Alice and Ryo share almost everything.

"That's it! I've had it with these food matches!" Ryo slammed his bandana onto the kitchen counter, very much upset after Alice was again declared the winner of their food war. "You know what? I quit! Don't come looking for me again, missy!"

Alice wiped her hands on her cute bear-print apron, looking at her playmate of sorts with a concerned furrow on her brows. "What's going on, Ryo? It's not like you to give up so easily! Where'd all your fire go?"

Ryo took a deep sigh, trying to calm herself. Perhaps losing two hundred cooking matches in a row was getting to him. And she was right--it was not like him to quit at all. But being here, in Alice's home, in their sparkly high-tech kitchen, surrounded by their uniformed maidstaff...

"...It's not fair," Ryo mumbled to himself. "The leg up you have against me. It's just not fair."

"What's that you're mumbling, hm?" All of a sudden, Alice's face was right in front of his, staring up at him with her big ruby eyes. "If you have a problem, Ryo-kun, go an say so! We can't have a healthy mistress-aide relationship if we can't be open with each other!"

Then there was that too, that "aide" thing, which almost felt demeaning and belittling at times. Who was she to demand that he follow after her like a dog?

"You know, babe," Ryo said, unable to hold it in, "you're such a filthy spoiled little brat."

Alice was stunned speechless. "A... A what? Ryo! How dare you!"

"I'm not wrong!" he spat back. "You're picking on me, aren't you? All our matches, you do realize I'm at bigger disadvantage, right? You're filthy rich! All these nice ingredients, this fancy kitchen, a damn food lab! You're just trying to amuse yourself with me like I'm some little rat...!"

"T-That's not true, Ryo," Alice replied, holding her hands together in an effort to hide how she was feeling nervous about this confrontation. She has gotten a bit used to Ryo's temper, but even she could tell that this was something else.

Her voice was starting to break, though. "I...I really like cooking with you, it's fun! And I'm not really that rich, now..."

He scoffed at that denial of wealth--she was caught up in her own world, thinking that this fancy mansion and everything in it was the norm. "I grew up in the gutter, Alice," he said, a bit more calmly now. "Not everyone has got it good as you."

"...I know," Alice said. "Dad always tells me that." And truly, in the past months he had stayed with them, Ryo would hear Alice's dad sometimes reprimand her for being so spoiled. "B-But it doesn't mean I...! R-Ryo... You're..."

Ryo felt his heart sink, finally noticing Alice's voice breaking, the uneasy way she was fidgeting, her eyes cast down on the floor beneath her. "Hey now! Don't cry." He rushed to her side, awkwardly placing a hand on her shoulder. "Just forget what I said, I didn't mean any of it!"

What did she do to deserve his outburst? She couldn't do anything about being born wealthy. Young as he may be, Ryo already knew that. He felt guilty, knowing he ended up blaming his losses on something she couldn't control. When did he become a quitter? He was upset at losing so much, but it meant he should just keep going. He'll catch up to her eventually.

"But... You're right," Alice said, trying desperately to hold back her sobs. "It's not fair for you, this whole thing. We can't be proper rivals this way!"

Ryo looked confused. "What do you mean?"

Suddenly, he thought perhaps she meant to end all this. No more cooking contests. No more of Alice constantly visiting the pub to challenge him.

The idea scared him. No matter how many times he kept losing to her, it doesn't mean he wanted her to leave.

But unexpectedly, Alice took a step back, indignantly stomped her foor on the floor, and declared:

"I've decided! Everything I own is yours now."

Ryo was stunned silent.

"Excuse me?"

"We can share everything!" Alice said, her face lighting up in excitement. "If you need anything at all too, just ask me! And then we'll ask daddy, I guess."

Ryo blinked a couple times. Alice just comes to such absurd solutions sometimes. "I'm... Not sure how this works out, hon."

"It is what it is! Everything I have is also yours now! Even my piggy bank, I guess."

Ryo laughed at the absurdity of it all, and at how Alice came to this bizarre conclusion. "I appreciate it, babe. But things just don't work out that way, you know? I can't just come in and pretend I have the same rights as you now."

"Well, why not? I've said what I said, so stop complicating things, Ryo-kun!" She asked him in earnest. Everything could be so simple to Alice. "Here, I'll show you how to use my oven! And daddy's vaccuum sealer!"

For a sudden declaration Alice made when they were six, she surprisingly stuck to it even as time passed.

As kids, they shared almost everything--the toys they played with, the books they read, the shows they watched. Alice shared even the courtesy gifts she got from all of her parents' connections--whatever she received, she shared with Ryo.

As they grew up, the things they shared evolved to gadgets or console games or cooking equipment. Even when Ryo was less interested in molecular gastronomy, he pretty much had free reign to use anything that was in Alice's arsenal, and she gave him the basic rundown of how to use things. If she thought Ryo could benefit from something, she pretty much made sure he had access to it.

Ryo realized after a while that yes, Alice Nakiri was a very spoiled, very privileged girl...

But she had not a single inch of greed in her body, and was generous to him and everyone else she liked.

Her family was very much the same--everything Alice got, Ryo received in equal measure. He had equal education, and if he as so much showed an interest in a hobby, the Nakiris gave him full support.

It conflicted Ryo a lot growing up--he wasn't family. He felt as if he didn't really deserve this stroke of luck. Ryo made a point to never ask for anything.

And so, Ryo decided, that everything he had--while it was not much--belonged equally to Alice too.

"For god's sake, Kurokiba! Why do you guys keep popping up in Shiomi Seminar when you have this decent sized room?!" Akira said, a little surprised at how spacious Ryo's room in Nakiri Mansion was. He imagined Ryo was living well--he was serving in the Nakiri family after all--but the room clearly wasn't a servant's quarter.

A servant's quarter wouldn't have it's own smart tv with the latest gaming systems, or an area that was more or less a mini-gym. Or a mini-fridge, which Ryo was now opening, handing out soda to Akira and Souma.

"It's only big because Alice spends considerable time in here, I guess," Ryo said. "We share this," he tapped on the mini-fridge, "and that." He then pointed towards the tv and the gaming systems. "Alice has her tv, but it's mostly movies hooked up to it."

"You two share everything, don't you?" Souma remarked, walking around the room some more, deciding to poke around a set of weights Ryo had in a corner of the room.

And it seemed like they did, and that for all intents and purposes, Alice also lived here.

A tube of lipbalm and lipgloss left on the desk. A bunny-shaped hairbrush with strands of white hair. A monogrammed designer handbag that was obviously not Kurokiba's.

There was suddenly a loud beep, coming from Kurokiba's phone. He checked out the phone alert with a visible knot between his brows.

"What's wrong?" Souma asked.

"Alice is just ordered something online again."

"Wait," Akira said, looking very confused. "It sends you alerts when she buys stuff?!"

"One, she has a purchase limit or else she'll keep buying junk," Ryo explained, shaking his head slightly. "And it notifies me coz I look over her finances because God knows she's a wreck at it. Aide stuff."

Akira felt that, remembering Jun Shiomi. All that genius, yet unable to remember to do simple math for things like paying the bills. What would these women do without them?

"You're already sharing financial details and stuff," Soma remarked. "You may as well be married!"

"Married, huh," Ryo mumbled, to himself. Wasn't a definition of marriage two people who shared everything?

I guess that's one way of putting it.

"A pre-nuptial agreement?" Alice blinked, as if the question posed at her had been an utterly stupid one. "Really? My fiancé is one of the top marine biologists of the modern world and everyone's asking about a pre-nup??"

Alice pouted at her crew of secretaries who had been reading out questions from the media about her upcoming marriage. (She had her own staff now, the work that all her husband-to-be used to do for her now distributed across at least three people. They all secretly fear him and wonder what he's made of, lasting in Alice's service for decades.)

"You know, I'm not exactly anywhere as rich as a Nakiri," Ryo had been sitting on his own desk across the room, at the office space he now shared with Alice at the Nakiri Mansion. "I wouldn't mind if we got one."

"No. Pre-nup. Period," Alice said to her aides, with finality in her tone and words. "That's what we tell the press."

Ryo raised a brow at his research papers. "...I'm not adverse to it, Miss."

"I doubt they asked this same question when dad married mom!" Alice said, furiously tapping keys on her phone, and Ryo imagined she was probably typing up a rant, either to her parents or her cousin Erina. "People only ask this sort of stuff if it's a high profile woman getting married! Why the hell do they care about how money will be divied up or who's taking on whose surname?? They should be asking about the more important stuff--like my dress! Or who's doing the catering!"

"Alice..." Ryo began, and Alice's secretaries read into that, immediately leaving the room. They knew that when Ryo Kurokiba called her by name, things were about to get serious. Decades of habitually calling her "miss" was hard to shake off.

"Don't," was all that Alice said, almost as if she knew what was coming. "I don't want to discuss it."

Ryo got up, walking towards Alice, and from behind her saw that she was indeed writing up a furious text to her cousin Erina. "Well, it's just one way to shut up those punks who still find it weird you're marrying your former secretary."

"Really now, Ryo?" Alice raised an eyebrow at him. "You care what people think? You're joking."

She knew him well. She knew he didn't care much for gossip and what people thought--but Alice did.

And if anything would make things easier for her, he would do it.

"I know what you're thinking, Ryo-kun!" Alice pouted, hand to her hip. "You think I can't handle these opinions and let them get under my skin. You're still worried about that? I'm a big girl now, Ryo!"

"...You were just crying in my arms a few nights ago, miss."

Alice pouted, grabbing her office notepad and slapping it onto Ryo's arm. "I was having my period so my hormones were all whack! That does not count!"

Eventually Alice simmered down, settling back onto her chair with a sigh. "Look, Ryo... It's not like you're going to leave me or anything, right?"

"I wouldn't even dream of it," he said. And he meant it. He couldn't even imagine life without her.

"Then I honestly don't care for this complication of splitting up assets when we're not ever going to split up to begin with. Everything I have and own is yours, remember?"

Ryo chuckled, suddenly remembering the image of a six-year-old Alice excitedly sharing with him the measly fifty dollars from her piggy bank. The money they both made was way beyond that amount right now, and the things they owned now beyond a few books or games...

But some things just don't change.

"Alright, if you say so, miss," Ryo said, sighing a bit. "But don't forget that in return, everything I have and own is yours, too."

Alice clapped her hands together in glee, and smiled brightly.

"Well," she said, "as long as you're mine, that's all that really matters to me, Ryo-kun!'

Despite himself, Ryo felt his cheeks warm up.

Sometimes, Alice could just randomly say the mosy affectionate things.

He got up and closed the distance between them, and kissed her.

a/n: I am not against legal financial in marriages, I just really think Alice and Ryo would be the sort who wouldn't care to get one. Also we get to see other boss/aide relationships in the series but the unique thing about Alice and Ryo is the lack of formality towards each other. Alice often always provides Ryo tools to get a leg up on his own food wars, which just tells me she does not mind sharing things with him. It lets on that she thinks him more an equal than an aide, despite whatever she says.hello to readers who are still here and a couple of new ones! ilu all.