Chapter Ten – A Kiss Unlike Any Other

Kyoko sat very patiently as she waited for Kuon the following day. She had thought about times when she was still living in Kyoto and she would have gone anywhere with Shou. Okay, as much as it pissed her off to admit to it, she had followed Shou to Tokyo and that had been the start of all the events that had happened during the most recent years of her life. However, at that point she had only done whatever she could for Shou, said whatever she could for Shou, gone wherever Shou wanted her to go with only one thing on her mind, to make Shou happy.

If she followed Kuon there would be something in it for her as well, the idea of studying under three people that Lory Takarada respected and learning about the acting world. This was an opportunity that she would never have had before and she knew that he wanted her to keep Kuon calm as well.

She knew that and yet if Kuon suddenly turned around and told her to never see her again, she could still have a purpose for being there…with his father.

Oh god, hopefully nothing like that happened. It would take a complete flip of his personality to keep her away from Kuon and hopefully she wouldn't do something to make Corn sad or make him feel unwanted.

Or maybe he didn't really want her to go.

She bowed her head and tried to decide whether or not to reopen the conversation they had both had with the president when she saw him approach her. She smiled widely and dropped down into a bow out of habit rather than out of anyone being around to witness this. "Tsuruga-san, how are you doing?" she asked as he laughed and stood there with his arms folded.

"Cute, Mogami-san," he commented as her cheeks turned red.

Ren came up to her, she was starting to become much more familiar with the differences between the gestures that Ren made and that Kuon made. Though she knew that the two of them were tricky and liked to joke around. Ren was just more subtle about that, when everyone found out about Kuon they would know that he was just….American.

"Well, I'm sure that you'll be cute when you appear across from Bo on the TV interview," she smiled as Ren raised an eyebrow.

"Are you trying to test me? Is this a threat that Bo told you to give me, Mogami-san?" he asked as Kyoko looked around and then blinked confused. Ren came towards her so that he could look down upon her with a blinding smile of his.

"Of course not, where's…Yashiro-san?" she asked before feeling Ren slip his hands on her shoulders as his actions seemed so much more like Kuon's than Ren's.

"I thought you wanted to see me, Kyoko," he whispered as he kissed the top of her head and pulled her in for an embrace. "I didn't think that this was something that Yashiro needed to watch so he has gone back to the agency to work on his paperwork," he said.

"Such kindness," Kyoko said teasingly as Kuon sighed.

"You know, I try, I really do try," Kuon teased back with her as Kyoko laughed. She really liked feeling the warmth of his embrace. Compared to what she had with Shou there was a world apart. Shou was definitely not as sweet as Kuon or as kind as Kuon or….

"I'm so sorry," Kyoko apologized as she pulled away and then dropped into a deep bow as Kuon looked at her very concerned.

"Kyoko?" he asked as he looked at her as if seeing if he had hurt her somehow. She knew he was nervous that one day he would do or say something that would make her feel sad. That was definitely a way where Kuon and Shou were different people with different hearts.

"He knows your real name," she said as Kuon sighed with a nod, "I'm really sorry, Tsuruga-san. He didn't know what it meant and I thought I could explain it away as it being a dance, but he might find out."

Kuon sighed and shook his head, he laughed a little. "You know, you can't explain everything as a dance. I didn't know that word and I was already embarrassed about it. Plus, why make fun of that moment? Wasn't that the point where you realized that I was human and not just a demon lord or…"

"One day I will ask you to show me your true emperor of the night," Kyoko smiled, "but that's just not going to happen tonight. I have something to ask of you, there's something that I'd like to ask of you," she said quickly and Kuon watched her in a protective manner. He wasn't sure what she was going to ask but he hated how afraid she looked.

"What is it?" he asked as he reached for her hand and saw her weak smile.

"When we go abroad, I wanted to know if it was okay if we were to live together," she said quickly before turning red and looked down. Maybe that was too much, too forward of her. "I'm sorry, I know that we just started dating and that I'm not your sister this time. If you don't want…"

"I'd be really happy to stay with you, Kyoko" he grinned, "and don't worry, we can talk to the president and see if we can get some places with two bedrooms if that makes you more comfortable," he said as Kyoko smiled.

"I've only shared a bed with a man a few times and other than that it was usually beside the bed that I slept," she said. "I know you wouldn't kick me onto the floor as well."

Kuon stared at her in shock, "Fuwa kicked you onto the floor?"

"Well he said he needed his space and I was taking all of the oxygen," Kyoko muttered as she concentrated on the ground. She wanted to stamp on all of the Shou fleas that she was visualizing.

Kuon rolled his eyes, "Come on, let's go get something to eat," he told her before smiling to Kyoko, "You know even though you do take my breath away, I never want you to stop doing it. I always want to remember that I am with a smart, beautiful, powerful, young woman who I gave my heart to willingly."

Kyoko smiled and nodded. She just hoped that everything would turn out alright.

….

….

As Ren dropped Yashiro off at the end of the day, he sat in the car for a little time trying to catch his breath. How did this get so complicated? All that he really wanted was to try, with hopefully Rick's blessing, to be happy with a girl that he had always called his ideal woman. When he was a child, he wanted someone kind and strong, someone who was a lot like the mother that he had.

When he had met her again, it was at that point in his life when he needed a woman with a bit more fight to her, with some more independence who could handle everything big that he was dealing with and not let it swallow her up. For some reason, Kyoko could handle what he had told her and had never lost that smile on her face that instantly made someone happier by looking at it.

He still had to finish his work, but he hoped that if they got away to a foreign country, things could get settled. He hoped that them living together was going to be a good thing. Maybe if they got rid of the Tokyo backdrop then they wouldn't have to deal with Shou or double identities.

They could just be them.

Unfortunately, that night Kuon couldn't even be Ren by himself. He heard someone kicking his tire and raised an eyebrow as he saw Fuwa outside of the car. He got out and let one hand rest against his vehicle.

"I'm not sure which is going to be a higher number, the number that I am going to charge you if you damage my property or the number of fans that you're going to lose when they find that you are trying to start a public fight with me. I'm too old for this," he sighed as Shou looked up with his cellphone in hand.

"I found out who you are and you have no right to talk about maturity," Shou attempted to threaten him. "I mean, being fired for causing fights on sets, doesn't sound very gentlemanly as you might believe…Hizuri."

Kuon sighed as he looked at the sky, he saw Shou pull back a hand as if about to deliver a punch and put a hand out to stop him. "Don't even think about it," he said before looking at Shou. "You don't know what it is to feel an outcast, do you?"

Shou's body turned rigid as Kuon said that to him. He didn't know what to say to the actor, this conversation wasn't about Shou it was about this demon who had sent guys to the hospital because they called him a mutt and a murderer. "You never felt that! Your famous parents…" he said as Kuon laughed.

"Are you talking about prestige?" he asked, "That's what my family had. Tsuruga is a nobody with no connections," he said as he looked at Shou. "I bet Kyoko never told you all the pain she had when she was a kid, but I only knew her for a very short time when she was six. I do know that you can't possibly be this emotionally attached to her when you couldn't even help her."

Shou stared at him in disbelief before Kuon shrugged. "What I'm saying is that Kyoko is mine, I own her, my family paid for her."

"Damn are you stupid," Kuon said with a challenge in his eyes. "Kyoko doesn't belong to anyone and I hate to see anyone who tries to convince her of something so ridiculous. She is the most independent woman that I know."

"You mean that you didn't have sex with," Shou said, "I found out some information about that as well. It says here you made out with plenty of girls and even a few guys, what kind of medical problem is that."

Kuon looked up. He should have known that if someone tried hard enough to dig up any dirt about him, that they would find out that he had, once as a joke and once as a sign of protest, made out with two other teenage boys. His parents worked in Hollywood. Being gay was accepted for the most part, or at least it was accepted much more than here in Tokyo. He had always known that he was straight, but that didn't mean that he hadn't had friends of other sexual persuasions.

He hated when the idea of homosexuality moved into a disease or an illness.

Kuon moved forward and grabbed hold of Shou, forcing a kiss on him that would make it seem as if it was consensual. "Never talk about that being a medical problem," he said as Shou backed away completely confused with what had happened. He had a hand over his mouth before backing away to his own car.

Kuon sighed, it was a very good thing that he was going away. He didn't know how Japan was going to deal with this out of character behavior, he just hoped that he would get Kyoko's forgiveness as well. He had been really hurt that Kyoko had kissed Shou, maybe the fact that he had kissed Shou would be something Kyoko wouldn't be able to forgive.

He really hoped that she could.