Three months have passed since Shin's first challenge.

Kyoko is sitting at the breakfast table expertly slicing an apple into six equal pieces. Shin sits across from her mesmerized. Kyoko is aware of his gaze but does not stop her slicing. She finishes, distributes the apple into two plates, and pushes a plate to Shin.

"Stop staring at me and eat your breakfast," Kyoko says digging into her plate of eggs sunny side up.

"Did you snap at Ren-san too, when he stared at you too much?" Shin asks.

Kyoko starts but immediately covers it up. In bits and pieces at first and then all in one go, Kyoko has explained her whole story about Ren to Shin. Now she wishes she hadn't. Shin has taken to teasing her about Ren every opportunity he can. If Kyoko had any doubts as to whether she still loved Ren, they are all gone. She had made her peace with Ren's leaving but she still loves him just as deeply as before. Even if Shin were not the world's genius at guessing people's inner emotions, her response to the mere mention of Ren's name these days should have made it abundantly clear to him that she loved him. But he keeps bringing him up every chance he gets to try and spur her into going after Ren. With experience, she has realized that the only way to respond to such attempts is to studiously ignore it.

They finish their breakfast in silence. Without a word, Shin gets up and starts cleaning up. Looking at Shin working, Kyoko thinks, 'I seem to be using this boy unabashedly. He cooks, cleans, and even helps me with my acting. I have not been taking responsibility for him at all. Come to think of it, a boy his age should be in school, shouldn't he?'

Kyoko is undoubtedly conservative in her opinion of the value of education. But she instinctively realizes that Shin may not want to go to school.

'A boy like Shin, going to school must not have been a pleasant experience for him.,' thinks Kyoko. Some tact was called for.

"Shin?" she says.

"What?"

"Do you have an aim in life? A goal or something"

He pauses in his cleaning. "For now, I just want to help you."

"That is why I am asking. You are helping me with my goal. I want to help you with any goals you have."

Shin hesitates, "Well. If you want to know. I mean, if you want to help. It's not like a goal or anything. But there is something I would like to show you."

Shin is acting very unlike himself. He is usually very decisive in his actions and words. But he seems to be in two minds as he walks away. Few days after Shin had started saying with Kyoko, she had placed a roll-away bed with a cupboard next to it in the living room for him to use. They had by now come to respect each other's spaces and Kyoko had never seen the inside of that cupboard. Shin now opens this cupboard and takes out a sheaf of papers. He hands them to Kyoko.

"It is something I have been working on for a long time. At first, it was just a hobby. I kept getting these images - I just wrote them down for fun." He is talking faster - almost like he is confessing his feelings. "Then it got to be an obsession. I had to write it down- I wanted to see what it would look like on paper with actual words. I wanted the story to come real, you know. I read some of the scripts that you had with you all those months ago and I wanted to write my story sort of like that. Since you are an actor - you must have seen hundreds of them."

Kyoko holds up her hand to stop him. "Let me read it," she says.

The "story" if one could call it that is sort of historic fiction - a young girl Ino runs away from home to escape an arranged marriage to join the army of the queen of her land. When she arrives, however, treaty negotiations are ongoing between the queen and the capital. One of the stipulations of the final treaty is that the queen's daughter, the princess has to be handed over as a political hostage to a general in the imperial army as proof of allegiance. Ino is made to switch with the princess instead and goes to live with the general. She plans to try and murder him the first night but is foiled in her attempt. She expects to be executed on the spot but instead, she is treated with kindness. She is taught to read and write and many other skills that even the princess of her land wouldn't be taught. She grows up in the general's house and falls in love with the general. Until one day she finds that the general has drawn up plans to invade her homeland anyway. Caught between patriotic feelings for her erstwhile home and her love and respect for the general- she decides on a drastic course of action.

Kyoko finishes reading and looks at Shin who is waiting nervously and expectantly.

"Shin. This is ... brilliant" Kyoko says. Shin breathes a sigh of relief.

"But also," Kyoko continues and Shin tenses up, "it has many many grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. While the story is mature and engaging, the writing is that of a child's. There are many words that people would use Kanji for that you do not seem to know."

"I never had time for reading and writing and learning Kanji," Shin says defensively. Kyoko is reminded of the young Kuon who had no use for Kanji. But she uses the opening to press her point.

"You told me you left school when you left the orphanage."

"School never taught me anything.," Shin says dismissively. "The important things in life I learned on my own."

"Except Kanji. Shin, no publisher will look twice at this brilliant work because it is not written as well as it deserves to be."

Shin looks sullen. He doesn't respond.

"Shin, you gave life a second chance because of me. How about you give the school a second chance too?"

Shin thinks it over and says, "On one condition."