A Close Encounter with a Binary System!
A/N: For SubtleCuddle, with love.
And a note for everybody else: sending lots of good vibes and love in these very weird and scary times. Don't forget to social distance responsibly and NOT hoard food.
. . .
This will all be over soon, I promise.
Days passed since Kuon's words to Kyoko and she could still feel the whisper of his kiss on her lips. But she hadn't seen or heard anything since. Yashiro acted as her intel spy, however reluctant he seemed and was able to uncover that he'd been trapped doing manual labor in the LME offices ever since he wrapped Sho's PV.
Which was why she was here on her one day off for the week, sitting in the Love Me! Room, waiting for Kuon to reappear.
With Kanae in America and Chiori trapped in an audition Lory had lined up for her, the room was uncomfortably quiet. The quiet did nothing to quell the storm that's been brewing in Kyoko's chest since this whole thing started. Kuon's promise had made her nerves ignite a hurricane in her that threatened to swallow her whole. Where would they be now if Tsuruga-san never had that interview on Kimagure Rock? What would have happened if she decided to ask for a sub to play Bo when she realized who their guest was? What if she's given a better response to his desperate pleas-would they still be in this weird position today?
I wish you were anybody but Tsuruga Ren. Not only was it a ridiculous wish, but it was incomprehensible for him to have pulled off this charade. Kyoko sighed, slouching in her seat. There was still something about this whole situation that nagged at the back of her mind, begging to be remembered. But she couldn't get past the shiny blond exterior of Tsuruga-san's new identity as Kuon.
A soft knock rapped against the door. Finally. Kyoko jumped up, knocking her chair to the ground as she scrambled to answer it. She flung the door open, gasping for breath. "I've been waiting-"
Her greeting died on her lips as she recognized the figure taking up the door frame. It was not Kuon. The new arrival lifted her into his arms and twirled her rather unceremoniously in the air without so much as a greeting.
Kuu Hizuri.
As happy as she wanted to be, she couldn't bring herself to do anything more than smile as he placed her back on the ground. "What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice stiff and formal.
His laughter filled the room, echoing uncomfortably in the stillness. "Do we need a reason to visit our favorite daughter?"
Kyoko's smile tightened. Kuu didn't return to Japan for years before Dark Moon started filming and now he made a second trip just to visit... her? Right. Even she could smell something fishy going on around his so-called act of spontaneity. But she didn't have the brain-power to even contemplate what he could be planning.
"I can't be your assistant, otou-san. I've got a role..." She hesitated. How much did he know if he took the time to fly out? "On a movie," she continued. "There's no time to cook for an army."
Kuu's laugh filled the room. "Don't worry about me, Kyoko-chan! As much as I enjoyed your cooking, I would never ask such a thing from a budding actress like yourself." He hesitated for a moment too long. She didn't catch his flub. "Not again, at least."
"Right," Kyoko said neutrally, turning back to the table at the center of the room. If this was any other time, she would be ecstatic to see Kuu again. "It's nice of you to take time out of your busy schedule, then, to visit me."
If Kuu noticed Kyoko's lack of enthusiasm about his visit, he ignored it. Instead, he plopped into the chair beside her. "Where's that respected senpai of yours, by the way?"
She stiffened. What kind of question was that? Fly all the way to Japan to ask that? She whipped around to look at Kuu and his eyes were filled with a delighted shine. Her eyes narrowed. He knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe the president had set him up to this, after all. "Excuse me?"
"That tall fellow you couldn't stop bragging about?!" Kuu stroked his chin. "Takumi-no, Tsuda-no, that's not right either. He was in Dark Moon with you!?"
"Tsuruga Ren," she said, rolling her eyes.
There was now officially a new plan-of-action for today. Step one: shake Kuu's questions and escape. Step two: track down the president and ask him what on Earth he was doing, interfering in her personal life like this.
"That's the fellow!" Kuu clapped. "He's the one that played Katsuki like me." He laughed. "Handsome enough, but nothing compares to the real deal, huh, Kuon?
Did he just say...
Kuon?
How could she have forgotten! She's been a doofus this entire time! How could she not have realized?
A million bricks fell over Kyoko's head as things started to click in place. That... that must be the reason Tsuruga chose the name 'Kuon!' With all this nonsense he's been spewing since adopting the persona, about how he was trying to be 'like Kyoko' (whatever that meant in the first place), this was the only logical explanation. The picture was starting to become clearer. Now she really needed to talk to Tsuruga-san.
Needless to say, it was the wrong things clicking together.
"Kyoko-chan, is everything all right?" Kuu placed a hand on her shoulder when she got quiet. She jumped, flinching away from his touch. He frowned and pulled his hand back. "Did I say something wrong?"
She chewed her lip and stared at the ground. The idea of talking to the president had already faded from her mind. All she wanted to do was think... and finish connecting these dots around Tsuruga's Kuon identity. Except... she couldn't push those she cared about away in the name of... figuring out all this. If she did, she would be no better than she was back in Kyoto. And she'd really love to be able to talk to someone about this with someone that wasn't Yashiro. She didn't expect these past few weeks to be so lonely. Who knew that most of her time had actually been spent with Tsuruga-san?
"A-About that," she started, choking on the words. She shook her head. Wrong start. She tried again, taking a deep breath as she looked Kuu in the eyes. Tears pricked her eyes but she willed them to stay where they were. "There's something I need to tell you."
"Oh?" Kuu's lips twisted into an amused smirk. "I have something to tell you, too."
She couldn't even be upset with whatever it was he would tell her (because whatever it was, she would blame the President). Kyoko smiled. "Would you like to trade secrets over lunch?"
He chuckled. "I think mine has to come a little sooner than that." Standing, he held a hand out to Kyoko and pulled her toward the door. "But we'll be plenty happy to join you to catch up."
"We?"
Kyoko's brain cycled through their entire conversation in a single second. He had said something about 'our' favorite daughter earlier. She thought... wasn't he just speaking in the collective? He'd never done that before but, there was no other option. Unless...
He pushed the door open and Kyoko peeked her head out. Her heart raced as she turned down each side of the hall. The first side was empty. For some reason, she almost expected Ren-as-Kuon to be standing on the other end of that hall with the same stupid, beautiful smile he'd been sporting since his transformation.
But it was a different blonde smiling back at her. A woman.
The woman was tall, with long blond hair that shimmered even under the dulling fluorescent office lights. Her clothes, even though they were causal, fit her well and gave her the air of a model. Kyoko was reminded of the awe she'd felt when Honoka-san was a guest on Kimagure Rock. This stranger was easily the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen in her entire life. Honoka-san, but like three times prettier, which should have been impossible. There was only one person this could possibly be.
Kyoko took a step back, her breath stolen from her throat. This time, when her brain made connections, they were the right ones. "You're..."
The woman bowed, her movements graceful. "My name is Julie Hizuri. It's nice to finally meet you, Kyoko-chan."
#
"... and now he's Love Me! Section member number four."
They'd skipped lunch when Kyoko decided that it would attract too much attention for them to go to the cafeteria with not just one but two A-Listers tagging along with her. She wasn't going to let herself chicken out and not tell Kuu about Ren-as-Kuon.
So, she told them the story of what'd happened since Kuu left Japan last time (leaving out... some details about the Heel siblings for her own sanity and for Tsuruga-san's privacy). She talked about her creation of Natsu and talked about the Dark Moon wrap party. She talked about what it was like to speak with her mother again. She talked about the auditions and filming of Lotus.
And she left out everything else that's happened since Tsuruga-san became Kuon. Not only did she know she couldn't repeat anything that happened without dissolving into a puddle in front of Kuu and Julie, but she also wanted to keep the moments to herself for a little longer. They didn't need to know about the set mishaps or the kisses on the cheeks or how he had... She forced the thoughts away. They just didn't need to know the specifics.
Julie pursed her lips and leaned across the table, taking Kyoko's hands in her own. "The Love Me! Section is... the section Lory started for you... so you could learn how... how to love again?"
Kyoko cringed. It sounded so nefarious when it was phrased like that. "Something like that, I guess," she said slowly. "I maintain that it's more for cultivating our emotions and expanding as actresses but I think the President is pretty stuck on the original description."
She waved the explanation away. "So, You told Kuo-You told Tsuruga Ren that you wished he was someone else, so he reinvented himself into this... into this 'Kuon' fellow and joined a section that would teach him how to love again?"
Well, when she put it that way... "I guess?"
"I was unaware that Japan's number one bachelor had lost the ability to love," Kuu joked, trying to bring some sort of levity into the situation.
Both of his favorite girls wore the most serious expressions. Especially Julie. That wasn't the face of the woman who just found out that 1) her son was finally ready to adopt his original name again 2) that he was in love with the most wonderful girl on the planet. This was the face of a woman who was worried about something he couldn't place.
Julie ignored her husband's quip and focused on Kyoko. "Well, why would he do that?"
"I don't know." Kyoko sighed. That's been the million-dollar question since she first stumbled upon 'Kuon' in the Love Me! room. "To mock me? Torture me? Something like that?"
"Torture?"
Kyoko shrugged. The torture she was suffering wasn't what normal people would qualify as torture. Not unless cheek kisses and sweet displays of affection from a sweet man she was in love with counted as torture.
"Have you ever considered that maybe he's trying to prove himself to you? That he's more... more than the name Tsuruga Ren?"
"Of course I have, I'm not stupid," she snapped.
She had, in fact, not considered that. Or, she had, but not on the level it appeared Julie wanted her to. Kyoko had known since the Beagle incident in Karuizawa that 'Tsuruga Ren' was nothing more than a stage name. And she'd known that whoever was under his Ren facade had a lot of complicated and potentially tragic past memories.
Except, if he was trying to prove himself as more than Tsuruga Ren, why adopt the name of a character she played when she was with Kuu? Wouldn't it have been more effective to use his own name?
"Then what's the problem?"
Julie's question interrupted her musing. Kyoko turned the question over in her head a few times before taking a deep breath.
"When I realized that..." She sighed. It was time to say the words out loud. She just hoped they wouldn't laugh at her. "When I realized that Tsuruga-san loved me as much as I loved him, it scared me so much. I wanted..." She took a deep breath, trying to still her hands as they shook in Julie's grasp. "I wanted to scare him off if he wasn't being serious."
"Isn't being Kuon showing that he's serious?"
"I didn't mean it like this!" Kyoko cried "I didn't want to destroy his life as Tsuruga Ren! He wasn't supposed to do any of this. He was supposed to... I don't know." Her voice broke and tears spilled down her cheeks. The burden and craziness of everything finally wore down on her-broke her. The Tsuruga Ren wasn't supposed to ruin his life for a stupid little girl.
She took a shuddering breath, forcing the thought away. "I just didn't want him to break my heart when he inevitably grew bored with me."
Silence fell between them. Kyoko ducked her eyes to the table and pulled her hands away from Julie, finally. She braced herself for the laughter or knowing chuckles. Heartbreak was inevitable, they would tell her. Because it was. She was betting on heartbreak, in fact, but that didn't stop all of this from hurting as much as it did.
"And has he?" Kuu asked, breaking the quiet. It took everything in him not to whoop and cheer at all of these admissions.
Kyoko blinked, forcing herself to look up. "Has he... what?"
"Broken your heart?"
Ah. Kyoko smiled wistfully. "No."
The unspoken 'not yet' dangled in the air.
"But?" Julie prodded.
Kyoko scrunched her nose and wiped the remains of her tears away. "But he hasn't been Tsuruga Ren for months. He's been Kuon. I don't know if it's the same anymore."
"Does he still love you as Kuon?"
Her memories of the past weeks rushed through her head. Like when he took her to his new place when she was delirious with a cold. When he kissed her cheek. When he kissed her on the lips (barely, but it counted in her official kiss tally). Or when he said very plainly, to her face: "I love you, Kyoko" after saving her from an attack from their co-workers.
"I-I don't know?" She lied. It wasn't her place to talk about his feelings to people he didn't know personally.
Julie rolled her eyes. "It's a yes or no question, Kyoko-chan."
Busted. Kyoko swallowed hard and amended her answer. "Yes?"
"Do you still love him as Kuon?"
Kyoko's face burned but she kept her lips plastered together. Wasn't it obvious in her distress? Would she really bother them with her personal problems if her love wasn't still a problem? If they couldn't tell...
"Your blush is answer enough." Julie clapped her hands triumphantly. "So, why don't you just accept him instead of making him jump through all of these hoops?"
Kuu reached to his side to quiet his excited wife but the attempt was lost as Kyoko spoke. Her voice was loud, clear, and made no room for misunderstanding. He froze, his hand hovering over Julie's hand.
"Of course I love him still," Kyoko said evenly. "My feelings didn't disappear because of a name change."
She was wrong; Julie and Kuu didn't understand the severity of the situation. This was somehow worse than being told that her love for Tsuruga-san was silly. How could they understand? Both of them are beautiful, important people. They'd been beautiful and important when they'd met, probably. How would they understand the anxieties of a plain girl like her?
"But loving him doesn't do me any good. As long as he stays in Japan, he will be Tsuruga Ren: number one bachelor and actor. It will never matter how many pseudonyms he picks up because eventually, he'll have to return to his obligations as Tsuruga-san. And Kyoko Mogami will never be good enough for any of his identities." She scoffed, pushing herself away from the table. "I'm just another stupid girl who fell for the co-star killer."
Kyoko grabbed her bag and stormed from the Love Me! Room, refusing to let them see the tears streaming down her face.
The door slammed shut behind her.
~End Chapter Six~
A/N: How ~dramatic~! Two more chapters?! It's about to go down the melodramatic TWISTER, folks. What comes next?
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