MI CASA É SUA CASA!

My house is your house! Or?

Hurray for grade 12 --!! tons of homework, exams and barely any free-time, I know it's the same old excuse, but that's just the way it is, I apologize to all those who were desperately waiting for this (I' sorry, couldn't handle this any sooner)! Hope you enjoy reading this cause I had lots of fun writing this chap.

But first off: I want to thank C.Queen for beta-reading my fics (memo to minna-san, go read her fics, their awesome!!)

Big thank you to my new reviewers: CiNnAmOnCoOkIeS and cool-girl027

And since Pu-chan's taking a nap, I'll take care of the disclaimer:

"ahem"
Digimon is not mine, period!

So this was it.
The Akiyama residence. They were all standing in the hallway, which only gave away little prospects to the peculiarities of the house. It wasn't quite what she expected Ryou's house to be like, but then again, what exactly did she expect? A dirty little 4x4 feet cubicle with grime, muck and dirt piling in every corner? Ruki blinked twice and slightly shook her head in order to rid herself from the hideous thoughts, wondering from which sick, twisted and unknown little corner of her mind they'd emerged from. The hallway was painted in a bright white which, at a certain point took up the shades of a pastel yellow, deepening as one entered the living room, then flowed into a stream of sunny yellow and golden orange which predominated the living room, doning it a some what medeterranean-flaire, produced by walls with a yellow tint, wiped over with light orange coloured sponge-technique.
In the living room stood a massive, large, dark wooden table, decorated with flowers and fruits in glass bowls on pretty little tablecloths. The table was surrounded by mahogany-colored bast stools, each having it's own special material covering, which matched perfectly with the wall's plastering.

Even the sofa and the potplants gave you the feeling of being on vacation in a far away land without leaving your own premises, but what somehow disrupted the foreign apperance, was the flat-screen, high-definition stereo television, which seemed slightly out of place, but at least it would make watching TV fun.
Ruki barely remembered the time she had instructed her feet to moved from the hallway into the living room and now she stood there admiring the lovely interior decration, when all with a sudden, she was torn out of her silent admiration by Ryou's voice,

"Want me to show you to your room?" he was still holding her luggage, even though she nearly had a fight with him over it early on, insisting on carrying it herself.
Strangely enough, he'd won and so they stood there, in the middle of the living room, Ruki slightly dazed and Ryou expectant of an answer, when her mother and Satô came to join them.

"Yeah sure" she murmured, feeling a little bit uncomfortable with the four of them standing so close in one spot.

"This way, madame" and without uttering a word, she followed him, as he turned arround, as if to leave the livingroom the same way he came, only to then ascended a staircase Ruki hadn't noticed before.

Upstairs, he turned on a switch, and if it hadn't been imputed into Ruki's mind for many years now, how electricity worked, and if she hadn't wittnessed said procedure many times in her own house, she would have ment that the at first so gloomy and eerie seeming hallway, was suddenly illuminated as if by magic, simply blowing away it's scary appearance and openly inviting her to discover all it's rooms and see what they had in stall for her.
Then Ryou took up the role of a tourguide,

"To your right, you have the guests bathroom, you can use it at anytime it pleases you. Here on your left are the three bedrooms, in which we will be sleeping, the first one's your mom's and the second one is yours, the last one, mine. Oh and let me warn you" he mysteriously added before slowly twisting the knob of door number two to add some suspence to the situation and for a brief moment, Ruki really held her breath…

"Each room has a "topic"! "

"A what?"

"A topic and yours is 'submarine' in a litteral sense, 'hope you like it!"
The door was opened and Ruki found herself in a room which reminded one of an undersea world. The walls were panted in the most beautiful shades of blue and turquoise-green, the bed had coverings with sea-world motives printed on it, many lava-lamps were stationed across the room and one particular lamp cast the shadows of water's motion onto the ceiling while the subtile sounds of underwater living seemed to emit from somewhere. She looked arround and even spotted an aquarium built into one of the walls, and that stunned her, but she later found out, that those weren't real fish.

'And I thought these kind of bedrooms existed only in movies, either I'll fall in love with this room or it'll make me go nuts after three days' she thought to herself.

"Yeah I know, it looks strange and pretty unusual, it was my dad's idea" Ryou added hastely as if he had to justify an embarrasing accident.

"It's ok" she added non-chalantly

"Well then, where can I put your bags?" she suddenly realized that Ryou still had her luggage

"Give me that" she said and usurped her goods, causing Ryou to raise his eyebrows. Ruki simply marched in, dumped them beside the bed and sat on the edge of the bed.

It was soft, really soft.

She looked arround the room again, scrutinizing each and every object, well, except the one standing in the doorframe, hands shoved into his pockets, slightly blowing up his cheeks and shifting the little air bubble from one side to the other, a habit of his he tended to reveal whenever he was a bit nervous and at loss of words, which, to be honest, didn't happen that often. Others bit their lips or chewed their fingernails but he had that stupid habit of blowing his cheeks.

'Darn, I must look like a monkey to her…'

Akward silence slowly began to creep up and inevitably filled the atmosphere. Ruki sat there and didn't seem as if she was about to do anything against this uncomfortable situation but then, as if remembering what he was trying to tell her all along, Ryou began,

"Oh yeah, uuuhm,… the remote control for the TV and the Hi-Fi are in your nightstands drawer, as you can see, the screen's on the other wall so you can lay in bed, relax and simply enjoy the fun,… yeah"-

'OK that was stupid! Gosh, why the heck am I so damn' nervous???' he scratched the back of his head nervously.

"OK"

"And,….uuhm.. whenever you need something, I'm the room next door, just let me know …or tell dad!"

"OK"

"Well then,..uhm, good night and see you tomorrow morning, I guess..."

"Good night." he peered left and right for a moment, then grabbed the doornob and left the room, closing the door slowly but firmly.
When Ruki knew Ryou to be away in his room, she let herself fall unto her back with a resounding thump, lay there for a long while, recollecting all the impressions and events of this unusual day and fixed her gaze to the ceiling which constantly kept shiftig its pattern. The cool water-movement shadows had a calming effect on her.

"Nice house"

Then she rose from the bed with a sudden jerk and decided that she'd need a shower after such a long day.

Ruki took her time undressing, then she neatly folded her clothes, put on her violet, light, silk yukata, a morningcoat-like kimono and grabbed her towel and the little bathing utensils in the handy toiletry bag.

Standing in the hallway, she thought to herself,

'Ok, Mr. tourguide here said that the bathroom was the first door on the right, so it must be somewhere…ah, this must be it!'

Without any second thought, she twisted the doornob and opened the door…

"Oooh!"

"Aaah!"

SLAM

…and quickly rushed back to her room.

She shut her door a bit too firmly and pressed her back against the wood, hands still klinging unto the knob her heart thumping so hard it sounded like a knock on the door to her ears and her face a pretty shade of crimson.

'Damned shit, what the heck was he doing there right now? He was supposed to be in his room! Curse you Akiyama!! kuso, kuso KUSO!!!'

After the initial exitement ebbed away, realisation struck her that no matter how loud a heart could beat, it never beat that loud, someone really was knocking at her door,

"Erm,……Ruki?" Ryou's voice came muffled through the door, mixed with confusion and embarrassement,

"I…I'm sorry, I didn't know that you wanted to use the bathroom, but I'm done now, and it's vacant……and dad said that dinner's ready, but come down whenever you want to, I'm sorry I really am, very very sorry…won't let that happen again, promise!"

Seconds of silnce elapsed…

"…OK!"

All she heard was his footsteps and the door nextdoor slam-shut, to let her know, that he had really retrieved to his room this time and the hallway and bathroom were now all clear and 100 percent Ryou-free. Hesitantly, she opened her door and sneaked into the bathroom, to take her well deserved shower.

30 Minutes Later

All four were now assembled arround the dinnig table in the "italian" living room and it seemed like Satô and Rumiko were in high spirits, which also could have been credited to the wine, but basically they were having a good time, and were talking about modeling, photography and the brilliant inner-architectural design of the house. Then Satô solemly proclaimed what exactly he had planned for tomorrow Sunday, since work couldn't continue on that day.
He decided to take the "family" on a little picinic afternoon in one of the most beautiful parks in Fukuoka, that way, they could all relax, then go see the city and recharge their energy for the coming week, which might be filled with work and you know what they say: 'all work and no play…'
Everybody was very delighted by the idea, and everybody meant only Rumiko. Satô realised that the idea wasn't quite embraced with the kind of euphoria and excitement that he expected from the kids, besides his son had been unusally quite the whole evening, his food was left untouched and even though he thought that his current mood was caused by initial nervousness about the Makinos sleeping over at their place and all, what was that expression on his face supposed to mean?

"Son, is everything alright? Aren't you hungry?"

"No, no, I'm fine, dad" he tried to cover up, even smiling a bit, to make it look real.
Then Rumiko also seemed to "notice" that Ruki wasn't quite herself either.

"Honey, you haven't spoken a word all day, and your plate is still full, is everything OK?" then she quickly added as if to state the obvious,

"Oh I know, you're tired right?"

"Yeah, mom, a bit" she answered a slightly uneasy.

"Aw, Satô-san, the kids seem to be tired, maybe the day was a bit more than they could handle, but don't worry, I'm sure the picinic tomorrow will be great, right dear? Have another bite or two, and go get yourself some sleep ok, by tomorrow, everythings gonna be just peachy, you'll see." winking at her suggestively in her cheery manner, Rumiko pretended as if everything was alright.
But Rumiko wasn't dense, she knew exactly that something fishy was going on, involving them both, she could read it in their faces, but this wasn't the right time to ask questions, she'd find out sooner or later anyway.

"Yes mom." Ruki decided to act along.

"And you too Son! It's been a long day, the two of you did a great job and I'm proud of you, but I think it's time for you to rest, so eat up and scram, get some sleep and be ready to leave the house at 10 tomorrow morning." Satô butted in, picking up the fatherly role.

"Sure, dad."

Bashfully, Ryou and Ruki exchanged quick glances which went unnoticed by Satô, not so by Rumiko, who started counting one and one together.

But things didn't turn out "peachy" the next day….

"Oh, go-good morning, Ruki"

"Mornin'."

"Did you sleep well?"

"Hm."

"You ready?"

"More or less…"

It was 9 AM in the morning and Ryou and Ruki had just met in the hallway. He bashfully greeted her on this fresh and brand new day but the occurances of the previous night had caused something between them, which they both weren't able to voice out, a seemingly insurmountable hinderance of which they knew exactly that it was there and it reduced all their convesations as if they weren't already limited, to surficial, awkward and embarrasing small talk. Ryou was unable to look her in the eyes without risking having his cheeks adorned by a deep red blush and she, even though she seemed to act with a coolness as if nothing ever happened, it was obviously clear that she avoided his eyes.
Then there was this whole bathroom thing again. They both had to go in and freshen up, right now, but who would be first?

Reluctant silence.

But then someone had to take the first step,

"If you like, you can go in, I'll just use the bathroom downstairs." Ryou started cautiously

"…Alright."

"Ok then,…I'll meet you downstairs,…I mean not like that I'll meet you, I'll see you later I mean,…downstairs… erm,…, " with that, he fixed his gaze to the floor and quickly dashed past her and down the stairs he went.

Ruki stood looking in the direction Ryou had just sped off to, her eyebrows arched, her face read surprise, but then a small mischievious grin tugged at her lips,
'He is nervous…'

"Allright ladies, fasten your seatbelts, it's picinic time! Hope you've grabbed everything you need and nothing's forgotten? Good, then let's roll!"

Those were Satô's words, which initiated one of the longest weeks ever in Ruki's life, a very eventful week, which Ruki definitely wasn't going to forget that easily…

tbc