The two young men who arrived at the tall building, although both attractive in their own way, could not have differed more in their actions. While one sprinted about in an uncoordinated, jerky fashion, pausing occasionally to conceal himself behind shrubbery and city art, the other calmly strolled into the ground floor of the building and studied the tenant list. Every now and then he would refer to his cell phone as if doing research. Their paths united again when a trio of young women approached, arm in arm, laughing together. The one who had believed himself to be keeping covert watch for the arrivals burst through the door, grabbed the other and hustled him across the lobby and around a corner.

"What do you think you are doing? Baka!" Naoki pushed to break Kinnosuke's hold on him.

"Irie! Irie! They're coming! Look!" Both of them peered around the corner as Kotoko led Satomi and Jinko through the door, cell phone at her ear.

"You needn't make such a commotion about it," Naoki hissed at his companion. "I think I know…"

"Aww!" Kinnosuke moaned. "Are those two going to follow Kotoko down a sinful path and join the skin trade?!"

"Relax, it's not like…"

"Look!" Kinnosuke pointed toward the elevators. Naoki pulled his arm down and tugged him a little farther out of sight.

"Hullo, Kotoko darling!" A handsome young man, with light brown hair and appearing to be only part Japanese, emerged from one. Dressed in a soft open-throated shirt, a diamond twinkled from one earlobe as he pulled Kotoko into a quick hug. Jinko and Satomi giggled together, impressed with his looks and manner. "And who might these two beauties be?" he asked, turning a megawatt smile their way.

"See! See! There he is! That devil! Why I oughta—"

Again Naoki pulled him back. "Just a few months ago you were calling me a devil and now you've asked me for help. I think—no, I'm sure—that you're jumping the gun." He stuck his head a little farther around the corner. "Even though I don't like his hands on my girlfriend…"

"Sure we can do that for you! And by all means, just call me Dylan like Kotoko does," he smiled as he bowed the girls onto the elevator. "Kotoko, be a dear and press the button for floor 7, won't you?"

Kinnosuke leaped out of the hiding place, jumping from one foot to another in frenzy. "Did you see that? They are going to get caught in the coils of the serpent! We've got to save them, Irie!" He sprinted to the bank of elevators and pressed the up button repeatedly.

Naoki strolled in his wake. "Again, you've gone off half-cocked, but," he paused to look at the overexcited chef, "there's no stopping you, is there?" He sighed. "I might as well try to minimize the amount of trouble that you're about to get into."

Kinnosuke rushed in before the sliding doors were completely open. "What floor was it?! What floor?! Dammit! I'm so upset that I forgot!" Naoki reached over and pressed 7. "Irie!" he grabbed his upper arm with both hands. "Thank Buddha, you're a genius! You're the best!"

Oh. My. God. Naoki rolled his eyes. "I wish I had a witness to this," he thought.

No one was in sight when the elevator doors opened on the seventh floor. Kinnosuke's head turned swiftly from side to side. "Where? Where?"

Naoki unhurriedly read the directional signs, grabbed him by the arm and led him off to the left. "I feel like my IQ points are sucked away whenever I'm around you," he complained.

As they turned the corner they spied their quarry disappearing into an office. The pneumatic door remained open long enough for them to catch the conversation.

"Do you ladies want to do the shots today or come back at another time?" they heard the man identified as Dylan ask.

"Can we decide after we see Kotoko's session?" Satomi responded.

"Certainly! I'll take care of your paperwork while Kotoko changes."

"Oh! Do you have my new costume, Dylan-san?" asked Kotoko.

Naoki and Kinnosuke reached the slowly closing door just in time to see Dylan hand over an extremely small bag to Kotoko.

"No-o-o-o-o!" howled Kinnosuke as he launched himself towards the man.

"No!" echoed Naoki as he leapt to tackle Kinnosuke. However, Kinnosuke's superior jump propelled both of them into the startled Dylan and all three ended up entangled on the floor. Kotoko stood frozen in shock, the bag covering the lower part of her face, while Jinko and Satomi clutched each other together and stared.

Naoki managed to roll off Kinnosuke. "Imagine meeting again like this, Saeki-sensei. You've transferred back to the Tokyo office, I see."

Still shaken from having the air forced out of his lungs, Dylan shook his head and then focused on the speaker. "Ah, Naoki-kun! But why—?"

Kinnosuke had recovered his breath as well and now gripped the older man by his open shirt lapels. "It's not going to happen! I will save these girls myself! Run! Run!" When they didn't move he looked up at them in confusion then turned his head and shouted, "Irie, make them go! I'll handle this pervert!"

With four people addressing him at once, this time he at least had good reason to look confused.

"Ikezawa, you really have the wrong id…"

"Kin-chan, what are you doing to Dylan-san?"

"You idiot!"

"Typical Kin-chan!"

Dylan leaned back on his elbows and smiled at the man gripping him so tightly. "Well, normally I'm not into rough stuff, but you're cute enough that I'm willing to make an exception."

"Huh?!" Kinnosuke's mouth dropped open.

"Kin-chan!" Kotoko tugged at his arm. "Dylan-san is the one who is arranging for my Kotorin modeling. He works for Pandai!"

"Pa-Pandai? Kotorin?" His friends hadn't thought that Kinnosuke could look any more at sea, but apparently he had hit a new low—or high, as the case might be.

"Yes, I'm going to be an action figure," she explained slowly so that he could understand.

"Action figure?"

"Another thing of yours for him to obsessively collect," Naoki muttered.

"You mean, he's not trying to trick you into doing hentai things?" he asked, still not getting it.

"Darling," interposed Dylan, "adorable as Kotoko is, she really doesn't make my heart race. Now you, however, have quite a bit of potential in that area." He smiled as he grasped Kinnosuke's chin between his finger and thumb.

"Say—what?" One second Kinnosuke was on the ground, Dylan's shirt in a death grip, and the next he was upright, scrambling for the exit.

"What a shame," Dylan sighed. "Maybe next time…" He rose to his feet gracefully. "Now, Kotoko, go change so we can get this out of the way. Your props are in the dressing room. And you young ladies, step right over here."

"Just our luck that he's batting for the other team," complained Jinko.

"Right," agreed Satomi.

An hour and a half later the girls exited the elevator. Their laughter ceased when they caught sight of Naoki leaning against a pillar. Satomi elbowed Jinko.

"Say, Kotoko!" Jinko said loudly. "Satomi and I are going to head out now. We have to… to…"

"Stop by a store on the way," Satomi burst out.

Kotoko looked confused. "But you didn't say anything earlier…"

"Listen, Kotoko," Jinko tugged her close, "you need to clear the air with Irie-kun."

"Yes," added Satomi. "You've been keeping secrets and that's not good in a relationship."

"O-okay," she agreed and waved them off. She walked over to Naoki and greeted him, eyes on her feet. "Hello."

He sighed and put an arm around her. "I suppose you're hungry. Let's get something before we try to talk this out. Goodness knows, I'd like at least one conversation today to make sense."

"Why would you think I'd be upset at you helping promote the game?" he asked. "I spent a whole week last month coming up with ideas to market it."

"But you wouldn't talk about what you did, and you acted as if you didn't like whatever you were doing at Pandai," she explained as she spooned sherbet in her mouth. "You never looked happy when you returned in the evening. I even told Kato-kun, Tanaka-kun and Aoki-kun not to talk about it either."

"That's right," he agreed. "I spent half the time figuring out the best way to make my girlfriend's face recognizable in Japan, and that was the most enjoyable part of the week!" He ran his hand through his hair. "I'm just not sure I want to work there when I graduate, and I feel like Mom and Dad are pushing me in that direction. But without an alternate plan, I really don't have a good argument against them. I'd like to have something that I want to do, something that interests me."

"I'm sure your parents would be very happy if you could find that," Kotoko assured him.

"In the meantime," he pinched her nose, "no more secrets, and don't worry about helping out the business in your own way."

"Yes, I promise," she answered. "But if you knew what I was doing, why were you and Kin-chan at that place this afternoon? And don't try to tell me that it was a corn-coincer—that it just happened."

Naoki shook his head ruefully. "I'm afraid that Ikezawa overheard something and jumped to a completely wrong conclusion. For a while I was wondering a little myself, but I knew better than to make a snap judgment after LAST TIME. Anyway, I was 70% sure that I had figured it out by the time you girls arrived at the building."

"70%? Is that good?"

He flicked her on the forehead. "Tell your anime pals to start you on remedial math lessons. At any rate, I was absolutely certain that those old farts at Dad's office had adopted my ideas for action figure tie-ins once I saw you with Dylan-sensei."

"Sensei?"

"My English tutor in middle school. His dad worked for Pandai and his mom is American. You ought to feel like a big shot—he handles the celebrity models for the company."

"But, if you knew everything was okay, then why did you follow us up the stairs?" she queried.

"Has anyone ever had any luck holding back Ikezawa when he's on a roll?"

She angled her eyes upward and to the side in thought. "I see your point. And then he tackled poor Dylan-san! But why did he leave so suddenly? I thought that he and Dylan-san were beginning to get along."

He chuckled. "Never mind, Kotoko."

They held hands as they walked to the train station.

"So it's all right for there to be action figures of me everywhere?" She looked anxiously at him.

"Yes," he ruffled her hair, "as long as I have the original by my side."

A/N: Sorry, it's over already; this was just a short one. I enjoy the AU story arc that I set up in Kotoko Volant and plan to follow the original manga's storyline for awhile and explore its events with the new premise. The characters and their relationships should develop quite differently, especially if the ideas burbling around in my brain actually work out when written down.

Can you tell that I had fun with the almost-bromance between Naoki and Kinnosuke?