ryuki 100 fluff challenge.
theme 09. Unrelationship.

20 things that Ryou admits about his girlfriend, Makino Ruki

1. There never is really going to be a lot of romance between Akiyama Ryou and Makino Ruki. There will be nothing for the dying fan girls to jealously watch and squeal over. Ruki has too much dignity to snuggle up and moongaze all night. She has a mountain of homework to do if she's going to get high school, and Ryou is going to get a matching diploma, or die trying to keep up with her.

2. No matching costumes for Halloween. No sweater sets for the winter holidays. No coordinating outfits, no identical ring tones. The only things that will match will be carefully plagiarized sheets of math and grammar homework, and that's pushing it.

If there is one thing that she hates, it is losing herself in someone else's personality. Especially in one as bright and colorful as Akiyama Ryou's. She's a shadow person, she says. Not a poster paint and sunshine type.

3. After the rare occasion of Ruki resting her head on his shoulder, Akiyama Ryou's shoulder aches for hours afterwards with the aftershock of staying perfectly still. It's romantic and all, but he's secretly glad that it doesn't happen very frequently.

4. The truth be told, they're not going to be the supercouple or shoujo romance pairing, no matter how hard anyone tries. Just because they're in love doesn't mean that she's going to melt, that he's going to (finally) settle down and mature. There won't be any love-love kiss-kiss mushiness or small notes written in pink gel pen being passed between them.

5. Neither Akiyama Ryou nor Makino Ruki think that the trappings of love and romance are foolish and pointless and most of all, stupid. (Well, Ruki is obviously lying, but she makes an effort.) Their friends do them all the time. Jenrya stuffs a rose into a locker on occasion. Juri throws notes overflowing with hearts and gel pen scribbles.

It's just that there simply won't be any of this stuff in this relationship, because even though they aren't bad, they are (besides being foolish, annoying, and manipulative schemes from gift companies) more than a bit slightly expensive, and both are dead broke.

6. She hates it when he calls her Ruki. "Wildcat" and "pumpkin" were never serious: they were light, childhood nicknames, and easy to ignore. But when he calls her Ruki- devoid of honorifics, no joking –chan or ­–hime attached- she shivers. The cutesy ­­–chan and the joking ­–hime annoy her much more, but whenever "Ruki," and nothing else comes from his lips, she knows that he's serious. He's only done it twice so far, and only bad things have come from it.

7. Akiyama Ryou smiles a lot, and seems to be happy most of the time. But he bottles up for weeks at a time, all the anger that he holds in boiling to a fever pitch inside of him, trying to get out and explode. After watching psychology talk shows, he realizes that he is a potential mass murderer. He warns Ruki of this, and she laughs. Welcome to the club, she says.

If he was looking for sympathy in a girlfriend, he admits, Ruki would probably be on the bottom of the list.

8.There will, however, be fighting. Arguments. Bickering. Glares. Overprotective scolding.

Simply put, life will go on as normal.

9. Once, Ruki actually did wait for Ryou to rescue her. The waiting period lasted for about four minutes, but after that, she came back to her senses and returned to her practical version of sanity once more. And by the time he did get there, the problem was solved, and she told him off for being overprotective and for running out of an exam to save her, with words that would surely get her sent into a year long detention if a teacher had passed by at that moment.

She's too ungrateful, stubborn, and independent to let some guy save her. She doesn't care if other girls would swoon and faint gracefully. And sometimes, he realizes, she simply doesn't want to be a problem, an extra burden that would be treated as a duty or a chore.

So the next time that some jerk dares to mess with her, he's there before she can decide if being rescued is okay or not.

10. Ryou has already picked up the infamous Ruki-glare, even if it does make him look a bit like a frowning porcupine and Ruki bursts out laughing whenever he tries it.

11. According to the All-Wise Queen of Couple Behaviour, Juri Katou, it is required that couples share several things: heart-to-heart talks, the bill after dinner, and soy sauce bowls. Akiyama Ryou puts wasabi in his soy sauce. Makino Ruki's face will turn red after even the slightest hint of the fiery wasabi.

She doesn't tell him that, and keeps eating her sushi, drinking massive amounts of water to keep her face at a normal shade.

12. Sometimes, Ruki isn't sure if she's in love with him or not. She might be, but she can't imagine being in love with someone that cheerful and bouncy.

But then he brings her hot chocolate as she does (his) homework, and she remembers that she loves him, at least for the moment.

Ryou isn't sure if such an unstable relationship is a good thing, but it's lasted so far, hasn't it?

13. On Valentine's Day, Makino Ruki always bakes cookies and leaves them in his locker, right in the middle of every other bag of anonymous messages of love and baked goods. She has never told him about this, and continues every year, secretly smuggling them in before his arrival.

14. On Valentine's Day, Akiyama Ryou always finds them, and they're the only cookies he'll eat. The rest are dropped off at the local soup kitchen. He's never told her that he knows she's baking for him, because he doesn't want her to stop anytime soon.

15. There are no illusions of a happily ever after in this relationship. On the first date, Makino Ruki informed Akiyama Ryou that he was free to leave whenever, and that she would be leaving the moment she wanted to.

Exactly forty-two and three-quarters of a date later, she tells him that the offer has been revoked.

16. Makino Ruki is not a goddess. Or a super-hero, an undefeatable warrior princess, or an ice queen. Or even anywhere close to perfection

For one thing, Ryou notes, she snores.

17. In summary, Ruki is cynical, unromantic, lacking in sympathy, stubborn, mule headed, ungrateful, insecure, in denial, flawed, and she can't decide if she loves him twenty four hours a day, seven hours a week.

Ruki, he is told quite frequently, is not girlfriend material, and that he could do so much better if he just tried.

18. Quite frequently, Ryou tells the insightful commentator that reminds him of this that no, he couldn't do better, thank you very much, go away.

19. When Ruki is with Ryou, she's not mind-numbingly rainbow-and-bluebirds happy. She doesn't laugh 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But she's made her choice, and she has decided that she'd rather be alive and sane than happy and nothing more.

20. Ryou doesn't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. But she's there, right next to him, carrying her own textbooks and listening to him.

And that's all that really matters.

Author note.

I'm going to watch POTC 3 today! YAY!

Since this was horrible, I'm not even saying anything about it. Except that I'll probably do another one soon. (hehehe, sorry.) I'll warn you in advance. I want to get better at this 20truths format because to write it well, you have to be good at the things that I am bad at.

A big thank you to all reviewers. I want to post replies, but I can't because of lack of time. Keep commenting, criticizing, etc. for me, please!

-liahime.