After the story break (there's only one, you'll know it when you see it), I wrote the story while listening to "Battle Against Clown" from the Akira soundtrack. I think it matches the mood pretty well.

"Mogami-san."

"Hai, Tsuruga-san!"

"You should just get some sleep."

Ren opened one eye to look over at her. Kyoko was sitting upright in her seat and had clearly just slapped herself again to keep herself awake.

"Ah, no, I'm fine!" Kyoko smiled at him.

Ren had started pretending to sleep half an hour ago in the hopes that she would relax and let herself take a clearly needed rest. When they got on the private jet hours ago, she had already seemed exhausted.

There had been multiple times that Kyoko had fallen asleep in front of him, and she always seemed so horrified to see him when she first woke up. Ren's chest tightened a bit in pain just thinking about her terrified expression. Am I that scary? But this time he was pretty sure that wasn't the only problem. And what could he ask her? Do you not want me to see your sleeping face? Too creepy. Do you not trust me? He had a painfully realistic vision of her response, or rather her lack of response, to that one.

Ren shook his head, dispelling the thoughts. Did she have trouble sleeping last night? he wondered. "…are you nervous?"

Kyoko's eyes slid over to him and she adopted a grim expression as her voice cracked out, "H-hai…"

Ren and Kyoko were currently on their way to on-site filming in Argentina. There, Tsuruga Ren and Mogami Kyoko would join the cast and crew of their newest drama. Ren still wasn't sure why they had to travel to Argentina for filming, but apparently the director was a stickler for authenticity. And considering this drama was handed to them by the president as a "personal request", Ren guessed that money wasn't much of a concern to the director.

Kyoko was taking the new drama very seriously. Lory had hinted that this drama would be a great opportunity for her to expand her acting skills and embrace some forbidden emotions.

Ren was suspicious.

Two weeks ago, at the start of June, the director, who had written the drama himself, had personally sent customized copies of the scripts to each of the actors for the first few episodes. The scripts didn't include any scenes they weren't included in. Ren and Kyoko still didn't know who any of the other actors were. Though, he thought, if they were from LME, they surely would be sharing a flight…right? Instead, it was just the two of them and the pilot. Alone.

Ren snapped out of it, watching Kyoko turn back to look out the pitch-black window, worrying her lower lip.

"Mogami-san, you have nothing to worry about."

No response.

Ren sighed and looked around the cabin, just before Kyoko muttered something.

"Eh?" His head shot around to look at her. "What did you say?"

Kyoko tucked in her chin and looked up at him through her eyelashes, her golden eyes peering up at him.

Ren licked his lips, as subtly as he could, and gulped, less subtly.

"I said easy for you to say." Kyoko admitted, still muttering. "You're the hero of the story."

Though he knew he needed to take the series with the utmost professionalism, Ren had been trying to get her to open up about her script ever since he got his. He had called her that same night to ask if she had wanted to talk about the series. He had called her the next night, too, to see what she thought about the setting. Yashiro had helped him find her at lunch time the following week to talk about the filming schedule, and she had even cooked dinner for him the night, though her sour mood had prevented his progress in talking to her about the drama.

In his attempts, he had tried opening up about his character, just a little bit, or at least how he felt about it. He didn't want to betray the director by spoiling anything for Kyoko.

But in all his attempts, he had been unable to get even a word about Kyoko's character, and she had done nothing but pout. That had only made him more desperate.

So he resorted to the only thing that had helped stop her bad attitude.

"Mogami-san, are you going to have this same attitude in front of the director?"

Kyoko turned her head to look out the window again, paling.

Ren sighed. "I'm sure that in time you will feel more sympathetic towards your character." The repeated assurances fell from Ren's lips automatically. "You don't regret acting any of your previous roles, right?"

She looked back up at him. "Do you promise…"

Ren held eye contact with her, but she suddenly turned her head again. Ren reached out for her chin and turned her head to look back up at him, though her eyes avoided his and she grimaced.

"What?" Ren asked, "what can I promise you?"

And she peered into his eyes. "Promise me you won't judge me for what my character does?"

Ren's heart started beating a little louder. Wishful thinking, he thought. Instead, he let a smile surface onto his features. "Of course not, Mogami-san."

She held his eyes for another moment, then finally seemed to relax. He wanted to probe further, but she seemed reassured, and had finally leaned back against her seat.

"Thank you, Tsuruga-san."

Her eyes closed, and Ren watched as she ever-so-slightly nuzzled her head against the seat, a smile curving the corners of her pink lips upward. And Ren, despite telling himself that this was exactly why she didn't want to fall asleep in front of him, couldn't help but watch. Unconsciously, he mirrored her position as he gazed at her sleeping face and let his wishful thinking send him to a peaceful sleep.

The sudden feeling of his stomach dropping woke Ren with a start.

A cacophony filled the cabin as rain pounded against the plane and the plane groaned against the wind.

The lights were off.

The plan was tipping forward.

Hurriedly, Ren looked over at Kyoko to see her eyes opening in alarm.

"Stay here, I'm going to check on the pilot."

Kyoko's eyes were wide and frozen, but she managed to nod to Ren as he grasped at the seat belt before it finally unbuckled.

Grabbing onto the headrests of the empty seats lining the aisle, Ren made his way to the pilot's cabin.

Only the emergency running lights lit the cabin.

Ren was at the pilot's side in a heartbeat, shaking the man's shoulders.

The man's head rolled forward and Ren felt his blood go cold.

Quickly, he looked around at the flight instrument dashboard. He grabbed the transmitter radio, pressing buttons in a panic, shouting "Mayday! Mayday! Can anyone hear me?!" How long have we been drifting?

"Tsuruga-san?!" He heard Kyoko's cry just as the plane tipped forward.

He fell forward, towards the windshield, and in the gushing storm, he saw a terrifying sight that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

The black and white waves of the ocean directly in front of him, only a few kilometers away.

Minutes.

Barely.

He reached out for the yoke in the hopes of steering the plane back into a stable altitude, thoughts pounding inside his head that he had never learned how to operate a plane. As he grasped the yoke, he sensed Kyoko running into the cabin, gasping at the sight of the pilot.

The plane lurched, and Ren felt his ankle twist below him as he desperately tried to stay grounded as his body surged towards the windshield again, still grasping onto the yoke.

The yoke wouldn't move. He pulled, he pushed, but it did not give way.

"He's dead," Kyoko cried as she checked the pilot's pulse.

Fear coursed through them as they looked up at each other, and the moment felt like eons longer than the second it was.

Kyoko furrowed her brow, a desperate intensity filling her at the sight of Ren's helplessness.

"Go! Let's go!" And she grabbed his hand, pulling him.

The pain in his ankle shot straight up his body, but his cry was unheard over the shrieking of the aircraft and he gritted his teeth as he and Kyoko tried to run up the ever-steeper aisle to the emergency exit.

Ren grabbed the headrest of the seats they'd been in and grasped around underneath the seats, pulling the cushions off of the seats before he spotted the life preservers.

"Ren! Let's go!" Kyoko cried as her hands shook on the red handle of the emergency exit.

Dragging himself towards her, hissing as his foot protested, Ren threw the life vests around her and himself, even as the plane tipped and the entire metal deathtrap howled around them.

Ren buckled the straps of their life vests. "Open it!" He cried.

And Kyoko turned the handle as the two of them pushed the door outward, detached, watching it whip into the frantic wind and disappear out of sight. It was even louder now, and the wind pushed against their buckling knees, the air surging up to meet them.

Ren stood in the threshold of the doorway, soaked in an instant, his arms around Kyoko, unable to see anything but torrents of rain.

"Do we jump?" Kyoko called, her adrenaline ebbing from her as the plane hurtled into darkness.

"We jump."

Another stretched second followed before Ren tightened his arms around Kyoko again, willing himself to not think about what they were about to do.

They couldn't see the ocean.

They didn't know how far down the drop was.

He wasn't even sure that it was the ocean that they'd land on.

Ren's only thought was that if they stayed until impact with the water, or worse, the ground, they'd be a lot worse off in the plane.

He tightened his hold on Kyoko, pulling her against his chest, their life vests twisting around them, scraping at their necks.

"Hold on to me!" Ren shouted above the noise as Kyoko turned in the threshold, wrapping her arms around him and grasping onto his life vest.

He looked down at her, and she nodded. He looked down, outside. He faltered, wondering if they had time to wait until they could see the ocean, before remembering the haunting image of the ocean rising up meet them.

There's no time.

"Now!" He shouted, mostly for himself, as he launched them out of the doorway on his good foot.

His arms stayed wrapped around her, desperately, as he tried to right them feet-first, the air howling around him. It was pitch-black.

Though his lungs were empty, and Kyoko's life vest was becoming far too slippery for him to hold on to, he felt only immense relief as they plunged into the ocean.

I'm psyched for this story. I know I haven't finished Kyoko's Eventful Three Days yet, but I've been thinking about this story a lot.

I'm not sure how often I'll be updating or how long this story might go on, but if you're up for a story about Ren and Kyoko trying to survive on a deserted island, please keep an eye out for this one.

Now, I've definitely never been in this situation, and hopefully none of you have either, but if you find any problems with the story at any point, please let me know so that I can improve it. I know that, already, this situation is farfetched (no one else on the plane? Yoke wouldn't move? Radio didn't work? Geez!), so please let me know if there are ways I can make it more believable. I want to create a realistic setting for this story that will be handled with gravity.

Thank you for reading!