Hey guys! I totally should have spent the end of November trying to salvage my NaNo project, or at least working on that songfic challenge I am woefully remiss about updating, but this conniving little plot bunny just wouldn't leave me alone. It takes place immediately after the events of Chap 166 and will probably be rendered irrelevant by Chap 167, but hey. A writer's gotta do what the plot bunnies say, right? Aside from epic spoilers, there are no warnings, and genre can be thought of as Gen in that it pingpongballs around a number of genres in (as closely as I can imitate) the manner of the manga. Please note that I swap POVs between chapters - it's a writing-exercise-turned-hobby of mine, please don't let it confuse you. And of course, R&R is like giving shiny presents directly to my soul! ^_^

Half The Secret Given

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, Mogami-san." Tsuruga Ren held a glass of scotch atop his left knee and observed with well-affected amusement the rigid form of his kohai kneeling before him on his living room rug.

Mogami Kyoko was dressed in street clothes – a shortish skirt (more high-school-girl-with-exceptionally-nice-legs than, say, Setsuka Heel) and a modest, high-cut sweater. Tokyo winters were cold and Kyoko had taken to wearing tall socks under her customary pair of boots. For this reason Ren was secretly extremely glad that she was kneeling with her legs tucked firmly under and her hands clasped formally in her lap; the sight of her in a school-length skirt and knee socks attracted him far more than he was comfortable with.

Kyoko's frigid glare kept Ren from thinking too long on her inadvertent charm. If he didn't appease her quickly he may have to start chipping ice off himself. He tried a warm smile.

"Honestly, Mogami-san. It was just the shock of the accident. I've never been in an accident before. I'm fine now." She had shown up at his door about 15 minutes after he'd arrived home himself (barely 10 minutes after he'd poured his first drink, only 5 after he'd poured his second), demanding to know what was wrong. There were plenty of things wrong, and Ren had a pretty solid guess as to which wrong thing specifically she was referring to, but he simply wasn't going to tell her. It was as easy as that. Easy, except for the part where he had to convince her to drop the subject.

Kyoko's eyes darted to the drink in Ren's hand. He wondered briefly if the iciness of her gaze would do anything for the melting cubes diluting his scotch.

He smiled jovially. "Can't a grown man have a drink after a hard day at work?" he asked, innocently.

"A drink, of course, is fine, Tsuruga-san. However, two drinks when haven't home half an hour indicate a problem."

Ren's eyes widened. How did she…? "How did you know this wasn't my first drink?"

"So I was right!"

"You were bluffing!"

"No, I could tell by your eyes. I worked at a ryoukan for all those years, Tsuruga-san, I know how to tell when a man is trying to get drunk quickly. It's in the eyes."

Ren sighed and admitted small defeat. He placed his drink on the coffee table, scooted forward a bit, and rested his elbows on his knees. "Look," he began, framing her within his hands, "look, it was a stressful day and I needed a drink. I'm not trying to get drunk. Surely you can understand why I would be a little stressed out today?" He knew how this was coming off. It would sound like he wanted her to leave him alone, which wasn't entirely untrue, but she would blow his meaning all out of proportion. She would stammer apologies, degrade herself, rush and stumble towards the door, bow ferociously on her way out, shamefully avoid him for the next few days, and probably drop the Setsuka job as some kind of warped actor's hara-kiri. Ren watched her and waited for the widening of the eyes which would indicate the start of her self-abasing tirade.

Kyoko remained planted firmly to his floor, watching him like he was a drunk, philandering liar and she was his sick-of-it wife. Ren staunchly refused to wither. They had a staring contest for about a minute, and right as Ren was about to lose (sigh, heave himself up by the knees, walk to the kitchen for a glass of water, try a different tack), Kyoko closed her eyes and exhaled.

She opened them again and her expression had changed. The accusatory-wife-thing was gone, replaced by a soft set to the jaw that made Ren think maybe he had lost after all.

"I don't believe you," she said, and Ren wasn't sure what she didn't believe.

So he asked. "I beg your pardon?"

"I don't believe you."

"What exactly don't you believe? This really is only my second drink…"

"It wasn't the shock of the accident."

Damn.

"You had better think of a different excuse. I'm not the only one who isn't going to believe it."

Ren arched his eyebrows at her.

"You looked like you'd lost your soul."

Sirens went off in Ren's head and his character went into lockdown. He carefully blanked his face.

"I wasn't the one who said that, but I thought it too." She paused and lowered her gaze to her hands, then continued quietly. "It was the same expression you made after the fight outside Jeanne D'Arc. The expression you had in the car today. You looked terrified and vacant, like something had scared you so badly that you had to run away. Anybody who saw that face wouldn't believe it was just the shock of the accident." She lifted her face to him again. "And anybody who saw it twice wouldn't believe anything but the truth."

Tsuruga Ren regarded her for a moment, then rose smoothly from the couch. He collected his scotch and went to the kitchen where he poured a glass of water. When he returned to Kyoko, she was still kneeling in front of his couch, watching the place he had left. He offered her the glass, which she accepted elegantly, but without looking at him. She was expecting him to sit back down on that couch and explain himself to her. Like a man.

He did not return to the couch.

"To be completely frank with you, Mogami-san, I don't know why you think I should tell you anything." This was the tack. The surefire tack. Nothing subtle, nothing reassuring. The high-and-mighty senpai act got her every time. He hated himself for resorting to it, but telling her the truth as she demanded was simply out of the question. "Everyone has secrets they'd rather not discuss. The darkest secrets make for the best actors, they say. If there were some secret trouble that was affecting my acting, the only person I would be willing to discuss it with would be a respected mentor. Certainly not some newbie kohai who wouldn't be able to help at all." His words slipped from his mouth like cold cubes of frozen mercury, and with each he hated himself a bit more. He had said earlier, though, hadn't he? He would shove her away if that's what it took. Her concern was more than he could handle. Her innocence, her trust, her perfect little body. (He thought about the time in the hotel when he had buried his face in his hands because it was the only way to keep his wolf's eyes off her.) Everything about her implicated him. He needed her gone. If he lost her permanently, so be it. She'd be better off without him.

Tsuruga Ren watched her as from a great distance. He felt as though he had receded to a far corner of the ceiling and he was watching her in miniature. She looked so breakable. For a while, she didn't do anything, and he couldn't be sure that time hadn't just stopped like that.

Then, finally, she whispered. "I'm your protective charm."

Ren was shocked, by the twin facts that she hadn't run crying and that she was still trying to shoulder some responsibility. His attack was thorough; it went for all her weak points. How had it failed? "I beg your pardon?"

She looked up at him now and there were tears in her eyes and Ren was helpless against his regret. "I'm your protective charm," she repeated, more loudly.

Gotta channel this, channel the guilt, turn it into… He laughed at her. "What, are you talking about your LoveMe assignment? I don't care about that. I wasn't going to give you any points for it anyway so you might as well quit now." His mouth slipped into a little sneer. This was Tsuruga Ren's character flaw. He was a perfect gentleman until provoked, and then he got nasty. Swift and clever nasty. "You didn't want to accept this job in the first place, right? Just go back to the president and tell him you can't do it. I'll tell him too. You can't do it. You're afraid of BJ, you hate Setsuka, you have no idea how to play an adoring sister. You're useless to me. I don't need you." The president had said he would take Kyoko off the job if Ren told her himself. I don't need you was all he had to say, and he'd believed himself incapable of saying it.

A little pool of tears spilled from Kyoko's eye, and Ren felt that he had never hated himself as much as he did at that very moment. This girl had saved him from his demons only a few hours ago, and here he was tearing her apart just to save himself again.

She stood up and he tightened his grip on his glass of scotch.

"What if something bad happens?" she yelled. Ren stared at her. "What if something really bad happens to you because you didn't have your charm? How am I ever supposed to forgive myself if I let something bad –"

"Didn't I just tell you that I don't care about your damn job? You can't help anyway so just qui –"

"Stop it!" She balled her hands into fists and clenched her eyes shut. "I'm not going to quit so stop telling me to!" Her voice broke. "I don't care if you think I can't help you, I'm still going to do my best because –" a sob broke through her words, and what followed sounded watery and desperate " – if something really bad happened to you and I hadn't even tried then I would never be able to forgive myself." Here she started wiping her cheeks with the backs of her fists, and her words were punctuated with tear-hiccups. "The president" hic "assigned me to you because" hic "he thought I could help" hic "so" hic "even if you don't want me" sob "I'll still – "

Even if you don't want me. That was where Ren completely broke down. His glass of scotch fell to the carpet and he went to her, pressed her to him, wanted her so badly that he couldn't stop himself, needed her to stop crying.

"That's not... I'm sorry, please don't cry. That's not what I meant, so please don't cry. I said that but I didn't mean it, I was just... I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, don't cry, please, I'm sorry." He soothed her hair and caressed her side; he spoke whatever words came to his mind, mumbled them quietly, his head bent as close to hers as he could get it. This is pathetic, he degraded himself. I'm cruel to her on purpose but then I can't deal with the consequences, like an idiot brat. She has no reason to put up with this. She deserves better than an immature brat like me. So he thought, but he squeezed her tighter, and she accepted his comfort as if he hadn't been the cause of her tears in the first place.

After a few minutes she quieted, then leaned away from him, and he hooked his sleeve over this thumb and began to wipe her tears away. When she took her fists away from her face she rested them against his chest, and he wasn't sure if the heat he felt was from that or the scotch.

"Mogami-san, I – "

"Tsurugan-san, you dropped your drink." She pulled out of his arms, shaking a little.

"Oh. Oh, yes, I did…"

She bent to pick up the scattered ice cubes, put them back in the glass.

"Um…" he hesitated, then went back to the kitchen for a towel. For a few moments they knelt together in silence, feeling the same rug against their knees, cleaning up his mess.

"Mogami-san, you know that Tsuruga Ren isn't my real name, right?"

Kyoko looked up from the glass of ice cubes, quiet and steady in her hands. "You told the beagle that it was your stage name," she said.

"And he had told me it was an alias." Ren inhaled. "What he said was more accurate." He waited for a response but gone none – she knelt politely as she had while cleaning, staring at him with wide and unflinching eyes. He wondered how he was expected not to love her, and how he was going to face her again after this. "The only person in Japan who knows my real name is the president. Even Yashiro-san doesn't know it." Her eyes widened just a little. "As far as I know, Yashiro-san thinks Tsuruga Ren is my real name. It's the only name I've used since I came here."

"Since you came here… are you not Japanese?"

"I am Japanese but I'm not really from Japan. I grew up somewhere else, and…" He looked at her and suddenly she seemed so vulnerable, with her hands were wrapped around his scotch glass. She could fit them both around its circumference, fingers laced at the front but heels not touching in the back. When Ren held that glass in one hand his fingers overlapped with his thumb. Without cause, he felt like a villain.

"Mogami-san, do you remember when you told me that you were acting for the sake of creating a new Mogami Kyoko?"

"Eh? Ah, yes, I remember…" she blushed prettily and looked down. "You said you believed me."

"I did. I do" – pause – "Because I'm doing the same thing."

She looked back up at him, but not in surprise.

"I came to Japan to create a new me. I wanted to leave behind the person I had been and start over. I'm not trying to become Tsuruga Ren. My public persona is a character. He's not completely unlike myself, but the person I show my fans is not the person you've come over to cook dinner for, Mogami-san." He smiled unconsciously. "Actually, you might be the only person who's forced me to break from Tsuruga Ren's character. I like him. He's not at all difficult for me to portray." He noticed he was smiling and hastily wiped it off his face. "But the character I'm playing right now… BJ is more like who I was before. When I was younger." There was the bombshell. Ren was surprised at himself for dropping it so soon. He had intended to drag this out a bit longer.

Kyoko stared at him with something he ardently hoped was not fear. "Tsuruga-san… you used to be like… BJ?"

"Well, not entirely like BJ, but…" He hadn't expected it to hurt so much, hearing those words come out of her mouth.

"You're afraid of yourself." It was a statement, and it carried the power of revelation. She figured it out, and she was right, and she knew it. "You're afraid that playing BJ will make you revert back to your old self, because you're capable of doing the same awful things that BJ is capable of."

"Not… not all the same things…" Why am I defending myself? Isn't she exactly right?

"When I called out to nii-chan after the fight with those thugs, it wasn't really nii-chan. It was you, and you were terrified because you'd become your old self, not because you'd slipped into BJ's character."

"I don't think… it's not like I was actually going to beat that man to death, and Cain's a pretty violent character too, so…" He felt like a child who was trying to get out of trouble by making excuses. Except he was a grown man, and he had no excuses, and the person he was making excuses to was more powerfully in control of his heart than his parents were these days. He felt like he was going to cry.

"But that's what happened. You weren't going to hold back and you were afraid, because that's who you used to be. A violent person who didn't hold back.

Ren closed his eyes.

"Tsuruga-san, why did you take that character then?" she asked earnestly. "You've done such a good job putting all that behind you, why did you take a character that would bring it close again? I had no idea you had been such a person. You're a little bit of a bully but I didn't think you'd hurt anyone –"

"I wouldn't hurt anyone," he interrupted, again like a child. And, like a child, what he said was only what he wished were true. "I would never hurt you, at least," he amended. "I can't guarantee I wouldn't hurt somebody if they posed a threat to y– to someone I cared about."

"I believe that."

Ren took a deep breath. She believes me. "The reason I took this role, Mogami-san, is to finally get rid of the person I used to be."

"Eh?"

"When you portray a character, that character becomes a part of yourself, right?"

"Definitely."

"You can live as that character. You don't even need a script anymore. When you get into character, it's like a different person takes over. You're not your own self anymore." He was stretching it – she was very talented, but she was very new. It was possible that she hadn't yet –

"Yes, yes! It's like her soul takes over! I don't even have to think about how to portray her anymore!" Kyoko's eyes sparkled. Ren smiled at her with gentle pride. She knew. She knew. She'd been bitten; the joy of acting would never leave her alone now. She would scream to the top like a meteor, and Ren would do whatever it took to keep himself by her side, watching, helping, riding her stardust tail.

He would blow his own cover on the gamble that she would stay by him anyway.

He smiled that smile at her, the one reserved especially for her, and for once she didn't look like it made her uncomfortable. But then he cleared his throat. He rose and offered her a hand, which she accepted after minimal hesitation. They went to the kitchen with the scotch soaked things. "But Mogami-san," he continued, his back to her. "The fact that you can live as your character doesn't mean that you must."

She pulled abreast of him at the sink and looked up at him quizzically.

"You can get back out of the character, I mean." He wetted a fresh towel with cold tap water, handed it to her.

"Of course." She accepted the towel.

"The character remains inside you always, like another piece of yourself, but it's a piece you have more control over." He returned to the couch and sat down.

Kyoko stood in front of him for a moment, watching him, damp towel clasped in both hands. Ren had intended to finish his explanation, get it done in one go, but the way she was staring at him kept his mouth closed. She had a knack for showing expressions that he didn't know how to react to. This time, with her tear stained cheeks and clear, open eyes, the only thing he could think to do was shut up. He gazed up at her, both desperate and terrified to know what she was thinking. He kept his eyes on her as she sat down next to him, prim is a rose.

"You want to conquer your old self," she said.

He stared. That was… not quite how he'd thought of it.

"You want to seal your old self away." She whipped her face to him, showing an earnest expression, a much more familiar one to him. "Like a curse! You want to put a cursed seal on your old self so he can't get out again and terrorize anyone!"

Involuntarily, the corners of Ren's mouth twitched.

"You're like a knight who used to be a villain! A tragic hero trying to make up for the sins of his past!" She sparkled at him.

His face crinkled around the eaves. How many fairy tales is she going to put me in?

"Or you're like – "

"Mogami-san," he interrupted her, because he wouldn't have been able to contain his laughter if she kept going. He took the damp towel from her hands, touched it to her cheek. "Why don't you cool your face a bit?"

"O-oh, yes, of course." She took the towel from him and dabbed at her eyes and cheeks.

"You're right," he said, turning from her. "That's what I'm trying to do. And you're right that I'm afraid of myself, too. I'm afraid that I can't do it."

"That's why I'm your protective charm." She was facing him and smiling, cool cloth still pressed to a cheek, and he didn't quite understand.

"Hunh?"

"I'll be your protective charm. I believe you can do it, Tsuruga-san, so I'll help you. Whenever it seems like you're going too far, I'll call you back."

Had he ever seen that smile on her face before? Yes, but rarely, very rarely, a few times when she was a child, or these days, when they spoke about acting, or maybe about that Kotonami girl she was so infatuated with. He had never seen it directed at him. A slow happiness began to spread throughout his entire body.

But then her expression darkened. "However, Tsuruga-san, if I could request that you make an earnest effort to control yourself as much as possible. My heart can't handle it if I have to watch you get in fistfights with strangers or near-miss car accidents every day."

He laughed, a warm and heavy bubbling sound, like a hot spring filling up his chest. "I'll do my best, Mogami-san. Tha –"

"Oh!" She interrupted his sincere expression of affection for the second time that day. The moment between their shoot locations, when he had tried to tell her that she was amazing – it seemed like eons ago, but it had just been that afternoon. "Actually, that reminds me – what was it about the car accident that affected you so much? I don't really see why that would have reminded you of your scary former self. Did you drive dangerously a lot? Were you like a Hell's Angel?"

"What? No! Hell's Angel's ride motorcycles, not sports cars. Um, I was… " he faltered. "I wasn't the driver, but there was an accident…" Why am I chickening out now? But actually telling her, I was responsible for the death of my friend. I'm a murderer. The thought of actually saying it was petrifying. He felt a cold panic start to grow where the happiness had been.

"It's ok if you don't want to talk about it," she said. "I don't need to know details, Tsuruga-san." She looked at her lap and Ren thought he saw the hint of a blush on her cheeks. But that might have just been left-over flush from the tears. "But if it's alright with you, I'd like to hear as much as you care to tell me. Whenever you're ready to talk about it."

With that the happiness was back, moving like hot fudge sauce over ice cream, smooth and warm and irresistible all down his arm, to his fingertips where they touched the back of her head, pooling at his elbow where it rested against her shoulders, his lips where they pressed against her forehead. She was sweet against his mouth.

"Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you."

Edited 1.10.11

A/N 12/17/11: So someone left me a review a while ago noting that Ren is OOC. This is true. When I first started writing this piece, we fans didn't know much about Kuon at all, and it turns out that the way I've depicted Kuon, and Ren as he deals with Kuon, is noticeably different from the direction that Nakamura-sensei has taken canon. I beg your lenience in this. よろしくおねがいします。