So this basically just me practicing writing Ruri and Dennis, since they seem to be the ones who are most easily neglected whenever I write. That and a bunch of headcanons for the University AU that I started in Rin's Birthday (and what happened after). I hope everyone's in character.
Ruri's Roommates
"When did it become so hard to find desperate people?! I swear it used to be easy!"
Ruri nodded along sympathetically, flicking to the next page of her book.
"I mean, look at you! You found three people in, like, less than a month! I can't even find one!" Dennis flopped back on the blow-up mattress dramatically, so Ruri couldn't see his face from her cross-legged position on the floor.
"I'm sure you'll find people eventually" Ruri pointed out "I mean, Christmas is coming - the term's coming to an end, and surely there must be some second years that got kicked out of the dorms searching for somewhere to live."
"I don't have eventually!" Dennis complained "I have to put a deposit on the place in the next two weeks, but there's no point in me getting it if I can't find any roommates!"
A week ago, Dennis' three housemates graduated and, without consulting him, sold the house they were all living in. Dennis dealt with this remarkably well. He just moved his stuff into Yuri's room at Serena's apartment and started hunting for an apartment of his own. Within a week he'd found a three-bedroom apartment a few buildings away and was fully prepared to move in with two roommates. Problem: he couldn't find any. Even posting on the roommate website Serena had recommended hadn't done anything. The way things were looking, he'd be staying on that blow-up mattress in Yuri's already small room for a good while yet.
"I take it Yuri won't move in with you?" Ruri suggested.
Dennis scoffed. "And move out of this place? He loves it too much. He'll probably still be living here after uni."
Ruri looked around the room they were sitting in. Yuri's room wasn't just small – it was pretty hideous. There was a heinous floral wallpaper on the walls and the floor was carpeted green. There was a boxed television and a computer probably made in the same year sitting on the dresser with a nokia phone that probably didn't know what text conversation was. Whilst most student rooms were decorated with concert tickets, the only one Yuri had pinned to his notice board was for the Beach Boys reunion tour back in 2012. She was pretty sure that was a checkbook on the desk. God Dennis, why do you hang out with this grandpa?
"Well, I hate to say it but-"
"Don't start" Dennis groaned, folding his arms over his eyes "Yeah, I know, I should've stayed at your place and then I wouldn't be in this mess. But I kinda figured after our breakup I wasn't wanted there anymore."
"I was going to say you should ask to stay in the dorms, if they have space" Ruri corrected him "And that whole thing was my fault. Serves me right for dating a tenant."
She was somewhat surprised that they both had found the emotional maturity to address their former relationship in something that wasn't screaming. At the time of the breakup, it had gotten to the point of Shun and Yuto plotting a murder and Ruri wondering how the hell they had managed to stay on good terms with their exs. She supposed they had both grown up a bit since then.
"I'd ask if you had a room to rent out, but your brother still hates my guts" Dennis said.
"Don't be dramatic, he's warmed up to you since then" Ruri wasn't exactly lying "But we're all full up now. Until Kaito moves out, Sayaka and Allen are still sharing a room. I mean, there's the sofa, but to be honest I think you're better off staying here. More room, even if the TV is a box with antenna."
Dennis groaned. "How did you manage it? Get completely full up? Is it because you're a girl? I swear you just moved into town one day and a second later you had a full house!"
Ruri sweatdropped. That wasn't quite how she remembered it…
When Ruri first started at uni, Shun had all but pounced on her immediately and demanded they get an apartment together. But their mother had told Ruri that it was best to stay in the dorms for the first year to get to know her classmates.
Shun was not happy to say the least.
"You're going to leave me to live on my own?!" Shun stared at her, completely betrayed.
"Get a room in the dorms, or see if your friend Reiji can put you up for a while?" Ruri suggested.
"Don't leave me, Ruri!" Shun all but begged, like a boyfriend desperately pleading for his girlfriend not to break off their relationship or something.
"Shun, no" Ruri told him bluntly, because sometimes you just needed to be forceful with this guy.
Eventually Shun came around to the idea of Ruri spending a year with kids her own age and moved into a house with some of his Biology classmates.
Ruri found herself enjoying her first year of university. Classes were tough and assignments even tougher. But she quickly made friends with some girls in her classes, including Yuzu, who in turned introduced her to her friend Rin, as well as Rin's best friend Yugo. The four became very close, with her and Yuzu even staging an intervention halfway through the year to get Yugo and Rin's relationship out of the friend zone. Yuzu also liked to talk about her own boyfriend, but Ruri couldn't quite remember his name, only that it sounded like Yugo's. She hoped they were going to be introduced, but they all got bogged down with exams and then Yuzu announced that she and her boyfriend were heading back home for the summer, so Ruri shrugged it off and agreed they could meet in September.
Whilst Shun headed home, Ruri decided to go on a week-long camping trip with Masumi Kotsu, a girl she'd met as she was working in the local laundromat, and a few of Masumi's friends, in the hope of befriending more classmates she hadn't had the chance to meet during the school year. One of the ones invited was Masumi's then-girlfriend, Serena. Serena reminded her a lot of Shun: she was loudmouthed, quarrelsome, confrontational at the slightest hint of disapproval and Ruri loved her. After the trip, they stayed in contact all summer and Ruri made a note to introduced her to Rin and Yuzu in September (as it turned out, Yuzu knew Serena through Serena's roommate – Sora. Sora had been kicked out of the dorms within a few months for breaking a few too many rules, and Serena – who'd ignored that whole thing about staying in the dorms for the first year – had allowed him to move into one of the rooms in her three-bedroom apartment, provided he pay rent). Serena had offered for Ruri to move in with her too in the new year, but Ruri was certain Shun would have an aneurism if she moved in with someone else and so merely took Serena's advice as to where apartments could be bought cheaply near campus.
Shun and Ruri's first attempt at apartment-hunting taught them one thing: you don't find two-bedroom apartments near a university campus. One-bedroom? Tonnes of them, but not exactly practical for a brother and sister. Three-bedroom? Rarer, but you could still find them. More than three bedrooms? Drowning in them.
After hunting around for a bit and with classes looming, Ruri finally managed to convince Shun that they should get an apartment with multiple rooms and rent them out to other students, like Serena did. Shun wasn't all that impressed, but admitted it would be easier to do that than try and find a two-bedroom apartment in the short time they had left before classes started. Besides, maybe this would force Shun to make some friends that weren't his baby sister or Reiji Akaba.
Searching for roommates this late though had some consequences though. So close to the beginning of the new year, everyone who used the online roommate website the university provided had found an apartment. This meant they were back to basics, putting posters on the board in the main corridor, mentioning vacancies to people in the hope they may know someone in need of a room and basically just playing it by ear.
Ruri had heard nothing when one day, about a week and a half into the term, Shun came home looking more flustered than usual. It could have something to do with him already wearing that trench coat and scarf at the beginning of September, but she suspected it was a little more than that.
"You look like you have something to say" she commented "Did a girl hit on you?"
Shun flushed even more red. "I-I think I found a roommate."
Now Ruri really was interested. "Who? A classmate?"
"Well, no" Shun admitted "There's this really hot guy who works in the coffee shop on the corner and I overheard him saying he was looking for a room and please can you invite him."
He sounded like he was pleading. As impressed as she was that Shun had managed to find a potential roommate so quickly, she honestly wanted to laugh at how desperate he sounded. All of his relationships thus far were hardly flings of passion, more looking for companionship. Clearly this time around, something about this 'really hot guy' had got his attention and Ruri was intrigued. Shun may be her older brother but he was also her only brother, which meant she had just as much right to scope out his potential matches as he insisted he did hers. What better way to scope him out than have him living here?
"Well are you going to invite him?" Ruri asked.
Shun buried his face in his scarf and mumbled an answer, but it was muffled by the scarf.
"You know I can't hear you when you do that" Ruri told him, changing the track that was playing on her phone. If Shun wasn't going to be straightforward, then she had homework to do.
"Can you ask him?" Shun finally asked.
"Me?" Ruri frowned "You like him so much. You ask him."
"I-I can't!" Shun spluttered "It needs to be you! It's just weird for a guy to go up to another guy and ask them to move in!"
And Ruri immediately saw the problem. "Have you ever actually spoken to this guy before?"
"He took my coffee order" Shun told her, pretty definitively.
So Shun was too afraid to confront his crush. Great.
"He's still on shift if you go now" Shun suggested "Please?"
Wow he really was desperate. Now Ruri really had to meet the guy, but she'd rather be introduced than have to hunt him down like this.
"I don't even know what he looks like!" Ruri insisted.
"He's kinda short, with two-tone hair and really beautiful eyes" was the only description Shun gave her.
Ruri had absolutely no idea what 'beautiful eyes' meant and all people were 'kinda short' to Shun, but she was pretty sure that there couldn't be that many boys with two-tone hair working in the same coffee shop, so she headed down there.
Once there, sure enough, she found a boy with two-tone hair. She wouldn't call his red eyes 'beautiful', but then again once upon a time Shun had had a crush on Reiji Akaba, so Ruri shouldn't be surprised at any weird tastes. So she went up to him and asked, very skilfully, if she could hang up a roommates-wanted poster in the window (very smooth way of asking if she said so herself) to which she got a response.
"You looking for roommates?" the barista grinned "My girlfriend and I may need a place in a few days. We can pay rent."
Ruri's heart sunk for Shun's fledging crush, but hey that's two roommates down and so she got his number and was about to ask for his name when he leant over the counter and yelled across the mostly empty coffee shop:
"Hey Yuto! Guess who just got a place! See, this is why you should spend more time at the counter!"
And then Ruri's heart dropped and hit Ecuador because another boy with two-toned hair suddenly emerged from an open door and he's much more what she's come to expect from Shun: with the nose ring, the face piercings, the ear piercings, the choker and faded rock band hoodie. Yeah, okay, Ruri can see the appeal.
Somewhat nervous, she asked the name of the random guy she'd literally just invited to live with them before heading home, to where Shun was sitting on the sofa, watching TV whilst nibbling on his nails.
"Did you ask him?" he shot up from his seat immediately.
"Was his name Yuya?" Ruri asked, because she swore she'd heard that name before so maybe Shun had told her it.
Shun's eyes widened with alarm "No!"
Because she's a dedicated sister, Ruri rushed back to the coffee shop, but by that time both boys had clocked off shift and were gone. With the promise they would be back after lunch tomorrow, Ruri apologised to Shun and reassured him she would go back tomorrow, all while reminding him this wouldn't have happened if he'd just gone down there and asked the guy himself.
When Ruri showed up the next day, she was surprised to see Yuya was at counter, talking to someone she recognised.
"Yuzu?" she asked, surprised.
Yuzu's face lit up. "Hey Ruri! Sorry I couldn't make it to class yesterday, I was sick as a dog! Ugh!"
Yuya's eyes darted between Yuzu and Ruri. "Wait, you know her?"
"Of course, this is Ruri" Yuzu reminded him "I told you about her. I was hoping to introduce you guys, but it looks like you've already met."
"She was the one who said she had a place" Yuya told her.
Yuzu looked ready to facepalm. "Yuya, I told you I needed to confirm whether we could stay in the apartment on campus or not. And if we couldn't, then we'd look for an apartment." She turned to Ruri. "I'm sorry Ruri. We got our lease for our on-campus apartment confirmed today. You'll have to find some other roommates. I'm so sorry about this blockhead."
"Hey!" Yuya protested at the insult.
Ruri was a little disappointed at the fact she'd lost two potential roommates, but at least Yuzu was happy and Ruri had finally cleared up the whole Yuya situation. Not to mention, she'd finally gotten to meet Yuzu's boyfriend, albeit under unusual circumstances.
"Hey, you know what" Yuya told her "My bro Yuto, he's looking to move out of the dorms. You should ask him."
So Ruri went up to him, and Yuto recognised her from the previous day. He asked if she still had a room available and two weeks into the term, that's how they got Yuto.
Kaito was next and he was a complete accident. He'd been requested by an underclassman to tutor him in advanced aerodynamic physics and had given Kaito the wrong address. When Ruri assured him that the boy he was looking for wasn't a resident of the apartment, he got a little upset. That was, until he saw the poster pinned to the front door.
"You're looking for roommates?" he asked.
"Um, yes" Ruri confirmed.
"What's the rent?"
Ruri threw out a price and Kaito vanished instantly. Ruri assumed he was gone for good; only an hour later he reappeared on their doorstep, wheeling a suitcase and toting a backpack, apparently containing everything he owned, handed her enough money to cover him until Christmas and moved into the back bedroom that may as well have been a closet. It all happened so quickly Shun didn't even realise Kaito had moved in for two days, when he caught him in the shower and nearly beat the guy to death with the toilet brush.
So that was two. Now they only needed one more.
A month into the term, Ruri assumed the final bedroom was going to remain empty. But one day she was sitting in a Music Theory class and a boy she'd never seen before came up and sat next to her in Yuzu's seat.
Okay, what was happening?
"Are you the one looking for a roommate? Who put up the posters?" he asked
"Yes" Ruri admitted, albeit hesitantly. She'd forgotten about those "Why?"
"How much to stay for the year?" he asked.
Now Ruri was suspicious. A guy looking for a room this late into the term? "Are you even a student here?"
"I just transferred" he explained, reassuring all of Ruri's worries "I'm Dennis."
And so the circle was complete. That entire year, the five of them fell into an easy routine. Yuto spent most of his time outside of classes with Shun and Ruri and played music with them. Kaito generally avoided them but made a mean lasagne if you asked him to and do not ask him about his little brother because he will go on for hours about him and there's nothing you can about it once he starts. And Dennis mostly hung around Ruri, seemingly always out to impress her and charm the pants off of her. Around Christmas time, it finally worked.
Shun made it clear he hated the guy for dating his sister. Yuto kept his mouth shut, but he didn't seem impressed with Ruri's choice of boyfriend either. Kaito made it clear it was none of his business who Ruri dated but if he so much as heard a squeak out of any of them at night he would deal with them personally.
Some said their relationship was doomed to fail. Ruri thought that was rather morbid, but did agree it would've been better if she and Dennis had just remained friends. By spring break, it was agreed that Dennis would move out. It was a wise idea, what with Shun threatening his life every other second, Yuto kinda glaring at him when he walked in the room and even Kaito was getting sick of the drama. Dennis found a house some older theatre students owned and they let him in, reassuring Ruri the guy wasn't going to end up on the streets.
The final bedroom remained empty for over a year. It kind of became a symbol of failure and why sibling instinct triumphed over young love. That and Ruri didn't want to bring in another guy Shun could terrorise. Therefore, it was a girl who moved in next.
In her third year, Ruri befriended a freshman art student. Her name was Sayaka and they met in, of all places, the A&E. Shun had gotten into a fight with someone at a bar. And lost. Ruri was his emergency contact and so she rushed to the hospital to find he had three cracked ribs and a sore ego. She probably would've given him a lot worse if it hadn't been for the girl who was sharing his hospital room. She was petite and cute and wore oversized glasses and in the fifteen minutes Shun had been there, he had declared her his new favourite person. Ruri would've argued, but she couldn't. Talking to Sayaka for five minutes was enough for her to become your new best friend. So once she had been released from hospital for a nasty diabetic seizure, she remained friends with both of the Kurosakis and Yuto. Even Kaito started to emerge from his room when he heard her voice in the apartment.
At the end of her freshman year, with Shun seemingly stuck at school for ages getting his ornithology degree and Ruri, Yuto and Kaito all having a year left before they cleared out, they were quick to agree that Sayaka could join them when she moved out of the dorms for her second year.
Though it would've been nice for her to warn them when she turned up at the apartment three days before the start of the new term with a boy.
"Please tell me he's your brother and he's dropping you off" Yuto all but begged when he opened the door for them, taking note of the boy with the brightly coloured poncho that he couldn't remember seeing before, standing behind Sayaka.
"This is Allen, his mother kicked him out" Sayaka explained "Can he stay?"
She sounded like a small child asking if their friend could come over for dinner.
Yuto glanced over at Ruri uncertainly and then back to them. "Is this supposed to be temporary or…?"
"Yeah…probably not" Allen told him.
The three of them talked it over and agreed Allen could stay, but he was sharing Sayaka's room. She, Yuto and Kaito were graduating at the end of that year so they only had to sit through a short time trapped in each other's space.
After all that drama, Ruri was quite happy she didn't have to go digging for more roommates. Just trying to secure these ones was more than enough. No wonder Serena had stopped at three – five was punishing.
"How did we end up like this?" Shun questioned one night, when they were watching Seinfeld whilst Sayaka and Allen were asleep, Yuto was at a party and Kaito was being his usual hermit self.
"Like what?" Ruri asked.
"How did we go from two siblings looking for an apartment to get through university, to living with a baby goth barista, a Disney princess in the making, a guy obsessed with trains and brightly coloured ponchos, and someone who has an emotional range akin to that of the teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off?"
"Don't forget the ex-boyfriend magician that moved out halfway through" Ruri pointed out.
Shun groaned. "I'm still trying to forget him."
Ruri laughed, and not at Seinfeld messing up again.
"Just promise me, no more roommates" he begged.
"You'll have to find one when Yuto, Kaito and I move out to fill the extra room" Ruri reminded him.
Shun looked like he'd just been stabbed in the back. "No more. No more. They only come because it's you. Everyone's afraid of me."
"Well I can't argue with that" Ruri agreed "Look, Sayaka and I will find someone for next year, just don't kick them out after a week because they used your conditioner. Kaito said it was an accident."
Shun folded inward, pouting like a child. "I just don't like people messing with my things."
"Even if that person is hot?" Ruri suggested.
Shun grunted. "Kaito's not hot. He just likes to think he is. And he certainly can't touch my things."
"Is that a metaphor?" Ruri asked.
"No – literal" Shun informed her flatly "And stop changing the subject. I hate roommates."
"I don't hate them" Ruri told him "I still wouldn't wish them upon anyone else."
After sitting through the story, Dennis wrinkled his nose and frowned. "So, you're saying I shouldn't bother with roommates at all?"
"Well, they can be exhausting" Ruri explained.
"But, you have, like, the nicest roommates ever" Dennis pointed out "I mean, they don't leave their clothes lying around, they don't steal your beer, they don't play loud music in the middle of the night and they don't keep you awake because they're doing the do. I mean, wow, where do you find these people?"
"Maybe they're all drawn my sweet and lovely personality?" Ruri suggested.
Dennis scoffed. "Sweet and lovely personality? You forced me to jump off the side of a boat five miles from shore because you threatened me with lobotomy via soupspoon."
"I thought we agreed Shun dared you to recreate that scene from Titanic and you fell from the yacht?" Ruri said in a tone that clearly dared him to defy her, a little gleam of malice in her eyes.
"Uh…" Dennis swallowed "Yeah, that was totally Shun being harmless. You're not scary at all." He swallowed nervously. 'No wonder all her roommates stay in line. She's much scarier than her brother.'
"So, no roommates?" he confirmed.
"To be honest, if Yuri's happy for you to stay here, he, Sora and Serena are probably the best roommates you're going to get" Ruri pointed out.
After glancing around Yuri's 60's room again, Dennis looked up at her hopefully. "You sure I can't take that sofa?"
"No, I was joking" Ruri informed "Ruri's Roommates is fully booked. No more extra drama required."