A GIFT
Summary : Just in time for the holidays, here's my Christmas present to readers of A Surprise: seven outtakes that take place before, during and after the story.
Disclaimer : Digimon is still not mine, and that's probably for the best because all I'm capable of writing is pointless fluff.
A Gift
One
Two months after the prologue
The doorbell rings, and Jen counts until ten before he reaches for the doorknob. He's not sure if that's enough to hide the fact that he's been standing by the door for the last ten minutes, but it seems impossible to wait any longer. The door swings open and he's rewarded with his first glimpse of Ruki in five weeks.
"Is everyone gone?" She asks, greeting him as if they'd seen each other just yesterday, as if they're nothing more than friends. Her fingers are curled around one strap of her backpack while the other hand reaches up to undo the ponytail she wore to school.
Jen nods. "I'm all alone in this big, empty-" She kisses him as soon as the word empty escapes his lips and the force with which Ruki throws herself against him is enough to push Jen over the threshold, back into his home.
"Well, hi there," He smiles against her lips, reaching over her shoulder to shut the door. "I missed you too."
"Bed," Ruki orders as she wraps her arms around his neck. "Now."
The way she brushes off his words chills Jen for just a moment, and he feels the weight of everything Ruki won't let him say to her come crashing down upon him again. But then she pulls him closer to kiss him, and Jen decides not to dwell on it. Not yet, Ruki said once. He'll hold on to that.
She won't stop laughing as they blindly stumble into his room, tripping over his sister's misplaced shoes, an end table and a forgotten pen on the floor. Jen loves the way she keeps laughing even as he kisses her almost as much as he loves Ruki herself, and he's very careful not to tell her either of those things.
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"You should open the window," Ruki suggests after, when she leans against the headboard and draws him to her, prompting Jen to rest his head on her shoulder. "Air the room out."
The feeling of her blunt nails scraping against his scalp as she combs her fingers through his hair is almost enough to lull Jen to sleep, but he blinks at the sound of her voice. "What?"
Ruki sighs. "So that it doesn't smell like us," She points out what should have been obvious. "And change the sheets, if you can."
Oh, Jen realizes. Ruki's covering up their tracks, but he's too distracted by how casual she is about the whole thing. He shouldn't say anything, he has no right but- "You know what you're doing." His tone is too light for it to be anything but forced, and there's an unspoken question that can't be ignored. Maybe there's a hint of worry, of jealousy. But there shouldn't be; she's always been very clear that they owe each other nothing, that he shouldn't expect anything from her.
"We usually do this in my room, idiot," Ruki says and it's accompanied by an eye-roll and a sharp, almost painful tug at his hair before her fingers resume their previous, gentler movements. It may not be the most conventional way to say there's no one else, dumbass, but Jen's known her long enough to know what she's saying anyway.
There's nothing he can say out loud to acknowledge Ruki's unspoken assurance, so he pulls himself up to kiss her instead. When Jen pulls away, she chases after his lips for one last peck before her back slumps against the headboard again. He considers settling down next to her but decides to get up and open the window, as instructed.
"What time is it?" Ruki asks, stretching her arms out. Her eyes close as she works out some kinks in her neck and Jen takes the opportunity to smile at the way her hair, pressed against the headboard, sticks out in a spiky mess reminiscent of their childhood. And then he just smiles at the sight of Ruki in his bed, but he quickly averts his eyes when her own open once more.
"Five," Jen tells her after a quick look at the alarm clock on his nightstand, coming to sit next to her.
"Two hours before your family gets back," Ruki says, pulling a sheet with her as she swings her feet over the bed and plants them firmly on the ground, securing the sheet around herself before she stands up. "I think it's time for a shower."
Jen wants to crawl back into bed and convince Ruki that they can stay put for another thirty minutes at least, but instead he gets up as well and roots around for his pants. "I'll go get you a towel," He tells Ruki once he's half-dressed. "And new sheets," He adds, more as a reminder to himself than anything else.
Ruki says something about tracking down her clothes and he leaves her to it as he slips out into the hallway, heading for the laundry room. His mother always keeps fresh linens there, and Jen has no trouble locating a clean towel and a new set of bed sheets. When he gets back with a bundle of white cloth in his arms, he finds Ruki standing with her back to the door. She's got some clothes in one hand while the other holds up her sheet, and Jen's surprised to find that she's apparently staring at his computer.
Her ears pick up on his steps as Jen approaches her, and Ruki turns to him with a scowl. "Do you want to tell me how that got there?" She questions and it's then that Jen realizes she wasn't staring at his computer, but at her shirt draped over his computer.
"I have no idea," Jen grins, though he vaguely remembers tossing the shirt somewhere. Now he knows where it landed. He hands Ruki the towel and turns to dump the armful of sheets on his bed.
"Yeah, right," Ruki rolls her eyes, picking up the shirt. She holds up her skirt and turns to him with an accusing look. "I found this under the bed."
Jen shrugs. "Maybe you kicked it there," He suggests innocently. Ruki hates the skirt and usually changes out of her school uniform as soon as she can. Jen's quite fond of the thing though, since it's easier to deal with than Ruki's preferred jeans. "Any idea where my clothes are?"
"In a pile near the wall," Ruki glares. "All of them. Because unlike some people, I don't see the need to throw clothes all over the room once I've taken them off."
"Right," Jen mutters sheepishly, picking up his clothes. "So maybe I got a bit carried away." Ruki huffs, but he spots a little smile tugging at her lips. He suspects it's all an act and Ruki actually loves that he'd been too caught up in her to pay attention to unimportant things like where her clothes landed, but Jen changes the subject anyway, just to be safe. "So how was your trip, anyway?"
"Exhausting," Ruki says after a moment's thought, settling on the least whiny way to put it. Letting her mother drag her around Europe for five weeks was a lot more than just exhausting, and she could string together a complaint worthy of the most spoiled brat out there. But it's not the worst way to spend a summer, as Renamon frequently reminded her during their trip. "I'm just glad to be home."
"I'm glad, too," Jen tells her, though he keeps his back to her as he changes the sheets. It doesn't seem like a sentiment Ruki would appreciate, but she surprises him by dropping a kiss on his cheek before she walks out of the room. The bathroom lights are on when he passes by on his way to the laundry room, and Jen assumes she'll be half-done with her shower by the time he's started the washing machine.
When he walks by the bathroom on his way back to his room though, the door is wide open and Ruki is still wrapped up in her sheet. "Are you coming in or not?" She asks bluntly, her casual voice laced with nothing but a hint of impatience. Jen gapes at her for five seconds, then nods in a jerky movement and nearly runs back to the laundry room to get himself a towel. Ruki drops the act and laughs when he shuts the door behind them with a bit more force than necessary.
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Two hours turn out to be just long enough for them to get showered and dressed, with a bit of time to spare for them to fold Jen's sheets after a round in the dryer and hide them away with all the other bed sheets.
They settle down in the living room and Ruki pulls a math textbook out of her bag, ignoring Jen's confused look. "Renamon's decided to pick up French," She tells him out of the blue, flipping through the textbook. "I'm learning with her."
"Oh, good," Jen says as he sits down, careful to put a respectable distance between himself and Ruki. "We can go to that fancy restaurant then, the one with the menu only in French and snobby waiters who won't translate it for you."
"As long as you're paying," Ruki shrugs, and he scoffs because she's never let him pay for any of her meals. One time Jen surprised her with a birthday cake, and she insisted on paying him back. It's almost as if whatever they have will magically turn into a full-blown relationship if he buys her a meal.
"Okay, so this is the chapter I'm having trouble with," She tells him, sliding closer so that they can both see the textbook. Jen's confused but he plays along.
"You're a bit ahead of us," He frowns.
"Private school, remember?"
"Yeah," Of course he remembers; Ruki complains about it all the time. "Give me a minute; I think I can help you. I read ahead during summer break."
Ruki rolls her eyes just as the front door opens, and it's then that Jen fully appreciates her sense of timing as his parents walk in to hear her say: "Of course you read ahead for math."
"He's hopeless, I tell you!" Janyu booms as everyone expresses amusement at Jen, and none of them even realize that Ruki's sitting too close to him. "Maybe you can get his head off school sometimes, Ruki. See if you can convince him to be a normal teenager."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Ruki grins. "I think Jen's incapable of thinking about anything other than school and Digimon." They both know school and Digimon were far from his mind this afternoon, but of course the whole point of Ruki's act is so that they're the only ones who know that. Jen hands her the textbook as they both stand up, and Ruki slides it back into her bag.
"Now, Ruki, don't leave on our account," Janyu tells her as they meet by the front door.
Mayumi nods with a warm smile. "Why don't you stay for dinner?" She suggests.
"Thank you for the offer," Ruki says with a smile of her own as she steps into her shoes. "But I promised my family I'd join them for dinner tonight."
"Well, we wouldn't want to keep you from them," Mayumi accepts her excuse. "Some other time, then?"
"And bring Renamon along," Janyu requests. "It's always fascinating to hold a conversation with her."
"Some other time," Ruki agrees.
Jen slips past his parents. "Come on, I'll walk you down."
Ruki exchanges good-nights and good-byes with Jen's parents. They extend the dinner invitation to her mother and grandmother, and ask her to pass along their best regards. She can feel their eyes following her and Jen all the way down the hall, until they step into the lift. As soon as the metal doors close behind them, Ruki grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him close enough to kiss.
"Not that I'm complaining," Jen grins, putting some distance between them when Ruki lets go of his shirt. "But what was that for?"
"I realized I can't kiss you in front of your parents," Ruki shrugs. "So of course that made me want to."
"Of course," Jen echoes with a laugh as he reaches out to hook one finger around the strap of Ruki's bag and pull her to him. He's been getting better at this – reaching out and kissing her first, settling his hands on her waist and holding her in place when she playfully tries to duck away. Now that he knows for sure that Ruki wants him to kiss her, that she welcomes his hands on her waist as much as he likes the way she slinks her arms around his neck… now that he knows Ruki would never actually pull away from him, she just pretends to because sometimes they behave like any other seventeen-year-olds would in this situation – now he can kiss her without stopping every few seconds to make sure he hasn't pushed her too far.
There's a soft chime, and they jump apart just as the doors slide open. A family with two young children greets Jen as they step into the lift, and he bids them a nice evening as he and Ruki walk out. They walk side by side to the front door with their shoulders barely brushing, even though Jen wants to wrap one arm around her waist and pull her closer. His family knows almost everyone in the building and two of his neighbors are already observing him with thinly-veiled curiosity as he walks a girl out.
Ruki plasters on a fake smile and acknowledges Jen's nosy neighbors with a nod as they pass by. As soon as the women turn away, she leans in to whisper in his ear. "My family's gone all day this Friday."
After a quick check to make sure the coast is clear – the neighbors have vanished – Jen swoops in to kiss her cheek. "I'll see you then," He smiles. As they near the building's front door, he realizes Friday is three days away. Ruki got back late this Sunday, and she was too jet-lagged yesterday to do anything other than crash the minute she got back from school. This is the first Jen's seen of her in more than a month, and it's not enough to tide him through until Friday.
So he takes a risk. "Can I walk you home from school tomorrow?"
She stares at him, questioning eyes wide with a warning. "You can't stay over; my family will be home."
"I know, I didn't ask because-" I didn't ask because I want to sleep with you is what he should say, but it sounds crude even though he means to be anything but.
Ruki gets it though, what he's too embarrassed to say out loud. "My mom has a photo shoot at home; a magazine wants to capture her in her element or something," She explains. It's nice of her to let him down easy, but Jen could have done with a simple no. And that's usually more of Ruki's thing anyway, so why- "You can walk me to the park. I'm going to hang out there until the photographers leave."
Oh. It's a yes.
Jen must look as surprised as he feels, because Ruki waits patiently for him to speak. "Okay." He says belatedly, blurting out his agreement as soon as he realizes what Ruki's offering. He's probably smiling like an idiot right now but that's alright because she's smiling too.
"Okay," Ruki echoes with a decisive nod. "Just wait for me around the corner."
She finds him around the corner as instructed the next day, and they hang out in the park until her home is safe to return to. The day after is hotter than September has any right to be, and Jen surprises her with ice cream. A week later, she catches sight of a blue umbrella just around the corner, big enough to shield the both of them from the storm. With the umbrella hiding them from prying schoolgirl eyes, Ruki kisses him in public for the very first time.
Walking home alone becomes a thing of the past.
So, what do you guys think of the outtakes so far? This is the first of seven, and I'll be posting one daily for the next two days, then two a day for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day because CHRISTMAS!
I've got all seven chapters written out because I don't think I'll have much time to write in the days leading up to Christmas but if there's anything you'd like to see, leave a prompt and we'll see how it goes.
E Salvatore,
December 2014.