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

Author's Notes: During this holiday season, I found myself with writer's block as I tried to work in what used to be my childhood bedroom. It is very difficult to write smut, you see, when your bedroom has been transformed into a gallery of Virgin Mary statues and your parents are completely disregarding your privacy as they wander in and out of your space. The solution to this short-term writer's block came from NCISduckie (thanks, btw!), who has been assigning me random single words to write very short one-shots with. I ended up kinda enjoying the exercise. My self-imposed rules were to write a fic that was about 1k words long (over or under a little bit OK), in about an hour (over or under a little bit OK) and then post in a one-shot compendium. The first three words were "Kettle," "Overrun," and "Foretell." I'm posting "Overrun" first. DoK takes precedence over these, but I hope to keep going with random shorts from time to time.

Overrun

She was on her way to meet Kuon and Yashiro for a clandestine lunch in the middle of the work week. They'd decided on a diner located in a shopping arcade not far from where their respective dramas were shooting. Kuon, as usual, would be wearing a fairly impenetrable disguise. His tall frame made him a conspicuous sight, and 'disappearing into a crowd' when he was just himself was fairly impossible. He took great care to do things to make him unrecognizable—not just a hat, not just sunglasses, but the occasional prosthetic, too. He'd even go so far as to change his posture. But Kyoko was long used to wandering around with impunity. She had lots of famous roles by now, sure, but by and large the public was hard-pressed to recognize her when she was just Kyoko. Even her 'interview face' was different from her 'normal' self. Ten made sure she was glammed up for press appearances, and she relished the makeovers that made her feel beautiful. But on 'normal' days like today, she was just a plain udon girl, a nobody with an unadorned face who dressed in thrift-store clothes and carried a purse that was downright worn with use. The magical transformations she was capable of kept people guessing on what she'd look like with her next role.

It happened unexpectedly.

A voice cried "KYOKO-SAN!" in a crowded shopping arcade, and Kyoko thought nothing of it. She figured the call was for someone else—another Kyoko, perhaps, who also had a date to meet at the shopping arcade. After all, Kyoko was a common enough name.

She was wrong. Before she knew it, a star-struck yet oddly pushy young man had ambushed her, reaching for her hand before she could evade him. "Please, Kyoko-chan, I loved Mio so much! Please can I have your autograph?" A pen and a notebook were thrust in her hand, but not before a second hand grabbed her…

"Kyoko-chan! My boyfriend thinks you are the sexiest…We loved your Natsu! please please, will you take a selfie with me?" Kyoko didn't say yes, but she saw a flash of light anway.

"Kyoko-chan! Just a handshake, please, can I just touch you?" Kyoko didn't respond, but a hand touched her anyway. She had no room to move away.

"Kyoko-chan, can you put me into a headlock? Your Momiji was amazing!" Kyoko was tempted to, and probably would have, if she could move at all.

She didn't expect the dense, eager crowd forming around her, beginning to pinch and pull and ask for her autograph in a way that felt more predatory than admiring. On and on they came, and before long, Kyoko couldn't breathe as people circled like sharks. They pushed closer and closer to her, and soon Kyoko was out of breath…and quite dizzy…and feeling faint…

"Kyoko! Kyoko!" There was a familiar voice. Yashiro. He sounded like he was a few feet away, almost drowned out by the crowd.

"Yashiro!" she called out. "Yashiro!"

"Keep calling out, Kyoko!" she heard.

"YASHIRO-KUN!" she screamed.

Just then a voice called out, "TSURUGA REN! REN'S HERE! REN'S HERE!"

The crowd screamed at a fever pitch and suddenly Kyoko was being buffeted as they made their way to where Ren had been spotted.

She almost sank to her knees in relief, but Yashiro put a steadying hand on her shoulder. Some fans stayed to get her autograph, but Yashiro's stern look had them backing off of a pale, shaken Kyoko.

"Are you OK, Kyoko-chan?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm ok. I'm…still not sure about what exactly happened."

"Well, it was bound to happen someday," Yashiro said. "You were finally spotted by fans."

"Is that what Ku—Ren has to deal with everywhere?" she asked sadly.

Yashiro was unfazed by Kyoko's slip. It was clear that Ren had told her his real name, even if he hadn't seen fit to tell his long-suffering manager. "Unfortunately, yes. But he's a lot taller and stronger than you, so the crowds have a much harder time overrunning him."

"How…how did they know he was here?" Kyoko asked, worried. She had a sneaking suspicion that Kuon had done something a little reckless.

Yashiro looked sheepish. "Well…you know…he's kinda hard to hide…"

"Yashiro." She trained her golden eyes at him and tapped her foot.

"Oh, fine. You know him too well. He made a show of being seen on one of the arcade escalators. We could see the crowd around you and he figured we'd never make it through brute force alone. So he set up a distraction. It worked, too. That crowd definitely ran off like a bunch of lemmings off a cliff…"

"But…now…he's…"

"Probably for a little bit, but your boy's a veteran, Kyoko. He'll get out."

Kyoko signed autographs for the fans that were stalwart enough to brave Yashiro's arctic gaze, and then the two of them made a beeline to a different restaurant—one with a private room. She texted Kuon the new venue.

Kyoko spent an anxious half hour waiting for Kuon to evade the crowd, but when he got there, she ran into his arms. Yashiro blushed and looked away as she went up on her tip-toes to give him a kiss.

Yashiro had to clear his throat a few times to get them to stop. They were in a private room, but their relationship wasn't exactly public yet, and the reaction to its announcement would likely lead to far greater hysteria than what they'd seen today.

"I was so worried for you," she told him.

"I was so worried for you," Kuon responded.

"I love you," Kyoko said, "but please don't do that again."

"I love you," he responded, "and I will do whatever it takes over and over again to protect you."

"Bully," she said.

"Princess," he responded.

Yashiro rolled his eyes and sighed. These two were hopeless. Might as well order a mid-day whiskey while he waited for the makeout session to stop, right?

Right.