Never Have I Ever…cared much about clothes

I'd like to think that I have a fairly normal wardrobe for a guy; I've got my pants, I've got my shirts, I've got my boots, and I've got the one and only coat I will ever need in my entire life.

For me, this is more than enough-for Rio, it is not.

I'm not saying she doesn't look good in everything she owns (because really, she manages to pull off even the most hideous of outfits), but something I will never understand is her endless fascination for changing outfits for the simplest of things.

She's got an outfit for working, an outfit for gardening…she's even got a PANDA costume for goddess sake.

I have no idea why she has it, but it's there, taking up space in our shared closet.

Now, don't get me wrong.

I love my wife-really, I do.

There are still some things I can't deal with well though, and that would be her clothes suddenly appearing in places they shouldn't be.

Of course, that's not comforting to me at all right now, as I stand in front of our shared wardrobe holding up what appears to be…underwear?

Whatever it is, I hold it up by a lacy red strap and examine the small piece of clothing before blushing a bit and peering back down into the section where I keep a regiment of black shirts. Intruding in my space is a lacy red bra and matching piece of underwear.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem considering I've already seen Rio wearing much less, but somehow I get the feeling that I'm digging into her private stuff despite the fact that it was clearly in my drawer. Carefully holding the underwear at arms length, I move it towards Rio's side of the wardrobe.

Just as I'm about to drop it somewhere on her side, Allen bursts through the door yelling, "Rio! RIO!"

Startled, I turn around and flinch before demanding, "What are you doing here? Get out of my house, now!"

Slowing down, Allen stops his rampage before raising an eyebrow at me and saying, "I wasn't interrupting a hobby of yours, was I?"

"What are you talking about…" My voice trails off as I follow his gaze and look down to see that he's staring at the red underwear, still in my hand. Immediately, I blush furiously before waving my hands and sputtering, "Shut up! It's not what you think!"

"Whatever," Allen shrugs, "What you do with your free time is your business."

As I clench my hand into a fist and resist the urge to punch him, he looks around the house before asking, "Really, where is Rio?"

"Why do you need to know?" I ask, not wanting to tell him that she's spending the day in Snowland mining ice. Normally, I'd travel with her, but the cold is really not my thing-besides, she reminds me too much of a puppy in that big coat she wears when she goes there.

With a sigh, Allen walks over to the bed next to where I'm standing before sitting down on it. Tossing back his hair, he grumbles, "What kind of woman stands up a date with ME?"

Clenching my hands even more, I growl threateningly, "A date? You two had a date?"

Looking up at me, Allen blinks before laughing, "Oh please, don't be so jealous. It was a hairstyling date-I've told her time and time again that she really needs to get it fixed again. Her split ends are bad enough that I want to weep every time I see them."

"Oh…"

Slowly, I loosen my fist, and when the red underwear drops out Allen looks down at it on the ground before saying, "You know, you really shouldn't be digging through her underwear drawer. You two are already married, isn't it enough that you can do whatever you want to her every single night?"

Turning crimson, I lean down and snatch the underwear back up before muttering, "Seriously, that's not it. Her stuff keeps showing up on my side of the closet…what am I supposed to do about it? I was just going to put it back when you showed up…"

Thoughtfully, Allen raises an eyebrow before asking, "Doesn't that annoy you?"

"What?"

"I mean, if it was me," Allen points out, "I'd be irritated that she keeps putting her stuff in my space. And I'm way nicer than you are."

Part of me wants to ask him how he got that deluded about his warped personality, but at the same time I look down at the cloth in my hand before asking, "Well…what would you do, to make it stop?"

"Easy," Allen shrugs, "I'd put my stuff in her space, and hide all of her stuff. She'd get the message loud and clear that way, wouldn't she?"

As I nod, starting to hatch an idea, I notice a small smirk on Allen's face. When I glare over at him, it falters for a second before he gives me an encouraging look, and with a sigh I say, "Okay, well get out of my house then…"

"Neil?" Rio's voice calls from the bedroom. "Have you seen..."

Trying not to look up from the bass I'm restringing, I stare hard at the turning pegs and call back carefully, "Seen what?"

Rio hesitates, before calling out, "I'm just wondering…I might have left my red…"

Already, my cheeks are pink just waiting for her next word; to my surprise, she falls silent and I hear her rummaging around in the drawer before everything goes quiet in the bedroom.

In the end, put the red underwear at the bottom of my shirt drawer and ended up sticking one of my black shirts on the top of her drawer. While it wasn't half as extreme as what Allen wanted me to do, I still feel like it ought to make her think twice about keeping her stuff where it belongs-on her side.

I mean, if she can't find it, she'll come in here and ask me to look for it. When I find it on my side, she'll apologize and stop intruding on my space.

When I hear her feet padding towards the dining room where I'm sitting, I hide a smile and say smugly without looking up, "So Rio, what were you looking-"

I make the mistake of looking up at the end of my sentence; Rio stands in the doorway wearing nothing but one of my shirts. For some reason, this always manages to fluster me and catch me off guard…why do her legs have to be so damn good-looking?

She blushes at my blush, before one of her hand twists the bottom of the shirt, threatening to pull it up and reveal what's underneath the more she fidgets with it. Careful not to lose my composure, I gulp a bit before mumbling, "Wh-what were you looking for?"

"My red…my red underwear." Rio finally says, looking every bit as embarrassed as I feel. "I might've left it on your side without meaning to…"

I relax a bit at these words, thinking that she's about to ask me to help her find it when she turns even more red and looks away saying, "It's really important that I find it because...well I haven't done laundry yet so that's the only pair of underwear I have until I wash clothes tomorrow…"

This news nearly makes me explode; warmth floods through my entire body, the very thought that she's wearing nothing underneath the thin black of my shirt sending waves of desire through my body with every shaky breath I take.

Trying hard not to stare at her, I quickly avert my gaze to my bass and say, "You…you haven't done the laundry yet?"

"I'm sorry," she mumbles, twisting the bottom of the shirt even more and causing it to hike up unnecessarily, sending me into even more agony. "I've been really tired lately so I've gotten behind on washing things, and I've accidentally been putting things where they don't belong without meaning too."

The second she says that, I instantly feel like a jerk for assuming she just stuck things on my side for no reason.

Without second thought, I get up and walk over to where she stands. Pulling her into a hug, I press her tightly to me and murmur into her hair, "Hey, if you're tired you can always ask me to do some chores. Don't always take everything on yourself."

"But you're always so busy-"

"I'm not half as busy as you," I tell the top of her head, "and you still manage to do way more, keeping house and running the farm. Rely on me a bit, okay?"

She's quiet for a minute, before I feel her hands come up to clench at the back of my shirt tightly. Squeezing back, she says into my stomach, "Okay. I love you, Neil."

"I love you too," I say quietly, before one of my hands wanders from her back and down to her hips. She freezes in surprise before pulling back to look up at me grinning bashfully at her.

"Sorry," I mutter into her hair, taking in the enticing scent, "But I don't think I'm going to be helping you find that red underwear anytime soon."

Ha HA! The red underwear is really not that important anymore, now is it Neil? :P

This was a request from Pixelsaber, and a very interesting one at that. (Thank you, Pixelsaber!)

I had to think about this carefully-I feel like Rio is the type of carelessly throw things in the closet when she's tired. Which...is probably always XD Add in the fact that she forgets it's not just her stuff in there anymore and bam! Neil gets a peek at all her nice things...and I mean ALL of them :p

I know that it was like that when I shared a room with my sisters I'd be halfway through class before looking over and realizing with some irritation that she was wearing my favorite shirt, before I'd look down and suddenly realize why my jeans were much tighter than I remembered them being XD

Anyways, I'm going to alternate with the stories that I post. Some of them will be funny, like the last one, and some will be kind of fluffy like this one. That way it's a variety of things that happen to Neil :) So leave a request if you like! Thank you all for the reviews and reads :)

Until the next update!