Ruki walks down the streets to the direction of the library. When he sees the building approaching and no Vera around, the blond boy looks down at his phone to check the time. ‘I’m early.’ He sighed. He lights up a cig to pass the time and calls Vera.

No answer.

The boy feels so out of place there, just leaning on a rail and smoking a cigarette. He is used to the stares but maybe it was because he was out of his comfort zone that it felt like these stares were worse now.

People were either giving him dirty looks or scared ones, as they walked in or out the library. ‘When is she going to get here?!’ he thought angrily. He pulls out his phone, ready to call her another time but then he hears a familiar female voice yelling his name out from a distance. Putting the cell phone back into his pocket, he looks to see Vera running over to him.

When she reaches him, he looks at her with a brow raised and his nose wrinkled. “What are you wearing?” he asks, looking down and sounding disgusted. But he really wasn’t.

She looks down at her white tank top and shorts, which show off her tattoo like the dress that she had on at the club. “What?” she asks, looking up at him with innocent eyes. “It’s hotter than hell out here! Plus today is laundry day and this was the only thing that was clean.” Then she looks at his cigarette. “That’s bad for you, you know.”

“Whatever.” He says, flicking his away and ripping his eyes away from her legs and starts going up the steps to the door of the library. He can hear her light footsteps following close behind him.

“Look for a table while I look for some books that could help us.” Vera orders right as they walk into the doors. He nods and starts to look for a table that was isolated so they won’t get distracted or disturbed by anybody.

Ruki ended up picking one in the corner overlooking the rest of the library. Then Vera comes back with a stack of books and sets them down as she sits next to him. “Great spot.” She says looking around the vacant space.

Not missing a beat, she pulls out her rubric and starts to divide the work up. “Ok, you got that?” she looks up at him and he just nods not even paying attention to what she was saying the whole time. “Good. Now get to work!” she said as she started opening a book and writing things down. He just watches her work the whole time, just flipping through pages and humming every once in a while. He chuckles every time she starts to hum an unknown song.

After working for a while, she stops writing and puts her pencil down to stretch. When she had her arms stretched above her, Ruki could see the edge of her light blue bra coming out the top of her shirt. He was just gazed at it wide eyed. “Huh?” she says as she looks over at his paper and sees that it’s still blank. “Do you need help?” she frowned.

“Huh? What?” Ruki snapped out of his bra trance.

“Do you need help?” she asked again, tapping the paper in front of him.

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” He nods his head. She pushes her chair closer to his and leans close to him, touching shoulder to shoulder. “W-what are you doing?!” he yells and jumps out of his chair. Immediately the old crabby librarian with the red cat frame glasses, shh-ed him. The blond just looked at her with an eyebrow raised, but sat down anyways not wanting to do anything crazy here. “What are you doing?” he whispered this time.

“Well since it’s a ing library and I can’t be talking at a normal tone of voice or the old hag over there will shh me. Like she just did to an idiot I know.” She replied with a hint of an attitude.

“Oh”

“So what do you need help with?” She asked. Ruki looks at the paper. Honestly, he needed help with everything, but he wasn’t going to voice that out loud. So he just randomly points to something. Vera looks at it for a second with her eyes squinted. Then she leans in closer causing their shoulders to touch again and begins to explain what he needs to do.

But he wasn’t paying attention to her talking because he was looking down the front of her tank top. ‘Does she even know that I can see her bra and from this angle?’

“Do you understand now?” she looks up at him with big innocent eyes.

“Uh-huh.” He nods, looks up at her face.

She smiles and goes back to her own work. He watches her for a while again but then he gets bored. So he points to something on her paper. “This is wrong.” He says with a smirk.

“Excuse me?” she looks up from her paper and sets her pencil down.

“You’re wrong.” He says with a grin playing on his full lips.

“No, I don’t think so. I know I’m not wrong.” She argues back and crosses her arms over her chest.

“You act like you’ve never been wrong before.” He throws back and crosses his arms over his chest just like her.

She looks at him with her brows frowned. “Of course I have!” she huffed. “But I copied this straight from the book!” she angrily taps the library book in front of her. “So I can’t be wrong.” She sticks her chin in the air stubbornly.

“Let’s have a bet, then.” He says.

Vera uncrosses her arms and smiles. “Ok what will be the penalty for losing?” she asks with her eyes shining like a little kid.

“The loser has to shave their hair off.” The words just fly out of his mouth before he could think about it. ‘ what if I lose?!’ he bits his lip as he brings one of his hands to touch his pretty blond hair, maybe for the last time.

“WHAT?!” she yells wide eyed.

There was an annoyed shh-ing sound coming from the front of the library. Ruki looks over to see the librarian lady glaring at them with her skinny lips pressed into a tight line.

“N-no way!” Vera shakes her head no. “Pick something different.”

“What are you not confident that your right?” Ruki asks, even though he wasn’t confident himself.

“Fine.” She agreed, stubbornly.

“Well get to it, then.” He urged, feeling his heart beating against his rib cage.

The girl nods and flips to the corresponding page. “Without looking what is the right answer?” She asks him as she covers the book with her arm.

‘Damn!’ he curses in his head. He looks over at her notes and reads the question. ‘I vaguely remember Ms. Sato talking about it… I think.’ Then he answers her, not even knowing if he was right or not. ‘There goes my hair.’ He thought.

She scans the page, then her notes. Then back at the page again. She looks up in disbelief. “You’re right.” Vera announces with tears forming up in her eyes.

Ruki puts a hand over his chest to steady his heart. ‘Thank you god!’ he breathe a sigh of relief. “So are we going to get it shaved now or wait a little longer?” the short blond blue eyed devil asks when he has calmed down.

“NEVER!” she yells, calling attention to them. He starts laughing, knowing that it was like rubbing salt on an open wound and that open wound was her pride.

She grabs the library book and whacks him with it. Ruki rubs his arm and starts to laugh louder. “Shut up!” she commands and hits him again, this time causing her to rip a page out of the book. Vera looks at the torn paper and looks back at him with open. “Look what you did!” she hissed at Ruki.

“Me?!” he asks, pointing at himself. “If I recall correctly it was you who used the book as a weapon, not me.”

Vera was about to say something in her defiance, when the witch of a librarian rudely interrupts her. “This is a library, you two. Keep it down!” she hissed with a stern look on her face.

Vera’s eyes go big with surprise. She tries to hide the ripped page but was to slow about it. “What is that in your hand young lady?” the old woman asks, her eyes nearing.

Vera looks up at Ruki with a face asking for help but he just smirks and shakes his head. “Um it’s nothing.” She answers back, not looking at the librarian.

“Oh really?” she asks, not believing her at all. “Hand it over.” She orders, holding her hand out. Vera groans but does what she says. The old woman’s face turns a deep shade of red and presses her lips into a thin line. “You know that you just ruined public property.” She informed them angrily.

“Look lady, can’t you just fix it with tape of something?” Ruki asked looking at his black painted nails and even had the balls to put his feet on the table.

“That’s not the point!” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“What’s the big deal? It’s just paper. Now stop ing at us and go the away.” Ruki says coolly and waves his hand as if dismissing her.

She slams her hand on the table, causing the two teens to jump. “I want you to gather your things and get out.”

“W-what?!” Vera asked, wide eyed.

“We are being kicked out, idiot.” Ruki said, standing up to get his things together. She does the same thing, feeling her face get red from embarrassment and anger. When they were done, the two teens start making their way to the exit, Vera with her eyes on the ground and Ruki with his hands behind his head without a care in the world.

When they start to walk out, the lady says, “and don’t come back!”

Ruki stops walking and looks back. “, get ing laid so you won’t be so uptight!” he yells and flicks her off. The librarian just huffs and closes the door behind her.

“I’ve never been kicked out of anywhere before.” Vera says in a daze.

“Well get used to it if you’re going to be with me. I’ve been kicked out of many places… but never a library before!” he laughs holding his stomach. “Oh yeah, about the bet, I know this cheap place where you can get your head shaved.” He adds with a grin playing on his lips.

She snaps out of her daze and looks at him. “Hell no! I’m not going to shave my head!” she says in a fury. She turns the other way and tries to run away but Ruki grabs her arm.

“A bets a bet, no backing off now.” He smiles. Shaking his head, he grabs her hand, pulling her to the hair salon where he gets his hair cut and bleached.

Vera tries to break away but his grip is to strong. So the next best thing she can do is scream like she was going to get . “People are staring!” Ruki hissed and tried to bring her closer to him but she would just push him away.

“I don’t care!” Vera yelled and grabbed a random stranger by the arm. “Help me!” she begged. “This person is going to do something bad to me! Call the police now!”

The blond boy just looks at the random person in the eyes and shakes his head no. The stranger rips their arm from Vera’s hold and starts to walk off. “What the ?! So your just not going to help someone in need?!” She yells at the person and starts to try to pull her hand out of Ruki’s hold again, nothing new came out of that.

Then she just drops to the ground. “If you want me to go with you, then you just have to drag me there!” she says with a smile on her face.

Ruki smiles and let’s go of her hand. She looks up at him in disbelief but before she had the time to get up, he bends down and picks her put from the ground and carries her bridal style. “What do you think you’re doing?!” she asks as she tries to wiggle out of his hold by kicking her legs around and elbowing him in the chest.

“If you struggle any harder I might drop you.” He said holding her closer so she won’t have that much room to elbow him.

The girl stop struggling for a second but starts up again. “It doesn’t matter if you drop me because it won’t be a far fall from here.” She chuckles.

‘She still has a mouth on her, doesn’t she?’ he thinks. “Fine have it your way.” Ruki says then he loosens his grip on her and pretends that he was going to drop her.

“AH!” she yells and unconsciously warps her arms around his neck and buries her face in his chest. “Don’t you dare drop me!” she demands against his chest.

“Want to know a secret?” he asks bringing his lips to her hair.

“What?”

“You’re heavy!” he lied and added a grunt at the end.

“WHAT?!” she huffed. “Fine I’ll stop struggling or trying to run away, so put me down!” she said trying to get out of his arms again.

“Nope, I can’t trust you.” Ruki whispered, bringing her closer to his chest.

“I’m not going to run away and OW! You’re going to break my ribcage if you squeeze any tighter!”

“We’re here!” He smiled as he pushes the door open with his back.

“No!” Vera cried.

“Oh don’t be such a !” he added as he sits her down in a black salon chair in front of a mirror ready for a hairdresser to come and work their magic.

At that moment a guy walks up to them with a smile on his young face. “Hello Ruki! Came in for your haircut already?” the hairstylist asks. “Or do you need to bleach your roots?” the man lifted up a chunk of Ruki’s hair to look at his roots.

“No not today, Ryuu.” Ruki shakes his head and points over to a very scared Vera. “But she is.”

“Oh how wonderful!” Ryuu smiles and walks up to Vera to run his fingers through her hair. “So what would you like done?” he asks, looking at her through the mirror.

But she doesn’t answer him because she is too busy trying not to cry. Ryuu looks back at Ruki with worried eyes. “She’s going to get her head shaved because she lost a bet.” Ruki says out loud but goes up to Ryuu’s ear and whispers something to him. The hairdresser nods in understanding and turned back to the girl sitting on the chair.

Ruki goes to Vera’s side and spins her chair away so she won’t be facing the mirror anymore. Then he crouches down in front of her and moves his hand to touch her wrist. To his utter surprise she doesn’t pull away. “God your skin is soft.” He whispers to himself as his fingers trail down to her knuckles, her nail, and then finally he grabs both of her hands with his. Her hands are dwarfed against his. It makes her seem delicate and petite.

She looks up at him, ‘How come I never noticed before how long her eyelashes were?’ he thinks as they lock eyes. “I hate you!” she mutters in a shaky voice and her bottom lip quivering.

“I know.” He laughs and looks up at Ryuu, who just smiles and winks at Ruki. He smiles back at the hairstylists, and then gazes back at Vera, who is mumbling something in English with her eyes looking at their hands resting on her legs.

Only when the clippers start up is when she starts to finally break down and cry, squeezing Ruki’s hands. He had to hold back his laughter and also the weird urge to pull her into his arms and tell her that it was going to ok and to please stop crying. “It’s ok.” He soothed her, as he rubbed the back of her hands with his thumbs.

This goes on for a while and at some point Vera closed her eyes maybe not wanting to see all her hair on the ground. Then at last Ryuu turns off the clippers. “Ok all done~” he sings.

Ruki stands up and turns her chair so she could be facing the mirror. She looks at the girl in reflection and gasps, brings both her hands up to and starts to cry again.

But instead of crying from loss or sadness, it’s a cry of happiness and relief. Because instead of a girl without hair looking back at her. It’s the same old Vera, but with a few inches off her hair, looking back at her.

Ruki nod in self approval with his fast thinking. What he ended up whispering to Ryuu was to make it seem like he was really going to shave her head, by having the clippers on, but actually cut a little bit of her hair off.

Vera stands up and thanks Ryuu while wiping away a tear. Then she turns to Ruki and punches him on the arm. “Ow! What was that for?!” he asks, rubbing his arm.

“That was for making me look like I was a crazy person, yelling in the streets and crying here!” she yells. Then all of a sudden she smiles and hugs him. “But thank you for not shaving my hair off!” She says as she pulls away.

“You’re welcome.” Is all he can utter from the sudden action.

When they pay and thank Ryuu for his time, the two teens walk out of the salon and into the streets. “So, what now?” Ruki asks, looking at Vera.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m going home to do something about this.” She points to her red eyes. “I don’t want them to get swollen.” She clarified and then started to walk off to her house.

“Where do we meet tomorrow?” Ruki yells the question at her.

“In front of the library again.” Vera answers without looking back at him. He nods knowing that she can’t see it and watches her walk away. Then when he can’t see her figure anymore he decides to go home as well.

---

A/N: Hello everyone! Yes I know I haven't updated in a while, I just got a job and I didn't really have the time and energy to write. I'm truly sorry about that :( but i hope you enjoy the new chapter ^^ I'll try my best to update faster.