I do not own Skip Beat

"I don't know what to do, Mouko-san!" Kyouko pleadingly told her best friend.

"What do you want to do?" Kaene asked.

"Um…" Kyouko thought for a while, thoughts and images swirling in her mind without ever managing to form themselves into coherent thought. "I don't know!"

"How do you feel about him?" she asked.

"I respect him!" Kyouko shouted it almost before Kaene had finished the question.

"Mou! I get it, you respect him. What else?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Kyouko asked tilting her head brows furrowed.

"I mean, what else?" she asked exasperatedly. Then realizing she would have to make it simpler, she asked, "Do you respect me?"

"Of course!" she declared, "You are an amazing actress with the beauty of a goddess, the intelligence of a—"

"Enough!" she stopped her, "See? You respect me, but you feel other things for me too. So, what else?"

Kyouko looked at her in confusion.

"What else do you feel for Tsuruga-san besides respect?" she clarified.

"Um, well, I'm grateful to him," she said. As she contemplated, a soft smile came to her lips and warmth filled her expression, "He's always helping me become a better actress, and a better person. He helps me even though he's always so busy, and he cares about my feelings. He even said that nothing had to change if I didn't want it to."

"Do you want it to?" Kaene asked.

"I'm not sure," Kyouko said.

"Well, maybe you should find out," Kaene said.

"You're right, Mouko-san." Kyouko nodded, determination in her eyes. "I will."

Kyouko searched all over LME before finally spotter her tall sempai and his manager, in the lobby.

"Tsuruga-san," she called breathlessly running up to him. "Do you have a minute?"

Ren looked pleadingly at Yashiro who grinned from ear to ear, nodded and stayed put.

"Can we have a minute alone?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, of course," Yashiro replied. He scurried off suppressing his fangirl squeal and Ren and Kyouko stepped into an unoccupied conference room.

"Um, Tsuruga-san," Kyouko began, "I—"

"Wait," he interrupted her. "Just give me a minute."

Ren took a deep breath and prepared himself for the worst. He'd expected her to act strange around him, avoid him, refuse to be around him outside of work and refuse to break character when acting with him. Even in his wildest dreams and craziest, most unbelievable fantasies, she had come to him to tell him she loved him only after weeks of suspenseful waiting. This was too soon to be anything good. She was obviously here to tell him that her promise held, that she would never be able to see him as anything more than a sempai, that she would never be able to love him.

He took a deep breath and reveled in his last few moments of hope. If she never told him, he could pretend that he had hope, but he couldn't be so selfish as to make Kyouko feel awkward.

"Ok, Mogami-san, go ahead," he said, steeling himself as best he could for the gut wrenching blow to come.

"Tsuruga-san, um I wanted to talk to you because, um" Kyouko averted her eyes, "I'm not sure how I feel about you."

"What?" he asked in shock. This was not what he had been expecting. He had been expecting an 'I'm sorry, but I can never love you.'

"I'm, sorry, Tsuruga-san!"

'Well, there's the first half,' he thought dejectedly.

"Even though we've known each other for so long, and you're always helping me, and you deign to care about me, I still can't sort out my feelings for you," she apologized.

Relief swept over him. "I told you it's alright, Mogami-san. You don't have to give me an answer now."

"But when I talked to Mouko-san, she told me I could feel more for you than respect and that I should go talk to you to find out if I wanted things to change between us," Kyouko explained.

He sighed, grateful for Kaene's advice and at the same time regretting that she knew.

"Do you feel more for me than respect, Mogami-san?" he asked holding his breath.

"I- I respect you. I look up to you. I'm grateful to you," she listed, unable to meet his eyes. "I- I don't want you to hate me. I was shocked when you said you loved me, but I was also relieved."

"Relieved?"

"Well, I thought you might hate me," she said looking up at him with watery eyes, "I mean, I deceived you. I kept that fact that I was Bo a secret and let you keep telling me secrets. I only did it because I wanted to help, but I didn't tell you, so I thought you might hate me, but then you…didn't."

"I could never hate you, Mogami-san," he replied with a soft smile.

"Really?" she asked, blushing and smiling through her tears.

"Yes," he assure her, "Never."

"Even if I didn't love you?" she asked.

He felt a stab of pain, but answered, "Yes, Mogami-san, even if you don't love me, I could never hate you. I have too much respect for you as a person, too much admiration for your determination and your kindness to ever hate you."

"And if I did love you?" Kyouko asked.

His breath caught in his throat and he had to remind himself not to immediately pull her into his arms and never let go, that it was phrased as a hypothetical question, that she could still tell him that she didn't love him.

"If you loved me back, I don't think I could ever hate anyone again," he said, surprised that he really meant it. His heart would be too full of love for Kyouko to accommodate an emotion like hate.

"Tsuruga-san, I'm sorry," she said, "But would it possibly be ok if…maybe I took back my promise from before?"

"Which promise was that, Mogami-san?" he asked, his heart nearly beating out of his chest.

"The one about never falling in love with you," she said blushing.

"It most certainly would," he replied flashing his god smile at her, and for once, it didn't seem too bright.

AN: Well, that's it Thank you for reading! Feel free to leave me a review if you'd like to let me know what you think. Thank you to everyone who reviewed!