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Ren was not an easy man to understand. He was quiet more often than he wasn’t, peering out at the world from behind the scopelike lens of his black-rimmed glasses. The curly hair that crowded his face and eyes may as well have been a forest dark and deep. His fingers were lithe and soft, they played across her cheek at night when he thought she was asleep, but the ridge of his knuckles were almost always bruised. When he did speak, it was always rife with sarcasm or wry mockery, but the extent of his devotion to everyone around him hardly mirrored that.
Futaba couldn’t always tell if that contradiction was by design or not — if he were somehow just Joker wearing a Ren mask, taking it off only to save the day.
Her boyfriend wasn’t Batman.
He was more like Bruce Wayne. Affable and charming when he wanted to be, but a total grump on the surface. She noted that when he pulled the controller out of her hands one night and despite her totally legitimate protests that he was being an asshole and that she totally could have gotten one more game in before bed.
As a boyfriend, he functioned a little like a second dad. He was caring and a little overprotective. He tried to keep a subtle interest in everything she did. Ren played games with her when nobody else would, and when he wasn’t in the mood, he let her cuddle up in his arms while she played. Watching with his chin resting on the crown of her red hair, he was content to quietly observe.
And shit talk her whenever she died.
During the day, Ren was always moving. Cleaning, cooking, preparing some plan or another that may or may never pan out. He didn’t communicate much of any of it. Futaba only knew he was going to clean the kitchen after the fact, when she came downstairs to find everything sparkling and the floor completely free of dust bunnies. He was aggressive like that, even doing the same to her room while she slept or in the scant moments when she left the house.
It was a little frustrating to come home and find that her perfectly organized pile of loose notes were not where she left them, but instead put together into a neat little folder… but it was proof that he cared, and those proofs were sometimes hard to find. Ren didn’t shy away from complimenting her in private, or lauding her achievements (even if they were lame things that everyone could do), but finding the actual, concrete proofs were what mattered to her.
Proofs like the way he kissed her forehead at night, or how he’d sneak into her bed to cuddle with her on nights she couldn’t sleep. Like the incredibly annoying and not at all endearing in the slightest way that he patted her head. How he’d try so hard to fluster her throughout the day, making wry comments about how pretty she was or hitting her with dumb pickup lines when she came down to get something from the fridge.
Her boyfriend wasn’t Batman.
He was an idiot and a half.
She loved him, though.