Final chapter! It's been quite a trip, thank you for coming with me all the way to the end.

The Beginning

Ren was ready. It had been nearly a decade since he left home. There'd already been two anniversaries with Kyoko (none involving a ring, but he was getting to that, at her pace). And now his father was back in Japan, sitting in the president's waiting room, just an elevator ride away, just a hallway away, just a door knock and butler away, just around this corner –

" – but it really is an honor for Otou-san to seek me out like this. Shouldn't it be the child's duty to go looking for her parents?"

Why is Kyoko - ?

His father laughed (and it was the same laugh that had resounded throughout his childhood, the great barrel-drum sound that accompanied all of his best memories). "Of course not! Obviously it's the father's job to come looking for his son! I wouldn't be an idiotic doting parent if I didn't."

There was a pause, and Ren was sure that Kyoko was blushing. Of course she wouldn't know about that, the kind of love that drives a parent to find their baby at any cost. She wouldn't have any experience with that.

"Mother's looking forward to meeting you, too. You'll have to come home for a visit soon."

Ren's head snapped up.

"M-m-m- mother?"

"Otherwise known as my lovely wife! The ineffable Juliella."

"B-b-b-but – "

"She's jealous that I've got myself a second son that she wasn't involved in making. You'd better hurry to her side and reassure her like a good child. Emails and phone calls aren't cutting it anymore, it seems."

She speaks with Mom too… how did I not know that she speaks with Mom too?

"I would… I would be honored to meet Okaa-san…" Kyoko's voice had dropped to something barely above a whisper and Ren was thinking now might be a good time to walk into the conversation.

But his father suddenly changed topics. "But other than that, I want to hear about how you've been doing! And I don't want a professional status report. I'm capable of keeping up with all of your appearances on my own. I want to know all the juicy details."

Kyoko stuttered incoherently.

"For instance, I hear you've been secretly dating Tsuruga Ren for two years now, you sneaky girl."

"You saw the press conference?"

"Obviously! Didn't I just say I keep up with all your appearances? Humph. Some son I have, doesn't even listen to her father when he's speaking…"

"We… didn't keep it a secret for any big reason. At first we were a little worried about each other's careers, but really we just liked the privacy. It was Takarada-kaichou who convinced us to go public, since I turned 20 a few months ago. He said at this point it might cause a scandal if we got found out by accident, like that the media might think we were hiding something big, so we might as well come out with it ourselves. Since I'm not a minor anymore."

Ren knew that tone of voice – it was a character voice, one she used when she was tremendously embarrassed but didn't want anyone to know, typically during interviews and the like. It was one of her Rising Starlet Kyouko voices. It was as endearing as it was deceitful, and he was proud that she never used it on him.

"I see, I see… well, when you come home for a visit, you can bring him along."

Ren tensed. What is he –

"Oh no! I couldn't possibly do that! He has to go home first himself! I can't be the one to bring him to you! Definitely!"

And every cell in Ren's body stood stock still.

There was a silence that could have lasted milliseconds or lightyears.

It was Hizuri Kuu who broke it. "And do you think he'll be doing that anytime soon, Kyoko-chan?"

"I… oh no, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to… that's a secret I'm not supposed to know, I can't… I'm so, so sorry – "

"Kyoko-chan. Boss says you know my son better than anyone these days. Do you think he will come home soon?"

"I don't – "

Ren had no idea what he did, but it must have made noise. His father was suddenly standing next to him, looking worried and protective.

And there was Kyoko, tiny and fragile. How is it possible that she is so small? Her hands clutched up at her chest in precisely the shape they would hold if they were wrapped round a dagger, and he watched tears form in her eyes as if it weren't hisheart that had just been stabbed through, but her own.

Had he not been an actor, he might have raged at her. Had he had no temper, he might have cried.

He deliberately blanked his face, pasted a winning smile upon it, and addressed himself to his father.

"I'm sorry. It seems I've interrupted your discussion. Please accept my apologies." He bowed, and when his voice circled back to his own eardrums it sounded cold. Better, act better…

"Kuon – "

"If you'll excuse me, I have work to get to. I was going to speak with the president, but it's nothing urgent."

"Senpai – !"

He walked straight back towards the door, past it, down the hallway, towards the elevator. He could hear feet behind him. But – Don't turn around. Don't turn around. Don't turn around – if he saw her, it would be over. He'd either scream or sob. And Tsuruga Ren did not do such things.

Her voice called to him – Senpai! Senpai, please! – but he blocked it out. He couldn't see her, couldn't hear her, couldn't think of her and all the things she meant to him – Don't scream, don't cry, don't turn around.

The elevator doors clicked shut behind him, he punched a button, began to regulate his breathing.

He did not know how much she knew, or how she knew it, for how long she'd known, who told her, or why she had never spoken of it to him. And he was utterly terrified to find out.

He did not see her for two days.

He had gone to work after that, and Yashiro had noticed the change in his demeanor. It would have been impossible not to. Suddenly the past four years were gone and he was the façade of a man he'd been at twenty. But Yashiro said little about it. He looked surprised at first, worried, and then hurt, and then later just sad.

Ren wondered what the President could have told him, but…it doesn't matter.

After work he'd gone to a hotel. Going home to their apartment was impossible. He could not see her. He ordered a bottle of Scotch, drank half of it, and went to sleep.

The second day passed the same way the first had. Ren was not entirely sure that it wasn't just the same day happening all over again. He woke up (alone), brushed his teeth (with a white toobrush, not his blue one, definitely not the pink one, that one was Kyo-), washed his face (the towel he dried himself with was overstarched and stiff). His manager showed up (with a change of clothes), they talked briefly (about his schedule and nothing else). They descended to the lobby (red and gold, instead of sleek and glass-doored), got his car (from valet), drove to the first set. Ren ate no breakfast, no lunch, no dinner. It was the same, exactly the same as every other day of his life.

The inside of his chest was perfectly hollow.

At two o'clock in the morning he was alone again, in the hotel room, with the bottle of Scotch in his hand, sitting in a well-padded chair that he had turned to face the window. Back to the door.

He would ask later, and she would explain that Yashiro had told her where he was, and Moko-san had convinced her to go, and she had been desperate and had cried to the receptionist and that was why he had given her a key, but at the time he did not know how it was that Mogami Kyoko was suddenly present in his hotel room. Arms wrapped round him from behind. Face pressed to his neck. Sobbing.

"I'm sorry," she said, over and over again, in a small and piteous voice. It was another voice he knew well. He had heard it often at the beginning of their relationship, when she was constantly expecting him to spurn her, because she was never, ever good enough. Before he had convinced her – Kyoko, I love you. You are always good enough. You are always more than I deserve. (So don't speak to me the way you spoke to your mother, because I will never treat you that way.)

He did not want to know the answers to his questions. He was afraid. But he could not stomach the sound of her crying. Anything was better than sitting and letting her cry. So he asked.

"Why? Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you – "

"Who told you? How did you know?"

"It was an accident. I found out. I found something and… I figured it out. Nobody told me. Nobody else knows. I'm so sorry."

"Do you hate me?"

"I love you. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry. I love you. Please forgive me, I didn't –"

He turned in his seat, wrapped an arm about her shoulders and guided her around the overstuffed chair, pulled her over the arm until she was on his lap, straddling him, kissing his face and crying into his hair.

" – please, I love you, and I'm so sorry – "

"Kyoko-chan."

" – I didn't think it would – I didn't mean – I'm sorry – I – "

"Kyoko-chan."

"Please forgive me, I promise I never meant to hurt you, please don't hate me, I only – I love you – "

He caught her face and kissed it. "Kyoko-chan."

She settled onto his lap, brought her hands up to his chest, but kept her head down. "I thought… I thought that if you didn't want me to know, then you had to have a reason. I didn't care. As long as you want to be with me I can be happy with anything, so I didn't – " she paused and glanced up at him, nervous. He got angry with her when she talked like that. "I – I thought that way for a while, but… it doesn't matter what your name is or who your parents are. I know you, and I love you."

Kuon stared at her. She touched his cheek and he was suddenly aware of how cold he was; the warmth of her fingers burned into his skin.

"I'm sorry for getting your name wrong when we were kids," she said.

He smiled, and she blushed (two years and she had still not stopped blushing for him; it made him think maybe there really was a god, and maybe that god didn't hate him). He pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm.

"Do you know why?"

She cocked her head quizzically, as if she weren't sure what he meant, but all she said was, "No."

"I was as lost as a teenager could be. I felt like I was dying in my father's shadow, like I was being strangled by the person I loved best. And there was a local gang I'd run into sometimes. They hated me because I was Japanese, and I hated them because they hated me. Everything kept building up until I was completely full of ugly, painful feelings with no way to get them out. I had a – I had a friend, my only true friend then, who told me I should fight for the things I cared about instead of just letting everything go. It was good advice, but I didn't take it well. I – " here he took a deep breath, forced himself to hold her eyes. "I started fighting for everything. I started to enjoy it. I liked hurting people. And before I knew it I had become a person I couldn't bear to look at."

She started to protest, but he placed a soft hand over her mouth. "If I met a man today that reminded me of myself from back then, I would not let him within 50 kilometers of you."

She looked unconvinced for a moment, then kissed his hand and said nothing. He wouldn't let himself smile, because he was telling her horrible things and he had no right to smile but… Oh, I love this girl.

He took another deep breath, kissed her quickly to get his courage. "Then that friend of mine, that one true friend, died because of something I did." Her eyes went wide. "I started a fight, took it too far, and Rick took the fall. For – for years, I felt like I had killed him." Tears collected in her eyes and she shook her head vehemently. "I didn't kill him," Kuon continued. "I didn't kill him. It took me years to believe it, but it's true. But it's also true that he died because of me." She was crying now, silently, and it was breaking his heart. "If I hadn't relied on him so much, if I hadn't been such a mess, if I hadn't been a useless teenager, if I hadn't ever been born – "

"No!" she cried, and her voice sounded like water bursting through a dam. "Don't say that, don't you even dare say that, not even one word of it!"

He was silent for a moment, but then said quietly. "If it hadn't been for me, Rick would not have died."

Her face broke and she buried herself in his chest. "Don't say those things," she said, between tears. "Don't even think them."

He wrapped his arms around her and said nothing for a long time. When he spoke, it was barely more than a whisper, and he felt that perhaps if he spoke so quietly the words wouldn't count. Maybe she wouldn't hear. Maybe she wouldn't confirm it, that greatest, most horrible fear of his. "I have always felt that I have no right to love you."

She leaned back in his arms and stared at him with those clear, gold eyes that he had come treat as something like a moral compass. If they looked frightened, or sad, or angry, then he had done something wrong. If they looked happy, then he had done something right.

She placed both of her hands on the side of his face, traced his cheekbones with her thumbs, his jaw with her pinkies. She slid her hands down to his neck, wrapped them, laced her fingers at his nape.

And she kissed him.

He carried her to the bed and they made love there, on the stiff-starched sheets, among the foreign pillows, under the sharp lights of Tokyo, busy even at that hour outside the window and hundreds of feet below.

They made love, and it was the most honest thing he had ever done. They made love, and her bones creaked his name.

A/N: Aaaaaand we're done! Comments? Criticisms? Complaints? Cat-calls? Leave 'em in the reviews!