My first ficlet—tell me what you think I haven't written for this fandom in a while so no flames please. It's not supposed to be grammatically correct.

But you and I now, we can be alright
Just hold on to what we know is true
You and I now, 'though it's cold inside
Can feel the tide turning

Nagihiko knows what beauty is. He sees his mother who has always been beautiful and he knows the dances that he performs are beautiful as well. He sees it in his friends, charming Kukai. Fun Yaya. Clever Kairi, kind Tadase, mischievous Ikitou, songful Utau, and even insecure Amu.

He even sees ugly Rima.

Ugly Rima because she finds everything so unfair, unjust, she sees the black and white and knows that there's color but she doesn't like to look at it. So she sneers at him with her pretty nose up in air and tells him his hair is to girly. She taunts him with a secret (thatsnotsomuchasecretbutshhhdonttellanyone) holding it above him, even though she won't tell. No, she won't tell because she likes Amu's color. Nagihiko thinks it's because Amu isn't very colorful. She has color, but it's not bright and Rima likes that because she doesn't like the bright, it hurts her pretty eyes. So she doesn't tell, she keeps it a secret so she can keep a little color in her black-and-white world.

Ugly Rima because she doesn't like the color.

ii-

"No, I don't want to get to know you." She tells him matter-of-factly, rolling her pretty eyes, and flipping her pretty hair, and walking away with her pretty legs.

She uses her pretty mouth to stick ugly words in his head when she passes him girlyprettyboycan'tseemtotakenoforananswer- tranny

Ugly Rima because she thinks he's a too-persistent-girly-cross-dresser.

iii-

Nagihiko yells at her one day and calls her out for living black and white, tells her how ugly she is.

"I know!" she screams back. She screams and screams until her two words blend together endlessly: "IknowIknowIknowIknowIknowIkn owIknowIknowIknowIknowIknowI knowIknowIknowIknow! You can stop yelling at me because I know! You ass, I know so you can stop now."

Ugly Rima, because she manages to hate herself and still think she's better than everyone else.

iv-

Rima stops eating lunch with Amu (and Tadase and Kairi and Yaya and Nagihiko) and she asks to get picked up from school again.

Nagihiko asks Amu and Amu tells him how Rima said that she doesn't want to be her friend anymore (how she doesn't deserve her as a friend).

Ugly Rima because she lets herself be.

v-

Nagihiko watches her for the rest of the year. Rima looks saddest when the spring turns into summer and apparently her chara is back in its egg.

He sees her smile for the first time when the summer turns to fall and she laughs when fall moves to winter, he thinks she likes the cold weather the best. He likes the way her pretty eyes get crinkles around them when she laughs at the snow.

He likes the sound of her pretty laugh. He likes to think of what her pretty little hands would be like if she ever held his. He likes to think what her pretty hair would feel like. He likes the pretty perfume she wears. He doesn't like the way the upperclassmen boy tells her jokes, he really doesn't like when she laughs at her jokes.

"You had no right!" she yells at him for telling the upperclassmen boy to stop talking to her. "You got Amu! And everyone else! You got to keep your friends, so why I can't I have a friend too? Hmm Fujisaki, what's so wrong with me talking to someone?" He doesn't answer her because how is he supposed to say "you're too pretty"? "Yea, well maybe I'm not the ugly one. Maybe you're ugly Fujisaki. Please, just stop."

Ugly Rima because maybe she's not so ugly - maybe he's ugly.

vi-

Nagihiko doesn't stop. He starts. Because maybe Rima really isn't so ugly, he realizes. In fact, he thinks that Rima is actually quite pretty. He thinks that she's really pretty when she gives up on telling him to leave her alone. He thinks she's even prettier when she lets him walk beside her without complaining. He thinks she might be beautiful when he starts talking to her.

He realizes that Rima never really lived in a black and white world, her world if full of colors and shades and strange things you've never seen before, but it's beautiful.

Nagihiko knows what beauty is and Rima is beautiful.

-end-