Act 101 – Silent Conversations

Ren sighed as he looked over at Kyoko. He didn't feel sorry for her exactly, he knew how strong she was and so giving her pity wasn't the right way to handle this but her words stung him deeply. What would have happened were he to have been a Kyoto-born fairy prince who could have spent time with her and given her the respect and friendship she deserved. Was that the reason she had given herself such a hard shell. Was it because of him? Had he softened her and trodden on her, breaking her and forcing her to build the strongest walls around herself.

He didn't want to forgive him if that was the case.

"Speaking of which," Kyoko said quickly and Ren was brought away from his musings as he stared out of the open window. "I also want to surpass the first generation's Mio, so I tried to figure out the character but, how exactly do I go about doing that? The more I think about it the more I get confused."

Ren looked over at her and saw the dedication, the motivation, the passion that was inside of her all reflecting from her eyes. He sighed as he tried to figure it out for his own mind. Yes, there were a lot of ways to do that but this seemed much more of a technical, methodical question than he thought she'd ask him. This was actually something that maybe he could help her with.

Yashiro seemed to have the same confusion as he turned to Kyoko, "You never learned how at the acting school?"

Kyoko shifted uneasily. She had been feeling a little awkward about how she couldn't take charge of everything since it was all meant to foster her love of acting and drive her forwards. "I was supposed to have learned it based on the teaching schedule but…lately…the times often don't fit with my schedule. That's why I still don't know how to act, even now."

Kyoko fiddled with the strands of hair of the wig. It had been a while since she had had long hair of her own and now that she was fidgety it became almost impossible to resist. Plus, she was telling this to Kuon…Ren, someone who loved acting and had become so popular and famous at it that she felt like a newly fallen acorn wanting to become an oak tree.

"Really?" Yashiro asked her and they both turned to Ren.

"Mogami-san," he said gently and Kyoko blinked and nodded as she turned in his direction. Ren looked to her, asking her a question that took her rather off guard, "Could this be why you called a third time last night?"

Kyoko stared at him not knowing how to act like that. Yes, they were friends outside of work but they had both agreed that it would be the safest thing for the two of them to pretend not to know anything about one another and therefore they definitely shouldn't be speaking like this when they were at work. If someone really cared enough they could dig up dirt on both of them.

"Eh!?" Yashiro asked as he looked between the two of them,

"What was the 'eh' for?" both Kyoko and Ren asked as they turned to Yashiro to see his response. Hopefully he wasn't going to tell them that they were being too obvious.

"No, uh, sorry it's nothing," Yashiro laughed as he looked apologetic. He started to walk away , "Excuse me, while I go to the restroom for a moment. You two talk it out," he said and they both watched him. After he had walked away Ren sighed deeply and put a hand on the back of his neck.

"Are you sure you're all right with people knowing that we talk," Kyoko whispered to him and Ren just put a finger to his lips to tell her to keep it quiet. This confused her. They were friends but now he was teasing her with the chance of her spilling some of their secret? What was he thinking?

Ren looked from side to side and he could see eyes in their direction. He had become so used to dealing with the paparazzi and people wanting to take his photograph that he had learned how to detect people staring at them and people were definitely staring at him and Kyoko, he had taken this too far and she was right, there were things in his past that definitely should not come to light.

"I'm so jealous," one girl said, "That girl is alone with Tsuruga-san. What are they talking about?"

"Isn't that the girl who plays Mio? What was her name?"

"I heard that she was in a Kyurara ad but I don't know her name."

"Why is she so close to Tsuruga-san?"

Ren sighed and looked out of the window for a moment. He had learned to sharpen each of his senses so he could hear them talking but he wasn't sure yet if Kyoko could hear and understand their words as well. "Why didn't you just tell me back then?" Ren asked and Kyoko looked to him nervously. She hadn't wanted to burden him any more than she had been and that's why she hadn't felt comfortable asking him for advice. He had a huge battle that he needed to do and she was scared of asking for his help when he was fighting his own battle.

Kyoko thought over the previous phone call where Ren was quiet and when he did speak, he did so with a heavy voice that made her feel as if she were adding to his problems and not helping him with them. She couldn't ask for help during those circumstances.

Kyoko looked up quietly into Ren's eyes and he gazed back at her. They both knew secrets that the rest of the cast didn't know. That had to be kept a secret for both of them to thrive and grow in show business.

"I'm sorry," Ren said as he offered her a small smile and Kyoko stared at him confused. "I had thought at the time that you wanted to continue the conversation from the first call. It's my fault not noticing your uneasiness sooner. You hadn't mentioned anything about the subject in the second phone call. I should have noticed from the start the reason you called for the third time."

Kyoko felt her cheeks burning a little and she looked away from him. He was an actor who was able to manipulate the scenes around him as if they were written in a script. Besides, he wasn't supposed to allow any kind of temptation keep him from his goals. Her heart started to pound and she wondered if this was from learning and sharing their passion towards acting. After realizing she hadn't responded yet, Kyoko spoke quickly.

"I should be the one apologizing," she said quickly as she shuffled nervously. "It's my fault for being so slow. No wonder you have this kind of thought. It's because I didn't even finish my sentence," she said as she realized that. She knew that Ren knew her and that he knew about her lala land moments but somehow he made her feel at ease, he made it so she could let her face fall.

"Not at all," Ren laughed with a smile and Kyoko tried not to turn any redder. She was just realizing now that people were looking at them. Did Ren know? She sighed, of course he knew, he probably had known throughout this entire conversation.

"What is it?" Ren asked with a knowing smile which made Kyoko's back straighten and she stood with even more formal posture. "What are you thinking about?" he asked with a quiet laugh.

"Figuring out the character," she said and Ren nodded as he realized just how important her work was to her. Of course that would be what she was thinking about. He had to admit that this common ground made her even cuter to him. He loved that they could work together but he was afraid of how his name might affect her future.

"Figuring out the character," Ren finished for her, "Is understanding the character background feeling, and trains of thought that are not in the script."

Kyoko froze as she realized that what he had said was completely contradicting what Moko had said in a previous conversation.

Ren noticed this and watched her confused, "What kind of expression is this?" he said as Kyoko visualized his words and those Kanae had used running into one another. She wanted to be fair to both of those she looked up to but Ren had more experience in acting and he had had better success at it. Besides, when she thought about her meetings with Ren when she was Bo, Bo didn't have lines or train of thoughts or anything but she had turned him into a character who was able to become a sounding board to Ren.

"It's nothing," Kyoko said as she turned her head away from him and saw his confused expression. He had really only wanted to help her. But Kanae did have a point, the screenwriter wrote down certain things in the script, was it truly okay to overlook all of that.

"Everyone has his or her own unique characteristics," Ren continued, "and everyone treats each person or object differently, right? The same li9ne and the same response can mean different things under different circumstances. That's why a person will imitate the speech and mannerisms of the surroundings in which he or she grew up. So thinking about a character's feelings and why they act a certain way is figuring out the character and your job is to express all these things. You should consider the conditions that Mio lived in."

Kyoko froze as she tried to put that in her mind. Who was Mio? Would she be able to understand her one day? Then again, how much of Kuon Hizuri – or Corn – existed inside of Ren or was it more important that she think of how much Ren actually existed at all. She knew that Ren Tsuruga was a character but he was a character she had formed a deep friendship with and she wanted to break him, not in public but in private.

She wanted to do her best in Dark Moon and prove herself as an actress but she wanted to break down the walls of Ren Tsuruga and spend more time with the true person underneath. How different did he make himself when he switched characters? That was an important question to her now.

End of Act 101

Thank you for reading

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