A Manager's Devotion, chapter 4
Chapter 4! Better late than never, yes?
Title: A Manager's Devotion
Fandom: Skip Beat!
Characters: Yashiro Yukihito, Tsuruga Ren
Prompt: #16. Purple
Word Count: 1,802
Rating: G (this chapter), PG-13 (entire fic)
Summary: Yashiro will sacrifice anything to help Ren's career succeed, even his own emotions. But is that really the best for Ren? Drama.
Author's Notes: Set in the Dark Moon story arc after vol 13/Act 78/the end of the anime. BL/slash warning! My Litte Damn Table, so empty of links. Cross-posted to fanfic100, shojobeat, and skip_beat.
Note: Written for the LJ challenge community fanfic100. Updated 9-28-11 for that pesky plot hole correction.
A Manager's Devotion, Chapter 4: Purple
"The dates have their own rooms at the Murasaki Legacy Hotel. They check in tonight. Their individual makeover teams will coordinate Saturday afternoon via cell to ensure all three will be ready to go at their appointed time. Tsuruga-kun will personally escort each date one at a time to the limo." Izumi, a member of the LME marketing team and coordinator of the Tsuruga Ren Dream Group Date event, paused here to massage his temple. "I have firmly declined President Takarada's gracious offer of his Hummer limo. Again. A Hummer doesn't exactly portray the romantic image we're aiming to achieve here. We'll stick with the company Benz."
Yashiro chuckled along with Ren and the others in the meeting, grateful for the chance to laugh. The past day had been rather stressful. His realization after that last conversation with Otani had shaken him to the core, and he was still fighting to come to terms with it.
He kept one ear tuned to the meeting, not expecting anything new to be revealed since it was a final review the day before the event. In twenty-four hours, Yashiro would be preparing to run what he'd come to consider his personal gauntlet. He flipped past the profile pages for the two female dates and sat back to study the profile of one Satou Ginpei-san.
Satou wasn't what Yashiro had expected. Actually, he wasn't entirely sure what he had expected, but he knew it wasn't this. Satou was 32 and owned his own sushi restaurant. Physically, he was of average height but powerfully built. His face was unquestionably masculine, his hair short and tidy. A thin goatee framed equally thin lips that were curved in a confident smile for his photo. But it was his eyes that caught and held Yashiro's attention. Satou was clearly a mature, self-assured man who knew exactly who he was and what he wanted from life. What the man might lack in conventional aesthetic beauty he made up for in sheer magnetism.
He hardly seemed the type to enter a fan contest for a group date with a celebrity. However, owning his own restaurant at such a relatively young age meant he possessed the ambition to set a goal and work to achieve it. If he had set a goal to win personal time with Tsuruga Ren, he'd certainly managed to achieve that, too--and in a company-approved, unstalkerlike way. However much Yashiro had personally been shaken by the man's success, Satou's determination deserved a nod of acknowledgement.
"Yashiro-san?"
The sound of Ren's raised voice snapped his attention away from Satou's photograph and back to the meeting. Yashiro straightened and blinked at the expectant faces around the table. "Forgive me," he quickly apologized and shifted Satou's profile back into the stack of paper. "What was the question again?"
"Do you have any requests for changes? To the itinerary, the LME club patron plants, or anything else?"
Yashiro blinked at Izumi, who was watching him with thinly-veiled expectation. After all, Yashiro had arranged three days ago for Izumi to ask him this very question.
Three days ago. Before Satou had entered the scene, before Otani's gentle words had forced him to see himself in a new light, before he'd realized how he had been mistreating Ren.
Yashiro took a deep breath and stated with quiet determination, "No. No changes from me."
At the sound of Ren shifting, he glanced over and realized the other man watching him with surprise. When their eyes met, Ren's expression lifted into a pleased smile that sucked the breath out of Yashiro's chest.
Ren broke the moment to speak to Izumi, but Yashiro didn't hear a word of it. He carefully clasped his hands together and rested them on the table to reduce their obvious trembling. He closed his eyes and controlled his breathing. The genuine smile from Ren had felt like a warm, welcomed hand on chilled skin.
Yashiro took a deep breath and straightened to focus on the remainder of the meeting, revitalized by the success of his first shaky step along his new path.
Yashiro stared through his reflection in the car window out at the Tokyo night, his mind in a tired and content daze after the unusually frantic day. Ren's wardrobe had been approved, the date schedule run through yet again, the contest winner's makeup and costume crews prepped and ready for the upcoming triple makeovers on the morrow, and the dates had arrived at the hotel. Through all the crazed preparations, and through Ren's standard busy schedule, Yashiro had been able to remain focused and in control with the memory of Ren's smile as a centering light. It had even prevented him from returning to his pointless brooding over Satou-san.
"Yashiro-san, do you own a black suit?"
"Huh?" Yashiro looked over at Ren, who was relaxed against the back of his side of the car's bench seat, and was turned slightly to face him. Yashiro saw his teeth flash in a smile lit by passing streetlights.
Ren continued in a teasing tone, "I ask because I've never seen you in anything darker than the pink one that makes you look like a refugee from the Love-Me Section."
"The proper term for that shade is 'Angelic Aubergine', it's not even remotely 'pink', and why do you ask?"
The answer came easily, carelessly spoken upon the cool night air inside the car. "I'd like you nearby through the event tomorrow, not just hovering on the fringes as outlined in the current plan. If you are there as a third bodyguard, no one will question it. Izumi already gave his approval at the change." He chuckled once. "You must have been zoned out again when I asked at the meeting this morning."
Yashiro stared at Ren, his mind suddenly snapped alert. "I do have a dark gray suit, for formal occasions." He leaned toward Ren and kept his voice equally casual. "But Ren, why would you want me in the middle of your date?"
That flash of teeth again. "Crowd control."
With a snort, Yashiro resumed gazing out his window.
"I am being serious, Yashiro-san. I've seen you silence a group of shrieking fans with one look so often, it's ceased to amaze me. If anyone can keep the night in order, it's you. Please, come along on the date."
Yashiro swallowed once, the click of his throat sounding loudly in his ears. "Your confidence in me is..." he trailed off, searching for the proper word until he found an appropriate substitute and continued, "...gratifying, Ren." He looked over at his client. "I will dust off my darkest suit and tag along, at your request."
The car pulled up to Ren's apartment building then, and Yashiro could clearly see Ren grin at him in the flood of light from the entrance. "Thank you for agreeing. And thank you as well for not asking Mogami-san to be included as a club plant."
As if Yashiro could have possibly doubted Ren's pleasure after that heart-stopping smile in the meeting! "You're welcome for both."
Ren let out a relieved sigh. "I'll have enough on my mind tomorrow night without having to worry about Mogami-san on top of everything else."
"Yes. Perhaps it is best to leave her out of the thick of it."
Ren paused from climbing out of the car and glanced back over his shoulder at Yashiro, one eyebrow raised.
It was Yashiro's turn to grin. "Kyoko-chan excels at creating her own complicated situations these days. She hardly needs my help with that," he concluded wryly, remembering Kyoko's eureka realization of her way to play Mio, and the resulting chaotic fallout.
With another chuckle, Ren exited the car. "Indeed. Goodnight, Yashiro-san."
"Goodnight, Ren. See you in the morning."
Ren's home vanished behind Yashiro, and the actor's easy parting grin was mirrored on Yashiro's face. He relaxed in his seat with his own relieved sigh. Ren wanted him along on the date. Still more proof of how much his client trusted him! Yashiro had to live up to that high regard tomorrow; he did want to end his former selfish actions of keeping Ren distant by pushing him together with Kyoko. But now, at Ren's request, Yashiro himself would be right in the middle of the date.
In the middle of the date--where he had first planned Kyoko to be. But unlike Kyoko, Yashiro wouldn't just be an extra. He'd be alongside Ren from the very beginning...watching Ren interact with a completely out-and-proud-of-it gay man.
That selfish feeling returned to perch on Yashiro's shoulder, where it leered down at him with a fanged and predatory smile. Yashiro would have a front-row seat for observing Ren's reception of another man's romantic overtures. It wasn't even abusing his managerial position, since Ren had asked him to come along and watch over things.
Yashiro thanked the driver for delivering him all the way home and proceeded to his apartment. He dropped his briefcase on the chair just inside his front door, loosened his tie, and made his way to bedroom closet. His suits were neatly arranged by color and intensity, and on the far side of the Angelic Aubergine--like the lovely shade was anything close to pink, really!--he found his darkest suit.
He pulled it out and hung it on a hook to examine it with a critical eye. Charcoal gray and only a year old, bought for his childhood friend's wedding, but he had no ill feelings associated with the suit. His crush on his old best friend had faded long ago, and Yashiro had been able to honestly wish him and his new wife the best. However, the suit was unfortunately an R Mandy.
Yashiro flushed. He'd deliberately splurged on the extra hundred thousand yen for the designer label just to feel a connection to Ren. He'd also known he'd rarely wear it in Ren's sight, given Yashiro's preference on the job for light-colored suits. Since it was also one of the label's more conservative designs, Ren would be unlikely to notice the make. Even if he did, it wouldn't matter overmuch. Ren would just assume Yashiro saw the suit, liked it, and probably purchased it to show support for one of Ren's regular employers.
In the end, it didn't really matter. It was a rather expensive suit for a bodyguard, but only the highly fashion-conscious would notice, and any fashionista present or poring over photos after the event would be focused on Ren and the three dates. Particularly the male one, to be sure.
Yashiro took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, then prepared for bed. He needed as much energy as possible to deal with tomorrow. It was going to be one hell of an event.
[forward to Chapter 5
back to Chapter 3]