AGENT WALLFLOWER

Kyoko has a journalist-friend? Everybody else is suspicious except of course, Kyoko. How do you protect a clueless actress with secrets from a possible enemy masquerading as a friend?

Disclaimer: I do not own Skipbeat!

CHAPTER 2

The actors were walking right in front of Monobu now and were almost at the building entrance when the short haired girl momentarily paused. She half turned to the crowd and gave a languid wave. The fans went wild.

At that moment, Monobu saw her Golden brown eyes and gasped.

"Agent Wallflower-san!" he blurted out.

Suddenly, her gaze latched on to his. He wasn't sure, but he thought he saw her brows momentarily quirk in a frown, then her eyes suddenly lit up in surprise, and then she broke into a totally gorgeous smile.

FLASH!

And then it was gone. One of the girls linked arms with the golden eyed girl and pulled her forward. And he wasn't even sure if it really happened.

Did she hear him? The fans were yelling and roiling with excitement twice as before. It seemed impossible to be heard above the yells of "I love you Natsu!" and "Natsu you're the best!". The handsome actor had moved right behind the girls, apparently herding them faster to the front and also providing a shield from any too enthusiastic fan while his manager faced the crowd and tried to pacify them. The fans surged forward just as the actors fortunately reached the entrance, and Monobu was pushed out to the back. He stood alone in a daze, clutching his camera.

"Could she be…" he started to think but then just shook his head. Someone like that beautiful and elegant creature couldn't have possibly come from his high school in Kyoto. With that, he turned around and started walking back to the office.

-o-o-o-o-

There. He had done his best. He had pulled some information from the internet about Box-R and the actors he saw earlier and made an article as best he could with just the time frame he was given. He looked at his watch which said 10:18 pm and realized how late and tired he was. He stretched and finally stood up to turn over his camera and his article to the entertainment editor.

"Here's my piece," Monobu said as he laid down his camera in front of Shio-san, the entertainment editor. "I don't know if I still have a job tomorrow, but I just want to say it was great knowing you", he added wryly.

Shio-san was a friendly, cheerful, matronly woman who was the first one to befriend him when he started working here. Her cheerful, matronly demeanor was completely at odds with the way she looked though, because she liked wearing baggy, dark clothes and had numerous piercings all over her face. At first, Monobu was intimidated, but It seemed like this motherly person had taken a liking to him, and had basically adopted him. They barely saw each other though, because Shio-san went to the office late in the afternoon and stayed well through the night.

"Don't be like that, Monobu-kun," she said. "You're being too melodramatic!"

Monobu gave her a sickly smile. "I must confess I just took some generic information online about Box-R since I don't know crap about that show – or the actors. I don't watch a lot of TV, you see. But hopefully you can use one of the photos I took earlier, providing they're not crap like my article."

Shio-san rolled her eyes at him. "Such a depressing young man… You should be more lively, ya know being young and all that. I'm sure the article you made will be fine… and Sato-san won't be firing you anytime soon of course, that man is just plain rude but he doesn't really mean it," she said. She picked up the camera and started scrolling through the digital photos.

"Well… I don't want to keep you from your work…" Monobu reluctantly said. He started to feel embarrassed as he watched Shio-san closely examining the pictures he took. He briefly wondered if they were any good at all – he hadn't bothered to look through them when he got back to the office.

Shio-san just distractedly nodded, her attention still on the camera. "Sure, sure… see ya tomorrow…" she muttered faintly while waving a hand.

Shio-san and her work. It's hard to get her attention when she's started on something. Monobu still wanted to chat with her since he supposed this was going to be the last time he would be able to, but looks like it's out of the question. He sighed.

"Bye Shio-san. Have a great evening," he said politely as he walked away.

Shio-san was quite happy with the quality of the photos Monobu had taken. She was pretty sure she could use a bunch of them. Suddenly, her eyes widened when she came to the last one.

"Monobu-kun, this is grea-!" she exclaimed excitedly, glancing up.

"Aw, he went home already?" she muttered in disappointment, but she quickly perked up again. "You're in for a surprise tomorrow, Monobu-kun. You underestimate yourself too much…" she mutteredly slyly.

-o-o-o-o-

That night, Monobu dreamed about his high school days.

One thing Monobu liked to do was observe people. So when his father told him they were going to live somewhere else, he was excited. Surely, there will be new people to see, more interesting place to explore, right? But when his family relocated to Kyoto, Monobu found the place boring. There was nothing exciting going on. His school was just like his old school, his classmates were like the ones he had before. There were the usual high school cliques, the usual token popular kids and the usual nerds and bullies. Nothing new to interest him.

But then something happened.

It all started when he came back to school after getting sick with the flu for three days. As he was getting ready to go home, Monobu wondered if anyone in his class would let him borrow the notes from the time he was absent. Highly unlikely. They will be holding their exams next week, anyone in his right mind would rather die than lend their precious notes to a classmate and risk a low grade.

Suddenly, a sheaf of papers was thrust to him. He glanced at it in surprise.

"I made a copy of my notes from the time you were absent, Monobu-kun. Here," a soft voice he realized he'd never ever heard said. It was from his quiet, meek-looking seatmate, Mogami Kyouko.

"Oh… Uh, Thanks! I was wondering who'd let me borrow their notes since it's so close to exam time," he was a little flustered since he didn't expect this from someone he'd never spoken to at all.

"Don't worry about it," she answered cheerfully. She briefly raised her golden eyes to meet his and smiled before turning back her attention to arranging her bag. After a moment, she was gone.

That was it. He was floored. He had just seen the most gorgeous smile in his entire life.

The next day, Monobu wondered if he had been hallucinating. After glancing at his non-descript seatmate, he decided that he must have been mistaken, just an aftereffect of his bout with the flu. He was mentally putting away his interest on Mogami Kyouko when a guy from another class strode to her side and handed her a stack of books.

"Your friend Shotarou forgot to take these when he left our classroom, could you give it back?" he brusquely said as he motioned to the other side of the classroom where a flock of girls were already crowding around a handsome guy. Mogami politely nodded and gave him a smile.

"Sure, I'll bring this to him for you," she said as she stood up and walked away with the books.

Monobu saw the guy freeze in place and stare at Mogami's back with a stunned look on his face. Did she just show him THAT smile? Does that mean Monobu wasn't hallucinating? The guy finally shook his head as if clearing his mind and then slowly walked away. He kept looking back at Mogami, though, as if he couldn't believe his eyes.

Monobu transferred his gaze back to the girl talking to the handsome guy with the fan girls. She looked utterly plain amidst the fluffed up hair and made-up faces of the other girls. How could such a gorgeous smile come from such a plain girl? Why haven't anyone noticed her before? Thinking back, Monobu could remember some other instances when a classmate or a teacher would suddenly look shocked while talking to this girl. Nobody ever said anything about it, though, and they acted as if nothing extraordinary had happened. Like it was too hard to believe.

A smile slowly spread on Monobu's face. He had found something exciting to look into.

Mogami didn't disappoint him. He found her so fascinating, his head hurt.

Once, Monobu once saw Mogami smile excitedly as she looked at her test paper and then school her face to a more sedate look as she went back to her seat. As she passed by Fuwa's desk, she congratulated him for getting high marks thus making their other classmates congratulate him as well. When he glanced at her desk, he saw 100 written on her previous test papers.

Another time, he discreetly watched as a group of Fuwa's most rabid fan girls rounded her up. The girls ranted and railed that she wasn't worthy to be Fuwa's childhood friend but she just meekly stood there nodding until the bullies lost steam. Then she suddenly flashed them a big smile and said she's so glad Fuwa had so many loyal fans like them and they should support him until he gets real famous. They left her in disgust.

Then there was that incident when he went back to the classroom to get some notebook he forgot and caught her compiling study materials alone. The teacher came by, saw the neatly done materials and asked her what she was doing when it was Fuwa's turn to do it. She answered that she was just helping and Fuwa had just gone off to the boy's room for a moment. That was a bald lie because Monobu had seen the popular guy strolling out of school with a group of other kids, but she looked so earnest that the teacher just nodded and accepted what she said.

She was like a chameleon trying to stay hidden. She always deflected attention from herself and towards Fuwa. What he wanted to know was why. He kept pondering about it but couldn't find an obvious answer. Maybe there's some dark reason she needs to keep? Is there some secret she was hiding? Was she protecting Fuwa from someone? Was he reading too much from all this? It was giving him a headache. Maybe he was letting his imagination get away from him, building up Mogami as if she was some kind of spy agent or something.

One Friday afternoon, Monobu was doing after-school research in the library for their English subject when he saw Mogami lurking by the bookshelves. She was trying to reach for a book on a shelf just out of reach from her petite self. When nobody seemed to be coming soon to assist her, Monobu reluctantly rose up from his seat.

"Is this the one you want?" he asked as he handed over the book she was apparently reaching for.

Mogami glanced up, startled. Monobu watched in bemusement as the non-descript girl persona dropped away as she gave him a gorgeous smile.

"Thank you, Monobu-kun. This is just the book I need," she answered.

"It's the combination of those big golden eyes and that easy smile that makes it gorgeous…" he thought abstractedly."How could she hide those in plain sight? It's amazing…"

"Agent Wallflower-san…" he murmured.

Mogami glanced up again in surprise, and then she started laughing uproariously. "A- Agent Wallflower-san? Why'd you call me that?" she sputtered out, clutching the book to her stomach as she laughed.

Monobu colored when he realized his faux-pas. He tried to think of some reasonable explanation but it seemed like Mogami didn't need an answer anymore. After laughing so hard, she wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes and started conversing with him as if it was most natural thing in the world.

She was easy to talk to. They discussed about their English research papers and made suggestions with how to improve each other's articles. He found that he quite enjoyed going over his paper with her because she was funny and had pretty quirky ideas.

Finally, she glanced at her watch and gasped.

"I didn't know it was this late already!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry but I have to go home now, Monobu-kun," she said regretfully.

Monobu shrugged. "It's okay, I'm sure I need to head home, too" he said.

She quickly gathered her things and crammed them in her bag. As she slung her bag over her shoulder, she paused and grinned at him.

"Agent Wallflower-san…" she chuckled and Monobu blushed again, but her grin was so contagious he found himself grinning, too.

"Happy weekend!" she said.

"Yeah, I'll see you next week, Mogami-san," he answered. She gave him a friendly wave as she left the library. With that, she was gone.

But Monobu never got to talk to her again the next week, or the weeks after that. Because the following Monday, he found out that Mogami Kyouko and Fuwa Shotarou had ran away to Tokyo together.