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 7

Kyouko chattered happily in between bites while Sho merely picked on his food. Here he was agonizing about his fight with his father about his plans to debut as a singer in Tokyo, and she was just nattering about her stupid English paper as if nothing was wrong!? His plans were more important than anything! He set down his chopsticks.

"...Now see here!" Sho cut in Kyouko's monologue.

"… good thing Monobu-san was there to explain about that part…" Kyouko was saying before she stopped.

Sho's thoughts were momentarily derailed. "What?" he blankly asked.

"What what?" Kyouko asked back.

"What was that you said earlier…?" he clarified irritably. "The part about Makoto-san…"

"Monobu-san," Kyouko corrected him. "Monobu Kenta. Monobu-san helped me with my English paper. He's my seatmate in class, remember him?" she asked.

'A guy?', Sho thought to himself. He was surprised by how annoyed he felt upon hearing a strange guy's name coming from Kyouko. She had never been interested with other people. It was always him, him, him. He got more and more annoyed as Kyouko chattered more about her seatmate 'Monobu-san'. Was he the reason why she was late coming home today?! Why does she keep repeating his name?!

"Are you alright, Sho?" Kyouko asked with concern.

His frustration about his fight with his father and his uneasy feelings about Kyouko swirled inside him. Suddenly, he had an absolute urge to act on his half-baked plans.

He abruptly brought his fist on the table with a bang. "I want you to come with me to Tokyo, Kyouko. We're leaving tomorrow," Sho said in a demanding tone.

o-0-o-0-o

Sho woke up with a jolt.

His manager stood over him with a mug of coffee in her hand and a startled look on her face. "I was just going to wake you," she said, albeit uselessly.

Sho merely mumbled and got out of bed, heading for the bathroom.

"Even though he's all disheveled and mussed up from just getting out of bed, he's still so adorable," Shoko fondly thought. "...when he's not in a bad mood." she added as an afterthought.

Sho can hear Shoko listing out his schedule for the day as he showered. Automatically, his mind half-tuned her out since he knew Shoko would handle everything impeccably like always anyway. He just had to show up, smile, do his thing and everybody would be putty in his hands.

"Yeah, because I'm Fuwa Sho and I'm the best!" he thought smugly.

"Yeah, you're the best, Sho!" a familiar voice echoed back from his memory. He hurriedly squashed it.

" Stupid! Stop thinking about useless things!" he muttered to himself. "And stop thinking about that dream already!" he added. Something about his dream kept bothering him, like he was forgetting something important. Kyouko's smiling face in the newspaper suddenly popped up in his mind.

'No! Think of something else!' he berated himself. He focused his attention on Shoko's voice .

"... and then in the afternoon, we have to go back to Akatoki because you have an interview for a magazine article. Oh, that reminds me... did I tell you about what happened the other night?" Sho heard Shoko say.

"A reporter called… he said he was a classmate of yours in high school, would you believe that?! What was his name again… Moto… no, Monobu something… Oh, Monobu Kenta! He sounded odd, like he was panicking. He wanted to get your cell number, but of course I didn't tell him. And he was fishing if you knew where Kyoko was. Sheesh! The lengths reporters would go through to get a scoop!" she said with disdain.

Shoko was just wondering why the sound of running water had abruptly stopped when Sho burst out from the bathroom and started pulling on some clothes quickly.

"H-hey, s-something wrong?" Shoko asked hesitantly. The reason for her reluctance was because of the furious, burning aura coming from the musician. He pulled on his hood over his barely dried hair and grabbed his shades.

"I've got to keep him away from that idiot!" he said darkly.

"Who?" she asked blankly, then corrected herself. "Keep who from who?" she asked again.

Shoko was so mystified by Sho's suddenly extreme mood swing that she barely got to react before Sho furiously stomped out of the door.

"But what about your schedule for today?!" she called out helplessly. "SHO!"

o-0-o-0-o

Ren wondered why he suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. He was currently in the middle of a shoot in a perfectly sunny beach in Thailand so it was quite out of place to feel cold all of a sudden. Not surprisingly, his mind wandered to Kyoko, which he had been more prone to do of late. He immediately dismissed it. Kyoko was perfectly safe in Japan, and there was no use thinking about it when he was out here working in Thailand. Besides, he'll be seeing her again after 4 days anyway.

"Perfect! That was good, Tsuruga-san!," the director called out to him. "You can take a break while we set up for the next scene. Everyone else get ready, we're on a schedule here!"

He gave a little wave and walked out of the set, silently thanking Kami that his face didn't show that he lost his focus for a moment. Maybe the suddenly enormous increase of work was getting to him.

It's been three days since the President finally approved to let him work as Cain Heel and drafted Kyoko to be Setsuka, Cain's younger sister. After a lot of useless protests (from his part) and ironing out the details (between Yashiro & President Takarada), it has been a whirlwind of work and tapings. The President and Yashiro had prepared a monstrously condensed schedule that he was supposed to finish in 1 week. This was to cover for the 2 months he would be shooting the movie 'Tragic Marker' as Cain Heel.

"'Tsuruga Ren' cannot suddenly fall out of the limelight while you are shooting as 'Cain Heel', so you need to do some tapings that we're going to piece out throughout the two months you're shooting that movie," President Takarada explained. "Unlike you, Mogami-san's schedule will not be disrupted as much since she's not as well known as you yet and she's not directly connected to the movie anyway. We will just create some excuse so she can leave and do her other jobs."

Kyoko merely nodded weakly as she tried to process what was happening. There was no doubt that she had been taken by surprise when the President suddenly told her she was going to be acting as Cain's sister. That, and also maybe she was frozen in embarrassment because of the outfit she was made to wear during the meeting.

Speaking of Kyoko's outfit, Ren's mind drifted back to when she first walked back into the meeting room transformed as her new character.

Yashiro's jaw dropped when he got a good look at her, and Ren was pretty sure that was a pretty good depiction of how surprised he felt with her transformation. Long blond hair with pink highlights framed her face. Her lips were painted devilish red, making them look lush and tempting. Her eyes had been made up to look all smoky, highlighting her now gray eyes.

She was dressed in a figure-hugging corset and short black leather skirt. The silver chain that swung against her hip when she walked certainly drew attention, as well as the lip ring and all the silver jewelry she wore to accentuate her outfit. Black leather boots that snuggly hugged up to her thighs finished the ensemble. The complete effect was a Female bombshell version of Cain Heel, oozing sexiness and danger.

"May I present to you Setsuka Heel, Cain's younger sister," President Takarada smugly said.

"Senpai, have you eaten anything already?"

Yashiro's voice, pitched high to mimic a certain girl's voice interrupted his reverie. He held Kyoko's newspaper cutout to hide his face, before Ren promptly plucked it out of his hand. Yashiro looked surprised when the piece of paper suddenly disappeared from his grasp, but he merely shrugged his shoulders.

"Yashiro..." Ren growled. His manager had been teasing him like this for the past three days already whenever they got a break from work. Hopefully, his obnoxious antics will stop without the picture.

"What?" Yashiro feigned innocence, but spoiled it when he giggled girlishly. Honestly, how could a grown man giggle like that?

"Seriously, I just wanted to inform you that the President just called to ask how you were faring. I told him that we're on schedule with everything, not surprisingly, since it's you we're talking about," Yashiro suddenly turned on his Manager-mode. "He was pleased of course, and then he said that the preparations on his end are going smoothly as well. If everything goes as planned, Cain Heel can make his appearance with no problems at all by the end of this week," he said the last part confidentially.

"That's great. Thank you for the hard work!" Ren answered.

"Yeah, I know how excited you are to get back to Japan!" Yashiro's smirk was back. "You're going to work with your cute kouhai after all! Now, aren't you lucky!?"

Yashiro quickly backed away when he felt the menacing aura from the younger man. "I'll stop now, I'll stop now!" he hastily said, although he was unable to wipe the smirk from his face. Teasing Ren was really fun!

Ren relaxed, thinking that Yashiro had dropped the subject at last. He accepted a bottle of mineral water his manager offered and took a sip. Yashiro quietly backed away out of striking distance.

"It's going to be sad and lonely for me when we get back though," he said wistfully. "I'll be stuck doing all the paperwork and covering up for you for two whole months!"

"It's not like I'll be missing-in-action altogether, you know. I'll still be making appearances as Ren Tsuruga during that time," Ren nonchalantly said.

"No, no, no..." Yashiro shook his head sagely. "The sad part is I won't be able to see you turn to mush while working with Kyoko-chan." he cheekily said as a big grin almost split his face in two.

"Admit it, you turned to mush inside when you first saw her transformed as Setsuka, right!? RIGHT?!" Yashiro was even excitedly pointing at him in accusation.

"GYAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

The production crew was treated to a rare sight when Tsuruga Ren's dressing room door suddenly burst open and his manager stumbled out, as if he had been pushed out of the door. Upon seeing the dozen faces staring at him, Yashiro colored.

"Uh... cockroach! There's a flying cockroach in the room! " he stammered out, then mentally face-palmed himself. He could feel his reputation shriveling as the crowd started tittering in response to his excuse. "This must be my divine punishment for making fun of Ren," he told himself miserably. "I'm never gonna live this down, I think!"

o-0-o-0-o

"Hold out your hand," Maria ordered imperiously.

Monobu was taking a break from hauling a bunch of boxes full of props, so he obligingly did what he was asked. Then Maria droppped a big, hairy spider on his palm.

"AAAAARGHHHH!"

Next thing he knew, Monobu was lying on the ground watching the spider scuttle to hide in one of the boxes.

"Onee-sama! Wallflower-san is a sissy!" the little girl called out in a sing-song voice as she ran away. He heard Mogami laugh in reply.

"There is a reason for all this! There is a reason for all this!," Monobu chanted to himself.

It's simple. Three days ago, Mogami introduced him to her friends Kotonomi-san and Amamiya-san, who had a connection with Kyoko. He figured that if he stuck with Mogami and became friends with the two girls, they might take pity on him and introduce him to Kyoko at last.

But as usual, things weren't going as planned. Whenever Kotonomi-san the Ice Queen saw him with Mogami, she would stare daggers at him and haul her away, berating her for letting him hang out with her. Amamiya-san was worse. Whenever she saw him, she would call security to throw him out of the premises altogether.

So his only recourse was to hang out with Mogami and hope that he'll get his big break in time. After all, Kyoko was from LME. She's bound to come to the company eventually. At that time, he'll ambush interview her for sure.

But he wasn't sure if he could hold out until then. For three days now, he'd had to put up with hauling boxes, delivering costumes, cleaning dressing rooms, and other miscellaneous grunt work while being bullied by a pint-sized little girl.

"I can't believe you do all the stuff you do in a daily basis," Monobu muttered as he pulled out a bunny head from a box.

"Sorry for making you help," Kyouko said sheepishly. "To be honest, my usual workload isn't like this. I just volunteered to do all these extra stuff. Right now, I'm actually supposed to be researching for an assignment the president gave me."

Monobu looked at her incredulously. So they were actually doing unnecessary stuff for these past three days?! He was very tempted to chuck the bunny head and walk out right now.

"...it's just that I don't know how to go about my research, so I can't keep still. The senpai who always helps me is out of the country so I don't know what to do," she said quietly as she pulled out a tutu from the box she was rummaging in.

So that's what it was. Monobu could very well relate with the helpless feeling she had. That was the very same feeling he was having right now about his job. Now he felt bad for feeling irritated towards Mogami.

"You'll have to confront your problem sooner or later. You don't need to rely on your senpai, maybe I can help with your research," he said gruffly. If he helped her, at least one of them would be having progress with their problems. He was rewarded with a blinding smile which made him forget what they were doing for a moment, but the smile didn't last long and she shook her head.

"Thanks! But it's supposed to be a... secret... so I can't ask for your help," she said reluctantly. She pulled a dummy scythe from the box and absentmindedly played with it.

Monobu shrugged. "Well, there must be something you can do on your own. You don't need to rely on your senpai all the time," he said. "If you every need help with research, I'm good with that sort of thing. I'd be happy to help anytime."

Now Mogami was looking at him with watery puppy-dog eyes full of gratitude that was making him feel uncomfortable. He started pulling out costumes from the box again. Suddenly, Mogami started vibrating violently. She hastily pulled out her phone from her pocket and checked the screen.

Monobu was surprised when her face darkened with a scowl and she angrily snapped the phone shut. "Idiot!" he thought he heard her muttering before she looked at him with a smile, all traces of the scowl wiped out from her face.

"That reminds me... Chiori-san forgot to bring her costume with her. Do you mind if I leave here earlier so I can bring her costume to the set?" she asked pleasantly.

"No, it's okay, I guess..." he said, momentarily confused by her lightning-fast mood changes.

"Great! I leave the job to you," she gave him a dazzling smile before turning to Maria who had been playing around the room with her dolls. "I'm leaving for work now, Maria. Be good to Wallflower-san, okay?" she called out to the small girl.

"I'll take care of him!" Maria said as she jumped up and gave Mogami a hug before throwing a perfectly evil smirk at him.

"On second thought, you should bring the kid with you!" Monobu called out hastily. His eyes were drawn to the still closed boxes around him. "Drat, did I just promise to look for that gorilla costume through these stuff all by myself?!" he asked himself. He could feel his irritation level rising up again.

After toiling for what seemed like hours, Monobu finally found the gorilla suit under a mountain of boxes. He was dusting it off triumphantly when he heard a disturbance from outside.

"I finally found what we're looking for, no thanks to you!" he called out accusingly, expecting to see Mogami at the door of the store room. Instead, there was a handsome man with a gaggle of women following him. The man walked in the store room as if he owned the place and looked around. His gaze fixed on Monobu.

"Is Mogami Kyouko in here?" he asked.

"No, she's not," Monobu reluctantly answered.

"Fine, then." The man scowled at him before turning away. He left as abruptly as he arrived, taking the fawning crowd of women with him.

"Wait... wasn't that Fuwa Sho?!" Monobu asked himself in shock.

Hello! Thanks again for all the feedback and encouragement! I really appreciate it! Keep it coming please! I really love what you're thinking about the story.

K left a comment that Monobu and Kyouko should have met in middle school instead of high school. Correct me if I'm wrong please, I was thinking that since Kyouko's 17 (if I recall correctly), she must be in high school already. I was writing with the premise that Kyouko & Sho had only 1 year left of high school to finish before they went to Tokyo. If I got my facts wrong, I apologize hehehe!