Chapter Text
he’s doomed.
is what he told himself after figuring out that he has feelings for his troupe leader, star and best friend. rui, being the hopeless person he is, starts to panic about his feelings.
what if he doesn’t like him back? what if he doesn’t try to listen to him? what if he gets disgusted and leaves him like everyone else did? what if—
his thoughts are interrupted by his mom knocking on his room’s door, which surprisingly makes him flinch and let out a yelp.
“rui? are you okay in there?”
“a-ah! yes mom, everything is okay. you can come in, by the way!”
and with the permission, the purple haired boy is no longer alone in his room. however, his mom is (as always) bothered by the mess.
“…you still haven’t tidied your room?”
“too busy for that— did you want something?”
“nope! just wanted to check up on my dear son!”
and with that, a peck was planted on rui’s cheek.
he had a very lovely mom, and everyone who was close with the kamishiro family knew this.
“and i wanted to ask if you were hungry since i’m preparing dinner for us.”
rui then got reminded of how hungry he was, and who knows? maybe eating will partially ease his problems!
with that in his mind, the taller agreed on eating dinner.
the clock showed 10:45pm, and rui was still awake, thinking about his dearest star, his tsukasa-kun. he felt weird, creepy even, just because he had these feelings for his best friend. but how could he not? he was cute, his blonde hair was very soft! and don't even get him started on how he consistently boosts his own ego, bringing a shine to his eyes every time he does that... and his... smile…
the purple haired eventually fell asleep thinking about tsukasa.
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at school, rui finds himself completely unable to focus on his classes. and the newfound fact of him being classmates with tsukasa only makes this worse... at first, his classmates found it normal for him to not concentrate in class but when he never paid attention in physics of all classes, they noticed something was up. but luckily, they also didn't bother rui about it.
"what was he thinking about?" was what his classmates were mostly asking to each other, though that question was obviously left unanswered. what rui was really thinking about though, was a way to express his love towards tsukasa.
however, he never found a solution to his problem, so he decided to get some external help.
KAITO was like rui's second father, he could ask any questions to him and ask for any type of advice. so why not ask him for help about his feelings for the cute blond?
after school, when he was about to teleport to the SEKAI, mizuki started to message him which unfortunately distracted him from doing so. but then he had another idea;
why not ask mizuki for help?
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this thought of his led to rui and mizuki having a 4 hour long call… in which, rui got teased by mizuki and got the very needed advice.
“oooohhh? is rui-kun in loveee~?"
"mizuki... i need your help right now, not whatever this is."
a giggle was heard from the other end of the line.
"okay okay! how about you write an anonymous love letter and drop it by his shoe locker? pretty classic but works every time, i did the same thing with enanan and had no problem. i think it's worth trying!"
a love letter?
"how did i not think of that?! thank you a lot, you just saved me at least an hour of thinking!"
they chatted a bit more after that, with mizuki giving rui ideas and rui ranting about his worries. at last, the call ended at around 12:55am, way past their usual bedtime.
'now i have to actually write the letter, huh.. nothing's coming to mind...'
after a long while of scribbling and erasing and scribbling again, with lots of fearful thoughts and sappy internal scenarios, he finally had a solid letter to give his dear crush!
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in the morning as he was getting ready, rui's mind felt like it was in the clouds with how distracted he was. he was feeling dizzy with the thoughts of "what if he doesn't like it?" "will i mess up?" and so on, and he didn't even realize he got to class without dropping the letter off at tsukasa's shoe locker.
he was just about to leave the classroom to drop it off when he realized that...
tsukasa isn't even in class today!
'crap! will i not be able to give it to him soon? what's going to happen now?'
these thoughts were circling back and forth in his mind for the entire school day. when he got home, his mom had noticed he was feeling a little down and asked if something was up;
"hey, rui? are you feeling okay? you haven't spoken at all today and i'm starting to get a little worried."
"is there something bothering you? ...did something happen at school?"
meanwhile, rui was pushing his food around his plate, removing any vegetables he found in the sauce of his pasta.
"no mom, nothing happened... i guess i just woke up feeling different? nothing much, i promise."
"okay then, but you know you can talk to me about absolutely anything. i'll always listen to you."
suddenly rui's surroundings that felt like stones started feeling a little more comfortable after hearing his mom's kind words.
"thank you so much mom, both for the food and your words, you really shouldn't worry though! i'm doing okay and if there's something bothering me i'll make sure to tell you."
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for the first time in a while, rui had a solid thought.
he was going to sneak out and go to tsukasa's house right now to deliver the letter by himself!
the clock was showing 1am when rui managed to sneak out of the house without making any sounds. the street felt like it was leading him on; the street lights shone warmer than they used to, the wind wasn't harsh on his skin like it usually felt in the morning however the air was feeling a little humid.
almost too humid for a cloudy night, more like it would start raining anytime soon...
before he realized it, rui was caught up in a rainstorm with no way to back out! he was already drenched, with no umbrella or raincoat, wearing a simple hoodie for protection and the letter crumpled in his hand, absorbing some of the water that got onto his hand.
he quickly put up his hood and started sprinting his way to tsukasa's house, keeping the letter safe in his front pocket despite it getting damp by how heavy the rainfall was.
around 10 minutes later, he was finally standing in front of the tenma household, water dripping from his hair and nose and eyelashes with his clothes sticking uncomfortably to his skin. but there was a tiny problem;
tsukasa's room was upstairs, and he had no way of getting in without going through the door.
with all the emotional buildup from the past few days affecting his mindset and actions, rui started weeping without even noticing.
he sat on a bench trying to think for a solution while trying to keep quiet while crying in order to not wake anyone up. he couldn't climb up because that would just scare tsukasa and wake everyone else up, and he couldnt also just sit there until sunrise looking like a wet cat!
it wasn't until 5 minutes later that he spotted a pile of tiny rocks right under tsukasa's window.
he slowly approached the rocks, walking carefully so that he didn't slip and fall. he picked one up and inspected it, spinning it between his fingers and taking in the texture of it.
he then had the genius idea of throwing rocks at tsukasa's window until he woke up!
his first attempt at throwing rocks didn't go very well as it didn't go high enough and fell in a bush nearby. however, as he was about to throw the second one...
the window suddenly opened, and there was none other than tsukasa, in his blue-white striped pajamas and curly hair that rui had never seen before.
"HEY!!! who's there-- RUI?? HUH? WHAT ARE YOU DOI--"
he was silenced by another rock hitting him right on the forehead, his attention now drawn to the white thing sticking out of rui's hoodie and then at rui, asking him to open the door so that he can get in and not catch a cold.