Authors Chat: Thank you to all those who actually still have faith I haven't abandoned this story! It seems as soon as college ended, my muse fled. It took a while, but I think I finally caught her again!

Today I want to address something, and I'd love to know your thoughts.

Many people seem to think Kanae calls Kyoko "Mo" as a nickname. I believe this is an incorrect interpretation of the manga [I don't remember which chapter, I explained it to someone once but have lost my note ID'ing the chapter].

At one point in time, Kanae is astonished by Kyoko and starts to call her "Mogami" but cuts herself off mid-word, so the English translation looked like this "Mo…"

As best I can tell, calling someone 'mo' would be akin to calling them cutie. Call me crazy, but I do NOT think Kanae would call Kyoko "cutie" as a nickname…

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.

Playing With Fire

Act 57

Kyoko woke up in a groggy state, got ready for the day, and was in Kaminari's car before she remembered her failed homework attempt. Embarrassment and shame etched itself on her face as she slunk down in her seat and stared hard at her toes.

Don't ask… don't ask… don't ask…

"So Kyoko-chan. I've got to ask…"

CRAP! What do I tell h-

"What time are you scheduled to be at TBM? I'm ashamed to admit, but I left my appointment book at home and didn't have time to go back and get it before picking you up this morning. I'll run back and get it after your scenes begin today, I just want to be sure how much time I have."

Relief washed over Kyoko in a wave.

"I don't have to be at TBM until after lunch. There's plenty of time, so don't worry. I can handle myself." I can handle myself? Geeze, why don't I just give her hints so she remembers to ask about my homework! Better watch what you say Kyoko!

"Speaking of which…"

Oh no! Don't ask… don't ask… don't ask…

"…I have put in a request for next Tuesday off. I have an exam in one of my classes that has to be proctored during the daytime. I'll have your schedule all set and ready, but you've got a lot of free time that day."

"That's fine Kaminari-chan, I had better go to school too or they may not let me graduate!" Thank goodness. This is going to kill me if I keep worrying about it!

"How does that school work out for you anyway? Are you keeping up with your classes alright since you don't get to go very often?"

"I have to do a lot of self-study, and the school has an agreement with LME so that President Takarada's assistant can proctor any tests outside of school hours. I also have some of my study materials in my bag so I can study when I have a break between sets."

"mm. That's good. Well, if you have any questions or need any help, I can help you, though if it's a science subject I may not be much good."

They turned into the studio lot and swung into an open parking spot. Today's film was in a closed studio, so no trips to the countryside. Today's first scene would be in a condemned building, with Choko as the main performer.

Kaminari walked with Kyoko to her dressing room then excused herself to run her errand and left Kyoko to find her inner Choko.

Not long after, Choko found herself sneaking into a condemned seven story apartment building.

This had to be the place. Each of the crime scenes, while never exactly alike, had something from the area. A piece of cloth made with special dye, only produced in this district. White clay powder, made from shells only milled in one prefecture. A charm made from misu paper. A very old metal coin marked with the emblem of the Tosa Ichijo clan.

To those not trained in proper etiquette, the knowledge would be lost. If Choko had not been the little-miss that she was, she would not have known all these clues would lead to Kochi.

That much had been easy. Finding the building, however, had not. It had taken a lot of suspicion and following suspected people and stalking the places where the found materials had come from, but eventually, they all lead to this building; broken, dirty, condemned and decaying.

Fortunately, no one would notice a broken window in a condemned building.

Choko grabbed the bottom of her shirt to tear a piece off, but the fabric was woven too strong and did not budge. After a moment of struggle, she stopped, then bent down to remove her shoe. Her strength was never her strong suit but her intelligence was.

Choko pulled her stocking off with one hand then wrapped the fabric around her fist. Nervously, she struck the small basement window with her clothed fist, unsure how much force to use. The window did not break, then she struck again with more force, and a third time. The glass finally broke with a loud glassy tinkling. She broke out the remaining glass shards and slid easily through the narrow window.

She expected it to be dusty inside and was surprised when it wasn't. This building had been well kept before being condemned, and had to have been only recently removed from public access.

Beginning in the basement where she entered, she began searching for the clues she had found at each scene.

Her nerves were frayed, and each small sound caused her to jump. She was on the second floor above ground before her nerves settled. Though, to say they had settled was not entirely true. Every little sound caused her still to jump, though the jumping had become habit, and she convinced herself 'it was nothing' and continued her exploration of the building.

On the third floor, she discovered evidence she had been looking for. This evidence was photographs of not the victims, but oddly enough, her mother. She followed the wall of photographs around the room until she realized that she was no longer looking at photos of her mother, but of herself. Her head shot back and forth from the photos of her mother, then to herself and saw that the photos of her mother were dated. They were all from a few years in the past. Either this monster had went into hiding when they thought they caught the original killer… or this was a copycat.

Fear grabbed at Choko, squeezing the air from her lungs. She couldn't breathe, and panic set in. She turned to run, only to be greeted by a wide, wicked grin, then her world went black.

"CUT! Koichi, please assist Kyoko-san to her chair while we check the scene."

The actor who had struck her with the two-by-four leaned down and gently touched Kyoko's shoulder. "Kyoko-san? Are you alright?" He feared he struck her with more force than intended and had actually caused her to black out. His worries were alleviated when she slowly blinked open her eyes.

"Let me help you up Kyoko-san. That scene was thrilling wasn't it? You were amazing. I almost forgot when I was supposed to step on-set!" Koichi's chatter continued as he gently guided her to her chair near Camera 3. It wasn't until he put a water in her hand, and helped her to raise her hand that she responded, coming out of a daze.

She smiled politely at him, though inside, her tension level that had climbed was not coming back down. She jumped when Director Shingai cursed loudly then leaned closer to the small screen used for scene checks.

After a moment to confirm his findings, he stood and pointed in turn, "Kyoko-san, get ready for a retake. Nagasami, this time, keep that damn Boom out of the shot!"

The second take was better – Nagasami kept the boom mic out of all shots. So far in fact, that they had to do a third take just to get the boom mic back IN the shot far enough to have clear audio. The fourth take was because Koichi had missed his cue in the third take, and the fifth take was because Kyoko's sock got caught on the glass shards that would not come free of the break-away window frame.

The sixth take was acceptable, with Director Shingai finally deciding to just splice takes together, which was good because Kyoko's nerves were shot.

When Kaminari walked up to her and tapped her shoulder as she exited the stage, she gave a squeak in surprise.

"I'm sorry Kyoko-chan, I should have made myself known. Have you been working on this one scene since I dropped you off this morning? You were scheduled to get through scenes 54 and 26 still this morning too."

Kyoko sighed, then apologized for her sigh, "I'm sorry Kaminari-chan, as a young upstart actress, I should never let my tiredness show. Yes, we've done that one scene since this morning to get it just right. I wonder though, is tonight a full-moon? It seems everything that could have gone wrong did."

Kaminari gave her a pity-smile, "I'm sorry. Well, at least I made it back in time to drive you over to TBM, so you can take a little break in the car to refocus. Go ahead and get changed while I bring the car around."

Kyoko dragged her feet when changing, giving herself a few minutes to gain her composure. Her Task still weighed heavily on her mind, and being in close quarters again with Kaminari-chan would surely be stressful if she asked about her homework or stressful with the anticipation of being asked even if it did not happen.

She slid into her baby blue Tshirt dress and denim leggings, ankle high black leather boots and finished the look with a few dangly necklaces. She would remove her make-up later, and sufficed by blotting on some powder to even out the tones where the foundation had smudged off her cheeks.

She exited the dressing room and began down the hall, but was halted by a soft "Kyoko" call from behind her. That rich voice could only belong to one person, and she turned with a smile to find she was right. Ren had called to her from a few steps behind. It took him three long strides to catch up.

"Good morning Kyoko." A soft smile curled his lips, making her heart pound at his gentleness. "I didn't think I'd get to see you on set today. Running late?"

"Good morning to you too Ren. No, not running late yet, though we were a bit behind. Today's scenes seemed to have everything go wrong."

"Lots of NG's then? Don't let them bother you, everyone has their bad days."

"Actually, they weren't my NG's. Everything went wrong but that. First it was the boom mic in view, then it was all downhill from there. We-"

Yashiro called to Ren from the opposite end of the hall. "Tsuruga-san, they're ready for you on set. Coming?"

Ren looked up and confirmed, then turned back to his conversation. "I'm sorry Kyoko. I have to go. Tell me about it tonight? Say… 9:00ish?"

She nodded and smiled in agreement. "Yes, I can do that. Your apartment?"

He took a few steps in the direction of the stage, then turned back, walking backwards. "Yeah. My place. You can make sure I eat a proper dinner." With that he smiled, waved, and headed to the stage.

Kyoko smiled to herself and wondered about how such a simple exchange of words with that man could refresh her emotionally so she wasn't tired at all.

By the time she got into Kaminari's car, she was grinning from ear to ear. Kaminari turned in her seat and stared at her for a moment before putting the car in gear and pulling onto the roadway.

"Kaminari-chan, what? What was that look?"

"Nothing. I take it you ran into Tsuruga-san?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"It's written all over your face."

At this point, Kyoko actually did pull down the visor mirror and looked at her face, thinking perhaps she had missed something when powdering her cheeks. Kaminari laughed.

"No Kyoko-chan, there isn't anything on your face. I mean that you're beaming where before you looked worn-out. Love will do that to a person you know."

Kyoko turned red. It was one thing to admit liking someone and agree to start dating them, it was quite another to claim your actions were guided by love even when it wasn't a conscious choice. Then again, that was something she was all too familiar with. The constant fawning over Sho's every need, going out of her way to make him happy when he was sad or upset, turning a blind eye to all his indiscretions…

No Kyoko. You're wrong. Those were all conscious choices. Those actions were guided by your inexperienced thoughts of what love truly was. Stop thinking that way. Never going to be like that with Ren.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she did not realize when they pulled into the drop-off zone of the school lot. Kaminari promised to pick her up again before her 2:00 performance at TBM studios, reviewed Kyoko's revised schedule for the next few days, then left her to attend classes.

Kyoko's mind couldn't focus though. She found herself listening in on other girl's conversations during breaks, listening for discussion of love or sex, and during lecture, thought about what she had heard during the breaks. By the time Kaminari was back to pick her up, she had learned nothing. At least she made an attendance mark for the day. That should count for something, right?

Fortunately, her work at TBM didn't suffer. With how physical Bo had to be, there was little time left for personal thought. The recording ended with just enough time for her to swing by a grocery store to pick up ingredients for dinner before heading over to Ren's. When she got there, there was no answer at the door.

She sent him a quick text message to see how long he would be, and the elevator behind her bing'd, signaling the arrival of another person at that floor. When the doors opened, Ren was there smiling while reading her text message.

"I won't even be a minute," he replied in person, then opened the door and ushered her in.

She guided herself to the kitchen, set down the bags of groceries, and ordered Ren to stay out of the kitchen. He stood in the kitchen doorway watching her for a moment while she pointedly ignored him, going about her business of cleaning vegetables. When she took out a knife and began cutting, Ren took his leave.

"I'm going to take a shower while you cook if that's all right. This afternoon's filming were action sequences, and I would hate for my… aroma… to overpower the aroma of your wonderful cooking."

"This isn't anything amazing Ren; it won't have an amazing aroma."

"So you agree that I stink then?" He made a hurt expression, fully joking.

"NO! I didn't mean that! You don't stink!"

"So you were smelling me?" He raised his eyebrows at her.

"N-no! I wasn't smelling you, that's horrible! I just meant that the food I'm cooking won't smell that great either. Not that you smell. I mean, I-"

Her sentence was cut short when Ren could no longer contain his laughter. "I was only joking. I'm still going to shower though." He mussed her hair, then left her in the kitchen, flustered and chopping vegetables.

With Kyoko's skill with a knife, however, she was done chopping vegetables in a very short amount of time, and left the kitchen with the intent to wait for the actual cooking until Ren was finished showering. She headed down the hall to the open bathroom, but noticed a door open to a room she had not explored before, and curiosity soon found her looking around Ren's Study.

The room was dimly lit, which Kyoko found was due to a dimmer switch on the wall. The walls were lined with antique yellow linen wallpaper panels framed with white edging peaked out from between the shelves of bound books and scripts.

The room was comfortable. One leather lounge chair and ottoman beside a coffee table with a reading lamp standing from the floor just behind, then to the other end of the room facing the doorway was a large solid westnofa rosewood desk.

The large desk matched the wood of the shelving and the coffee table perfectly, as if it was all cut from the same tree. The warmth of the wood complimented the rest of the room perfectly, making it a very comfortable place to sit.

Kyoko sat in the lounge chair while she looked about the room and realized that the chair had been sat in often, as it formed into a comfortable dip when she sat.

Both the lounge chair area and the desk area had good angles to see the matching art pieces strategically hung on the walls. Both pieces were abstracts in shades of electric and grey blues though one had hint of purple threading throughout. Something about the pieces seemed to indicate a struggle, though the truth of the matter would be known only each unique interpretation.

Kyoko felt she had somehow entered Ren's inner sanctum and felt very unworthy. The room was simple, but it felt like home. Something very Ren like though at the same time, very not.

Kyoko got up to leave the room, uncomfortable at her invasion of his private space, but something caught her eye, causing her to stop in the doorway.

Kyoko listened hard for a moment into the hall, then convinced Ren was still in the shower, turned back to the object she had saw: a laptop computer, lying closed on the center of the desk.

Her heart thumped hard as she opened the computer up, finding it already turned on.

An electronic copy of the script for Ring Doh 2 was open for reading, though that was not her target. Kyoko's knowledge of computers was enough to get by, but not having one of her own growing up, she did not have a lot of practice or experience using them. She knew enough to find the information she needed however, as she opened a browser to search.

"M…a…s…t…u…r…b…a…t…i…o…n" *search*

Kyoko listened again to be sure the shower was still going as the search results filled the screen.

296,000,000 results in 0.23 seconds. Wow.

There were links on defining masturbation, masturbation as an alternative to sex, why people like masturbation, masturbation taboos, masturbation tips, masturbation addiction, masturbation as stress release, medical conditions related to masturbation, pain with masturbation, Masturbation topics in the Bible… There were so many different links, she didn't know where to begin.

She changed her search to hopefully narrow down the results.

"How… to… masturbate" *search*

Less links pulled up, though still an astronomical amount. She selected one title "How to masturbate: a tutorial". She turned the volume low before watching the video, which was to Kyoko's dismay a rather comical video of how a man should first learn to masturbate; the basics, if you could call it that. If anything, the video left her wondering about the drastic difference in sizes of men's penises.

Eventually, she found her way to a site of porn clips, and clicked one, then another, and after two videos, she felt she understood how to do it. Additional videos showed how to vary the experience, and other things that could be considered enjoyable. At least, they seemed to be enjoyable to the women in the videos.

She heard a soft thump as Ren leaned against the door frame, surprising her out of her studies. She panicked and moved hurriedly to close the windows before Ren could come into the room, around to her side of the desk and see what she was reading.

She would close the windows, then maximize the script and make it seem as if she were reading.

"Hi." Ren moved into the room, slowly walking around the desk to stand behind her. "What did you find?"

Kyoko 's speeding heart jumped to her hears. Maybe she had heard him wrong. Was he asking about her search? She closed windows as quickly as she could, and clicked the last one closed right as Ren turned the corner to the desk. All that was left on screen was the script.

"Ring Doh 2. Aah, I forgot I had received an electronic script to start studying a while ago. Must have been ages since I shut down this comp-"

"nhh… aaaah.. haaaaaaaaan! Aaah! Aaaaah!"

They both froze as a pop-up window opened with a clip of a woman mid-orgasm, splayed across the computer screen.

Kyoko frantically closed the pop-up window, turning cherry red, but as soon as she clicked one window closed, another opened up. Then another, then another like some bad chain reaction to a science experiment gone wrong.