Chapter Text
Lately, Rui's felt full of energy.
Full and then some, a sort of restless energy that makes his fingers twitch and ideas fly to paper. Underlying warmth in his chest.
"You know, Rui," Nene starts.
Rui leans over from behind Nenerobo to look at her. She’s sitting legs crossed and chin in her hand as she watches him from across his room. His bangs fall into his eyes, and he runs his hands through his hair before he can think. He realizes his mistake the second his grease-slick fingers fall back into his lap.
Whoops.
Nene snorts. "That's a good look on you. Now your hair is three colors instead of two."
"I make it work, don't I?" He smiles, flicking it back. "What were you saying?"
"I was going to say, maybe you can take a break from maintenance. I didn't mean to interrupt what you were working on before."
Rui waves the concern away. "It's my fault for forgetting it was maintenance day in the first place. Besides, this won't take long."
Nene purses her lips, but she accepts this. "What were you working on?"
Rui hums, retreating back behind Nenerobo to face the robot's open panel. Most of the physical maintenance is complete, leaving only light software updates. Nenerobo is self-learning, after all, cataloging information according to her own expanding will. It wouldn't do to interfere too deeply. Mainly, he takes the events she's flagged as problems with too little information or difficult judgment calls, and adds a few extra processes to help her in the future—
The future, still to be secured. Nenerobo will be allowed to keep learning from them. Rui'll make sure of it.
"I was brainstorming some ideas for our next play."
"The final competition performance?"
“Sort of.” Rui grimaces slightly, glad that Nene can't see his face.
She doesn’t know it yet, and she still won’t for another week, but he’s already discarded the notion of winning the show contest entirely. The decision had only taken him half an hour; he has no plans on reversing it.
The finality of that… weighs on him somewhat.
"If we do well here, we'll be one step closer to our dreams!"
With that one sentence, Tsukasa had pinned all of their goals to a single win. Rui’s plan would, without a doubt, take that win away–but he’s not giving up on anything. He's not. His plan is still forming, nebulous thoughts and concepts instead of anything solid, but if all goes well, putting aside the show contest should win them more than enough to cover what they'll lose.
On his pride as a director.
He swallows, fingers tapping idly on his bent knee. Restless.
"You looked like you were having fun,” Nene tells him.
Rui blinks. Nene’s told him this a number of times over the last few months, but this is the first time it’s sounded this envious.
"I was,” he agrees, careful.
There's a pause, one that he waits through patiently for his childhood friend to form her thoughts. Nene doesn't need more pressure right now, not when she’s fully capable of making her own.
"Don't you feel... worried? Since it's the final one?" Nene finally gets out, and he knows even without looking at her that she's worrying a lock of her own hair. "And... Emu is counting on us."
"I'm still doing what I love," he says easily. "The stakes are kind of enjoyable in their own way."
"But a plan's just a plan. What if..." Nene shrinks back when he moves Nenerobo aside to look at her properly. "Sorry."
"Nene,” he begins, then pauses, feeling for the right words. Half a lifetime's worth of friendship, and he's still not very good at this. "I fully believe we're capable of pulling off anything I put to paper. And, regardless of what it ends up being—"
It'll be huge. Big and bold and beautiful, and so full of all of our dreams that the contest will be only a footnote shadowing its headlines.
"—I like to think we'll have fun."
Nene holds his eyes for another moment, then lets go of a loose sigh that sounds a bit like a laugh. Her voice loosens too, lighter than before. "You look like you've already decided something big. Any chance of hearing what before you've already finished going through with it?"
"Spoilers," he chuckles. "You'll have to wait for the meeting like everyone else."
“So secretive.” She rolls her eyes good-naturedly, leaning back against his couch from where she's sitting on the floor. Rui takes the momentary crisis as having passed, turning his attention back to Nenerobo.
For a moment, it's silent again.
"Even Nenerobo," Nene says abruptly.
"Hm?"
"You had her prepped for me before Tsukasa ever talked to you." It's not a question.
"Oh? You don't think I built her in a single night?"
Nene ignores the question. "You're kind of high-handed, sometimes."
Rui doesn't know how to respond, chest tightening suddenly with the only thing in the world that could give him pause. He waits for Nene's follow-up like a judge's gavel, his breath caught in his lungs.
"I don't really know if everyone would take it as a good thing but... Thanks."
Nene is smiling.
I'd do it again, and more, whispers a voice inside of him. I'd do so much more.
He feels like he's standing at the edge of a realization, but he doesn't recognize what's at the bottom of the ravine.
(He's restless.)
"Of course. Anytime."
.
.
“Since we’re going all out and we really need to touch everyone’s hearts,” Tsukasa says, resting the end of his pen on his lip as he thinks, “I want the story to be a little more personal.”
“Mm,” says Rui. He’s looking down at the sheet of paper in between their plates, but he doesn’t really seem to be looking at it so much as aiming his eyes in that general direction. It’d be insulting to be ignored if Rui didn’t seem to be ignoring everything, hand paused in the air with a fry midway to his mouth.
Tsukasa reaches over to push the other’s aloft hand forward, forcing the fry to hit his chin. “Rui.”
“Hm?” Rui blinks as he unfreezes, and leans down a little to catch the fry in his mouth. While chewing, he says, “Sorry, what were you saying?”
Pursing his lips, Tsukasa wonders if he should tell him off, but his curiosity wins out. “What’s got you spacing out?”
Rui hums. “Not spacing out. Thinking.”
“About the show?”
“Of course.” Rui quirks an eyebrow, looking almost a bit offended before his expression smooths out again. “Just some logistics in terms of announcing the start of the show to the park.”
“Logistics?”
Rui brushes off the salt Tsukasa had accidentally rubbed on his face. “I’d like for us to be the ones to do it, but it limits us a bit in that we also need to be able to open the show itself.” His voice runs a little lower, the way it always does when he explains an issue. “There may be a way for me to do it remotely, but then there’s the possibility of…. Ah, it’ll take some planning, that’s all.”
“I see…” Tsukasa frowns. Come to think of it, it must be taxing to work through all the details—and Rui was still planning to act a part in their show, too. “Isn’t there already someone in charge of playing recordings in there?”
Rui nods idly. “And in charge of the room’s security, among other things.”
“Then once we have them on board, you can just delegate this, no?”
“Hmm.” Rui drops his chin onto a propped hand, even as Tsukasa can feel his leg bouncing under the table. “That’s true.”
“Rui,” he pushes a bit harder. He can’t deny the part of himself that feels proud of his director for considering even the minutia, but burn-out is an unfortunately real concern. “It’s just playing a recording. The person in the booth can just add it to their regular routine, can’t they? Or am I missing something?”
“You make a good point.” Rui takes another fry. He’s silent for a moment as he chews, then meets Tsukasa’s gaze with a placating smile. “Maybe it’s a bit early to be thinking about this. Shall we move on?”
Hm. Not an altogether satisfying response. But it’ll have to be, for now, considering Rui’s already looking back down at the paper. If he insists any more on this, all he’ll succeed in doing is making Rui cagier and cagier. Tsukasa nods. “Sure.”
“So—” Rui takes a sip of his drink, inclining his head, “—what were you saying before?”
It takes Tsukasa a moment to recalibrate; he shakes his head. When he does, he puts his pen down and says again, “I was thinking we should try and put something personal into the story.”
“It’s rather personal as is,” says Rui. He waits, meeting Tsukasa’s gaze evenly. It’s not dismissal so much as a challenge—you’ll have to give me more than that.
“We have the theme of returning people’s dreams to them, which should resonate with any audience but there’s something… I want to…”
That isn’t it. He scrubs a frustrated hand through his hair. What is he trying to say?
“This is for everyone,” he restarts. “But it’s also for Emu, right? Which means it’s also for her brothers, and…”
No, that doesn’t fit, either. Rui watches him patiently as he tries one more time.
“What you said to them, when we confronted them last time.” Tsukasa lays his hands out on the table, finally admitting, “It’s been bugging me.”
Rui stills, looking suddenly more alert. “I admit,” he says slowly, “that I may have gone too far.”
“What? No.” Tsukasa frowns. “You were right.”
“Huh?” As if pulled from him, the sound Rui makes is barely audible over the diner’s pop song of choice.
Why on earth is Rui surprised about this? “You were right?” he says again with a tilt of his head. “Emu’s brothers aren’t dreaming. So if we’re going to put on a show to return people’s dreams, it’s only right that one of the benchmarks of success is that we reach them, no?”
There’s a pause where Rui just stares at him, eyes a little wide, and Tsukasa begins to wonder if he’s said something wrong.
“I don’t mean to neglect the greater audience, but your theme—”
“That sounds good,” Rui says suddenly, words coming out in a bit of a rush. “What did you have in mind?”
Tsukasa eyes him. It isn’t often that Rui cuts him off. He has the tendency to bulldoze when it’s to do with his experiments, but when they’re discussing production planning?
‘I may have gone too far.’
Tsukasa tries to picture the scene: the restraining hand on his shoulder as Rui stepped forward, standing before them like a shield. The way Shosuke took that as a sign to keep going, the way Rui’s face had completely smoothed out. And then his tone, polite veneer torn to shreds under words sharp as razors.
His behavior back then must bother him more than he originally let on.
It won’t do to leave this unaddressed. The opening hasn’t closed yet, so Tsukasa touches the topic again, gentle. “You know, I’ve never seen you that mad before.”
Rui doesn’t… quite twitch. But he hesitates, which is more than enough for Tsukasa to know he’s found the hidden stain on the inside of a sleeve. He’s getting better at this.
Rui counters, his tone light, “I raise my voice plenty.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the same.” Tsukasa leans back and crosses his arms, shutting his eyes as he contemplates that with a loud hm. He opens his eyes, gauges his reaction—
“…With them, you were smiling.”
Rui doesn’t respond. His expression looks like it’s frozen, in that odd unease that’s been cropping more and more lately. Tsukasa doesn’t know when he first noticed it, this hidden thing that Rui’s been carefully stepping around, but he’s sure now that it bothers him.
“Rui, I’m not…” He takes his time with the words—the Halloween show has taught him that some parts of Rui are much more fragile than others. “I’m not trying to tell you off, or anything. I’m actually really glad you said it.”
Rui relaxes, just a bit. “It wasn’t really advisable, though.”
“‘Because we’re employees,’ wasn’t it?” Tsukasa quotes him, and feels a thrill when it makes Rui laugh, if softly. “But you weren’t wrong in saying they needed to hear it.”
Rui’s smiling vaguely, nodding a wordless thanks, but these are all things he already knows. Tsukasa hasn’t reached the heart of the matter, yet.
He digs his fingers into his jeans, casting around for what he’s missing, when a possibility creeps up on him.
“When you stepped in,” he pauses, considers. “I was surprised, for sure—I think we all were—but he was insulting Emu. You're not the kind of person who can let that slide, are you?”
Rui’s gaze lingers like he’s searching for something in Tsukasa’s face.
"No." he nods, slowly, without breaking eye-contact. "I can't. I could never."
Now these are things that Tsukasa already knows. But the short, punched out sentences feel strangely loaded.
Heavy.
It makes Tsukasa hesitate, really look at the coiled tension in Rui’s shoulders, in the whitening knuckles tightly clasped around his drink. In every sign, he reads echoes of that Halloween vulnerability. What was it Tsukasa had said to him then?
Just ask, and I’ll promise to deliver.
Rui hasn’t posed a question. But he is so clearly asking for something, yet Tsukasa honestly doesn’t know where to begin to make sense of it. Why would it bother Rui to show anger in defense of a friend? It was only natural.
…Tsukasa doesn’t understand. But maybe his honesty is enough.
He shrugs: closure. "Then, there you go."
"...That's just like you."
The words slip out of Rui’s mouth in a sigh, and Tsukasa finds himself unwinding in relief at the sound.
"Well, this isn't just like you," he huffs, leaning back and crossing his arms. "You can blow up the pool, but you can't get angry?"
"It does sound silly when you put it like that, doesn't it," Rui laughs. "I'm a little ashamed that you're the one calling me out on it."
"...I felt an insult in there.”
"You’re imagining it. Why don't we return to the topic at hand?" He tilts his head, body language at last loose and open. "What were you saying about the theme?"
…Rui's smile is smaller, now, but there's something so soft in his eyes.
(And this is another thing Tsukasa doesn't understand at all, this way that Rui's been watching him lately. He only knows the things it brings with it: the urge to look away, the heat creeping up his cheeks.)