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Paper Puppet Show

ACT III

Joys of Everyday Life

Three of them ended up returning to Ren's apartment and talking about the matter in his kitchen over a cup of tea. It was Ren who did most of the talking though as Kyoko was still embarrassed and would blush wildly every time she looked up to eater Yashiro or Ren and the actor's manager just kept grinning while listening to him. To say that Kyoko was shocked over this turn of events would be quite an understatement, she expected Yashiro to at least be surprised, but he looked as if he was expecting, no waiting for them to get together for a while. She didn't want to believe that her feelings were seen through that easily though, after all she was an actress, she was supposed to be good at pretending. Well President did see through her, but that was a different matter.

"Congratulations~~~!" Yashiro said in overly-enthusiastic tone of voice after Ren finished talking, the grin not leaving his lips even for a second. "It took you long enough though." Manager added while sipping his tea and looking at his charge. He was genuinely happy for Ren and Kyoko. He was getting tired watching them dance around each other trying to hide what everyone else saw, except them themselves. Sometimes he would get so annoyed that he thought about spilling the beans to one of them and watching everything unfold.

"Yashiro," Ren started talking once again "I would appreciate if you would keep our relationship a secret from everyone, you're the only one that knows and we would like to keep it like that at least for a little while." He said those words while flashing the manager his gentlemanly smile to with Yashiro replied a very-fake, very-obviously-forced smile of his own while sweat dropping.

"O-of course! Anyway it's really late, i-isn't it? Already 12p.m. time flies... I better get going~." The older man tried to cover-up his nervousness. It was obvious that Ren was displeased with his manager finding out his new relationship status. The actor could practically hear the teases he will be hearing from Yashiro for the next few months. Just imagining it was enough to make him feel irritated.

"I should get going too." Kyoko said after Yashiro had closed the door and left. She was finally back to her normal self, well almost, she was still moving stiffly. As she was already putting on her shoes Ren's hand gently stopped hers.

"It's midnight, if you're set on leaving then let me at least call you a taxi." He let go of her hand and smirked before continuing "But I would prefer it if you stayed the night here." Ren watched as the actress' face turned pink. It looked as if she was trying to say something, but wasn't able to force the voice out of her mouth. Oh how he love teasing her... "I thought so. Wait for a bit." Ren took his phone and started dialing taxi serves' number.

It was very unusual, but the next morning Kyoko managed to oversleep. She was shocked when she opened her eyes and the clock in her room showed it to be almost midday. What's even worse was that she also started daydreaming while taking a shower and ended up standing under running water for 20 minutes and the only thing that managed to wake her up was when the water turned cold. Kyoko was finally allowing herself to think of Ren romantically and she liked having those thoughts, yet she was so mad at herself for acting so out of character since the morning.

Kyoko got dressed and ran down the stairs. She was an hour late for her shift. As she looked around she noticed Okami-san coming her way. Okami-san was holding two empty bowls and looked quite surprised to see Kyoko in her Darumaya uniform.

"Morning Kyoko-chan." The woman said looking concerned before Kyoko was able to start talking herself. "What are you doing? I said that you don't need to help out, the accident must have caused a lot of stress. Besides you came back very late yesterday, you must be tired."

"Good morning Okami-san. I'm very sorry that I'm late, but I'm fine. Besides I promised to help out already since few weeks ago and you're really busy" Kyoko said as she looked around. "You could use extra hands."

"Okay, okay I give up. There's no winning against you is there, Kyoko-chan? But only the rush hour after that you take off your uniform and relax." Okami-san sighed taking both bowls into one hand and pointing Kyoko han to the table at the very corner of the shop. "Then could you please take order from the customer over there?" Kyoko nodded and walked off in the direction of the table while Okami-san carried the bowls to the kitchen to be washed.

It was already after the rush hour, when Darumaya was packed, when Kyoko received a message from Ren saying to be ready in half an hour and wait in front of Darumaya. A black BMW with tinted windows wasn't even a minute late to pick her up. At first she was hesitant, but then one of the rear windows lowered revealing familiar face of Ren Tsuruga disguised as Cain Heel.

"Kyoko-chan hurry up and get in~!" Muse-sama's voice came from somewhere inside the car. Kyoko opened the vehicle door and hopped in beside Ren in the backseat. Ren was in full costume of Cain Heel, but from one look into his eyes she knew he wasn't engrossed in his role. He was smiling at her a soft smile that made her blushed as she smiled back. Muse-sama was the one driving so they only exchanged greetings and she focused on starting the engine

"I'm sorry this is so unexpected. I hope you don't mind it though. I need you to dress as Setsu-chan again." The actor said as the car moved from it's place and drove past Darumaya. Kyoko looked completely lost, but she still nodded. Ren almost felt sorry for doing this to her, but it was supposed to be a surprise and she looked cute with this kind of expression on her face.

They arrived at Ren's apartment where Ten had all of the things necessary to turn Kyoko into Setsuka. This time Kyoko wore indigo colored figure hugging corset-like top with black patterns on it along with leather mini skirt of the same color, leather jacket and black stiletto heels with spikes on the back of them.

When the beautician was satisfied with her work she let Kyoko go to the living room where Ren was waiting for her. He was sitting there and going through the channels trying to find something to help him pass the time. When he heard the sound of her shoes the actor turned to her direction and smiled. He was a bit displeased at her mini skirt as he would prefer Ten would have given her something at least a bit more covering to wear, like pants. They were not staying at his place after all and she would make men stare at her even with them so why did she need to catch even more of their attention. Yes, even if it was a bit embarrassing Ren was jealous. He ignored those thoughts and stood up after turning off the TV.

"I know we already had plans, but how about we go on a date?"

AN: I'm sorry that this chapter is more like a filler. And also I'm sorry for all the grammatical errors there were... It's just that school's really hard and I can't concentrate properly on anything. And my mind's blank so I don't know what to write. I haven't updated in awhile and I really wanted to update it for I'm afraid that if I leave this story for too long I might lose interest in writing it at all. I've also been thinking about changing the plot, it seems so cliche to me. Uggh I'm so lost right now. Maybe I should get beta reader since I doubt I could write this without completely messing it up. Maybe one of you guys could help me with it.

Anyway I've rambled for long enough.

Positive and negative reviews are welcome