I present the next chapter. Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

Note: I do not own Skip Beat!

Catherine had found a comfortable seat on one of the benches in the smaller hallway leading from the stages to the lobby. It was along the path that Kyoko would have to take to get out and it was just off the main walkway, but it was the only one that had cushions on it. She was really appreciating the cushion on the bruise hip as she listened to the MP3s she had gotten offline. She had been interested in what type of person Fuwa Sho was and had downloaded all of his songs to study. She had taken off the confining sling and was sitting with her eyes closed humming along with the tune. She had already gone through them all twice and was just starting into the song that was going to be used for the upcoming PV when she felt a shadow fall across her. She opened her eyes to find a very mad teen with spiky blond hair towering over her.

"Can I help you?" Catherine asked calmly as pulled out her ear buds and gave her full attention to the man blocking her view. Sho quivered at the audacity of the foreign woman as he recognized his unreleased single coming from her MP3 player. He was just leaving one of the music talk shows when he thought he heard her hum a snippet of the chorus line, but now he was sure. And she did not even have the decency to be embarrassed about the pirated music!

"Where did you get that song?" The young man practically yelled at her. Catherine shut her player off and stared up at him with calm eyes.

"That is none of your concern." She answered. Something about this boy tickled at the back of her mind, but she just could not place him.

"What the HELL do you mean it's none of my concern! IT'S MY SONG! Where did you get it?" Pissed that another one of his songs had been stolen, he grabbed the woman up by the front of the coat and jerked her to her feet and shook her. "Tell me!" In his furry he missed the painful hiss she issued. Now that she knew who this irate man was, she understood his anger. Had her wrist and shoulder not been injured, she would have beaten the jerk down a notch. Instead, she pulled out another trick.

"Haruki Asami gave it to me so that I could prepare for the filming of your PV, Fuwa-san." Catherine cried as she let big crocodile tears run down her cheeks. The tears were not totally faked due to the pain shooting from her injured joint. Shocked by her response Sho released her and Catherine dropped to the floor. He knew that Haruki Asami had asked Kyoko to be in his next PV, much to his chagrin, so who was this woman crying on the floor? She was saved from comforting the unknown woman by a cry from down the hall.

"Catherine!" Sho turned to the male voice to see Yashiro and Ren running down the hallway. They had witnessed her being snatch up and then dropped by the singer, but had been too far away to do anything. Yashiro fell to the sobbing woman as Ren grabbed up the singer by the front of his jacket.

"What are you doing attacking an injured woman?" Ren shook the singer in his hands. Shock filled Sho's face as the actor's words sunk in. He looked down to find Yashiro had pulled the girl's coat off and was making her put her arm back in the sling he had missed hanging from her neck. Part of the bruise on her shoulder could just be seen peeking out the neckline of her dress. Once the restraint was in place, Yashiro gathered the injured woman up gently and tried to sooth her.

Kyoko had finished her work quickly and was running to catch up with the actors. She did not want to make her friends wait in the lobby for her. She turned the corner into the hallway and came up short at the sight before her. Her respected senpai had that baka singer by the collar shaking the life out of him as he lectured him. Sho was attempting to mutter an apology to the angry man while Yashiro held Catherine where she sat on the floor.

"You do not do those kind of things to women, injured or not." Ren shook the singer to punctuate every word of the lesson. Kyoko closed on them listening to what her senpai was saying as she tried to figure out what happened. Sho's eyes widened as he caught the auburn hair of the confused actress as she drew near. Ren noticed his change and looked over to see what had caused the fright in Sho's face. He dropped the singer and stepped away from him as he watched the anger grow in Kyoko as she slowly understood what was going on.

"What did you do to my manager Shoutaro?" The soft voice that Kyoko spoke in was worse than if she had screamed at her. Sho's mind froze. He had seen her violently mad at him, but that was nothing compared to the smoldering furry that filled her now. Kyoko could take anything he threw at her, but she would not stand for him abusing her friends. The teen singer was saved from his childhood friend's anger when Catherine spoke up from the floor. She knew this could get out of control very fast.

"We had a misunderstanding." Catherine had pulled away from her protector to defuse the situation. Eyes now dry from her outburst, Catherine attempted to rise from the floor. Yashiro got up and lifted her to her feet. "Thank you." She spoke softly to her helper before turning her attention back to the trouble at hand. "He was upset to discover I had a copy of his unreleased song, and when I would not tell him how I got it, he got… physical." Sho quickly agreed with the woman.

"See, if she had just explained herself from the start, this could have been avoided." Both Ren and Yashiro bristled at the accusation that Catherine had done wrong. The look Kyoko shot at the singer would have killed him if possible. Catherine just smiled at him warmly.

"If you had properly introduced yourself, I would have realized who you were before I made the error." Kyoko dug at the singer just a little. Her hip hurt from where he had dropped her to the floor and she was starting to tire of playing nice. Sho open his mouth to retort, but could not find anything to argue with that statement. He was starting to feel bad that he had manhandled the injured woman.

"I am sorry that I hurt you." Sho finally stepped up and did what was right, even if it was mumbled and the bow was more of a head nod. Realizing this was the best she was going to get, Catherine bowed slightly to the singer.

"I apologize for being rude." She cringed as the movement caused her hip to hurt. Kyoko and Yashiro both raised hands to the woman as pain-filled sounds escaped from her. She let them set her back on the bench while Sho watched on with regret in his eyes.

"How did she get hurt?" He inquired.

"She was hit by a car saving Mogami-san from the road." Ren explained to the singer. Sho could hear the emotion in his voice. He was angry about this.

"Why was she in the road?" Several different scenarios ran through Sho's head, all involving Kyoko's absent mindedness or her stupidity.

"She was pushed." The heat in Ren's words scorched across the singer's skin. Sho's eyes widened as he turned to look at his childhood friend, almost turned road kill.

"Who would do such a thing?" Sho exclaimed, shocked showed clearly in his' voice. This time it was Kyoko that rounded on the singer.

"If you would get control of your fan's then maybe things like this wouldn't happen!" Kyoko yelled at him. "It was bad enough that she got hit in the head with a brick because of you and those stupid rumors!" Sho physically took a step back as Kyoko's grudges swarmed him. What was she talking about, what brick? He was saved from more abuse when Shouko walked down the hall. She had been waiting in the lobby for the singer, and when he did not show up, she came to see what had happened to him.

"What brick?" Shouko asked the question that passed through Sho's head.

"Saunders-san was the unlucky recipient of a brick to the head when the last set of rumors when public." Yashiro explained to the singer's manager. He indicated the woman seated on the bench next to him.

"She only got hit because she was trying to get me out of the way." Kyoko cried. She still felt bad about the whole incident. Catherine unconsciously raised her hand to the scar on her temple as she remembered the incident. Sho stared at her with an open mouth; no one had informed him about an attack on Kyoko.

"Ok, let's start again, what is going on here?" Shouko took in the anger and concern coming from the group.

"This idiot was assaulting my manager." Kyoko pointed an accusing finger at the singer as her grudges bounced off of him. Sho slammed his mouth shut and started to defend himself when Shouko turned on him.

"What did you do?" She could see the headlines if this got out 'Singer Attacks Injured Woman'. Before he could say anything, Shouko had the singer by the head and forced him into a deep bow. Joining her charge she addressed the woman that she assumed he has the conflict with. "Please accept our deepest apology for this incident. I will personally make sure that this does not happen again."

"Please." Catherine was shocked by the woman's actions. "We have already had words." Catherine stood to greet the woman. "I am Catherine Saunders, Kyoko's new manager." Shouko rose and greeted the woman back introducing herself and her charge. After Catherine relayed the entire incident to the group, Shouko nodded her understanding.

"That explains things." Shouko went on, "Please forgive my brainless charge. He recently had an experience with some plagiarism and has become very protective over his work." Sho huffed at her words, but refused to comment on it.

"I trust you will speak with him about this type of action in public." Catherine warned. "It is lucky that no one saw the exchange, or it could have been very bad for Fuwa-san's image." Sho blushed at the woman's words. He couldn't help but like the fact that she was more worried about his reputation then the fact that he had hurt her.

"Believe me, I will." Shouko glared at the rockstar. Sho crossed his arms and pouted. He knew he was wrong, but he felt he was justified in his anger at the time. She had not even let him defend himself. Shouko bowed and apologized again before leading her sulking charge away. Catherine sat back now on the bench with a pain-filled grunt. The rough handling had caused her to hurt again. Her three companions looked on with saddened eyes as she tried to deal with the pain.

"Yashiro-san, there is a pill bottle in the pocket of my coat. Could you get it for me?" Yashiro riffled through the pockets till he came up with the orange bottle and pulled out a pill. Kyoko turned to go get the girl something to wash it down with. Ren started to follow her until Catherine's voice stopped him.

"Ren." The soft use of his given name pulled his attention back to the injured woman. Yashiro glanced between Catherine and Ren. Seeing that she wanted to talk to the tall actor, he decided to give them some privacy and chased after Kyoko. Catherine watched the man loping after Kyoko before returning her attention to the tall actor. Ren knelt down so that they were on eye level. "Thank you for defending me." Catherine's mind turned to a time in Ren's life when the abusive singer would not have gotten away with just a little shaking and harsh words. "You really have change for the better. Rick would be proud." Stunned by the mention of his dead friend, Ren covered the wrist empty of his shackle. He closed his eyes as a gentle smile crept across his face while he thought of the reason the keepsake was not there. Kuon looked back at the girl sitting on the bench.

"It's all because of her, and you are right. He would be proud." Any further discussion was prevented as the young woman in question came pounding up with a can of juice for her manager. Ren slipped his mask back on and backed away from the pair as Kyoko made sure that Catherine took her pills. Yashiro's keen eyes had caught the change in his charge as they approached, but he did not know what it meant. He studied Ren as he watched his beloved kohai fuss over her manager with an endearing look on his face. He decided to store it in the file with Ren's other oddities and turned his attention to the conversation between women.

"… sure that jerk did not hurt you?" Kyoko fussed as she tried to inspect Catherine for visible signs of damage. "I can't believe he would shake an injured woman like that."

"To be honest, he probably did not realize I was injured. I had taken the sling off and put my coat on over it." Catherine admitted as Kyoko glared at her. "The strap was starting to hurt my neck." Catherine tried to defend her decision. Kyoko gave the sheepish woman an exasperated sigh.

"You should not have taken it off." Ren smiled slightly as Kyoko chastised her manager, he had been on the receiving end of that tone too many times not to sympathize with the injured woman.

"Excuse me ladies, I think it is time that we get out of here." Ren interrupted the irritated woman, saving Catherine from Kyoko's lecture on proper health management. Kyoko snapped up to remember there were other people present.

"I am so sorry for keeping you Tsuruga-san!" Kyoko bowed a quick apology to her senpai before starting to help Catherine to her feet. She was relieved of the burden when Yashiro stepped up and placed a hand on her shoulder. Seeing the bespectacled man's protectiveness over the injured woman, Kyoko retreated and let him help as much as Catherine would let him. Too tired to argue with him, Catherine let Yashiro pull her up and drape her coat over the shoulders before he place his hand gently on her lower back to guild through the lobby.

Kyoko and Ren stood close together and watched the touching scene between their managers. It was obvious from the tender way he cared for the woman, Yashiro really liked Catherine. Ren was also pretty sure that she liked him, for she did not pull away when he invaded her personal space. It was either that, or she was just too tired to put up a fight. Ren sighed as he resisted the urge to put his arm around the girl next to him and pull her against him. He closed his eyes and let his mind dwelled on the thought as he imagined what she would fell like pressed to his side. When he opened them back up, he found the girl he had been daydreaming about had left his side and was taking the same path of their friends. The actor steeled himself and followed the actress as he tried to pull his fallen mask back into place. He was starting to have a hard time resisting his urges when it came to that girl. The only thing keeping him from moving ahead was his fear of scaring her off completely.

Authors note: I find writing for Sho hard, mainly because he ticks me off and I REALLY want to just slap him around. I hope I did him justice.