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Disclaimer: I do not own Skip-Beat!
Chapter 19: Crisis ~Who Is the Worst Devil?~
Aki Shoko had repeatedly considered resigning from her position as Fuwa Sho's manager. She often could not stand his more-than-cocky attitude and selfishness, and she had applauded herself for persevering numerous times.
However, this time she was seriously considering resigning – or at least, applying for her long annual leave, which she had not had ever since she had been first assigned to the singer.
Sho's mood had not improved much ever since they had watched the official declaration of Kyoko and Ren's romantic relationship - it actually worsened by time. And he was still angry at Shoko after he had found out that Shoko had come to Kyoko's Grateful Party and seen the young new couple being intimate - which he had realized from the manager's lack of surprise when the footage of Ren and Kyoko dancing close to each other, and Shoko later had reprimanded herself for not pretending in front of him.
Of course, because the bottle-blonde singer could not meet Kyoko – the real source of his anger – face to face, the manager was the one who got to deal with it.
Sometimes Shoko was more than tempted to lodge a job offer to LME's Love Me Department and asked specifically for Kyoko to be Sho's temporary manager, just so that she could have a break from Sho's impossible temper. But then, looking at the circumstances, she doubted that the offer would get an okay from Lory Takarada.
So here she was, walking nervously following Sho out of Akatoki Agency's office, while he was still in his 'Super Saiyan' mode.
"Sho," she sighed. "You have a live show at TBM after this, okay? The Japonet Scope."
He stopped at his track and turned around slowly. "HUH?" he snarled.
Shoko was completely frozen with tears brimming on her eyes.
Sho turned around and resume his walk out of the office, even while his manager was still frozen stiff at her place. He was absolutely pissed off. It was true that he had had his hunches after he had seen Kyoko and that pea-brained actor close to each other, but to think that they had been dating days before the PV shooting…
In his head, there were a mini-Kyoko and a mini-Ren – chibi-devil versions – smirking, laughing at him for being so stupid, and being overly lovey-dovey just to spite him. He even could swear that he heard the mini-Kyoko saying, "Ren, of course you're FAR better than Shotaro! He's only a lowly singer after all! I love you!"
"AAAAARGHHHH!" he growled loudly again, making people around him look at him like scaredy-cats.
How he wished to yank Kyoko from Ren's side and drill the fact that she belonged to him all this time into that non-active brain of hers… Anyway, did she even have a brain? Of course she did not – because if she had had a brain, she would not have agreed to have anything to do with the pinhead actor.
He stepped out onto the road, fuming, and he saw her. The 'Super Saiyan' mode he had donned quickly turned off, and blood drained from his face.
The dark-haired woman before him smirked evilly and spoke teasingly. "Long time no see, Sho-kun. You've been a really bad boy, huh?"
Now he wished he could run away somewhere for his life.
"So, what's going to happen tomorrow?" Marina pondered.
All of them – including Kyoko and Ren – were lounging at Kisaki's attorney office. At the moment, however, Kyoko's attention was on to Kisaki's cat, Goro, who had taken instant liking to the girl and been enticing her to play with him. And of course, Ren's attention was always on Kyoko.
The lawyer sighed. "In all honesty, I don't know. We've been lucky today that the witnesses called were the ones closely related to you, Marina-chan, but tomorrow? I'm sure he's going to call people from Kyoko-san's childhood, which scope is just too broad. It can be her grandparents, her teachers, her neighbors–"
"There's one living in Tokyo, though," Kento cut off her rambling. "If only I could remember his first name…"
"Who are you speaking of, if I may know?" Marina asked.
"You see, Saena's mother was divorced and then remarried. I remember Saena mentioning a Takegawa once, but I just can't remember his given name."
Kisaki frowned. "Then rack your brain, Kento-san; this might be the thing we need."
"You're sounding really harsh, Eri-chan," Seijuro said. "He can't help it, can he? It's been years."
"But this might be crucial in the case," Kisaki countered. "We need every detail we can get that can show Mogami-san neglecting Kyoko-san."
"Maybe you can contact her landlords in Kyoto?" Kuu spoke up.
All heads turned towards him and his wife, the lawyer nodding. "That'll do. What's their name?"
"Fuwa couple from Fuwa Ryokan. I reckon Kyoko had been living there permanently since 8."
"That's an obvious neglect," Julie fumed. "Who in her right mind will abandon her child in such age?"
"Certainly not her," Kuu grumbled. "I still can remember Kyoko's face when she was acting as my son. She had this horrored look whenever there was any situation where I might give her a punishment. My heart still aches at that, you know."
Kisaki nodded again. "We might as well start now. I so hate it when I'm not prepared for my court."
Sho gulped audibly, not daring to have eye contact with the woman sitting in front of him. Not far from them, Shoko was lounging alone at a table, staring nervously at the two.
The dark-haired woman, however, looked oblivious to Sho's and Shoko's discomfort, as she busied herself with her cup of coffee. After taking a sip, she looked at Sho with narrowed eyes. "What's with the silence, Sho-kun? Have your parents never thought you to at least give someone older than you a proper greeting?"
The bottle-blond teen flinched. "It's been long, Aunt Saena," he croaked forcibly. "I never expected to see you in Tokyo."
"Then where did you expect to see me?" she chided sarcastically, further discomforting Sho. "Now, I won't beat around the bush. Do you or do you not know that Kyoko is in the show business?"
His eyes widened – along with his manager's. He snapped his head up to look at Saena's face. Having spent all of his childhood with Kyoko, his protective instinct – although he had to admit that it was pretty small – kicked in. "Why are we suddenly talking about Kyoko?"
"So you know," Saena confirmed with a smirk. "Tell me, Sho-kun, how come she is in the show business? No, scratch that, how come she's in Tokyo in the first place?"
He was rendered speechless. Even if Saena was a mother who had abandoned her child at her neighbor's place, there was no way for him to tell her that he was the one who had brought said child to Tokyo so that he didn't have to do housework, right?
Apparently, his silence did not sit well with Saena, so she decided to continue the conversation herself. "Let me guess; you were the one who brought her here, weren't you?"
Is she a psychic? Sho grumbled inwardly.
"But then, she's working for LME, yet you're in Akatoki Agency. How come you're not together? As far as I can remember, she was completely smitten with you as a child."
"Err… We had… Differences," he tried to explain – albeit Shoko could see that he was doing a pretty lame job.
"Differences," Saena repeated, sipping her coffee in ignorance. "Such as?"
"Well, we have some issues to work on–"
"If you had differences and no longer could live together, why didn't you send her back to Kyoto?" the older woman asked, her eyes menacing. "Why did she suddenly become an actress?"
Sho gulped again. "She wanted to have revenge on me."
Saena was taken aback, before laughing in amusement. "Come on! That's the worst joke I've ever heard!"
"I mean it," he said sternly. "I thought at first that she would go back to Kyoto bawling her eyes out the first chance she got; I didn't expect her to take my challenge and made it in the showbiz as a rather acknowledged actress! I even planned to use her weakness to send her back to Kyoto and work in the ryokan for good, but–"
"So you were the one who made her join the show business, huh?" she summarized with her eyes closed.
When she flicked her eyes open at him again, Sho swore he could sense her wanting to kill him.
"Sho-kun, you are a really bad boy, aren't you? To bring Kyoko to the outside world like this, that's so bad of you."
"Am I speaking to Fuwa-san?" Kisaki asked over the phone. She then broke out into a polite business smile. "Good afternoon! Sorry to disturb you, my name is Kisaki. I am an attorney at law, and I am calling to enquire about a Mogami Kyoko."
"Kyoko-chan?" the female voice on the phone repeated with a surprise. "Is she alright? Is she having problem with the police?"
The lawyer cocked an eyebrow at Marina, who was sitting on the couch next to Seijuro and listening to the phone conversation – which was put on speaker, as if saying, 'Is she for real?'. The ghostwriter could only shrug her shoulders.
"No, not that sort of problem with the police," Kisaki assured the woman. "First, may I know who I am speaking to?"
"I'm Shinozawa Rikako. I apologize, Miss, but both the Taisho and Okami are not in Kyoto until next week, as they have some business in Tokyo."
That's interesting, the bespectacled woman thought.
"So is Kyoko-chan okay? Both she and Shotaro-bocchama are not getting into serious trouble, right?" the woman asked in panic.
Shotaro-bocchama? Kisaki huffed silently – while Marina and Seijuro, the only ones in the room who knew Sho's real name, snickered in amusement. "Both of them are fine, so please rest assured. But judging from your panic when I mentioned Kyoko-san having connection with someone related to law, can I assume that you had a close relation with Kyoko-san?"
"Of course!" the woman said. "I've known her since she was still a small child, Miss! A sweet, poor girl she was; to be left alone by her only family when she was that young!"
This perked Kisaki's interest. She turned to Marina and Seijuro to give them a smirk, which was returned in pleasure. "Can you elaborate more on that?"
Kyoko completely had no idea how her day turned to worse just by going to the grocery store with Kuon.
The couple had decided to have dinner with everyone, and because the adults – excluding Kuon, of course, since he did not want to consider himself old – were busy with preparing for tomorrow's hearing, Kyoko and Kuon had chosen to go ahead and shop for food first – so that when everyone came back from Kisaki's office, they could start eating straight away.
After some little lover's quarrel that had included Kyoko demanding to go to the cheap supermarket – "We can't waste money!" – and Kuon insisting to keep her safe whatever the total cost of the ingredients going to be, they had settled on doing groceries at the supermarket in their apartments' building – Kyoko of course screamed inwardly in horror once her eyes looked at the price of the vegetables.
It also had taken some persuasion from Kuon – which of course would not let her pay any single penny – for Kyoko to agree to buy everything she needed to cook, because he had noticed her mulling over whether she should buy things or not.
Apparently the said persuasion consisted of the fact that they were going to dine with Hizuri 'Black Hole for a Stomach' Kuu, and Kuon promising that he would eat double his usual portion. He had cringed inwardly when he had told her the latter.
Groceries done, Kyoko chose to wait outside with the bags while Kuon went with the supermarket manager to fetch a trolley, when she looked up and see a silver-haired and violet-eyed demon in front of her.
"Look who we have here," Reino said with a devilish grin. "What a nice occurrence to meet the Little Riding Hood."
Kyoko quickly dove one hand into her purse to grab her Corn stone while she left the plastic bags and strode towards the supermarket's entrance. "Why are you here, Beagle?"
"What? Can't I go to do my groceries?"
"You're an inhabitant of the deepest part of Hell that came to Earth; of course you don't need food, because you devour human's pure and beautiful souls!"
She never ceases to amaze me with her hyperactive and hilarious imagination, Reino thought in a barely concealed amusement. "You're being cruel, Kyoko," he said, starting to walk towards her casually. "And you mentioned something interesting; I devour human souls, you say? So you want me to devour yours?"
She could feel her entire being shudder in fear and disgust. Her eyes flicked in panic towards the interior of the supermarket. Kuon, where are you? Hurry up and come here!
As if the gods were answering her prayer, the tall actor walked out of the shop with a trolley in tow. He smiled at Kyoko before noticing the silver-haired singer. A scowl instantly formed on his face. "What do you want, Stalker?" he growled.
Reino flinched slightly, but decided to man up – while taking a half step back, which was unnoticed by both actors. "I just wanted to buy my dinner. Miroku's out with a woman who knows who, so I'm left to take care of it by myself."
"Can't you go somewhere not here?"
"Why should I when I live in this building?" the violet-eyed man replied with a little shrug. He smirked. "What, the demon feeling protective over the lost lamb? That's unusual."
Kyoko's and Kuon's eyes widened. He lived here?!
"Who cares about being unusual?" Kuon snarled at the singer. "I swear, you creep, if you dare move even one finger on Kyoko–"
"Kyoko-san? Tsuruga?"
The couple snapped their head at the direction of the familiar voice, and easily found Kento, Kuu, and Julie strolling towards them.
"You done with shopping?" Kuu asked them. "We didn't have anything to do at Kisaki's office, so we decided to go back and help you with–"
"AHHH!" Kento's exclamation of surprise cut the Hollywood actor short. The artist pointed at the silver-haired man. "You're that lecher!"
Crap, it's the father that punched me the other day, Reino scowled inwardly. Now the demon has doubled in number.
"Lecher?" Julie repeated in confusion, demanding Kento for an explanation with her eyes.
"The worst one at that," the Uehara replied. "Not only he insinuated that I was gay, he even had the ball to confess that he had defiled my daughter–"
The Hizuri couple quickly saw red. It only took seconds for Kuu to grab Reino on his collar and slammed him against the wall in rage. "HOW DARE YOU SULLY MY DAUGHTER!"
"What?" Reino choked in confusion. "Kyoko has two fathers?" Scratch that; the demon has tripled in number.
"Not your business, you scum," Julie spat beside her husband, her anger evident in her sweet honeyed voice and a fake smile. "Now, Kuu darling, what shall we do to him?"
Kento jumped in to the conversation. "If I can make a suggestion, let's beat him half to death."
"I like that idea," Kuu hummed. "After that we can give him to Natsuko or Diego; they'll love it for sure."
"Natsuko? Diego?"
"Boss' pet anaconda and falcon," the Hizuri patriarch answered. "May be Yogi the bear and Xiao Mei the panda would love to have a piece of meat – no, wait, Xiao Mei is vegetarian. Rajah the tiger, then."
He seriously memorized all of Boss' pets' names? Kuon stared at his father in both awe and disbelief. I can't even remember more than 5!
Reino paled at the ideas. They're seriously going to hurt me?! Although the idea of being dead eaten is not that scary–
"I don't care who they are anymore!" Julie groaned, snapping Reino from his thoughts. "But before you guys beat him to death, can I castrate him first?" She cracked her knuckles ready.
The singer's face became paler. Please not that! That's the worst pain ever known! How come I'm now surrounded by devils?! Compared to these three, Tsuruga Ren looks almost like an innocent human being!
Kuu suddenly cursed under his breath. "No, we can't; not after we just attended the court for violence charges. That won't be funny at all; especially after you, Julie dear, just testified to the court that you sent some punches at the damn woman."
"You're right," Kento sighed in dissatisfaction. "I certainly don't want to lose the custody and be thrown to jail."
"My sentiment exactly," Kuu said. He then gaped at the artist – his grip on Reino's neck loosened in results. "I thought you don't really care whether you get the custody or not."
"I do; I'm just still looking for alternatives with Saena."
Julie's jaws dropped. "You're seriously thinking to share the custody?"
"I apologize first to butt in," Kuon said suddenly with a frown, while Kyoko looked at Reino scampering away, "But I think your prey is escaping."
"Let him be," his father mumbled before shouting at the silver-haired man, "YOU DARE BEING IN 30 MILES RADIUS FROM KYOKO, AND I SWEAR I'M GOING TO BEAT YOUR ASS AND FEED YOU TO… To… CAESAR THE LION!"
Kuon rolled his eyes. "The President doesn't have a lion."
"Yet," Kuu added. "I'll ask him to get one if this prick so dares to have anything to do with Kyoko again."
"DON'T FORGET THE CASTRATION!" Julie shouted towards the humiliated singer.
At that moment, Reino seriously did not know who the worst devil among them was.
"This is a problem," Kisaki huffed. "Why didn't Kyoko-san tell us that the Fuwas have guardianship over her, appointed by Mogami Saena?"
"May be she just didn't know," Seijuro said. "Do you think you can find any loophole, Eri-chan?"
"It'll be difficult. Unless we can prove that the guardianship isn't legal, we can't win the custody over Kyoko-san. Suing them with working an underage person won't work either, because they have the guardianship and used the money earned to pay her tuition and living expenses, and according to Shinozawa-san, Kyoko-san was more than happy to work at the ryokan."
Marina frowned. "That is what I find bizarre. Normally, the guardian will be the one to provide the child if they are able, and looking at Sho's resume when he first auditioned, Fuwa ryokan looked prosperous. Why then did they have to make Kyoko-san work if they did not need her to do so?"
"They can always say that she was just helping out."
"I am not yet finished," Marina continued. "The guardian does not have to provide for the child if the parents are able to do so, even if they are not able to be present in the child's life. That is what usually happens, if I am not mistaken."
It was like a light bulb just turned on inside Kisaki's mind. "Marina, you're a genius."
"Glad that I can help," the younger Akatoki said in a casual tone.
"Seriously, Marina, you should stop writing stories for children storybooks for once and write a crime novel instead. It'll be a success."
"That, I refuse to do. Where is the excitement of free imagination when I have to stick to the logic all the time?"
Seijuro snickered. He knew that the lawyer could not fathom with his sister's imagination – which always involved unearthly beings and things that were basically not logical.
"Anyway," Kisaki dismissed the topic about Marina's genres. "I think I can make this work now."
A/N: Reino, seriously, Tsuruga Ren is indeed a human being (*roll eyes).
He's not supposed to appear here, but I was so tempted to write something about him after his confrontation with Kento in Chapter 4. And he looks kind of OOC, but what do you guys think?
Additional Disclaimer:
-I do not own Yogi the bear. It's solely copyrighted to Hanna-Barbera Productions.
-I do not own Xiao Mei the panda either; Arakawa Hiromu does. And please note that I'm only borrowing the name - Lory's panda (if he does own one) is a normal-sized adult panda.
-I do not own Rajah the tiger as well - Disney does.
-And I forgot to mention this in the previous chapters: Sho's appearance in this state is only my imagination. You get the picture. 'Super Saiyan' - which is owned by Toriyama Akira - is the whole perfect description for it.
A lot of people may think that you're considered an adult in Japan if you're 18 years of age. NO! The majority consent age in Japan is 20 (and now I have to live with that fact).
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