Note: This was my gift for tumblr user maui-omurice for the 2015 Skip Beat! Secret Santa event. The story begins some months after chapter 231.

LAX was crowded, and not in the usual way of airports. There were too many camera flashes in the arrivals' area, and too many voices saying things besides "welcome back!" Kyoko wondered whether all this fuss wasn't normal here, at what she supposed was a busy hub for celebrities that attracted onlookers like flies to ripe fruit. Then again, this much interest would have been a given no matter where she flew in, as long as the person picking her up today remained a constant.

When she finally caught sight of that man, the eye of the paparazzi hurricane, everything in the world went still except for her heart: that soared. Hopping on her tiptoes, waving a hand high, Kyoko mustered all her spirit. "Oto–"

Her throat closed up as her cheeks flushed. Silently rehearsing for ten hours on the plane hadn't been enough, in the end.

She sighed in defeat, and then sucked the air back into her lungs as she called on Kuon for help, just for this one word.

"Otou-san!"

Foreign to most of the crowd, the word flew past them all to hit only its target. Face lighting up as he met Kyoko's eyes from across the room, Kuu Hizuri parted the the flood of people around him with a level of ease accessible only to a renowned martial artist like himself. The moment she was within reach of his long arm, Kuu was ruffling Kyoko's hair, beaming down at her, saying, "I waited and waited for you."

The Hizuris lived outside the city, so out of necessity Kyoko was treated to a long car ride with her beloved teacher. It was her first time seeing him in the driver's seat, and she couldn't help but think fondly of how suave he looked, confidently speeding them down the highway whenever traffic was sparse enough–as expected of an ultra-cool Hollywood star!

When they were forced to slow down for a swarm of cars, Kuu flicked his eyes towards her without turning his head, smiling sidelong, and there was a brief stirring of recognition in the back of Kyoko's mind. But she didn't pursue the thought, because Kuu was talking.

"This could be dangerous. I thought we could beat rush hour, but…."

Dangerous? Kyoko's eyes went wide. "What? Are Americans actually aggressive drivers? I didn't know there was such a problem here. Sensei, please watch the road carefully!"

"No, it's not like that." Kuu gave her a flat look before resuming the explanation with a fond smile. "It's getting late, and Julie's dead set on having a family dinner with you tonight." Warmth and bashfulness rushed through Kyoko's heart, but those feelings were quickly interrupted by a jolt of icy fear when Kuu went on, "Actually, she specifically said she wants to cook for you as often as possible while you're here."

"O-oh. How generous…."

"Don't make that face. I talked her down–"

"You make it sound like crisis negotiation," Kyoko murmured, but Kuu ignored her.

"–And she agreed that I should definitely take care of the food tomorrow night, since we'll have guests, and from there it was easy to get her mostly convinced to let me do the rest, too."

"Mostly?"

"That's why I was saying we might be in danger, now."

They were too late. Julie Hizuri made good on her threat. Kuu and Kyoko exercised their acting skills as they ate the bafflingly sweet, crunchy pasta puttanesca. But Kyoko almost couldn't even taste it.

When she and Kuu had come inside through the grand double doors, this angelic woman had been right there waiting for them. Julie's enthusiastic "okaeri nasai!" in an American accent had stopped Kyoko's heart for a moment, and she didn't find her voice in time to join in on Kuu's "tadaima".

Even twenty minutes later, at the dinner table, Kyoko still had to take a moment every time she needed to speak. Julie bore it patiently, probably believing it was because Kyoko struggled with the English they had all switched over to after Kyoko's failed response to the greeting. "I'm sorry," Julie had said, laughing. "I practiced! But I guess my accent is just hopeless."

It wasn't that. Kyoko's pulse was distractingly loud in her ears, and all her senses except for sight were dulled or muddled. How could she possibly care about what she was eating or smoothly keep up with the conversation when everything was so warm and there was an angel twirling a fork through spaghetti noodles across the table?

Oh, but an angel? Kyoko suddenly reconsidered as she admired Julie's soft waves of blonde hair for the 27th time. No, this woman was clearly a fairy type. Maybe, like Tsuruga-san, there was a fairy somewhere in her ancestry.

When Kuu finally stood and started gathering the plates, which had been miraculously cleaned, Kyoko jumped up to help him, but Julie stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "You're visiting, we can't have you doing chores! And aren't you tired? Why don't I show you your room now?"

Unaccustomed to actually being a guest after almost a lifetime of receiving them, Kyoko was bashful. "Thank you. If it's really okay not to help this time…."

Hands clasped in front of her and cheeks pink, Kyoko followed Julie out of the dining room, through a living room as big as the Darumaya's entire ground floor, and into a hallway. As they neared the hall's second door, Julie slowed and then stopped. Slender hand caressing the doorknob, she was quiet for a moment and then turned her head towards Kyoko with a complicated sort of smile. The curve of her mouth was soft but those beautiful green eyes were too bright, her brow on the verge of furrowing. "Come in here for a minute, first."

The door opened on what Kyoko guessed, after a moment of puzzlement, to be a teenage boy's bedroom. Yes, she thought, the furniture and bedspread were surely too spartan for a girl's room in a fancy house like this, there were posters on the wall, and the hiking boots on the floor next to the desk were huge. She had just been thrown off, at first, because Shotaro was the only other teenage boy whose room Kyoko had ever been inside, and this one was markedly different in a few ways. The bookshelf in this room was populated with more than old magazines, for one.

For another, this room was entirely too clean. It wasn't as if it had an air of fastidiousness; one of those boots Kyoko noticed had been left on its side, and the desk was a chaos zone of notebooks and textbooks. But the bed was made with hotel-level neatness, the trash can was empty despite all the crumpled paper on the desk, and the only scent was laundry detergent.

This room's owner had left it vacant for a long time, and Kyoko didn't need to watch Julie smooth a hand tenderly over the bedspread to know why.

"Kuu told me you knew all about Kuon."

There was a knot in Kyoko's stomach, but it wasn't like indigestion. Should she express condolences at this juncture? Oh no, why hadn't she practiced for a scenario like this? "He said a lot of things about him," she answered carefully.

"This is his room," Julie said unnecessarily, turning towards the window and pulling the curtain aside. Red light from the summer sunset fell over her, casting a pink tinge to her hair, amping up her ethereal beauty. Kyoko didn't notice that she was holding her breath until she choked on it, hearing what Julie said next. "We keep it clean and fresh for him, and we haven't changed anything, but I wonder how different his taste is by now. He's not a child anymore, even if…." Apparently registering Kyoko's reaction, Julie turned around, eyebrows raised.

Kyoko tried to school her expression into something that wasn't dismay, stretching the corners of her mouth into a nervous smile. "E-even if?" Oh no, oh no, oh no–sensei! Why didn't you warn me that your wife still thinks her son is alive? I'm not ready for this, not ready, not ready!

Julie shook her head and smiled again. "No, never mind. I've been wanting to ask you what you think of my son, since you know him so well. It's been so long since I got to talk to any of his friends."

Kyoko could only meekly state the truth. "I like him very much." A pause, and then she decided to amend that. Saying it in English was different, easier, and she had to consider the feelings of person she was talking to. "No, actually… I love him."

Like sunshine, bright and intense and purifying, Julie beamed at her. Kyoko had to avert her eyes. "I knew it. I wanted to hear you say it, but I've been sure, ever since Kuu–"

The door, which had been left ajar, was opened now by the very man. "You're in here?" The look he sent Julie was questioning, but the crease in his brow wasn't quite right for the concern Kyoko thought he ought to feel for his obviously traumatised wife upon finding her in their deceased son's room.

"Just a detour. I thought she might like to see his room, since she took such an interest in playing him." Luckily, Julie didn't appear to be in any distress at the moment. Playing along must have been the right choice.

Soon Julie and Kuu had led her further down the hall to a lovingly prepared guest room, and not long after Kyoko was free to flop face-down on her pretty bed and wonder if she was going to survive a week of all this happiness and stress.