Chapter Text
Tsukasa sat idly on his seat, unable to process the lectures of the teacher whilst drifting off into the world of distractions by fiddling his pen. He was never able to successfully spin the pen, whenever he attempted it the pen tips over and falls off over and over again until it frustrates him.
Tsukasa thinks of how Rui made it look so easy and effortless. It shouldn’t be this difficult to master if he were taught how to do so in the first place. To be frank, there have been multiple occasions where Tsukasa thought of the idea to ask Rui to teach him how to do it, it just slipped his mind the moment a second had passed.
Speaking of Rui, Tsukasa thinks that now should be a good time to ask Rui how to spin a pen about right now.
He turns to face Rui, “Hey, Rui—“ as if on cue, a paper airplane immediately flies past him and gracefully lands precisely on his table.
Tsukasa flinches slightly out of surprise, “Rui! That almost scared me…” he scolds Rui, but his face betrays him as a smile rose to his lips.
“Hm?” Rui had his chin rested on his palm and smiled back at Tsukasa while blinking his eyes innocently. “What could you possibly mean, Tsukasa-kun?”
Tsukasa could only snort and roll his eyes, “Nevermind, anyways Rui could you teach me how to… how to….. how…………” Tsukasa’s words trail off, already having forgotten the main reason he decided to turn to Rui in the first place. Curse his pebble-sized memory ability.
“Tenma and Kamishiro at the back, what are you two doing?” Tsukasa flinches again for the 2nd time that day. “And in the middle of my class?” The teacher scolds.
“S-SORRY!”
The teacher scolds the both of them another time with a stern voice before they can go back to minding their own business. The teacher’s lecture becomes muddled in Tsukasa’s head once again. He sighs, picking up his pen and— oh. That was it.
——
Tsukasa let out a breath of relief as he heard the loud shrill of the bell signaling the long-awaited closing time for their classes once again. He takes his pencil case and quickly unzips his backpack to neatly stow it inside. Then an unsuspecting action from another leaves Tsukasa flinching for what he swears is the 12,001st time that day. A pair of long slender arms wrapped around his shoulders and squashed him like he was a sardine in a can. Tsukasa can guess who these pair of arms belonged to.
“A-ACK— RUI. YOU’RE SQUISHING… MEE…”
Tsukasa feels a sensation of (Rui’s) hair being rubbed against his neck and Rui’s cheek resting on his shoulder.
“One more minute….” Rui replies muffled and groggily as if he had just been woken up early in the morning on his bed instead of shamelessly nuzzling on his best friend’s cardigan.
Tsukasa rolls his eyes, trying to sound more annoyed than embarrassed, and if he looks like a literal tomato on his face then he himself would be the last to know of it. “Rui… we have to get to Wonderstage already, we promised to arrive earlier today so we could have ample time for our dress rehearsal today, and we can’t just sit around for much longer.”
“Another minute won’t hurt…” Rui mumbles softly, but his face is close enough to Tsukasa’s ear for him to hear it. Tsukasa pats and caresses Rui’s hair with his palm and sighs to himself. What time did Rui sleep last night for him to end up so cuddly right now? Tsukasa only hopes that Rui could manage to bring out his best in their practice later, but he has no doubt he will.
“E-excuse me?” A timid girl appears in front of them both, one of their classmates. “Am I uhh… interrupting something?” She said with a shy smile, trying not to seem awkward while interrupting the moment between them.
Tsukasa doesn’t know if Rui wanted to say something, but he quickly insists that she hadn’t disturbed a single thing between them and nudges Rui away from him. He wouldn’t admit how he missed the feeling of Rui’s arms around him.
Tsukasa backed away to a corner of the classroom and observed the two from across the room. If Tsukasa thinks of it enough, the two could make an adorable couple if they were placed in the majority of the shoujo mangas Tsukasa has ever read: a handsome boy and a cute girl who are classmates. It irks him a little.
Rui takes a notebook from his bag and seemingly lends it to her with a gentle smile; it’s a comforting sight. The girl flusters at the sight and covers her face with the notebook lended to her, now in her hands. She bows as a sign of gratitude and waves quickly. Rui chuckles at the motion and waves back.
It was here when Tsukasa oddly and unexpectedly took note of something in his head: Rui is kind.
And don’t get Tsukasa wrong, literally anybody could lend a classmate their notebook, it wasn’t something to praise one so highly for, in his opinion. He would too, after all he was a star himself! Of course he would act kindly to all his subjects; it’s a given fact!
But there was a stark difference between performing acts of kindness and being kind without wishing for its benefits. And trust him, it took Tsukasa way longer to find his true intentions than he was supposed to.
Rui was the former. He’s always had pure intentions when helping others. It’s become a natural instinct of his all this time. Rui has always been caring and willing to help others at any, if not all times.
Despite all the trouble Rui puts Tsukasa in, you could say this is one of the reasons Tsukasa liked Rui.
In a way that Rui was the bestest friend anyone could have! He would admit a star like him was fortunate enough to have Rui as a good friend.
With the blink of an eye Rui was already right in front of Tsukasa.
“Let’s go shall we?—“
Tsukasa bluntly placed his hand on Rui’s shoulder, alarming Rui as he stared intently at Rui’s bright golden eyes. He just had one thing to say to Rui right now.
“Dude, she was totally trying to hit on you just now.”
——
Once the both of them arrived at the wonderstage the two were caught surprised but-not-so-unexpected Emu lunging forward towards them.
“GYAH” Tsukasa awkwardly placed his arms in front of him in a defensive-ish stance out of instinct. He didn’t realized he squeezed his eyes shut until he opened them in a second and saw Rui easily caught Emu. “EMU!!”
“RUI-KUN, TSUKASA-KUN, HIII~☆” Emu gave Rui a tighter squeeze while she was still in his arms.
“Hello Emu-kun.” Rui says while grinning, glad to see Emu as well. He had to tilt his head downwards to be able to properly look at Emu due to their height difference.
“You two are late.” Nene speaks from behind Emu with her arms folded over her chest.
“Nuh uh, you both are just early.”
Nene raises an eyebrow, “wasn’t our planned meeting time supposed to be 10 minutes ago?”
Tsukasa “tsk”s and points at Rui, proceeding with his alibi, “Rui won’t believe he was flirted with by a classmate! and we were stuck arguing about it until too much time passed!”
Rui scoffs, “that is not true! She was only asking for notes on the day she was absent.”
“..and do those notes even make sense?” Nene comments on the side.
Rui ignores her comment, “Nevertheless, even if she had been attempting to make advances on me, I would simply have to reject her.” Rui latches his arms around Tsukasa again.
“Besides, I’d never replace Tsukasa-kun. Fufu~ no need to feel jealous.”
“I was not—!” Tsukasa grumbles defeatedly. His face flushes.
——
It was the concluding segment of the dress rehearsal that day, and that only meant it was time for the director’s final remarks. All the actors gather around him.
“Everyone, may I have your attention.” Rui speaks loudly and confidently. This Rui was different from the normal Rui he’s used to seeing.
Rui puts his palm over his heart. “First of all, I greatly appreciate everyone’s efforts with today’s dress rehearsal and I wish to give my gratitude to you all. Today was definitely another successful dress rehearsal on the wonderstage. Let’s give everybody here a warm round of applause!” The whole wonderstage erupted with cheers and applause from everybody. Rui coughs into a fist, gradually halting everybody from their applause. “Second of all, before we wrap up today’s rehearsal, I may have a few reminders to tell everybody.”
Rui pulls out his director's notebook (which Tsukasa knows is full of non-linear scribbles only doctors and pharmacists can read) and rereads them to check what he’s written down.
A grin rises on the director’s face, “Tsukasa-kun.”
“Yes Rui!” Tsukasa responds promptly with a dramatic salute
“Splendid work today! I see you worked hard on practicing for this play yet again. It is very important to see our star working very hard for his role!” Rui praises him happily. He glances at his notes and adds, “but although your excitement is appreciated, I sense a little tenseness from your movements, especially the battle scene with the witch and the knight. You could make your movements look a little lighter and 'experienced'.”
“Ahh I see, I got it Rui, thanks.” Tsukasa’s hand was propped under his chin in understanding.
Rui nods in response.
“Emu-kun?” Rui calls out next.
“HAAII! Rui-kun?”
“Emu-kun, you did a wonderful job today! I’m very glad you were able to………”
Tsukasa’s attention trailed off from the conversation. Instead it focused on Rui.
There was something about Rui poised as a director that was different from the usual Rui he’s used to seeing, like how this Rui didn’t seem like the type to cause explosions around Kamiyama on a daily basis. Even just from Rui’s subtle hand gestures and quick glances on his notebook, he had that charismatic aura when talking to others. Rui was handsome, charismatic, and caring to all his fellow actors.
And Tsukasa just mindlessly stared at Rui, enamored. If there were other witnesses who had to see Tsukasa embarrassingly stare at his director in a not-so-friendly way with his face flushed yet again, he wouldn’t know.