Authors Chat: Hum-de-dum. Got nuthin to say. ^_^

I would greatly appreciate your comments and constructive criticism!

That being said, italics text are direct thoughts of characters, text is in quotes, noises are done with asterisks.

DISCLAIMER: Skip Beat! and it's characters are not my original creation, they are owned and created by Nakamura Yoshiki.

Story Timeline: Y'all know the timeline by now. If not, go back and read it in an earlier chapter! (taken out for length).

Playing With Fire

Act 28

Kyoko could not believe the similarities between her dream and the scene they had just shot. The kimono was very much the same, the nature of the scene was EXACTLY the same, and when Ren delivered the line, it made her realize the sentence she had missed in her dream.

In the dream, he had said, "I've missed you Kyoko." Then in the dream, when she met his eyes, it was from underneath him as he had leaned down to kiss her.

Seeing Ren across from her like that brought back the memory and with it, the emotions and desire. It was too much for her to handle, so she had jumped up and ran from him.

So much for acting normal…

"Kyoko-chan? Are you in here?" Kaminari stuck her head through the narrow opening of the doorway, then seeing Kyoko was in fact there, stepped in and shut the door behind her.

"Are you alright? You jumped up and ran so fast, I didn't see what happened."

Kyoko shook her head then smiled, "Everything's fine. I just needed some air. Um, I tied my obi too tightly." Which was true, but it was not so tight as to limit her breathing.

Kaminari wasn't convinced and looked at Kyoko dubiously.

"Really Kami-chan, I'm alright." Color came back to her cheeks as she happily used Kaminari's shortened, friendly name.

"Okay then. So, listen, I'm going to have dinner tonight with Yukihito and catch-up a bit, so since there's nothing scheduled after the shooting today, I'll bring you straight home. I hope that's alright?"

"Of course Kami-chan! I didn't know you knew Yashiro-san."

Kaminari laughed. "Yeah, you could say we go way back." Kaminari knew it was better to not make their family relationship known or suffer rumor of favoritism from the company, and for Kyoko – a newcomer's – role in the film.

Sorry Kyoko-chan, I'll explain it all some other time.

"Now lets get back to the set. The scene change is already done."

Kyoko obediently followed her manager out of the room and back to the set to finish the day's work.

She avoided Ren's gaze every time she could. She was sure he caught her looking at him once, and she could feel her cheeks flush. It seemed as if he were about to walk over to her, but the director called for the scene's actors before he could take a first step her way.

The scenes they filmed were jarring and had to be retaken many times. Kyoko blamed herself for not having her role completely understood before the shoot. Ren blamed himself for his presence making her agitated. Director Shingai gave the excuse and granted his patience with them because he had thrown her into the day's work unprepared and unexpecting.

As the day drew to a close, they had only successfully shot four full scenes, and everybody was tired, their nerves were shot, and no one felt good about the day's work.

Kyoko flew from the set and back to her dressing room to change as soon as she was able. She told herself it was because she had to hurry since Kami-chan was going out to dinner with Yashiro-san, but in truth, she wasn't yet ready to deal with Ren and didn't know how to act around him. Whenever she saw his face she was reminded of the lewd things he did with her in the dream and how it made her feel. She would not be able to look at him and talk with him without remembering his breath on her neck, the husky tones in his whispered 'sweet-nothings', or the desire in his eyes.

She felt kind of bad for turning and running every time he was about to say something to her, but she just couldn't cope with the emotions he made her feel and her embarrassment for those same desires.

Ren was obviously having a hard time dealing with it himself, but it was not the passion he couldn't deal with. He had that well under control as he did not want her to pull away from him again. What he was having a hard time dealing with was the anger he felt at her avoidance of him, and the whole situation in general.

He tried to be forgiving, but he was angry of her avoidance for today and the past few weeks. When he had told her to call him when she was ready, he didn't mean 'never again'. Ren was certain Kyoko was adult enough to get past this, but she was now in the same movie as him, the same set, playing opposite him, and she ran from every time he tried to speak with her. All she did was push him away.

Hell, she probably already knew we would be working on the same movie and still did not call me or say anything!

Ren could feel his anger rising. He wasn't scheduled to act on the set for his BJ role again for another nine days, and had no excuse for releasing his anger.

Yashiro noticed the rising anger as well.

"Ren… I think I'll catch a ride with Kaminari and Kyoko-chan. Not because anything's wrong of course – I'm going to have dinner with Kami-chi and catch up a bit. You're free for the rest of the night anyway."

Ren looked as if he were about to say something, then stopped himself and nodded his assent.

Yashiro gave an silent sigh of relief. He loved Ren like a brother, but he was feeling stressed out himself from being Ren's emotional punching bag this last few weeks. With any luck though, the next few days would change that. If only he could get Kyoko and Ren to spend a little time together, he was certain they could overcome whatever obstacle was in their way.

"Yukihito! Over here!" Yashiro spotted Kaminari and started toward her. "We're parked out in the East lot. I've got the new Civic to use."

"Oh, that's right… Kami-chan said you were riding with us tonight." Kyoko bowed in greeting before they made their way out to the car.

They headed toward the Daruma-ya, Yashiro and Kaminari chatting amiably about college professors and different coursework they each had to do. Kyoko sat quietly thinking in the back seat and only realized they reached their destination when Kaminari turned the engine off.

"We're here already! I'm sorry Kami-chan, I didn't mean to make you turn the car off. I can get out now."

"It's alright Kyoko-chan. You must not have heard us when we decided to just have dinner here. I hope that's alright?"

Kyoko nodded happily "Un! That's fine!"

Once they went inside though, Kyoko introduced Kaminari to the Okami and Taisho, then Kyoko apologized and excused herself so she could study her script and work on fully grasping the character of Choko in order to be ready for the shoot the following day. Yashiro looked a bit relieved, Kaminari just smiled and said it was a good idea then headed to a table.

"I'm glad she did that. Truth is Yukihito, I wanted to find out what was going on between Kyoko-chan and your charge, Tsuruga-san. It would have been hard to ask if she was eating with us!"

Yashiro looked a bit surprised. "Wow! I guess we think alike then Kami-chi! I was wanting to talk to you about that too."

They sat at the table, perused the menu, and ordered before either breached the topic again.

"Yukihito, so now tell me. What happened between Kyoko-chan and Tsuruga-san?"

"Actually, I was hoping you'd be able to tell me Kamichi. Something happened when I was at your wedding, and they were like this when I got back."

Kaminari shook her head. "Kyoko-chan hasn't said anything to me. She only said that he used to be her mentor."

"Did she say why she didn't consider him that anymore?"

"No, just that they had a problem when they were working together."

"Hmm… That isn't like Kyoko-chan. I mean, she's avoided Ren before, but not like this."

"So they have some history together then?"

"Yeah. Ren really seemed to hate her when she first started out. Found out he didn't really hate her though, just her motive for being in show business."

She looked at him a little confused. "Why is that? Don't most people in show business want to be successful?"

"Well yeah, but that isn't what bothered Ren. It was the revenge bit that he was mad about."

Kaminari raised her eyebrows in surprise, "Revenge? Kyoko-chan didn't say anything about revenge."

Yashiro blushed a little bit, he had clearly said more than Kyoko had wanted Kaminari to know. "I suppose I should tell you anyway. You have to keep this confidential though. Kyoko-chan is Fuwa Shou's childhood friend. Seems she ran away from home and came with him to Tokyo when he was starting out. She cooked, cleaned, worked two jobs, and who knows what else just to support him while he tried to get in the industry. As soon as he made it, he left her."

"Oh wow."

"Yeah. It hurt Kyoko-chan pretty bad, and I guess she wanted to get back at him by going into show business so she could become famous and rub his nose into it for abandoning her."

"This IS Kyoko-chan you're talking about, right? She doesn't seem capable of something like that."

Yashiro laughed. "It may surprise you, but she has quite a temper. Not unlike yourself I might add."

She scowled at him. "Its been eight years since I last threw a tantrum you know, can't you just let it go!?"

"Hard to." The corners of his lips curled as he tried to hold back a laugh. "Especially because of your name! You'll never live it down."

It wasn't her fault, she didn't get to choose her name. When she was a baby, she wailed so loudly, it could even wake the neighbors. That was why her parents decided to name her after the thunder goddess. As she grew, she lived up to her name though, and when she was over her childhood years and should start acting more responsible, her tantrums were still explosive as ever, so they had made her see a child psychologist.

Nothing really was wrong the psychologist decided, she just had some anger management issues and a hell of a set of lungs.

Her parents helped her to channel that by involving her in extracurricular activities like singing lessons and sports and a little modeling.

It was Kaminari's modeling experience actually that made her decide to follow Yukihito to be a manager, and with their father being a manager himself, it was almost like a family business.

Now, that family business seemed to include their charges.

Kaminari dabbed the tips of her fingers in her water glass and flicked a few droplets of water at Yashiro to get him to stop laughing at her.

"Anyway… No, Kyoko-chan didn't mention anything about revenge. So if Tsuruga-san disliked her so much, how did he become her mentor?"

"Aah, actually, remember when I was sick with that really bad flu bug last year? Kyoko-chan filled in as his temporary manager. Something happened then that changed how he viewed her. Ren caught my cold and she had to take care of him. I think that softened him a bit. Ren never actually agreed to be her mentor though, she just kind of… assumed that of him. It's been pretty obvious for a while that Ren is in love with her."

Kaminari had to stop eating for fear of choking on her rice and she looked incredulously at her brother.

"Yeah, Ren is in love with her. She always seems a bit oblivious though." Yashiro shrugged here, "but she was really hurt by Fuwa, so I guess she's just pretending not to notice. I've certainly tried to tell her a few times. Outright even. She didn't listen."

"That doesn't surprise me."

"Yeah, you'll see. She can be pretty hardheaded sometimes. Good luck." He smiled as he chuckled at her.

"I'm sure it'll be fine. So what happened to make Kyoko-chan avoid Tsuruga-san?"

"That's just it. I don't know." He shrugged again, "something happened while I was at your wedding and I can't get Ren to anything. They were working on a shoot together, Ren was doing a cameo on one of her regulars – Box 'R' – so they were working pretty closely together. I left Kyoko-chan in charge of making sure Ren eats since he skips meals pretty often. When I came back, Ren looked like he had been in a fight. He finished the cameo, and hasn't spoken to Kyoko-chan since!"

"I wonder what happened… Tsuruga-san had been in a fight you said? I wonder if it was with Kyoko-chan."

"I'm not sure, but the scratches on his back looked like they were from fingernails. His whole collarbone was bruised on one side and his fist was all cut up. He said he broke a mirror in his gym, and he did have to have it replaced, but I don't think all those wounds were from a broken mirror."

"Probably not. I wonder…"

"What?"

"It's probably not right, but… do you think Tsuruga-san did something to Kyoko-chan, and that she was the one who put the scratches on his back?"

Yashiro shook his head vehemently. "No, Ren controls his emotions well. Although… since he hasn't been talking to Kyoko-chan, he's been getting moodier and moodier. If he was really provoked, I guess I wouldn't put it past him."

They both ate in silence thinking hard about the situation between Ren and Kyoko.

"Kami-chi, this is why I need you to talk to Kyoko-chan and try to figure out what happened. Ren won't tell me anything and gets mad if I even ask."

She nodded. "I'll see what I can do. Tsuruga-san really loves her?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think she loves him too?"

"Well, I certainly hope so. Find out. Maybe we can do something to get them together."