Title: Missing Beat

Chapter: Three

Wordcount: 2607

Fanfic warnnigs: possible language and maybe future adultery

Chapter warnings: some light swearing

Summary: Future fic. Kyoko/Ren, Kyoko/Sho, love triangle. Kyoko Hiziru is a twenty-three year old actress beginning the best time of her life and career. She seems to have it all...except that her marriage with Kuon Hiziru is falling apart. What will happen when Sho and Kyoko have to stay together in Kyoto to sort out their inheritance from the Fuwas?

Note: Last chapter, Kyoko confessed to Kanae about her marriage falling apart, and it ended with Sho calling the Hiziru's home

"—I just got the will from my lawyer and—" continued Sho in that voice Kyoko only heard when he was distraught.

She turned the cordless phone on. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING CALLING ME?" Her demons danced around her, sent into a tizzy even at the voice of the one who had awakened them.

"How annoying, screening your calls. Are you even a professional? What if it was your manager?" he asked, turning on a much more usual tone of voice.

"If it were someone important, they'd have my cell phone number. How did you even get this number?" she demanded, glaring as if Sho were right there. Her demons hissed in agreement at her question.

'Dang it, I should have just let it go to voicemail! Why did I even pick up the phone?'

She immediately regretted asking herself that question, even if it was just in her head. She reacted like she had all her life when Shoutaro sounded upset—run to comfort him. She buried that mental misstep under an avalanche of fury.

Shoutaro didn't even bother to answer that question, which meant he must have done something embarrassing. Like asking for it from someone in the industry. She wondered how many favors he owed now to get it, and her demons guffawed. Actually, she cackled too. Sho must have figured out what she was thinking, but instead of getting angry he just sighed.

"I didn't call to pick a fight with you," he stated. "This is actually important."

She bristled at the implication that her hatred of him wasn't important."You started it! And what would you have to say to me that is so important? If it's an apology, you can shove it up your ass. It's a bit late."

She expected his cocky demeanor to come back in full force, giving a loud snort into the phone and sarcastically saying "You wish."

That's not what happened. He sighed again, and Kyoko had that conditioned reaction to comfort him that caused her demons to shriek in pain and call her traitor. "Would you please just listen?" he asked, starting to sound frustrated and almost pained.

She frowned but nodded reluctantly, forgetting that she was on the phone. Shoutaro, knowing her as well as he did, understood her implied consent to listen.

"Mom died last night."

Kyoko gripped the phone tighter, stunned. "What happened?"

"They think it was a stroke."

She remembered the strong and confident woman who had treated her like a daughter. Shoutaro had inherited his impossible confidence and charisma from his mother. She and her husband had been older when they had Shoutaro, and they had been trying for a long time to have an heir. Shoutaro had been spoiled due to that, making him the brat he was. He had been the center of their lives until he had run away, at which point Kyoko assumed they had tried to forget him like she had.

The thought of Fuwa Akiko no longer running the ryokan, directing the attendants around like cogs in an efficient machine, rolled Kyoko under in a wave of pain and grief.

"Oh, Sho," she said, her voice choking up. "How is your father handling it?"

There was a pause, which was broken eventually by a subdued, "He died last May."

As quick as the grief came, so did anger. "And you didn't even bother to tell me!"

"I didn't know either!" he yelled back. "Their lawyer called me and told me the news today," he said. He laughed, but it would have sounded false even to someone who hadn't known him. "I guess it wasn't important enough to tell their disowned son or their nearly adopted daughter."

The silence probably spanned a good minute. Kyoko sat down on the floor, not trusting her legs, leaning against her trendily painted apartment. She could hear him breathing and fidgeting around, probably lying back on the couch as he always had when he made a phone call. She knew what he was thinking, and she knew he knew what she was thinking.

They had never prepared for this conversation, and neither had expected the level of comfort they got from just knowing the other was on the line dealing with it too.

"Did they leave you the inn? I can't imagine what you would do with it," she said finally, the most civil she had been to him since they were sixteen.

"That's what I called about."

"What do you mean?"

She could hear him get up, and there was the shuffling of papers. " 'We, Takashi and Akiko Fuwa, leave everything we have to be split between Fuwa Shoutaro and Mogami Kyoko.' That's what the will says, besides leaving compensation pay for the attendants and other issues."

"Between us? Why me too?" asked Kyoko barely in a whisper.

"You never did notice, did you? You loved my parents like they were your parents. Did you ever think that they might have felt the same way—that you were like a daughter to them?" Sho sounded exasperated, but Kyoko was reeling too much to notice.

Kyoko hadn't known how they'd felt, because if her own mother didn't love her then why would anyone else? "No," was all she could reply, moved to near speechlessness.

He didn't reply, but it might as well have been an answer to her. "What are we going to do?" she asked.

He groaned. "I have no idea. All I know is that I feel like I've been running nonstop for days, even though I only found out this morning. I'm thinking about catching the nine o'clock bullet train to Kyoto tonight and prepare for dealing with the legalities and funeral arrangements, but I might catch it tomorrow morning. However, I have no idea what to do about all the stuff at the inn. You were always the one who handled those sorts of things."

Kyoko glanced at the time on the phone—6:05 PM—and made a quick decision. If she hadn't been under the influence of grief and shock, she most certainly wouldn't have made it. However, at the moment it seemed like a reasonable idea. "Can you be ready to get onto the train by nine?"

"Yeah, I've already started packing. I'll be done way before then. Why?" Sho sounded suspicious, but she ignored it with the skill honed by a lifetime where she'd rationalized his bad qualities away.

"I'll meet you at the train station, then," she said, already standing up and heading into her room. She pulled out a suitcase and put it on the bed.

"What?" he asked loudly, stunned. It sounded like something fell over on his end—possibly him.

"It's mine too, right? I need to be there as well for the legal issues," said Kyoko, taking clothes out of the closet and laying them on the bed next to the suitcase. She would fold them neatly in there, as she always did. "Besides," she said, smirking, "I was always better at handling duties at the inn better than you."

"Like I care about that stupid inn," he said, sounding mostly like his normal self again. There was a momentary, and slightly awkward, pause. "See you in a few hours."

"Whatever. And make sure that someone picks us up from the station when we reach Kyoto. You and I are taking enough risks on the bullet train. We're too famous to safely take public transportation." She put more clothes on the bed. "Don't be late, and wear something normal! I'll be wearing a brown hat and a green shirt." She hung up, and put the cordless phone on the nightstand.

Kyoko could imagine the absolutely pissed off look he'd be wearing, staring at his phone and cursing that not-so-normal-anymore woman for hanging up on him so rudely. She genuinely laughed for the first time in days, and her demons (injured from the non-hateful conversation between her and Shoutaro) laughed quietly with her.

Kanae shouldn't have been surprised to come back after barely an hour and find the Hiziru's apartment in a state of chaos, but she was. There was a bag near the door with a few sets of shoes stacked neatly inside. It seemed like every electronic in the house was on, causing a storm of noise that could not drown out the pleading and sobbing of Kyoko's manager.

After setting the dinners on the table, she went to the back of the apartment to find Kyoko stubbornly packing clothes into Leonard Vuiter suitcases while her diminutive manager followed her around, crying. Kanae froze in shock. What the hell had happened since she'd left?

"Hiziru Kyoko-sama, surely you cannot mean to put all of your acting appearances on hold for the next week! This simply cannot be done without a reasonable excuse!"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?" demanded Kanae, looking at horror at the storm of clothes in the room. "Why are you packing? Are you leaving him?"

"Moko-san!" called Kyoko happily, completely ignoring her manager and her friend's outburst. She didn't even bother to try to catch her manager when she paled and swooned, as this was a very common occurrence for the older woman. "What do you mean leaving him?"

"Leaving…Hiziru Kuon-sama? Is this what this week off is about?" asked the manager, white as a sheet. That would be publicity from hell for everyone in their social circle, and no manager wanted to deal with those kinds of consequences.

Kyoko stopped in her tracks, looking absolutely horrified by the idea. "What? No! I've had a death in my family, and I need to take care of legal matters. I have to travel back to Kyoto."

"Wait! When did this happen?" asked a very confused Kanae. "Didn't I leave to pick up dinner an hour ago?"

However, Kyoko's poor manager looked significantly relieved and was jotting notes in her planner about the excuse for Kyoko's absence.

Suddenly, Kyoko seemed to remember her evening plans with her beloved Moko-san. Kyoko dropped the Hermines scarves in her hand, and rushed over to her before Kanae could react.

"MOKO-SAN, I AM SIMPLY NOT WORTHY. I RECEIVED THE PHONE CALL WHEN YOU WERE AWAY AND DID NOT INFORM YOOOOOOOU! IF YOU WISH FOR ME TO COMMITT RITUAL SUICIDE, I SHALL HAPPILY—"

"JUST TELL ME WHAT'S WRONG OVER DINNER!" yelled Kanae over her friend's wails, trying to pry the iron bands that were her friend's arms from around her waist. When her friend wiped away her overdramatic tears and obediently left the room to go to the kitchen, Kanae turned to Kyoko's manager.

"So what's been going on?" she asked, pinching the bridge of her nose in a last-ditch attempt to ward off a headache.

"Kyoko-sama called me twenty-one minutes ago telling me to cancel all of her appointments for the next week, but before I could get any details she hung up the phone. I arrived seventeen minutes after she hung up the phone, and since then tried to talk to Kyoko-sama who couldn't seem to give me a straight answer."

"I will try to get you more details, but I think a family death is a sufficient excuse for her to take some time off work," said Kanae, starting to feel like a fount of information for everyone surrounding Kyoko.

"Yes, but she is supposed to meet with Director Haruko in about three days for the new movie she will be starting—"

"Kyoko has never taken off work, not even with illnesses dangerous enough to send her to the hospital. I am sure you can convey the gravity of such a situation must be for her to take off," said Kanae, annoyed. It was true-her stupid friend took her husband very literally on not missing work for anything.

"Of course, I am just concerned what this will do to Kyoko-sama's reputation..." said the overly anxious and flustered old woman.

Kanae sighed, and assured her of Kyoko's dedication (how could anyone miss it?) before kicking the annoying person out of the apartment. Stepping over the laid-out shoes, she found Kyoko preparing more tea in the kitchen.

Kanae suddenly felt really awkward. She was not a person known for her empathy skills, and while she cared for her best friend and her concerns starting a conversation about her problems was more foreign than learning a dead language. She awkwardly took the dinners out of the bag and set the table.

"So, there has been a death?" asked Kanae, deciding the blunt route might work.

"Hai," said Kyoko quietly, staring off into space as the tea steeped. "I've been left half of the ryokan, it seems"

"Wait, what does your family have to do you with ryokans?" asked Kanae, having implied from Kyoko's minimal discussions from her past that she wasn't wealthy in any manner.

"Eh?" asked Kyoko, seeming to return from wherever her thoughts were. "Oh no, Sho's parents are the ones that passed away. He called a little while after you left." She poured the tea into two cups. "Sho and I are catching the nine o'clock bullet train to Kyoto. They left everything between Sho and I in their will." Her spaced-out expression contorted into looking as if she were going into an appointment to have an amputation without anesthesia rather than meeting someone for a trip.

Kanae had always known that the bond between Fuwa and Kyoko was intense, brought about by years of close proximity and an unhealthy attachment to the other over their childhoods. But it was different hearing her friend tell this story in a karaoke box versus seeing her friend's distant expression at the Fuwa parent's deaths and realizing that the Fuwas had left half of their wealth to Kyoko.

The fact that Fuwa Sho could make one phone call and having them catch a bullet train a few hours later despite their intense rivalry spoke of a friendship beyond friendship. It was as if they were a rubber band stretched apart, and as soon as you let it go they sprung back together.

Kanae had never realized that she should envy Fuwa Sho for being the best friend she was supposed to be. But now she did.

"Do you want me to go with you? I doubt you could stand to sit through the entire train ride with just him and not try to murder him by the end," said Kanae, more out of jealousy than anything.

"Oh no! I wouldn't want to inconvenience you like that! It will be fine." Her expression turned into a glare. "That bastard Shoutaro will be with his lawyers, and I'll be getting mine. I'll barely see him, if I'm lucky. We're getting this out of the way so we don't have to see each other more than necessary." She started grumbling, a familiar dark aura surrounding her friend. This, more than anything, relieved Kanae enough to not pressure her.

"Well, I'll be a phone call away if you need anything," said Kanae, deciding to tell her manager that any calls from Kyoko were to be considered emergencies of the upmost importance and should be given to her immediately.

"Moko-san, I really have the best friend in the world in you," said Kyoko, her sad smile giving way to Kyoko's beautiful smile of gratitude. Kanae flipped her hair over her shoulder, feigning annoyance but feeling as if her insides were made of warm, melted butter.

"Mo, it isn't a big deal. Now we should eat before you pack. You'll need all your strength to deal with that epic idiot."

AN: Thank you so much for reading! I have replanned this story and I think I'm going to get it out much sooner than I have been. I may go back and edit the earlier chapters at some point, but I'll let you guys know if I do that.

Also, would anyone be interested in doing some beta reading for my chapters/story? I have it planned out and I want to get it out, but I'd love a second opinion and second eye to catch things I miss or that are confusing. You should probably not mind Kyoko and Sho, as this story is mostly about them (though will they get together? I'll never tell~)