DISCLAIMER: SKIP BEAT! and its associated characters are the work of Yoshiki Nakamura. This author claims no ownership of Skip Beat or any of its characters. All other rights reserved.

Author's Notes at bottom of the page.

Chapter VII: Madness Most Discreet

A Scene in Three Parts

Heart, we will forget him!

You and I, to-night!

You may forget the warmth he gave,

I will forget the light.

Part II: Kyoko

"Oyasumi," she heard herself say, and watched him walk away. She couldn't move. All this time, she'd spent so much time sublimating her heartbreak-and her rage-into usefulness since her return from Tokyo. She'd been good. She'd been a pure Japanese maiden, a true yamato nadeshiko, and she was proud of the quiet and sober life she'd led. In giving up love, she thought she'd bought herself a future free of heartache. She'd tried to replace that yearning by turning her efforts in perfecting the art of hospitality management and the traditional arts which accompanied the running of a traditional inn in Kyoto. Tokyo had taught her that she wasn't fit for love, because love was for the beautiful...and she wasn't beautiful. She couldn't even pretend to be beautiful, given the cost of cosmetics...and certainly nothing could be done about how flat her chest was. There wasn't anything there to tempt a man, and no man had ever been tempted. She never expected guests to look at her twice, and, as far as she knew, none ever did. No, she was staid, plain, dependable Kyoko, who, at best, could be called "inoffensive." That Kyoko would never do scandalous things, or have scandalous thoughts. And until today, that had been true.

It had all gone sideways somehow. The last twenty-four hours had well and truly blown up what had been a year of tranquil somnolence. Just that morning, she'd woken up for the sunrise as she always did, on the cusp of a day that would be just like the day before. Was she really that girl? Had she really found her fairy prince? And then held his hand as he confessed to being a movie star? Everything had changed, though for all intents and purposes, all she'd done was take a guest to see the matsuri that Kyoto was so famous for. Somehow as the evening had gone on, she'd forgotten that she was a separate entity, that her hand wasn't supposed to be in his as a matter of course. "He" had given way to "we," and by the end of the evening, she found that she was looking forward to what the two of them would do together, rather than what he would want to do as her guest. The coup had been quiet but devastating, a conquest so insidious she had succumbed halfway before she'd even noticed she was under attack. By that time, he had her on his lap, the feel of his hands were burned onto her skin, and she was drunk on the bliss of it. Each touch had built on the previous one, a symphony that started quietly and then crested in the middle of the final movement, drowning her alarms in a bombast of strings and brass and percussion at full throttle as the fireworks overhead on that river bank echoed the fireworks in her chest. He'd marked her as his without so much as asking her leave to do so. And then, when they'd arrived home, he'd shocked her and then brought her to the point of immolation when his thumb traced her lips. He brought all of her awareness to where their bodies touched...and then, infuriatingly, he stopped, bowed, and walked away. Stopped just as she was about to fall off the cliff and into a chasm. She watched his receding form and devoured the line of his back, the length of stride, the shine of the light on his hair. There was a magnetic pull to him that thrilled and frightened her at the same time.

She had thought she loved Sho, but even Sho at his most affectionate had never affected her like this. The one and only time he'd made her heart race was when she'd thrown takeout at him. She had never wondered what it would feel like to be pressed against Sho, have his hands roam over her body, have her hands roam over his. She'd done his laundry for years and yet his scent had never affected her to the point of distraction. She had seen Sho kiss other girls and been stung by it, but had never once pictured herself kissing him in their stead. No, her love for Sho had been rendered in pastel pictures of castles and rainbows and princess dresses, tempered by the drudgery of daily life and the small joys of seeing him take a childish glee in small things like pudding snacks. She'd had images of a dainty white wedding and then the vague idea of "wedded bliss" that would follow.

But in one night, the blonde walking away had utterly eviscerated every thought she'd ever had about "love" being sweet or innocent. No, if this was something, it was madness. It was all-consuming-a wildfire, a monsoon, an earthquake. The man was a walking natural disaster. It made what she had felt for Sho seem like a pallid dream. The discovery was terrifying. Every second with Kuon had been charged with unknown energy. Even hand-holding, which she'd always imagined to be a sweet gesture between couples, had been an electrifying experience. She closed her eyes as she remembered how his large hands dwarfed her own, his long fingers threading themselves between her own in a gesture that was entirely innocent and yet felt somehow lascivious. She found that she was aware of her body in a way that she'd never been before, aware of all the places that he'd touched, aware of all the places she wanted him to touch. Parts of her body she'd never given a second thought to were alive and aching for him. She wanted to keep touching him, discovering for herself the planes of the hard flesh she'd felt under his yukata, tasting the salt on his skin. She wanted to bury her face into the crook of his neck and drown in his scent, to run her fingers through his golden hair. She wanted to know what it would be like to be entirely surrounded by him, pinned, joined, and then devoured as they closed all the distance between their two bodies. In short, she wanted him to finish what he'd started, but then...not. How was she even able to have these thoughts? It was the first time in her life she had ever felt such things, and she found herself blushing madly. And yet...he had walked away. Had he just reached for her at that moment, she would have willingly kissed him for hours and been happily lost, even if she had no idea what kissing was like...or what things happened afterwards.

Kyoko, she thought, get a hold of yourself. The images of Kuon kept coming, morphing now into his teasing smile and then again to his pouting face and then again to the look he'd given her just after he'd placed the kanzashi in her hair. A look that made her want to melt.

What is *wrong* with you!? she chided herself, as she tried to move the legs which had turned to jelly just moments ago. Enough. Enough enough enough. Why was she having these thoughts? Was she some wanton woman who just needed a pretty face to lose all semblance of control? Where was her 'virtue' now?

Lust, the thought came. The name for this is lust. She shivered lightly against everything the word implied. Lustful people came to the ryokan often, and she'd had her fill of waiting on them and then the inevitable mess that would be in the room that followed when they were done. There were powerful men that came with their mistresses, rich women who came with their illicit partners. One saw and heard things when one ran an inn. An okami-san had to be discreet, and Kyoko had been discreet. Even at school, she would have had to be deaf not to overhear the popular girls gossip and titillate their friends about weekend escapades with their boyfriends. Innocent as she was regarding the mechanics of lust and the acts which accompanied it, she knew how to recognize its trappings. Having never experienced it herself, she thought she was immune. She'd been proud of it, even. How devastating, then, to find out otherwise in the space of one evening.

She sighed and willed herself to move, if only to get herself out of the hall and divest herself of the goldfish they'd brought back. He'd caught these fish so proudly for her, and her breath caught again as she remembered how playfully he'd clutched his paper scoop at the stall. He had a smile so radiant it transformed his entire face, so infectious that it lit her up from the inside, too. Her unsteady knees gained some semblance of stability and she marched herself off to the storeroom, grateful that the groundskeeping staff kept an isolation tank ready for new entries into the koi pond. This late at night, she had no desire to set up a new tank for the fish.

Just because you have these feelings doesn't mean you can act on them, Kyoko, she thought, as she gently transferred the goldfish from their bag and into the tanks. They swam free of her hand, fins featherlike on her palm. She took a deep breath and sighed away the tension that had formed from the crown of her head to the pit of her stomach.

In a daze, she moved to her room. A shower would have to suffice for the night; it was far too late for a bath. Usually, there was a rhythm to her evenings, just as there was a rhythm to her mornings. She would serve the evening guests their meals, then help the staff clean the kitchen for the evening and ready the shared rooms for the next morning. She'd spend the time after that going over books with Yayoi-san, and then she would do whatever homework she had, take her bath, and then go to bed looking forward to seeing dawn over the riverbank. The same thing, day after day, that's what she had made her peace with. A small, contented life with little in the way of drama...or choice. She undid her obi, undoing the cho-musubi with practiced ease, and then untied the ribbons holding the yukata closed.

But as she undid her hair for her shower, her hand grasped the thing he'd placed on her hair. The kanzashi. She'd been so distracted by his eyes and his hands she hadn't registered what it even looked like. She pulled it out of her hair and instantly recognized it as the one she'd been admiring at the store. The one that she'd looked at because it was exquisite and then quickly put down because it cost far too much for the likes of her. How had he bought it without her noticing? How had he even noticed that she'd looked at it? It glowed in her hand, double-pronged and made out of solid silver, like museum pieces she had seen from the Meiji era. The metal had been cast into the shape of a lotus in bloom, with a single pearl in the center. It was far, far too expensive to be a casual gift. Not the kind of thing one put in a friend's hair, or picked up on a whim. The sight of it made her heart twist.

She thought, No, it would be simpler if it were just lust. Lust was easy. Lust was an animal emotion, something small and easily sated. Holding the kanzashi, though, she had to admit it was more.

Do yourself a favor, Kyoko, she told herself, and don't lie to yourself about this. Because the truth was that she was in danger. The truth was she wanted to forget everything-school, the ryokan, her obligations to the Fuwas, and run headlong into her fairy prince's arms. Everything they'd done that evening threw her life before into sharp contrast, showing her that her day-to-day tediousness was, in its true form, lonely. She'd loved talking to him, even if he was too flirtatious for his own good. She loved how his smile quirked up sideways when he was teasing her. No one had ever done anything for the sole purpose of trying to make her smile before. No one had bought her a gift for no particular reason before. No one had ever tried to hold her hand. And when he'd ordered her the hamburger steaks without hesitation, he'd caused a small burst of warmth that fed a part of her she hadn't known was hungry. Her six-year-old heart had been comforted by his friendship, and their brief interaction years ago had been enough to keep her afloat in her darkest hours. Her heart at seventeen was no less needful of that warmth. It was a pity friendship didn't seem enough to her, given everything that had happened tonight. No, she wanted more time with him. Time to laugh with him, sit with him, walk hand-in-hand with him down narrow and crowded streets. She wanted to hear him come home and tell her "Tadaima!" as she made dinner, welcoming him with her "Okaeri!"

She mused on the evening as she finished her shower, the thoughts crawling over her head like ants. Kuon had felt like someone she'd known all her life, and, in a manner of speaking, she had known him. But the intervening years had been entirely silent between them-so how could two people separated by so much time and circumstance really claim to know each other? I don't even know him, she thought, as she set out her futon and climbed into it, I don't know him at all. All I know is what Sho used to know, that he was voted "Japan's #1 Sexiest Man, that he's got a reputation as a professional who's always on time. That he was mean to me, but people call him a 'co-star' killer." That thought gave her some pause. What did they mean, a 'co-star' killer? She was tossing and turning and then bolted upright.

The curiosity and restlessness led her to the back office where she and Yayoi kept records and did the daily administration for the ryokan. She didn't have a laptop or computer herself, and had never really needed a phone. But she logged in and loaded up a search engine, typing "Hizuri Kuon" in the search field.

Not much came up. Just a few breathless articles showing Kuu and Julienna Hizuri proudly holding their baby boy, many of them in American magazines such as Us Weekly and People. Articles with names like "Baby Hizuri arrives! Exclusive interview with Julienna and Kuu!" There were one or two websites where she found a brief mention of him noting that he had won this-or-that karate or judo tournament, but there were no pictures, just a brief blurb. She supposed he could have starred in a few commercials as a kid, but couldn't find any where he was credited. Without Kuon's friend's name, she couldn't search for him, either. "Hizuri Kuon" as a search term was a dead end.

She sighed as she typed in "Tsuruga Ren."

Millions of results. A wiki page detailing his career, complete with an extensive filmography that corresponded with the five years he'd been active in Japan. She clicked on the "Images" tab and was inundated by thousands of pictures of Ren...pages and pages of dark-haired, dark-eyed Ren, intense and brooding. Not her golden-haired, green-eyed Kuon, though their faces were the same. She noted, quietly, that what she thought of as "Kuon's heavenly smile" seemed to be missing from the search results, but then...weren't fashion shoots supposed to be serious? A model had to fit the 'look,' after all, and perhaps Ren was known best for looking...handsome and a little cold. The aloofness was extremely attractive-it gave him an air of unattainability. It fit the 'gorgeous' image his clothes projected.

There was no doubt that the camera loved his face. Even candid shots by paparazzi were uniformly gorgeous. There were pictures of him doing all sorts of things-getting out of a pool, water dripping indecently down his body and off of his hair. Candid shots of him in a silver Porsche. Pictures of him with his shirt half-unbuttoned, looking sultry over a glass of whisky in his hand. Pictures of him in his various roles-the oversized, vaguely mid-century look of his Katsuki costume, the plain brown suit he wore as a detective in Forest of Spirals. All-in-all, he seemed to spend a lot of time in suits for the roles he played, though there were a fair amount of him in kimono and hakama during the occasional period drama. He looked particularly dashing with a bow and arrow for a commercial. And the pictures of him in the underwear campaign were enough to make her groan-many of them in black and white, the contrast heightened to emphasize his abs and his Adonis belt, all leading down below past the waistband of the branded briefs...well, she couldn't even think of it without blushing.

It was when she hit the "News" tab that she was slapped with a heavy dose of reality. "Images" had a surfeit of solo Tsuruga Rens-he made a living selling his image, after all. But it was when she looked at the very first news result that she first got an inkling of what it would be like to date him. In large, capital letters, the headline screamed out at her: "WE KNOW WHO TSURUGA REN'S GIRLFRIEND IS."

If lust had been a novel experience for her, then the gut punch of seeing someone else with Tsuruga Ren was an entirely new universe. Her bewildered mind shouted Mine!, and yet there he was, lip-locked with a gorgeous woman, beautiful, busty, glamorous...every inch a movie star. The butterflies that had inhabited her became something much colder, and a pit began growing in her stomach. Apparently the mystery beauty's name was Kana Kusunoki, a former AV idol turned actress, known for her sex appeal and...apparent perfection in everything she did. A woman ten years older than Ren. Everything Kyoko wasn't. And though the picture hadn't been followed up with any additional statements from either actor, the press about it was relentless. The picture had been time-stamped in May, a mere few months ago and taken at an exclusive club in a trendy Tokyo neighborhood. The article was breathless in its speculation. "The elusive Tsuruga Ren is rarely seen with anyone, so the fact that this kiss with Kusunoki-san was caught must have been intentional," it said. "The actor must have found the seductive Kusunoki-san irresistible, as she has not been linked with anyone else in quite some time. They are perfectly matched in every way."

She gasped. Surely he would have said something to her had he been in a 'special relationship,' right?

RIGHT?

Or would he? she thought. When a man is on vacation, doesn't he take that as license to play? Or even when simply separated by circumstance. It happened all the time at the ryokan. Couples checked in under obviously assumed names, giggling as they called themselves "Mr. and Mrs." Singles occasionally hooked up at bars in Kyoto and then came back for a night of debauchery. She herself had eventually experienced it after watching Sho make moves on Shoko.

And it hit her: I am the only eligible female on the premises. Fujiwara-san was married and a grandmother, Yayoi-san was clearly off-limits. Other staff were similarly married, or attached, or male, and nothing she'd seen indicated that Tsuruga Ren enjoyed the company of men in that fashion. Is he playing with me because I'm the only one available? she asked herself.

She clicked away from the article, looking at the rest of the results. Next up: an article from the time Dark Moon was airing: "Is he really a co-star killer? Itsumi Momose tells all about working with Ren!" The article was accompanied by a scene she remembered from the Dark Moon finale episode, with Katsuki and Mizuki locked in an embrace and looking stormily into the distance. Momose-san, too, was beautiful, with long golden-colored hair, a tall and slender figure, and perfect features on a doll-like face. "Tsuruga Ren is a known co-star killer," the article read, "with the noted ability to make his co-stars fall truly in love with him. Many leading ladies have indeed fallen in love with the enigmatic Tsuruga-san, whose noted professionalism on and off the stage set him apart from the more boisterous actors of his generation. With his height and poise, he's a white knight who ladies can't help but flock to. We sit down for an exclusive interview with none other than Itsumi Momose, starring as Mizuki in this year's drama Dark Moon. Has she fallen for him as well? Is there more than meets the eye on-set?"

Ah, Kyoko thought. So that's what a co-star killer is. How terrifying. She continued the article. "Momose-san giggles and blushes when asked about her work with Tsuruga. 'Tsuruga-san is a perfect gentleman and I greatly enjoyed working with him,' she says. 'But as you know we are only professional colleagues, and I do not see him off the set.' Momose-san is very coy, but click 'next' for her answer to the question: Did she fall in love with Tsuruga-san? Read on for some exciting news!" Kyoko quickly hit "back" before she hit "next." The last thing she wanted was to hear how the extraordinary Tsuruga Ren had conquered yet another co-star.

But she couldn't help herself. A blog by some starlet named Morizumi Kimiko was the next result, detailing "My Date with Ren!" Kyoko didn't even bother reading the text of the article, focusing instead on the picture of the dark-haired Tsuruga apparently ushering Kimiko through a door like a gentleman. Kimiko looked no older than Kyoko did herself, perhaps even younger. Does he like younger women? Kyoko thought, and then quickly dismissed it. If he did, he wouldn't have been with Kusunoki-san. But then what? The man clearly had entanglements, many of them. Each search result added a stone to the already sinking pit she had in her stomach. She had called him a playboy that day several times, half in protest over his flirting and the other half in jest. Knowing that he was a playboy in actual fact hurt more than it should have.

You're an idiot, Kyoko, she thought. Did you think a man like that would be celibate? He's probably a worse playboy than Sho is, because he's not an idiot! He clearly plays around in private! And you FELL FOR IT. She remembered the warmth of his smile at her and shook her head to free herself from its radiance. Even if he's not doing it on purpose, he bewitches women without thinking. But her traitorous heart was beating quickly, begging her to give him a chance.

She was well and truly down the rabbit hole now, checking the links compulsively. A website called "RENion" opened up and appeared to be a fan page dedicated to all things Tsuruga Ren. There were fan articles about their favorite outfits, his hair, his necklace? Kyoko shook her head. There were pages of threads with numerous posts debating what Tsuruga's necklace meant, why his watch was stopped at 2:13...or even why he had switched watch brands. An interactive map display called the "Tsuruga Tracker" detailed sightings of Tsuruga-san all over Japan and, when zoomed out, the world, though she noted that right now, the fan page had Tsuruga's whereabouts listed as "Unknown" and there were no recent sightings in Kyoto. The comment thread showed wild speculation on where he might be, though some commenters appeared to be industry insiders who knew he'd start the filming for Ring Doh's sequel in a few weeks.

There was an entire section called "Women We Love to Hate," and on clicking it, Kyoko found sections dedicated to Ren's various co-stars. The comments were vicious.

"Kusunoki is an old whore who needs to keep her claws off of my Ren," a comment read, "No one who sells sex for a living deserves him. She probably has diseases."

Kyoko shuddered.

"Better Kusunoki than that bitch Kimiko," read a reply, "My sister works in showbiz for the Morizumis and says she's a real piece of work."

"I better not see him out with Kana," read a third, "I'd claw her eyes out. Someone needs to put her out of her misery."

Kyoko chilled as she continued. The comments were violent and poisonous in the extreme, many detailing wishes of bodily harm on the various actresses that had been seen with Tsuruga. Was this what would be in store for anyone who dated him? A man who made every woman in the room fall in love with him, and then set them against each other? Oh, she knew what that was like. She'd had all the hate and vitriol flung at her at school just because she had been Sho's friend. She knew how cruel women could be when they were out to punish someone they thought was undeserving of whatever position she had. Kyoko had always thought it ridiculous. Why would anyone attack anyone else over some boy? It's not as if attacking your object of affection's love interest would automatically have him transfer his affections onto you. But now...well, she knew that if anyone had recognized Kuon as Tsuruga Ren on that riverbank, she wouldn't have just the girls in her class out for her blood. It would be every woman in Japan. Yet another reason to forget him. She shuddered again and quickly clicked away, only to find herself staring at the fan page's pinned posts.

One was a video titled "Ren's Cutest Moments."

Some demon must've clicked on the link for her, because before she knew it, she was watching a compilation of Ren's romance scenes. Kissing scenes. Couple scenes. One scene after another, one woman after another, never the same one twice, in the rain, or on the beach, in a ballroom or on a battlefield...always Ren bending low, closing his eyes, and then kissing another woman. She sat, transfixed and horrified, feeling the echoes of his caresses on her body as she watched his hands doing the same thing on someone else. Someone who was always more beautiful than she was, more fascinating than she was, more glamorous and exciting. If Kusunoki-san had the first punch to the gut, these were the arrows that continued the attack, skewering her, one-by-one, kiss-by-kiss. She wanted to stop the video but she was stuck watching each clip unfold...and even if she told herself Ren didn't exactly smile the way Kuon did, or look at those women the way she'd seen him look at her tonight, she still knew that the man on the screen and the man sleeping on the other side of the building were one and the same.

And at the end of the video: the coup de grace.

The scene opened up to a matsuri, complete with busy street vendor stalls selling everything from takoyaki to shaved ices. Ren and an actress, both dressed in yukata, made their way down a crowded street, and the camera panned close as he took her hand and laced his fingers between hers. Mortification rolled down Kyoko's back as she kept watching. The scene continued on as Ren and his leading lady made their way to a railing by the water. There was no riverbank here lined with cobbles, like the Kamo, but there was a river nonetheless. Somehow Kyoko knew the fireworks were coming...and when they did, she saw movie-Ren take his hand to the actress's face and run it along her lips and her jaw and then lean in for a gentle, sweet kiss. Just as he'd done in the lobby, except he'd had the grace not to take the liberty of stealing her first kiss.

So, Kyoko thought, staring at the screen as it counted down to a new Tsuruga Ren fan video. It was no use. She still saw him kissing the actress. So. It was all rehearsed. God, I'm so stupid. She felt small and ridiculous and hurt. It had all felt so real. Each touch between them had felt right, like they were supposed to fit together. And yet now she knew that it was all a cheap trick, smooth moves he'd learned on a set. She was just the unsuspecting girl who didn't know enough to spot the moves for what they were.

The hope that she had been holding onto all evening-despite the news articles, the pictures, and the fans-shattered and gave way. The bitter flavor of swallowing down dreams was something she was quite familiar with, and that shattered dream of having come home was a particularly hard morsel to swallow. She had come to terms with her childhood prince being human this morning. But all his talk of friendship...the way he'd told her his secrets as if she were special...was it just for play? Just to lead her on for his amusement? How horrible it was to find that the prince was all too real, all too part of this reality. She rethought all of their interactions in a new light. She had taken his plea for friendship as an earnest one, but he had taken that as an opportunity to flirt with her. To seduce her.

She would forget him. It simply had to be done. There could be no friendship here, not after last night. She didn't trust him. She didn't trust herself. Yayoi-san would simply have to find someone else to take his meals up, reassign him a new concierge. Surely she'd understand. Kyoko sighed. There would be no cozy 'tadaima' followed by dinner. No more hand-holding. She would not be part of a line of women entering and exiting through the revolving door that was Tsuruga Ren...or Hizuri Kuon...or Corn...or whoever the hell he was.

She was sure he'd forget her easily.

She exited the browser, finally shocked out of her paralysis, and then forcibly shut the computer off.

She was just the conquest du jour, the vacation fling he'd throw away when he left. She should have known better.

She was sick of being thrown away.

I'm such an idiot. I've learned nothing, she thought bitterly, even after Sho made a fool out of me. Even after all that, I'm panting after a man like a lovesick woman, and all he had to do was say a few pretty things and grab my hand. Practiced on me what he's practiced on a hundred women before me. A stupid virgin ripe for the picking. At least I could say Sho grew up with me-this Kuon just showed up for a day and I was on his lap like a trained dog.

Hadn't she said she was done with this? Hadn't she locked up that emotion into a box and piled a million locks on it? She would give back his cursed kanzashi and let him use it to stake a claim of ownership on some unsuspecting actress who would no doubt fall for him and fawn over him like every other co-star he'd 'killed.' He must've liked the fact that it was a lotus. It was certainly more elegant than a collar.

Kyoko stood. There was one consolation to this mess: that all he had taken from her was a day.

He would not have another. Not one more hour.

Because if he took more days from her, she wasn't sure she'd survive it.

Her place was here, at the ryokan, where she was Cinderella both as a princess and a maid.

She would put that emotion into the box again, since her initial resolve was apparently so weak. Again and again and again, she'd put it away until her heart and her mind got the point.

In the days after Sho had so ignominiously thrown her away, she'd clung to work as a liferaft to keep her afloat. She'd work, then. She'd work until her hands were raw and she could fall asleep in exhaustion. Too heartsick to sit still, she surveyed the office, noting that the wastebasket needed emptying. She took the wastebasket with her into the kitchen, where she found that the large walk-in freezer was in disarray, and, upon emptying the wastebasket, began the task of re-organizing it and taking inventory of the supplies within it. When she was done, she took a glance at the next day's menu and decided to prep the items that would keep for a few hours before they were needed. And when she was done that, she decided that the staff hadn't done an adequate mop of the crevices by the walls and spent a good hour or so crawling to get behind the stainless steel worktables to wipe clean any places where there were bits of food or dirt.

By the time the birds started their pre-dawn chorus, she was up to her elbows in hot water and borax powder, scrubbing the bottoms of the ryokan's pots to clean the brown marks of flame off of them.

She hadn't even noticed she was crying.

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Thank you so much for reading!

Author's Notes:

1. Emily Dickinson - Heart, we will forget him!

2. We will get to fluff soon. Not in the next chapter, but soon. Please bear with me!

3. I didn't think Kyoko would be able to accept Kuon's affection without a fight. And I think it makes sense for her to protect her heart in this context.

4. I have given up on getting em-dashes to format correctly. I have tried everything, including drafting in Google, drafting in Word, copying and pasting, uploading, what have you. So my apologies on this!

5. If this were set to music, Chapters 6, 7, and 8 would be an ensemble piece: think "One Day More" in Les Miserables, or the "Johanna" from Sweeney Todd. Any number of musicals and operas have them. But I am not a composer, so unfortunately I had to find a way to get all this out. It's less elegant than a massive ensemble piece, but I hope it isn't too painful for everyone to read.

5. Let me know what you think?

6. A note on the small revision: Kuon was a minor during the Rick incident. Juvenile records are sealed...so I don't think Kyoko would've found anything definite on Kuon's delinquency online, whether it be anything to do with fights or bullying. I also don't think that he would have been mentioned as a minor in a traffic incident involving Rick. And lastly...Kuon is the son and grandson and relative of some very famous and rich people. In light of the fact that he was 1. a minor and 2. likely would have had a very good lawyer and 3. a good publicist, my bet is on there being relatively little on the web about him in his teens, especially six years after his disappearance. Consider child actors that we know had issues with growing up-chief among them: Drew Barrymore. She's spoken out about her childhood as an adult, but I can't find news articles contemporaneous with her alleged drug abuse or placement in an institution easily now, years after the fact. I'd probably find them if I searched by year, but I also want to note that Drew was famous already, and she stayed famous through her adolescence. Kuon, on the other hand, may have been famous as the Hizuri kid (think of Jaden Smith before Pursuit of Happyness and Karate Kid), but disappeared from public life at 15. In other words, he was out of the news cycle. For the purposes of this story, Kyoko doesn't find anything on Kuon's life online. I will say, though, that I am writing a Kuon prequel in which this will be addressed.