Act 85 – That's how you treat kids

As Kyoko exited from the studio after the filming, she was surprised to see Hiou angrily yelling at another person, this kid did not know how to socialize with people. That part might be a little too much like Shotaro. Kyoko could see the frustration on his face and then she paused as she heard Moko's voice.

"Hiou-kun?" Moko asked seeming to have genuine concern in the way in which she was talking with him. "How's your head?" she asked and Hiou looked ahead of himself angrily. He frowned but remained silent for a moment before sighing. "It still hurts everyday," he admitted and Kyoko could see that he was trying to pressure Kanae to feel guilty about it. "It's so painful that I have been checked on at the hospital recently. There's a crack in my skull," he said as he turned away and Kyoko frowned.

"Liar!" she called out angrily and Kanae's back jolted up. Kyoko was surprised but excited to see Kanae standing there. Did that mean that she had come here because she knew that Kyoko would have to work and she wanted to check to see if she was okay. Kanae was often hostile with other people but did her presence here mean that she cared about Kyoko too much to throw her away.

"It's just a little scratch," Kyoko tried to explain. As happy as she was to see Kanae, she didn't like the way that Hiou was acting especially towards the kind hearted Moko-chan. He was trying to cause her more problems when she didn't deserve it. He had been a brat and although she would fight against him, Moko had seemed to have given up before and seemed content to live in a world filled with shadows. Kyoko saw Kanae turning to her and her grin blossomed onto her face as her eyes showed her excitement.

"Moko-san!" she said eagerly and had a kind of bounciness in her expression, "What's up? You surprised me." Kyoko laughed happily as she tried to get Kanae to look at her. Kanae's face started getting redder but Kyoko found it cute and continued. "Do you have any business?" she asked and Kanae squirmed a little. Kane was mumbling to herself but Kyoko couldn't hear her. The excitement on the sixteen-year-old's face seemed to sparkle from her.

"No…I…" Kanae said before pulling a shocked Hiou towards her, "I came to meet this kid," she said in a nervous manner and Kyoko pouted. Once again, she wasn't Moko's first pick. She had hoped that Moko had come here to talk to her because she knew about Bo but it had seemed that someone else was her priority once again. Kyoko pouted with a sad face and Kanae looked surprised at that. However, as Kyoko turned to Hiou she stared at him suspiciously.

"What's with your face? You seem happy, kid," she commented and Hiou's eyes widened with great shock. His face also turned red and at first he scrambled to find an answer.

"Why should I be happy?" he asked as he attempted to frown and then gestured to the bandages around his head. "Technically this injury was caused by this woman!" he snapped and Kyoko failed to believe him. He had already shown that he was self-involved but also that he was a liar about how bad the injury was. Why was he just attempting to get sympathy? "It's only natural that she comes to see my condition! It's not something to be happy about!"

"It's not that serious of an injury that you need to be visited," Kyoko said as she rolled her eyes.

"So," Kanae said with a troubled expression on her face as she turned to look between Kyoko and Hiou. "Is it true that it's only a scratch?" she asked.

Kyoko sighed and narrowed her eyes feeling extremely critical of the young boy, after all she couldn't help but keep his status as a Shotaro-style brat. "It's true, it's true. He just blew it up intentionally to trouble you, Moko-san."

Kanae blinked hard and then turned to Hiou as he yelled at his manager for betraying him when she told Kyoko the truth. The manager, Matsuda-san bowed her head nervously. She was used to Hiou having moments of being a spoiled child and Kyoko could see that from the way that she and Hiou interacted, it was beyond obvious to someone witnessing it.

"Sorry," Matsuda apologized, "I was asked to explain what happened."

Hiou growled as he turned to her, a few sweat drops on his forehead, "You mean you were threatened, right?" he asked and the manager tried to deny that but Kyoko had decided that right now she wanted most of all to pay attention to Moko. She tried to ignore the conversation going on behind her when she approached her best friend.

"Moko-san," Kyoko asked as she tried to see the expression on Kanae's face and whether the story which she had just been told really was causing trouble for her fellow love me member. "Hey, I've just heard from the manager earlier. Is it true that you threw that kid when rehearsing the drama?"

Kyoko noticed Kanae's stiffness and how she seemed to disconnect from the world around her. There was such guilt on her face and regret. Something deep inside her was causing her this pain but Kyoko didn't understand it. How could throwing a child be a complicated emotion? Was it that he had insulted her about something and she had pushed him. Was it that the statuses of the two of them were causing it so that Kanae could be a punching bag? Then why wasn't she more angry, was she really more concerned with her acting career than her own pride and independence.

Kyoko looked at Kanae and saw that she wasn't responding still. Whatever happened, Kyoko had decided that she didn't want to judge Moko but the other girl was still so reserved. Kyoko sighed. "I'm sorry," she apologized, "I'm persistent, aren't I?" she sighed and Kanae looked at her quickly. Kyoko hadn't meant to be a bother to anyone.

As Kyoko turned away from Kanae and started walking off to give her some space, she heard Kanae yelling at her from behind. She froze and turned back to see her friend trying to tell her everything. She had gone from saying nothing to yelling in a public space.

"I threw him!" she yelled, "That's right. I threw him. The staff and the performers around went pale. When he fell, Hiou-kun groaned loudly, his eyes were spinning for a while. It can't be helped if everyone thought that I had ill intentions because in that scene I was supposed to be playing together with Hiou-kun!"

Both Kyoko and Hiou turned to Kanae as she released her emotions loudly and passionately. This was unlike her and something must have triggered it. Whatever had happened to her was important enough to listen to and despite her pain, Kyoko was very happy that Kanae trusted her enough to tell her. She had a friend who truly did care about her. In a way that was all Kyoko had wanted and now it was her chance to be the caring friend.

Kyoko moved towards Kanae who had bent down to try to catch her breath. She had said all of that at one time and Kyoko put her hands up warily. Her eyes were wide and she saw Kanae struggling to continue. Something had motivated that type of response to come out. "Moko-san, you don't have to say it to that extreme," Kyoko told her as she tried to figure out the best way of helping her friend.

Kanae blinked back her tears, not wanting to show such lowly and unglamorous emotions on her face despite showing her insecurities and the holes in her own protective armor. "But I thought children would always be happy if they were treated that way," she stated and this caused everyone to look at her in shock. That wasn't the normal response. Children didn't really like to be thrown around even when playing and yet Moko seemed so certain that that was the case.

It didn't make sense to Kyoko and as the silence was cast upon them, Kanae had a chance to collect herself and stand up with confidence instead of with the fear and raw emotion that she had finally given Kyoko a chance to experience. "I didn't think just a throw would hurt him. I can't even imagine that in a dream," she said and Hiou's jaw dropped in shock. He didn't understand the words that she was saying anymore than Kyoko did.

However, despite all that armor, Kyoko knew that her best friend was a truly kind and wonderful person who would never purposefully wish harm on someone else. Maybe she bristled at the thought of friendships that didn't have value but she wasn't someone who was unkind or would maliciously hurt others. Kyoko had seen that. She was independent and could cut someone down easily for a role but she wouldn't go and push them off of the roof of a building. There was a huge difference with that.

"Oh right," Kyoko remembered as she thought about how long she had known Kanae. During the very first time they had encountered each other, Kanae had thrown Maria at her and now Maria and Kanae were friends. Kanae had never shown unkindness towards Maria and instead had just tried to get her away from a place she didn't belong.

Maybe that meant that there was a reason that children should be thrown. Maybe Moko had a twisted logic and thought that children needed to be thrown around. Ren had said that how someone grows up has to do with the way they act, he had mentioned this when they had discussed her school results, but maybe Kanae's parents had thrown her as a child. Something like that would definitely lead to some strange actions on Kanae's part.

Hiou stood still as he looked at Kanae, his question was the same as Kyoko's. "What kind of environment were you raised in until now?" he asked, "Is your family doing a Chinese circus or something?"

The more that was said about it, the more eager that Kyoko grew. She couldn't wait to see the way that a truly rich girl would live. Maybe Ren could tell her some of the things that Kuon had been through and how he had lived but Kyoko would never be able to live out her fantasy hearing what a man could do, she needed to learn about this from Moko. She shook with excitement and anticipation.

Kanae stood up straight and looked over her shoulder at the people around her, Kyoko still feeling excitement from the experience. "I understand," Kanae said with a flow of pride throughout her. "If it's okay, from now on, people who want to know follow me!" she announced.

This was beyond exciting.

End of Act 85

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Thank you to Kaname671 for reviewing Act 84