A/N:Hi guys! Expect more frequent updates after this Wednesday!

Pandamoniam, I know how you feel. I literally wrote that after watching the last episode over again.

LILFOC, WHY YOU GUEST? It's hard to thank you since you're anon, but I'm really grateful anyway~!

Xros-Hero, I'm flattered. Thanks!

So not sure this is in character but... I haven't watched Tamers in a while. Regardless, on with the show!

Season: Tamers

Genre: Friendship/Humor

Characters: Makino Ruki, Katou Juri

-Freaking summer. Few years post-series, post CD drama "Message in a Packet"

37. Heat

She never thought it would be so. damn. quiet.

WIthout the Digimon around, everything was so normal. She wanted to kick some puppies or knock that idiot Hirokazu off a bridge. It would at least be entertaining.

But it was too damn hot to do that.

Renamon would be sweltering. Thinking of her partner hurt like the ache of a healing bone. She ignored it, preferring to remain lazy on top of her futon, contemplating the many ways to torture the duo of stupidity that were Matsuda Takato's best friends. How they were friends was beyond her. Takato was far from stupid, just really naive.

... Okay, her brain had to be fried. She had just thought that statement.

"... Ruki-chan, are you asleep?"

"Juri." The aforementioned girl sat down beside her, smiling. "What are you doing here?" She made to sit up, but Ruki heard a sickening scrrtch, like tape, and decided that was a bad idea.

The girl then gave a mischievous smile. "Ice cream!" She held out an orange popsicle, looking quite pleased with herself.

Ruki was torn between snatching it away by her teeth and throwing it onto her stomach to melt into a sticky pool of cold. She chose a third option, grabbing the stick and sitting up. "...Thanks." Juri only smiled her gratitude and went back to licking her own. "... You have the cherry, don't you?"

"Strawberry," the girl corrected cheerfully. "Hirokazu-kun said orange was tart, so I should give it to you. Rude, isn't he?"

Ruki's eye twitched. "I'm going to kill him one of these days."

"He only does it because he likes you."

She almost spat out her ice cream. "Juri, don't. Just don't. That image is more horrifying than the idea of Ryo having a brain."

"Oh, he likes you too," Juri added offhandedly, waving her non-sticky hand back and forth. "Ryo-kun will probably do better than he will. He's got that... what does Papa call it? Oh right:" Her amber eyes glittered playfully. "That "bad boy" image."

Ruki was not turning red. She was not blushing darker than Juri's ice cream. "The heat's gotten to you too," she declared while Juri giggled at her expense.

"Has it now?"