Disclaimer: If ULTIMO were mine, I wouldn't need to write fanfics. If any of these songs were mine, I wouldn't be writing fanfics.

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Minimal fluff 09!

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Rune figured even if Jealous had never appeared to him and revealed his hidden past, he would have loved Yamato anyway.

He figured that even without knowing what he knew now, he would eventually figure out what exactly possessed him to become overwhelmed with such obsession with his male friend.

He was not going to blame the fact of his love on the other fact that he was, actually, a reincarnation of a woman, a noble princess. It was a weak justification – he was a man in this life, and had no interest in womankind, so what else could it be?

And if they all hadn't gotten wrapped up in this, if the robots hadn't appeared to disrupt life as they knew it, he would have lusted for Yamato all the same.

There was nothing extraordinary about Yamato; the boy was average at best, not the best looking man Rune had laid eyes on, and definitely was not the sharpest pencil in the box. He was loud and crude and stubborn and he liked girls but there was a magnetic, animalistic attraction Rune could not deny, a sense that they were halves but only one half was determined for the other's affections.

So maybe he was like the princess, in some ways.

But there was another part of Yamato that Rune knew, other than the fierce bandit that saved him (her) from an unsightly duke. He was the child he grew up with, the friend that was always there. The brave one, the proud one that made Rune happy just to be with, or stay in the shadow of. This was something no one else but him had seen, and with this, he had been bitten by the bug.

So maybe he wasn't like the princess, in other ways.

He was happy not knowing, because it spared him the fear of loss and heartbreak. He was happy Yamato did not know of his inner turmoil, for the boy would surely feel guilty for something he was not to blame (although Rune figured if Yamato would stop acting so irresistible maybe he would feel differently).

But now that the wool had been pulled from his eyes, and he saw what he really felt and what he was pretending not to hear his heart scream, he felt…better. Powerful. Dangerous. It didn't matter that he shared the psyche with a woman; he felt these feelings before that side of him awoken. It was a natural occurrence that had attacked and held fast since childhood, when he felt the first quick beats of his heart when Yamato smiled at him. The princess didn't know that.

These newfound feelings came with a name: love. This name came with a protector: Jealous.

And he pursued what he wanted, what any typical school girl with a crush wanted: for the one he liked to have eyes for him only.

He was a princess, yes.

But he was also Rune.

Owari

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Note: Short and sweet, because I just wanted to sum up my thoughts and I don't have all the time in the world. So I'll be blunt. Takei, I don't like how you're hiding that fact that Rune is blatantly gay but you're trying to play it off as he is NOT because he's the REINCARNATION of a woman.

So let's play the cards back. Rune is a boy. He has been for fifteen years. He has the mindset of a boy, for fifteen years. Yes, he may be the reincarnation, but reincarnation means the soul has been reborn. Souls, to my knowledge, do not have genders, only the genders of the body it inhabits.

So yes, Rune is a flaming homosexual. And we love him for it.

Review, please.