Dedicated to: the two people left on FFNet who still ship RenPiri, aka sOrbetes and Otakustone (I hope you find this story somehow)
"The thing is…" He sighed and shook his head, his dark hair swaying with the motion.
"Yes?" Pirika leaned forward.
"I have something to say to you…"
"Then say it!" she exclaimed impatiently.
"I love you. So much. Before I even met you." He looked back up.
"R-Really?"
"Yes and don't you ever doubt that. Know that I love you. And always will. I will tell you every single day if I have to," he promised.
Pirika clutched at her face. "Ohhhh…." She blushed.
"Quiet, woman, you're ruining the already crappy movie," Ren snapped.
She glared at him. "Well, sorry! It's just that…" she sighed wistfully. "The leading man is so perfect!"
Ren rolled his eyes. "I'm so sure." His eye twitched as the actor onscreen and the actress he had just confessed to began to profusely make out.
She studied him with a frown and she hugged her popcorn bucket to her chest. "Ren?"
"What." He irritably chewed on his own popcorn. Pirika had been talking nonstop during the entire movie, as if she were in the film herself.
She blinked innocently at him. "Do you love me?"
Ren's eyes flew open and he began choking on his popcorn, the shells of the popped kernels scraping his throat a bit painfully. The nearby fellow audience members looked at him in surprise, concern, and disgust. He pounded his chest roughly to dislodge the vicious pieces of popcorn that had nearly strangled him to death. His eyes watery, Ren looked up at her as if she had announced she was the Chosen One to bear the cursed ring to Mount Doom to defeat Sauron and that she wanted him to go with her. "What the hell are you talking about? And don't surprise me like that. I nearly died. To think what they run in the papers if I hadn't saved myself: Tao Heir Tragically Chokes to Death on Movie Theater Popcorn Because his Girlfriend Asked Him a Stupid Question." He shook his head.
Pirika instead ignored his melodramatic rant and raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Well, at least we're making progress. Half the time, you don't even call me your girlfriend." The lights went back on after the credits on the screen were finished and the audience began to stand up and exit the theater. "Anyways, you never answered my question!" she protested.
Ren gathered his coat and handed her her purse. "Hmph."
"Ren…" she whined. "Do you love me?"
He seethed and would've stomped away if they hadn't arrived at the theaters in Pirika's car. "Don't ask stupid questions."
"How is it stupid?" she exclaimed as they passed by ticket taker on their way out. "Our teachers always tell us that there is no such thing as a stupid question!"
"False," he swiftly responded. "Stupid questions do exist."
She exhaled angrily. "What? Are you telling me that our teachers ever since grade school have been lying to us?" she demanded, hopping out of the theater and onto the sidewalk.
"No, it seems that you have neglected the part when our teachers supplement their claim of 'there is no such thing as a stupid question.'"
"And what exactly is this supplement you're blabbering about?" Pirika asked, half incensed, half curious.
"Don't ask questions that you already know the answer to."
She opened her mouth to protest but then immediately recalled her teacher just a few days ago say that the only stupid question is one that you already know the answer to. "Grr! You're…you're dumb."
Ren smirked, fully aware that he had won in their little exchange.
She stormed over to the car and opened it, sliding into the driver's seat and jutting the keys into the ignition. Before starting the car however, she drew her eyebrows together in confusion. "Wait… what if I don't know what the answer is?"
He stared at her from the passenger's seat. "Then I'd say that for the past two years of our dating, you have been living under a rock."
"What is that supposed to mean!" she cried, throwing her hands up in defeat.
He smiled more than smirked. "Just drive."
"He's so… impossible sometimes," Pirika proclaimed to the empty room she came home to. "What the heck, I'm supposed to know the answer…" she grumbled, shrugging her jacket off and then kicking her shoes into her closet. She stood in front of her mirror and placed her hands on her hips, her head tilted to one side. "It's not like I'm ugly or anything… Am I that unlovable? Or undesirable?" She smoothed her dress out and held up a lock of her hair. She had picked out that dress to wear on their first date since Valentine's Day. "Yeah, and that date had been months ago. And the only reason we even went out that day is because I half begged him, half forced him to with me. Nothing short of driving over to his apartment and kidnapping him." She sighed once again.
"And I picked this dress because this is the only outfit he had ever complimented." Her posture lost some of its resolve as she remembered how he grunted out his approval when he saw her wearing it, albeit his compliment was absent minded as he looked for the map to the park they were going to. "Does he love me?" She slumped over onto her bed. "The only time we ever go out on dates is because I call him and ask him. I don't think he's ever planned a date for us. Not even for our anniversary." She wriggled out of her clothes and threw her pajamas on. "I guess it's because he's busy…"
She stole a glance at the cheap digital clock she had bought for seventy percent off its original price at the nearby convenience store the summer before entering her university. "It's been two hours since he woke up. He's probably studying. Stupid pre-law kids." She hated herself for knowing when Ren woke up. She hated herself for knowing what books were probably arranged in a neat, organized mess on his desk, the order of his notebooks on a chair near his study area, what he ate for breakfast, what his favorite color was, what season he hated the least.
"Am I taking our relationship more seriously than he is?" she whispered as if realizing it for the first time.
Up until a few days ago, he had thought that her favorite color was yellow, despite the fact that she wore pink nearly every single day, the sheets on her bed were pink, and her nail polish was always some shade of pink. She had their monthly anniversary marked on her dorm room calendar, programmed onto her cellphone, and written down in her assignment notebook. On a good day, he was only off by a week when asked when their anniversary was.
Pirika thought that it would've been different once they were at the same university. She had marked off his lack of initiative when it came to their relationship as being one of the difficulties that came with dating a person who didn't go to the same school as you.
"Now that I think about it…I was so happy when I found out that he didn't care that his parents didn't like the fact that we were dating… but now…" She sat up in her bed. "What if he only asked me out because he knew I had a crush on him and he didn't want to hurt his best friend's little sister's feelings?" She flopped back down. "That would explain everything. And he couldn't just break up with me! Then that would make everything between Horo and Ren weird. Oh my God, our relationship is some sort of solidifier of their friendship!"
She shook her head violently. "No! That's dumb. I'm overthinking this. Let me… just instant message him. That'll answer everything." She flipped her laptop open and started a browser page. But before she could type in the URL she wanted, she spied an article on her Yahoo homepage.
4 Ways to Know That Your Relationship Is In Trouble
1. He's more distant than usual.
Pirika's eyes widened. "Ren's always been distant with me!"
2. Forgetting to call.
"He's never called me just to talk before. And he even forget to call for my last birthday," she said worriedly.
3. Criticizing
"He just said that my questions were stupid. And that the movie I picked was crappy." She inhaled sharply.
4. Losing interest.
Pirika shrieked and slammed the laptop shut.
Her eyes welled up with tears. "He…he doesn't love me…What was I thinking? Why would someone like Ren love me? I must've been playing the fool the entire time…" She sniffled, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her shirt. "Eh?" She looked down at the shirt she was wearing. "Th-This is even his shirt!" she sobbed pitifully, burying her face in her pillow.
Her phone rang obnoxiously as if determined to not even let her cry in peace.
"What is it now?" she bawled into the receiver.
"Er… Pirika?"
She gave a start. "Ren!" She hurriedly blew her nose on a tissue. Her heart leapt but then immediately sunk. Oh no, he must be calling to break up with me! her inner voice exclaimed.
"I was wondering if you still had my shirt… This is Pirika, right?" he still sounded a bit confused.
See, he wants to get everything of his back before breaking up. "Yes, I have it. And why are you doubting that it's me?"
"Well, you're usually so…bubbly… and when you picked up, you were sobbing into the phone… It just caught me off guard," he said nonchalantly.
This struck a nerve. "H-How can you be so casual about this!" she yelled into the phone.
"What in the world are you talking about, woman?" he asked, startled. "God, all I'm asking about is my shirt."
"Shouldn't you at least sound more affected when you're about to break up with me?" she blurted out.
There was nothing but silence on his end of the line.
Pirika's face started burning up and a sneaking suspicion that she shouldn't have said that began to bubble up. She cleared her throat but no words came out because her mouth suddenly went dry. "R-Ren?" she whispered nervously.
"You…stupid woman…" he sighed. "Why would I ever break up with you?"
"But…you…compliment and…and initiative…and Yahoo….the article…and yellow… and my laptop and criticism…and seriously…" she blubbered incoherently.
He gave a tired but amused laugh. "What are you talking about?"
"Ren, do you think I'm taking our relationship more seriously than you are?" she finally asked.
"No." He paused. "Why would you think that?"
"Because…I mean… I know everything about you like your favorite color and what time you wake up in the mornings and you hardly know anything about me. And you never call me but I always text and email you nonstop so I feel really bad and annoying because you're probably studying. And you don't even know when our anniversary is but I have our monthly anniversary written down in three different places—"
"Hold on there," he said sternly. "Pirika, after all our years of knowing each other… how long has it been, six years now?"
"Eight years," she said automatically.
"Yeah. Exactly. I thought you would know by know that I'm not into that kind of thing. I don't…I don't even know when the exact date of our anniversary is because I don't think those things are important. And I don't call you every second of the day because I know that you're still there for me. And I do read your texts and emails," he said firmly. "It just gives me confidence that you're not cavorting around with one of those lovesick guys from your classes," he growled. "And I'll be damned before you say that you know everything about me. There's a lot to me that you don't know about," he said in such a tone that Pirika could only describe as suggestively, making her blush deeply. "And if I wasn't taking our relationship seriously then I would've broken up with you a long time ago."
"So…you didn't just ask me out because I'm your best friend's younger sister?" she asked weakly, feeling foolish.
"No! I mean, no," he snapped, sounding more like himself. "God damnit, woman, what do I have to do to convince you?"
"Just checking," she said quickly.
"I had to go through hell and back to even ask you to go out!" he exclaimed. "And you think I would do all of that just because you're Horohoro's younger sister? My parents threatened to disown me if I went out with you—"
Pirika's eyes widened. She didn't know this part of the story. "R-Really?"
"Yes, Ainu girl, and you know why I still went ahead and asked you to be my girlfriend? Because I—" He suddenly shut up.
"Why?" she pressed, wanting an answer.
"You…already know why," he said through gritted teeth.
"Ren, why won't you just say if you love me or not?" she asked, her heart sinking a little.
"Why do I even need to say it? You should know by now," he said quietly.
"But that's the problem in the first place. I don't know!"
"Pirika, how can you not know?" he asked slowly.
"I…I…I'm related to the densest person on the planet…?" she justified lamely.
He snorted. "Nice try but no." He paused once again. "You know… you're being hypocritical."
"What?" she squawked in protest. "Me?"
"Pirika, you never said it yourself either. You say that I've never said 'I love you' to you but you haven't said it to me either," he said and she heard a bit of a smirk edging into his voice.
"But…but…but…women….women shouldn't be the first to say it!" she said lamely.
"Hello, pot, my name is kettle," he said.
"Grr, well you're dumb!"
"In all seriousness though, I just have no need to verbalize it. As with all Taos, we prefer to think along the lines of actions speak louder than words," he explained dryly. "Who else would I watch over twenty romantic chick flicks within the span of three months with voluntarily? Who else would I let text and email me throughout the day without blocking their number? Who else would I wait for after her night classes got out, every day without fail, even if my latest class is finished by four in the afternoon? Who else can I tease and not mind being verbally assaulted back? Who else would I defy my parents, who have a whole list of professional assassins on their speed dial, mind you, for?" He waited. "Pirika?"
"No…one…" she croaked.
"Except for you, you silly woman."
She tucked her hair behind her ear. "Ren?"
"What? Was that not enough for you? Or have I transformed into the most romantic guy on earth in your eyes and now expect me to serenade you during your political science class?" he asked sarcastically.
She giggled. "Do you love me?"
"Don't ask questions you already know the answer to."
She smiled. "I love you too."
A/N: Writing this was a long time coming even if I never saw it coming. And remember, I always write from personal experience. Even though the endings may not be the same.
Reviews would be cool as always. Pssh, I was supposedly working on the next chapter of Our Story but that didn't work out. Obviously. Also, read the new My Commensal chapter. That definitely sucked my drama quota clean. So I guess I'll be working on more light hearted stuff within the next few days. Review because you are awesome. And like RenPiri. :) Happy days