A/N: Yeah I 100% went with Amamiya for her name and ditched the Chiori. Not sure why, but Amamiya just sounds like a prettier name to me and its also really satisfying to type. It's horrible of me, yes, but it is what it is. I hope you enjoy this one. There is still so much for me to write. All the love! xoxo

Kyoko watched as Ren's brows furrowed and confusion lined his features. He wasn't expecting the question after what he had just said, and she prepared herself for the mess of lies he would soon struggle to get out.

"Yes," he said, "I've been there a few times. It's a pretty popular place. Why?"

"I was there tonight with friends."

If his heart was beating fast before then now it was about to fly out of his chest. She had been there? Had she been there with the blonde punk? Blood rushed through his ears so loudly he almost missed the next few words she said.

"And some interesting things were said… Can you tell me more about Lory? What kind of business does he run, exactly?" Kyoko wasn't about to let up. She was digging her claws in deep now, she wanted answers even if they came in the form of lies.

"Wha-"

"I mean, I guess I should've put two and two together right? All I had to hear was Lory's name and it kind of made me think. Why would you be so evasive about what you do if it wasn't something you wanted to keep hidden from me? If it wasn't dangerous and something I'd think is wrong?" She said.

She had turned away from him now and was staring off into the distance. It seemed like she was talking to herself at this point, like there was nothing he could say to fix this and the questions were just words she needed to say allowed. Ren had never felt like she was more far away than he did right now.

"It isn't safe for you to know." It was simple, and maybe a bit of a stupid answer, but to Ren it was what he told himself for so long that he had begun to believe it. He told himself long ago, after everything that had happened that he would keep it to himself, he wouldn't tell her about Cedric or the gangs or his family or even much about Lory. He had made the decision for the both of them that this was safer, that they couldn't get her when she was here and not physically in his life.

He had kept it to himself for so long now that the idea of telling her was more worrying than what could happen to her if she knew. It was like playing a game of Jenga. He had continued to pull bricks from the foundation of the tower to use to cover new lies or evaded questions that steadily caused there to be so much damage that the structure of their relationship stood on one tiny block of wood, and that tiny block carried everything important to him along with all of his mistakes, and everything was beginning to wiggle and wiggle, and he knew that soon enough it would all come crashing down on him and he would be buried beneath the mountain of it all.

"There are things-… there are things you don't know about me, Kyoko. There are people that have been in my life that want to hurt me. Have hurt me. And if they knew about you…," he trailed off, "they would hurt you to get to me." He told her.

She drew in a breath, "Is that even the truth? Or is that just what you've told yourself so you feel better?" A part of her knew she was being harsh, but after so much time hurting, and uncovering all of this, she almost wanted him to hurt as much as she was. "Are you ever going to tell me everything?"

"Yes. I was. I want to."

Ren could sense the changes around him. Everything he was saying wasn't anything she wanted to hear. The sky was getting darker and more clouds were hovering. Kyoko's dreamscape was usually pleasant, fairytale like and comfortable. But the wind from before was getting cooler, and he saw a bolt of lightning dash through the thunderheads that were congregating in the distance. She was creating an emotion fueled storm.

"Do you want me to leave?" He asked, dreading the answer.

She finally looked at him, her golden eyes were narrowed and full of an emotion he wasn't familiar with: guarded uncertainty.

"Yeah. I think so." Was all she needed to say and Ren faded, leaving her alone in the field he had helped her create for them both. She remembered when she first realized she could change her dreams, change how it looked, how it sounded, where it was, all of it. As she got older she had learned more about lucid dreaming and how some people are just naturally able to take control of their sleeping mind. Ren was beyond good at it, somehow filling the place with so much magic and breathtaking scenery it made her heart sing — and now the once beautiful field only reminded her of better times. Times they were happy, when she didn't care about his secrets and he never walked into a dream she couldn't control about a guy she didn't even like.

Tears ran down her cheeks both from frustration and the ache in her chest after he left. She went over and over the argument, her mind reeling at the discoveries, but the part that hurt the most wasn't the lies. It was that he hadn't fought to stay. He hadn't tried to mend things or explain better, he had just zipped out of here like it was easy. After some time, she began to warp the brewing storm into a room of quiet darkness, where she cried for some time until her creative mind grew too exhausted for her to be lucid at all and she fell into a dreamless sleep.

The day with Kanae and Amamiya was more fun than Kyoko had anticipated, and it almost completely drowned out the hurt from the night before. It began with chocolate croissants, iced Americanos, and now they found themselves immersed in shopping.

Kyoko was grazing the counters of the cosmetics section, her favorite part of the store, on the prowl for a few new lip tints and eyelash serum when her phone buzzed, alerting her of a new text message in the group chat Amamiya had created for them earlier that day incase any of them got separated.

Kanae: Kyoko. Dressing room. Now.

She couldn't help but laugh at the message, it was the third one that day where the icy woman had sent such a demanding text. All three had been related to her asking for help, zipping a dress, giving advice on which perfume was more "alluring", if a pair of jeans were too pale and out of style.

Outside one of the stalls stood Kanae, holding a delphinium blue dress, the bodice was balconette style with thin double straps, the waist fitted, and the skirt began right at the curve of the hips, ending right above the knee. Designed to accentuate a lean but feminine figure. Kyoko thought it was beautiful. But it didn't suit Kanae at all and she didn't know exactly how she would tell the girl that for some reason, that she couldn't pinpoint, she just wouldn't be able to pull off this dress.

"Don't give me that look like you're struggling trying to find the words to tell me that this is not the dress for me. It's for you." Kanae said, sounding annoyed even though she couldn't wait to see her new friend try on the lucky find. It had been the last one, displayed on a mannequin near the back of the store and she had pestered several employees for the last half hour to get them to give it to her, and she had a feeling it was just the right size.

Stripping out of her jeans and t-shirt Kyoko easily slipped into the soft fabric of the dress and twirled in front of the mirror. A small smile found its way onto her face as she took in her reflection. The drape of the material hung perfectly around her frame, accentuating her small waist, gentle curve of her hips, and long legs.

"It's perfect." She said under her breath.

Kanae heard her from outside the dressing stall and smiled, "Does it fit? Come out." Her tone was more demanding than she intended, but she was beginning to feel impatient — and eager to see how perfect the dress she picked was.

"It's beautiful." Said Kyoko as she opened the door, giving a small twirl for Kanae as she stepped out. "But I don't know if I should buy it…" she said, glancing at the tag that read two hundred and seventy-nine dollars, "I don't know where I would wear it. It's far too fancy for a day out, and it's definitely not suited for work."

"It's the last one. The guy said they didn't get a lot in and they tried to order more, but they were told the designer didn't want to continue the line." The dress was as she had said, perfect and beautiful, especially how the blue was making the tones of her eyes shine like molten gold. And there was no way Kanae was about to let her leave without it. "We do occasionally have work parties and events, it would be excellent for that. I really think you have to get it, it's like it was made for you."

"Really?" Kyoko asked, looking up from the fluffy skirt, her eyes wide. "I do think it's wonderful…"

"Is it the price tag?"

She made a face. "Kind of. I mean, I did just move here and the apartment isn't cheap. The city is a lot more expensive than I had expected, gosh, even the taxi last night was absurd!"

Kanae couldn't deny that. The city was outrageously expensive to live in, especially the area where the Nectarean was. Grabbing her phone from her purse, she pulled up the camera and faced it at Kyoko, "Let's see what Amamiya says, she will be the deciding factor."

After what Kyoko thought was more than enough pictures and several text messages back and forth, both girls agreed wholeheartedly, she needed to buy the dress; and if she didn't use it for a work related event, then it would be a man killer on a date.

Both emotionally and financially spent from both the evening before and the day shopping, Kyoko chose to take the bus home after splitting up with her two new friends. She had the side of her forehead placed on the window of the bus, her bags placed in the seat next to her, as she watched the busy streets go by. The sidewalks were still crawling with people, all going in and out of restaurants, cafes, and boutiques despite the sun already having set. She supposed that was where the saying came from, "the city never sleeps", and it was certainly holding true in this case as almost every single night, no matter the day of week, the streets were bustling with activities.

The scenery outside the window began to blur into streaks of color as her mind wandered. Questions were overflowing her senses, overriding her ability to focus on her surroundings. It wasn't hard to believe that Ren was a member of some type of dangerous organization, not that he seemed like a particularly bad person, but depending on what it was exactly they did, she could see him fitting into that box. Trying to reason with herself seemed futile, she knew him well enough to know that he wasn't the type to necessarily hurt people for fun, but she had to admit that right now she knew him less than ever. A heavy sigh escaped her lips, fogging the glass in front of her unfocused gaze as she pondered.

The brakes screeched to a stop, pulling her out of her thoughts, she was one more stop from her own and she relished in the fact that she would have the whole place to herself again and she could continue to grasp at the strings that Ren was unable to hide.

She felt like she was floating as she entered her apartment complex. All her movements were second nature as she boarded the elevator and pressed the button for floor 26. Her mind kept running back to the tall guy at the club and she couldn't piece together whether it was his familiar features or the air of authority around him, but either way it was starting to nag at her. The elevator passed floor 25 and began to slow as it chugged to a stop at hers, the doors slowly opened as they always did, until she saw a familiar shape leaning against the wall next to her door. One of his boot clad feet was propped up on the wall behind him as he looked down at the phone in his hands, lazily scrolling.

Before he could look up and notice her, Kyoko was slamming her finger repeatedly into the 'shut door' button and before it closed completely she caught a glimpse of his face, where a bandage that failed to replicate his skin tone was taped across the bridge of his nose. It felt like her throat was closing up as she wracked her brain for any reason that he would have to be waiting for her outside her door. She couldn't think of any good scenarios, there was nothing related to work that he couldn't ask her through text or email, there were no plans with coworkers that she knew of. Kyoko didn't necessarily want to believe that Sho was at her door waiting to ask her out, but nothing else was making sense. The fact he had left the bandage on made her feel worse, like it would've turned into some type of guilt trip, like she would feel so bad for him since he got hurt that she would grace him with a date, and the idea of that almost made her eyes water from anxiety.

She leaned her head back against the wall and shut her eyes, telling herself to take three long and slow deep breaths to calm down. She was so caught up in calming herself down that she didn't notice the elevator beginning to move upwards again, only when the doors started to rumble open did her eyes fly open and her head snap up, worried that she was still at her floor and that this time she wouldn't be fast enough to avoid the pest waiting to bombard her with God knows what.

Glancing up at the digital display of floor numbers she felt the air she was holding in whoosh out, floor 28, and she let out a small breathy laugh. It was the highest floor in the building with the largest suite taking up almost the entirety of it, it had been available when she was looking at the building, but the cost was so astronomical that it was entirely ridiculous for anyone in her mind to actually pay such a fee. Since the floor only had one door along the hallway wall, and as far as she knew it was still on the market so there was no chance of anyone finding it uncomfortable that she was waiting outside their place, she decided that this would be the perfect place for her to wait as she exited the elevator and set her bags down onto the tile floor.

Thirty minutes would do, she thought, as she glanced down at her watch. There was no way Sho would wait longer than that, especially since she had no idea how long he had been standing there before she arrived.

The countdown was on and time was passing outrageously slow. She had played tried to play several games on her phone and it felt like an hour had passed when it had only been ten slow agonizing minutes. Cursing under her breathe, she said fuck it and decided that the floor looked clean enough to sit down on, her feet too tired from the day shopping to squat anymore. Five minutes. Her head slammed back onto the wall as the annoyance bubbled inside her, her mind had been running all day to keep up, frantically trying to have fun while out, to coping with the new information about Ren, who she was so upset with that it started burning a hole through her chest as every minute crept by, and now she was too tired to even think straight. It felt like she was on a carousel and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop thinking about the same things on repeat.

Flicking her wrist up she checked the watch face, she had twelve more minutes on her timer. She was just about to close her eyes when the elevator doors dinged, signaling that they were about to open up.

As the doors slid open, Kyoko's eyes widened as she stared at the same man that had been haunting her from the club. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the silky ebony shirt hugging his torso, the sleeves were rolled up his forearms showing off the pale tattooed skin that he had kept hidden the night before, and the top few buttons were undone exposing the hard chest underneath. Despite how good it looked on him, her breath didn't catch until her gaze landed on his face. His hair wasn't covering it like had that night, instead it seemed to be messily tousled back, the kind of messy hair that only happens after you've run your fingers through it repeatedly during a long day.

Widened deep brown eyes met shining golden eyes and Kyoko couldn't help the choked gasp. There was no doubt anymore. It was like seeing the evil twin of her dream lover, dressed sinfully in all black like he was coming to eat her heart out.

Ren's head cocked to the side as he eyed her up and down as she silently stayed glued to her spot on the ground. The doors started to close and he shot a long arm out, shoving it open again as he stepped out. The hair was all wrong, it was a bright chestnut brown instead of the inky black he was used to, but her eyes and face were all her. The makeup around her eyes accentuating the deep gold so well that he couldn't pull his own eyes from them. All day he had been thinking. Thinking about a way to tell her, a way to maybe convince her to wait just a while longer for him to succeed with his task. But they were like magnets now, racing towards each other until they fused so tightly together that nobody could pull them apart. Not even Ren could stop it from happening. After she said she had been to the Blue Velvet that night, deep down Ren had known it was unavoidable even though he would deny it. They were so close now. No longer separated by kilometers of land, all the roads around them led them to one another, if not right away then they would keep circling each other until it happened, the inevitable.

Kyoko pulled her eyes away from his, breaking eye contact. The elevator doors behind him had closed him in and she felt the air thicken with tension as they both stayed completely still in the hallway. She didn't know how to talk, her throat had gone desert dry, even air was having a hard time getting through.

"Do you want to come in?" His asked, his voice much rougher now that it was in person.

She could only nod before she started standing up and grabbed her purse and shopping bags off the floor.

He walked by her, stopping in front of the suit door he pressed the buttons of the six digit passcode, it unlocked loudly and he opened it, switched on the light switch inside, and held it open for her, her purse lightly brushing against him and a sweet floral scent filling his nostrils as she walked into the apartment.

"A drink?" He offered, shutting the door behind them and going towards a small table against one wall, on it sat two tumblers and a few bottles of hard liquor. He knew she wasn't much for drinking, but it was rude not to ask if he was going to have one.

She was thankful that he couldn't seem to stop staring because speech was still evading her, and she was only able to nod her head once in reply. The room was as bare as it was in the listing photos, and as far as she could see so was the kitchen and down the hallways. She pieced together that he must've just moved in recently. Or he just didn't care to make his home look lived in. More questions than she thought possible were piling up inside her, and she struggled to sort through them as she sat on the edge of the large sofa.

A glass was set down on the coffee table in front of her. The amber liquid sloshing against the sides and she watched it carefully until it stilled, anything to avoid acknowledging the shift in the cushions as he sat on the opposite end of the furniture. She felt his dark eyes on her as she sat still.

"So you wear contacts, dye your hair, and you're covered in tattoos." It was silly that his appearance was the most shocking thing to her, but a part of her was disappointed that he never told told her this. They had talked about tattoos before and he hadn't ever said anything.

"It's for work," he took a long sip from his drink, "well the tattoos aren't. But the hair and eyes are. It's so I can't be recognized."

That answer was enough to make her reach for her own drink and take a sip, to her surprise it wasn't as bad as she was expecting, the liquid had a strong cinnamon taste making it smooth as it went down.

"Fireball." She noted, licking her lips.

He hummed, "I distinctly remember you saying that you usually don't enjoy the hard stuff by itself. Is it okay?"

"Yeah. It's okay." She said, taking another longer draw from the glass.

Silence filled the room and not even the soft hum of an appliance dared to start. Kyoko's mind was tripping up, stumbling over sentences, questions to ask or not to ask, parts of her were demanding she just outright tell him to explain himself and another part was whispering softly that she should get up and leave, that nothing about him was who she thought he was and the disappointment of knowing was worse than not knowing at all.

She finally looked over at him, he was looking down at his now empty cup in thought, dark circles marred the skin under his eyes and his mouth was set in a hard line. Sensing her gaze, he looked up and his eyes softened, it was the first time so far that he really truly looked like himself and she felt her stomach flip.

"How did you know I live here?" He asked, his voice wasn't accusing but surprised.

"I live two floors down… I didn't think anyone had rented this floor yet, so when I was trying to avoid-" Kyoko bit her tongue but knew it was too late, she had said too much. She didn't want to tell him that Sho was waiting outside her door and her mind raced for anything else that she would want to avoid. "I was waiting a few minutes before going back down."

"Avoid, huh," he smirked, "and who would you be trying so hard to avoid that you couldn't go to you floor? Are they already at your place?"

A strategy formed, she could see in his eyes that he wasn't going to let this go, he always had such a protective streak. It wasn't particularly mature, in fact it was probably so immature and pointless that she didn't think it would work. He did after all have a much bigger secret to keep than her simple answer of whomever she didn't want to see.

"I'll tell you who I'm avoiding, but only if you explain all of this first." She said as she gestured towards him. "I want the full story, then you can ask me anything you want."

Ren couldn't help but laugh, "That's not a very sweet deal when I already know you," he paused, "but I'll play along. I planned on telling you tonight actually, that is if you were going to tell me to fuck off again or not."

"I don't remember telling you to fuck off," she pouted, "I was upset. I wanted you to stay but it didn't seem like you wanted to."

"It's alright. I've thought about it. I can't lose you because I want to keep this to myself. Do you want another?" He asked, gesturing towards her now empty glass. "This is going to take awhile for me to get through."

She nodded and he went to refill their drinks, and at the last moment he grabbed the bottle as well.

Ren felt his palms begin to sweat as he downed the alcohol in his glass, concern over her reaction was dead center in his mind, but the concern for her safety was beginning to take over. Once she knew this, and if she wanted to still be with him after, then it would be similar to him painting a crimson target onto the back of her pretty head. He said he couldn't live without her, and it was true, but it was different than her just not wanting to see him again, this could kill her and he knew himself well enough that there would be no coming back from that.