Notes – For the gx_100. Set pre-GX, probably soon after Fubuki and Ryo had started attending Duel Academia.
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Ryo wasn't particularly close to anyone as far as friendships went.
He had a lot of respect for people, but it was easier to respect another person from, say, the other end of a room than it was to respect them up close next to his face. Respecting people from entirely different rooms was simple enough to manage too.
It wasn't that he'd tried to make himself unapproachable so much as he had just turned out that way. It suited him fine so he didn't make much effort to fix it.
He told himself that he wouldn't let anyone get too close; that every relationship he had with other people would be that of a working relationship.
Another elite student, Fubuki, had other ideas though.
Fubuki always made a point to talk to Ryo, not seeming to get that Ryo wasn't a talkative person. Even when Ryo made a point of sitting in seats that were awkward to get to in the lecture hall, Fubuki would beeline his way over and sit next to him, talking loudly and cheerfully to him before his behind had even touched the seat. Because Ryo valued respect above all else he was not rude to Fubuki, and tried to join in on the conversations even when he couldn't understand half of what Fubuki was going on about.
He reasoned that Fubuki would grow bored of him soon and that he was not letting the boy get too close.
It did not stop at sitting next to him in class and waving to him at lunch however. Soon enough Fubuki was coming to icall/i on Ryo, knocking loudly on the student's door and grinning widely as Ryo answered.
Of course Ryo could not send him away, so he would act on Fubuki's requests – going out with him to the beach or wherever else he wanted to go at that moment in time. It even got to the point where Ryo would expect Fubuki to turn up at his door at a particular time and be concerned if he didn't.
That didn't count as letting someone getting too close though. Perhaps Fubuki was more than a workmate to him but it was perfectly normal for someone to worry about where their friends were.
Time went on and it was Ryo who called on Fubuki for once. There rooms weren't too far apart from one another, but it surprised Ryo that for all Fubuki came to visit him, Ryo himself had not gone to find out where Fubuki was staying.
Knocking on the door for the first time felt awkward, but Fubuki answered like a shot, as if he was constantly waiting for someone to call on him. He invited Ryo in to the room and it didn't take long for the subject matter Ryo had in mind when he came to be discussed.
The issue was that the beach felt too public to Ryo. He knew it was important to Fubuki to go there but at the same time wanted somewhere that they could talk together without girls coming over every five minutes to chatter with Fubuki about something unimportant. Ryo had found the place. It was a lighthouse at the pier of the academia, which was quiet at the best of times and next to deserted at the nighttime when Ryo and Fubuki talked with each other.
He was relieved when Fubuki agreed to this, and ignored the momentary glint in Fubuki's eyes. After all, it was normal for friends to want some privacy when they spoke to each other. It wasn't as if they were shutting themselves off from other people, just going to a place where other people usually didn't go. And he certainly wasn't getting too close to Fubuki.
The mentioned lighthouse became a regular meeting place for them. Neither even had to call on the other anymore because they just knew where to be and at what time to be there. Somehow, over time, talking to Fubuki came more naturally to Ryo as well. It wasn't as forced to find something to talk about as it had been when Fubuki had first taken an interest in him. They had common grounds now, they had preferred topics and they each knew more of what the other liked or disliked.
It certainly wasn't unusual to know someone well enough to know that they were often too absentminded to forget lunch and, as a good friend, start to bring them something to eat when they met you at the lighthouse. Just because Fubuki was so picky that he hardly ate anything, probably to do with some fad diet, anyone who knew him for long enough would know that he loved kimchi above all else, and it was a good friend's duty to make sure he had some prepared for meeting with Fubuki.
He wasn't worrying too much.
And Ryo knew the glances that Fubuki sent him were that of friendship too, when he stopped pretending he couldn't see the glances. It wasn't as if Fubuki didn't grin that way to everyone he spoke to. And Fubuki was just naturally the sort of person who stood close to you, even if it was invading Ryo's personal space a little. Also, quite certainly naturally, Fubuki was a touchy-feely person. He hadn't done it when they'd first met, but now that they knew each other better Ryo accept that it was normal for Fubuki to occasionally hug him, almost at random. It was just that Fubuki knew Ryo well enough to know that he'd be all right with that, nothing more.
They were always just friends. When Fubuki stroked Ryo's hair it was because it was in Ryo's eyes, and Fubuki cared a lot about people's hair. As his hand brushed softly against Ryo's cheek, that was just an accident. Albeit a regular accident, but Fubuki just misjudged where Ryo's hair was in relation to his cheek.
Friends sometimes kissed each other too, it was something of an older custom but perhaps Fubuki came from a traditional family. Ryo let it slide a few times.
As a friend, nothing more, Ryo cared about Fubuki's well being enough to not just let him go off with any girl that took his fancy. To check up on him every now and then, just to be sure that the girl wasn't going to take advantage of him. Ignoring the voice in his head that told him it would be more likely for Fubuki to take advantage of the girl.
It was a relief when these dates became less frequent, and Fubuki became more content with just flirting with the girls. He often used the excuse that he was taken already, but Ryo knew that this was not true because he hung around with Fubuki so much that he'd seen there was no one for Fubuki to be taken by.
It was just Fubuki and himself. And they were just friends. Nothing more. Ryo was honest about that.