Work Text:
Thick, heavy metal doors slide closed with an inaudible click, sealing a very confused, wide-eyed teenage girl in the same space as the Demon Lord that had chased her, voraciously, down a very public hallway – and completely ruining his suave, gentleman’s persona – into the bright, enclosed elevator of TBM Studios. This very same man who had admitted to her but not really her – Boh was a persona of Kyoko but he was also just a sarcastic chicken – everything he was about to tell her now. She didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to hear those words pass his lips, because she knew, with a tight, hard clench of her heart, it would be the end of the hope she had budded and nurtured in the depths of her being.
If he said the truth she was avoiding, desperately, then she would have to smile and pretend her heart wasn’t breaking. All the acting in the world couldn’t save her from the inevitable, impending heartbreak lingering in the unspoken tension between them.
Tsuruga-san’s deep, heavy pants echoed in the small space, his warm breath ghosting over her orange hair. A tingling tickle spread through her scalp and she fought off the shiver his breath caused her, refusing to look up at his face. She didn’t want to see his expression when he told her, didn’t want to see those brown eyes glow when he spoke about someone that wasn’t her. Kyoko wasn’t usually like this. The tenacious girl could fight down any obstacle in her way but not this, not him, not the stuttering of her heart.
No preparation could soften the truth.
It was warm and Tsuruga-san’s body heat drifted lazily off his towering frame, carrying the salty scent of sweat and the rich, heady cologne that he always wore. Underneath it wafted pure, unfiltered musk of fresh soil, of blooming trees and sunlight. Tsuruga, Ren always carried the scent of Nature and it was this that soothed her, that she had come to associate with the man in front of her. Deadly, suffocating stillness hovered in the small elevator between two confused, pounding hearts desperate to understand each other. A boulder of silence sunk onto their shoulders, suspending them in place, unable to break away from each other even if they wanted to – he didn’t but she did, oh she really, really did.
When those doors opened, she was going to bolt for her life.
This man….
This stupid, infuriating, impossible-to-not-love man! How dare he steal her heart, give her false hopes – she ignored the outraged President that popped into her head, shouting that these were her feelings and she was responsible for them – only to crush them, here and now, in a stalled elevator. How dare he come in after she had sworn off these vile, grotesque feelings and sprout them back to life!
If this was love, if this was her Fate, then she wanted nothing to do with it!
If falling in love with this insufferable, childishly beautiful man was inevitably impossible to avoid, then-then-she wished she had never met him at all!
As soon as that ugly thought raced through her mind, her entire body froze. Even the blood in her veins crystallized and she sucked in a quiet breath, every muscle in her body rigid with tension. She could barely feel her skin, barely feel his warmth, and her heart skipped at that icy thought. Wide, honey-gold orbs tingled, itching with regret and utter devastation. Her parted lips closed, her lips trembling and mouth dry. A burn clawed it’s way up her tender throat, tightening it’s burning grip until she felt almost dizzy.
How….How could she have ever thought meeting him was some kind of mistake?
Her purse’s thick straps weigh heavily on her shoulder, a shield between her heart and his, and, unconsciously, she presses further back into the wall of the elevator. It’s a movement she’s not aware she made, shifting the bag until it’s in the middle of them, but she knows he’s aware of it when his large palms slide down the wall, now directly at her shoulders instead of above her. There is no escape from her doom now with the way he’s leaning into her, his head tilted down. She’s not looking up, clutching at her blue and white bag until her fingers shake, and he’s still looking at the brightly lit floor.
If someone had told her when she woke up this morning that her mentor, her esteemed Senpai and the man she secretly loved, would chase her down TBM’s hallways, shouting at her, and ultimately pinning her in an elevator, Mogami, Kyoko would have laughed hysterically.
Now, though, the situation wasn’t as funny as she might have imagined.
Getting out of this would require all her skills as an actress. And she could do it, she could make it through this horrible reality alive.
Broken but alive.
The man she loved was so close, close enough for her to reach out and touch him but she didn’t. She couldn’t. Squeezing her tote bag tighter, she sent up a silent prayer for the strength to ignore the painful pulsing in her chest. Then, from the darkest recesses of the drowning silence, came Kyoko’s salvation: a cheerfully chirpy ‘ding’ that signalled someone had called for the elevator. A moment later, her stomach swayed when the enclosed box of her doom smoothly pulled upward. Darting her gold orbs upward, she saw the glowing number 5. She only had to make it 5 floors and then she would be free from this moment, from him, from the truth she didn’t want to face.
And she could avoid him, avoid this conversation, no matter how much her heart hurt.
What she did not, however, account for was that the man hovering tensely above her had no intention of letting her run.
Intent on staring at Tsuruga-san’s black loafers and stubbornly not meeting his downcast gaze, Kyoko swallowed reflexively at the billowing, raw power of the beast disguised as a man. She’d felt this before, knew it existed from their time as the Heel siblings, but it had never been directed at her before.
Now that it was, she understood the fear.
Her throat clenched tight, painful and preventing the necessary intake of oxygen. Lungs deprived of their need faltered and a sharp stab of terror pierced through the icy numb that had fallen over her skin. He was there and he was everywhere, his warmth an encompassing fire that burned across every inch of her. Every pore of her skin erupted, the fine, thin invisible hairs on her arms all immediately rising straight up. Electricity and fire sparked in the air around them and it was like the elevator disappeared. All that existed was the minute space smouldering between the trapped bunny and the ferocious lion with it’s fangs bared.
This was it, this was the moment.
He had yet to say anything and the gentle pull of the elevator brought her closer to freedom as she pressed her back firmly into the wall behind her, trying to escape the rough lull of Tsuruga-san’s body to her own. Desire had not been something Kyoko had ever acknowledged – and, embarrassingly, something she had never really felt for Sho – until she had met this intoxicating man. He was dangerous, to her heart, to her body, a threat to her very being.
Because for one single damning second she had almost responded to the call.
The trickle of tears soaked her chest in a hot smear, crawling in a wet warmth up her constricted throat, clogging her dry mouth and pounding behind her golden eyes. Only 3 more floors, only 3 more, she could do this and she would not break down now. Smile. She would smile, damn it, even if it killed her.
She wasn’t too sure it wouldn’t.
Whatever she had been expecting could never have prepared her for what the bane of her heart did. Only three more floors and Tsuruga-san had made an irrevocable decision. All she wanted to do was run. And all it took was one word to break her.
“Kyoko-chan.”
She had heard that before, that reverent, soft call of her name and that gentle kindness from a distant past of childhood dreams and fairy princes.
The wires in her brain disconnected, unable to process that nugget of information right away. While her sluggish, confused and high-strung mind clicked puzzle pieces messily together and tried to reboot, her hands unknowingly dropped to her sides, swinging uselessly. The thick straps of her blue and white tote bag slowly slipped from her shoulder, brushing down her arm and, without a care, to the floor with a soft thud.
Corn had used Tsuruga-san’s voice and called her, sweetly, softly, lovingly – a high school girl.
There were no two people in the world who had a lean, towering figure like Corn and Tsuruga-san, uncanny and unnatural – a girl obsessed with eating habits, his eating habits.
A fairy prince, a kiss given and a kiss stolen, and –
With a gasp and warm tears glossing over her large, impossibly wide and disbelieving golden pools, Kyoko slowly lifts her bright orange head.
And, finally, she sees.
Frozen, she can do nothing but stare at him in shocked disbelief. Mouth falling open, the thought that she had denied, ignored, and promptly discarded came crashing back. From deep within Kyoko, a small ornate box lie amongst a pile of discarded and useless locks. It’s paint is chipped, colours dulled from the lack of attention and care. The locks are all bent and twisted, unable to reseal what had once been impenetrable. Slowly, the lid rises and Kyoko feels the release down into her bones.
Staring up in mute incomprehension, her body unable to feel anything in fear of feeling everything, she sees through what she now knows has to be brown contact lenses to the bright, shining burgundy-streaked green that lie beneath. She knows this look, remembers it as the Emperor of the Night and the Fairy Prince that had stolen her first, real true kiss.
And she knew she should be embarrassed because she had told this man about himself – and she would, later, when she could breath and wasn’t held captive in the Emperor’s dark Court – and so many things were running through her mind.
This couldn’t – It wasn’t –
Unable to look away, Kyoko could only watch as the man she loved – her Fairy Prince, her Corn – told her again what he had told her on that bright sunny day in Guam by the sea, her lips still tingling from the warmth of his kiss. She couldn’t hear the words, knew if she did she would faint or die or something equally embarrassing, but she could read the words, could see the way they formed and fell off his tongue like a sweetened poison.
“I love you, Kyoko-chan.”
The elevator gives a sharp jerk and a way too cheerful ‘ding’, and before he can collect himself, before she can do anything stupid, her fingers grasp at her bag. Curling and gripping the straps, she throws it on her shoulder and, while his head turns to look at the small gap in the metal doors, Kyoko ducks under his arm and darts for the opening. Small and fast, she squeezes through before he can stop her, brushing past the small group of people waiting to board and ignoring their hushed whispers, she runs and she doesn’t stop. Even when her chest burns and her lungs ache for more than air, even when the warm tears budding in her gold eyes burn down her cheeks, even as wet, soft sobs break past her heaving breath, and even past her stumbling, desperate steps, Kyoko does not stop.
If she stops, if she lets herself hear and believe, she knows she will lose more than her heart.
All this time….He had known, he had known and he had lied to her, he had kissed her….
….He loved her….
With a gasping sob, Kyoko slams open the door to the stairs and falls, slamming her fists repeatedly, into the cold wall. Resting her forehead to cool the heat of her ugly, searing tears, she rests her aching fists on the wall, the straps of her bag hanging haphazardly from her elbow. Against all odds, against Fate and Time, a broken-hearted Princess had found her torn-winged Fairy Prince.
Her path had led her back to him, back to a man that could never be hers.
Sinking to her knees, she drops her bag and covers her eyes with her fists, her hot tears soaking through the cracks of her tightly curled fingers.
There was no way she could respond to him, no way he loved her, no way –
And against all odds, fighting Fate and circumstance for the heart of the girl that had always been his Princess, she’s hefted upwards into sunlight-soaked arms. Dizzy and confused, heart frozen and silent, Kyoko doesn’t think, doesn’t feel, can’t believe this is real – and she screams, choking on the pieces of her broken heart. She shatters there, in his tight embrace, his chest heaving and his heart pounding unevenly against her forehead as she struggles to break his hold. She has to get away, has to run, because if this man breaks her, if he hurts her –
With a sharp gasp, she beats her fists on his sturdy chest and even though they both know it doesn’t faze him in the slightest, he winces anyway and she sobs openly, uncaring of how ugly and stupid and pathetic she’s becoming.
And then slender fingers curl loose but firmly around her small, dainty wrists, holding her fists still from beating her confused pain into his own heart.
Teary orbs squeezed tightly shut against the onslaught of her emotions, she fails to see when his own darken, his mouth falling into a pained grimace. And in a stairwell, a Fairy Prince leans down and seals their fate with a kiss. In Guam, he had selfishly stolen one in promise to his own desires. But now, holding a broken, scared Princess in his arms, he kisses her gently, slowly, giving her all of him in the only way he knows how. Pouring years of pent-up desires, all the repressed urges to hold her, kiss her, love her, it’s Kuon who kisses her, desperate but gentle. Everything hangs in the balance, in the tears of a crying Princess and the pieces of her crown lying shattered in her chest.
There are words left unsaid that need to be spoken and feelings left unfelt that need to be released. Yet here, in this tiny stairwell, a fairytale of a Fairy Prince and his Princess begins anew.
With the way all fairytales do: a kiss.