Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

tenma tsukasa likes to believe that he’s a manageable student.

or at least, tries to. he’s always made a point to hand it work on time, pay attention during class, take notes, and even studies ( the night before ) for tests! ..by frantically cramming all tested content the night before, but study nonetheless. most of the time, he’s able to pass, and he’s never disruptive during lessons either.

unfortunately, after meeting rui, his sort-of pristine reputation has all gone down the drain.

look, it’s not his fault! he would grumble upon seeing the teacher-in-charge of discipline for the second time that week, he just gets caught up amidst the chaos that comes in the forms of homemade explosives and confetti cannons. all while rui scratched the back of his neck and smiled, not even looking at least half-apologetic.

however, he wasn’t going to let that stop him this year! it was a new term, a new class with a new form teacher, therefore he could start afresh without the burden of his questionable reputation. having that sort of comfort in his heart, tsukasa sleeps peacefully that night.

but not for long.

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“huh—?!”

admittedly, the words were clear as day. looking at the characters written on the class list in bold, it was confirmation that tsukasa and rui were in the same class. tsukasa’s blood runs cold.

“well, isn’t that amusing?” mizuki stifles a laugh from behind him. with those soul-crushing words, his world comes to a slow, painful, devastating end.

just like that, there went his new start!

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thump. a piece of notebook paper settles onto the corner of his table with perfect aim.

tsukasa stares down at the small sheet of paper in his hands. the penmanship is elegant; it was most likely written in a slow manner, and there was actually a cat, in a shade of dark purple where the sender had presumably used a purple pen on the piece of paper while writing it. since when were purple inked pens permitted to be used on work? had rui seriously gone out of his way to purchase that shade to write notes?

turning his head over his shoulder, he spots the culprit, rui from one table over. a smile so sweet it was too good to be true, and just like he had thought — a purple pen held delicately in his grasp. and a strange contraption, most likely a slingshot, probably previously used to throw the note.

paying him no mind, tsukasa pushes the to-be-ignored note aside with a roll of his eyes, and turns his attention back to the teacher, only to immediately glance at the note in curiosity again. trust rui to find a way to distract him even when the teacher’s separated them!

thump. another piece of paper lands on his table. as curious as he was to see what he had to say, he doesn’t want to encourage him further, yet he still picks up the note, feeling its smooth texture underneath his fingers. if he were to be caught with a note, he’d never be trusted by teachers ever again!

thump.

“alright, fine!” tsukasa angrily mouths over at rui. irritated, he opens the note to find a terrifying doodle of what seemed to be him, inside a cannon while robonene pulled the string to release him. and at the end sits a little cat-like smiley face, as if to mock him even further. the two other notes he’s thrown were one asking for answers, though tsukasa knew rui already had them and just wanted to annoy him, while the other asked if he liked his idea.

no, he will absolutely not be in a cannon! if he had never opened the note, he’d have never even needed to see the stupid drawing!

with a sigh, tsukasa set the note aside. still, he can still feel the rui’s gaze on him, awaiting his feedback, and figuring he won’t go away unless dealt with, tsukasa writes a note back. first, he writes the solution to the math problem, giving rui the benefit of the doubt. next, he quickly scribbles down the word ‘no’ in big, capital letters, with extra exclamation points to emphasise his point, crumples it up into a ball without waiting for the ink to properly dry, and chucks it back at the annoying student.

it’s almost comical how excitedly rui blinks down at the paper ball as it lands before him, almost as if he didn’t expect a reply in the first place, and tsukasa watches him carefully unfold the paper, only to furrow his brows at the response presented to him.

he watches with a satisfied smile. this way he’ll get the hint, and most likely after this, he’ll probably stop bothering him!

..which was why tsukasa flinches at the slightly heavier folded piece of paper that lands on the exact same spot of his table just a few minutes later. he turns his body in furious disbelief and turns his head, and in doing so, he catches a glimpse of the annoyance grinning a bright smile. tsukasa has never been one to outright ignore someone, but now he cannot resist the urge to tear up the note in front of rui after class.

he blinks down at the note. by some miracle, the slingshot managed to launch the note perfectly in the same position as all his other notes again. whatever rui had designed to throw notes, it really was working well.

he takes his pen, expresses his fascination with the launcher before sending it back over his shoulder.

‘but focus, rui!’ was also his response jotted at the very bottom of the same note he’d written. the other students had come to notice the little game he was playing with this troublemaking student, and they had started to give them odd glances. however, tsukasa has never been one to particularly care, so he turns around, expecting rui to actually leave him alone this time.

‘i’ll share my valuable secrets if you meet me outside the bathroom right now.’

skipping class?! tsukasa writes a note back at lightning speed. ‘absolutely not!’

“what do you think you’re doing?”

caught dead in his tracks, tsukasa slowly tilts his head to see his math teacher, marker in hand, staring at him accusingly with an unamused expression. eyes darting around in search of an excuse, the pile of notes from rui at the corner of his desk did not serve him any favours. he whips his head around towards the perpetrator. if he was going down, so was rui!

“..wait, but rui—“ tsukasa splutters out, but then he pauses.

rui’s table was completely clean. no notes, no slingshot contraption, not a single trace that tsukasa had ever even sent a note back. and the cherry on top was his notebook that laid neatly on his table, equations written in neat rows with a pen that was definitely not purple sitting in the palm of his hand. the teacher shoots tsukasa a glare.

rui had completely covered up his tracks!

“rui, you—!”

“that is enough. please, do not try to pass notes in my class,” the teacher finally sighs before dismissing the rest of the class.

just like that, there went his new start.

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unfortunately, it became a routine.

tsukasa will show up to class, bright-eyed and ready to focus, and sometimes — or rather always, rui will show up earlier than him. some days tsukasa even shows up earlier than he usually is, but will find rui sitting at his desk, already before him. this theory is proven right when he shows up right when school opens, only to find rui greeting him with a smile that knew all too much. it was true, rui came to school at earlier hours to see him.

‘tsukasa-kun, what do you think of this?’

the notes would say, complete with a rough sketch of a robot part. rui will pass over sketches to tsukasa, asking for feedback, and tsukasa would return an excited message with his thoughts, but a stern scolding right below it, topped off with an angry face. back and forth they went, rui through his slingshot and tsukasa through a poor messenger of a classmate between the two. eventually, tsukasa actually finds himself excited to go to school — but for a reason far from academics.

“tsukasa-kun, you’re here!”

“earlier than me again—?!”

and when their classmates had enough of their note passing, seat trades were made and tsukasa has ended up sitting next to rui. yet they kept up with the tradition of passing notes throughout the day, so as to not create noise. and for the first time, tsukasa never quite thought he’d look forward to receiving rui’s notes. he’s grown to like his handwriting in his silly purple ink, and he strangely finds himself keeping all of the notes he’s received from rui, in a safe spot that was his drawer.

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“big brother? what’s all this?”

maybe not so safe.

“saki—? don’t read those!”

it was too late to take anything back now, saki’s eyes widening at the stash that tsukasa’s built up over the past two weeks. tsukasa can only watch on in horror as saki sifts through the pile to randomly pick up one.

as if his luck couldn’t possibly get worse, her fingers manage to land on one where rui had drawn a heart, in response to tsukasa accepting an invite to his house. tsukasa silently prays that she suddenly has something else to do than to watch him writhe in his spot.

saki brings the note closer to read. there is nothing but shameful silence in the room.

“you keep all of these? it’s like you’re dating.”

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saki’s words haunt him.

upon her casual comment, she had started sending him excerpts of poems over text, captioned with a ‘write this to him!’ and a cheeky smile. in whichever manga she had unfortunately seen that idea in, to say he was horrifyingly embarrassed would be a sad understatement.

tsukasa has never been one for poetry. despite being a member of the troupe and spending most of his waking hours as an actor trying to decipher texts and scripts, the skill of flowery words and the elegance of poetry never was something he could grasp easily.

however, as if a spell has been cast on him, he finds himself scrambling to read whatever poetry saki manages to find. he reads poems with flowing stanzas that went on and on about their beloved one, and he reads poems where the author compared their lover to the moon, and the stars, and even to the most delicate of flowers and warm sunshine. though he never wanted to ever say it out loud, he can’t help but to think of the seatmate he spent so long passing notes to in the class of 3-C.

‘you look distracted for a change,’ rui’s note says one morning.

broken from his daze, tsukasa’s eyes glance up from the sheet of paper before him to meet rui’s worried ones, and he looks down again, pulling out a fresh post-it note from his notebook.

he scribbles down a portion the poetry he’d read this morning; a short poem, with only one sweet stanza where the poet compares their lover to the moon with their radiance and beauty, and after a moment’s hesitation, he adds a message, signs his name like he usually had to the bottom of the post-it, then slides it over to rui.

‘it reminded me of you.’

he watches the rui’s eyes move back and forth as he carefully reads each line, and it’s almost comical how quickly his face turns a light pink when he finally reaches the last line of the poem. something he said must’ve been weird, tsukasa thinks to himself as he watches rui fumble to reread the note. perhaps he’s misspelled a word. rui doesn’t respond to that. in fact, tsukasa curiously watches on as he folds the note with much care before staring off into the distance for the rest of class, no more notes sent.

somehow, tsukasa misses the notes.

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rui is quiet during lunchtime, emu’s chatter filling up the gaping silence as tsukasa watches with puzzled eyes. rui is also quiet during their detention for causing trouble the day before, leaving tsukasa to glance over every few seconds to see when he’d crack.
rui is strangely quiet on their way to his house too. it’s late into the afternoon and rui hasn’t said a word, but that has never stopped tsukasa from rambling on and on about his day before.

except rui doesn’t say anything then either.

it’s weird, tsukasa thinks to himself. he does not like this sort of quiet. he’s gotten so used to rui’s liveliness that he can’t help but to feel as if something is missing and terribly wrong when he’s quiet like this. so, as the proclaimed star he is, he stops in his tracks.

he almost thinks the even sight of him is lost in the swirl of rui’s thoughts before the director looks up at him, his eyes swimming with a pool of emotions he couldn’t begin to decipher.

“tsukasa-kun..” rui’s throat is dry after hours of not speaking, then he clears his throat and tries again, “your note.. what did you mean by that?”

“huh?”

“i didn’t expect that you’d think of me that way,” rui voice dips in volume as he says his next words. “i reciprocate.”

tsukasa, still as confused, goes along with it. “i just thought of you when i read that.”

rui splutters. his cheeks burn bright pink again, visible even in the dimming light of the setting sun. he breathes out a laugh, and it almost sounds like he’s choking on his own words. “so you think i’m as radiant as the moon?”

“yes,” tsukasa says simply. because it’s not a lie if he agreed, he truly thinks he does, and because he thinks of rui, whenever he stares at the bright moon in the sky before he sleeps at night. rui keeps his eyes on him though, mouth moving every few seconds, as if to say something, before closing right back again. he looks like a fish out of water.

rui’s cheeks are practically glowing, and something about this expression — his best friend standing in front of him, blushing like that, clearly at a total and utter loss for words for someone who had a lot to say about most topics, it’s endearing.

it’s so strange, how his smile makes the sun behind him look dim.

rui laughs, but it sounds more like he’s nervous than happy. still, the smile he gives him is so fond, so comfortingly so and does something fluttery to tsukasa’s chest. “well, that’s a way to tell me how you feel.”

tsukasa smiles too, unsure what he meant by that, but rui doesn’t explain his words. just as confused as he was at the start, it doesn’t matter when his heart practically soars out of his chest as rui pulls him in for a hug.

Chapter Text

the following days do not get any less weirder.

nothing much yet lots have changed, they still sit next to one another to pass notes about just anything, but they’re now accompanied by stolen glances and soft blushes. rui’s even gotten bold enough to gently hold his hand in his under the table during class, then eventually moving up to on the table itself.

but it’s just friend activity, right? holding hands can be very normal a platonic gesture.

silences are filled by the roar of his heartbeat when rui sends him smiles during class, accompanied by the sliding of notes that detailed their newest ideas for shows. lunches are now rui resting his head on his shoulder for a small nap after eating, while tsukasa tells him all about the wild dreams he’s had the previous night. neither emu nor nene comment on this.

it’s even weirder when rui had started to randomly give him hugs from the behind, surprising him with a soft, contented sigh as his arms snaked around his waist.

“tenma-san, do you know how to solve this question?” a classmate would ask, and as tsukasa reached forward, it was absolutely peculiar that the hands wrapped around his waist tightened in the slightest.

he turns his head around fast enough just to catch a small frown in that split second, before it disappears as rui smiles at the attention he’s receiving from him.

it’s still a delicate hold, but it pulls him close enough to rui to send his heart racing. he’s not sure if he can even focus on the question when rui rests his head in its rightful spot that came in the form of tsukasa’s shoulder. suddenly feeling like he’s intruding on something, the student awkwardly excuses himself.

“..nevermind, i think i’ll ask someone else.”

puzzled, tsukasa gapes at him while rui gives him a seemingly polite nod. this would not be the last time an instance like this occured.

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eventually, even nene catches on faster than tsukasa can.

“congratulations,” she randomly says to tsukasa in the props room during practice.

“huh?”

she narrows her eyes and says her next words like it’s nothing out of the blue. “on your relationship? ..with rui.”

tsukasa almost chokes on air. “w-why do you think that?” he forces a smile to maintain a calm composure — though it only looks like a blank stare with no plans to enter the conversation and, instead, listen on as if he isn’t the topic of discussion. it’s like tsukasa’s brain cells having to play a treacherous game of ping-pong as he tries to wrap his head around the implication of her words.

“what?” nene seems appalled that it’s even a question, especially one coming from him. “i’m not blind, you know.”

“i don’t know what you’re even talking about,” tsukasa sputters out, but he knows he’s lying when he says it. truth was, he was already feeling giddy at the idea of being able to date rui in the first place, rumour or not. amused over anything else, nene finally catches on to his oblivion of the situation. being ever so helpful, she simply offers him a judgemental stare like everything is alright. “it’s obvious.”

tsukasa feels his soul wither away in his spot, nene clearly was interpreting that as something more than it really was, since he and rui weren’t even dating in the first place..

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the rest of the students file out of the classroom, their chatter slowly fading away into the distance. tsukasa packs his bag while rui waits in silence. tsukasa is feeling nervous.

rui is sitting on his desk in the corner of his eyes, swinging his legs, watching him with an expression so fond he isn’t sure he’s put his belongings away in the right places. tsukasa doesn’t understand why rui is so close but he definitely isn’t complaining, not even when the smile he’s wearing is starting to make him sweat.

he’s put a pencil right into his bag without considering his pencil case, tsukasa registers, but he is barely processing it. all he can focus on is rui and rui alone. but his packing is interrupted when rui reaches forward to place his pencil in the right place. tsukasa looks at him, a little more entranced as rui is shifting closer.

“tsukasa-kun, could i try something..?” he asks hesitantly, the name is electric to his ears though he’s said it a million times through and through. still staring at his lips, tsukasa nods slowly.

then, he leans forward and does something tsukasa does not understand.

rui moves closer, and hesitantly presses his lips onto his forehead.

there is no context, no warning for it. it’s not like the hundreds of scenarios that kept tsukasa awake at night. it just happened in the empty classroom, and tsukasa’s heart bursts and melts in equal measure all the same.

tsukasa freezes, blinking rapidly at him, his heart thudding so loudly it seemed like it was emanating from his chest. he finds himself unable to speak.

a hand comes to cup tsukasa’s cheek. tsukasa’s certain he’s heard from his friends that they usually don’t do this as a bonding activity. instead, he feels an overwhelming, yet comforting feeling of overpowering warmth. it feels like he’s about to explode.

he can only blink in his spot, trying to preserve the rest of his rationality while savouring the feeling of rui’s hand on his cheek. he’s holding his face like he’s someone very precious. someone that should be handled with care, not because he’s breakable but because he’s wanted.

and he’s still, so, so confused.

tsukasa opens his mouth, trying to come up with something to say, only to be hit with the hard realisation.

rui just kissed him.

rui, his best friend, kissed him. kissed him on the forehead. completely unprompted! just like that! tsukasa simply just can’t make sense of it. sure, rui had been more affectionate lately — if he should call holding his hand and resting on his shoulder, or even hugs from the back, affectionate, but it was out of the ordinary for rui to even offer it in the first place, to specifically him, not give it so freely without a second thought!

however, tsukasa’s ever minded this sudden burst of affection, of course, even returning the favour at times to hold his hand back and the more-than-occasional hug. but they were still friends. best friends! and yet, rui kissed him like they were dating

unfortunately, rui eventually pulls away. they both take a few heavy breaths. he can’t stop looking at rui, flushed and failing to fight back a smile. rui’s flustered, a rare expression that has come to appear more and more often now, pink dusted over his cheeks. he’s not sure what to do with his hands.

“sorry, i should’ve asked first,” rui mumbles, overwhelmed by the contact.

tsukasa is quiet for a second before breaking out in a smile, not trying or caring to hide it like rui is. he’s breathless, even though he hasn’t moved for the entire ordeal. “it’s not a bad feeling,” he offers. perhaps best friends kiss sometimes, though he couldn’t think of any other friend he’d do this with.

they look at each other for hardly a second before rui breaks into a relieved smile of his own. tsukasa’s heart skips a beat. not knowing what to do with his hands either, the only logical thing to do in his head is to move his hands to pull him in for a hug. panicking, tsukasa awkwardly tiptoes to stroke the strands of purple hair beneath his fingertips. was this what friends were supposed to do after a kiss?

having grown bolder, more kisses are pressed against tsukasa’s forehead, this time with more conviction rather than a panicked peck on the head. tsukasa doesn’t say a word, instead tucking his face into rui’s shoulder to contemplate his previous week. as strange as everything had been for the past few days, he actually doesn’t want this to end. his heart continues to pound in his chest like a fool, sure that rui can unfortunately feel them through their hug.

they’re quiet for a minute before rui pulls away again. tsukasa’s cheeks hurt from how much he’d been smiling.

“let’s go home.”

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the next few days don’t tide over well.

tsukasa is conflicted between being pleasantly surprised and stunned when the sneaky director keeps up with the kisses over the course of a few days later, a rush of new-found giddiness amidst the rush of an early morning. rui usually executes the carefully mastered kiss on his forehead unseen to the public eye, but it also comes with the occasional groan of an unsuspecting classmate walking into class early.

they find themselves stuck in another boring class of world history. tsukasa glances over the shoulder of a scribbling rui, and watches on as he slides his usual note. the casualty of the situation comes to a startling stop when he sees that the writing is asking him to meet for lunch over the weekend.

rui not-so subtly peeks at tsukasa’s reaction, smiling, small and friendly, and all while very flustered, tsukasa sets the note down in front of rui, then uses the excuse of suddenly needing to take the most mundane of history notes in his notebook to turn away so he doesn’t have to watch as he fumbles over the note. history has suddenly grown very interesting within seconds. though, there’s no sound behind him, leaving tsukasa with no idea if that’s a good sign or a very, very bad one.

he haphazardly shoots a covert look over at rui, and he’s just smiling there patiently, his hand around his pen and a happy grin lighting up his cheery eyes.

“meet you at the train station?” tsukasa asks once he’s managed to maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds. his voice still comes out squeaky.

rui frowns. “no need, i’ll meet you at your place and we can head there together,” he tsukasa nods his head so fast he hears something pop in his neck.

he laughs, a laugh clear and bright even when surrounded by the chatter and droning of students and teacher alike. and it leaves tsukasa grinning the rest of the morning.

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one afternoon, tsukasa finally receives the answer to all the strange occurrences.

‘shall we go to a café i recently discovered for our date?’

tsukasa’s reads rui’s new note once.
then twice, then thrice — before he finally sets the letter where rui had slid it to him with a loud bang. something new, yet awfully familiar flutters in his chest, just as it had done multiple times since last week, and he cannot tear his eyes away from rui’s latest note.

a date?!

hold on! tsukasa doesn’t even have a partner to begin with, so what’s with this note from rui asking him on a date? and since when had rui interested in him in the first place? since when was rui interested in men, even?

his heart stops in his chest. “huh..?”

a few annoyed stares from the classmates around him doesn’t even seem to disrupt his panic. he’s never been on a date, nor has he had any experience in the love department! and does he like men too!? all while rui’s staring at him like nothing out of the ordinary is happening either, his face resting on the palm of his hand with a lazy expression.

the words rang through his mind on a continuous loop as he paced back and forth in his mind, ready to melt into the table before him.

all he’d done was ask tsukasa if he wanted to join him on a trip to a café. it could’ve been a study date, even. could that really justify a.. date? a date between friends?

perhaps he was looking at this in the wrong direction. this was his best friend’s he’s thinking about, after all. he probably had been asking him to study with him, since the term ‘study date’ wasn’t an uncommon one..

the pacing continued. the words his teacher spoke practically blended into pesky background noise.

it wasn’t as if tsukasa hadn’t thought about.. something like that before, of course. it wasn’t as if he didn’t choose the seat closest to rui on the bench at lunch, just for the off chance that their elbows might brush against each other while they ate. and speaking of rui, tsukasa couldn’t count the number of times in the last week that he’d found himself losing focus in class – losing focus to rui!

when rui had invited him out to lunch a few days ago, tsukasa’s heart had soared. of course, he had only considered this a friend hangout. in the end, they’d simply had a fun night of conversation and laughter that ended with a tender hug and a kiss on the cheek, but tsukasa had still felt an indescribable warmth swirling deep within his chest when he’d crawled into bed that night, memories of rui’s smiles flitting into his head for hours to come.

was that a date too? how many dates had they gone on without him knowing?

tsukasa finally slowed his train of thought, sucking in a deep breath and holding it in his lungs till the count of five in his head. the breath was released shakily, but he could already feel his heart starting up again for a whole other reason.

there it was again, rui had hovered his hand over tsukasa’s to hold it.

and everything clicked.
this was it, they had to be dating.

when he copied that poem and passed it over to rui for no other reason than to show him it, this isn’t how he intended things to be. he hadn’t even considered it a confession, much less would ever think to be the one to express his feelings so boldly and nonchalantly.

but as he looks up from the note and stares at an eager boyfriend he never knew he had, he can’t say this is the most unfortunate outcome either.

tsukasa takes a small corner of the note and spots his discarded pen, then picks it up with shaky hands, and begins to write. he begins to pen down a reply, a line he hopes to write again many times to rui more from here on out.

‘let’s go on that date,’ he scribbles with a giddy smile.

he slides back the note.