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Rui enjoyed the current relationship he had with Tsukasa. They were friends and nothing more. They would spend time together at school like good friends, hold shows together, congratulate each other at the end, things like that. It felt great to have someone who shared the same passion he had for shows, and he didn't want to change that.
However, sometimes life plays dirty tricks on you. Some other feelings started growing roots in Rui's heart without him realizing. Suddenly, the time they would spend together discussing their next show wasn't enough for Rui anymore. Suddenly, he would grow more aware of each action of Tsukasa. Suddenly, it wasn't just Tsukasa's acting that he wanted to compliment at the end of each show. As he was thinking of what to do with these feelings, his hands unconsciously picked up pen and paper and started writing words on them. That is how Rui's first fan letter directed to Tsukasa was born.
"To Tsukasa Tenma,
I am writing you this letter to inform you that you have successfully managed to make me one of your fans. Your latest performance was simply amazing and it won't leave my mind. With hopes that you won't find this letter embarrassing, I'll proceed to talk about everything that I loved from it."
Rui kept writing his heart out, until he was finally done. He looked up and let out a breath of relief. He didn't expect to feel so liberated just by writing his thoughts down, but he did. At the end, he kind of liked how the letter came out, so he decided to give it to Tsukasa the next day. However, he wasn't going to give it directly. He still didn't want to change the current relationship they had, so this letter and these feelings would become of someone else.
Louis, that's the name he chose to sign the letter as. He could've left the letter anonymous, but that would've felt like he was being a coward, while this way he wasn't being a coward, he was simply delivering Louis' thoughts. He wasn't being a coward. He wasn't. Sneaking an envelope with the letter in Tsukasa's shoe box while the other boy was having PE classes wasn't a cowardly move at all. It wasn't. Rui kept replaying these words in his head to convince himself.
That day they had practice, so they would be going from school to the Phoenix Wonderland together. Rui thought that was perfect. He really wanted to see Tsukasa's reaction when he would open his shoe box and find the letter.
"Is this?! Is this?!??! A fan letter??!!! Haha! My star talent is so fearsome!!" Tsukasa's reaction was just how Rui imagined it. Rui tried his best to hold back his laugh while coming closer to Tsukasa.
"Oh my, what do we have here?"
"Rui!!! Check this out!!! It's!!! A fan letter!!"
"Tsukasa-kun, you're going to get sued for sound pollution one day if you talk so loudly."
Tsukasa then started going on about how getting sued would be a terrible image for him while putting the envelope inside of his bag.
"Are you not going to read the letter here?"
"No, the other person probably put time and thought into writing this letter. I'm going to take my time as well reading it in my room to respect their feelings. It's the least I can do!"
"I understand, I'm sure this mysterious fan would be happy to hear that as well."
Rui felt just a tiny bit disappointed, but mostly relieved. As much as he wanted to see Tsukasa's reaction to the words written inside, that would've been far too embarrassing for him.
Louis' letters didn't end with that. Rui was surprised at how much he could write about Tsukasa, and because Tsukasa's reactions were always incredibly positive, that just made Rui more inspired. However, while on one side Rui would feel relieved after each letter, on the other he was growing more and more aware of his feelings. Rui didn't panic though, as long as he put these feelings into Louis' letters, they wouldn't get in the way of his friendship with Tsukasa. They were now Louis' feelings after all.
"Your voice is so rich in emotion, it touches my heart directly."
"You were so dazzling today."
"Watching you perform puts a smile to my face."
Rui was starting to get embarrassed. It's scary to think how much freedom the animosity of a letter can give you.
Once again his feet led him to Tsukasa's shoe box. Once again he was going to put an envelope in there and call it a day. However, he was caught by surprise this time. There was already an envelope inside. He was sure Tsukasa had picked up Louis' last letter, so that could only mean one thing. Rui took the envelope and saw "Louis" written in what could only be Tsukasa's handwriting. Trying not to think about how fast his heart was beating at the moment, he put the letter inside his pocket and ran away without leaving an envelope like usual. Once he had reached the rooftop and made sure no one was there, he took the letter out and decided to read it.
"To Louis,
You always use my shoe box to send me letters, so I thought I could maybe use the same method as you. I hope this letter reaches you well.
I've been reading all of your letters and treasuring them, but the last one left a deep impression on me, that is why I decided to write you back.
You said that watching me perform puts a smile to your face. You probably don't know, but the reason why I'm holding shows in the first place is exactly because of that. I want all of the people watching our shows to smile!"
"Tsukasa-kun… I already know that… That's how you won me back..." Rui didn't try holding back the big smile forming on his face. There was no one to judge him anyway.
"So your words mean a lot more to me than what you think. Thank you."
Rui felt his chest grow warm and his heart beat faster.
"Lastly, I would love for you to look at my fellow troupe members as well. They're the reason I'm able to hold such amazing shows in the first place and I'm very proud to be friends with them. I want them to receive fan letters that make them happy just how yours do with me."
"Tsukasa-kun, you make it very hard not to love you sometimes." After having said that, Rui folded the letter, put it in his pocket again, and left the rooftop.
When he passed in front of Tsukasa's class, he saw the boy talking to a girl with long black hair. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that it was one of the members of the disciplinary committee. She had quite the serious expression on her face, so Rui unconsciously moved to a position where they wouldn't be able to see him. He couldn't hear their conversation anyway, so he wasn't sure why he was still looking at them. Maybe it was the idea of Tsukasa getting in trouble with the disciplinary committee, something Rui found quite funny.
Once the girl was done talking, Tsukasa nodded at her, said something, and then the girl left. Tsukasa, now alone, seemed like he was lost in thought. Rui considered coming up to him, but was stopped by Tsukasa suddenly clenching his hand into a fist and yelling "YES!!!!" as loud as he could manage. A classmate came up to him, most probably to ask what was going on, and Tsukasa once again yelled "I'll have you know!! I'm in a great mood right now!! HAHAHA!!" while taking multiple of his "cool" poses with each sentence. Rui watched the scene unfold and had to leave before he would start laughing and risk being spotted by Tsukasa.
That night he took pen and paper again, but unlike the previous times, he was going to get to the root of his feelings. He was going to take the roots out of his heart and put them onto the letter directly.
"I have realized that I have fallen in love with you."
Rui pulled his most cowardly move yet. He didn't want to face Tsukasa, but he still wanted his feelings to reach him, so he used Louis again.
The letter he left didn't receive any answer from Tsukasa. When he would check Tsukasa's shoe box it would be empty. That was for the best. Rui had finally let all of his feelings out, and he wasn't expecting Tsukasa to love back a mysterious fan. He didn't want Tsukasa to.
Practice went smoothly that day. No one could tell what Rui had gone through in the past weeks or that he had confessed to his crush and was, for lack of better words, left on read. Tsukasa was acting normal as well, until the moment when they were getting changed in the dressing room at the end of practice. Rui noticed that Tsukasa was getting dressed quite in a hurry.
"Do you have an appointment or something?"
"No! Anyway! Come to the stage once you're done getting changed!"
After having said that, Tsukasa picked up his things and left at the speed of light. Rui could only stare at him in surprise.
Once he was done getting changed as well, he moved from the changing room to the Wonder Stage. The sun was starting to set, coloring the sky in a gradient of dark blue and red. He noticed Tsukasa waiting for him on top of the stage, and walked up there until they were facing each other.
"Tsukasa-kun, why did you call me here?"
Tsukasa then took out an envelope from his pocket and handed it over to Rui, who could only give him back a look of surprise.
"This is my answer, Louis ." Rui almost dropped the envelope.
"How did you know?"
"I heard from Toya's friend, An. To put it short, she saw you opening my shoe box multiple times, found it suspicious, and came to inform me about it. That's when I realized that it was you."
That was when Rui realized that he had never thought about other people seeing him leave letters. It should've been obvious, yet he somehow was too focused on the letters to think about it. His cheeks had started growing red.
"Come on, read the letter!" Tsukasa's cheeks were as red as Rui's.
"To Louis,
I am sorry to tell you that I can't return your feelings."
Rui folded the letter again and looked at Tsukasa while trying to muster up a smile.
"Thought so. I'm sorry for putting you in this kind of situation, please forget about it."
"Hey! The letter isn't over yet!"
Rui looked at Tsukasa in surprise then went to read the letter again. There really was more to it, but the opening sentence was enough to make Rui look away and not realize that he should've kept reading.
"As you're aware, I do shows with three other troupe members. One of them is called Rui Kamishiro, he's our director. He's a handful, always coming up with such eccentric ideas that they would scare any normal person. Yet I know that they will make for an amazing show, so I accept all of them. Then I do my best to answer his expectations. Then, when I clear his trials, he directs a smile at me and I can feel my heartbeat growing faster. Not from the adrenaline, not from the feeling of satisfaction, but from knowing that I'm the one who made him smile like that. And I feel the same whenever he smiles at me, both during shows and outside of them. I realize that, to me, his smile is different from everyone else's, and I end up seeking more of it. Lastly, I finally came to a conclusion…"
The letter ended there, so Rui looked up at Tsukasa once again. The sun had already settled, but Tsukasa's smile was bright enough to replace it.
"I love you, Rui."
He then moved closer to Rui, enough that he could easily grab Rui's hand and hold it with his own. He did just that.
"When I first received those fan letters I was just happy that someone liked our shows enough to send letters about them, so when I learned that those were from you my heart felt like it was going to explode."
"You were happy enough to yell 'Yes' in the middle of the class and have your classmates look at you weird?"
"You saw that?!" Tsukasa covered his blushing face with his free hand while Rui let out a soft chuckle. After letting out a few groans of embarrassment, Tsukasa went back to look at Rui.
"Well! It doesn't matter! That's just how happy I was. However, Rui." Tsukasa's hand moved to caress Rui's cheek.
"Next time you have things to say, I would like to hear them from you directly."
Rui nodded at Tsukasa. Louis had accomplished his mission and could now leave the rest to Rui himself.
Later, when they were leaving the Phoenix Wonderland together, still holding hands, Rui asked Tsukasa what had happened to Emu and Nene. Tsukasa then admitted that the reason why he got dressed in a hurry was so that he could run and tell the girls to leave early and have some time alone with Rui.