Disclaimer: Stiiiiiiill don't own Skip Beat!
AN: Just to be clear, Kyoko has recently turned eighteen, still in school but very close to graduation (given how late she started high school). I'm saying this here because I don't want to try and clumsily shoehorn the information into the story, though it will definitely be touched on at some point in the next two chapters.
In which there is impromptu night on the town!
(And the genre shifts a smidgen towards Drama, though I've tried to keep the Humor intact.)
The Whole Truth (Black Knight)
Ren's threat seemed to reverberate through the silent locker room. As though he had yelled it rather than whispering the words with special care to provide little to no emphasis. To simply say the words and not endow them with the full force of his protective fury. His fingers rubbed together as a telltale itch took hold of them; whether to pummel the miscreant or to caress the frozen young woman in front of him, he wasn't entirely sure.
She returned his stare with the same celestial look from that morning, but with a definite twist: She could see him this time. Of that much he was certain. Her eyes bored into his with such otherworldly deliberation that he found himself wondering if she was weighing his very soul in that moment, totaling up his worthiness for whatever task lay ahead of him. It was more than a little unsettling. What could she be seeing in him right then?
She exhaled audibly, the tingle of her breath across his chin sending an answering twinge straight out to his fingertips. It was nothing so pronounced as a sigh, yet it carried the same implication: a held breath released, a pressure valve following suit. She nodded with a dreamlike slowness, her focus gradually turning from the discreet plane to the physical. A sense of resolve settled over her as her gaze shifted away from his face. The decision - whatever it was - had been made, and he was able to breath again.
Note to self, no more staring contests with this woman ever in a million ... What are you doing?
She reached up and slowly pulled the cloth band off of her head. She shook her hair loose so that it fell around her face and into her eyes, once again hiding the bruise on her temple. Her knees parted, feet still together; her torso sloped forward, shoulders hunched, elbows braced on her spread thighs. She began to sway, rocking almost imperceptibly from side to side. He took a half-step back and looked her over, fascinated despite himself at the deliberate shift in her body language.
What in the world - ?
Her voice was curiously flat, drained of all inflection save for a distinct note of hesitancy: "You want to meet Kyoichi, Tsuruga-san?"
He blinked and attempted to resume an air of composure in the face of Kyoko's unusual behavior, fighting back the impulse to ask if she was alright. Ride it out, he commanded himself. Go with it.
"I thought I had made that abundantly clear," he said, despising the frigid tone of his voice. "But for the sake of clarification, yes. I want to meet him."
She rolled her head to one side and looked back up at him through her bangs. Her eyelids drooped as a hard glint came into those honey-gold eyes. A roguish smile parted her lips, baring her teeth like those of a wolf. A harsh but mirthful sound emerged from that bewitching mouth, a laugh that was somewhere between a high wheeze and a rasping cough. She thrust her chin forward, her lower lip curled contemptuously. When she spoke again, it was in a low growl of a voice, with a rough accent he identified as an English-American hyrid:
"Look no further, stud. Ya fount 'im."
... What.*
Almost as soon as it appeared, whatever possessed her vanished completely, leaving her visibly shaken and almost nauseous-looking as she resumed her former posture. Without so much as looking at him, she reached into her beige tote, extracted a stack of papers and handed it to him. Ren, still stunned, took it without thinking and nearly dropped it out of sheer surprise when he realized that it was a script. He looked back at Kyoko to find her rapidly blinking away the tears suddenly gleaming in her averted eyes.
"I am Kyoichi."
An audible thud drew her gaze back to him as he dropped down onto the bench across from her.
"And I," he managed to quip through his daze, "am lost. Explain. Please."
She took a deep breath and started at the beginning, her delivery fraught with resignation.
"Moko-san's going for a role in a stage play. As a lawyer named Raine who comes from a criminal family and maintains his loyalties to them. I told her a bit about my time as Kuon a while back, so she figured I could help her adjust to playing a male part. Sh-she's ... she's never asked me for help like that before," she said with eyes like hunted prey, "not with acting. I couldn't let her down! So when she suggested that I rehearse opposite her ... as Raine's brother ..."
"Kyoichi, I presume?"
She nodded. "She figured we would kill two birds with one stone. She could gauge my method of adapting to male mannerisms and behavior. And see how she much she could differentiate Raine from Kyoichi while still making their status as brothers convincing."
No such thing as "too prepared", I suppose. "But then why speak of him ..."
"As though he were an actual, separate person?" she finished quietly with the vaguest hint of a self-deprecating smile. "I have a tendency to do that, don't I?"
He arched his brow. "Point taken. But why blame a character for your injury? And why lie about it to me specifically?"
Kyoko ducked her head low. "Last night ... I did something unforgivable. Even more so than lying to you. Naturally, I wouldn't want you to find out ... "
He softened his tone in understanding that was only partially feigned. "You thought I would disapprove. And you didn't want my opinion of you to change, is that it?"
"Y-yes, exactly, I - !"
She looked up and stuttered to a halt at the hawk-like vigilance with which he watched her. He hadn't failed to notice how eagerly she grasped at his offered excuse. Her teeth guiltily bit into her lower lip.
"Then why does Kotonami think I should know?" he pressed. "She seemed pretty insistent that you tell me."
She bit down even harder and shut her eyes, effectively blocking him out. When she still wouldn't answer, he stood up and sat down next to her. She flinched, but didn't pull away.
"Don't you know by now that you can trust me? What is it that you don't want me to know?" he asked softly. "Am I tied to this in some way that I'm not aware of?"
Her eyes sprang back open. Color flooded back into her pale face until her cheeks were a shade between rose and tomato.
"N ... no! I mean, I wouldn't say - but then you were - Oh, god, this is too complicated!" Her head dropped back down, her face buried in her hands. "Okay ... okay. Do you remember this morning ... when I told you I saw your interview the other night?"
"When you were whipping up that delicious stir-fry, you mean? Yes. I remember." She winced at the bitter sarcasm in his voice, but carried on.
"Well ... during the actual incident in question, you were on the TV ..."
He leaned in, expecting more to follow. Silence descended as nothing more seemed to be forthcoming. His patience hanging by a tattered thread, Ren raked a hand through his hair and wondered how a real interrogator would fare against the evasive likes of Kyoko Mogami. "And I'm just as flattered as I was this morning that you noticed, but what does that have to do with anything?
Her eyes darted to his, fastened hard and steady. "More than I care to admit."
The look on her face was the visual equivalent of a get-out-of-jail-free card. Turn back while you can, it muttered darkly. We don't have to do this. He turned to face her fully, crossing his legs Indian-style on the bench and folding his arms across his chest. I am a mountain, replied this pose. I will not be moved. Taking the hint, she closed her eyes again and kept going, massaging the bridge of her nose with her index finger and thumb.
"We wanted to see ... if we could fool everybody. If we could make our roles as men convincing enough. So we went out. In character. To a b-bar ..." Her lips trembled. "We had a few too many -"
"OF COURSE!"
Kyoko jumped nearly a foot in the air as his shout echoed around them.
"E-excuse me?"
Aware even as he said the words that they may well be the stupidest things to leave his mouth thus far, Ren declared excitedly: "I was wondering why you were eating something so unlike what you usually do, and that explains it! It was hangover food!"
Kyoko stared at him with narrowed eyes and a deep frown. For one glorious moment she seemed to forget entirely that he was her esteemed sempai (something he had been trying to get her to do for ages) and just looked at him as though he had lost his mind (not a desired effect, but still refreshingly novel given the almost maddening degree of decorum with which she usually treated him). So despite his embarrassment, he was unaccountably delighted by what she said next:
"I just admit to drinking, two years shy of being legal to do so, and all you're concerned about is what I ate the next morning?"
His lips twitched. That was far from his only concern, but he wouldn't waste this opportunity, so he said, "Yes."
" ... Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously!" he retorted with mock-insult, intentionally shading off into a melodramatic tone that they both recognized as Lory Takarada's. "My personal nutritionist going rogue on me like that? It was quite traumatizing. I thought of nothing else all day!"
The lower half of her face bunched and contorted in an obvious effort to suppress a laugh that crept out anyway, and his heart sang at the sound of it. She shook her head at his silliness, still nervous, but obviously not as much as a moment ago. The tension didn't entirely leave the room, but at least they could breathe again. That was something.
"You're not ... mad that I got drunk?"
Holy god, woman, I'm not your father!** he thought miserably.
"If I were to get mad at you for that, I'd be the biggest hypocrite ever," he said dryly, "given how many times I've overdone it, even before I was of age."
Her eyes widened in genuine disbelief. "You?"
"Yes, I was quite the deliquent. Trust me, if I ever start preaching temperance, you're well within your rights to cry foul."
"Ah." She nodded, clearly mystified by this turn in the conversation, but willing to go with it. "I'll have to remember that."
He cleared his throat. "Keep going," he said pointedly, "so you had too much to drink and then what?"
"I ... I can't. I can't tell you."
He sighed. "Even if I promise not to judge? Not to get mad?"
"You can't promise something like that without knowing what I've done. And I assure you," she said grimly, "you will judge and you will be mad. And you'll have every right to do so."
Don't be so sure, Ren almost said aloud.
"But ... maybe he can tell you."
He blinked. "I'm sorry?"
Once again only semi-aware of him, Kyoko began to nod to herself. "Yes. He'll tell you the truth. The whole truth."
She didn't say the words Whether I want him to or not. The bitterly resigned look on her face said it for her.
He grasped the plan already formed in her head even before she reached back into her bag and pulled out a black hat. Guess I get to meet this "Kyoichi", after all.
. . . . .
Having been left to hover by the LME exit for a good fifteen minutes, Yukihito Yashiro began to suspect that he had been ditched. He retraced Ren's steps and found the younger man standing directly across from the closed locker room door, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pocket.
"Where on earth have you been? I've been waiting at the ... Ren? Ren? Did you ask them or not?"
The actor gave a start. "Them ... ? Oh, you mean Kotonami. She left a while ago."
"What about Mogami-san?"
"She's getting dressed."
"Oh ... Wait, what? How do you - ?"
The door across from them opened. A slender young man stepped out, dressed mostly in black, from his corduroy slacks to his high-collared jacket to the cap pulled low over his slicked-back, yellow-orange hair. Yashiro began to panic immediately, not noticing that Ren didn't show so much as an ounce of surprise at the stranger's sudden appearance. What is he doing in the girl's lock - !
The young man pulled the brim of his cap up to reveal Kyoko Mogami's eyes. A blinding flash of deja vu struck Yashiro in that moment, bringing back the last time she had greeted the two of them in male drag. He looked up at Ren, who looked back with a nod: He had been expecting this. "Just go with it," he said before turning his gaze back to the man ... girl in front of them.
It went without saying that this wiry urchin was a world away from the exuberant gentle Kuon Hizuri.
Her sleeves were pushed up to the elbow and her coat opened to reveal a white shirt; her breasts were quite obviously bound flat. Her stance was that of a gunslinger at ease: hands thrust deep into her pockets, feet planted wide and hips tilted forward. On her feet were a pair of heavily scuffed high-tops tied with tattered laces. A light stubble shadowed her jaw. Deep bags under her eyes bespoke of late nights and excess.
It struck them both that she looked, in short, like a thug. And if the implicit challenge in that humorless smirk on her face was any indication, she had more than a thug's look.
She looked Yashiro over briefly, noting his prescence, then shifted his ... her gaze to Ren.
"The man, the myth, the legend," she quipped. Her voice wasn't pitched especially low, but was rough and somehow breathy at the same time. She gave Ren one more quick onceover and then began to walk away, striding without so much as a backwards glance for the exit.
Abandoning his casual stance against the wall, Ren pealed off after her. "Where are you going?"
The vagabond looked back at him, all wary speculation. "What, you wanna fight here? This your place of business, ain't it? Ya didn't strike as the type to piss where ya live, mate."
"Fight?"
"Oi! You did say you were gonna beat the crap outta me, yes?"
Yashiro's jaw dropped, but Ren only chuckled. "Considering that you're sharing a body with my kohai, I'm going to have to retract that statement. There will be no fight."
The ragamuffin's brow arched. Then his - her! - face broke into a wide, fox-like grin. She laughed loud and long, the racuous sound echoing in the hallway.
A smoker's laugh, Yashiro realized, noting the wheezing rasp coming from the back of the throat. Too convincing!
"Can't say I don't like the sound o' that! Say, man," she address Yashiro with a jerk of her head towards Ren as the three of them began to make for the exit. "You ever see this kid fight?"
Ren blinked. Kid?
"Ah, n-no," his manager replied, still visibly dazed. "I haven't."
This answer sent her - him? - into a kind of whooping jeer. "Man, oh man, but that was something to see! You shoulda seen him take out that seaweed-headed motherfu -"
"It wasn't that impressive," Ren interjected loudly, remembering the incident Kyoichi - Kyoko? - was referring to and having no desire to rehash his time as Cain Heel, "but thanks. I guess."
"Bah! I've gone hand to hand enough to know your skill's nothin' to sneeze at. Save that bashful rot for the girls, Emperor!"
Emperor? Yashiro wondered at this peculiar title. That's not an English expression, like 'bloke'. Why would she - he call him that?
He looked at Ren to find his brow furrowed in clear inquiry. Guess I'm not the only one who's lost.
They made it to the parking lot. "Nice ride," Kyoichi remarked before getting into the back seat.
They proceeded to roam the streets. At least it seemed to the actor and his manager that they roamed. Kyo ... ichi seemed to have a destination in mind ("This next left"), though she ... he wouldn't say where exactly the three of them were going. ("You'll see when we get there, fer crissakes, just drive!")
Along the way, the two of them tentatively asked of his background. He gave bits and pieces of his life story, sketching a colorful sojourn between the U.K. (where he'd spent most of his youth), the States (where he had served time in jail for offenses not specified) and Japan, his birthplace and preferred dwelling above most others. He was coy to the point of cagey when asked how he made a living. His accent receded and returned like tides in the moon's sway, becoming thicker whenever something aroused his anger or interest and mellowing as he did until it was almost genteel. He was prone to reaching out from the back seat to fiddle with the radio during the course of the conversation.
This amused Yashiro to no end as Ren's face each time the limber androgyne stretched past him was priceless.
"Here." The hoodlum was out of the car almost before Ren had finished parking in the lot of a building he realized was a rundown izakaya.
Yashiro stood by the passenger side door, not moving so much as an inch in Kyoichi's direction. "Ren? You don't suppose this all an elaborate scheme to get you to eat, do you?"
The actor's eyes widened comically. "There's elaborate and then there's diabolical. I don't think she'd go quite this far ..."
"You don't sound so sure."
"I'm ... I'm not," the actor admitted with a kind of giddy misery that troubled his manager, "I'm really not. I'm never sure of anything where this girl's concerned. She'll be the death of me, I just know i -"
"You comin' or what?" their guest yelled from the doorway of the restaurant. "I ain't snitchin' on an empty stomach, you can make up your mind to that!"
The two men joined him and entered the restaurant. They commandeered a table in the back corner of the main dining room and continued to chat while waiting to be served.
A cheongasm-clad waitress came up to take their order, but then zeroed in on Kyoichi almost immediately. Her eyes widened, then narrowed to brown slits. Her hands settled on her hips. "You, again?"
"Miss me?" the ragamuffin greeted with a lift of his chin.
"Hardly," the lady retorted, "not after all that fuss you made last night."
"Worried about me, eh?" Kyoichi smirked, cocky but deliberately charming. "I had hoped you would be."
Ren's hackles rose at the suave tone in his kohai's voice. Sweet christ, is she ... flirting?
The woman's lips twitched into an involuntary grin, won over despite herself. "In your dreams, mongrel!"
"Where we first met, if I'm not mistaken," Kyoichi replied smoothly, that vulpine grin widening until it teetered on the brink of indecency.
The delinquent's golden eyes grew soft but devouring, roving over the waitress with an abandon that made Yashiro blush and Ren seize up internally, despite the fact that neither was the object of this lascivious attention. The waitress didn't fail to notice this appraisal, and despite her sardonic reproach, a very distinct sizzle passed between the two of them.
Yashiro looked over at Ren to find him looking right back at him, just as taken aback by this behavior as he was. They listened to the criminal and the waitress volley back and forth as though they weren't even there, trading come-ons and rebuffs with equally cryptic fervor until, blushing profusely, she remembered that she had a job to do and pulled her notebook and pen out from her apron pocket.
She took their orders: tea for Ren ("No, I ate earlier, thanks"), sake for Yashiro (Christ, I need a drink, this is too surreal) and a bowl of soba noodles for Kyoichi ("Neither of ya try askin' to share, I'm hungry as hell!").
"So this is where it happened?" Ren asked once the waitress had left them.
"Yep." He pointed to the ceiling. "Bar's upstairs. Wouldn't chance it if I were you, they've got nothing but swill on tap around here. Noodles are always good though."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Yashiro cut in, struggling to keep up. "You were drinking?"
"The fuck else do ya do in a pub? Heh. Apart from the obvious, eh, buddy? Huh? Huh?" he said with that toothy grin, nudging Ren in the arm with his - her! - elbow and jerking his head towards one of the passing waitresses. Ren nodded gamely (if a bit bemusedly), earning himself another wheezing cough of a laugh and a brotherly slap on the shoulder.
Yashiro gulped down some more of his sake. Too. Surreal.
The waitress returned to the table and set down a huge bowl belching steam into the air, pointedly ignoring the rapt attention Kyoichi paid her. Once she was gone, he picked up the bowl and proceeded to drink down the beef broth in thirsty gulps, exposing the noodles, eggs and herbs to the open air. He looked up, suddenly aware of the stares they were giving him, and pulled the bowl closer to his bound chest in a gesture that clearly said Get your own!
He held up the bandaged hand. "Suppose you'll be wantin' to know about this, then?"
"And that," Ren said, gesturing towards the bruise hidden under the tilted cap.
"Eh? Oh, no, Emperor, there's no story behind that little bump. Heh. Beyond the fact that being drunk and in the dark doesn't do much to fend off doorframes." He shook his head at his own folly and dug into his bowl.
Again with this Emperor nonsense? "Duly noted. Now start talking."
He shrugged. "Things started out well enough. Rae and I are pretty faded, having some laughs and catchin' up. Then this absolute gobshite down the way launches into a rant about queers. Feckin' queers, of all things! The joints crawlin' with women, and all he's got on his mind is queers! Methinks he was protesting too much, if ya catch my drift, but whatever. And - here's the kicker - you know what set him off? Do ya? This guy."
She pointed at Ren.
"Excuse me?"
Kyoichi waved off the oncoming protest that wasn't really oncoming at all and continued to explain: "Now keep in mind, the twat's pretty well tanked at this point, so he'd been latching onto whatever was comin' up on the telly over the bar, right? It was funny for a while. Then he started in on you when your interview came up and ... she didn't like it." A shadow passed over the young man's face as though were reliving something ghastly. He shuddered. "No, I'd say she didn't like that at all."
"She ... ? You mean ... Mogami-san?"
"That'd be the one," Kyoichi said archly. "Now, if I had to guess, it wasn't the queer thing that got her steamed up. She didn't seem to mind that so much. Matter fact, she did dwell on that fer a bit, tryna picture what it would even look like ... Must say, she's got quite an imagination for such an uptight bird."
Though he kept his expression relatively impassive, Ren's face grew noticeably red. "It must have been the alcohol."
Kyoichi looked skeptical as he dug through the drained noodles, plucking out pieces of boiled egg and popping them into his mouth one by one. "Suuuure ..."
"Go on. If it wasn't the speculations about my ... preferences, then what was it that upset her?"
The informant jabbed in the actor's direction with his chopsticks. "What he said next. That's what did it. For damn sure."
"Which was ... ?"
Kyoichi smiled without an ounce of amusement. "Heh. He had a few theories as to how you really got so big in showbiz ... She didn't like those. Not one bit. 'Specially the one about you ..." He paused, for the first time sparing a moment of deliberation. "How to put this delicately?"
And then, in a moment that would go down as probably the most shocking of the already unpredictable night, Kyoichi held a fist up to one cheek and stuck his tongue through the other, rolling it around in an unmistakeable gesture***.
"That's what did it." He nodded contemplatively, oblivious to the nearly identical looks of astonishment on the two men's faces. "I was too wasted to keep a leash on her, so next thing I know, she's screamin' somethin' about disrespect in his face and we've got a hold of the guy's collar - "
Yashiro's eyes seemed ready to bulge right out of his skull. "We ... ? You mean, you didn't ... She was the one who - ?" What am I saying? Nothing about this makes any sense!
"Can't say for sure. We started to get jumbled the more she drank. The lines between us got smudged a bit. She used my moves and a few of my words, alright. But, she swung on him of her accord, not mine. And, boy, was she ... pissed. Man, I seen me mum take out a john with the old cast-iron a time or two, but I never seen a bird that hot in many moons."
It didn't take long for the implications to sink in. Ren and Yashiro began to volley back and forth, panic rising immediately to the surface.
"If this gets out -"
"If she's recognized - "
" - could be assault charges - "
"It probably wasn't a good idea to come back he - "
"Oi!" Kyoichi broke back into the conversation, transparently annoyed by the interruption. "I said she swung on 'im, ya knobheads! I never said she hit the guy, now did I?"
"Well, didn't she?" Yashiro asked, pointing to the bandaging on Kyoichi's hand.
"Uh-uh. She coulda had him easy with that swing of hers, but she pulled the punch at the last second. Aimed for the glass in his hand." He rolled his eyes. "Crazy wench."
Setting aside his bowl, Kyoichi pulled the bandaging back just enough to expose his knuckles. They were scraped and raw, the scarring fresh and shallow.
"See? I came right back out when I felt the blood. Made her take her other hand off the prat's neck, then booked it with Rae right behind me. 'Sides, ours wasn't the only fight in here. So if they're throwin' us in the clink for that, they'd have to round up about four other - "
Ren stared at the numerous cuts on those pale knuckles. "She did that intentionally?"
"Uh-huh. Swerved and punched that glass to pieces in one shot."
"Why?"
The young man shrugged. "He spoke ill of you. As I said, she didn't like that."
"But ... why attack in the first place?" he wondered, more to himself than anyone else. "What could she hope to accomplish? She could have been seriously hurt if he had decided to fight back. Why put herself in that kind of danger?"
"Hell if I know, man. I can't figure my own mind when I'm bliltzed. Who can say what goes on in hers?"
You were there! Ren nearly shouted, ready to tear his own hair out at the insanity of it all. "How bad is the rest of it?" he asked instead, weary beyond belief.
Kyoichi sucked in the last of the noodles, lifting an eyebrow in question. "The rest of what?"
"Your - Her hand."
"What you on about? She caught the glass straight on. The rest of her ... our hand didn't touch the shards."
"Then why does the bandaging extend to the wrist?" Yashiro asked.
The hoodlum looked back down at his hand. "Huh. Good question. I ... didn't come back out for the rest of the night. Maybe she went and got herself into more trouble while I was ... asleep? Offline? Whatever the hell ya call it. Let's see now..."
After a few moments of futile tugging, the black-clad urchin swore impatiently. Then, in a gesture that was strangely familiar, he imperiously held out the bandaged hand to Ren. He looking for all the world like a despot demanding tribute despite his peasant garb. "Help me out, will ya? Now I'm curious!"
Why this sense of deja vu? Ren thought as he reached for the offered hand.
His fingertips had scarcely made contact when, lightning-quick, the hand slipped from his touch and wrenched itself behind the delinquent's back as though coveted jewels were clutched in that swathed palm. The bewilderment in those golden eyes left no doubt in their minds that he was no longer the entity controlling his limb. "The hell ... ?"
A look of understanding washed over the young man's features.
"Aah. Guess my time's up then. Cheers. Thanks for the f -"
The mantle of Kyoichi abruptly slid into oblivion, leaving Kyoko Mogami seated before them. The breath rasped through her nostrils like she had just run a marathon at a full gallop. The color drained from her face at the sight of her partially exposed hand, and she roughly yanked the bandaging back into place.
"You asked, and he answered. May we leave now?" She stood and practically bolted out the restaurant before he could scrape together enough wherewithal to register that she had asked him a question.
Answers that only lead to more questions, Ren thought, on his feet and in pursuit with revived determination. Questions this "Emperor" would like answered.
*Ah, yes. The rare "Flat What" (Thanks, TV Tropes!): When a question mark just doesn't convey the level of confusion being expressed.
**This might be veering off into fan-wank territory, but from what I've gathered from the manga, it seems like this (Kyoko giving the impression of seeing Ren as a benevolent but intimidating father figure as opposed to a romantic interest) is one of many roadblocks for the two of them and something that makes Ren especially uncomfortable. Probably not an observation worth devoting a footnote to, but just some food for thought. Chew it over in the reviews. Or not. Whatever's good.
*** Namely, one of fellatio, for those who either need it spelled out or just weren't 100% sure, given how shoddily I described the gesture in question.
Till next time, folks!