Chapter Text
Ren was the perfect gentleman.
And currently, Kyoko sort of hated that about him.
She saw him standing over to the side in the studio where she was filming a CM. He was talking to a few people, a smile on his face and one hand in the pocket of his jeans. That hand in his pocket made it so his jacket was a bit pushed back and she could see all the long lines of him.
He was so very tall and attractive.
And she was so very… neither.
She sighed and tugged the edges of her miniskirt down. It wasn’t like anything was visible, she had on capri leggings underneath, but she still wasn’t used to how short the skirt was. She took a deep breath. Even if the costume was uncomfortable, she needed to pretend like it was the most comfortable thing in the world. She wasn’t to let her clothing wear her. These were all things that she’d learned while Yashiro-san acted as her manager a month ago.
She’d just finished filming one of the two CMs that he’d helped her choose and negotiate.
“Kyoko-san!”
She looked over at the producer who was hurrying over to her. She bowed. “Saito-san. Was everything satisfactory with my performance? The director said I could leave.”
“Oh, of course!” Saito Yumeko was a pretty woman in her forties who looked closer to her mid-thirties. Kyoko had really come to admire her the last couple of meetings they had. She seemed so poised and self-assured. “I was watching your performance and it was exactly what we wanted. No, I wanted to catch you before you left. I didn’t realise that you would be getting a ride and I don’t want to keep you waiting.”
What she meant was that she didn’t want to keep Tsuruga Ren waiting. Kyoko bit back a smile. “It’s all right, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind waiting if it is for work.” And she knew that was true. Ren wouldn’t mind waiting if it involved her job.
Saito-san held out a medium-sized gift bag with two colorful little fabric handles. Kyoko took it and bowed. Her confusion must have been evident on her face.
“These are all the products that we used on you for the commercial and some others as well. Everything in there should go very well with your skin tone. If you really like something or run out of anything, just give me a call and I’ll make sure that you receive more of it.” She smiled at her.
“Okay.” What was going on?
Saito-san said her goodbyes and bowed and Kyoko was left holding a surprisingly heavy bag of cosmetics. She shook her head and walked over to where Ren was still chatting with some of the crew. The two makeup artists that had been working on her for the commercial were hanging on his every word.
He noticed her immediately and smiled, cutting his conversation short. “Are you ready to leave, Kyoko-chan?”
She couldn’t help but return the smile. “Yes. The producer just wanted to give me this.” She held up the bag in front of her and he smiled wider.
“We should stop and get dinner before I take you home. It’ll be the middle of the rush at the restaurant, and I know you’d rather just jump in and help and worry about your dinner later.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “And you’d rather not eat at all.”
He laughed and fished his keys out of his pocket. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get away with skipping a meal again as long as you’re around.” He turned to the group he had been speaking with. “It was very nice talking with you all, and thank you so much for taking such good care of Kyoko-chan.”
She bowed and thanked everyone as well, and then she was following Ren to his car.
“So what is in the bag?” Ren started the car and they were making their way somewhere that involved food. She wasn’t sure that she should leave the decision up to Ren, but neither did she feel up to making one herself. If they ended up at a convenience store, she’d have to put her foot down, though.
“Products. From the shoot, and even other ones.”
“It was for a makeup line, right?”
Kyoko nodded. “Saito-san said that if I ran out of anything that I should call her and they’d make sure I got more. I really don’t understand this at all. Why would they give me free product and make sure that I don’t run out? I already filmed the CM.”
Ren chuckled and held up a finger before pressing a few buttons on his console. It was new. She had a feeling he wasted a lot of money on new toys and gadgets. She heard a phone ringing and gave him a curious look.
It didn’t last long because soon Yashiro-san’s voice filled the car.
***
“Did you not pay attention when I told you the Studio that Kyoko-chan’s CM was being filmed?”
Ren rolled his eyes and put on his turn signal. “I understood you just fine. I actually have Kyoko-chan in the car with me right now. She had a bag of product and no idea why. I thought maybe a lesson in Endorsement Residuals was in order.”
“They did it? They gave her product?” Yashiro sounded so very proud of himself. “What sorts of things did they give you, Kyoko-chan?”
From the corner of his eye, Ren saw her dig through the bag. “All sorts of things. Eye shadows and lipsticks and blush… Body powder. I don’t even know what that one is for.”
Yashiro chuckled. “So, endorsement residuals. There was a clause in the contract. I mentioned it in passing, but since they didn’t seem sure they’d be interested in it, I thought it could wait until they bit. I knew once they saw you in their makeup that they’d go for it.”
“Go for what?”
“They want you to wear their makeup, Kyoko-chan. All the time, and will give it to you to make sure that you never have a reason not to be wearing it.”
“But why? I mean, I like it very much. It’s all very smooth and fun. It even smells better than most makeup.”
Ren could hear Yashiro’s happy manager voice take over. “She was born to do this, I don’t even need to teach her what to say. Kyoko-chan, they want you to talk about their makeup. That’s it. Whenever someone asks, they want what you just told me. And they’re going to be paying you to say it. This is how an endorsement works. They give you the product and if you like it, anytime you’re interviewed or asked or even if you put something on social media about it, you’ll get a small payment.”
Kyoko’s eyes went wide and Ren chuckled. These sorts of little details, Yashiro excelled at. He didn’t think he’d heard his manager have so much fun in ages.
“They’ll pay me to wear their makeup?”
“Yes, they will.” He paused. “So you have a magazine interview next week, correct?”
She nodded. It didn’t matter if Yashiro heard her or not, he knew her schedule as well as he knew Ren’s at this point. “The demographic is very much like the one for Kiss Kiss . And like that journalist did, you’ll probably get asked about cosmetics again, except this time you want to bring up this brand. You can even say that you did a commercial for them. You did a commercial and fell in love with the product. Then you mention as much as you can without being overbearing. Give me the name of one of the products.”
Kyoko dug out a little box and flipped it over in her hands. “Sugar PLUM Fairy eyeshadow. It’s such a cute name! It’s even plum in color.” She was practically giggling as she said it. It was adorable and Ren felt his heart clench a little.
Ren heard Yashiro pause, and breathe in. “You’re better at this then Ren. You’re a natural.”
He couldn’t help it, he laughed. “She really is. It was a good choice for her first series of endorsements being cosmetics.”
“Super Manager, Ren. Super Manager. Don’t you forget that.”
Even Kyoko laughed.
“One last thing, Kyoko-chan.”
“Yes.”
“Lip gloss, did they give you lip gloss?”
Kyoko dug through and called out a yes when she found them.
“Make sure that you bring that up. A lot of the girls that read these magazines are bit too young for all the eyeshadow and lipstick. But lip gloss is right up their alley. Bringing in girls that will start to like the brand and stick with it as they grow up is important as well.” There was a change in Yashiro’s voice. Ren suddenly had a bad feeling about this. “What kinds did they give you?” That was not his manager voice anymore. That was his “teasing Ren” voice.
“A whole bunch.” Kyoko was too absorbed in looking at the little tubs she had in her hands. “There’s Cotton Candy.”
They were named after candy. Ren sucked in a breath.
“Oh, and it says it’s flavoured, too!”
“Really?” That was definitely Yashiro’s “teasing Ren” voice. “What else?”
“Cherries Jubilee, Cinnamon Sugar, Vanilla Cream--”
“That one. Vanilla Cream. I think you should start with that one. It sounds very… you, Kyoko-chan.” He paused. “I have to go finish some paperwork and eat my dinner.” Yashiro didn’t manage to hang up the phone before he started laughing, though.
Ren pulled into a lot of a family restaurant near his apartment. He knew the food wasn’t bad since he’d occasionally order from there.
“Why was he laughing?”
Ren took a breath and looked over at Kyoko. She was unscrewing the lid of the little tub. “He was probably just really pleased that they wanted you to do endorsements.” And then her finger dipped in. He couldn’t help but stare as Kyoko ran her finger along her lips and then rubbed them together. Her tongue darted out and slid over first her top lip and then her bottom lip. He was going to kill his manager in the morning.
“It really does taste like vanilla and cream. Usually they taste so fake.” She even made a pleased sound.
Yashiro was dead. D-E-A-D.
He coughed. “I thought we could get some hamburger steak.”
Kyoko smiled at him. “That would be great, but are you sure that you can go in there?”
Ren nodded. “They usually aren’t that busy.”
Except they were. They were slammed.
***
“You can’t eat in there, you’ll be instantly recognized.”
Ren sighed behind his steering wheel. “Sushi? There’s a little place up the block that does good takeaway sushi. We can eat it up in my apartment and then I’ll take you home?”
Kyoko nodded.
***
He really hadn’t thought this through when he’d suggested the sushi place. If he had, he never would have offered for them to eat up in his apartment.
He watched as Kyoko opened the small plastic bag and started pulling things out. He had no idea what she ordered, he hadn’t even been listening. He’d been staring at what she was wearing. He hadn’t noticed in the studio.
It was still a very Kyoko look, but definitely slightly older and more put together. The leggings and the very miniskirt were pretty trendy at the moment, as was the looser top that fell off of one shoulder, exposing a bright red strap.
“You look cute.”
She smiled and a blush covered her cheeks. “Thank you. I was telling Amamiya-san what Yashiro-san had been telling me about how to present myself, and she offered to take me shopping and help me pick out a couple of outfits.” She pressed and rubbed her lips together for the umpteenth time since she put on that lip gloss.
He nodded and walked around the counter, stopping in front of her. He could think about his actions later.
“Is everything all right?” Her eyes had gone wide.
Before he could second guess himself he put his hands on her waist and picked her up, sitting her on top of the counter. “You seem to really like that lip gloss, and I thought I’d get a taste of it.”
He stepped between her legs and bent his head and kissed her. Her arms went up around his neck immediately. There was indeed a slight taste of vanilla and cream to her lips, but more than that was the taste of Kyoko, sweet and warm.
He put his hand on the back of her neck and kept kissing her between taking little breaths. He never wanted to stop kissing her.
***
She knew that her whole face had to have been beet red by the time Ren stopped kissing her.
“You really are a bit of a playboy, aren’t you?”
“Are you still on about that?” He frowned, looking a bit hurt.
She shook her head. “No. Well, yes, but not because of that.” She looked down. “I was thinking earlier how you’re always the perfect gentleman and well, it was annoying me.”
She felt his fingers under her chin, making her lift her head to look at him. “Is being a gentleman a bad thing?”
She laughed a little. “No, but this is nice too.”
He rubbed his hands down her side and settled them on her waist. She shivered a little.
“So what you’re saying is that you wouldn’t mind if I sampled every one of those lip glosses.”
Her breath caught. “But dinner.”
His smile was a little dangerous. “Playboys don’t wait until after dinner.” He leaned down and kissed her again.
She gasped when his lips touched her neck right behind her jaw. She tilted her head a little to side and sighed. “Are you going to leave a kiss mark?”
His breath was hot on her neck as he chuckled. “Do you want me to? It might cause issues at work.”
She sighed, a little disappointed. “I suppose you shouldn’t then.”
He pulled away and looked at her. “Did you want me to? Even if I shouldn’t?” He looked honestly curious. “I didn’t think you’d…”
“Be interested in those sorts of things?”
He nodded.
Kyoko felt herself blushing again. “I’m not not interested.” She paused. “I gave you one, after all. But… I know you have a lot of… experience.”
Ren nodded and stroked her bottom lip with his thumb. “Does that still worry you?”
She made a face. “It still makes me a little jealous. And I’m not… ready for that .”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “Kyoko-chan, I’d never…” He sighed. “You’re worth waiting for.”
She blushed again.
“Though if you keep wearing things like that, I can’t promise that you won’t end up with a kiss mark one day.”
“Playboy.”
***
“Did you have a good evening?” Yashiro smiled as Ren sat down for their morning meeting.
“Of course.”
Yashiro sighed. “That’s all I’m getting out of you? ‘Of course’?”
Ren nodded. A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, after all.
“Fine, if that’s the way that you want to play it, we’ll get straight onto business.”
“What’s on the agenda?”
“For today, the usual, but we actually have something that we have to discuss. How to break it to your fans that you are dating Kyoko-chan.”
Ren raised an eyebrow. “Do we have to talk about this now?”
Yashiro nodded. “At minimum, I need two weeks of time to prep, though a month will be better, but I need to know how. Magazine or talk show?”