's for show," he declared, throwing Sho a pointed look. "Just like that one-eighty you pulled back in the restaurant."

"I—yeah," Sho relented with a nervous cough before clawing a hand through his hair in a move that was decidedly more rakish than the carefully rehearsed flip he'd previously resorted to. "I don't even know why I'm telling you any of this."

He smiled, wide and boastful. "I have that effect on people, I'm told."

Sho flushed again and Koga was now two for two. He'd celebrate that victory later. "At least you're not after her too," the other man sounded almost relieved when he said it.

"Oh, does that mean you are?" Koga hesitated, perhaps he should put that celebration on hold indefinitely.

"Nah, that was never, ever going to happen," Sho's firm assertion told him the celebration was tentatively back on. "But there are plenty others. The one she's meeting up with is probably the biggest threat."

Ah, so Tsuruga did have designs on her. Granted, that was a mostly foregone conclusion but he had yet to witness the two of them together to know for certain. He watched Sho glower in the direction Kyoko left. For as fractious as the two of them could be together, they really were friends.

"I compete enough with Japan's number one actor as it is. That's one arena I'm happy to avoid," he admitted. "Besides, Kyoko's not the caliber of person I tend to pursue,"

Sho raised an eyebrow at that. "You too good for her or something?"

Koga laughed and laughed, clapping a hand on the other man's shoulder. At the risk of giving the game away too soon, he pulled a card from his wallet and handed it to the baffled man. "Have your people call my people," he concealed the offer in the cloak of a joke. "Perhaps, one day, I'll tell you all about it."


WRITTEN 100% BECAUSE PERSIE AGREED TO PUT THE OG SHOGA FIC BACK UP TO READ IF I DID. And I am never one to back down from a wager I deliberately made for myself. For those who are curious, look for Every Move You Make on Ao3 under Skip Beat.

Written in hopes of inspiring a new era of Shoga fics. It's not a ship I ever expected, but it's one I find myself highly amused by.